Cat Rood is one cool cat guitar slinger on her all instrumental "Guitar
Play" CD. The first track "Outwalking The Storm" is a smokin’ blues-rock
number, and the storm is her guitar. After that she plays around for
a while with her guitar experimenting with sounds and a genre melting
pot. I wasn’t real impressed with some of the tracks as I felt they
were really undirected and unfocused. It seems as though she was content
adventuring into a flourish of instrumental progressions without any
apparent rhyme or reason. It’s comparable to a mad scientist in a
lab. She had fun I am sure, regardless of my opinion or anyone else’s,
and that is what’s most important to any creative process. I admire
her for her attitude and taking a chance.
When she finally gets down to business and gets serious this woman
really rocks. She sounds as if she could easily be regarded as one
of the top instrumental guitarists with more fine-tuning. On tracks
eight through ten she really gets down to business and struts her
stuff. "No Vacancy" is the best song on the entire recording hands
down. "Warp Drive" and "Finale" follow as a close second and third.
The man who really jump-started all of the six-string pyrotechnics
in the eighties is Joe Satriani. I think artists like Cat owe him
a lot for the attention and validity that this kind of style has been
receiving for so many years.
Potential? This girl has oodles of it. If she could make an entire
album with the consistency of the last three tracks I am sure that
the recognition she desires will be coming her way in no time.
1. Outwalking The Storm
2. For Who Else?
3. Dreamscape
4. The End Of The World
5. Calm Before
6. Take The Detour
7. The Cut
8. No Vacancy
9. Warp Drive
10. Finale
