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Johnny Stachela: Walk Through Fire
ByThe EP is necessarily a sampler. All six of the songs included on this recording bear differing personalities. The opening "Hard Rain" begins with a whiplash guitar lick eased into some Robert Cray soul. The title cut is a nuclear shuffle built again on a corrosive riff full of funk and invention. Stachela is an accomplished guitarist with a fat, round, overdriven tone that is muscular and rippling with electric accuracy. He is a fine slide guitarist as is demonstrated melodically on the ballad, "You're Not the Only One." He takes that well-behaved slide guitar, injecting it with the devil, achieving the crunch of "Dead Man Rising."
Stachela's depth is illustrated on the two instrumentals. "Twilight Nebula" would be an outlier on this recording had the Allman Brothers and Gov't Mule not produced such ethereal music. The disc highlight is the jazz-infused "Paris." Stachela studied Dickey Betts hard, assembling an instrumental that recalls "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Kind of Bird" at once. If this recording has any faults, it is that there is so little of it. Let's hear more, Johnny Stachela.
Track Listing
Hard Rain; Walk Through Fire; You’re Not the Only One; Twilight Nebula; Dead Man Rising; Paris.
Personnel
Johnny Stachela: guitars, vocals; Vincent Fossett, Jr.: drums; Sebastian Ciceri: bass (2); Jorgen Carlsson: bass (1, 3); Jason Benfield: bass (5, 6); Keith England: backing vocals (1, 2, 3); T- Bone Andersson: keyboards.
Album information
Title: Walk Through Fire | Year Released: 2015 | Record Label: Self Produced
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