By: Alun Thomas
ackground
Here's a budding young guitar prodigy from Scotland called Dean McGinnes. Dont'cha just love it when you read the bio and he says 'It all started from listening to my dads records.. Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, etc'. Ah yes, the glory days indeed. I wish I could've said the same about my dad, but somehow, I don't think that Marty Robbins, Mario Lanza and Tony Christie were ever going to make it into the Rock Charts! And they certainly weren't inspiring to me, unlike young Dean here, who has turned out the first of many (we hope) albums in his still relatively youthful career. 'The Journey Of Life' is an instrumental album, which is a smorgasbord of ideas from this obviously creative talent. Having been taught rock guitar and initially introduced to the likes of Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai, Dean then picked up on a wide range of artists (including Neal Schon, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson etc), to effectively hybridize into his own style.
The Songs
Dean displays an eclectic variety of styles. Hard out rockers as you would expect, some ambient acoustic stuff, plus some ethereal moments that could well touch on the likes of UK dinosaurs Jade Warrior or Hawkwind. For starters, Dean and his team blaze away in pure retro glory on 'Going Nowhere', then give us a taste of AC/DC styled rhythm guitar on 'Get Up And Go'. The solos provide a different color but the bass guitar is sadly pushed back in the mix - very muffled unfortunately. You could say a majority of the material is experimental sounding. 'Mountains Of Echo' is very ambient, the acoustic guitar has the reverb on 10, the whole affair coming off like a Michael Hedges new age tune. Likewise 'Hypnotized', which as the title would suggest, is high on melody, ambience and feeling.. nice! Something different is the instrumental solo 'The Journey Man Ryan Carroll' which has shades of Steve Lynch's famous solo 'Hammerhead' off Autograph's 'That's The Stuff' album. Not suggesting that it is in the same league, but similar soundwise. Back to the experimental is '2ism', which could well be Enya with lead guitar! Changing the soundscape yet again is the title-track 'The Journey Of Life'.. a little bit stripped back, the production a bit rawer than previous tracks.
In Summary
Both bands that Dean has been involved with (Sanitas and Electric Soup) have both bitten the bullet. Dean is working on a prog rock based project that will take a heavier direction, in the mould of Dream Theater and Tool. I must point out that 'The Journey Of Life' is an expression of Dean's musical ideas, and as such, he could well reach our ears in future, in whatever genre he so chooses. The acoustic/ambient style he displays on this album is a far cry from his intended prog direction. I would suggest that Dean explore the work of Neal Schon, Craig Chaquico as rockers who have walked down the electric/acoustic/new age path with much success, because there are moments here which indicate to me that he would do well in that genre. Dean is also about to head south to Brighton to study guitar at BIMM. Good luck to you laddie. Hope it works out.
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