I absolutely love when cds like this show up, I have no idea who or what the members of this band are, or where they came from, as a music afficianado, there are always those recordings from artists that you always anticipate each year, or those archival discoveries from yesteryear are always nice, but hearing artists that take you by complete surprise are sometimes the most enjoyble part of doing music reviews, and being a fan of good music in general.

Hardwired, not even sure how this came my way, but one spin into the cd, and I knew this was my kind of music. Based around the composing and guitar antics of Eric Miley, and a few drummers and co-hosts to help round out a band setting. The music was project oriented with the objective being "To blend melody and passion with intense heavy guitar and drum playing to tell a story with each song." As quoted from the bands' website, not sure about that story thing, but I definitely agree with the intense thing, and they could have easily added creating complex structures, and daring excursions into instrumental band oriented music.

Miley is more than a capable guitarist, taking on many facets of fusion and rock guitar artistry. He is a tasteful soloist, but seldom does this music give the impression that I am listening to a guitarists cd. Credit goes large in part to the style of music being created here. It has a similar calculated structure approach that one might hear from bands like Planet X, Spastic Ink, Electrocution 250, Greg Howe, or Michael Harris. Yet never really sounding like any of those artists.

It's not the longest cd, clocking in at just under 40 minutes, yet it's a fully digestable and tasteful collection of songs. I get the impression that Miley was inspired by some of the usual suspects from the early days of prog and fusion. Rush's instrumental moments come to mind, as do some other things, most of recent prog/fusion history. This is a nice cd, and not so difficult to get into, the technical aspects are not overly complicated, but sufficient enough to keep you on your toes. Apparently the 'band' is working on new material, and if they do anything remotely close to the music on this cd, I will be interested in following up on their progress a
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