| CD REVIEW George Bellas |
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Band : George Bellas Okay, seems like my last job on a Bellas-related album pre-dates the crash our Concrete Web pc suffered in late 2004 – early 2005, and is therefore no longer available...so I guess I'd best give you a short history of this great guitarist/ bassist/ keyboardist, teacher and composer of not only neo-classical and Progressive music, as well as instrumental Heavy Rock/ Metal...but also of pure classic and Jazz! George srarted playing guitar when he was 7, on a classical guitar bought for him by his dad. In fact, there's a funny story to that: on the way home from the shop, in the back of the car, the young Bellas started picking his guitar for the first time, and upon coming home he ran out to the neighborhood playing his new guitar. Next day at school the boy checked out every music book in the library, starting his never-ending study of music. He then set himself to practicing the guitar to the point of getting bleeding fingers. Then, he would simply put bandaids on 'em and continue practicing anyway! Talk about dedication (or obsession) for your art. In his mid-teens Bellas started teaching at his own Prodigy's School Of Music, while at the same time continuing to study music theory, harmony, rhythm, counterpoint, and form...rehearsing with his bands Union Jack, Destiny, FreeFall and Prodigy (no relation to the British band)...gigging with them on a fairly extensive basis...and composing a seemingly incredulous amount of music, which already had the penchant towards Classical counterpoint and odd rhythms that would become his later trademark. In the Fall of 1996 he sent demos of some of his compositions to Shrapnel Records owner Mike Varney, whom immediately saw Bellas' qualities and signed him to his label, setting him up with drummer Dean Castronova & Brad Kaiser, plus additional keyboardist Matt Guillery and bassist Kevin Chown to record Bellas's debut solo Turn Of The Century for a May 1997 release. Soon after signing with Shrapnel, Varney called Bellas to see whether he would be interested in working on a new UFO album. Phil Mogg and Pete Way had heard George's play through Varney, and had apparently picked him, impressed by his play and composition finesse. George complied, flew out to Way's place to co-write and rehearse, and eventually the album was recorded in San Fransisco (with Aynsley Dunbar as drummer and Mr. Big's Eric Martin as additional vocal guest). Due to at that time unsolvable legal reasons, Edge Of The World would eventually be released under the bandname Mogg/ Way; In between those 2 albums George still found time to write an amount of songs for John West's album Mind Journey (released Shrapnel, May '97). George saw his second instrumental neoclassical solo album Mind Over Matter (contributors included Castronovo on drums, and Barry Sparks on bass) in February 1998, and later that year the 2nd John West album Permanent Mark would again comprise some music by George's pen. Okay, pushing of the faster forward button (my own), George next contributed to Vitalij Kuprij's Extreme Measures (Shrapnel, August 2008), and Kuprij would return the favour by joining George's new band Ring Of Fire (which also comprised singer Mark Boals, drummer Virgil Donati, and bassist Philip Bynoe – all well-respected musicians in their own right) and record the album Oracle (released 2001, re-issued through Frontiers in 2003). In late 2001 he also completed work on a 12-disc cd-R guitar course titled The George Bellas Instructional Series. In Summer 2002 he recorded the album Hundred Year Flood (Magna Carta Records, Sept. 2002) with the band Magellan (including also Trent Gardner on keyboards & vocals, Tony Levin on bass, Ian Anderson on flute, and Joe Franco on drums). In January 2003 Bellas' media production company released several music education software titles, and in June of that year he signs to Lion Music, who release his first new solo album in several years, Venomous Fingers, that same November. In between, he'd still contributed to Vitalij Kuprij's 2004 album Forward And Beyond (which I reviewed at the time), but otherwize George was strangely inactive on the release front for a while, his following album Flying Through Infinity (released under the “bandname” Palace Terrace) following only in November 2007. Since then (and always on Lion Music) there's been February 2008's Planetary Allignment, a first collaboration with drummer Marco Minneman, and January 2009's Step Into The Future (in essence a 76-minute one-track piece, again with Minneman). The new album (again with Minneman on drums, and Bellas playing all guitars, bass, and keyboards) is another instrumental masterpiece filling the CD to the gills, the 19 tracks lasting no less than just under 80 minutes! In essence, the songs are inspired by the universe (and the works of Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke) how it was created, and from where and what it came from (in Bellas' view, of course). Stylistically, you'll find some diversification depending on the song's needs. Sometimes bordering the classic styles and somewhat calmer, other times displaying ferocious guitar play that combines technique with warmth in a Progressive/ Shred hybridization. Yet other tracks are pure Neo-Classical. The more advanced listener will also recognize that some of the tracks were written like a song without lyrics, while others were composed in a virtuoso instrumental style. According to the bio I got with this promo download of the album, The Dawn Of Time differs from Bellas's last two albums considerably, as those two were rather geared towards a ultra modern style, whereas the new album “...consists more of neoclassical sound, along with some futurism sprinkled throughout...” Now I've tried to find you some sites on the Internet where you could find some of the album's songs in full-length version, but failed miserably (myspace.com/georgebellas doesn't even have a music player, nor are there any videos posted, although it's mentioned that two tracks off the album will get a video soon), so I suppose you'll have to make due with the samples usually posted at the on-line stores (you know, iTunes, Amazon.com, etc...). Oh...hey, wait! I just thought of a way. Yeah...just log onto Lionmusic.com, get onto the album's info, and there's the two videos posted already (tracks “Machine Man” and the album title track)!!! 95/100 Tony. |