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RUSTY COOLEY - RUSTY COOLEY
LION MUSIC

Rusty Cooley comes from Connecticut and through one of my friends who co-wrote the book "The Modern Guitarist" I have been aware of how well thought of and respected Cooley is despite being a relatively unknown guitarist.

Unknown he maybe, but the words talent just seem to bleed from the tips of this guys fingers. Cooley's first band was called "Revolution" who were lucky enough to play live with the likes of Badlands, Southgang, Every Mother's Nightmare and Michael Angelo's excellent Nitro band (Lasse for gods sake sign Nitro if they're still around!)

Cooley has also played in a band called Outworld whom were featured in our bands contest a few months ago, and I believe have now signed to Lion Music.

So here we have Rusty's dynamic, shredtastic debut album which is an instrumental album, but its an album full of character and terrific songs of various styles which mostly remind of Jason Becker and Paul Gilbert in his Racer X days, this album is case of blink and you'll miss the exciting parts as Cooley's is a monstrous skilful shredder, he plays with feeling and his songs aren't about scoring the fastest licks heard since Yngwie Malmsteen.

No the album is more than that if you listen to it carefully, you can hear within the songs lots of different textures, such as on the melodic 'Dark Matter', and the funky 'War Of The Angels' in other words just when you think you have Cooley's technique pinned down, he turns the song around in different directions which makes for a groovy instrumental album chopped to the hilt with pulsating ideas. Fans of instrumental records will not be disappointed.

Nicky Baldrian