Jeff Beck – guitar, mixing (track 13), production (track 12)
Saffron – vocals (track 3)
Andy Wright – vocals (track 3), engineering (tracks 3–5, 11–13), production (tracks 3–5, 11, 12)
Ronni Ancona – vocals (track 4)
Nancy Sorrell – vocals (tracks 6, 7, 11)
Apollo 440 – vocals (track 6), engineering (tracks 6, 7), production (tracks 6, 7)
Baylen Leonard – vocals (track 7)
The Beeched Boys – vocals (track 7)
Me One – vocals (track 10), mixing (track 10), production (track 10)
Wil Malone – orchestration arrangement (tracks 4, 12)
London Session Orchestra – orchestration (tracks 12, 13)
Steve Barney – drums (tracks 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11)
Paul Kodish – drums (track 7)
Dean Garcia – engineering (tracks 1, 9), mixing (tracks 1, 9), production (tracks 1, 9)
Dave Bloor – engineering (tracks 3–5, 11, 13)
James Brown – engineering (tracks 3–5, 11)
Jamie Maher – engineering (track 10), mixing (track 10)
John Hudson – additional engineering (tracks 4, 13), additional mixing (track 13)
Ferg Peterkin – engineering assistance (tracks 3–5, 11–13)
Ashley Krajewski – engineering assistance (tracks 6, 7)
David Torn – mixing (tracks 2, 8), production (tracks 2, 8)
Michael Barbiero – mixing (tracks 3–5, 11–13)
Howard Gray – mixing (tracks 6, 7)
Tony Hymas – mixing (track 13)
Amazon.com
Calling fabled guitar god Jeff Beck "mercurial" doesn't do justice to the word – or the legend himself. While this latest blast of maniacal Beckology seems to form a loose techno-centric triptych with its predecessors, by no means is the guitarist resting on his laurels here. If anything, his continuing collaboration with You Had It Coming producer Andy Wright (aided and deliciously sonically subverted by Splattercell's David Torn and Apollo 440) has yielded one of Beck's most muscular--if willfully challenging--collections of musical future shock. Save for the elegant, orchestra-backed take on the traditional folk of "Bulgaria" and introspective respite of "Line Dance with Monkey' and "JB's Blues," the guitarist seems to have little interest in traditional lyricism here, instead coaxing an inventive maelstrom of unearthly, metallic timbres and alien modalities from his instrument on the angular "Trouble Man," the hypnotic grooves of "So What" and the Torn-icated, melodic minimalism of "Plan B." On "Grease Monkey" and "Hot Rod Honeymoon," Apollo 440 playfully fold Beck's notorious car-culture fetishes into an ironic sonic origami of retro-samples and tense electro-rhythms, the latter highlighted by his neo-country chicken-pickin' and incomparable slide work. That track may be cast as mock Beach Boys car tune, but there's definitely nothing nostalgic about the evocative, often hard-edged mood here; it might as well be subtitled "Beck to the Future."
--Jerry McCulley
