COAST TO COAST

The album gets off to an energetic start with both "User Friendly" and "Colleteral Damage". Both of these tracks greatly showcase the chops of the band, and show that while the group is named after the guitarist, Morse gives plenty of room for his bandmates to shine (Bassist Dave LaRue in particular).

"Get It In Writing" is a charming melodic tune with emphasis placed back on the guitars with minimal but appropriate rhythm section contributions. "Morning Rush Hour" brings the energy level back up with some more fluid guitar work (what else with Morse?), but not as memorable as most other tracks on the album. "Runaway Train" is the most Dregsian moment of the album with Morse's own take on bluegrass. "Long Lost" has it's moments of beauty, but overall fairly uninteresting compared to the rest of the album. For some reason, I can hear "The Oz" being played over a title sequence to some sort of early-90s family-friendly TV show. It is a fairly simple but memorable song.

"Over Easy" does for the listener what it says in the title; it is an easy song to swallow. It puts LaRue back into the spotlight with a nice bass solo, though I wouldn't rank this song up among the album highlights. "Cabin Fever" has a nice southern rock vibe to it. "Flat Baroque" is a nice acoustic guitar piece with some bass accompaniment that surprisingly doesn't sound out of place among the electric guitar pieces.

To conclude, this album is a good listen for "User Friendly", "Collateral Damage", and "Flat Baroque" alone. The rest of the songs make this album rather solid with no overwhelming weak spots. Three stars, one for each member of Steve Morse's trio.

Say what you waqnt about Steve Morse and his band, but you can't say they aren't consistent. Every album is comprised of uncompromising top notch country jazz rock fusion with a bit of baroque classical sprinkled on top. And this album is ne exception. While I do miss the extra layers the keyboards and violin gave to The Dixie Dregs music, the trio format does give Morse a little more room to stretch out his guitar chops. And he comes out blazing.

Both User Friendly starts the album at high speed, and then Collateral Damage manages to push it up a notch. And don't forget the obligatory burning fast bluegrass tune. Here, that role is taken by Runaway Train, where Morse shows he's as good as any country picker.

Although I have been known to razz on Dave LaRue for being somewhat generic sounding on bass (I miss Andy West, and the added flourished he provided to Dregs music), he is certainly extremely talented. Morse has written some just impossible bass lines, and LaRue manages to keep up.

Nice, like any Morse album.