I imagine little Benny Jansson spending most of his younger days practising scales on his guitar. Meanwhile the other kids were ringing bells or poking secret fires and later on when they showed Benny their first girlfriends Benny played them new a mixolydian scale: faster than Yngwie Malmsteen, his big idol. In 1992, he made his debut with his band “Two Rocks”. He was called a guitar sensation and was compared to John Norum and Kee Marcello. He played together with Svullo, Snack Charmer and Malmsteens ex-wife Erica. His guitarplaying is inspired by, Alan Holdsworth, Al DiMeola and Steve Vai. For his third Album “Save the world”, he got help from singer Goran Erdman, and Keyboardplayer Jens Johansson, both Malmsteen musicians. Yet, his music doesn’t sound like Malmsteen at all. It’s closer to the smooth jazzrock of Mezzoforte whereas fusion guitarists like Mike stern seem to be his main inspiration. Opener "Save The World (part 1)" has orchestrated syrhesiser sounds followed by his strongest shot for commercial recognition "Save The World (part 2)", but then boredom sets in. Fourth song, Winter Night, brings back reminiscence of second-grade Toto songs. There’s got to be better hookline lyrics than “I close my eyes and dream away.” Keyboards recorded in New York and Guitars in Stockholm reveal that this is not a band, not a bunch of guys having lots of fun, but one man too eagerly showing his capabilities.

He produced the record himself (together with drummer Daniel Flores) and that is his main weakness. Everything sounds so smooth and outdated. His guitar sounds too much like a synthesizer and drum and bass lack as well power as clarity. Benny still doesn’t burn it up, his music doesn’t smell of beer and sweat, it smells like a cheap aftershave. He still isn’t ringing my bell. As skilled as he is as a stringmaster, he still has a limited range of expressions: he uses no Dynamics, he hardly plays rhythm-guitar nor uses variation in strumming patters; he hardly uses bending or vibrato and no tremolo; his guitar is never singing, howling or weeping. It’s mostly playing scales like he is still practising to get better. The scales certainly show a deep insight of harmonic and melodical structures, but that’s only interesting for guitar students. Skilfulness and creativity are two different things. Guitar students or really great fans of jazzrock/fusion might give it a try. The rest keeps hoping for a 21st century producer and the insight to put his talents in service of real creative musicians. Maybe you should check out his website which is set up as a computer game: http://home.bip.net/fegis/