Steve Gunn – Other You – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Steve Gunn has built up a quietly impressive collection of albums over the last eight years or so.  While he is technically a superb guitar player he doesn’t have the brashness or showiness of some of his peers.  His style is more about evoking a ‘feeling’.

On his sixth solo album (excluding collaborations), there is just a sunlit feel right from the opening guitar chords of the title track.  Think Moonlight Mile by the Rolling Stones or side 2 of Led Zeppelin III and you’ll be on the right track.  Each song features lovely guitar work rounded off by Gunn’s soft, languid vocals.  The warm and laidback Fulton is an early highlight, while Morning Wind ebbs and flows back and forth as its title suggests, with some particularly nice piano.  You’ll want to luxuriate in Good Wind and the lovely Circuit Rider – the playing and musicianship here is something special.

The achingly melodic guitar picking in On The Way brings you to the point where you think the track can’t get any better, yet at this point, he unleashes a gorgeous electric guitar solo.  The highlights go on and on, you could lose yourself in the swirling majesty of Protection, while The Painter is possibly the finest track on the album, a song full of aching, longing guitar and keyboard.  Droney instrumental Sugar Kiss provides a diversion, consisting of Mary Lattimore’s trippy harp and some kind of drone behind it before blissed-out closing track Ever Feel That Way.

Steve Gunn fans won’t be disappointed, the album perfectly evokes an end of summer feel, it’s his lushest to date.  They are great songs to sit and nod along to and should draw in some new fans.  It’s possibly his best yet and one of the albums of the year.

Other You