Shadow Of A Dream

- CD Review by Davy Peckett -

NGD 4466

VJ KING JR

Shadow Of A Dream
Heartbeat SR20011001 Australia
(PO Box 408 Round Corner NSW 2158)

Raining In My Heart; Dream Island; Ten Out Of Ten; Shadow Of A Dream; Touchdown; Song For Liz; Chez Pierre; Into The Groove; Sleepwalk; Brazilian Moon; Howdy Hank; Junk… Simple, slick and accurate leads played in a Shadow’s vogue but with lots of variation from a little chap down under who is currently 10 years old and who recorded much of this when he was eight!

Instrumental guitar for the future is therefore in safe hands on quite startling showings like this. The guitar playing is amazingly mature on material which will be largely unfamiliar to European guitar fans being made up mainly of compositions by VJ’s music teacher Peter Andrews.

The songs are mostly of a ballad nature and are pleasant, pretty and perfectly done and if I had to pick a fault with the album, that’s it. It’s only when we get to Howdy Hank that things start to get up-tempo and verging on rock & roll but that’s just a personal crib. The album was probably not intended for that and Shadows’ fans and guitar fans in general seem to prefer the slower style so that’s fair enough. Enough has been written elsewhere in NGD on the talents of VJ for me to prattle on too much but suffice it to say, if he’s this talented at this age, gosh only knows what we have to come. We wish VJ all the success in the world and with his debut CD ***

Davy Peckett
Editor
NGD (UK)
July, 2002
Issue 65 p 25

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Currently playing is Track 09 - Sleep Walk - from VJ King Jr's Shadow of a Dream album