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The real joy of Jimmy Ryan's latest release, '21st Century Riffology' is the fantastic music this amazing guitarist paints. Wonderfully varied landscapes on this tour de force of amazing guitar playing and soaring music. Every track offers something different. The guitar playing and tone are astonishing, the sound quality is great. From the hard-rocking tracks like, "Speedloader", "Thor's Hammer", "Stompbox" to the mid tempo burners like, "Untamed" and "Ad Astra" to the slow burning bluesy sway of, "Stardust". Jimmy Ryan's mind blowingly virtuosic music is spellbinding.. His playing is brilliant and stays away from cliche's. That often means eccentric and hard to listen too tones and stylings. Not on this, it is different but a joy to listen too. Inspirational if you play the guitar yourself. Besides your jaw hitting your chest any number of times, this is very accessible guitar virtuosity. Jimmy Ryan is one of the best guitar players I have heard in a long time. He is out of this world talented and knows how to make his guitar sing. Overall, I think this recording displays a well assortment of different musical styles and gives us a taste of the genius that is Jimmy Ryan. '21st Century Riffology' is free of ego boosting trickery and concentrates on composition and content. This album is, simply put, awesome, and is a must for all rock music fans and especially those who are into guitar music. This is the album to have!

Tony Sison / The Dedicated Rocker Society (January 2018)
 

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Remember the days of shredders and instrumental guitar albums? Shrapnel Records? Back when Yngwie Malmsteen still could record an album that actually sounded good (and long before he thought he could sing). I was a huge fan of that genre and I had them all. Well, as time went by, I kinda lost interest as a lot of the albums were more about the actually shredding ability (aka guitar wanking) that about the song. Then came the drum machine/programmed drums and any natural feel in the song was just lost. Well, in later years there has popped up an instrumental album or two, that has caught my attention. Grooveyard Records and Shredguy Records are two labels that have released some really interesting stuff in that category. In my hand I have the solo release by Jimmy Ryan of The Flying Ryan Brothers, who have put out some great instrumental stuff. After a first listen, I do have to admit that Jimmy’s solo album is even more up my alley. 21 songs in 50 minutes may sound like a classic hardcore or punk album, but of course it’s not. What is good about it is that there are no songs where there are dragged out solo sections that go on forever without leading anywhere. These are actual songs, with melodies and structures. Short melodic movies. Even though the riff is in center throughout the album, the style ranges from softer, melodic songs, such as “Ad Astra”, “Stardust” and finisher “Zenology”, through straight ahead rock ‘n blues such as “Slipstream” to drop-D riff rockers that really groove. The eight heavy hitters in a row: “Thor’s Hammer”, “Stompbox”, “Mazerunner”, “Hammerhead”, “Untamed”, “Superchunk”, “Piledriver” and “X Factor” are prime examples of songs that are in a similar vein, yet quite different. I really love Jimmy’s melodic feel, the bluesy touch and his strong, determined tone. He really plays it like he means it. An excellent album, indeed!

Janne Stark / Stark Music Reviews (July 2018)
 

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For those who get caught up watching YouTube guitarists that can play 10 classic riffs in a minute – this one’s for you. 21st Century Riffology is a 50-minute set with 21 instrumental tracks of monster riffs played by Illinois-native Jimmy Ryan with Dan Van Schindel on drums and percussion. Ryan, who’s success with his brother Johnny in The Flyin’ Ryan Brothers (and later Truth Squad), put him on the world map. Heavily influenced by the twin-guitar attack of Wishbone Ash inspired Ryan’s own playing which can be heard in “Speedloader’, the densely layered ‘Piledriver” and the dynamic ‘Slipstream’. Most of the songs hover around the 2-minute mark with the exception of ‘Ad Astra’ a cosmic masterpiece and its sister track ‘Stardust’. The two combine into a fusion of jazzy rock where the musical journey is melodically interoperated for the celestially minded.

Comments Ryan in the liner notes, “This release is an attempt to better reflect what the consumption of music means in the Anthropocene: short, tightly focused, fully realized and highly controlled bursts of guitar madness liberated from the structural constraints of the past.” With that he throws a volley of unorthodox guitar pieces against each other in a dizzying array of twists and turns. The Schenker-like construction of ‘Event Horizon’ is pitched against the metallic ‘Thor’s Hammer’ and beefy ‘Superchunk’. Thundering ‘Rockcutter’, the Thin Lizzy-esque ‘Skullduggery’ are juxtaposed to the groovy ‘Funkalicious’ while the slow-paced and emotional ‘Inside America’ breathes a certain cosmopolitan unity to it all. ‘Zenology’ maybe be the perfect summation with its passion and feeling laid open, and where color and texture meet.

