Three cover tunes leaves eight all-original, freshly penned songs that demonstrate beautifully that all the hard touring and long road gigs are honing the band’s already keen sensibilities to a razor’s edge. Blues begat rock and roll, this is known. Step by step, rock and roll evolved into dozens of sub-genres and, for a time at least, pushed the envelope in to newer, more dangerous sounding territory, growing heavier and meaner.
Holder’s blues tells evolution to get bent, leaping ahead several stages in to a place that straddles the line between classic Delta Blues and quasi-metal, combining the most powerful elements of both in a gutsy, raw, blistering beast. I’ve compared Holder’s guitar work to Billy Gibbons more than once and, I have noted, so have other reviewers.
I worry that this comparison may be lost on many people who only know Gibbons through the radio hits of ZZ Top, which, though they are replete with some mean guitar riffs, are still radio hits and as such are a less than complete representation of the man Jimi Hendrix once called, “America’s best young guitar player.”
Once you understand why Gibbons is considered a guitar player’s guitar player, the fact that so many of us can’t help but make the comparison between his work and Holder’s ought to speak volumes about Holder’s skill. – READ THE REVIEW HERE