The first time history heard of the guitar player Bruce Bouillet (whom, in deference of his French sounding name was born in Memphis, Tennessee), is when he became a member of supergroup Racer X in 1986. He left that band in 1989, contributing to the 1987 Second Heat album, and could also be found on the live albums Extreme Volume Live (1988) and Extreme Volume II Live (1992), which were all released through cult label Shrapnel Records.
Following his departure from Racer X, Bruce co-founded The Scream with former Angora singer John Corabi (later left to join Motley Crüe) and his former Racer X bandmates John Alderette and Scott Travis (the latter soon leaving to join Judas Priest, and being replaced by Walt Woodward III). The band released the 1991 album Let It Scream on Hollywood Records, but then fell in a series of events (including the second album Takin' It To The Next Level never being released) which eventually resulted in the demise of the band in 1993. Undaunted, Bruce then founded DC-10, which released the 1995 album Co-Burn (that same year Bruce also contributed to the Shrapnel compilation Jeffology – A Guitar Chronicle) before throwing in the towel during 1996! Next up, Bruce joined Paul Gilbert's solo outfit, and contributed to Gilbert's 1998 debut solo albums King Of Clubs and Flying Dog. Bruce then went into the business of being a recording/ mixing engineer, opening a first of four studios and producing full-time...and in the year 2000 two major albums with Bruce credited as producer saw the light of day: Doro's Calling The Wild, and Motörhead's We Are Motörhead. He also mixed that year's Racer X album Superheroes. In fact, besides the few mentioned, there were also albums by the likes of Buckcherry, and some 40 others on which Bruce worked in a capacity of recording or mixing engineer or as producer, in those first years of his studio career. Within that period he also recorded one personal studio project under the Big Sur monicker (which included Alderette, Lisa Papineau of Pet, and Tim C. of Rage Against The Machine).
2001 then, saw Bruce erect the band Epidemic [not to be confused with the California based Death/ Thrash outfit by the same name which existed from 1986 to 1994, after leaving us 4 demos, an EP on Metal Blade Records, and 3 full-length albums (the latter two also on Metal Blade) – to make the count complete, I should also mention that a compilation album was released posthumously as well] which delivered a 2002 album. Although the band was successful enough, touring with the likes of Nickelback, Sinch, Seether, Jerry Cantrell, and Default among others, and even getting a song on the Madden NFL:2003 video game, the outfit eventually split in the latter part of 2003. 2004 found Bruce behind the mixing board again, for the self-titled debut album of Sean Baker Orchestra, and in fact the guitarist would even contribute instrumentally. Bruce also started writing/ producing theme music for sporting events, TV, and movies. His theme music album for WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestler Triple H even went Gold! In 2005 then, Bruce (along with Bob Kulick) won a Grammy award for his recording/ Mixing/ producing work on Motörhead's cover of Metallica's "Whiplash". From 2005 to 2007, he joined The Bottom Dwellerz, and co-produced their 2006 releases Cracks Of The Concrete and Old New Orleans – Autographed Edition. Then, a most important event happened!
You see, Bruce had already collaborated on his work for TV and film music with Los Angeles underground legend Dave Foreman, a multi-instrumentalist whom as session musician had already been on albums of some of the major sellers in the Pop music business (including Aaliyah, Boyz To Men, DJ Quick, Ice Cube, Snoop Dog, Tupac, and many more), and the two had struck a friendship which saw Foreman instigate Bruce into writing music of their own. In essence, Foreman became the pivoting element which pushed Bouillet into it all, and onto the 2007 release of his debut instrumental album Unspoken (a better title was never chosen for an instrumental album – although of course Bouillet lets his guitar speak for himself!). Also in 2007, Bruce rekindled his friendship with Paul Gilbert, and toured with him on the G3 extravaganza (alongside Joe Satriani and John Petrucci) as well as with Paul's solo project. Bouillet released a new instrumental album entitled Interventions in 2008 (released in Japan a year later), but basically continued his work for TV and film as a means for a steady income, also taking in some mixing/ production work for other bands on the side (such as the 2009 Sam Baker's Orchestra album Baker's Dozen – on which he also played). Until September 2011, when it was announced that Bruce would be joining Asia featuring John Payne for live work...a venture which lasted a full year! 2013 came, and he started checking out some music for himself again, writing new material along the way. Which brings us full circle to the album at hand.
Now, there's a different approach, musically speaking, from his previous solo outlets, as Bruce decided to make the melody of the music itself be prevalent to any technical display. Not that the album's devoid of any such complexities...oh no, no way...but overall the “normal” Rock fan will find this album very much to his liking. If you'll allow my personal observation, the new Bouillet album sounds like something Joe Satriani might've come up with. Then, believe it or not, but there's also a concept to the album, the tracks being written with the conspiracy theory of some “force” intermixed throughout humanity, which manipulates the masses. Album opener “Blind As We Watched” is about the events that are happening around us in front of our own eyes, but invisible to our sight. ”Seeing Through” deals with being able to look at the little truths within the lies we're fed, especially so these days when anyone can put half-truths out on the internet, and then just let the “social” media do their misleading work! For “The Manipulators” Bruce envisioned a somewhat more unlikely stance, claiming the possibility of some people behind the scene having the possibility of remote view, telepathic communication, mind reading capability and, ultimately, the poser to place thoughts into other people's minds. The word “Illuminati” didn't quite fall there, but comes to my mind first. If you ask me, those in power (and never mind looking any further than the politicians in our governments, have popularised this “third party involvement” over the ages in an effort to steer away the attention from théir atrocities, to the point that some of them at least now believe in the lie themselves.
Away from the background of the tracks, the music within is certainly worth while listening to, and Bruce paid special attention at allowing both the bass and drums to shine through on the album as well. And, I mean, the bass play on the album is truly a thing to take inspiration from, and I for one now classify Dave Foreman (whom made his name in Hip Hop and R&B circles) as a truly kick-ass ProgRock bassist! Equally as impressive, is the drumming performed by Glen Sobel, whom many of you might know as a former member of Beautiful Creatures and Orianthi, and whom has been playing live drums for Alice Cooper's band during the last couple of years. Bruce got acquainted to him when he went to watch his friend John Ziegler's band Volta play. Their drummer was actually sick, and being replaced by Sobel for the occasion. After the show the two had a chat, and two months later Sobel entered Bruce's studio, to leave it two days later with all drum tracks for the album recorded! If that sounds like a quickie job, you'd better erase that thought from your mind, because what you hear on the album is an outstanding job indeed!
I'm afraid I failed terribly in my attempt to find spots in the Internet with some music off the album for you to listen to. For some reason, Bruce's own site (www.) brucebouillet.net is off-line, and there's no music made available at his facebook page. No music was made available on the album's Amazon page, and I failed to check whether the same is so with the its iTunes page. I can only surmise that by now (I'm writing this a week àfter the release) samples of the tracks may have been released to attract possible buyers. I did however find some older tracks from Bruce's career at his YouTube space. By all means, I invite you to make your own research...or else go out to your local record store and demand a listening session of the album, always providing they have the album in-store, of course. Then again, if you've come that far already, it must mean there's at least an interest, and I can assure you that if you're into instrumental Rock music with progressive leanings, you'll have no second thoughts after buying the album and giving it a listening session. If anything, it might in fact incite you to go order the man's other two albums! And yeah, with me putting up the flag for this dude, I hereby confirm the first nomination of an album for my 2014 year-lists!