Izvajalec: Moore, Gary
Založba: Eagle Records
Izid: 2007
Moore’s latest contribution to blues rock is an extremely lukewarm effort, or, if you like, almost a straight-up farce. In 2007, the old Irish fast-fingered maestro returns with yet another thoroughly average release, packed with jaw-dropping guitar playing, sure, but one that has no hope of healing the wounds left by far too much faceless and at times downright boring recycling of phrases we’ve heard a hundred times before. There’s no question about the guitarist’s ability to express himself. Close As You Get just proves once again that ever since the triumph of Still Got The Blues, Moore hasn’t managed to make a blues document truly worth mentioning, one that, besides Gary’s exceptional talent, would also capture that magic, that enchanting energy that shaped the personality of Oh, Pretty Woman, Walking By Myself and the rest of Gary’s related blues gems.
Let’s not get each other wrong. Close As You Get is a solid piece of art in every respect. It’s just that you’d expect more from a musician of Moore’s caliber. Instead of not exactly convincing covers of old blues classics, which, next to the average original ideas, end up being the strongest moments on the album, the man could have delighted us with a more convincing showcase of his musical abilities. Sadly, we’re getting closer and closer to the conclusion that as the years tick by too fast, good ideas are slipping away from Mr. Moore. That unpleasant fact is shamelessly shoved in our faces right at the start of the album by If The Devil Made Whiskey, a heavy-handed blues rock “anthem” that, mostly because of Gary’s obviously forced “bad ass” vocals, feels anything but majestic. Gary just isn’t Katon or Vaughan. Over his very successful career he built a recognizable musical identity that, in the second half of the eighties and the early nineties, wowed people with its refined feel for grace and elegance. That’s why his attempt here at a insincere Yankee image seems all the more baffling.
Things get back on track with the moody Trouble At Home, in which older Moore fans will have no trouble spotting As The Years Go Passing By. The song is a lovely showcase of the guitarist’s incredible sensuality, and once again it’s sure to leave you anything but indifferent. A similar mood is created by the melancholic Evenin’ and another typically Moore-style weeper, Nowhere Fast, by the end of which you’ll definitely need a good kick in the ass. Sadly, you won’t get that medicine from the utterly expressionless take on Chuck Berry’s Thirty Days. Good thing Hard Times follows right after it, with its interesting dialogue between guitar and harmonica that will no doubt satisfy all the Huey Lewis fans. Gary would definitely do better digging through the treasures of the past than touching up forced self-portraits. His own, of course, and not Mayall’s! His Have You Heard does turn out to be a fairly interesting interpretation of John and Clapton’s legendary piece, but in the weight of its emotional charge it still lands far short of the original. Williams’ Eyesight To The Blind and Checkin’ Up On My Baby fare better, the latter again leaning heavily on the legacy of the great John Mayall, who is clearly close to Gary’s heart. Interestingly, with all these covers, Moore never turns to his biggest idol Albert King this time. Instead, on the acoustic Sundown you’ll get “caressed” around the ears by sinister arrangements that, rather than King or Moore, strongly recall the unforgettable slide of Elmore James, while the audacity of the vocals will incidentally remind you of the rhetoric of Robert Johnson. The song is surely the album’s biggest surprise, since we don’t often see Moore in such a mood. Apparently, at the not exactly spring-chicken age of 55, the man has once again decided on a more radical musical transformation, the kind that brought him worldwide fame as one of the greatest blues rock creators in the early nineties. I truly hope that’s not the case. And if it is, Gary Moore will surely be the main topic of plenty more heated debates in the future.
Zasedba
Gary Moore: guitar/vocals
Brian Downey: drums
Vic Martin: keyboards
Pete Rees: bass
Produkcija
Gary Moore & Ian Taylor
Seznam skladb
1.If The Devil Made Whiskey
2.Trouble At Home
3.Thirty Days
4.Hard Times
5.Have You Heard
6.Eyesight To The Blind
7.Evenin’
8.Nowhere Fast
9.Checkin’ Up On My Baby
10.I Had A Dream
11.Sundown
Trajanje albuma: 52.09
