Once upon a time in the land of California, a younger man by my same name was big into melodic hard rock bands like Montrose and Scorpions, groups that featured muscled-up guitars delivering catchy riffs and singalong choruses. Today I look to groups like Jet or maybe Chickenfoot for this kind of big sound. Colin Reid seems to have absorbed a lot of the same history, while adding his own twist on it, giving his powerful, guitar-heavy tunes a bit of a sun-splashed Southern California feel.<\/p>\n
The singer-songwriter-guitarist opts for the pure power-trio format here, just himself on guitars and a rhythm section of Maurice Verloop (bass) and Dan Welby (drums). For the first three songs of this 11-track debut, his focus is more on melody than muscle; \u201cAnother Way\u201d and \u201cFall Away\u201d in particular feature strong hooks and choruses that stick in your head. The lyrics are solid, too, with the former offering pointed commentary on a breakup (\u201cSomeone\u2019s got to be the one who stays\u201d) and the latter delivering a rather Zen message about acceptance (\u201cLet your anger \/ Fall away\u201d).<\/p>\n
These tracks alternate with the heavier \u201cSo You Say,\u201d its slicing notes building to a nice release at the chorus, and \u201cFair Weather Saint,\u201d a tight, propulsive number that should set heads a-banging. The former also features an honest-to-god guitar solo, laser-precise enough to remind of Tom Petty\u2019s main man Mike Campbell.<\/p>\n
The rest of this ride leans to the heavy side of Reid\u2019s sound while showing some versatility. \u201cNo Good Reason\u201d is bluesy and playful; the hyperactive \u201cNever The Same\u201d starts with a long intro\/jam; and \u201cHead Down\u201d has almost a Bon Jovi feel to it, metal with the sharp edges sanded off. In between, the title track offers another Zen-influenced lyric about wanting things you can\u2019t have, this time set to relatively mellow guitars.<\/p>\n
The one place where Reid still seems to be finding himself is on his vocals. A lot of the time here, he goes with a hard rock growl with some grit to it. This works fine on the heavier songs, but interestingly, he\u2019s even better when he dials it back to sing in a smoother voice, as on \u201cFall Away,\u201d the title track, and the closing ballad \u201cYou\u2019ll Know.\u201d Is there a happy medium in there somewhere? Probably.<\/p>\n
Colin Reid has the chops to be a genuine triple threat as a singer-songwriter-guitarist, and great instincts for rock that\u2019s both heavy and melodic. Here\u2019s hoping that What We Can\u2019t Have<\/i> is only the beginning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9217],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43308","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-colin-reid","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43308","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=43308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43308"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}