Various Artists
SIN-atra
Armoury Records
Ready for some metal versions of Frank Sinatra classics? Glenn Hughes, Devin Townsend, Ripper Owens, and Dee Snider are among the 12 notable artists lending their vocal talents to songs like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “New York, New York,” “Witchcraft,” and “It Was a Very Good Year.” Unfortunately, some stellar vocal performances and righteous guitar and bass riffery by Bob Kulick, Richie Kotzen, and Billy Sheehan end up falling flat due to the project’s humor-bent focus and the use of keyboards. I get the dilemma—you can’t just delete Nelson Riddle horn lines and string swells from something paying tribute to Sinatra. Regardless, the keyboard tones simply kill this otherwise brave mashup, grating on your skull much like the brass-mocking keyboard in Europe’s “The Final Countdown.” Too bad. Some moments of legit darkness that breathe interesting new life into these charts get overshadowed by all the cheese.
SIN-atra
Armoury Records
Ready for some metal versions of Frank Sinatra classics? Glenn Hughes, Devin Townsend, Ripper Owens, and Dee Snider are among the 12 notable artists lending their vocal talents to songs like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “New York, New York,” “Witchcraft,” and “It Was a Very Good Year.” Unfortunately, some stellar vocal performances and righteous guitar and bass riffery by Bob Kulick, Richie Kotzen, and Billy Sheehan end up falling flat due to the project’s humor-bent focus and the use of keyboards. I get the dilemma—you can’t just delete Nelson Riddle horn lines and string swells from something paying tribute to Sinatra. Regardless, the keyboard tones simply kill this otherwise brave mashup, grating on your skull much like the brass-mocking keyboard in Europe’s “The Final Countdown.” Too bad. Some moments of legit darkness that breathe interesting new life into these charts get overshadowed by all the cheese.Mastodon
Live at the Aragon
Reprise Records
On the heels of releasing their fourth album Crack the Skye—a prog-metal masterpiece with refinements on vocal deliveries and tighter instrumentation woven together with a Tsarist Russian narrative on astral travel—Mastodon hit the road playing the disc in its entirety. And the Live at the Aragon CD/DVD offers those seven songs with some added sludgy goodness in the form of Remission and Leviathan fan favorites.
In theory, Mastodon’s instinct to showcase the concept album Crack the Skye in its full glory, from front to back, is the right one, but one that takes extreme precision and discipline to completely pull off. To expect dead-on, exact note-for-note playback on such a challenging album in a live setting is foolish. However, the interplay between guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher's dual-chugging parts in “Divinations” and “Quintessence” borders on sloppy, particularly contrasted against the tightness of the recorded version of Crack the Skye. The fluidity of a live show does play into the album’s favor for some tunes, like the guitarists’ back-and-forth during the climatic parts of “The Czar” and the closing moments of “The Last Baron,” where Hinds goes into sustaining solo runs while Kelliher hangs in the pocket and locks the rhythm with drummer Brann Dailor and bassist Troy Sanders. As the band moves into some of their oldies, they solidify their Thin Lizzy-esque dual-guitar attack. “Circle of Cysquatch” and “Mother Puncher” provide clinics for arpeggiated, precise single-note runs and fast-paced, down-tuned rhythm riffing. The set concludes with a powerfully charismatic cover of the Melvins’ “The Bit” anchored by Sanders' crescendoing vocals and dynamic low-end interplay with the distorted guitars.
Hinds is known for his primitive gargles and thunderous grunts (see their EP Lifesblood or first full-length LP Remission), but what made Crack the Skye so great was Hinds' ability to dial the aggro-man routine back a bit and provide a contrasting voice to Sanders. During Live at the Aragon, Hinds retreats to his old, guttural ways, providing bonus aggression but detracting from the music and lyrics on “Ghost of Karelia” and “Divinations.” Hinds does nail the prehistoric roars on older Mastodon songs “Where Strides the Behemoth” and “Aqua Dementia,” but Sanders (“Crack the Skye” and “The Bit”) and Dailor (“Oblivion”) taking lead vocal duties are a welcome change of pace.
