{"id":40415,"date":"2007-08-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/altitude\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:32","slug":"altitude","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/altitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Altitude"},"content":{"rendered":"

New <\/place>Jersey guitar-slinger DC Slater impressed me enough with his 2005 disc Decisions<\/a><\/i> that when he offered me a review copy of his new one, I said sure.\u00a0 Sometimes when I do that I end up feeling like the nice guy who got suckered, staring at a disc I didn\u2019t enjoy nearly as much as its predecessor and feeling vaguely guilty when I finally store it away three months later.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Which is all the more reason I\u2019m glad I said yes to DC\u2019s offer, because Altitude<\/i> — are you ready for it? — soars.<\/p>\n

If there was a flaw to Decisions<\/i>, it was the sameness of the arrangements of Slater\u2019s all-instrumental compositions.\u00a0 Leaving the backbeat as window dressing for Speed Racer solos certainly put the spotlight on Slater\u2019s guitar heroics \u2013 and they are commendable \u2013 but didn\u2019t leave enough room for variety, feel, dynamics.\u00a0 Altitude<\/i>, by contrast, finds Slater stretching out and trying fresh approaches to arrangements while retaining the aggressive virtuosity that is his gift.<\/p>\n

And while he still favors squirrelly-fast Satriani-esque soloing, there is enough added musical flavor and variety to otherwise rock-steady tracks like thundering opener \u201cBelieve,\u201d the rollicking, moody \u201cCity Lights\u201d and the suitably badass \u201cBlack Bandana\u201d to make it clear that Slater is continuing to progress on his musical journey.\u00a0 Continuing to stretch his musical vocabulary, \u201cRebel Jam\u201d finds Slater crossing hard rock with boogie, while \u201cLooking Back\u201d features an appealing keyboard counterpoint to Slater\u2019s precise, eloquent solos.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A pair of standout tracks anchor the middle section of this disc.\u00a0 \u201cMelodie\u201d is a sublimely pretty hard-blues ballad whose name fits like a glove.\u00a0 Meanwhile, \u201cView From Above\u201d offers an assortment of fresh tones \u2013 loose, echoey drums driving a slow jam whose guitar tones veer from dreamy fuzz to sharp squeals and back again, creating one appealing musical interlude after another.<\/p>\n

Slater once again handles all instruments himself here\u00a0— bass, drums and keyboards in addition to all guitars\u00a0— and while some of the tracks still feel less organic and natural than they might if there was more than one musical personality involved in making this music, the total end result is technically outstanding and consistently entertaining.\u00a0 Altitude<\/i> achieves fresh new heights for Slater as a composer, guitarist and producer, and is well worth picking up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7954],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40415","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dc-slater","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40415","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52114,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40415\/revisions\/52114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40415"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40415"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}