Chris Fury - From Darkness

When you have a guitarist who has this wonderful combination between the sounds of Mike Keneally, John Fruscinate, Alex Lifeson, Steve Vai, and Frank Zappa, it is going to be quite an amazing experience when you listen to an up-and-coming guitarist from Long Island named Chris Fury. With a bachelor’s degree in music from Binghamton University, Fury brings a touch of adventure, progressive music, virtuosity, funk, classical, and metal right in his veins throughout on his Guitar as it takes the listener throughout various journey’s with his debut, From Darkness.

Alongside Fury, he brought along Berklee Graduate Ian Underwood from the Chris Fury trio on Bass Guitar, Sebastian Persini on Drums, and Jason Roddin on Piano/Keyboards to help along Fury makes his mind-blowing debut to give it that high voltage.  The Nexus opens the album up like a battering ram that hits you right in the gut as the band go straight into town. Fury is playing both rhythm and lead by playing some heavy riffs and all over the frets as if Vai is watching in awe of this amazing up-and-coming guitarist giving some juice to heavy duty work while he gets into the Funky-soul yet bluesy groove in the styles of Parliament Funkadelic teaming up with John Fruscinate of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as if it was recorded in the early ‘80s on All Funked Up.

Then, he brings his finger-picking and thumb-slapping technique with a classical touch with Byte the Bullet. It is very much as you can imagine the sun going down into west as he is watching it by creating these soothing and minor melodies to capture it at the right moment as Roddin creates this atmospheric synth surroundings in which Fury gives himself a chance to relax before going back in the thumb-slapping unexpected moment that is jaw-dropping for an ending.

Elsewhere, Over Andover has a futuristic yet ascending adventure as In Your Eyes, has a very romantic acoustic-rock ballad that has an ‘80s feel and then Fury goes into this emotional yet powerful solo and soothing structures to fit the vibe. Both Mogera and Lost Transmission go through from heavy riffs, pummeling chords, Roddin’s doomy piano work for the finale to a gentle relaxation as the spaceship heads into lightspeed towards back home to earth with some calming atmosphere, makes it a wonderful voyage going through the heavier and uplifting touches between both Persini and Roddin.

Then you go back into the driving forces of fast-mode with a beat like a race car going 200 miles per hour on tracks like the fierce and dramatic beats on Running Away and the virtuosity tribute to Rush’s Alex Lifeson on A Fire WIthin as Fury gives Berklee alumni Ian Underwood a chance to do his bass work for a Jazz-like solo for a mellowing moment for a second in the style of Jaco Pastorius as Fury and Persini take turns doing guitar chords and drum patterns all over the place before the solos go in for a shrieking and volcanic finale.

The title track goes through a minor and mourning vibration before the seat belts are buckled up for another driven roar on the composition in which the piece deals with you really are on Autopilot Disengage. There are some classical and symphonic melodies that he plays on here and it really shows how Chris brings that in the 11^th track and lending his chops to the table and it’s a killing track that is probably going to become a live fan favorite soon into his career and in the future.

The relaxing yet fighting as you sacrifice to save one person’s life with Last Breath, starts off with a relaxed acoustic guitar chords and then followed by a mellowing electric workout before going into almost a Brian May style and then back into the comfort bluesy sound and then back into the thunderous magic. Then, it becomes very ambient thanks to the synth textures on the spacey voyages into the universe of the milky-way as Chris relaxes to give it that warmth sunrise. The closing track, Mystical Journey is where everything gets right into the moment.

It starts off with a Tchaikovsky-like introduction as the band go into a ¾ waltz time signature as you can imagine someone doing the Tango for the first minute and twenty-four seconds before going into energetic overdrive and then back into the time signature. What Fury and the band are doing is creating a back-and-forth movement from going into the Waltz into a Harder edge drive that they switch gears by going into different directions on the road.

There has been some excellent music so far in 2014 and up-and-coming virtuoso guitarist Chris Fury fits right in this year with playing. There is almost the soundtrack inside your mind and Fury playing the music for you and his arranging and composition in From Darkness shows he can go into mellowing, heavy, classical, blues, fusion, and prog like no other. And after listening about seven times now, it is soon going to be one of my favorites. A must have for an adventure that you will experience from beginning, middle, and end.