Adventures in Space By Paul Speer

 

Adventures in Space

By

Paul Speer

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

It’s been a few years since we all bathed in the sonic delights of Paul Speer’s Sonoran Odyssey, but he is now back, and possibly with one of his most fluent and charismatic releases ever entitled, Adventures in Space  and this driving collection of smooth guitar based reveries is our journey today.

Adventures in Space is a 7 track album packed with graceful textures and cutting edge guitar mastery, the finest example of all in the opening piece called Spacewalk Europa, one that features the simply amazing talents of master pianist David Lanz. The bluesy guitar is joined by Lanz on piano and gifts us a steady forward motion on music, one that reminded me greatly of Medwyn Goodall and his guitar on his release Essence of Magic.

Hard Landing on Nebulon was one of the those tracks that would have you wishing that the inertial dampers on your ship would have kicked in before your helmsman had acted on the blue alert, and landed your ship planet side with a bump! The guitar here was so graphic and told the story beautifully, the guitar effects added a further dimension to this sumptuous piece, as the light percussion created an energy of balance being restored, into the weave of the composition.

The next piece was a real voyage of plenty and called Light Speed Shakedown, there is an intent here that is palpable and forward thinking, whilst the rhythm of the piece is priceless in its flow and energy, the guitar and style of composition reminded me of the late but great classic rock guitarist Manny Charlton from Nazareth, and his piece Expect No Mercy.

The next offering entitled Memories of Earth is a horse of a totally different colour, the keyboards at the opening of this piece floated like a descriptive Genesis album track, and Speer’s guitar was some of the most moving I have ever heard from the artist, when one listens to this amazing composition, you will immediately understand the George Harrison song While My Guitar Gently Weeps. For me this was one of the most stunning reveries from the album.

Ursa Major in a Minor Key is our next musical place of reference, this gigantic constellation, the biggest in the northern hemisphere, and known to some as the Great Bear is a truly descriptive creation by Speer, the symbiotic dance between guitar and keyboards to a backdrop of a sensitive percussion here, is utterly brilliant and wonderfully scene setting.

Our penultimate offering is entitled Graceful Mother Ship and is one of the most powerful manifestations from the release. Its proud tones emphasise perhaps the size of the craft in question, whilst Speers insightful guitar is matched with the soft and fluent keyboards and synths, and in doing so, manifest a huge soundtrack of glistening vibrations, a musical vista so vast perhaps, that the listener can roam freely to enjoy its flavours and its David Gilmour like Crazy Diamond of a performance.

The final piece is called Black Hole Dance Party and this curiously entitled composition ends our voyage through space with the artist. The percussion here as you may expect notched up the energy, whilst Speer’s guitar added a level of speed and tempo like never before, a simply breath taking light speed of a piece with which to conclude the album with.

Adventures in Space by Paul Speer is an electrifying new album that deserves to be respected by all who listen to its contents, its structured narratives are enjoyable, but the presentation, fluency and intelligence of arrangement and performance doubly so. A shout out must also be given to the 2 drummers who perform on the album, Gregg Bissonette and Ron Krasinski, their performances added greatly to the music. There can be no doubt that this is Speers finest work thus far, as every inch of this album flows from one piece into the other with sublime ease, and thus I can see no reason why Adventures in Space by Paul Speer shouldn’t traverse the higher echelons of the charts even at warp 9.99!