FICTION

I have an attraction to instrumental music, which is rather technical and gives pride of place to the guitar. It turns out that this musical niche is particularly active. Today we are interested in the artist Syncatto (behind whom hides the guitarist Charlie Robbins, member of the group Artificial Language ). This one is part of the talented technical guitarists having adopted a contemporary sound and rhythmic elements in the lineage of Plini , Polyphia , Intervals , etc... But what I found particularly interesting on this album, besides the quality of the compositions and the virtuosity of the performer, is the electric guitar/classical guitar mixture which occurs several times, starting with the first title "Fiction". "Nightfall" offers us a dizzying episode in palm-muting at 100 miles per hour which recalls Nuno Bettencourt and follows with a flamenco-acoustic atmosphere which refers to "Playing God" by Polyphia . Note, several "featuring" on the disc, including the group Arch Echo ("Prestige") which shares the same musical family as Syncatto , an unexpected violin solo by Coen Strouken on a genre of Tango called "Black Velvet", while the inevitable Jordan Rudess comes to add a few keyboard notes on "Midnight Mass". Short titles, quality compositions, virtuosity you name it, it would be a shame to deprive yourself...

Review originally posted on www.progcritique.com.