Brian Kahanek - One True Thing (2010)





Tracks:

[4:26] 1. Bottle Rocket
[4:34] 2. Sunshine Man
[4:45] 3. Dreamland
[4:38] 4. Marigold
[4:36] 5. Firefiles
[3:40] 6. Starlight
[3:56] 7. Tears Of Joy
[3:56] 8. Say
[2:54] 9. One True Thing
[8:08] 10. 63 Candles (Live)

“The new recording combines elements of rock, blues and country into a collection that weaves in and out of styles that fans call reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. While not simply duplicating what has been done in the past, Kahanek is truly creating something fresh and new for the next generation.”

That is a really nice and true summary of “One True Thing”, Kahanek’s playing has both the subtlety and power of Hendrix with tone to match but with an obvious Country influence thrown into his Blues Rock playing. The instrumentals on the album are my favourite tracks, notably the Shuffling Texas blues influenced “Bottle Rocket” which have the tremelo tones of Stevie Ray and Hendrix like Octave and Vibe effects for good measure, the Rock ballad “Dreamland” which starts out with a Gilmour-esque ethereal sound and builds to a crescendo with some pretty amazing shredding thrown in. This track actually reminds me of a Joe Satriani style ballad.

There is some nice slide playing on “Starlight” and “One True Thing”, the title track being an acoustic southern rock/country blues track with electric slide playing the melody with a really nice slide tone whereas “Starlight” is a shuffling 6/8 acoustic backed track again with Gilmour-esque slide melodies.

The final track “63 Candles” is pure unabashed Hendrix, from the guitar tones, licks and “Hear my train a comin’” chorus. This epic track is over 8 minutes and is amazing, in fact why not see for yourself just watch the video below of Brian performing the track live in 2007, listening to the record this might be the actual version on the CD as it has the same hum in the silences. Great playing and it really does capture the spirit of Jimi Hendrix in a way I’ve only seen Robin Trower do it before.
_{Quelle: Jon~ Amazone.com}


Remi