Senes - De-Evolution Of Theory 

Global Music

file under hardrock / aor

Arco: New CD in the post, put it in the player and wow! What a guitar playing! Heavy, jazz, Latin, rock, country, funk, everything passes by. Who is this? Steve Senes? Hmm, I know that name. Ah, that is the guy who won the 2009 Guitar Player Magazine Superstar contest! A kind of “Idols” for guitar players with Steve Lukather (Toto), Elliot Easton (The Cars), Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson), Earl Slick (David Bowie) en producer Greg Hampton (Alice Cooper) as the jury, phew. If you can win that battle, or even stand in the final, one can play guitar, no discussion. But to write songs for a debut album, play and produce (including engineering and mixing) is an other story. 

A good ending story because ‘dE-eVolution Of thEory’ has become a beautiful album. Instrumental guitar albums can be risky for they often tend to be a series of shredding and egocentric soloing, but not this one. Steve Senes shows his skills by combining the styles of guitar heroes like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Eddie van Halen en Carlos Santana. From the heavy opener ‘The Swami’ (a little exotic) the next, almost cheerful, ‘Greaseball’, the modest ‘Ruth’ (starts acoustic but is then coloured by lovely solo’s), ‘Highball’ which is technical and fast, the funky ‘Cop Show’ which is more of a seventies ‘cops’ series soundtrack, through the rockers ‘Facecheck’ and ‘High & Mighty’, the monstrous ‘Colossus’, the sensitive, classic tinted ‘Angel’ till the heavy rocker ‘Jam Bomb’ and the tropical, a bit reggae like ‘Mare Tranquilitatis’ it is one big (guitar) party. Last song ‘Afterglow’ really gives one that feeling, like you sip on your last drink on a sultry summer evening. Steve Senes is a talented guitar player which he shows enough on ‘dE-eVolution Of thEory’, now let’s hope he can develop a style of his own on his next record.

Rating: 81/100 (details)

(Source: lordsofmetal.nl)