MIKE TERRANA – Man Of The World

If the name Mike Terrana is unfamiliar to anyone reading this, it’s probably because they’ve never read the liner notes for any of the forty-seven albums he has appeared on during his extensive 25-year career. His impressive resume has him appearing with many Metal Express Radio favorites, including; Yngwie Malmsteen, Tony MacAlpine, Rage, Artension, Tony Hernando, Axel Rudi Pell, a smattering of other guest appearances, and this, Man Of The World, his second solo album.

This solo effort is comprised of eleven tracks of Instrumental Rock Fusion style music, including six studio tracks and five live songs. Four of the live tracks were recorded in Moscow at the Premier Drum Day Festival of 2003. The fifth live track is a Drum Solo recorded in Tokyo Japan from the most recent Rage tour in 2002.

Highlights include the opening studio track “The Omen,” which starts out with an Eastern flair, something reminiscent of early Al DiMeola. Mike’s drumming then propels the song into a nice mid-tempo Fusion rocker, which also contains a nice, melodic, heartfelt guitar line. The second studio track, “Native Tongue,” is a higher throttled Fusion track with a nice, memorable melody, that makes this track easily one of the best on the CD. Both aforementioned songs contain some tasty guitar playing by Cyril Achard.

After that, the remaining studio entries are slightly better then standard Smooth Jazz fair. They just don’t contain an overabundance of staying power for some reason. The majority of the tracks miss that something special that keeps the release from retaining high replay value. Part of this might be due to the fact that a lot of the tracks have several tempo changes, which hampers the listener from getting into a groove. For example, the trumpet and piano playing in “The Revenge Of The Cahaca” starts out sounding like a John Tesh track, and ends sounding slightly like Al DiMeola, without Al’s grandiose guitar playing of course.

Throughout, Mike’s drumming remains solid and well-recorded with an airy feel, mostly due to the reverb coming off his snare. Mike never truly over indulges in any extended drum solos (other then the live Tokyo solo). To his credit, it would appear that his intention was to put together a cohesive Fusion release versus using this album as a vehicle to showcase his drumming prowess.

Bottom line, this is a solid Fusion effort that is worthy of at least a few listens by fans of genre, at a minimum just to hear the two wonderful opening tracks. Just don’t expect to go back to the well too many times unless you’re a die-hard Terrana fan.

Lineup

Mike Terrana: Drums
Cyril Achard: Guitar, Keyboards
Victor Smolski: Guitar, Bass, Keyboards
Bob Gatzen: Keyboard Sequencing
Kevin Chown: Bass
Ferdy Doernberg: Keyboards, Hammond Organ, Trumpet, Piano, and Lap Steel Guitar