Paul Miller

In an era when Joe Satriani is selling out arenas and Steve Vai is catapulting himself up chart after chart, the rock instrumental album has never been a more commercially viable proposition. For young Dave Sharman, is for my money the best guitar player I have heard since Vinnie Moore and Sharman’s debut, ‘1990’ is infinitely more pleasant on the ear than Vai’s ‘Passion and Warfare’. For most of ‘1990’ Sharman resists the temptation to indulge in the wee didly dees with the rest of them, instead delivering some of the most melodic, listenable guitar music I have heard for simply aeons. He covers all the ballpark, with a kind of smug ease which makes lesser players roll their hand into a frustrating fist and wanna pound those curly black locks into jelly. Wheather it be the ice funk of ‘Cloud Nine’, the almost Malmsteen style, bombastic hysterics of ‘Spellbinder’, or the crawling blues of ‘Southern Comfort’, Sharman always sounds right at home, it really is that good. Sharman let me tell you is destined for big things, the only trouble is he knows it too.