Click to Enlarge

This is Tony Smotherman’s brilliantly diverse debut album - The Light Within. On this release, Tony has enrolled the help of several world renowned musicians and friends to perform and feature along side him. The result is literally mind blowing! 

On receiving the record from Tony himself, I was excited to hear him play. His style is very reminiscent of several of the well know guitar legends including - Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai and John Petrucci. This is no mean feat! His technique and compositional skills are definitely up there with these guitar gods. I also noticed heavy influences from J.S. Bach in Tony’s playing, much to my delight, as a guitarist myself; classical on electric guitar is awesome to hear!

As I just mentioned, this record is an eclectic mix of musical styles, ranging from acoustic to pure rock. There are even a few classical Indian style tracks featuring the amazing guitarist and vocalist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. He has incorporated solid riffs, tight rhythm playing, some blazing arpeggio runs with perfectly executed classical acoustic style tracks. It all fits together very nicely considering that each tune stands equally well on its own.

My favourite tracks have to be the title track and The Answer. The Light Within is an immensely enchanting and melodic piece and sums up Tony’s style and command of the guitar very well. Whilst The Answer is reminiscent of the style of Joe Satriani’s Surfing With The Alien album, it is still completely and utterly original. With this in mind, I think it has to be said that Tony has a great skill of composing instant classic tracks, built off the shoulders of his guitar and music heroes.

So if you are a fan of any of the guitarists I mentioned above, or indeed any guitar great, give Tony Smotherman’s new album a listen! Once being quoted: "Tony's classical guitar skills are highly sophisticated" by non other than Queen Elizabeth II, you know he’s going places!

Band line up:
Tony Smotherman: Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Jon Reshard: Bass Guitar (Greg Howe)
Derek Sherinian: Keyboards (Planet X, Ex-Dream Theater Member)
Bruce Royal: Drums
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt: Grammy Award Winner Playing the Mohan Veena and Singing on track 3

Add as favourite (174) | Quote this article on your site | Print | E-mail