Cossu, Alessandro: Pensieri

Italian guitarist Alessandro Cossu's debut album Pensieri focuses on the his strength, that being his virtuoso musicianship on the six strings. He has his roots firmly planted in the Malmsteen school of guitar, but Alessandro's music has more in common with jazz and fusion than it does with metal.

Helping out Alessandro are Denis Baselli (bass), Mirko Sclabi (drums) and guest Gilles Boscolo who adds saxophone and keys to a couple of tracks.

As you might expect this is an all instrumental release with lots of jazzy bits sprinkled among these eight tracks. Alessandro lets loose some mean shredding throughout and his neo classical technique is very good as it is hard to find fault with his playing. You can expect lots of stop/starts and tempo changes throughout which helps keep the music interesting and quite progressive. The music does not differ tremendously from track to track but Cossu does slow down the pace adding moodier parts to keep things from being too one dimensional. There are also some pretty good melodies to be found which for me is important in instrumental music.

My favourites include the title track, the jazziest piece here with Boscolo's lovely saxophone, which I would have loved to hear more of and "Direct Crash", a melding of tight crunchy rhythms and neo classical shredding. Other strong tracks include "While Looking Outside" with its dynamic pace, great melody and ripping guitar solos and "A Letter That Hasn't Been Written", a moody dreamlike piece with a layered guitar intro featuring crystal clear notes and some off the charts histrionics. "Another Day" ends the album on a calmer note taking a more subtle approach yet still combining some fine neo classical shredding.

I enjoyed Pensieri; it is a solid album from a fine musician. Hopefully Cossu can make a name for himself as there are a lot of talented guitarists out there making a similar style of music.

Track Listing:
1. Out Of Place
2. Melting Point
3. Pensieri
4. Direct Crash
5. Away
6. While Looking Outside
7. A Letter That Hasn't Been Written
8. Another Day

Added: September 23rd 2011
Reviewer: Jon Neudorf
Score:
Related Link: Artist's MySpace Page
Hits: 1944
Language: english

[ Printer Friendly Page ]
[ Send to a Friend ]