Member:
Windhawk
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Windhawk)
Date:
7/19/2008
Format:
CD (Album)
Greek-born guitar player Ioannis Anastassakis is a guitar player issuing albums showcasing his skills, and Suspension of Disbelief is his first showcasing his skills as a rock guitarist; his previous release being a flamenco album. He's got a good education in various styles, has obviously worked hard developing his skills, and has achieved quite a lot as a musician outside of the recording studio. He is also one of many guitar players making a living as a guitar teacher, and is also kept busy with guitar clinics, seminars and recitals as well as developing instructional material.
Musically, Anastassakis has a solid foot in the Satriani school of guitar players on this release. His other foot has been traveling a bit, with funk, flamenco and prog metal being the other styles given a fair amount of playtime.
Anastassakis is good at playing that melodic, harmonic guitar solo, and has understood that it is important to have a solid musical foundation underscoring the soloing for the solo to sound good. The basic structures of the songs are well planned and well executed. Two of the tracks here are guitar only tracks, where the flamenco is showcased, but the rest of the tracks all have that solid, musical base underscoring the improvised soloing.
Anastassakis has developed a warm and organic guitar sound which gives his playing an identity of it's own. Even when rocking out hard the guitar sound here is vibrant, warm and alive where other guitar players would sound harsher, colder and more metallic.
This is a release that probably will appeal to fans of guitar albums, and to fellow guitar players. Anastassakis showcases his technique, his pace and his overall skills very well here and more than anything he showcases his ability to make long, improvised guitar solos. He is very good at what he does, lack of skill are not words that can be used to describe any part of this release.
But for many casual listeners, like this reviewer, the improvisations as well as the songs in general are too long. The commercial greats of this type of music all know that for music like this to have a widespread commercial appeal, songs either have to be edited down in length or have to be developed extensively, even more than what they have on this release. I'm not an oracle, and I may be wrong, but I do find it hard to see how this release will be saleable beyond the usual group of people buying instrumental guitar albums.
My rating: 48/100
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