Review excerpt from Elgon Williams' blog review, found HERE.

It may be a little known fact to the world outside of music but the local area, Greater Orlando if you will, is one of the Mecca’s of media and entertainment. Even though sleepy little West Melbourne is in the peripheries of the growing would-be megalopolis of Tampa/Orlando/Daytona that may one day span the midsection of this state, there is a thriving creative community here. Every once in a while the reality strikes you across the face – as in there is a local band that is actually pretty damned good and they have a CD.

I am remiss to admit that I had never heard of the band previous to last night. Although I pay attention to music and trends, sometimes my focus is more on national or even international acts and people I have known for years than the local scene. My bad; I have missed one in my own backyard!

Musically, the band Comber is hard to categorize. Their sound reminds one of several other groups as you would expect from musical influences. They kind of remind me of Lost Prophets at times but I would not denigrate them to claiming that they sound like anyone but themselves. They have a unique sound that deserves a listen. The lyrics penned by lead singer and guitarist Craig Wildenradt are thought provoking and relevant. The guitar work on the debut CD that was performed exclusively by Craig demonstrates the young man’s talent on his axe as well as his songwriting skills. As I understand it he wrote the scoring for the other instruments as well, quite an exceptional level of control over the music for a songwriter in a group. The ensemble of highly competent, studio quality musicians surrounding Craig are: Gary Schmidt (guitars), Kevin Mattison (bass) and Chris Baker (drums).

Maybe I am cheating here as I had the opportunity to see and hear the band perform live in a small venue, the Metro Café in West Melbourne, FL. The place permits a lot of personal access to the bands before and after the performances but I also think it constitutes a tough room for anyone to perform simply because it is so closed-in. The acoustics of the room are adequate but not outstanding. Despite the environmental deficiencies Comber sounded good. They may have lacked some of the seasoning that the larger experience of touring will surely bring to them but after the first couple of songs the band felt on track and cruising along. There were a few, very few actually, lapses in vocals early on, more on the technical side than the performance side but I also think that Craig has a case of nerves that he dealt with like a professional and by the band’s third and fourth songs he was talking directly to the audience and seemed very comfortable to be performing.

I was particularly impressed with Chris Baker’s performance on drums and Kevin Mattison’s supporting and connecting effort on bass. As a bassist, I naturally sort-of key in on the rhythm section of a band and in Comber the work is as tight and flawlessly precise as one might expect from professional studio musicians working from sheet music, except that they were performing from the heart of knowing the music. Gary Schmidt’s guitar work effectively compliments Craig’s vocal and guitar work to carry the melodies in a way that delivers the songs with emphasis. 

Review by Elgon Williams