Speed Traffics & Guitar Accidents

Joop Wolters

The lead guitarist of Arabesque, Shadrane and Lalu returns with his second solo release. Speed, […]
By Grigoris Chronis
December 9, 2004
Joop Wolters - Speed Traffics & Guitar Accidents album cover

The lead guitarist of Arabesque, Shadrane and Lalu returns with his second solo release. Speed, Traffic & Guitar Accidents is home to 17 tracks that see Joop dive deep into his emotions and express himself vigorously to produce a stylistically varied release.
Joop Wolters, born in 1971, spent his youth moving from one country to the other. Joop's brother Peter, who always had a great interest is serious music, passed his love for bands like Rush and Thin Lizzy on to Joop. It's therefore no coincidence that his first influences as a guitarist come from guitar players like Alex Lifeson and Gary Moore. This can also be seen is his own or cover work! Serious guitar playing finally pays off for him indeed. 1994 sees the light of the first Arabesque record,  Beyond The Veil, which contains 10 mind blasting rock songs, it sounds like hell and really shows the craftsmanship of the musicians.  Fragments of Satriani/Vai/Dream Theater or evenBlues Music are quite clear in Speed, Traffic & Guitar Accidents,  but passed through his own personal emotional filter.
We must not forget to say that Metal music plays a very important role in the choices of this flying Dutchman Virtuso since a lot of his ideas and strong have been metalised fairly enough! This is also obvious from his hair style and length! Music fans that appreciate strong focused guitar work will find Speed, Traffic & Guitar Accidents a true gem. Experimental mood is very diffuse here. In other words the blonde guitar dedicated lover from Holland does not hesitate to alter his style from Dream Theater experimental playing to Satriani's extraterrestrial quest coupled by an occasional Slayerish filter sometimes! Joop states in the press release that he was able to spend more time with these songs than during his first release. That is obvious from the first track, Interludallowedintersection. Magic also flows freely sometimes from tracks such as Disturbance.
The songs themselves are Joop's main target. In other words he doesn't only care about technical perfection but also for true artistic expression and of giving something to the audience they will remember for a long time. He also proves to be an excellent bassist judging from the way the 4-string sounds in his work. It seems to be that Joop's work won't appeal that much to non guitar lovers - who no matter who plays the guitar, consider guitar albums generally as sonic masturbations!
On the other hand, if you are a devotee to the six string Goddess  you will DEFINITELY have prime time listening to Joop's externalizing his deepest emotions and feelings! Cheerz with an icy Heineken to ya Joop!

8 / 10

Excellent

"Speed Traffics & Guitar Accidents" Track-listing:

Interludallowedintersection
Hi-Jacked
A Day and This
Disturbance
Loverslane
Beggin' for a Trip to the Stars
Cruissing for the Soul
Resolute
To the G and Back
Acoustimas
Funkonexsion
some Time To Spare
The Crash
Meka Dance
Canned Heart
Avenue le Reinnescance
Split Decision

Joop Wolters Lineup:

Joop Wolters - Guitars, Bass, Keyboards & Drum-programming
Patrick Eijdems - Drums
Daniel Flores - Drums
Nathan v/d Wouw - Drums
Vivien Lalu - Keyboards
Alex Argento - Keyboards
Mike Roelofs - Keyboards

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