Search - David Chastain :: Next Planet Please

Chastain's futile "attempt" at fusion

P. Janka | 01/05/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Charting the path of Chastain's albums you can see he went from style to style starting with neoclassical to shred to fusion to acoustic and all points in between. My first experience started with Elegant Seduction, which was great. The songs were to the point, had great melodies and great shred. However, on Next Planet Please it seemed Dave was trying out an effects processor. Sure, some of the riffs are pretty cool, although very simplistic, and he gets a pretty nice glassy sound on his cleans but there are no real song structures and the solos are endless. I wouldn't mind if they were good solos but he just noodles the night away as he tries to find his way back to the main melody/riff. I would recommend Elegant Seduction as a first album if you're just getting into Chastain. If you're looking for fusion go with Tribal Tech, Weather Report, Allan Holdsworth, Gambale/Hamm/Smith."