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Artist: Anthony W. Dillon
Album: "The Anthony Dillon EP"
CD Review: Artist: Anthony W. Dillon

Album: The Anthony Dillon EP

Rating: 58%

Rating Key: 0 - 19% (It hurt to listen) 20 - 29% (Awful) 30 - 39% (Bad) 40 - 49% (Almost average) 50 - 59% (Average) 60 - 69% (Good, but has problems) 70 - 79% (A good record) 80 - 89% (You must check it out!) 90 - 95% (Best I’ve heard in a long time!) 95 - 100% (Incredible! Nothing like it!)


I was able to find practically no info on Anthony - only his music and my opinion.

When you pop in Anthony’s CD there’s no question that he is far from lacking in the talent department - I’m just not sure he’s focusing his talents in the right place and bringing in others to help where his left off. Anthony’s two song record (the record actually has three tunes on it, but two of them are the same piece, minus some vocals on the second version.) showcases some incredible guitar work and flat out great soloing capabilities on quite a few different instruments. Although without the record stats I’m unable to know which one’s are Anthony and which ones may be his buddies. Regardless, he knows how to pick out good musicians.

I think his weakness lies in the production of the songs themself. The quality of the recording is great - but his choice in sounds leaves me stuck in the jazz/funk era of the 80's. An era where I felt that only Miles Davis and Marcus Miller could pull it off, but even those records got to me after a while. I suppose if you’ve got yourself a Roland keyboard and a Pro Tools rig you might as well make good use of it, just realize that not all of Roland’s sounds are as hip as they used to be. In my opinion, the best solution to making these tunes sound more modern would be to bring in a producer that has a steady background in this genre of music. There’s no doubt that Anthony has some cool ideas, but some of those ideas could really use some better focusing.

The first two tunes “Summer Heat Pt. 1 & 2" give off a vibe that you might hear on a “Rippingtons” record. The guitar is the front piece with some “do do do” type sounds attempting to hold down the fort in the back. Anthony rips through the guitar work like it ain’t no thang - but again it comes back to the outdated sounds, forcing my ear in a completely different time zone. “Summer Heat Pt. 1" is soiled from the beginning with an extremely cheesy spoken work section: “When I put my arms around you / it feels like summer heat / you give me fever / girl I adore you / g’- girl I adore you / it feels like summer heat.” The vocal comes across as something that could have been recorded as a joke by the whitest man alive trying to be “cool”. Harsh I know, but something like this should have been scrapped before any of the other tracks were laid down.

Track number three has a nice, funky groove going on - bass driven with some synth mixed in for good measure. Still outdated to a point, but a bit more modern than the first. It drives itself for a bit, and eventually becomes background noise.

Overall I’ll have to give Anthony a rating that puts him at the high end of Average for the sake of his good musicianship. Unfortunately being a good instrumentalist doesn’t necessarily make you a good song writer or composer. Although I don’t think Anthony’s bad at it, he could still use a bit of work, and a few more hands in his projects to keep things under control.