Silver Sail

VINYL FORMAT. Silver Sail proves that the stone-faced frontman with the long, string-bending fingers is still moving forward without ever departing from the formula. It not only picks up where Greg Sage's solo LP Sacrifice (For Love) left off, but it also revives a thread he dangled on solo LP Straight Ahead, the first half of Follow Blind, and the last three cuts on The Circle: A slower, prettier, spacier, moodier Sage emerges, and undertones produced by his magical playing separate him from all previously mining this field. The more deliberate pace gives Sage's virtuoso guitar skills even more opportunity to bob and weave, stab and stun, float and tickle, tease and torment. As usual, words are kept to the minimum, to-the-point ideas brought home by evocative textures, singular guitar-lead style, and that spooky, chagrined, warning voice. "Prisoner" is unspeakably beautiful, as tearful as an old heartbreak movie, especially as the voice crescendos on the high note, "why." The opening "Y I Came," "Mars," and "Standing There" are similar ice-breakers, pensive complexions established by the choice of chords. As the LP goes on, Sage switches gears, and reclaims the harder, more vicious ground set by Is This Real?, Youth of America, Over the Edge and tracks such as "Way of Love" and "Nothing Left to Lose." It's impossible to get tired of such a powerful sound and style, particularly as Sage's leads blister, sparkle, fume, seethe and sigh all at once.