WARREN APPLEBY - False Face Society

Posted: 02/07/04

Reviewed by: Dirt

Category: Spacey Instrumental Hard Rock

Released: 2002 and 2003

Label URL:

Artist URL: www.warrenappleby.com

1/2 (Both CD's)

Warren Appleby is a guitarist from Pennsylvania who has released two instrumental solo albums, 2002's Dark Forest Trail and 2003's False Face Society. Both releases spotlight Warren's guitar playing within a computerized keyboard backdrop. While many other artists use keyboards to create a progressive sound, Warren has opted for a more techno, futuristic, sythesizer driven, space-age vibe. Whether intentional or not, the keyboards and percussive sounds seem to come off as synthetic. In my opinion, they take away from Warren's guitar playing. That's too bad because Warren definitely has some excellent ideas and his chord progressions and use of dissonant tones are interesting. Overall though, Appleby opts for songs, instead of a shred-fest, and because of this False Face Society succeeds in conjuring up some eerie images. These releases are quite similar in style to Ronnie Montrose's 1988 release, The Speed Of Sound. If you like futuristic sounding guitar and keyboard driven hard rock, check out Warren's music. Sound clips are available on his site.