Chances are good that you\u2019ve heard Daryl Stuermer play before, whether you know it or not. <\/p>\n
Moving on from an early stint in Jean-Luc Ponty\u2019s band, beginning in 1978 Stuermer became the touring guitarist for Genesis, a title he still technically holds today, even if the band has been mostly inactive since 1992. From 1981 through the early 2000s, he was also a mainstay in Phil Collins\u2019 solo band, even co-composing several songs with Collins. In the meantime he\u2019s guested as a session player on albums by Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Philip Bailey, Frida and Joan Armatrading, among others. <\/p>\n
I remember picking up Stuermer\u2019s 1987 solo debut Steppin\u2019 Out<\/i> and enjoying it quite a bit at the time. The man has serious chops, and while the slick production and electronic keyboards on the album didn\u2019t age particularly well\u2014damn you, 1980s\u2014overall it was an impressive debut, focusing on Stuermer\u2019s lead guitar stylings in a heavy fusion setting.<\/p>\n
On a whim I recently picked up Stuermer\u2019s 2007 solo album GO!<\/i>, eager to hear how his solo style has developed since Steppin\u2019 Out<\/i>. And therein lies the problem; it hasn\u2019t. The production on this album sounds eerily like the production on Steppin\u2019 Out<\/i> from 1987, and more or less, so does the music. It\u2019s skillfully performed and pristinely produced, but doesn\u2019t show a lot of growth or imagination. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s also, for lack of a better word, very samey. The first time through I didn\u2019t even notice when opener \u201cStriker\u201d ended and second track \u201cMasala Mantra\u201d began; they sound that similar. \u201cGreenlight\u201d punches up the tempo and delivers a nice catchy main riff \/ chorus with the organ doubling the melody behind him, though it repeats too much.<\/p>\n
\u201cDream In Blue\u201d is a pleasant change of pace, riding a suitably dreamy blues groove. Then \u201cBreaking Point\u201d goes on the attack again without making a big impression. It\u2019s fine in its own way\u2014clean and energetic and lively\u2014it just doesn\u2019t bring anything new to the table. \u201cHeavy Heart\u201d presents a big, rather Collins-ish (i.e. eminently tasteful and somewhat predictable) ballad before the album closes out with a trio of faster tracks, \u201cMeltdown,\u201d \u201cThe Archer\u201d and \u201cOmnibus.\u201d<\/p>\n
The liner notes indicate GO!<\/i> was intended to showcase the rockier side of Stuermer\u2019s playing, but it\u2019s hard to detect a lot of difference between this album and Steppin\u2019 Out<\/i> 20 years before. The guy is a hell of a player, delivering lines that are fast and fluid and often melodic, but the music lacks variety or flair; on track after track he employs the same clean, sharp guitar tone over the same bed of anonymous fusion-y synth and rhythm section sounds. The results are big and shiny and professional and inescapably bland.<\/p>\n
In sum, GO!<\/i> might be the best argument for 30-second previews on iTunes that I\u2019ve ever heard, in that once you\u2019ve invested those 30 seconds, you\u2019ll know what 90 percent of this album sounds like. It\u2019s a collection of tracks that offers the listener plenty of reasons to respect Stuermer\u2019s considerable skills on the fretboard, but very few to care about the music he\u2019s making.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9631],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-44126","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-daryl-stuermer","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44126","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=44126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44126"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}