“This is my third guitar instrumental album. It nearly drove me crazy on many occasions. Do you hear all those notes? First I had to find them, And then I had to put them all together in the right order. It literally took me Months. What a job. But I love notes, so I’m happy to show up for work. Now, let’s talk about the universe.” – From the sleeve notes of Fuzz Universe

I still find it hard to believe this is only Paul’s 3rd fully instrumental guitar album considering how long Paul has been around and I’m sure I read somewhere after “Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar” that he wouldn’t make another instrumental, luckily for Paul Gilbert fans this was either false information or he changed his mind because ‘Fuzz Universe‘ is brilliant.

Fuzz Universe is quite different to ‘Get Out Of My Yard‘ & ‘Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar‘ and it took me a couple of listens to really appreciate it. The opening track ‘Fuzz Universe‘ is what I consider “typical” Paul Gilbert, it has his signature arpeggiated and fast alternate picked licks that despite being terrifyingly difficult to play are also melodic and catchy. The rhythm has a bit of an 80′s rock feel to it, a bit of flashback to Racer X. Most of the tracks including ‘Fuzz Universe‘ and the following track ‘Olympic‘ have a live sound due to Paul playing a single guitar track throughout so he alternates between the rhythm and melody/solo parts. Paul uses a lot of effects on this album and pulls out the Octave pedal for this track which sounds really nice with his already crunchy tones coming from an array of Ibanez Fireman models, he recently told Premier Guitar magazine they are loaded with DiMarzio hum-cancelling single-coils – “I used them for most of the album… I'm not sure what they are called yet, but they sound killer”.

‘Count Juan Chutrifo‘ has that 70′s funk rock feel similar to Bronx 1971 from ‘Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar‘ including Hammond Organ and a subtle Wah on the guitar throughout.

Paul is a fan of arranging classical music for electric guitar with ‘Haydn Symphony No. 88 Finale‘ on ‘Get Out Of My Yard‘ and on ‘Fuzz Universe‘ he arranges a ‘Bach Partita in Dm‘. I’m not personally much of a fan of distorted guitars playing actual classical music and always skip the Haydn track on GOOMY but this Bach Partita is pretty good.

‘Blue Orpheus‘ is a cover of a crazy Todd Rundgren song (check the original here) and Paul recreates the vocal harmony intro with layered guitars that actually end up sounding like the intro to a Queen song! This track had me scratching my head for ages until I read that it was an old Todd Rundgren track in Paul’s Premier Guitar interview, I couldn’t work out where this was coming from. The melodies are certainly nothing I would normally associate with Paul and it has this kind of cheesy yet infectious rhythm guitar part and a lead tone that is straight out of an 80′s film like Rocky (you know the bit in Rocky IV where he is driving at night in his Lamborghini). It also has a guitar rhythm track similar to ‘The Echo Song‘ from GOOMY which works really well as an accompaniment.

‘Will My Screen Door Stop Neptune‘ is my favourite track on the album at the moment, again the intro chords are not what I would normally associate with Paul Gilbert but apparently they are inspired by The Beatles. Wonderful funky crunchy tones on this track with a halftime drum track that gives the guitar plenty of room to breath and the solo is crazy, insanely fluid and apparently it was the first take?!

I’m not sure where the influence for ‘Propeller‘ came from but it is definitely leaning toward the jazzy side of Paul Gilbert, the Octave pedal (Whammy maybe?) creates a unique whistling melody tone and there is a nice Hammond Organ solo followed by a Bass solo and it is another track with a single guitar throughout which gives it a live feel even though it is obviously not a single take as each guitar has a different tone.

‘Don’t Rain on My Firewood‘ is another funky track with plenty of Wah throughout! Think ‘Rusty Boat‘ or ‘Bultaco Saturno‘ but with more Wah.

‘Plastic Dracula‘ is another typical Paul Gilbert style track with the 80′s influenced riffs but with Paul’s unique stamp on it and maybe a bit of Hendrix thrown the mix too.

‘Blowtorch‘ is a pretty cool track with a tricky sounding open string pull off main riff and a great breakdown that builds back up slowly for over 2 minutes and in doing so actually becomes the majority of the track which I thought was interesting.

‘Mantra The Lawn‘ is probably my least favourite track on the album, I don’t really like the melody. I do like the breakdown in the middle mind you as it has a kind of Hendrixy vibe.

The final track ‘Batter Up‘ is like a Beach Boys kind of Surf style track and Paul says in the PG interview that he wants to play the drums for this track live and teach his drummer the guitar parts so that he can do the drum solos! I’d like to see that.

On the whole, and it seems to ridiculous to say this about someone held in such high esteem as Paul Gilbert, this album sounds more mature both in terms of tone and composition… well, definitely in terms of tone, I’d say this album has some of Paul’s best guitar sounds to date steering away from the fizzy thin distortion of ‘Get Out Of My Yard‘ (I still love the album, just not a massive fan of the guitar tone). If you liked ‘Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar‘ you are going to love ‘Fuzz Universe‘.