Artist: Lelio Padovani Album: Chasing The Muse Label: GFC Website: http://www.leliopadovani.com/homepage_english.htm Reviewer: Chris Piccirillo

Track List: Invitation (4:27) Chasing The Muse (3:39) Daydream (3:33) Rainy (4:19) Light And Shadow (4:38) New Day (3:52) Ballet (4:32) Better Days (5:22) Italian guitarist Lelio Padovani’s 3rd album “Chasing The Muse” is an instrumental guitar-centered album. Lelio plays all guitars and programmed the drums as well. The music can be compared most closely to Joe Satriani, in the way it is more song and melody oriented as opposed to the usual instrumental shred fest. The songs are mostly mid-tempo, light rock songs with the standard guitar, bass and drums instrumentation. However, the songs themselves aren’t interesting enough to keep my attention for an all instrumental album. The melodies aren’t really that memorable and the songs don’t really have any identity; very generic riffs with standard melodies that don’t try something new. The only song that attempts this is “Ballet” with its odd, seemingly chromatic melody lines and minimalist backing track. However, you’d expect a song named Ballet to be a bit more beautiful and light, which could be the irony in it all. The best song from this CD is the closer, “Better Days” with its heavier tone, harmony guitar leads and memorable “chorus”. Another issue I have with this disc is the production. I understand Lelio did this album on his own without any label backing but that is no real excuse in this day and age. My biggest objection is with the uniform guitar tones. There’s no difference in the sound from song to song, giving each song a very same-y feeling which contributes to the overall homogeneous feel of the album. The album’s production is reminiscent of mid-period fates warning with it’s brittle and dry tones. There’s just no warmth here and the programmed drums and extremely digital sounding guitar do nothing to aid in this domain. The playing on this disc is solid; Lelio certainly can play, that’s for sure. I think if he would surround himself with some musicians who can liven up the songs and help write and/or arrange them, he’d be in a better situation. I think he’s got a great album lurking somewhere in his creative mind, he just needs the right surroundings and assistance to coax it out. Band Members: Lelio Padovani - Electric and Acoustic Guitars, Bass Guitar, Drum Programming.