Album Review | 'Rags in Skull' revives Brigman's riffy guitar playing after 25 years
Four stars out of five
Gregory Connor
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: Arts
As George Brigman rumbles and rolls his way through "Rags in Skull," his first album of all new material in 25 years, the listener has to wonder what the guitarist has been up to for the past couple decades. It sounds like he scheduled his 2006 dates in the recording studio way back in the '80s, then proceeded to lock himself in his dark, dank basement with a pair of perpetually agitated junkyard dogs and didn't break out of the bulwark until he felt he had tortured himself enough to lay down some of the darkest, meanest guitar parts possible.
"Rags in Skull" is the rare album that revels in its heaviness and isn't afraid to let the riffs run wild. Some time soon after he picked up a guitar you probably could have said that Brigman played the blues, but what he does now is too loud and destructive; it would send shivers to the old blues legends' hunched-over spines, and it's way too tough to be compared to bland blues fanboys like Clapton.
Mississippi Delta demi-god Robert Johnson may have sold his soul to the devil so he could play the guitar, but Brigman, unlike uninspired virtuosos like Stevie Ray Vaughn, knows that just because you lost your soul doesn't mean you can't play with passion.
"So This Is Life," a kiss-off to the entire human race, shows off this energy immediately, featuring a guitar part like a dirty serrated knife covered in dried blood, layered over a bouncing beat that's part Aerosmith and part '80s arena metal. "And suicide keeps 'em satisfied/ It's not what its cracked up to be," Brigman intones in his fairly unremarkable voice that still somehow manages to convey a feeling of looming doom.
"Goin' to Pieces" starts out plain old evil like a Black Sabbath tune, but then Brigman finds an almost funky groove in the devilish growling of his guitar. The soloing is a total rock and roll fantasy, flying across the frets like he's Eddie Van Halen's evil twin. Then Brigman goes to a party with the devil in "Somebody Put Milk in My Eye" and it doesn't even faze him; his flawless guitar playing refuses to miss a beat even when Lucifer threatens to "burn your soul right away."
"Rags in Skull" is the rare album that revels in its heaviness and isn't afraid to let the riffs run wild. Some time soon after he picked up a guitar you probably could have said that Brigman played the blues, but what he does now is too loud and destructive; it would send shivers to the old blues legends' hunched-over spines, and it's way too tough to be compared to bland blues fanboys like Clapton.
Mississippi Delta demi-god Robert Johnson may have sold his soul to the devil so he could play the guitar, but Brigman, unlike uninspired virtuosos like Stevie Ray Vaughn, knows that just because you lost your soul doesn't mean you can't play with passion.
"So This Is Life," a kiss-off to the entire human race, shows off this energy immediately, featuring a guitar part like a dirty serrated knife covered in dried blood, layered over a bouncing beat that's part Aerosmith and part '80s arena metal. "And suicide keeps 'em satisfied/ It's not what its cracked up to be," Brigman intones in his fairly unremarkable voice that still somehow manages to convey a feeling of looming doom.
"Goin' to Pieces" starts out plain old evil like a Black Sabbath tune, but then Brigman finds an almost funky groove in the devilish growling of his guitar. The soloing is a total rock and roll fantasy, flying across the frets like he's Eddie Van Halen's evil twin. Then Brigman goes to a party with the devil in "Somebody Put Milk in My Eye" and it doesn't even faze him; his flawless guitar playing refuses to miss a beat even when Lucifer threatens to "burn your soul right away."
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