I’ve been following Dave Weiner for quite a while now after realising he was the rhythm guitarist in Steve Vai’s band a few years back which in itself is no mean feat, you can imagine how particular Mr Vai is so you need to be a bloody good guitarist for the job. Another reason I have been following Dave so closely is his excellent Riff Of The Week series on YouTube which recently has included riffs from his new album “On Revolute”.

“On Revolute” is not your typical shred album in fact I wouldn’t even call it shred, it is a very easy to listen to melodic album with moments of absolutely brilliant guitar playing, clever use of effects, great orchestration and brilliant production, it is very much like a film score.

The opening track “The Calm” is very aptly named, it is the calm before the storm with atmospheric reverse guitar effects, slide melodies and crunchy clean leads that has nice layering and dynamics and gently leads out with an acoustic guitar into “Ignition” which is the exact opposite and is really a kind of showcase track as Dave displays not only his melodic side but also his Vai-like precision technique and shredding too, it has a really catchy chorus and infectious drum grooves. “Ignition” also carries through the Slide playing from the opening track with a solo in the middle. This is one of my favourite tracks it just has so much energy and memorable melodies that you’ll be whistling after hearing the track a few times.

Dave Weiner is not afraid to experiment with effects and “Dismantle” is a good example with it’s use of Delay to create rhythmic patterns and the Digitech Whammy pedal on the main theme, you can see how the main theme works with the Whammy in Dave’s recent lesson on YouTube.

The opening chords of “Blue Fade Silver” sound like something Steve Vai would compose but the layered melodies are certainly Dave’s style, hard to describe but Dave creates certain sounding melodies throughout the album that share a common theme maybe it is the scales he uses but it’s cool how the tracks gel together so well. This is another of the uptempo rock tracks but it does break down a lot with some nice clean tones.

“Moonlight Path” is an acoustic track with some cool triplet phrases and multi-tracked harmony lines. It definitely shows a different side to Dave’s playing and builds to a section where electric guitar is introduced before reverting to an Acoustic outro section. It is a really nice relaxing track to listen to.

“One Day More” begins with a minute of solo guitar and interesting delay effects setting up the main theme before the band comes in and the main theme is reintroduced with the main lead guitar. This is a pretty laid back track with key changes that create moments of tension that are then resolved, all the time the acoustic strumming figure creating a solid backing to drive the track, this acoustic figure segues into the following track “Traces Of Breath” creating a seamless extension developing the acoustic theme into its’ own track with a dramatic strings backing accentuating the melody. These two tracks are a good example of why I think the album is like a Movie soundtrack, very atmospheric and musical.

“The Mojo Rhyme” begins with an awesome baseline before the lead guitar comes in with a theme that wouldn’t be out of place in Top Gun, it is very Steve Stevens! The main track launches into a funk rock style track with nice distorted Stratty tones as well nice thick lead tones presumably from one of Dave’s many humbucker equipped guitars. Again this track has one of those hummable sections in the middle of the track, thick with multiple layers of guitars. I think some of Steve Vai’s production influence has rubbed off, this album sounds amazing with headphones on.

“Other Words For Beautiful” is a ballad showing a little of Dave’s jazzier side, nice tones, nice melodies, job done.

“Reflections” is a cool track that begins with a nice delay effect, it sounds like the Eventide at work and it builds for about a minute and a half and sounds like it is going to take off before dropping back to the start theme again before building again and again. The entire 7:15 is entirely comprised of guitars, no drums, no bass and just a little bit of keyboard and it is captivating and leads so well into the title track “On Revolute“.

The final and of course title track “On Revolute” is an epic piece of music, a second over 12 minutes and takes you on a journey starting with a quiet clean guitar intro with hypnotic guitar backing. After a couple of minutes building on this melody and improvising Dave brings in the rest of the band, quietly at first slowly introducing the main theme with different backing treatments. Around the 4 minute the track finally erupts into the main section which has a majestic, anthemic style. Each time this theme is reintroduced it is more powerful than the last. This is the masterpiece of the album to me, so many dynamics and strong themes. The first time I heard the album I thought it was good, by the 3rd and 4th time I realised it was great.

If you would like to order the album head over to Dave’s website – http://daveweiner.com
You can also follow dave on Twitter @daveweiner
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/daveweiner
And of course his excellent YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/daveweiner