at times sounds like theTraveler
with equal parts Gregg Allman
and Michael McDonald thrown
in for good measure. On Dust to
Gold Cris kicks it up a notch on
the opener “The Devil or Jesse
James” which features ample
amounts of his virtuous guitar
playing and soulfully transcen-
dent voice. It shouldn’t be hard
for him to mine out the riches
with this fine collection of music
that is pure gold throughout.
You never know where your
next favorite artist is going to
come from as in the case of Ra-
hul Mukerji. He hails from India
but now lives in the D.C. region
of the United States. At least we
can say something good is com-
ing out of Washington at the
moment. Mukerji is an amazing
guitarist and instrumentalist who
is drawing comparisons to play-
ers as diverse and acclaimed as
Joe Satriani, John McLaughlin,
Al DiMeola, and Steve Vai on his
NJ STAGE 2017 - Vol. 4 No. 8
13-track debut Ma De Re Sha.
The album’s tracks are rooted
in a progressive rock approach
and takes an overall spiritual di-
rection paying homage to both
the forces of dark and light. The
music can be at times as gentle
and expressive as a Ravi Shan-
kar piece and others the mood
veers to that of a hellacious
heavy metal riff you might ex-
pect from Sabbath’s Tony Iommi.
Rahul’s “Fingerprints” are all
over this instant masterpiece
as his notable fretwork runs the
gamut from blazing speed to
focused finesse. Give this one a
spin and you’ll have a holy cow
moment – guaranteed!
EVEN MORE NOTABLE RE-
LEASES! We get notifications
from hundreds of new acts every
month alerting us to their latest
releases. Going through the list
for this edition of SSON was pret-
ty heartening because the quality
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