Guitar virtuoso Vinnie Moore is back with his latest solo album, titled Double Exposure, and as his main band UFO are clearly winding down, he now has time to dedicate to trying some different things on his solo releases, which he's clearly done here. Instead of just another all-instrumental affair, Moore has brought on board a couple singers to add vocals to a handful of tracks, including Ed Terry, Mike DiMeo, Brian Stephenson, and Keith Slack. Veteran DiMeo adds his potent voice to the hard rocking "Rise", while the upbeat & bluesy heavy rock of "Vertical Horizon" might just be the most enjoyable song overall on the album. "Still Waters Run Deep" has a certain old school Boston meets Southern Rock feel, great hook, riffs, and vocals from Stephenson on that one, while the cranking blues rock of "Paid My Dues" features the killer vocals of Slack and some of Moore's nastiest riffs on the album. "River Flow" and "Hummingbird" take a different route, both more in a Southern rock/crossover country/roots rock style, with vocals from Terry and Slack, and they are both fine for what they are, and somewhat surprising for the guitarist. "Astro Man" signals the instrumental portion of Double Exposure, with Moore kicking up the funk via his wah-wah soaked licks. "Breaking Through" and "In Too Deep" are more straight ahead rockers, not unlike what you'd heard from Joe Satriani, and feature some blazing guitar work (the latter an instrumental reworking of "Still Waters Run Deep" , while "Rocket" is an instrumental version of "Paid My Dues"...with or without vocals, this is a red hot song. "One Day" and "Southern Highway" are both instrumental takes on "River Flow" and "Hummingbird", and it's amazing how pulling the vocals out gives these songs a different feel, and allowing Moore to take over delivering all the melodies. I had to listen to these more than a few times to make sure they were even the same songs.
Overall, Double Exposure is pretty cleverly titled actually, and it's cool to hear Moore going to places musically we might not always expect him to do. I actually think I like some of this bluesier hard rock fare more than similar type stuff he's been doing with UFO for the last bunch of years. Well done!
Track Listing
1 Vertical Horizon
2 Rise
3 Still Waters Run Deep
4 Paid My Dues
5 River Flow
6 Hummingbird
7 Astro Man
8 Breaking Through
9 In Too Deep
10 Rocket
11 One Day
12 Southern Highway