Muen Magazine

Alex Bodnar

Space Between the Notes

Independent Release

The cover letter that accompanied this advanced copy of  Alex Bodnar’s guitar driven instrumentation album with a June 2010 digital release date stated: “I know that a good review can be of tremendous help to the artist and the success of any album.”

Well, maybe.

I’d say an even bigger factor to tip the scales in the artist’s favor is by putting out a product that wasn’t made on PC software which this album so obviously was.

The Space Between the Notes, based on the press release, is what guitar lover’s have been yearning for.  I wouldn’t know because I’m not a fan of this type of music and judging by Joe Satriani and Steve Via’s exile to obscurity much to the chagrin of no one,  the rest of the world doesn’t care too much about this stuff either.  Alex Bodnar ‘s new disc gives us no reason to re-examine our mass apathy towards this bygone genre.

The first thing you notice that’s wrong with his attempt at “bridging the gap between words and sounds” is that he’s attempting to bridge the gap between words and sounds in the first place…on his own no less.  I think the only entity that’s capable of pulling off such a feat is a symphony of well versed, classically trained musicians.  Not some dude in Florida plugging a guitar into his computer and then generating boring, toneless status quo 4/4 beats and average bass and guitar riff structures and then shredding over it.

Alex boasts of his involvement with a diversified group of accomplished artists ranging from Latin pop sensation RBD, to #1 selling Japanese musician Utada Hikaru, to washed up megalomaniac Scott Stapp of Creed fame.  You’d think with a repertoire like this that the 14 tracks contained within would encompass a wide range of textures, avenues and identities, even to the untrained ear.

But it doesn’t.

For the most part it all sounds the same and each piece seems to end in the same abrupt manner .  There were two songs that were able to break away from the repetitive herd and they were Manifestation of Tranquility which was aptly named for its more organic and aquatic sounding qualities as well as Molecular Waltz again, another instance of song and title coalescing as one and being able to connect with the listener.  But on a whole, it was just background music you’d hear at Guitar Center while buying your own guitar and music software to make your own timeless CD full of deeply melodic and thought provoking compositions.

STUKE