The Guitar Player's Resource
This is the fourth or fifth submission lately with the word 'robot' in the title, so (deep breath), here goes. Allen Van Wert's instrumental rock CD, Robot, offers a guitar-heavy eighteen tracks of hard rock and shred madness. Van Wert, to his credit, doesn't pick a standard rock groove or two and just shred over them the entire CD - he has injected a great deal of compositional and arrangement diversity into the album, while allowing room to blast shredded licks, rhythmic crunch, and wildly effected lines in their proper places. Then there are his signature 'robot' licks, which have been described as, "...nothing short of a Nintendo gone berserk on hyperdrive. These licks are performed FX free and have been amazing people live and in recordings relentlessly..." (J. Farber). Van Wert has put out a very listenable first release here - the future appears bright for instrumental rock. Allen Van Wert was originally profiled in the February-March, 2006 edition of The Undiscovered.
Playing a homemade guitar his father slaved over, Allen earned a scholarship to Berklee College Of Music in Boston but decided not to attend, and would later go on to pursue a sound all his own. He has worked with many musicians, as well as on a recent video game soundtrack as lead guitar for the famed composer Jesper Kyd (composer of the Splinter Cell and Hitman games). Allen states for the record, "There are many fans of guitar music who are sick of the sterile, lifeless reiterations of pop radio. My goal is to bring guitar back into the forefront of music today. With the help and support of the guitar community as a whole I honestly believe we can achieve it. Its time for creativity, creation, and virtuosity to reign supreme over the recent downfall of our culture in this world."
Van Wert is currently writing and recording for a new CD, as well as marketing and pursuing promotional opportunities for his Robot CD.
Allen Van Wert
United States
Web site: www.musichopper.com