Bryan Beller deserves hazard pay for his years of basswork alongside Taylor clinician Mike Keneally. Anyone who’s been to a Keneally workshop has surely marveled at Beller’s ability to ride shotgun on Mike’s demanding passages, the equivalent of pedaling a unicycle on a tightrope without a safety net — on a windy day, no less.
With a Berklee music diploma and a stage résumé that includes nearly a decade as a low-ender with Keneally (as well as stints with Ahmet and Dweezil Zappa’s former band, Z, ex-MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, and Steve Vai), Beller certainly is no stranger to intense, technically challenging material. His action-packed solo debut, View, reveals Beller the accomplished, mature musician, for whom technical prowess isn’t a gratuitous end, but a language for weaving inventive narratives rich with emotion and ambience.

In the spirit of great progressive rock, View defies easy definition, especially given the variety of sonic terrain that Beller covers. A mostly instrumental affair, it runs a full stylistic gamut: solo acoustic introspection, avant jazz-funk, distortion-drenched hard rock, syncopating world fusion, symphonic soundscapes. But rather than randomly skim the surface of different forms, Beller honors the progressive nature of the album format of his formative music heroes. The result is a scenic musical journey that transports the listener through shifting moods and speeds, in a mix of shapely curves and sharp angles.

View’s emotional themes reflect the mixed bag of complexities and contradictions that define daily life, as reflected not only over the trajectory of the album, but within each song. To his credit, Beller steers clear of the potentially weighty “concept album” approach, opting instead to use the largely instrumental form to express his emotions in a way that affords the listener more freedom to interpret the music.

Beller’s band is anchored by friends and fellow extreme musicians, including drummers Joe Travers (Duran Duran) and Toss Panos (Toy Matinee, Steve Vai), guitarist Rick Musallam (Mike Keneally Band, Ben Taylor Band), L.A. session keyboard ace Jeff Babko (Michael Landau, Jimmy Kimmel Live house band), and Mike Keneally (who plays everything from baritone guitar to organ) among others. With his creative cast in place, Beller, who self-produced, assembled different configurations of players to infuse each song with distinctive energy.

As a writer/composer, Beller’s talents are impressive. He starts with imaginative and well-crafted song structures, drawing in the personalities of the players to bring fullness and depth to them. There’s a lot of complexity, yet between the crisp interaction of the musicians, the arrangements, and the meticulous engineering work of Nick D’Virgilio (Spock’s Beard), even the densest tracks have great clarity and tonal flavor. This enhances the interplay, and gives most of the tunes an organic, “live” feel. The way Beller and his crew communicate leads to some of the most thrilling and inspired musical conversations you’ll ever hear.

On the opener, “Bear Divide”, Beller gently awakens the senses with a sweet solo acoustic melody on Taylor AB4, before segueing from the sound of a soothing stream into the bleating freight train entrance of “Seven Percent Grade”. Equal parts intricate and ferocious, it’s an ambitious jazz-rock feast that builds around a five-note figure reminiscent of “Eleanor Rigby”, with Beller, Travers, Musallam, and Keneally (on piano) weaving through the melody in a searing fusion that surges and recedes for a few rounds, escalating to the point of terminal velocity.

On another great track, the groove-laden “Supermarket People”, the Meters meet Medeski, Martin & Wood in a funky, pockety jam soaked in Hammond organ and laced with Keneally’s swaggering lead guitar. “Elate” is a moody passage that washes the palette for “Get Things Done”, a worldbeat percussion-fueled jam. It’s just Beller and his AB4 on a pair of other cuts, including a melodic cover of bass icon John Patitucci’s “Backwoods”. The cinematic “Eighteen Weeks” rises to majestic heights, materializing out of the dreamy ether into an electrified symphony tinged with vibraphone and a lush string arrangement.

Throughout View, Beller seems to enjoy exploring a range of different tonalities to etch his moods, which include the dark, Trent Reznor-like purge of “Projectile”, the wah-wah/fuzz-toned groove of “Wildflower”, and the dark, vicious ‘n’ delicious riffing of “See You Next Tuesday”.

It might be Beller’s first solo record, but his musical vision reflects an overstuffed decade’s worth of musical adventures that pay off richly. If you like improvisationally minded progressive rock, you’ll enjoy this killer View.

Click here to see the review posted at the Taylor Guitars website.

----

© 2004, Wood & Steel, all rights reserved.