TY TABOR - SAFETY (*NEW-GOLD MAX CD, 2022, Brutal Planet) King's X guitarist
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BPCD1582 TY TABOR - SAFETY GOLD DISC 637405140637
TY TABOR - SAFETY (*NEW-GOLD MAX CD, 2022, Brutal Planet) King's X guitarist
- Ty Tabor is best known as guitarist for hard rock band, King's X
- Originally release 2002 on Metal Blade Records
- Gold-Foil Hype sticker
- Wally Farkas (Galactic Cowboys) guests on guitar on "I Don't Mind"
- Jerry Gaskill (King's X) handles drums
- Elite 2021 Remaster by Rob Colwell of Bombworks Sound
- GoldMax CD to discourage disc rot and add beauty & elegance
- Every CD comes with a deluxe gold foil-stamped Ty Tabor collector card
- Expanded 12-page insert with lyrics and additional band pics
- Gold Disc border on front cover - back of the booklet features the front cover with no Gold border around the outside edges
- 4 out of 5 rating on Phantom Tollbooth Reviews
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT TY TABOR - SAFETY...
"Safety" is Ty's second solo record recorded for Metal Blade in which he has taken some steps away from the crunch of King's X to craft an honest, emotionally revealing album, complete with the crisp acoustic guitars, thick grooves and his signature vocal melodies. Ty creates a rainbow of melodies and harmonies from which to chose.
Scott Waters / NOLIFETILMETAL REVIEWS
ABOUT THE ALBUM
Ty Tabor's latest solo album, Safety, was written and recorded over a three-year period. The ten songs chronicle his journey through the end of a "busted marriage." Aside from Jerry Gaskill on drums for most of the tracks and Christian Nesmith providing a few backing vocals, Tabor plays and sings (and produces and mixes and masters) everything on the album. While the material from King's X (Ty's main band) is usually harder and more progressive, Ty's solo music is full of easily palatable pop-rock with catchy melodies and copious amounts of Beatle-derived vocal harmonies. The opening track, "Tulip" is example one with an upbeat acoustic-electric song that bears a strong George Harrison influence. The title track mixes acoustic Zeppelin with Crosby, Stills & Nash vocal harmonies to create a rollicking good tune where Tabor finds some peace during his marital discord.
Guitar fans will gravitate to the tracks on Safety with crunchy guitar riffs that propel Ty's silken vocals through unusual chord changes. In "Better To Be On Hold" Ty captures his emotional state succinctly with lyrics like "She's all about her business/ She's got an address / And I am helpless" while accompanied by a great, chunky guitar riff. "Funeral," possibly the heaviest song, has more gutsy guitar work leading to multi-layered vocal harmonies in the chorus and one mind-blowing guitar solo, effective more for it's emotion than it's technical aspects. Although Tabor finds his life to be a "perpetual funeral" the bridge reveals the hope that "the knot will slowly start to loosen." While you might expect a song titled "Anger" to give a double-dose of distortion, Tabor instead presents a mid-tempo pop-rock gem while me muses that there is "Anger if I think about it" while again realizing that "I can see the end of the roller coaster." The final track, "I Don't Mind" opens and closes with some freakish Adrian-Belewish guitar sounds compliments of Wally Farkas. With slow, melancholy guitars ringing Tabor takes off his wedding ring and coils a great melody around the lyrics "And if it's you / You need to find / I don't mind / Anymore", closing the album with an inner resolution to heal and move on.
Here Tabor shows he can be at his best when collaborating with others. There are some incredible melodies and vocal harmonies within. And, while the subject content is raw and honest, one would be hard pressed not to find songs which speak to the wounded soul. The 2022 Brutal Planet Records remaster is packaged in jewel case, a 12-page booklet, and the coveted Brutal Planet GoldMax treatment that collector's crave for their treasured albums. Oh, and every CD contains a limited edition gold-foil-stamped Collector card!
Tracks
Tulip (Your Eyes)/Better To Be On Hold/Missing Love/Funeral/Room For Me/Safety/
True Love/Now I Am/Anger/I Don't Mind
PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH CD REVIEWS
Safety
Artist: Ty Tabor
Label: Metal Blade Records
Length: 10/45:42
Better known as the guitarist and sometime lead singer of King’s X, Ty Tabor has quietly released three solo albums. The latest of these is Safety, an album that Tabor himself calls “the most difficult subject matter I had ever written about”. This becomes evident in the lyrics at least seven of the ten songs deal with the deterioration of Tabor’s marriage and the subsequent divorce. Even the cover art indicates this, picturing Tabor in a Christ-like pose, wearing a crown of thorns, arms open wide, struggling against ocean waves.
Safety features the best vocals from Tabor in quite some time, a quality sorely lacking in the last two King’s X albums. His voice has a Beatlesque quality at times, while at others resembling Vertical Horizon, particularly on the title track. His trademark guitar is here as well, featuring a few King’s X- and Foo Fighters -style riffs, but more complementary than dominant on this work.
“Tulip (Your Eyes)” is the optimistic song on the album, seemingly portraying a new relationship for Tabor, as he pays homage to the feelings caused by a new love interest. “Better to Be On Hold” details the frustration of being trapped in an unfulfilling relationship:
It’s a thing I can’t assess
I admit I am a mess
She’s unable to profess
And it leaves me in distress
She is patient in excess
I’m unable to progress
She’s a frozen baroness
I am rendered meaningless…She will never love me, but she won’t leave me
I’m better to be on hold
She will never feel me but she won’t leave me
I’m better to be on hold.
“Missing Love,” “Funeral,” and “Room for Me” all continue this theme, showing the despair and emotional agony caused by marital discord. “True Love” asks the simple question “how did true love end up here?”
“Now I Am” and “Anger” show the steps in dealing with recovery the first states that its author “Grew up when my wife left me,” while the latter details the struggle caused: “Anger…if I think about it."
Finally, Tabor realizes he has done all he could, and sees the need to let go in “I Don’t Mind.”
"So if it’s you/ You need some time/And if it’s you/You need to find/I don’t mind/Any more.”
Safety is Tabor’s baby he sings, plays guitar and bass, programs some drums and loops, and produces. Christian Nesmith is featured on guitar, and Jerry Gaskill (King’s X) does some drumming. Wally Farkas (Galactic Cowboys) adds a guitar solo on “I Don’t Mind.”
This is an intensely personal album, one Tabor states “almost wasn’t released”. Still, it works well musically, and should provide some therapy for those who have gone through similar situations. Tabor has never been better vocally, and the mix here is much better than on Moonflower Lane, his previous output. _Safety_ is not “King’s X light” it is an album that stands on its own, with its own tone. A pleasure to listen to, while the lyrics are painful to hear.
Brian A. Smith 20 May 2002
