12/10/11

New West Guitar Group
Round-Trip Ticket
Summit

By Bill Milkowski

Three guitarists—Perry Smith, Jeff Stein and John Storie—combine acoustic and electric timbres to create limpid pools of well-orchestrated, cascading six-string work that falls somewhere between Leo Kottke and Pat Metheny, with a nod to the intertwining guitar arrangements of the Allman Brothers Band. More intricate and virtuosic than new age yet not exactly jazz, this hybrid music, particularly burners like “Rivercrest” and the percussive odd-time “Crooked Railroad,” the bluegrassy “U-Haul Breakdown” and the edgy “Wake Up Call,” should interest six-string aficionados.