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Do you know an American amusement park complete with arcade rooms and horror tunnels?
Do you know the Irish landscapes?
Well! These are the scenarios that Beck seems to draw with his guitar!
In this 1989 work, he is accompanied by Tony Hymas on keyboards and Terry Bozzio on drums; hard, techno-prog, reggae, dance-house, and instrumental tracks follow one another, in short, the usual tangle of Jeff...
The sound of some tracks gives, at times, a dark atmosphere, like a horror circus.
Something I feel in Big Block, a work with a dark flavor, soothed only by the clean licks that lie beneath the dark sound of the main theme.
In the opening track, instead, there's a "video game arcade" sensation and it's here that other reviewers have noticed an amazing phrase of only 3 seconds, which, executed without a pick and with large mechanic-like fingers, drives me crazy!!!
My favorite track is "Savoy" with a galloping opening riff, performed to perfection, and a main theme with a clean sound obtained with chords on the first three strings (and bending...). The whole is devastated by a torrent of distortion, live effect solos, and a concluding tapping. A strange solo at 1'33" seems to be played by ripping the strings near the bridge or, perhaps(?), striking them with a metal object like a percussion (damn you, Jeff!). The apotheosis is almost near!
Behind the Veil, written by Tony Hymas, is reggae according to Beck where the sound is reminiscent of his soundtrack "Frankies House," made in 1994. But what I like most is the drumstick work by Terry Bozzio.
Where Were You* is the gem of the album, a celestial theme with an Irish flavor performed after the 12th fret with lots of lever and harmonics. Obviously (!!) with the same hand Jeff performs the usual volume swell à la Roy Buchanan. If it weren't a man playing it, one might think of a tentacled being!
Two Rivers is another track with an ancestral and delicate taste, in line with the previous Where Were You. The usual Beck who with his guitar wants to enter our bedrooms! A magical sound from a romantic film with a swan song concluding.
Stand on it and Sling Shot are the most aggressive hard tracks on the album, very similar to the techno prog that Beck would offer us in the years to come, while Day in the House winks at a certain music from the '90s with video game riffs.
How can we not conclude with the beautiful album cover?
A vivid and colorful mechanical Beck, handling a gigantic Strato on a hydraulic lift. Almost to demonstrate that he is a guitar craftsman, an experimenter beyond the standards the media have accustomed us to.
His riffs, his licks, and his instrumental inventions are at the service of the moment's creativity and not vice versa, his toolbox is full of tremolo arm, trills, tapping, semi-chords, bending, harmonics, chicken picking, swell, wah-wah, and much more!
Probably this work represents, from a technical-expressive point of view, the peak achieved in that era by Jeff Beck and, let's be honest, after Where Were You there's nothing more to do! Elegance has become master with technique at its service.
Like a painter using a guitar instead of a brush!
*And where should I have been? Burning my Strato...
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