The Grouchy Gaijin's Thoughts on Music and Such

Cailyn and Dani are the driving force behind a Classic Rock band out of Fond Du Lac Wisconsin.

When Cailyn emailed me I was pretty excited to hear their stuff.

According to the email "True Lies and Other Fairy Tales by Cailyn/Dani is a full length progressive
rock album with four original compositions and classic songs by Kansas,
Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Winwood, and Greg Lake that have been
rewritten and arranged to sound fresh, different--female."  I thought cool -The Wind Cries Mary is one of my all time favorite songs.  I also dig a lot of Steve Winwood's stuff.  I like the Spencer Davis era stuff as well as Traffic and Blind Faith.  I was also curious about their Aerosmith cover - I had a mind bending night a long time ago at an Aerosmith show. (If your buddy hands you a little purple pill think twice before ingesting it.)

The Good:

1. Cailyn can play guitar very well.

2. Live they undoubtedly kick ass - there are a ton of killer guitar riffs on this album.  The guitar is fantastic actually.

The Bad:

1.  I just don't like Dani's voice.  Its almost soulful.  I much more prefer Little Foot Long Foot's Joan Smith.

2. I had a similar feeling when I listened to Avenged Sevenfold.  Technically they are quite good, but something is missing.

3. I'm not a fan of "Prog Rock".  I know Carl Palmer can do a one handed drum roll but ELP's music loses me when it moves into  "Electric Classical" mode.

The Cheesy:

1. The Thunder at the beginning of track 1 Heartland.  That has been done.

2. The title of track 3 Lady Kicks Axe - I have visions of Mullets screaming "Play Freebird!"

3. The Livin Lovin' Maid and Hendrix tributes in the guitar solo of Lady Kicks Axe strike me as a bit much.  I feel a Jana Peri vibe except this band has a really good guitar player.

Track 4 - Portrait (He knew) - had great possibilities.  The problem is that Kansas did a much better version.

Track 6 - Dream On - was a huge let down.  They seem to play everything slowly.  I think that is an attempt to bring out emotion.  Once again I have to say that the guitar rocks.  Unfortunately, for me, her wicked licks are not enough to make up for everything else.

Track 7 - The Wind Cries Mary - bugged me a lot.  That is the problem when you cover classic tracks. This version  just doesn't sound good.  Her voice really bothered me on this track.  There is a nice guitar solo that starts at 2:23.

Track 8 - Can't Find My Way - sounds good.  It is probably the best track on the album.  Dani's voice sounds good on parts of this track.

So the bottom line?

Cailyn can do magic on the guitar but its not enough to make me a fan.  Joe Satriani is a wizard on guitar, but I don't  like his music either.  Sorry ladies but this album gets 1 and 1/2 scowls.  If they were playing in my area I'd check them out.  Chances are very good that while I don't care for this album much, the live show would be amazing.

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