"Lot 49" has a nice tasty crunchy feel to the song, helped immensely by solid rhythm section work (bass and drums are handled by a changing crew of sidemen, all of them more than up to the challenge of keeping pace with Curtis). This is much more of a prog workout than the opener, albeit a heavier prog than keyboard-based music (although there is some synthesizer on the album). Curtis seems to have a solid sense of when soloing becomes noodling and when it's just good showmanship. Thankfully, I heard little (if any) of the former, but plenty of the latter. The third cut, "Brigs Of Ayr" starts off very dark and moody with solitary guitar-synth painting a dreary soundscape before escalating into a mid tempo prog rock number featuring echoed mournful lead lines that eventually catch fire and blast into the forefront.

There's more here than just great electric guitar numbers, too. "The Dying Tree" is sorrowful acoustic guitar, naked and unadorned. The enigmatically titled "August 8" is an almost adagio-like synth string piece (one again played on synth-guitar) that has moments of stark tragic sadness - it's almost cathartic to listen to at times. And the album closer, "Thursday Red" adroitly mixes blistering lead lines with synths in a way that reminded me of Jeff Beck, circa "There and Back". But, it's still the rockers that predominate, including a tear-the-roof-off cover of "Aftershock".

If you haven't surrendered your love of a fully amped Fender Stratocaster (Curtis uses FOUR different ones!) and a kick-ass rhythm section, Curtis Reid is your man and this is your album. Turn it up loud and stand back.