E-mail<\/a> me with
\nthe answer.) and
\nGirls With Guns<\/i> – two albums I admittedly don’t own. But on
\nhis latest disc,
\n7 Deadly Zens<\/i>, Shaw is able to create his own unique voice
\nby almost purposely staying away from the same songwriting formula
\nhe’s used in previous bands.<\/p>\nIn a sense, it’s not fair to pigeonhole Shaw as just the
\nguitarist\/vocalist for Styx. He’s also played with Ted Nugent in
\nDamn Yankees, a band that definitely had its own unique voice. So,
\nit would have been easy for Shaw to fall back on old songwriting
\nhabits and write songs in the vein of both those bands.<\/p>\n
Ah, but he didn’t do that! Instead, he decided to somehow plow
\nnew ground and create a record in a style that some might not have
\nexpected from him. As a result, you can’t tell when guests like
\nNugent and fellow Damn Yankees member Jack Blades enter the mix, or
\nwhen Styx drummer Todd Sucherman takes over on the skins.<\/p>\n
Shaw hits the ground running with “Ocean,” a solid rocker
\n(featuring, on guest vocals, Ed Roland of Collective Soul) that is
\njust a fun song to listen to. From then on, Shaw keeps listeners on
\ntheir toes by changing styles often, but not making radical enough
\nchanges to make people sit up and wonder what is going on.<\/p>\n
From the light rock styles of “Stop Knockin'” (with an
\ninteresting harmony vocal that sounds like it’s being pumped
\nthrough a distortion pedal) and “What Do You Want From This Life”
\nto the shuffle of “All In How You Want To Say It” to the
\nmostly-acoustic duet with Allison Krause “Half A Mind”, Shaw
\npleasantly surprises the listener as
\n7 Deadly Zens<\/i> unfolds.<\/p>\n
But with all the strengths that are on this disc, there is one
\nmajor stumbling point. On a few occasions, Shaw decides to fall
\ninto the trap of making rather bizarre interludes. Big mistake –
\nmoments like “Mona Lisa” and “Need Water” end up distracting from
\nall the ground Shaw gains with “Inspiration” and “Who I Am”,
\nrespectively. And the untitled 13th track, which seems to be a
\nrendition of the album title’s subject matter, is a complete waste
\nof time.<\/p>\n
Also, while I didn’t spend a lot of time on the multimedia part
\nof this enhanced CD, I wasn’t very impressed with what it had to
\noffer. Still, to each their own.<\/p>\n
Still, the music on
\n7 Deadly Zens<\/i> is very good – even surprisingly good if you
\nenter into this disc expecting to hear watered-down Styx. Fact is,
\nthis is a vice that you won’t mind indulging in – though Shaw
\nshould have watched out for “the eighth Zen”with the interludes:
\noverindulgence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7276],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38719","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tommy-shaw","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38719","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38719"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}