The Guitar Player's Resource
California's Chris Westfall submitted an eight song demo of instrumental, metal-oriented tracks that unfortunately are marred in a lot of places by the extremely loud drum machine, the hi-hat and cymbals are mixed way too high, and obscure the guitar tracks. On "Diggin' Taters", for example, when the hi-hat finally stops in a section of the song, you can finally hear the guitar work - good stuff there! Westfall is an excellent player who has the metal licks, legato playing, harmonized leads, sweeps and taps down cold, however the compositions need a lot of work. They're basically just grooves to solo over, like you're coming into the middle of a song to hear the two-minute extended solo section. Keep at it Chris - you'll find your original songs will gradually reveal themselves.
Chris got into guitar playing through the influence of his brother, as well as bands such as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. He considered the Jeff Beck album "Wired" to be particularly influential as well. Chris moved from his native Ohio in 1986 and joined a speed metal band called Damnage in Los Angeles, loving the aggressiveness and challenge of the music. He gave up guitar in 1993 until about two years ago, when he decided to get his chops back and start recording himself playing guitar. The demo was his first attempt at recording himself.
Westfall will continue to hone his songwriting and recording craft at night while his twins are sleeping.
Chris Westfall
United States
Web site: www.onlinerock.com/musicians/westfall