Lance Reegan-Diehl
And The Innocent Bystanders
Internal Construction

Review By Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck
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  Lance Reegan-Diehl, otherwise known as LRD for short, is a musician living and working in Korea creating great music on a consistent basis. His most recent release Internal Construction is a tremendous recording.

LRD plays a mean guitar and sings with emotionally drenched vocals. You can feel every word and the music that drives it all along rocks consistently throughout this recording. It is important to note the title of the CD. Think about it, this man is speaking about working on your inner self, the building blocks of spirituality. It became apparent to me that he is divinely inspired; it is in his playing and lyrics. Nobody plays guitar and sings like this without remarkable force of will and positive energy behind it all. Lance has some amazing backing musicians as well, featuring the rhythm section of David Dauberman (bass) and Tony Le Rhodes (drums and percussion).

This is all good so it is difficult to pick favorites. The opening track "Glory" is excellent; a driving instrumental number like Vai, Satriani, or Johnson would play. What a great way to start the proceedings. "Love To Burn" is a fantastic blues rocker with Megan Kim providing the necessary vocals to make the circle of emotions complete. She has a great set of pipes built for this kind of song. Lance really rips off some stinging guitar lines on the track-he is on fire! On "Cuz We Ended As Lovers" he does a pretty good job but it does not come close to Jeff Beck's performance on his legendary jazz-rock-fusion album Blow By Blow. Honestly though, how many guitarists can touch Beck? He gets an 'A' for effort. It takes a lot guts to tackle a number that difficult to play. That actually is the only track on the entire CD that I heard any sign of faltering but then again I am comparing it to the original version and there really is no comparison to make.

LRD has his place in this world of music surely, and he stakes his claim with authority, sounding original with some exciting great sounds. I like his playing and the lyrics he puts to all the music. Everything has a meaning, there is no room for nonsensical tracks, and all of it is quality musicianship. For an indie release it is top notch, it does not get any better. This artist has nowhere to go but up from this point. As more people discover the music of Lance Reegan-Diehl, the awareness of his powerful musical presence will become common knowledge amongst real music fans.

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