Instrumental Reviews: Scale The Summit, American Draft and Pegataur

It’s not often that I come across a an instrumental album that really holds me to it and keeps me interested after one listen. Marty Friedman and maybe Joe Satriani are exceptions but guitar virtuoso’s like Steve Vai just don’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong, Steve Vai is a great guitar player but every album it feels more like he’s showing off and it grows very stale, very fast. I love what he does…but only once or twice. The three bands I’m about to review are different from each other and have their own quality that I dig but the order they are in is good, great and amazing.

First up is Pegataur. I’ve been sitting on this cd for far too long. Pegatuar’s Eternal Flight on For Once Records was released back in November of last year. The duo doesn’t rely on the use of many extras and hold a gritty sound that will remind you of old school metal/doom. Eric Murray (Guitar) and Aaron Levin (Drums). It’s not a polished metal sound but more of a jam session, bang on the set and crank the amps type of metal instrumental. You could easily put Sabbath like lyrics to their music. While keeping it raw and gritty, the riffs have cool hooks that don’t get too repetitive. You can check out more of Pegataur at their Myspace.

American Draft comes out of Chicago with a melodic metal sound with a slightly old school throwback. With some crunchy riffs and plenty of catchy leads and solos, American Draft’s Hawk makes for a great listening experience. American Draft is Mike Baldwin on guitar, Matt Precin on drums, Sean Shipley on guitar and Jeff Wojtysiak on bass. With a certain sense of traditional metal influence and energy, Hawk delivers the goods without going overboard as so many instrumental bands do to try to keep interest. There is one track with vocals by Tim Murphy who kind of sings with a punk influence American Draft released Hawk on December 16th on Coach House Collective. Check out American Draft on Myspace.

Lastly is Scale The Summit. Scale The Summit’s first release on Prosthetic records is simply amazing. Entitled Carving Desert Canyons, it also makes for a great listening experience, especially on a long drive where you just want to concentrate on the road and kind of get lost in the music. Both guitar players, Chris Letchford and Travis LeVier attended the Music Institute of Los Angeles and even took Luthier courses to learn how to build their own instruments. Chris plays his own custom built 8 string guitar. Let’s not forget Pat Skeffington on drums and Joe Eberhardt who does a great job on the bass guitar.

Scale The Summit remember the essentials of the rhythm guitar and keep the complexity of the leads and solos to a tolerable degree without going in to Steve Vai mode. Great fluidity in the notes and melody and not so much “Look what I can do“. I seriously wish I knew way more about music to truly explain how amazing this cd is. There’s a huge difference between knowing about music and really knowing about music so as to put it in a better perspective. While one guitar is playing a great rhythm, the leads just take you and carry you in to an entirely different direction with such finesse. Progressive, mature and melodic as all hell. Carving Desert Canyons is probably going to go under the radar because it’s an instrumental cd, but if you dig instrumentals then you really need to pick it up on Tuesday (February 17th). You can hear The Great Plains on Scale The Summit’s Myspace. If you like it, there are 7 other songs on the cd that you’ll probably love.

Scale The Summit also have a self released album called Monument that I’ll definitely be looking for.

All Images: Amazon.com