I’ve listened to a lot of the projects that David T. Chastain
\nreleases on his Leviathan Records label and I’ve finally concluded
\nwhat these releases have in common. Remember in the 80s when
\nShrapnel Records would release all these ‘guitar hero’ bands,
\npredominantly solo discs from Vinnie Moore and Tony MacAlpine? You
\nknew that when you unwrapped the plastic and put a Shrapnel release
\nin your cassette deck, you were going to be blown away by the
\nguitar playing.<\/p>\n
Two decades later, when I put
\nDouble Your Pleasure<\/i> in the old CD player, I was expecting
\nto be blown away by the guitar playing and that’s what I got.
\nUnlike the Shrapnel releases, Leviathan Records have a slightly
\nmore diverse catalog, mainly because of the two Southern Gentlemen
\nreleases. They have Joe Stump, they have the progressive band CJSS,
\nthe guitar master series (I’ve only heard the Michael Harris
\nrelease in this series), and the power metal of Zannister. All of
\nthese releases feature stoked guitar players that make me want to
\ntune up an air guitar.<\/p>\n
\nDouble Your Pleasure<\/i>, the follow-up to the Southern
\nGentlemen debut
\nExotic Dancer Blues<\/i>, continues the trend of Leviathan
\nreleases inspiring air-guitar fantasies. Guitarist David T.
\nChastain returns as the front man for the band, as does bassist
\nKevin Kekes, but they have replaced Dennis Lesh with drummer Mike
\nHaid. The end result is blues that grooves.<\/p>\n
Opening track “My Best Friend’s Girl” starts the release off
\nwith an up-tempo guitar stretch. It becomes obvious very quickly
\nthat this is Chastain’s showcase. These songs have a jam-band feel
\nand Haid and Kekes provide the foundation for Chastain to solo over
\nand groove over. Chastain also handles vocals and has a “dirty”
\ngravelly voice. The lyrics he sings are typical blues fodder,
\nfocusing on relationships and women in practically all the
\nsongs.<\/p>\n
What could have made this CD better would be to re-arrange the
\norder of the songs. This CD grinds to a halt with the third track
\n“I Languish for You,” a slow ballad that just comes too early in
\nthe CD. I know that there are many releases that put a ballad as
\nthe third track, but on this release, it just doesn’t flow. The
\nfirst two tracks are two upbeat rock ‘n roll-style tunes and the
\nswitch to this ballad is jarring, almost unsettling. In a perfect
\nworld, I would have put track 4, “Not Worth My Grave” as track
\nthree. It is a slower shuffling blues. It is not a full-fledged
\nballad, but my recommendation is to play track 2, then 4, then 3 on
\nyour CD player. In my ears, the songs flows better.<\/p>\n
That is until track 7, a wretched 6:36 long track called
\n“Slutovirgin” which does nothing for me. It sounds like something
\nPoison would write: “She has the look\/ She has the style\/ She has
\nthe way\/ That drives men wild\/ She’ll lead you on\/ She’ll play the
\npart\/ She’ll show her skin\/ She’ll break your heart.” The music can
\nbarely, barely, save the track. It’s an AC\/DC-ish riff-based tune,
\nlike “Back in Black,” with a solid drumbeat and a sparse guitar
\npart that lets the lyrics ‘hang’ in your ears between riff. Still,
\nif I had my druthers, this track would be on the cutting-room
\nfloor.<\/p>\n
The songs are predominantly in the 6:00 range, carrying forward
\na characteristic of their debut. It’s like they turned on the
\nrecorder in the studio and started jamming. I really like that live
\nvibe. The drums and bass parts are solid. The rhythm section
\nreminds me of AC\/DC (them again). There’s not a lot of flash from
\neither instrument, a few brief ‘licks’ on the snare or toms, but
\nfor the most part, the purpose of the Kekes\/Haid rhythm section is
\nto groove. This CD would be a good example of how drummers and
\nbassists can play together for beginning musicians. The spotlight,
\nhowever, stays on Chastain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6416],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37566","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-southern-gentlemen","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37566"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}