CD REVIEW: NO MORE PROMISES
The Jimmy Warren BandElectro Glide Records
The Jimmy Warren Band’s record, No More Promises, delivers plenty of fat toned guitar playing; mixing power ballads with soulful upbeat grooves. Warren, a native of Kankakee, Illinois has a tone reminiscent of Gary Moore’s more bluesy outings and his singing puts one in the mind of Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish.
This set is made up of twelve Warren originals that provide plenty of creativity without straying too far from the essence of the blues. From the opening Albert King-styled minor grove of “Watermelon Money,” Warren sets up a pattern where the songs are templates for him to cover the canvas with his lush and precise guitar technique. Plenty of fast flurries from the guitar are often juxtaposed with tender and tasteful melodies, as Warren never loses sight of making every note count.
On “A Love That Hurts,” Warren laments the futility of a lost lover. Warren’s fine accompanying organ throughout is justification that he is a clearly versatile musician and artist. The closing track features more precision-like fat guitar tones that trickle down around a talk-like lyric. The message is one of three of Warren’s social comments about the struggles of a workingman who can’t see eye to eye with his boss
The Jimmy Warren Band plays a tight set mixing power ballads with soulful upbeat grooves that create a nice blend to go with his complimentary clean and semi-distorted guitar tones. This is not your Chicago or Texas Bluesy shuffling sound but it will bode quite well to those who love their guitar a little more on the rock side played with high energy, commitment to precision, and a love of the sweet guitar tones of the power ballad.
~ Jimmy Adler
