It has everything you could possibly want: It begins with an amazing, slapping bass riff from Ian Ross that has enough pop and funk to make Flea jealous before moving into a section that sees John incorporating shred and sweeps and tapping into the overall melody repetition of this part throughout the song is what won me over. “Zoinks,” the only song I’d heard from the album before I sat to listen to the whole thing, is my favorite John 5 song to date and is VERY close to my favorite instrumental guitar piece of all time. The second half of the tune has the best riff and best soloing, as John breaks up the shred style for a minute, adopting a blistering Blues style that’s definitely killer. The song is an incredibly good metal track, even looking past the soloing (which, as always, is brilliant and super technical) it sounds like a cross between groove and extreme metal. A badass riff kicks off “Midnight Mass.” The drumming on this one is also not to be overlooked… Logan Miles Nix is a monster on the kit. This song is incredible! John does instrumental songs and albums as good as, if not better than some of the accepted greats (Satriani, Vai, Gilbert, Malmsteen). The song breaks into a really groovy clean section with a funk feel and back into another phenomenal solo, extremely clean and distorted. The tune shifts to the chorus, then into another solo section, even faster than the first and up an octave. “I am John 5” starts with a robotic voice repeating “I am John 5” over and over again before the blistering lead kicks, something we’ve all come to expect from John 5. All in all, the tune sets a good tone for the album. A filtered guitar with a phaser slides over the top, playing a simple melody ‘til the end.
The album’s title track opens with some percussion and the eerie sound of wind whistling through the darkness the creepy vibe almost reminds me of a Rob Zombie project, with its dark, percussion-fueled sound. JOHN 5 AND THE CREATURES (John 5, Logan Miles Nix, Ian Ross) (publicity photo) His latest release with his band, the Creatures, INVASION is the topic of this review. His solo spans some fifteen years and nine studio albums, beginning with VERTIGO in 2004. John William Lowery, better known as John 5, currently plays guitar for both Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie and even logged time with David Lee Roth in the late ‘90s. (SELF-RELEASED 2019) A REVIEW FROM THE VAULT