Spins: Ashley Naylor • Soundtracks, Volume 2
Ashley Naylor
Soundtracks, Volume 2
(El Reno)
If your record collection includes instrumental albums by solo rock guitarists – perhaps Jeff Beck’s Blow by Blow, Peter Frampton’s more recent All Blues, or efforts by the Fixx’s Jamie West-Oram and Television’s Tom Verlaine – the latest album by Australian guitarist Ashley Naylor will likely be up your alley. The album’s eight tracks suggest that Naylor was raised on a steady diet of classic rock, psychedelia, and soul. In addition to the names already mentioned, there are touchstones to the space-rock of Pink Floyd and Spiritualized balanced against snatches of Parliament-Funkadelic and Jimi Hendrix.
Well known on home turf as frontman for the Melbourne-based trio Even, Naylor has become known in North America as the most recent addition to The Church’s triple-threat guitar lineup. In addition to touring with the Australian alt-rock band heroes, Naylor has contributed to the band’s recent psych-pop concept albums The Hypnogogue, Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars.
Soundtracks, Volume 2 is Naylor’s fourth album under his own name, following 2020’s Volume 1. “Spaceship” launches the set heavenward with a swaggering rhythm and upbeat, serpentine melody. Wez Prictor adds space-rock flair with a shimmering Hammond organ a la Deep Purple while leaving room for a funky clavinet. Naylor trades star-scraping solos as the song reaches orbit with earthbound countermelody on bass.
Danny Leo’s drums anchor “Les Paul Waltz” while Naylor coaxes serene, bluesy leads with a tone to die for. The unhurried melody recalls Blind Faith’s “Presence of the Lord,” Derek & the Dominoes’ “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” and the push and pull between Roger Waters’ vocal-driven “Pigs on the Wing” and David Gilmour’s meticulous leads elsewhere throughout Pink Floyd’s Animals.
The meditative “South Fremantle” is a tuneful acoustic guitar feature that falls to the rootsier side of Davy Graham. “Siesta Motel” moves to electric guitar for a pensive solo piece that balances an ascending pattern against a droning arpeggio.
“Cry Baby Jam” is a psychedelic groover that combines Prictor’s Charlatans UK-styled organ melody with Naylor’s soulful nod to Hendrix circa Are You Experienced. Lachlan O’Kane’s blissed-out percussion makes this song a potential jam-band epic.
The curlicue melody, pealing high notes, and droning pulse during the suitably hypnotic but urgent “The Ashram Trance” recall Pink Floyd’s soundtrack for the film Zabriskie Point. “Hazel” is another waltz, but this one casts a melancholy mood. Naylor coaxes expressive phrases that plead and cry in an extended homage to late guitarist Eddie Hazel, serving as an answer song to Hazel’s monumental “Maggot Brain” for Funkadelic. The closing track, “Hazel (Return),” revisits the scene of its predecessor’s heartbroken reverie as a hazy psych-blues with trippy layers of backward guitar and piano.
The breadth of playing style and sense of melody reveal why Naylor is such a coveted asset to the retooled Church lineup while not sounding much like any member of the band’s classic formation. His compositional acumen and sense of arrangement may be even more valuable than his assured technique. All are evident on Soundtracks, Volume 2, which has kept other records off my turntable for at least a week. (ashleynaylor.bandcamp.com)
– Jeff Elbel
Rating: 8 out of 10
Category: Spins
