New Mexico blues-rock guitarist Ryan McGarvey cuts an understated figure in a crowded market place full of wannabee guitarist heroes and established wiser heads. But the moment he plugs in he starts to build a succession of grooves, drones and wah-wah tinged solos that insidiously nestle in your deepest psyche.

Sure there are inevitable SRV and Bonamassa influences, but such is the breadth of his musical vision that he weaves a unique tapestry all of his own. Ryan appears to have an almost painstaking studious style that fills his musical canvas with all manner of possibilities. He’s a guitarist who always has plenty of options including effortlessly lifting a song with a significant guitar break to imbue it with previously unforeseen possibilities. He shapes and smothers his songs with luscious tones within drone like grooves. On the magnificent climax of ‘Mystic Dream’ it even borders on space rock.

Tonight’s gig was essentially an introductory London show for an intuitive guitarist who took us on an insistent, slow-fuse blues journey. Ryan stretched his material with long linear solos and a beautiful touch and tone before he unexpectedly sat down for some dazzling slide-led lap steel on the heavy duty ‘Right In All The Wrong Ways’

He subtly paced his set with a variety of styles, complimenting his ability to make each note count by quietly testing the venue’s ambience with a lovely fluid solo before momentarily letting the notes fill the room like raindrops in sunlight. His impressive musical armoury draws you into his music. One moment the crowd fell silent in rapt attention and the next they were cheering his guitar breaks as bit by bit the evening came together like pieces in a jigsaw.

Ryan is an unlikely looking guitar hero, a rangy, suited, almost formal looking figure not given to saying much other than offering his heartfelt thanks to the crowd for supporting him on this his first UK tour. But it’s his guitar that does the talking and he speaks to us on different levels via a range of emotions from the sonorous to the exclamatory, all given full vent by glistening melodies and soaring solos flecked by generous psychedelic brush strokes

He was at his majestic best on the tension building but beautifully nuanced ‘My Sweet Angel’, complete with repeated chiming notes. And he brought real presence to bear on the spacey, ethereal and big sounding blues ballad ‘So Close To Heaven’. It’s the kind of show stopper that could well provide him with an anthem.

The muscular funk and tightly wrapped interplay of the SRV influenced ‘Downright Insane’ restored a sense of immediacy, though the wah-wah wash suggested other possibilities, before he added a sister instrumental shuffle ‘Texas Special’ for good measure.

Ryan’s set was anything but predictable. He’s a tone meister who takes his arrangements and solos to the outer edge and he likes nothing better than to colour a slowly building groove with an ascending guitar line and subtle dynamics. Such was the case on ‘Joyride’ on which he subtly sculpted his solo, while the wistful ballad ‘So Close To Heaven’ brilliantly evoked the song title.

But he saved his best for last with the eastern feel of ‘Mystic Dream’ on which he used his pickup switch to generate a range of fractured tones over a fazed guitar sound. His repeated incremental lines gave the song an epic psychedelic wall of sound. The illuminating tone colours, harmonics, dashes of wah-wah, accompanying cymbal splashes and pounding bass drum pushed the groove into the early Hawkwind territory and the crowd into raptures.

You suspect there’s much more to come from Ryan McGarvey a guitar star in the making.

Review by Pete Feenstra
Photos by Mark Hughes

Set List: Blues Knocking At My Door/ The One That Got Away/ Downright Insane/Cryin’ Over You/Watch Yourself/Starry Night/Texas Special/Never Seem To Learn/Joyride/My Sweet Angel/So Close To Heaven/Four Graces/Right In All TheWrong Ways/Mystic Dream

Album review

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)