Long Island prog metallers Moon Tooth are known for their distinctive blend of boundary-pushing arrangements with big pop melodies, powered by guitarist Nick Lee's ambitious fretboard antics, which run the gamut from chunky powerchords to smooth harmonic-laden leads.
These elements are on full display in Carry Me Home, the third single from the band's forthcoming record, Phototroph, out May 13 via Pure Noise Records. And Lee has filmed a new electric guitar playthrough of the track – premiered exclusively at Guitar World – so you can see those six-string lines in all their glory.
Wielding his psychedelic Vigier GV Rock guitar – in standard tuning but with the low E string dropped to B – Lee delivers the track's continuous bluesy slide-flavored hard-rock riff with notable ease, before launching into a jaw-dropping solo at the 2:19 mark, packed with rapid-fire ascends and soaring bends. Check it out above.
As Lee notes, and as you can probably hear, the track's main riff is heavily Hendrix-inspired. “Carry Me Home was inspired by a question to myself: ‘What kind of riffs would Jimi Hendrix write if he had lived long enough to try tuning just his low E down to a B?’ I was listening to Band of Gypsys a lot when I wrote it. That record is so funky and heavy.
“I like the idea that someone who maybe happens upon Moon Tooth in the scope of a ‘modern metal or progressive metal band’ is also getting Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, BB King, and even some bluegrass whether they realize it or not.”
Gear-wise, Lee's Vigier GV Rock is loaded with a pair of DiMarzio Dominion pickups, and runs through a 1974 Hiwatt DR103 attenuated by a Fryette Power Station. His pedalboard consists of a pair of overdrives – a Friedman BE-OD Deluxe and a J Rockett Archer Ikon – as well as Empress Echosystem and MXR Carbon Copy delays, and an EHX Holy Grail reverb.
Moon Tooth's new album Phototroph arrives May 13 via Pure Noise Records.
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Sam was Staff Writer at GuitarWorld.com from 2019 to 2023, and also created content for Total Guitar, Guitarist and Guitar Player. He has well over 15 years of guitar playing under his belt, as well as a degree in Music Technology (Mixing and Mastering). He's a metalhead through and through, but has a thorough appreciation for all genres of music. In his spare time, Sam creates point-of-view guitar lesson videos on YouTube under the name Sightline Guitar.
