JEFF LOOMIS - 'Zero Order Phase'

\r\n“Zero Order Phase” is the first solo release of Jeff Loomis, guitarist and one of the founding members of Nevermore. This album being an instrumental release gives us the opportunity to listen to Jeff’s well known talent in composing various tracks and his unquestionable guitar technique. Loomis in this album ,besides the guitars has also recorded the bass parts and with Mark Arrington’s help (former Nevermore member) on the drums is composing a very good instrumental album. The guitars are sounding as if they were parts of  a Nevermore album ,especially from their older releases (Politics of ecstasy, Dreaming neon black) something that I think is totally normal while Jeff is a basic composer in that band .The compositions themselves, though they sound a little bit more progressive ,could be easily be on a future Nevermore release as complete songs if we could replace the lead guitar parts with lead vocals. Well Jeff’s purpose, the way I see it , wasn’t to create something new, away from Nevermore’s influence, something that his band mate and personal friend Warrel Dane managed perfectly a few months ago with his also first release “Praises to the war machine”, but to compose freely without any limitations an instrumental album. Generally the album is not only for Nevermore fans (though I think they will like it more than others) but for anyone who wants to have a decent work from a talented musician.\r\n

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\r\nDimitris Karantounias\r\n

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