The accompanying DVD does a great job capturing the show with smooth, sweeping crane shots, tight zooms during Hinds and Kelliher's key shredding points, and a high quality soundtrack with no audible shortcomings or glitches. In addition, the DVD features a 58-minute tour film that aired onstage during the tour as the band performed Crack the Skye. The film contains haunting images and scenes that correspond with the ebb and flow of the album.
For Mastodon fans, the Live at the Aragon CD/DVD combo is well worth the $14.99 price tag and is a solid live album. But, perhaps due to the fact that this show was recorded during their second consecutive world tour, it falls just short on delivering all of the charismatic energy, palpable enthusiastic jams, and overall musical goodness that concertgoers experienced firsthand Crack the Skye shows.
Live at the Aragon
Reprise Records
On the heels of releasing their fourth album Crack the Skye—a prog-metal masterpiece with refinements on vocal deliveries and tighter instrumentation woven together with a Tsarist Russian narrative on astral travel—Mastodon hit the road playing the disc in its entirety. And the Live at the Aragon CD/DVD offers those seven songs with some added sludgy goodness in the form of Remission and Leviathan fan favorites.
In theory, Mastodon’s instinct to showcase the concept album Crack the Skye in its full glory, from front to back, is the right one, but one that takes extreme precision and discipline to completely pull off. To expect dead-on, exact note-for-note playback on such a challenging album in a live setting is foolish. However, the interplay between guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher's dual-chugging parts in “Divinations” and “Quintessence” borders on sloppy, particularly contrasted against the tightness of the recorded version of Crack the Skye. The fluidity of a live show does play into the album’s favor for some tunes, like the guitarists’ back-and-forth during the climatic parts of “The Czar” and the closing moments of “The Last Baron,” where Hinds goes into sustaining solo runs while Kelliher hangs in the pocket and locks the rhythm with drummer Brann Dailor and bassist Troy Sanders. As the band moves into some of their oldies, they solidify their Thin Lizzy-esque dual-guitar attack. “Circle of Cysquatch” and “Mother Puncher” provide clinics for arpeggiated, precise single-note runs and fast-paced, down-tuned rhythm riffing. The set concludes with a powerfully charismatic cover of the Melvins’ “The Bit” anchored by Sanders' crescendoing vocals and dynamic low-end interplay with the distorted guitars.
Hinds is known for his primitive gargles and thunderous grunts (see their EP Lifesblood or first full-length LP Remission), but what made Crack the Skye so great was Hinds' ability to dial the aggro-man routine back a bit and provide a contrasting voice to Sanders. During Live at the Aragon, Hinds retreats to his old, guttural ways, providing bonus aggression but detracting from the music and lyrics on “Ghost of Karelia” and “Divinations.” Hinds does nail the prehistoric roars on older Mastodon songs “Where Strides the Behemoth” and “Aqua Dementia,” but Sanders (“Crack the Skye” and “The Bit”) and Dailor (“Oblivion”) taking lead vocal duties are a welcome change of pace.
The accompanying DVD does a great job capturing the show with smooth, sweeping crane shots, tight zooms during Hinds and Kelliher's key shredding points, and a high quality soundtrack with no audible shortcomings or glitches. In addition, the DVD features a 58-minute tour film that aired onstage during the tour as the band performed Crack the Skye. The film contains haunting images and scenes that correspond with the ebb and flow of the album.
For Mastodon fans, the Live at the Aragon CD/DVD combo is well worth the $14.99 price tag and is a solid live album. But, perhaps due to the fact that this show was recorded during their second consecutive world tour, it falls just short on delivering all of the charismatic energy, palpable enthusiastic jams, and overall musical goodness that concertgoers experienced firsthand Crack the Skye shows.
 | Download Example 1 |
| Download Example 2 |
| Clips recorded with a Blackstar HT Stage 60 amplifier, Shure SM57, Apogee Duet, Planet Waves Custom Pro cables, and GarageBand. | |
While those first Fender relics may have been accessibly priced, they weren’t necessarily cheap. But in 2009 Fender began using the same proprietary aging process for its new Ensenada, Mexico-built Road Worn guitars to bring vintage specs and feel to an affordable level. This year, the company released the Road Worn Player Series, which are still affordable, but add a lot of modern player-friendly features and mods like higher-output pickups and bigger frets that weren’t available on vintage-inspired models. I checked out the Road Worn Player Telecaster, with its neck-position humbucker and relatively flat fingerboard radius and was impressed with the effortless and effective combination of modern and time-tested design attributes.
