Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Gilbert, Paul
Label: Provogue Records
Release date: October 15, 2012
Running time: 67:37
Rating: 4/5
Paul Gilbert wouldn’t be Paul Gilbert if he didn’t surprise us. A bonkers genius, one of the fastest and generally most fascinating guitarists of the rock era, a guy with dazzling commercial success behind him with Mr. Big who doesn’t hide his aggressive excesses when his Racer X take center stage, he’s also a guy who only reveals his true musical range through his solo work.
Fun, or in Gilbert’s case more like genuine »goofing around«, has always been the first guiding principle of Paul Gilbert’s records. In that respect you can put Gilbert in the same basket as Satriani and Vai. But only in that. Even when you watch Gilbert on stage, it’s clear that playing guitar is, first and foremost, pure fun for him. If you can’t find that in it, better not touch the instrument. Better not even look at it. But since we’re used to Paul Gilbert’s extremely fast precision on guitar, which the man sooner or later delivers on every studio release, »Vibrato« is all the bigger surprise, because with the new album Paul has moved decisively away from what you’d expect from him, even after his last two studio releases, »Fuzz Universe« (2010) and »Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar« (2008) – he toured both of those albums through Ljubljana too (twice in total).
On »Vibrato« Paul doesn’t present himself as an unbeatable guitar superhero and/or the obligatory metal bruiser, the kind of guy under whom guitar necks snap and who, when he eyeballs an amp, bets everything on 10. He’s gone back to his roots. To jazz-rock fusion steeped in blues and funk (the title track)! Excuse me? That’s hardly trendy! Thank God. Not exactly Gilbert’s home turf of musical vocabulary, especially once you add a hefty dose of blues to the album, but still. A master is a master. And a master like that can try his hand at anything. He can play whatever. Gilbert has arranged every track on the new album so that you can feel it’s being played by his one-of-a-kind fingers. Nobody else’s. And out of all these attempts to get close to the energetic vibe of the good old days, when Frank Zappa (the opening »Enemies In Jail« or the title track’s vocal lines already bring to mind Zappa tricks crossed with Beatles-style melody), Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return To Forever or even Jeff Beck in his »Wired« phase stomped across the Earth, the ever-insightful, always convincing Gilbert, a seasoned arranger, once again pulled a winning poker hand of aces out of his sleeve and walked away from the »Vibrato« story a winner.
»Vibrato« is a wonderfully loose, playfully mischievous record on which Gilbert, front and center, gives himself over to primal feelings and to creating »fully vibrant« moods. Among the new record’s challenges, »The Pronghorn« works as the most adventurously open-minded track, with just enough jazz symbolism that the song unfolds in a totally unpredictable way and with a whiff of spontaneity. Call to mind the spontaneous jam bits with Gilbert at the 2010 gig in Ljubljana and you’ll know what I’m getting at. Already on the »Fuzz Universe« tour it was clear where Gilbert was heading with his next release. Three covers are tacked onto the end of »Vibrato«, and they’re live versions. All three were also in Paul Gilbert’s set at the Ljubljana show in 2010. So he played them as part of his »Fuzz Universe« tour. »Roundabout« is a cover of the Yes original (the vocal harmonies, with help from Tonny Spinner, sound superior), and in the new original »Rain And Thunder And Lightning« you can even feel the influence of playing Yes classics. Then there’s the rework of Willie Dixon’s »I Want To Be Loved« and, to close, the AC/DC classic »Go Down«, which with the release of »Vibrato« has probably become the most precisely played version of that song in the solar galaxy.
The track that will satisfy those of you who love being stunned by the speed of Paul’s playing, or actually go looking for it, is captured in »Put It On the Char«. It also packs in the widest range of guitar techniques, which has to delight even the most demanding »guitar professors«.
»Blue Rondo A La Turk« definitely stands out among the album’s tracks. A full measure of goofiness very effectively revives memories of the bonkers experimental excursions in Paul Gilbert’s discography, such as »Aligator Farm«. Here Gilbert focused on traditional folk melodies that should sound homey to the ears of people in Azerbaijan and/or Georgia, and carried them over into an extreme fusion, an explosive comedy of the famous bible of guitar playing, which over all his years of activity he of course developed entirely on his own. It’s actually a standard by the American jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, but Gilbert brilliantly turned it on its head and tailored it to his own spirit of adventurous guitar playing.
It’s a compact record on which Gilbert presents himself not only as the ultimate guitar »shredder« but also as a vocal interpreter. »Vibrato« has no fragmentation and no experimental excursions into the oddities of musical spheres. It’s a down-to-earth record where Gilbert would rather carefully measure out and space the number of notes he hits than bury the listener under them. And that’s a big plus, because it brings huge accessibility and listenability, while the lead motifs deliver even more fun and hit the listener even harder. While the new record’s calling card is its colorful jazz-rock fusion dynamism, on the other hand it’s effectively tied together by vocal-line melodies that Gilbert lays down with total confidence and that keep the record compact. We can’t overlook the excellent effect, or downright fatally attractive chemistry, of the partnership between Paul Gilbert and his life partner Emi Gilbert, who handles the brilliant keyboard playing. The keyboards, for example, are a key builder of most of the energetic warmth carried in the vibe of the erogenous blues number Bivalve Blues. Gilbert can be sensual. He knows how to cool his rage after an escalation of seas of note-lines. Although he doesn’t reach the sophistication of the blues masters, Gilbert comes across as confident throughout in the blues sphere too. And in »Atmosphere on the Moon« he has, tried and true, also swiped a few ideas from past smooth jazz & blues works from the American continent and spun them his own way.
The sound of »Vibrato« is live, unpolished, deliberately smudged. In spots almost garage. And it feels good. Gilbert has slipped beautifully into the pioneering days of the musical sages of the universe and coaxed the best he’s got out of his »inner child« once again. »Vibrato« is superbly cut and served up, an album of unique expression »a la Gilbert«. An album cut in harmony with the famous »Gilbertness«, laid into a free-spinning, fun story of vibrant dynamics and high energy flow, offered by the freewheeling spirit of fusion approaches to rock, blues, funk and jazz! The way only Paul Gilbert can feel such a pulse of the musical universe’s information!
Lineup
Paul Gilbert – guitar, vocals
Emi Gilbert – keyboards, backing vocals
Tony Spinner – guitar, backing vocals
Kelly Lemieux – bass guitar
Craig Martini – bass guitar, backing vocals
Jeff Bowders – drums
Thomas Lang – drums
Production
Paul Gilbert
Track list
1. Enemies (In Jail)
2. Rain And Thunder And Lightning
3. Vibrato
4. Put It On The Char
5. Bivalve Blues
6. Blue Rondo A La Turk
7. Atmosphere On The Moon
8. The Pronghorn
9. Roundabout
10. I Want To Be Loved
11. Go Down
