TONY HERNANDO - The Shades Of Truth

11 songs
58:18 minutes
***** **
Lion

Bandpage

Guitar albums are often heavy to digest, especially if you don't play the instrument yourself. After having written today already a review for the re-release of Chris Poland's debut solo LP, I thought why not listen to another guitar album and picked Tony Hernando's second offering The Shades Of Truth.

Tony comes from Spain, but studied guitar at the GIT in California. Nowadays he's a guitar teacher in Spain, and somehow I get the impression that this album is something like a showcase to his students. Which is a good thing, because it means that Tony is not just into one kind of guitar playing, but showing off different faces of his instrument. The opener At The Crossroads, in my opinion the best song, is a very straight-forward rocker, backed up by Mike Terrana's power drumming. From there on, you will get a little bit of everything: variations on classical themes (Outsiders), blues (Slow Blues, but not that slow after all) and a lot of mind blowing speed that sounds nearly incredible. I can't even move my fingers that fast. Sometimes he's just overdoing it, and it becomes really hard for me to pay attention, but especially the second half of the album comes with three longer songs that leave him enough room to work out on his songs.

I will give The Shades Of Truth 7 points, grant that this is a good guitar album with the necessary variety, but also beware the possible buyer that this will only be tasteful for those who are into guitar solo albums.