Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Gilbert, Paul
Label: Ear Music Records
Release date: May 27, 2016
Runtime: 54:35
Rating: 4/5
Paul Gilbert is back this year with his 14th solo studio album overall. After the covers album »Stone Pushing Uphill Man« (2014), which reworked studio originals by artists Gilbert especially adores in the world of rock’n’roll (Loverboy, The Beatles, Elton John, Aerosmith, James Brown, among others…), the master of guitar-rock »comedy«, the king of guitar »slapstick theater«, one of the most special, most unique, most skilled and technically most accomplished guitarists in the solar system, returns to the territory of »Vibrato«. Once again he has gathered a crew of master musicians around him who operate in a »band« format. That’s how »I Can Destroy« works too. Fully »band« again. Thomas Lang, Tony Spinner and Kevin Chown are old Gilbert acquaintances and not only his studio partners but his loyal live collaborators as well. In other words, tried-and-tested names Paul trusts 100%, knows very, very well, and will surely bring back into the backing band for the new tour promoting »I Can Destroy«.
Not only does »I Can Destroy« return to the point of artistic maturing that the predecessor »Vibrato« leaves the listener with, it also embraces, in terms of expression, an even wider spectrum of genre layering, which Paul Gilbert handles this time around. So, whenever Gilbert has stepped away from playing heavy metal, his style has pulled him toward what also defines the music of his home band Mr. Big. That means hard rock flirting with bits of blues, as well as melodic rock and pop. The album opens with exactly this kind of hard-rock liveliness, kicking off with the supremely lucid Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal. It’s the most complexly structured track on the album, with quite a few tonal and rhythmic switches, yet the seasoned Gilbert doesn’t lose the thread for a second, keeping things tight and highly listenable.
Beyond the fact that the instrumental middle sections of the songs here are once again perfectly seasoned with solo adventures from the master’s many (breathtaking) guitar orgies, the song construction is highly listenable throughout. The vocals are shared by Gilbert, Spinner and Freddie Nelson. The contrasts between them are expressive, which is great for adding variety to the moods and for the highly dynamic flow of the album. Gilbert also didn’t forget to dress up the lead vocals with multi-part vocal harmonies (catchy choruses). No album without a few corny moments this time either, as with the syrupy instrumental ballad Love We Had, which evokes the sweetness of the well-known Mr. Big hit To Be With You. Speaking of which, Gilbert also tacked on a track that can be understood as an allegory of that Mr. Big song, only it’s called I’m Not the One (Who Wants to be With You). If you start studying the structure of this track more closely, you end up with the impression that it’s modeled on the Mr. Big song Addicted to Rush.
The »biting« and highly entertaining rock’n’roll earworm Knocking On A Locked Door even winks at the Aligator’s Farm era of Gilbert’s output, while on One Woman To Many the man deftly tackles elements of funk pop and easygoing seventies hard rock with infectious listenability, with Kevin Chown’s bass line taking the central role. Woman Stop, coming next, evokes much the same feelings of seventies hard rock inspiration, with a whiff of southern rock too. Among similar moments on the album, the excellent »seventies-inspired« Adventure and Trouble in the closing stretch offers an especially brilliant hard-rock treat, ending with an extended outro instrumental jam from the whole crew. The title track is a neat hybrid of classic heavy metal (the lead phrase before the verse) and melodic hard rock (the chorus). Gonna Make You Love Me is also steeped in easygoing seventies rock’n’roll pop, with the opening phrase of the verse inspiredly propped up by a bit of Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits rhetoric, and Make It (If We Try) likewise picks up a bunch of charming pop hooks from rock’n’roll days gone by and could have given Gilbert a proper radio hit at the turn of the seventies into the eighties.
Gilbert shows quite a bit of inspiration from the look and work of the big seventies bands (Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd) and even older ones (The Beatles) on the new album, and he paved the way for it with »Stone Pushing Uphill Man«, where he revisited in passing the pioneering songwriting cues of the artists who put rock’n’roll on its feet.
»I Can Destroy« is an album that, for all its fixation on rock history, also works as a look back at Gilbert’s solo career. It’s also a lovely realization that, in his mature years of artistic creativity, Gilbert puts musical listenability and the effect of the team as a whole first (the group’s effect as a whole matters more than the individual’s). Pure guitar instrumental playing is pared down to a minimum this time, and so is the element of experimental craziness. Gilbert has already shown and proven himself in both in the past, and he no longer needs to hammer it home on his new studio releases. »I Can Destroy« is a gorgeous album that feels relaxed, easygoing and lucid throughout (wit has always been another name for Paul Gilbert), deftly draws from the rock’n’roll treasure chest, and at the same time doesn’t neglect the brilliant skills of Gilbert’s one-of-a-kind mastery of the six-string bible and theory.
Line-up
Paul Gilbert – guitar, vocals
Freddie Nelson – guitar, vocals
Tony Spinner – guitar, vocals
Kevin Chown – bass guitar
Thomas Lang – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Emi Gilbert – keyboards on track no. 12
Production
Paul Gilbert
Track list
1. Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal
2. I Can Destroy
3. Knocking On a Locked Door
4. One Woman Too Many
5. Woman Stop
6. Gonna Make You Love Me
7. I Am Not the One (Who Wants To Be With You)
8. Blues Just Saving My Life
9. Make It (If We Try)
10. Love We Had
11. I Will Be Remembered
12. Adventure and Trouble
