New Release: Anthony Gomes - Up2Zero - Review

I just received a copy of the new recording, Up2Zero by Blueswax Magazine's "Blues Artist of The Year" Anthony Gomes. The disk opens with a screamer, Back To The Start, a Texas style blues with a great base, flaring guitar and solid vocals by Gomes. One Last Time is a great T-Bone walker inspired track with blazing guitar work. Gomes shines not only on guitar but also on vocals. Love Sweet Love, more structured for airplay, is a solid track with hints to Jimi, Robin Trower and Robert Cray. Fly Away follows a blues rock format and will also be well suited for commercial airplay exhibits some great guitar tone. Darkest Before The Dawn, the classic song, is extremely well done here with Gomes singing the heartfelt ballad and playing beautiful melodic guitar runs... shifting keys midway and with elegant backing female vocals throughout. Room 414 is an uptempo blues rocker with nods to Crossroads and inferences to the room in which Robert Johnson cut his known recordings. Gomes vocals lead the way for his call and response instrumental vocal trade off. Voodoo Moon leads a new path over the SBW "Help Me" groove with great success. The rhythm is different, the pattern is different and he even does a nice uptempo break in the middle. Anywhere You Run, a third classic airplay type song is well written and played both with lead and backing vocals. Last Bluesman Gone, a tribute to recently passed influences, has the darkness of the swamps and really cool backing vocals. Gomes asks the question what we gonna do. I really like the vocal take on the old spiritual styling of the song and the solemness in which it is delivered. Possibly by accident the most effective song on the release. Up 2 Zero, the title track is a blues rocker has a lot of the hooks of a contemporary blues song. It has enough guitar for the guitar people (paint peeling speed), enough vocals for the vocal people and catchy enough for the casual listener. I can see why it was selected for the title track. The release is wrapped up with N' Abandonne Pas, the french version of Darkest Before the Dawn, done in thoughts of Gomes' roots in Quebec City.
Gomes has indicated that he will be touring extensively in 2012 to support this new release. Should be a great show!


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