WHO ELSE !

Six long years after he released his tribute to Gene Vincent and Cliff Gallup, and ten even longer years since he released what many including myself consider a proper album, Jeff Beck decided to leave the auto shop and go back into the guitar shop. With him, he brought a host of notables including Manu Katche, Jan Hammer, Tony Hymas, Pino Palladino, and others to give us a new blast of that hurricane of guitar madness that only he is capable of. This is not to say that it is all heavy riffing and speed. On the contrary, Beck shows a remarkable sense for melody and has a unique way of leading the music along in a variety of directions. Moving beyond the hard and classic rock stylings he had been presenting over the previous twenty years, Beck demonstrates his new found interest in techno. The first track, What Mama Said, blasts out like a souped up Astin Martin, complete with sound bites from the classic comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (which you should see if you haven't, it's very funny). The next track, greatly titled Psycho Sam continues in the same vein. But this is a Jeff Beck album, a man whose true peers are Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page; this is a guitarist of the highest stature, and one who simply refuses to limit himself to any one style or genre. So after the nine minute long techno fest, he moves into some straight blues, that is straight for Jeff Beck. After this, we get the hard rock/fusion piece, Blast From the East, and then the robotic (in a good sense) Space for the Papa. Angel (Footsteps) reveals his gentler side, believe it or not, and then we go back to a couple of harder pieces, THX138, which really kicks it, and the appropriately named and altogether not sleep inducing Hip-Notica. The album ends with two more gentle pieces, the lush Declan, composed by Celtic great Donal Lunny, and the elegant Another Place. So, to follow the title, who else would give us techno combined, with the blues, combined with hard rock, combined with fusion, combined with Celtic, combined with space rock? Jeff Beck, of course. Who else were you thinking of?

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