Artist: Sheehan, Billy
Label: Favored Nations
Release: 2005
Rating: 4/5
Forget everything Billy Sheehan did with Talas, Mr. Big or David Lee Roth! This record is miles away from the fusion rock Billy is currently “driving” with Niacin. What the guy delivers on his second solo album is a straight-up bullseye. How do you send an album to market today that’s different in every way? Fresh, funkily exploratory and, of course, put together so it’s always a pleasure to listen to? Ask Billy Sheehan, who is undoubtedly the Steve Vai of today’s bass guitar. His style radically shaped the way bass is played, and also the industry that builds new forms of the instrument.
The guy is a genius, a musical monster. He played everything except the drums (Ray Luzier), while programming wizard Simone Sello diligently supplied a load of very likable samples that fill out the Billy Sheehan sound. Keep in mind that with Sheehan, things are turned upside down. The dude sawed off the guitar riffs and keyboard lines that serve as his skeleton, the foundation of a massive, living wall of sound. Into it he wove all the mastery of his bass playing. That the rhythm front is constantly front and center is a no-brainer. There’s slides and tapped harmonies all over the place, the guy also fills the space with energetic bass chords, and the whole record is laced with brilliantly idiosyncratic, clanging bass lines that push, within their limits, to what we call the speed of light.
Billy added vocals on six songs. The vocals sit nicely in the music! On top of that, his nerve is enviable: even though singing is his weaker suit, he doesn’t hide behind effects. The voice is of the “thinner” variety, with a slightly muffled tone, and Billy moves in the mid to lower registers. The explosive opener Toss It On The Flame, for example, is set up R&B-style, and plenty of “Hendrixisms” can be found in the lines. The guy keeps the “machismo” of the vocal! So no whining, just singing with balls. Yes! The guy caught a slightly obscure vibe with the voice! With the riff-heavy weight of some of the songs, he could borrow the term blues metal. In From The Backseat or Dig A Hole, though, the rhythm line pulls toward Gonzo’s “we’re gonna groove” Zeppelin-style drive.
Sheehan takes bass playing by the ladle, the biggest one on the scene, and his pulsing, ridiculously thick groove cuts uncompromisingly through concrete, like the katana of an enraged samurai (who knows “Samurai Jack” from Cartoon Netwoork?). The holiest bass school is delivered right away by the third song, The Suspense Killing Me. You get goosebumps from the godly sounds the bass master coaxes out. The sonic spectrum of all possible embellishments and ideas is endless, and every single centimeter of the musical picture is put to use. Often unpredictable, which is a special charm of the record. It’s also unbelievable that the guy plays most of the lines straight out of his head and doesn’t waste time on paper notes. This personal switch-off comes through best in the instrumentals, like Don’t Look Down, where the opening bursts of chords literally blow the track apart, lengthwise and crosswise. The sound is damn alive and the overall groove detonates in all its holiness.
The guy can also squeeze out dreamy songs! Dreamy in the sense that he doesn’t shake out a crowd of notes, but doses them into the song form with great feeling. He masterfully stacks sonic palettes layer upon layer, which results in the record’s constant dynamic leaps and the exceptional atmosphere such a track delivers. Think A Tower In The Sky or Dreams Of Discontent (the ridiculously simple guitar motif is artful (palm-muted, single-string), yet it’s the main culprit behind creating that atmosphere) or Hope, which is probably one of the most beautifully crafted compositions, where the artist’s sensitive side shines most intensely on the record with emotion (a space track with tasteful detours into classicism), proving Billy Sheehan’s exceptional talent as a musical composer. He moves closer to the esoteric moments further on in Taj, which is basically broken up with a typical “yankee progressive” Dream Theater rhythm. Of course, not everything is “crash and boom”, and there’s room for an excellent funk instrumental, Long Walk Home. The polyrhythms of the rowdy short fuse Indisputable Truth, meanwhile, pull toward some King Crimson (the 1981-to-today era).
This is a record for lovers of “bold”, mature music, in other words for musical gourmets. Bold because the man put out exactly what his heart dictated, and there’s no deliberate commercial stumble to be found on the record, even though the track The Lift includes a bouncy pop drive wrapped in a grimy, crunchy modern guitar sound and an easygoing chorus. Forget Billy the workhorse in the service of others. This time the guy is with us in his purest light, and it’s great that for once he found himself in the lead role on something. “Cosmic Troubadour” is something you don’t hear every day! Different, exploratory, wound tight, dreamy, wildly unpredictable, with “now and then” tasteful jam breakouts. Something you can’t possibly get bored with. A crazy experience for all music connoisseurs and truly one of the finest things to happen in the world of rock music this year.
Lineup
Billy Sheehan – vocals, guitar, bass
Simone Sello – guitar, percussion
Ray Luzier – drums
Production
Billy Sheehan
Track list
1. Toss It on the Flame
2. Back in the Day
3. Suspense Is Killing Me
4. From the Backseat
5. Don’t Look Down
6. Something She Said
7. Dreams of Discontent
8. Dig a Hole
9. Taj
10. Lift
11. Tower in the Sky
12. Long Walk Home
13. Indisputable Truth #1
14. Hope
15. Million Tears Ago
