Artist Name: Doug Lewis aka Mr. Limbus Title: Wonderful Genre: Indie Rock Rating:
Reviewed By Marty Peters
This month’s Spotlight is a punky/poppy solo effort with a tinge of psychedelia and attitude—a little Lou Reed with a pinch of Elvis Costello and a Fuzzface pedal. Why not!
Digging in, Doug did a superb job with his Roland V-Drums here. The muscular performance is proud in the mix and the tones are well-chosen and realistic. We particularly dig the woody snare sound, and the measured toms had a richness that belied their origin. The fact that Doug took the added step of remiking the drums through speakers in a larger room and recapturing the tracks via his AT4060 tube mic went a long way toward their success. Adding additional “air” to the tracks was a pro move, in our opinion, and we applaud the effort!
Wise panning of the guitars also contributed to the presence of the rhythm section here. We were able to comfortably distinguish all of the various guitar parts, while at the same time never losing the continuity of the other sound sources as a whole. And how’s about that fuzzed out guitar section, friends? Roky Erickson would be proud!
Doug’s plaintive vocals are delivered sans artifact. It seems that the great overly sibilant/compression scare of the past few years may finally be on the wane, thank you.
Finally, we want to give Doug props for his balanced and energetic mix. Maintaining a constant energy level as instruments come and go in and out of an arrangement is not an easy task, but Doug has done a bang-up job of it here.
Suggestions
Focus, tight arrangement, extra effort and chops: a pretty good recipe for success in our book. Listen and learn, you one-man/woman operators out there!
Summary
Rock on, good sir!