Brady Novotny Lets Our ‘Passions Collide’

Distortion comes crashing down on us like an unstoppable tidal wave as Passions Collide opens with its title track and welcomes listeners into the guitar-obsessed universe of Brady Novotny. The Pittsburgh axe-slinger whose name you’ll never forget after hearing his all-new full-length album. An acoustic guitar breaks through the whirlwind electricity and spikes the track with a taste of flamenco that will appear to us again several times throughout the record, and on the whim of a searing pattern of stampeding riffs, we enter the humming warmth of “Ancient Romance” in all of its tube-amplified glory. As a guitarist myself, I can vouch that Novotny goes above and beyond the threshold of calculated play in this album, leaving a trail of opulent reverb in his wake.

That Spanish-flavored melody that sensuously winks at us in the first song rejoins the party at center stage in “Cara Bella,” setting us up for the virginal vocal track “Redemption’s Cry” perfectly. “Redemption’s Cry” is a much more elegiac, somber piece of music than the triplet of sonic fire-starters that get us rolling, but it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the music at all. The bluesy wallop in “Heart’s Fire” wouldn’t appear, at least on paper, as a smart way to shift gears following the emotion of its predecessor, but when you’ve got the galloping grooves that it has, you don’t really need much of an introduction. “The Journey Home” cleanses our palate with some understated rhythms that eventually shape a tour de force solo, but Passions Collide is far from through with us yet.

“A Classical Prelude” takes us back in time with a historical folk guitar performance that is as abstractly arranged as it is gripping and stoically produced. There’s no bells and whistles, but to be fair, this music doesn’t need any (these melodies do everything that added fluff would be required to compensate for in a more amateurish record). “Blue Rose” is the climax of the furious facets of flamenco, but next to the bristling “Soul Harmony” it feels more like a stage setter for the real conclusion of the album. The first time I heard Passions Collide, I couldn’t decide whether it was more indebted to classical music or something decidedly modern and hybrid-inspired. I ultimately determined that it vaults between both camps, or comes as close as you could get on a single LP.

Brady Novotny Shows Some Amazing Guitar Prowess

Passions Collide draws to a close with the aptly titled “Midnight Prayer,” which immaculately discloses one final musical message of ominousness before instantly dematerializing and leaving a void of suffocating silence behind. Brady Novotny isn’t a household name, nor has he been nominated for any Grammy Awards or trended on any social media sites, but he plays like a living legend in this LP, which is produced with close attention to the most subtle of details and boasts more creative content than most pop records twice its size tend to. Passions Collide is music for musicians and those who would seek to even fathom their relationship with this powerful strain of electrified art. In short, I highly recommend this album as one of the most appealing guitar records of the New Year.

Find more Brady Novotny HERE.

-review by Scottie Carlito