Ron Vogel - Anthem

Hear The Track Here

Let me start be saying one word to Ron Vogel: Mixposure. That site would love what you are doing (Ed: it's called research Gilmore and if you did some you'd know he was already over there) because out of all the sites I frequent it is the one most amenable to guitarists of all persuasions. One thing the slew of Ron Vogel tracks I have reviewed since I first made his acquaintance with Blazing (November 2009) has taught me is that - first and foremost - this is a guitar player. Having said that, his tracks are an interesting spread of Alternative and classic rock, many of which I have enjoyed listening to a lot but I am a well known rock animal so I would.

The competition in this genre though is fierce, fierce, fierce because there are only so many sets of ears to go round and more artists of this stripe than you can shake a stick at. I know, I've reviewed most of them and while I am a well known softie, I am well aware that other people may not take so much to this side of rock. Still, **** 'em I say. Ron has survived because his experience enables him to keep on coming up with tracks that, while derivative and cliched, still manage to touch a nerve or two. He's also proved, over the space of the last year that he can write a very decent song indeed but not one I have yet found cause to rave about but - if this track is anything to go by - I think it's just a question of time.

While I am only too well aware of the pitfalls of home recording and will cut people a break according to their equipment, there is a line where that isn't possible and Ron hasn't stepped across it yet. That is not to say that his work does not sound home recorded, it does, but the quality of the music and the song win through every time. I've tried this on a lot of different sound systems and, in the process, become very familiar with it and while I might tidy up this and that, the overall feeling it this works a treat. More to the point, it's a kinda/sorta ballad thing and you know how I get a headache whenever there is one of them in the vicinity but not with Anthem. A class song, in a class arrangement.

Highly Recommended rock.