Label: Frontiers Music Srl
Release date: November 6, 2020
Production: Reb Beach
Album length: 42.10 min
Genre: Instrumental / Jazz Rock Fusion / Progressive Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Reb Beach is an American guitar virtuoso, composer and producer. He’s the original founding member of Winger, the criminally overlooked but still fantastic hard rock stars of the eighties and nineties, and for the past 18 years he’s also been a regular in the lineup of hard rock legends Whitesnake. He’s also known for working with Dokken, Alice Cooper and Night Ranger, and recently he teamed up with Jeff Pilson (Foreigner), Matt Starr (Mr. Big) and Robin McAuley (MSG) to form Black Swan, who put out their debut studio album in the first half of this year. Among his heroes Reb counts Montrose and Aerosmith, but when it comes to guitar playing, he’s always been in awe of musicians from the realms of progressive rock and jazz, like Allan Holdsworth, Steve Morse and Larry Carlton. Over his career Reb has worked with some of the biggest names in rock and roll, including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Roger Daltrey, Chaka Kahn, Howard Jones and Twisted Sister.
Anyone who went to Whitesnake shows on the Ljubljana–Zagreb circuit between 2006 and 2019 has run into Reb more than once. And anyone who was at the show by German hard rock titans Scorpions in Zagreb way back on December 2, 1990 saw Reb on stage with Winger, who opened the night.
Good memories. Same goes for 2001, when Reb released his second solo studio album, “Masquerade”, which is a very different beast from the new “A View From the Inside”. This time Reb no longer tries out the role of singer and instead delivers a thoroughbred, all-instrumental record. Even though Reb cites guitarists like Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple, Kansas), Larry Carlton and Allan Holdsworth as inspiration, “A View From the Inside” will always appeal more to fans of guitar “shred” than to jazz rock fusion purists.
Beach has clearly been stockpiling these new ideas for a really long time. The album radiates extreme perfectionism, embodying the artistry and the great flexibility of this brilliant guitar wizard’s aesthetic insight. It’s no wonder he gets on so well with Kip Winger, especially lately, as Winger have grown into an art rock outfit and left their glam days far behind. Even though his guitar style is set in stone and is the carrier of the eclectic streak running through this solo effort, Reb Beach has managed to balance the musical substance on this album very skillfully, so that it delivers a dynamic unfolding of wildly varied lead motifs. The moments of unbridled guitar perversion that the album is crawling with, where the ultra-virtuoso leaves you stunned with technical polish, extreme speed and humor too, never overpower the solid common thread of the music that follows the compositions every step of the way. Another standout is the funky blues groove trickster Hawkdance, with a clear dose of jazz rock fusion, where Reb Beach shows off some of the strengths of his playing that he’s not allowed to bring out in Whitesnake, for example. That kind of playful lucidity is already hinted at in the first half of the album with Little Robots. The album has a progressive side too. Here Reb Beach makes very smart use of transitional sections and mid-eight passages, where he abruptly flips the modulations in the songs and carries them off toward other musical expanses that surprise, entertain and keep the listener busy in the best way. The shifting moods (atmosphere) follow suit. All of it only adds to the layered musical craftsmanship of this sharp-minded musician.
Attack of the Massive is the longest composition on the album and packs the most progressive twists, as well as some cross-genre buddying up. It also nods to jazz rock fusion, and the experimental excursions open up room for the rhythm section, which makes smart use of the space to stretch out and improvise, as well as for the keyboards, where Paul Brown serves up an outstanding solo seasoning. The Way Home has a mattress of jazz rock fusion underneath it too. But as said, it’s not pronounced — or, put differently, it speaks from the background. That’s because the development of the guitar playing within the compositional structures is eclectic enough. So across the album the jazz rock fusion is superbly “disguised”, even though it’s mostly perceptible. The album also has a few burners that pour octane fuel on the fire. The shrewd, imaginative adventurism inside ultrasonic speed escapades is crowned above all in Cutting Loose, which could easily soundtrack a rally car drive. This track has a few pranks that would make even Paul Gilbert raise an eyebrow. In tracks like the playful, cheeky Aurora Borealis, and especially the closing mystical Sea of Tranquillity, Beach shows off his sensitive, sensual side, measuring out the notes he plays in an especially soft and sophisticated way. In the whimsical Aurora Boreallis, Beach’s Whitesnake companion Michele Luppi plays an important part in building the signature keyboard motifs.
Interestingly, Beach uses exactly the same guitar gear throughout. The same sound, the same type of distortion. Despite that, the album doesn’t turn rigid, repetitive or even predictable at a single point. Simple as that. The variety of ideas in the songs is extraordinary, and at the same time Beach constantly leaves loads of room for the rhythm section and the keyboards too, which adds even more movement to the content of the compositions. And none of this would exist without some exceptional virtuosos who worked with Beach on getting the tracks down in the studio. Standing out among them is bassist Philip Bynoe, who has worked with Steve Vai.
“A View From the Inside” is, in every respect, a superb all-instrumental guitar rock album. It develops eclecticism, which means this album is a truthful reflection of Beach’s guitar uniqueness and astonishing expressive insight, which thrills at every turn. “A View From the Inside” is a lucid, bright, joyful and boldly expressive achievement that arrives in these strange and gloomy everyday times as if made to order, to fill the listener’s soul and heart with cheer and joy. This album is exactly what its title says. Richard Earl Beach, head and beard included. Let’s finish by going back to the two bands with a capital “W” that Beach works for. His artistic adventurism goes beyond everything he’s mostly known for in Whitesnake, while on the other hand it gives a perfectly logical answer to why Winger have grown over the past 15 years into one of the finest art rock bands in the solar galaxy.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Black Magic
2. Little Robots
3. Aurora Borealis
4. Infinito 1122
5. Attack Of The Massive
6. The Way Home
7. Whiplash
8. Hawkdance
9. Cutting Loose
10. Sea Of Tranquility
Lineup:
Reb Beach – guitar, bass guitar on tracks 4 and 9, keyboards on tracks 4 and 6, string arrangements on track 10
David Throckmorton – drums (all tracks except 6)
Robert Langley – drums on track 6
Michele Luppi – piano on tracks 3 and 10
Phillip Bynoe – bass guitar on tracks 1, 2, 3, 8 and 10
John Hall – bass guitar on tracks 5, 6 and 7
Paul Brown – keyboards on tracks 1, 2, 5 and 7
