She came, she saw, she conquered. “VIC-TOR-IOUS.” The Call Of The Void (Sumerian Records) is two albums in one – a superior instrumental guitar album, full of class and charisma, setting off sparks of shredded steel and nickel – and an above average, rock/blues rock/modern metal album, with one foot in the past and two eyes looking to the future, graced by some fine guest stars, including Alice Cooper, David Draiman, and Anders Friden.
I know which album I prefer! The more exuberant, equally skilful one, full of Nita Strauss’ chiming, coruscating, mellifluous geetar playing and her very own, unique personality (sorry, invited star guests!). But, it has to be said, the two add up to an enticing, 14-track entertainment heavyweight that once-and-for all ensures Nita’s natural niche as a top-notch, superbly equipped, robustly relevant and unquestionably able artist for this very, very modern age (22 tracks if you include the instrumental takes of the songs tagged on to the digital release).
Known affectionately – if a tad apprehensively! – as The Hurricane, force of nature, LA-born Nita is a touring star with Demi Lovato and with the veteran genius known as Alice. She is also a live rebel rouser/rabble rouser for the NFL’s LA Rams, not to mention her role heating up the already hot, hot hotbed of WWE.
Strauss is hugely respected in the music industry and a regular magazine cover star for the likes of Guitar Duderinos (incorporating Humbucker Monthly) and Shred It Or Dead It (incorporating Tap On Or Get Off), to name but two. The virtuoso playing, plus the complex compositional skills showcased on this labour-of-love, second solo album, can do nothing but enhance her reputation. And the sheer “new car smell” of it, the ground-down-to-a-fine-point SOUND of it, sharply engineered to the milli-second of the audio life of itself, torque-wrench calibrated, dead-on-balls accurate – nutted. Tooled – is more than fit for this 21st century. As, of course, is Nita herself.
‘Winner Takes All’, featuring yer golfing legend Mr. Cooper, may not be the besy track on the album, but it sure is great to have the man himself along for the ride, and it’s a song that boasts one of many superb solos and some technically precise but gloriously free, hair-in-the-wind riffing.
As for other contributors, the growling, then clean and melodic Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy) is on fine form on ‘The Wolf You Feed’, And Lzzy Hale (Halestorm) impresses on the stand-out ‘Through The Noise’. Disturbed’s Draiman brings his usual touch of gravitas to the superior ‘Dead Inside’, while one of Nita’s heroes, Friden, of In Flames, boosts the fun, frantic and anthemic ‘The Golden Trail’. A particular hero of mine, Dorothy Martin, of her own LA band, Dorothy, lights up the anthemic and memorable ‘Victorious’ – the solo and all-round guitar playing are, quite simply, off-the-scale brilliant. As I said: “VIC-TOR-IOUS.”
But let’s go back to the beginning. The instrumental opener ‘Summer Storm’ starts rainy and synthy, before the guitars take over, and then we’re off, riff-tastic, drums also to the fore. ‘Summer Storm’, along with the atmospheric and downright emotional ‘Scorched’ (a glorious and triumphant epic at 5.26) are among the very best of the instrumentals, while ‘Momentum’ flexes out to become, more or less, an entire suite of music. Nita is on fast, furious, and unfettered fretboard form throughout, her left hand knowing exactly what her right hand is doing, her heart in the right place, somewhere between her guts and her brain.
Given Nita’s (much-publicised) fitness regimen, I felt it was necessary, before reviewing this album, to go for some high-impact runs, do a few pull-ups, press-ups etc. I came up short – and you may have already deduced you have come to the wrong guy for in-depth commentary on the pentatonics, arpeggios, legatos, on-point intonation, tone or phrasing, never mind the recontextualising of the intervallic gaps (yes, I cut and pasted all that from the digital versions of those afore-mentioned Guitar Duderino mags. Which I may have made up, anyway). But I still state with some experience and authority (!?) that Nita’s guitar can be extraordinarily elegant, rocky, raunchy, squealy, sassy, funky, crunchy and downright munchy. In my language, The Call Of The Void’s geetars are like violins of violence, extra-sensual and (almost) extra-terrestrial, tenacious and loquacious (yes, Nita can make her instrument talk).
When all is said and done, the track that may well stay with you is the stunning, spectacular, and impeccable ‘Scorched’, or the similarly distinctive, downright gorgeous, and graceful ‘Kintsugi’ – Strauss (‘Blue Danube’?!) meets Satriani (‘Flying In A Blue Dream’)!
For the record, other guest stars include Lilith Czar on ‘Monster’, Marty (formerly Megadeth) Friedman on bonus track ‘Surfacing,’ and Chris Motionless on the hooky ‘Digital Bullets’ (“Fire away!”).
Buy the album here:
8 / 10
CALLUM REID