Evan Egerer "Evan Egerer EP"

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this, but the basis of my music interests, as wide as they stem, always comes back to that simple blues influenced hard rock. Guys like Slash or early Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy, Nazareth, etc. After listening to (and of course loving) the latest in metal and alternative, I always find my way back to artists such as the previously mentioned artists and remember that they are where my roots of my love for music come from.

Modern rock music doesn’t feature enough of this style of musicians anymore. I mean, according to a lot of them, they were influenced by such guitarists as Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton or whomever, but yet their music, from a guitar playing perspective at least, doesn’t show this influence in it at all. I can’t remember whose article it was that I read about a month ago, but he mentioned a few reasons why metal (even though this article is about rock in general) has become somewhat of a joke, and one of his reasons was that not enough guitarists go back to the blues. While modern guitarists claim that such greats from the 60’s/70’s inspired them, they try too hard to sound like the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai. The problem is that while guys like Yngwie were inspired by such guitarists as Ritchie Blackmore, fans of Yngwie don’t hear that influence, and it gets lost in translation when they try learning guitar. While guys like Yngwie and Steve have inspired a slew of fast shredding talent, they also caused this rift between putting feeling in to what they’re playing and just playing as fast as you can. That is my take anyway.

That brings me to the true topic of this article. A few weeks ago, I came across blues rock artist Evan Egerer. He and his band have out a self titled four track EP that I was rather impressed with. Evan and his band, which includes Taylor Storaci on bass and Brennen Reed on drums, capture the essence of a great blues-rock influence and put it forth in to music that sounds modern enough. Basically while their music has a strong 70’s influence, it doesn’t sound like it was recorded in the 70’s.

The EP opens with Live My Life. This track immediately starts off with a good badass guitar riff, with a nice blues tone. The song maintains a low sound, nothing too heavy, but still doesn’t fail to get the point across that this is a group to be taken seriously.

Keeping Hold slows the album down significantly. I’m impressed with the genuine feeling that is put toward this song. It has changes in pace throughout thanks to the impressive drumming of Brennen that doesn’t take away from the calm and nurturing feel of the song. This song sets up listeners for the albums ballad Lights Out. This song is done completely on acoustic guitar and concentrates more on Evans soothing voice.

The last of the four tracks on the album is On My Way. This song starts the way Lights Out ended; an acoustic guitar. This is more of a delta blues influenced song rather than a ballad, and it doesn’t take long for the electric guitars and the rest of the band to chime in, but it never loses its acoustic heart. Musically, this song could very well be the best on the album, the way it mixes instruments and overdubs appropriately placed electric guitars. The only problem is that while Evan’s voice to this point has been great, everything a blues rock singer would need to put forth, he just didn’t get it right on this track. His heart is in the right place, but his voice doesn’t hit the notes the way that it seems they should have been hit, with exception given to the songs bridge.

Regardless, nothing should be taken away from the impressive talent that is displayed by the band. All four tracks are soulful in a way that rock music hasn’t showed much of in recent years. I also very much enjoy how it sticks to the basics, yet is far from being simple and most definitely not boring. I do wish that there were more than four songs on the EP, luckily it doesn’t look like the band is anywhere near finished.

ALBUM HIGHLIGHT

“Live My Life” –­ The leading song from the album. As anyone who’s read previous articles of mine would know, I do not by any means pick the highlight based on how the song is promoted. Though with only four songs, the choice was obvious. While all of the songs are completely different from one another, Evan Egerer’s main sound and influence lies in this track. Should this album have had more songs,  they would have been filled with songs as badass as this one.

 

FINAL RATING

7.5 (Out of 10)

 

Track List:

1.	Live My Life	3:48
2.	Keeping Hold	4:23
3.	Light Out	3:27
4.	On My Way	5:13