 |
| |
| Track by Track Review
|
|
Take It From The Top
A blow-the-roof-off-the-house rocker opens the album. There are a couple of lick-trading sessions in the song, the first from Morse and West, the second from Parrish and Sloan. Morgenstein gives his double-bass drum pedals a workout in the appropriate places to good effect. |
|
Odyssey
Ranging all over the map, this number is highlighted by a nice violin solo that is a pleasant contrast to the energetic and intense closing section. The song also has one of those trademark Dregs guess-the-meter sections that can baffle most listeners, this one included. |
|
What If
A change of pace here, as the title track is much slower and relaxed. Morse is content to keep a low profile, giving Sloan and Parrish the solo spotlight in this one, and their solos keep true to the overall feel of the song. |
|
Travel Tunes
Andy West wrote this song, and his songwriting style differs little from Morse's. West uses a 15/8 time signature to keep the listener on his toes - just when your ear gets used to a 4/4, it changes in mid-bar. The song settles in 4/4 long enough for Morse to get a strong solo in. |
|
Ice Cakes
Again, the Dregs cover a number of different styles in a short period. The song is funky here, straight-ahead there, playfully bouncy in places, and Morse switches between bluesy and chicken-pickin' with little ease. |
|
Little Kids
Most Dregs albums have a short neo-baroque number on them, and this is it. It's a lively little acoustic guitar-violin tune. Steve Morse is quite fluent in the piece, and Allen Sloan is equally adept, proving him to be the best anesthesiologist-violinist that I know of. |
|
Gina Lolla Breakdown
Yahoo! Time to do the Texas two-step with this country song. Right down to the Jews harp and cowbell, this is a fun, high-energy tune. Morse, Sloan, and Parrish get in some nice solos, and Morgenstein even gets twelve bars to himself. This song does not reflect a rock band that decides "hey, let's try country-and-western" but rather a band that could easily make its home doing this sort of thing. |
|
Night Meets Light
This has been described (by knowledgeable sources) as perfectly capturing the mood of a sunrise on the Florida Keys. The song has a dreamy feel to it in places, and in others it becomes rhythmically complex, typified by the guitar solo over a 13/4 time signature. Morse also slips into his solo rather unobtrusively, and has taken center stage before you notice. This song is a beautiful end to an album that proved that the Dregs were extremely talented, innovative, and a band worth noticing. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
|
|
© 2024 Music Street Journal
Site design and programming by Studio Fyra, Inc./Beetcafe.com |
