{"id":829,"date":"2012-07-17T05:18:49","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=829"},"modified":"2012-07-17T05:18:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:18:49","slug":"album-review-sonny-landreth-elemental-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/07\/17\/album-review-sonny-landreth-elemental-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Sonny Landreth – Elemental Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

When genre labels get applied, guitarist Sonny Landreth<\/strong> is often put into a blues (and sometimes Americana) bag. But a listen to Elemental Journey<\/em>, his twelfth and latest album makes the strong case that his mastery of styles is far too weighty to be contained in those (already wide) categories. Even before reading the liner notes, I immediately heard a musical kinship with some serious shredders: specifically Joe Satriani<\/strong><\/a> and Eric Johnson<\/strong>. Their individual approaches \u2013 serious fleet-fingered, borderline-showy prowess coupled with a resolute commitment to hooks and melody \u2013 have much in common with the eleven instrumental tracks on Elemental Journey<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So I suppose it should come as little surprise to discover that Satriani and Johnson actually guest on the record. Satch trades licks with Landreth on the opener \u201cGaia Tribe,\u201d and Johnson lends his atmospheric and assertive axework to \u201cPassionola.\u201d But the presence of these hotshot axe-wielders should not be interpreted as a commercial gambit on Landreth’s part: he can \u2013 and does \u2013 carry the album on the strength of his own fretwork. His peers merely add another dimension to an already fine album.<\/p>\n

For this listener, instrumental albums stand or fall on the strength of the melodies. No amount of fretboard wizardry — no amount of technical mastery \u2013 can sustain interest if the melodies aren’t sturdy. And whether he’s serving up a chicken-pluckin’ slide guitar fest like \u201cFor You and Forever,\u201d the bouncy pop of \u201cWonderide,\u201d the blues-meets-reggae of \u201c\u201dForgotten Story,\u201dor the languid vibe of \u201cLetting Go,\u201d there’s a balance of hot-shit playing, tasteful restraint, and that ever-present melodic sense. And for shredding fans, on \u201cReckless Beauty,\u201d Landreth pulls out all the stops and puts on a dazzling display of here’s-how-fast-I-can-play.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor You and Forever\u201d also features some lovely string section work courtesy of members of the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra<\/strong> performing Sam Broussard<\/strong>‘s arrangements. The album closer “Opening Sky\u201d sets more sweeping, emotionally-charged orchestral backing to Landreth’s romantic slide leads. And the way Landreth puts the songs together allows his players \u2013 David Ranson<\/strong> on bass, Steve Conn<\/strong> on keys and (depending on the track) one of three drummers \u2013 plenty of space to show off their abilities. Easily on a par with Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien<\/em> and Eric Johnson’s Tones<\/em>, Elemental Journey<\/em> is a winner.<\/p>\n

Follow \u201cthe_musoscribe\u201d on Twitter<\/a> and get notified
\nwhen new features, reviews and essays are published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When genre labels get applied, guitarist Sonny Landreth is often put into a blues (and sometimes Americana) bag. But a listen to Elemental Journey, his twelfth and latest album makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}