Assiah - Of Fire and Light

Hear The Track Here

I met Assiah a while ago in the Saturday Night Rocks chatroom over on Songplanet, and I even heard this tune - I know it registered on me because I can remember commenting on it. However, like a lot of Saturday nights in that place, the mind tends to go fuzzy when you try and think about what actually happened. It's nice then to see him come up in the list this month with a track stating 'I broke my own rules and put one of my songs up for download just so it can be graced by your venerable presence' Venerable presence eh? You can stay. I can appreciate the pull between artists who want to keep their music as a pay for download, and those who pretty much release everything free. I also understand that it's difficult for artists who don't allow downloads to miss out on reviews because of that, but as most people know - I am very flexible as to HOW I get the track to live with a while. Reviewers in the real world get promo copies, why shouldn't the same rule apply here?

Anyway, enough of that. Let's have some of this...

Of Fire and Light is seven plus minutes of guitar pyrotechnics that could well have come from the dawn of the Rock Age, complete with references to all of David McKee's (aka Assiah) heroes, so be prepared for the ear bashing of your life. Like the man himself, I'm not sure about his Heavy Metal classification because - to me - this is more classic rock than just about anything else around. Because of it's length it obviously dives into a few nooks and crannies along the way and structurally it feels almost prog rock in places and - as you know - that isn't likely to tickle my ivories. Assiah pulls it off though because I did find myself - after some considerable plays mind - liking this peice more and more. There is no doubt whatsoever that Assiah is a guitarist of the old school with solos coming out of his ever pore and that - my fearful friends - is exactly what Of Fire and Light brings into your lives.

S'OK for a rock animal like myself I suppose (although if I were honest it's a bit [i]too[/i] convoluted for my personal taste) but will it appeal on a more general level? For my money, I'd have to say that it's a bit specialised to really attract any but the most dedicated guitar nuts because Assiah is - it has to be said - a damn fine guitarist but having said that I'd still want more than endless guitar solos no matter how good. Assiah does provide that somewhat by the choice of instruments and their use in the backing track but ultimately proved not enough. Not that Assiah would need to worry about what I think about this because I know SC has a large - and largely discerning - rock audience and word gets out surprisingly fast. Of Fire and Light is chock full of ideas in a mix that (just) allows them all to show off and introduces this reviewer - and hopefully you too - to a new source of red meat rock.

'ard, not 'umble and Recommended classic rock sounds.