The Road Worn Player Series features lighter wear than the original Road Worn instruments.
Pre Hot-Rodded Styling
Our Player Tele could easily be mistaken for a guitar that its owner retooled 25 years ago and has since played several nights a weeks in a smoky bar. The black nitro finish (it’s also available in candy apple red) looks like an weathered high-quality refinish, and the PAF-style neck pickup is typical of the sort of hot-rodding that was common in the ’70s and ’80s to old single-coil guitars. Some of the details, like the 21-fret maple neck, spa-ghetti headstock logo, and eight-screw pickguard look vintage. While others, including the squared-off tuners and six individual bridge saddles, are more current.
The Road Worn Player Tele has medium jumbo frets and a 9.5-inch radius (as opposed to the vintage 7.25), which gives it an unmistakably modern feel. Electronics include a Seymour Duncan 59 humbucker and a Fender Tex Mex single-coil bridge pickup, which is slightly hotter than a vintage-spec unit. And the three-way switch switches between bridge, two-pickup, and neck pickup settings.
Our Player Tele is a well-made guitar. While you can fast get into subjective territory assessing the quality of something that has been intentionally abused, the finish—actual nitro and not the smothering poly often used on inexpensive modern guitars—is nice and thin and the patterns of wear look convincing and not overdone. The neck fits nicely in its pocket. Though on the fingerboard, the fret ends are a little rough and the action a tad high—details that can be addressed easily enough by a good tech.
Vibrant overtones popped out on the simplest barre-chord work and the guitar responded to blues-based soloing with an excited snap.
The Sound and the Feel
The medium C-shaped neck, with a smooth satin finish, also lends a modern feel to the Player Tele. It’s fast and extremely comfortable to grip in all positions from the to the highest frets. Whether playing complex chords or single-note lines I never felt like I was fighting the neck. And thanks to the 9.5-inch radius, it was easy to bend the strings pretty aggressively without the notes fretting out.
Unamplified, this Road Worn Player Tele is livelier than most guitars you encounter in this price range, which may owe something to the thin finish. Vibrant overtones popped out on the simplest barre-chord work and the guitar responded to blues-based soloing with an excited snap.
I plugged the Tele into a Blackstar HT Stage 6 amplifier, dialing in a clean tone and activating the guitar’s bridge pickup. Right out of the gate, the sound was slightly fatter than you’d typically expect of a Tele, but it did have that unmistakable twang that works so well for pedal steel–style bends.
When I switched to the neck pickup, it came as little surprise that the guitar reacted like a Tele on steroids. This pickup had a rich and spongy tone that added excellent definition and presence to John Scofield-style jazzy lines as well as substance and grit for some classic shuffle It’s a wide sound that you can adjust be at home in a great variety of idioms, from roots rock to reggae and even punk—just what would be expected from a no-nonsense multipurpose guitar like a Tele. And it’s all very easily shaped with use of the tone knob and volume control.
The Verdict
With its Road Worn Player Telecaster, Fender has incorporated some of the mods most commonly applied to vintage Teles in a brand new instrument that looks convincingly loved and well travelled. The Road Worn Player surpasses the sound, both acoustic and plugged-in, of most guitars at this price range, and incorporates features, like a nitro finish, generally found on Fender’s more expensive guitars.
The Road Worn Player Tele would only be cooler if it came with a slightly better factory setup, were available in finishes other than black and red, and came with an optional rosewood fretboard. But all things considered, the Road Worn Player is a superb guitar for the price—a perfect, blank slate of an instrument for La-Z-Boy instrumentalists and working pros alike.
Buy if...
you’re looking for an awesome but inexpensive Telecaster with a vintage look and modern upgrades.
Skip if...
you’re a stickler for vintage specs.
Rating...
Street $950 with deluxe gig bag - Fender - fender.com |