Album Review
Guitarists Jim Reindel and Chris Hattingh collaborate on this recording of electric guitar instrumentals. The influence of top players like Lifeson, Van Halen, Satriani, and Schenker is apparent throughout, but Reindel and Hattingh are usually unique enough in their playing and arranging to put forth their own sound. Opener "Shuffleboard Champs" finds the duo trading solos over a chugging, classic metal bottom end, while the progressive rock-influenced "Dance of the Coffin Dodgers" breaks out the acoustic guitars in support of the electric's leads. While the guitars are obviously the focus here, there is accompaniment from drums and bass. Unfortunately, the drums sound like the electronic variety at various points in the set (the title track; the atmospheric "Bingo Night at Emily's"), and this dulls some of Too Dumb to Quit's edges. Likewise, the nearly eight-minute — and entirely unaccompanied — "Arthritic Shredfest" owes too much of a debt to Van Halen's "Eruption," and likely will only be of interest to shred heads. The album does end strongly, however, with the upbeat "Goodbye Spandex" and the slowly building "Vitamin A," which explodes into a cacophony of guitar effects. The song fades out as a riff recalling Journey's "Anytime" repeats into oblivion; it suggests that the completely un-ironic hard rock/prog soloing of Too Dumb to Quit is just continuing on somewhere in the distance, for as long as the power supply and guitar strings hold out.
