Eric Gales - Layin' Down The Blues (2009)

Eric Gales (not to be mistaken for jazz trumpeter Eric Gale) wears his electric guitar influences on his sleeve as he reaches for a hard rock contemporary blues style that is not difficult to discern or identify. While similar to Freddie King, Albert Collins, Jimmy Dawkins, and especially Stevie Ray Vaughan, he's also heard his share of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix. Gales is a competent to good singer whose soul quotient is quite pleasing, but his amped-up guitar overwhelms his singing and the whole band, as subtleties or any semblance of nuance are generally thrown out the window. This is a compilation of two of his latter-period albums, tracks equally split between The Story of My Life and Crystal Vision, with two previously unreleased songs included here. The music is cohesive if not all that original, a visceral stance for sure and in your face from start to near finish. On the slightly toned-down side, "I Ain't No Shrink" (a slicker, cooler shuffle), the evil femme fatale tale "I Got Me a Woman," and the very slow and liberating organ-complemented "Freedom from My Demons" are the most authentic tracks. But Gales prefers to crank it up on the title selection, "Retribution," "Save Yourself," and "Wake Up Call," where his steel-toned electric guitar completely dominates the proceedings. Variations include a funkier, Hendrix-derived "The Psychedelic Underground," with aural visions of the original voodoo chile; the more soulful, internal, insular, and personalized "Dark Corners of My Mind"; and a well-done cop of Cream's "Sleepy Time Time." The previously unreleased cuts are much mellower, even sweet, as the sensitive and laid-back "The Open Road" and acoustic-electric combo on "The Kind of Love You Feel" show a completely different side of Gales not represented by the rest of the material. While Gales can be considered a throwback guitarist showing wannabe tendencies instead of developing his own voice on his instrument, Layin' Down the Blues represents both the continuation of a tradition from acclaimed urban blues legends and the identity of a guitar hero who still has roads ahead to travel and explore. ~Michael G. Nastos