Jason Achilles Mezilis: “COMEDOWN” – free of ego boosting trickery, concentrating on composition and content!

Jason Achilles Mezilis was classically trained in piano from about the age of 8. At 16 his parents bought him an electric guitar a week after his first Van Halen concert in high school. Since then Mezilles has gone on to graduate from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor’s in Music, join the band OWL, play in support of FUEL and P.O.D., as well as produce and record bands in his analog/digital studio Organic Audio Recorders in downtown Los Angeles, CA. In between he has also found the time to be a proud owner of 3000+ comic books, including a prized copy of the Amazing Spider Man #300.

Jason Achilles Mezilis has released his solo instrumental album entitled, “COMEDOWN” this June. The record out on vinyl was recorded entirely in analog and features Brett Rocha on drums, with album photography by Yoko Morimoto and original artwork by Panos Tsagaris.

If ever an album rode that mile-high razor’s edge between pure guitar bliss and deeply moving rock-and-roll, this is it. These songs heard in the context of all our guitar heroes like Satriani, Petrucci and Vai, makes us realize just how different a guitar playing cat Mezilis really is.

Here he has just the right reverb all over the tracks, thick and rich guitar pyrotechnics, and a myriad of swooshes and swirls and shimmering cymbals. The depths on each track reach to the very bottom of your soul and there’s only one word which adequately describes the feeling you get – stately, as if you were blessed to be king for a day and one of the coolest musicians in the land made music in your honor.

Our guitar heroes often get flogged for being too perfect in execution, not emotive enough. These charges cannot be thrown at the raw energy I am hearing from Mezilis on this record.

His performances intersperse strong melodic lines within frequent bouts of fiery improvisation. Never out of control. Never trite and clichéd. His execution is indeed flawless, but it’s the kind of flawlessness that comes from utter mastery, and not unimaginative cautiousness.

Mezilis strives for the level of precision and musicianship one finds in top-notch classical musicians. All too often, guitarists hide their flaws in layers of effects and ambient noise, but Mezilis often puts his sound front and center, and does so with a level of execution not unlike some of the world’s finest violinists. Don’t believe me? Check out the tracks “Comeback”, “Ghost” or even “Tokyo Drift”.

“Ascension” and “Sunrise” reflects both thematically and musically, the best Jason Achilles Mezilis has to offer, while drummer Brett Rocha thumps and pumps each track through heaven and hell. Mezilis’ playing style would tend to put him out of the guitar shredder category, where a lot of the playing consists of running various musical scales at blistering speed.

Mezilis is more melodic and soulful. He builds his solos directly from the rhythm in a seamless manner that keeps the feel of the song even when deep into his soloing. The album “COMEDOWN” is free of ego boosting trickery and concentrates on composition and content!

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