Few rock guitarists cover as much stylistic ground as everyone's favorite eyebrowless six-string wizard, John 5. And this statement is certainly backed up by the guitar work featured throughout 2007's The Devil Knows My Name. As evidenced by his earlier solo efforts, Señor Cinco can certainly hold his own with the big boys of instrumental guitar rock, but on Devil he actually goes head to head with two of the genre's top names, Joe Satriani ("The Werewolf of Westeria") and Eric Johnson ("The Washing Away of Wrong"). For the most part, The Devil Knows My Name sounds like it could have come out in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, when Satriani and his comrades were dominating the pages of Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine, as heard via the aforementioned ditties, as well as "Dead Art in Plainfield" and an all-instrumental cover of Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle." But as longtime fans of 5 learned long ago, he has a sweet tooth for some tasty chicken-pickin' country licks, which he indulges in once more on the tracks "Bella Kiss" and a Chet Atkins cover, "Young Thing." With such releases as The Devil Knows My Name, there is certainly much more to John 5 than merely being a hired gun for some of shock rock's biggest names.
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