As you are probably painfully aware I get particularly excited when I get to review a new instrumental guitar album but aside from when the likes of Joe Satriani or Steve Vai release a new album I rarely anticipate an album quite as much as “Guitar Nerd” by Pete Thorn. I have been following Pete Thorn on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and of course his blog for what seems like years after seeing a couple of TC Electronic demos and then this video on how to play Van Halen “Eruption” which was not only note perfect but the tone was perfect… oh and he has a nice collection of Suhr guitars which, at the time, I was thinking about purchasing. By the way, the guitar in that Eruption video was what made me choose the nickel humbucker cover on my Suhr S4, thanks Pete! Anyway if you haven’t heard of Pete Thorn he is one of the top session guitar players in the world, has a column in Premier Guitar Magazine and records some of the best gear demo videos you will ever see. I wrote a post back in Oct 2009 called ‘Who is Peter Thorn?‘ which will fill in the rest of the gaps.

Due to his amazing demos Pete managed to garner a cult following on various guitar forums, he has an astounding collection of guitars and amps that have many people drooling over. He also creates demos for companies such as Scumback Speakers and Carl Martin which create quite a buzz among the tone chasers and to top it off Pete is a top bloke who is more than happy to discuss his gear on forums despite being very busy touring so there are a lot of people who are eagerly anticipating the release of ‘Guitar Nerd‘.

About 6 months ago (maybe longer) Pete announced that he was going to release a solo instrumental album and updated fans through his blog which included some updates to his gear such as a new Plexi style amp built for him by John Suhr which he described on his blog, “…I run it on 10, everything, (really!) and it just sounds like uber-awesome organic rock goodness.” Pete also started using an EVH Wolfgang which he used in combination with the Suhr SL68 amp on track 2 from ‘Guitar Nerd‘ – ‘Perplexed‘ which you may have already heard as it is currently available to stream on his various channels, YouTube, ReverbNation, Facebook etc. Pete said “I adore that raw plexi Marshall sound that we all grew up hearing some of our favorite guitarists use, I've always wanted it, and now I finally have it in this amp.”, he certainly does the guitar parts sound amazing on this mid tempo rock track nice chunky crunchy tones and clear ringing open harmonics and the Phaser gives it a real early Van Halen sound in places. I don’t think there is a guitarist on the planet who doesn’t wish his rig made this tone.

But hang on I jumped ahead of myself a bit, ‘Guitar Nerd‘ opens with a track called ‘Revenge Of The Nerd‘ and features one of my favourite rhythm riffs on the album, plus it sounds bloody huge! The rhythm guitar tracks are just so enormous and catchy, the slide guitars melody sits perfectly on top and the solos battle for supremacy each with their own distinctive guitar tone. ‘Revenge Of The Nerd‘ is the perfect album opener, shred rock at its finest.

I’ve covered track 2 ‘Perplexed‘ already so on to track 3 ‘Into The Ether‘ which shifts gears completely from the rock onslaught of the opening tracks to a ballad. This track really highlights how much experimentation Pete has undertaken with his various guitars and amps over the years as it covers the whole spectrum from crystal clean arpeggiated chords to bluesy, slightly crunchy melodies leading up to the overdriven guitar solo at 2:13. This track also shows off Pete’s melodic approach to soloing and you hear little snippets of influences from all the greats wrapped up into Pete’s own style.

‘Homage‘ is another slow track but with more drive from the drums and an intro that could be Jimi Hendrix himself, but then I guess that’s the point with a title like ‘Homage‘? I haven’t heard many people sound this close to Hendrix except for Brian Kahanek on ‘63 Candles‘. But if that wasn’t enough to impress me Pete also does an incredible Jeff Beck style solo too, the track is still totally original but you hear influence intertwined into his inspiration.

The next track ‘Monster Movie‘ has such a great intro, punk stabbing power chords that you can imagine Graham Coxon smashing his Tele with but layered up with doubled tracked melodies and blues rock solos. I love the guitar tones that Pete has created for this track and there is so much energy which is a perfect dynamic change from the previous two tracks.

The opening minute of ‘Velvet Fist‘ sounds to me like Steve Vai collaborated with Andy Summers, but Andy only played a single chord… ok that was probably the weirdest description for a track I’ve ever written but I’m sure someone will get what I mean when you hear it! ‘Velvet Fist‘ has some astonishing guitar playing all the while creating strong melodic and flowing solos, the outro solos make me want to use my phaser more!

Pete did say that this album was going to be eclectic and the pace changes once again with ‘10th Street‘, a ballad incorporating slide guitar melodies, acoustic guitar backing and a contemporary pop/fusiony kind of chord progression and it also has some really tasteful solos. I think the sign of a great guitarist is hearing a solo that doesn’t use obvious licks or falls back on pentatonics but rather builds on the melody with embellishments in the same way Steve Lukather does.

The next track ‘Paid By The Note‘ rocks things up again, when I read the title I was expecting an onslaught of crazy shred and while there is an element of that the track actually has moments of calm between the storms that are the chorus sections, the verse melodies help create a huge dynamic difference to the aggressive solos which feature fast licks, arpeggios, multi-tracked shred licks and plenty of Wah. Like all of the tracks on this album it doesn’t hang around and overstay its’ welcome, it is a 4 minute rollercoaster that I didn’t want to finish.

The penultimate track ‘Promise‘ immediately reminded me of Tosin Abasi playing ‘On Impulse’ by Animals As Leaders, except on a 6 string and a much warmer clean tone. It is one of those tracks that you listen to and think sounds like it would be a really nice clean guitar track to learn for those moments when you are testing the clean channel on a new amp, you know what I mean? The only problem is that I reckon this would be really hard to play correctly, I think this is the track Pete was talking about when he said this on his blog, “…it's a tough piece to play, so I had to be pretty warmed up to pull it off. It's crystal clean, and jumps all over the neck.. tough for the right hand and the left hand too.”

The final track on ‘Guitar Nerd‘ is also the longest track on the album at 5 minutes long called ‘Big Mistake‘. I’ve always thought it must be hard to pick a song to end an album on, do you go out with a bang and pick one of your big rock tracks or do you go with something that is complex and textured that concludes the musical journey? Pete definitely chose the latter, it has that epic Pink Floyd kind of feel to it.

I didn’t intend to give a track by track review of this album but I got carried away after listening to it a few times. Like I said I was really looking forward to hearing the album and it didn’t disappoint in any way. ‘Guitar Nerd‘ will further elevate Pete Thorn’s status in the guitar community and inspire many guitarists around the world, hopefully reaching a new audience beyong the Guitar Nerds among us.

www.peterthorn.com
http://petethorn.wordpress.com