CD reviews: Everest – Ghost Notes – Review

It’s always a lottery when session musicians get together and form a band. Sure, they know their way around a chord chart, but you never know when the next guitar/moog/kazoo solo is going to break cover.

Between them the previously sessioneering members of Everest have performing credits with artists ranging from Sebadoh to the Watson Twins (who make a guest appearance here) to Rick Wakeman. And, it has to be said, in the grand tradition of the last named, Ghost Notes contains some outrageous overplaying, particularly in the prog-like indulgences of ‘Black Covers’.

But that’s not the whole story, because Everest can do introspective and restrained as easily as they do big and blustery, and with songs as good as the yearning, lyrically touching ‘Rebels In the Roses’, it’s easy to forgive the occasional lapse in taste.

Oddly for musos, the production on Ghost Notes is down and dirty, rather than clean and clinical – a quite remarkable feat given that producer/engineer Mike Terry has worked with the likes of Jessica Simpson and the Eagles.

FROM: Vapor/Elite/US
GENRE: Rock
MUSIC: 3.5
SOUND: 3

RICHARD BETTS

This is a Tone Web Exclusive CD Review.