Gary Moore
A Different Beat

For this end-of-millennium work, the decision was made, regarding the cover, to once again feature Moore’s favorite tool: the old Gibson belonging to Fleetwood Mac’s founder, christened “Greeny,” which Gary bought for himself in ’73 after the original owner had lost his mind and stopped using it.

An obsessive love, that of the owner of this album, which nevertheless ended in 2006 as, by then experiencing financial difficulties due to a slew of unpaid gigs, he resorted to selling it for a million pounds. By now, after a couple more changes of ownership, this “blonde” resides at Kirk Hammett’s place, that guy from Metallica.

And yet, it isn’t even the guitar our man used most: Moore decidedly relied on old Fender Stratocasters to craft those mighty and muscular rock blues for which he is remembered and missed.

The Les Paul was reserved for slow tunes, ballads, instrumentals like “Parisienne Walkways” which faithfully show up, every so often, on almost all his works. These tracks bring variety, gentleness, and a deeply moving component to his stylistic mix that’s truly attractive.

The album’s title refers to the heavy techno contaminations present in these songs. Moore thus chose to trust people like Ez-Rollers and keyboardist/programmer Roger King, to bring flashes of drum&bass and industrial inserts, on which to graft his guitars, his voice, his blues.

No drummer, then, except for a couple of tracks. What emerged was an album full of contamination, thick coats of “up-to-date” paint covering the usual muscular blues, in other words, with major pop-dance concessions. Personally, I’m not exactly thrilled about it.

There is, however, at a certain point, a great and powerful cover of Hendrix's “Fire” (may it always be praised), which, thanks to guest Gary Husband wielding a real drum kit, breaks up the obsessive computerised drum&bass grooves, wrapped in cold and cyclic guitar sounds, as well as those typical deep and thin voices that are more talking than singing—in short, the usual techno mishmash. Boring as hell.

Another twist on the electro dance direction is the atmospheric “Surrender,” a slow, nocturnal, and even rather sexy tune, where tremolo reigns supreme. Though, come to think of it, “tremolo” isn’t exactly a good thing during sex, heh heh!

Sorry. In the opening track “Go on Home,” you can admire a slide-played guitar over an insistent drum&bass: a pretty odd pairing. The slide, in any case, has an extremely industrial tone, with zero reverb and harsh distortion. Kind of the story for the whole album.

So what can we give this dance blues experiment, this daring and irreverent combo ventured by 1999's Moore? Three stars, because he’s always great Gary? Just two, because techno bores me, even annoys me? The first one I said! ...the heart wants what it wants. There are three or four good tracks in here.