So just who is Monte Pittman? Well, here’s a brief introduction. Monte Pittman has played in Prong and has also been a guitarist/collaborator with pop queen Madonna since 2001. Well, that’s about the bulk of the info I knew before popping in his latest solo release The Power of Three. For some reason, when I hear “guitarist makes solo album” I assume that it’s going to be an instrumental platter of wank ala Shrapnel Records. I was very surprised to find that it wasn’t that at all. Matter of fact, if it had been just that I probably would’ve loved this album but alas it wasn’t to be.
“A Dark Horse” kicked in and I have to say that I was intrigued by what I was hearing. This particular song sounded a lot like something I could hear from a later years Ozzy Osbourne so needless to say my interest was piqued. Unfortunately, my interest in this album rapidly dissipated with the passing of each song. The album is a really well produced piece and I have to say that Pittman is a really a great guitarist but the songs just weren’t there for me. In all honesty I just found the songs to be completely forgettable and just not any good. After a while, the songs just all sounded like modern, nu-metal crap with nerve grating choruses like, “Give me more.. . Give me more … Give me more … Can’t get you off my mind… Can’t get you off my mind… Can’t get you off my mind…” After about 2 minutes of that it was all I could take.
The sad thing about The Power of Three is that there is so much potential for greatness. Pittman is a really great guitarist but as a songwriter he seems to lack any kind of true skill of dynamic and melody. All the songs sound so one dimensional and he seems to lack any true ear or use of melody. The melodies that he does use as the chorus/hooks of his songs are all just repetitive, drab, and flat out annoying. Each song sounds like the previous one and nothing about this album with the exception of the first song did much to pull me in and capture my attention. I don’t even know that I could listen to this album as background music because it’s so grating to me and don’t get me started on that album art. That album cover… oh boy.
The Power of Three just isn’t an album I can get behind. All of the songs on The Power of Three all sound like just run of the mill down tuned modern “metal.” I put “metal” in quotes because this is not what I think of when I think of metal. This is the kind of “metal” that I expect from bands like Avenged Sevenfold and to me that kind of music just doesn’t click with me. It just sounds so synthetic, overproduced and lacking any true dynamics. I definitely don’t think it would appeal to the Madonna fan base or fans of classic metal but I could totally see this appealing to the Mayhem Festival/Hot Topic crowd. It sounds modern and it sounds like something the kids today would embrace and get behind. As for me, call me an old curmudgeon fuck but The Power of Three just sounds like annoying noise. Get off my lawn Monte Pittman. Get off my lawn.
About The Author
