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Headshear is a four piece consisting of Gwynn Adams and Deirdre Lynds on guitar, Van Spragins on bass and Matthew Guggemos on drums, assisted by two additional guitarists on some of the tracks in this self-titled debut. Musically they basically depart from all the musical interests of Robert Fripp. His King Crimson side (mainly Discipline era), but also his collaborations with David Sylvian. Damage and Gone To Earth are I guess highly appreciated records for this band, and I have to add, for me too. Moreover, Headshear sounds at times very close to Sieges Even's masterpiece A Sense of Change. Excluding a couple of outliers, a general description of their music is vibrantly interwoven layers of guitars, enhanced by a more fusion-like bass and technical drumming. Notice that I would not call their music fusion, given the absence of solo's.
 
The CD is instrumental and comprises a great variety of musical styles. Art rock, fusion, ambient avant-garde, even funk when the composition allows, but all that is beautifully merged into a quite unique and compact sound. The Walking Tapestry as an opener incorporates the glances to Sieges Even, being lyrical and featuring abrupt changes. The same characteristics can also be found in Phivunk. The band stretched the limits a bit further with the almost funky Urban Conversation, dominated by the excellent bass-work a la Jaco Pastorius or even Tony Levin. Worth stressing that the bass is astonishing throughout the whole album. More art-rock tracks are also present like Complex Nothing, the beautiful folky The Bitter Cold that greatly concludes the album and Viscous. This latter track is particularly reminiscent of Sylvian's Gone To Earth, as Taking The Veil and the instrumentals in there come immediately to mind. Exceeding 10' of length, it features ambient parts and drowsy soundscapes but sums up in more standard art rock terms, revisiting a few ideas developed in previous tracks.
 
Still there are also three tracks that are quite different. Actually they are much heavier and technical than the rest. The atmosphere they create is gloomier, and things move in a slower way, departing a bit from the rest of the musical repertoire that the band offers, relying mostly on solid and heavy riffs. I don't really dislike this side of the band's creativity, and I would go as far as saying that one or two of these pieces of music are welcome, however, Chunky Navy Part II is not very well fitting after the proper ambience has been set by Viscous. To be fair though, musically it's a challenging track with bizarre tempo's. So I'll just say that to me this is the least interesting of what the band has to offer. As pointers, I would maybe give late KC, like Power To Believe.
 

Diversity, variability and great technical skills are trademarks of this instrumental album. Even though a big fan of the style the chose to pursue, I am aware that a big part of the progressive audience out there views it as cold and a bit detached. Even though it requires a lot of attention from the listener to discover and dig out the hidden emotion and warmth in (or even inherent in) the compositions, the final reward is worth the effort. Had they only chosen a better cover for this release! Fans of Fripp, KC, or Sylvian/Fripp should definitely check this out.

Conclusion: 7.5 out of 10

 
 

 

Wow upon first listening to Headshear's debut self-titled CD, I could have sworn it was a long lost instrumental Crimson album sometime prior to the Double Trio reformation. In reality, Headshear is a four piece consisting of Gwynn Adams (guitar), Deirdre Lynds (guitar), Van Spragins (bass) and Matthew Guggemos (drums), which hails from the Bay Area (SF). This quartet surely have studied the 80’s era Crimson. The end results are some of the most complex and dense instrumental progressive rock music and they do it without loosing melody.
 
Some of the titles on the CD remind me of what can be found on a Primus album, like "Mechanically Separated Chicken" , "Chunky Navy Parts I & II" and "Phivunk". Others fit in with Crimson like titles. In all Headshear has done what few instrumental bands done before, create a memorable release from start to finish.
 
I don’t have any favorites on this debut because, simply, they’re all good and flow so well and none of the players are showing off. It’s a group effort here and it shows. Headshear have made a fan out of me, and I’m not a big instrumental music fan. And their debut really needs to be in any serious progressive and instrumental rock fan’s collection.
 
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on January 31st, 2007
 
 
File this hardcore looking debut under "Smalltime bands you don't know, but should." An instrumental-only group from San Francisco, Headshear's 9-track release leads with harder rock melodies in "Chunky Navy" parts I and II, offers a little chill-time with "Complex Nothing" and then switches it up with a twentieth century groove in "Urban Conversation". The two guitarists, one bassist and drummer create sounds familiar to rock genres. But the execution is so unique, Headshear may have created a new class of its own.
 
It's pretty obvious from the opening moments of Headshear's debut self-titled CD that this Bay Area band have spent some time studying the music of early 80's King Crimson. The four piece (Gwynn Adams-guitar, Deirdre Lynds-guitar, Van Spragins-bass, and Matthew Guggemos-drums) have really channeled Discipline era Crimson here, but instead in an instrumental capacity, and the results are some complex and dense progressive rock music.
 
