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Chris Caffery - Pins And Needles

Published March 25 2007


*
=Staff's pick

Pins & Needles
Sixty-Six
Torment
Walls
YGBFKM
Sad
Chained
Worms*
Crossed
The Time*
Metal East*
Qualido
The Temple
Once Upon A Time (bonus track)


Genre Heavy Metal
Chris Caffery
Vocals
Tracks 14
Chris Caffery
Guitar
Runningtime 57 Min.
-
Guitar
Label Metal Heaven
C. Caffery/N. Douglas
Bass
Release 23 March 2007
Yael
Drums
Country USA
Phil Morris
Keyboard
Similar artists Jon Oliva's Pain, Pain Of Salvation

The guitarist of legendary US metal band Savatage is going solo for the third time (following up Faces and W.A.R.P.E.D). And why would he want to do that? Well, clearly he has a lot of ideas that did not fit in Savatage. The question is if they fit at all… Pins & Needles is utterly modern in its sound. Still there are 70s riffs as in for example Worms. The Time is spiced with opera vocals by Marcus DeLoach. On Metal East Caffery adds just eastern influences in form of a violin (played by Lucia Micarelli) and thus it sounds a bit like System of a Down. The violin returns in the bonus track Once Upon A Time.

The weakest spot in all this is that Caffery is not primarily a singer. It doesn't sound terrible, but it doesn't sound especially breathtaking great either. Nevertheless I prefer a voice with a bit raw character than a clean but empty one. Actually, he sounds not totally unlike a guy calling himself Alice Cooper. An artist he also have borrowed a bit of a theatrical mood from in The Temple. The production feels uncomfortable, and not in a good rough way, but in an overdone laboured way.

The marketing plan for this release is immense and that will probably pay off in this becoming a hype of some sort, not at least among the more modern embracing prog metal fans liking Jon Oliva's Pain. But for the conservative old heavy metal fans of Savatage's Gutter Ballet, it could be worse to take this in. And what Caffery is going to do on tour with Timo Kotipelto is not anything I will even try to understand. Pins & Needles has some moments, but is all too uneven and divided to apply to me.

Performance
Originality
Production
Vocals
Songwriting

6

7

3

5

5

 
Summary



5 chalices of 10 - David


Related links:

www.chriscaffery.com
www.myspace.com/chriscaffery