Tommy Emmanuel
Only

THE REVIEW

Prepare yourselves for one of the most astonishing journeys a musician can give you, a journey made of a thousand colors, landscapes, sensations... this is what awaits you if you decide to let yourself be carried away by the sole acoustic guitar of Tommy Emmanuel.
Talking about this album and the musician in question could be extremely simple, it would suffice to say that the subject in question is, for many, the greatest living guitar virtuoso (a silly label, actually, but someone should know that Tommy does with the acoustic what Vai does with the electric, actually, much more...) and that the album in question is a collection of songs with just the acoustic guitar devoid of the slightest effect!!!

In reality, the album presents unique compositional complexity and thematic richness. Tommy paints in 14 tracks and with the help of just an acoustic guitar (a maton, for the record) a long and incredible journey through the four corners of the Earth, a journey made of personal sensations, memories, emotions.
Only, in fact, is an album conceived during two long years of worldwide touring, in the exclusive company of the instrument itself (hence the title).
Technically speaking, it can be safely asserted that the guitar here reaches peaks rarely seen in the past. Tommy masters the technique of fingerpicking like few others, and the sensation when listening is that of multiple guitarists playing together: the guitar, which for years has suffered comparison to the piano (due to a lesser harmonic richness, caused by the use of only one hand on the keyboard) here takes its "revenge," where incredibly our musician manages with just two hands (?!) to effectively combine melodic and rhythmic lines of rare beauty.

The songs. The album opens with a gem of rare beauty (I'll add my two cents and say Lennon never wrote anything comparable... let me be lashed), Those Who Wait...sweet, melancholic, it appears as a gaze towards an unknown future, that of those people who wait, and continue to wait for their destiny to unfold... I've Always Thought Of You, a tribute to a dear person, a constant and indelible memory. And again, Mombasa, with its playful rhythm reminding us of the warm colors of Africa, Questions, which describes a moment of uncertainty when questions have no answer, Train to Dusseldorf, with its frenetic rhythm (technique in the service of the song... jaw-dropping... just because I don't want to hang up the guitar) telling us about a train journey of our musician... The Robin, with its schizophrenic yet delicate flow, a perfect description of the flight of a swallow (Tommy is a birdwatching enthusiast), Biskie, bouncy and funny, a tribute to a dear friend of Emmanuel's! Amidst so much beauty, an incredible fusion of styles, from country to classical, from blues to folk to jazz, without ever being boring or excessive.

I hope I have appropriately conveyed the value of this album, and above all, I hope you give it a chance because the musician and the person (trust me on this) deserve it.