Philip Sayce
Philip Sayce
Influence
(Provogue Records)
JON Bon Jovi was on to something back in 2007 when he described Sayce as a "pretty great, pretty fabulous" guitarist. Seven years on, the Welsh-born, Canadian-raised prodigy, while not yet a household name, continues to fulfil his early promise.
As befits someone whose guitar heroes included Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Healey (with whom he would later record and tour), Sayce delivers lots of raw, muscular fretwork on his latest album, right from the opening track, a powerhouse version of an old work song, Tom Devil, which is followed by a Hendrix tribute, Out Of My Mind.
There are lots of these energetic, guitar-driven numbers on this 13-track album, yet Sayce also does a fine job with a handful of covers - an organ-inflected version of Graham Nash's Better Days, and Little Feat's funky Sailin' Shoes. It's songs such as these - and a superb, reflective Sayce original, Fade Into You, about "being screwed over in the music business" - that give the album room to breathe while underscoring his versatility.
On the instrumental Triumph, he channels Pink Floyd's David Gilmour; and his guitar work lights up Thomas A Dorsey's gospel classic Peace In The Valley, on which vocal duties are handed to the veteran Joe Savage.
Russell Leadbetter
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article