One of Canada's best kept secrets...
Mark Gatzke | Plant City, FL USA | 11/03/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It's tempting (very much so) to compare Colin James with Stevie Ray Vaughan, but that doesn't really do him justice. Where SRV relied on himself and his guitar to drive almost every song, Colin's approach gives everyone involved their own space, making the album sound more like a band than a solo artist. This is a good thing. His discipline opens up everything for a collaboration that allows the music to rise above first glance expectations. The first time I listened to it, I gave it a nod as a decent piece of work. It was the third time around that I began to notice the little things that make the difference between a garden variety blues album suited to background music while balancing my checkbook and a carefully crafted effort that reveals a tacit love for the music they play, demanding the listener's attention and appreciation. The songs themselves fall into a fairly narrow range of blues and blues rock, but the variety he offers within that scope sets this album pretty close to the top of the genre."