The guitar work of Lynds and Adams is stellar throughout this CD, as the duo weave plenty of intricate rhythmic and harmony lines around each other, while the equally complex & bubbly bass work of Spragins gives the music that certain Tony Levin-ish touch. Also, listen to the solid drum work of Guggemos (since replaced byHudson Bunce), who gives a track like "Mechanically Separated Chicken" a clever fusion foundation. Elsewhere, especially on songs like "The Walking Tapestry" and "Chunky Navy Parts I & II", images of Fripp and Belew pop up, as the guitar interplay is just marvelous. Occasionally heavy ("Phivunk") and sometimes downright funky ("Urban Conversation"), the music on Headshear is always thought provoking and certainly progressive.
 
As soaring as the music gets here, it's not all about solos, but about the ensemble interplay, as the band shines as a whole rather than four individual performers. A prime example of this is the closing track "The Bitter Cold", an atmospheric song featuring some gorgeous guitar chords and Spragins' yearning, Jaco Pastorius-influenced bass lines. The band's ability to cleanse the pallatte and deliver some majestic sounds is quite impressive, and a great way to end this eventful release.
 
Headshear are sure to gain some new fans outside of their home in the San Francisco area with this debut. Add another promising prog debut to 2006's already stellar collection of hot releases!
 
 
Really excellent debut album by this instrumental quartet of dual guitars, bass and drums. There's a lot of influences from the best parts of the dual guitar King Crimson and musically related bands like Philharmonie and even the California Guitar Trio (if they played electric guitars). This sound has been heard before, certainly, but these guys do it exceedingly well and this is highly recommended to King Crimson/Philharmonie/Yang fans
 
 
 

This is the 2006 debut by San Francisco's Headshear, a quartet of two guitarists, bass and drums. Like many modern instrumental prog bands, they use 1980's King Crimson as their departure point. They add influences of classics prog rock and much more. This type of music can become a cold and technical excercise of interlocking guitar lines, but Headshear injects warmth into their music to make it exciting and vibrant, a good balance between challenging and fun. As the band notes, their instrumental music is moreakin to classical chamber music than jazz fusion in that it is not based around soloing but rather is carefully constructed. And rather than drawing attention to how difficult it is to play, the music is just fun to listen to. Even if your head does get sheared off.

 
 
 

Debut album from this excellent guitar-based prog group from the San Francisco bay area. Two guitarists (one a woman!), bass and drums make up this all-instrumental group who sound ALOT like the instrumental sections of an 80s-era King Crimson album or France's Philharmonie! Being American they also incorporate influences from their experience as Americans (blues, soul, hard rock) into their progressive soundscapes. The music is sometimes heavy, sometime playful and always a great listen. The interlocking guitar parts should keep even the most avid Fripp/Belew snob happy. Guitarist Deirdre Lynds says that their music is "harder to play than it sounds!" Of course they make it sound effortless and natural when in fact their music is probably meticulously worked out to the smallest detail. Needless to say Crimson fans and Philharmonie fans will find this an exceptional release!

 
 
 
 

The first time I put this disc on, I was doing something else. It didn’t take long though before I had to stop whatever I was doing and give my full attention to this intriguing music. Let me just say that Headshear don’t play music that would be traditionally considered prog, but perhaps it is progressive. This is a guitar extravaganza that will really challenge your mind.

 

At first the guitar melodies seem quite simple and nothing special but on several listens you can hear that there is a lot of intricacy in their playing. Gwynn Adams and Deirdre Lynds, together with the guest guitarists create layer upon layer of guitars. Sometimes I wasn’t sure whether I was hearing four or five different guitars playing at once. It’s quite hard (at least for me) to try to listen to so many stacked melodies, but once you start feeling it, this music can really put you in a trance. The melodies are very mesmerizing, you can get lost quite easily in music like this. To an average music fan, this music might appear bland and boring because there are not many solos in here. They build their melodies on a different kind of complexity – compositional. Building layers of melodies is just as difficult as creating several melodies. So basically, these guys have so many melodies in one song as an average pop star has in maybe two albums.

 

While the guitars are obviously in charge of procedures here, let’s not forget the other musicians. Van Spragins adds a very special funky bass that resounds in the background of every song and Matthew Guggemos drumming is equally exceptional. If the drumming was perhaps a bit jazzier you could almost believe you were listening to King Crimson’s Discipline. Well, at least to me, this excellent album sounds a bit like King Crimson’s 80s albums. You know – the mesmerizing guitar segments, unusual melodies, a very full sound. If anything, I would say that the Headshear album is more consistent than those Crimson albums, which had a lot of those “ambiental” parts. There’s nothing like that hear, only “Viscous” is played at a slower beat, otherwise all the songs are very funky and rocking.

 

Splendid. Great music for those long car rides."

 
 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Copyright (c) Headshear 2006