I generally find instrumental albums pretty boring and music without words for me has always been something that I leave for the movies. Melbourne’s Joe Matera though might just have something here – an album that mixes styles and textures well and has some truly cool moments.
Opening with the blue sky feel of ‘Slave to the Fingers’ and the lilting ‘Slide’ there’s a mix of feel good 70’s Rock and Dire Straits in the mix to these ears and it’s an instant hit despite the relative brevity of each track.
‘Terra Firma’ though is crying out for a lyrics as the solo guitar languidly plays across a great riff and cool bass line that really sticks. Elsewhere the laid back ‘Outland’ is nice but needs a little more to anchor it as it just sounds like a breezy jam. ‘Face Off’ is a great composition, blue-sky cool and driven home nicely, but the idea could have been expanded and at under three minutes you feel a little short-changed.
Mt favourite here is probably ‘Brave New World’ which despite a lack of Southern stylings has a feel of the Allmans in the refrain. And the riff to ‘No Way!’ has a garage-edge but the solo guitar again soars above the repeated refrain taking the place of what might have been an interesting vocal, and I guess that’s what I come back to at times – some of these songs sound like ideas that would have made great traditional Rock songs, and I guess if I’m honest that comes down to the length.
‘Endless Summer’ for example has a genuinely lovely feel to it and I could have listened for much longer than the three and a half minutes. There are common threads here, repeated riffs and refrains that give the songs a very verse/chorus feel and that overarching soloing that at times you can imagine as the vocal line. But home runs come with tracks like bluesy ‘Guilty Pleasures’ and closer ‘Hit the Ground Running’ which play with the formula and really do take you places.
With only one song here that hits four minutes and two under three you do have that feeling that you wish there was more and whilst production is pretty nice I’m not entirely convinced by the drum sound. Overall though this is well worth a listen and an interesting take on the ‘guitar album’.
www.joematera.com
