DL Byron releases “Satori” LP

SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/dlbyron/sets/satori

Composer DL Byron isn’t reinventing rock n’ roll with his all new extended play Satori, but he’s definitely showing his contemporaries and critics alike that he isn’t afraid to explore areas both musical and lyrical that some artists simply are to timid to touch. Satori is a sophisticated record containing four songs, but it’s within these tracks that we start to see the identity that DL Byron has ultimately constructed for himself without any filtration between his listeners and his medium.

Byron’s career has taken his music to virtually every corner of the globe, and his veteran experience in the studio is exhibited quite vividly throughout Satori. I found particularly intriguing that he decided to go with the finishing mix that he did; the scooped audio makes the guitar riffing so much more guttural and in your face than I would have anticipated.

“No. 1 God” is the driving force behind Satori’s charms, and its enormous amplifier worship pushes old school arena rock into a new era of recording. As heart pounding as the beat is, the tonality of the song is where all the magic can be found, as noted in the correlating harmony between Byron’s wails and the vicious drum pattern circling his every move.

“Everywhere I Go” is another key moment from Satori that should be marked as one of the better entries of Byron’s career, but for completely different reasons than “No. 1 God.” “Everywhere” is much richer and paced out; it gives us it’s meaty rock in bite sized pieces as opposed to all at once, and instead of frustrating the listener it makes its unexpected fever pitch all the more stunning to absorb.

Few have said it, but I think that the next move for DL Byron should be making a live album. You can always tell when songs were meant to be played in an open venue with a lusting crowd crying out for more, and Satori is definitely one of those sets. If he ever does decide to pull the trigger on such an affair, you can guarantee that I’m going to be covering it every step of the way – but to be perfectly honest, I think that no matter what Byron releases next, it will captivate critics like myself all the same.

Michael Rand