Tracy G is a friend of the show and was an integral part of our multi-episode project on Dio’s Strange Highways album, a fantastic piece of work. Not everything he’s done since has hit home with me in the same way though. I like some of Angry Machines and Goaded. The last release to pass through my ears was his Pain Savior Dead Weight On A Dying Planet in 2013, more a project then a real band. Like most projects now involved file sharing back and forth, if you listen deeply enough you can tell. The jamming was missing, something Tracy said was vital to the success of Strange Highways. He wanted a real band, in a room together, old school.
Tramp is the result and it’s the best thing he’s put his name to in years. On first listen the sheer heaviness of the music hits you. Opener The Revolution, Leech and Liar all feature bone crushing riffs and Bleed is probably the heaviest song you will hear all year. The band is killer too with Randy Oviedo on bass and Patrick Johansson on drums, listen to these guys groove on The California Country Jamboree Funkfest. Yet it’s Michael Beatty’s vocals that really floored me, a big man with an even bigger voice. With something to say too with song titles like Arrogant Prick and Liar. I wouldn’t want to spill his pint.
The album is far from one dimensional though. Fireball is a good old time blues number and Brokenness also dials it down a notch or two. Some of the tracks remind me of Living Color circa the Stain album such as Evil Is Good. And that guitar tone, bloody hell how does he get it. Funnily enough it reminds me a little of Eddie Van Halen particularly in the beginning of Leech and Fireball. The album ends on a melancholy note with the restrained Me Myself and the Rain. A nice touch proving how rounded a player Tracy really is, a fact everyone we spoke to on the Strange Highways project alluded to.
So two questions remain, one; have all the Dio Disciples members lost his phone number? Two; does Tracy have the phone number of the girl on the front cover? Great player, great guy and finally a great album.
Get it at http://www.tracyg.com/
Richie.
