Review: Gary Cain 'Next Stop'

Gary Cain

By Mike O’Cull

Canadian guitarist, vocalist, bassist, drummer, and all-around musical firestorm Gary Cain literally does it all for you on his smashing second album Next Stop. Available now as an independent release, Next Stop finds Cain handling all guitar, bass, and drum tasks himself, essentially becoming a power trio of one, and doing it with strength, style, and grace.

Cain is also a fine and relevant songwriter who has populated this new effort with ten original tracks that not only rock hard but also address, question, and even attack the society we live in. Cain isn’t here to crank out party anthems as much as to use blues-based guitar music as a way to express the anger and frustration that seem to be the general human conditions in 2022. He’s a fearless lyricist, a ripping guitarist, and a creator with his own ideas about how to play this game of ours, which means you need to be listening.

Gary Cain is an immensely-talented musician with a style that’s half blues and half every other kind of cool record he ever heard. He spent long, adolescent days learning the blues and developing his virtuosity in his parent’s’ basement. Unlike many who walk the same road, Cain never felt compelled to imitate the Old Masters. “I’m not a purist.” he says, “What made those players so great was what they brought to the music to make it their own. Albert King was the best Albert King there’ll ever be. You gotta do your own thing with it.” This, Cain has surely done, crafting a mode of his own and building his whole gig upon it.

His approach has garnered much praise and attention from those in the know. In 2016, he placed fourth in the world in the blues category of Grammy winner Lee Ritenour’s Six String Theory guitar competition, where he was evaluated by luminaries including Joe Bonamassa, Ry Cooder, and Joe Satriani. In 2018, he opened for George Thorogood and the Destroyers and made the semi-finals in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. He has also performed at festivals, clubs, and concerts across Canada, the USA and Europe.

Gary kicks the album wide open with the take-no-mess honesty and riffage of “Billionaires In Space.” His guitar work is tight and on point and his lyrics call out and thrash the ultra-rich, wanna-be spacemen whose names we know all too well. Cain never shies away from his truth and delivers body shots like the passage, “One small step for mankind to a living wage/Instead we’re living through a second gilded age/Time has come now won’t you join me as we raise/our collective middle finger to the billionaires in space” without flinching. It’s this vibe that makes Cain significant and believable as a songwriter and you’ll be absolutely there for it in one listen.

“Confusion” is a Hendrix-influenced blaster that features Cain throttling his Stratocaster to the edge of its capabilities. His drum and bass parts work with the song’s riff to roll out this vintage jam but his solos shred right through the classic rock guitar vocabulary you expect to encounter and fly high. His tones are righteous and his ideas are unique and genre-defiant.

The raging, country/metal/exotic instrumental “Kitchen Sink” shows the world just how great of a guitarist Cain truly is. His hyper-speed country licks flirt with rock and world sounds to make this one so much more than the train-beat burner you’ll initially think it to be. Once again, Cain does things his way and shines brightly. Be sure to dig into the set’s other instrumental “A Short, Furious Goodbye” that closes the record. It’s just what the title says it is.

Gary Cain is one big highlight waiting to happen and Next Stop is full of worthy tunes like “Gatekeeper,” “Crazy,” and “Gone.” He’s a high-value player with an expansive and personal take on rock music that’s explosive both instrumentally and lyrically. Spin this one a few times and contemplate the fact that one human made every sound on it. Mind? Blown.

Listen to “Billionaires In Space”