CD REVIEW: FABRIZZIO GROSSI & SOUL GARAGE EXPERIENCE – COUNTERFEITED SOULSTICE VOL 1

Shane | 24 November 2021 | Reply

CD REVIEW: FABRIZZIO GROSSI & SOUL GARAGE EXPERIENCE – COUNTERFEITED SOULSTICE VOL 1
Soul Garage Experience Recordings
September 2021
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
81%

You may be cool, but you’ll never be Fab Grossi cool. It’s not enough for this Italian born Californian rocker to exude cool whilst draped in rock n’ roll garb in every photo, but now he steps out of the comparative shadows of being a bass slinging sideman with the excellent Supersonic Blues Machine (and Steve Vai, Nina Hagen, not to mention producer of acts as varied as George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Billy F Gibbons, Glenn Hughes, Alice Cooper and more) and into the spotlight front and centre with his new outfit, The Soul Garage Experience.

It’s Grossi’s bass – a pulsating, pumping heartbeat of a thing – and his warm honeyed vocals which are the stars of the show, infusing everything with (exactly as it says on the tin) soul and garage rock sensibilities, not to mention a little funk and an incomparable groove.

Any album will be something special with the seasoned likes of legendary drummers Kenny Aaronoff and Stephen Perkins, keyboard whizzes Alex Alessandroni Jr and Dylan Meek, but again it’s the vocals which provide a focal point when American Idol & America’s Got Talent finalist Diimond Meeks steps up to the mic for a clutch of tracks including the blues funk of Shit Load Of Sugar and the gorgeously syrupy Seventies soul of final track Them or Me.

There’s a host of other brilliantly talented contributors here, but I can’t get away without mentioning 24-year-old Derek Day, whose guitarwork is both supportive of the other talent on show, and sends a shower of sparks at every appropriate opportunity. It’s a rare talent to have in someone so young, but Day has already shared stages with Steve Vai, Moby & Slash, so he’s been in good company.

Listening to Counterfeited Soulstice Vol 1 won’t make you as cool as Fab Grossi… but it will make you feel cooler than you are now, not to mention cooler than your friends who haven’t heard this, and that’s the best gift music can give us. That a portion of the proceeds from this album go to support Guitars 4 Vets, which assists with music therapy for veterans affected by PTSD, and Upward Bound House, a homeless families support network, is further icing on an already irresistible cake.