Joe Bonamassa, bless him, is a proper champion of new music. And one of the people he loves is Sicilian guitarist Matteo Mancuso.
You can see why. In 2023, Mancuso’s debut was remarkable. But you know the thing about debuts? You have to back them up, right.
No one told Mancuso to feel pressure.
Indeed, “Route 96” couldn’t sound more contented if it tried.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the debut and “Route 96” is the musical confidence on display. The concepts are more orchestrated and developed, with Mancuso showing no shortage of creative wind in the sails. The first album, by his own admission, was mainly arranged in a rehearsal room, working out the structure and flow of the music in real time. This time, the process feels much more streamlined.
Recorded at Fico D’India Studios in Casteldaccia, Italy, and produced by Matteo alongside his father Vincenzo Mancuso, “Route 96” features Mancuso with Riccardo Oliva on bass and Gianluca Pellerito on drums. And, honestly, the chemistry is ridiculous.
“Solar Wind”, featuring Steve Vai, begins gorgeous, dreamy and floating, like a warm breeze drifting in from somewhere better than here. It is fusion, yes, but never in the look-at-me sense. The playing is dazzling, of course it is, but it never forgets to be music.
“Fire And Harmony” underlines that point. There is a Latin, jazz feel here, like proper fusion, and then it explodes. My God, when Mancuso lets go, there is that rare sense of someone not just showing technique, but making it sing.
“Isla Feliz”, with Antoine Boyer, has the kind of skill that almost makes you laugh. You run out of superlatives for this stuff, you really do. It is light, nimble, warm and absurdly clever, but it never becomes sterile. That is the trick.
“L.A. Blues One” gets a little dirtier. There is more groove here, a little more grit under the fingernails, and it suits him. Mancuso is so precise that it would be easy for this to become clinical, but it doesn’t. There is blood in it.
“The Great Wall” moves into more progressive territory, making its attacks under the radar. It creeps up rather than kicks off, and that is part of its charm. “Warm Sunset” is back in the hinterland: quiet, understated brilliance, the sort of playing that sounds effortless until you remember that almost nobody else could actually do it.
“Black Centurion” rocks out a little more than the others, perhaps, and “In The Morning Light” has that same feeling of ease, like the record is quite happy to sit back and let the musicians talk to each other.
Then comes “Chicken”, the bonus track featuring Valeriy Stepanov, and even on a record like this, they have saved the best for last. It is incredible, obviously, but more importantly it still feels like a song. That matters. Virtuosity is one thing. Soul is another. Mancuso has both.
Plainly and simply, you can lose yourself in “Route 96”. And my goodness, the kid’s a star.
