The Muse is the excellent debut solo album by Neil Wighton. Wighton is primarily known as the guitarist for the progressive rock band Spriggan Mist. Last year they released The Glare (see review) an excellent album. So now he is on his own and what a great debut he made if I may say so! I will tell you why. But first a little introduction: Neal played guitar from the age of 10. Almost went professional in the late 70s with jazz rock band, Oasis. Followed a traditional career instead but played in a number of bands and projects notably Hang Fire in the mid 90s. Around this time he enrolled on Guildford ACM's Modern Rock Guitar course. He joined Spriggan Mist in 2017. His musical influences range from Eric Clapton to Jimmy Hendrix. Form Jan Ackerman to Steve Vai. And from John Pertrucci to Guthrie Govan. So you might expect a rather heavy guitar influenced solo album. However, this not the case at all. The musical genre goes more into the direction of progressive rock with elements of jazz rock and blues. Neil Wighton (guitars, bass, keys, lead and backing vocals) and Scott Hunter (drums) are the main musicians on The Muse. Wighton described the title The Muse as reflecting the "eerie feeling" he experiences when creating music, feeling as though it is "gifted" to him from an external source. I will explain what this feeling resulted. Namely seven excellent compositions. Here I will tell you what they sound like. Wings Of Gold - Starts as a strong neo prog tune mainly thanks to the excellent synthesizer parts. Later on, the composition moves into the direction of Renaissance. Mainly because of the strong female vocals of Dikajee reminding me of Annie Haslam. But also, because of the strong piano playing. The neo prog continuous throughout the rest of the song with strong guitar (solo) and keyboard parts. Precious Life - Sounds a lot like The Alan Parsons Project thanks to the vocal parts and ballad kind of song. Excellent guitar parts again with a great instrumental break performed on the keyboards with beautiful electric piano parts. Cry An Ocean - Nice ballad kind of mellow tune with strong guitar and synth solos. Peter Jones played the 2nd synth solo and Jon Axon shared guitar solos with Neal. Again, lots of neo prog included. Among The Living Dead - More up tempo and heavy guitar parts but also with great instrumental parts on the synthesizers and electric piano. Lonely Waters - Again a rather mellow tune which gets more up tempo towards the end. Dikajee returns on backing vocals and again a great synth solo and piano parts. There'll Come A Time - Again rather mellow tune. With delicate parts performed on the keyboards and electric guitar. The guitar solo at end has some blues influences. The Secret - Impressive opening on the keyboards. Great ending piece with strong bombastic music and climax. That's all about the music. But I guess the album title needs a bit more explanation as well. Euterpe, one of the Nine Muses in Greek Mythology, is the Muse of Music, Song and Lyric Poetry. She inspires harmony and eloquence in artistic expression. Neal was inspired to entitle this album The Muse by the eerie feeling he gets when he creates music that he feels is worthy of sharing with the world. It is like it has come from outside of him. That it has been gifted to him by The Muse. The beautiful album art work made by Mike Burgess, visualizes in a splendid way what Neil tries to explain. The general feeling when listening to The Music is that Neil Wighton has delivered a fantastic debut. A debut featuring seven songs of a very high musical standard. Songs on which he reveals himself as a musician who plays the guitars and keyboards with great skill, and who also possesses a great voice. Everything is simply done very skilfully on this beautiful album. It is simply a pleasure to listen to and is therefore highly recommended for all lovers of progressive rock in general. **** Henri Strik (edited by Dave Smith) Where to buy? |
