Polyphia "Renaissance", by Grant Stoner
Grant Stoner | Published on 10/26/2023
My album pic for this month is Polyphia " Renaissance". 2016 Equal Vision records CD.
I have to face at times that I'm mainly a guitar player. I dabble a lot with other things. My latest album was electronica with very little guitar. I promise the next album will be guitar oriented. Although I'm not a great player, it is what I know best. Leslie is frequently amazed at my being able to name a jazz player after just a few notes.
With that in mind, I'm gonna focus a series of album picks on guitar players. Call it " Grant's guitar corner". It'll be a wide variety of styles. There are so many great players nowadays, all you need to do is glance at You Tube and see some 12 year old boy or girl who would make Eddie Van Halen jealous.
Tim Henson and Scott Lepage came on the scene some years back when they were quite young. They represent a kinda new breed of guitar player. Tim and Scott both have incredible technique, but it's not like endless long solos. It's more like very intricate rhythms and short solos. Yet, despite the virtuosity, it's very melodic. I don't know how they come up with all these flowing streams of melodic harmonies. The music is really...well.. musical and beautiful.
Bass player Clay Gober and drummer Brandon Burkhalter are virtuoustic as well. Everything is very balanced in the mix, but the overall sound is quite compressed for my taste. I hear Polyphia have many young fans, who are probably listening thru ear buds. That may explain it. They make use often of a low fi intro, then break into an expanded clear sound, which is a nice effect. Maybe it would be too intense if the recording was clearer and larger. Like I said, it is somehow pretty music...you could play it as background at low volume, and still sounds nice, despite the speed and intricacies of the notes flying by. Overall, a very interesting album if you like instrumental rock guitar.