Todd K. Smith / The Electric Beard (February 2018)
 

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Master riffologist and all around American guitar hero Jimmy Ryan was the guiding light behind the underrated and overlooked American instrumental progressive / hard rock band The Flyin’ Ryan Brothers. Sadly the band has been dormant, yet six years later, Jimmy has returned in late 2017 with his latest solo album called 21st Century Riffology. With 21 tracks clocking in around 50 minutes, the sonic bursts of electric guitar are short but sweet and totally hot. Jimmy could always be counted on for a solid riff and a melody to take it skywards in the Flyin' Ryan Brothers band and 21st Century Riffology, is a stellar showcase for Jimmy Ryan’s patented electric guitar prowess accentuating the FRB’s patented instrumental hard rock and heavy metal guitar sound. 21st Century Riffology is more on fire than even the 2011 Flyin’ Ryan CD, Under The Influence, which is hard rock heavy metal but with a kind of implied prog-metal rock style influence. As FRB fans will note, the sheer amount of styles and riffs on 21st Century Riffology is stunningly mind blowing. What’s even more incredible is that Jimmy has done the whole album on his own, with the drums handled by Dan Van Schindel. A fan may miss the band style and grandeur of Under The Influence, yet it’s great to have Jimmy back on the recording scene again, especially with a new sizzling sounding self-produced solo album. The Hendrix influenced track “Stardust” is essential guitar 101. With 21 tracks with Ryan-esque track titles like “Speedloader”, “Nailgun”, “Funkalicious” and “Zenology”, 21st Century Riffology will clear your cobwebs and clean your clocks. Play loud for maximum impact.

Robert Silverstein / Music Web Express 3000 (December 2017)
 

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CHECK OUT JIMMY'S IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW WITH Music Web Express!!!
 

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Jimmy Ryan’s ‘21st Century Riffology’ is an instrumental guitar disc from a 21st century master. In the Joe Satriani mode, Ryan drives through numerous original melodies here, all with pastiches of hard-rock elegance mixed with the rough edges of metal and the undercurrent of funk. The net result is heavy guitar music that saturates the ears and moves the heart. With an ability that defies description, Ryan obviously knows the fretboard better than many of his colleagues, i.e., other guitar geniuses, and manages to convey this with a sense of class and taste. Crucial to his enterprise is variety and dynamics. This can be seen in the diversity of his original tunes that make up this CD. From ‘Ad Astra’ to ‘Nailgun’ to my personal favorite, ‘Funkalicious,’ Ryan succeeds in offering us a guitar-focused disc that is both original and familiar, rough and sweet, complex and simple. In short, he offers us everything and more that a guitar music enthusiast could want. This is the must-have guitar rock CD of the year. Get it.

Steven J. Rosen / Author + Journalist (December 2017)
 

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A driving force of the fabulous Flying Ryan Brothers, uber-guitarist Jimmy Ryan returns with a new take on the old, a step into the new age. Styles come at you thick and fast: blues here, hard rock there. A dash of funk, a near metal assault. Instrumental guitar trickery a la Satriani featuring of the finest guitar playing you could hope to find. "Zenology" is a study in beauty and poise, "Speedloader" is a brutish shout of crafted and honed rock guitars with a howling blues heart. "X Factor" dials up the grooving goodness through the biggest riff on the album and yet the guitar solo sings and soars, while "Slipstream" feels like it just fell out of the classic Joe Perry songbook – yes it's that good! And so it goes on, "Nailgun" almost NWOBHM in its riff at all costs attack, but the solo is so sumptuous, it's as though Satch joined Saxon for a day back in 1978! "Funkalicious" is… well… funkalicious, whereas "Inside America" evokes Jeff Healey at his best with heavy rockin' blues dripping virtuosic guitar playing.

Steven Reid / Sea Of Tranquility (February 2018)
 

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Jimmy Ryan is from Illinois and has been a rock guitarist all his life. He has played in several bands (including The Flyin 'Ryan Brothers & Truth Squad) and has collaborated on various studio projects. Do not swap this Jimmy Ryan from Illinois with the other Jimmy Ryan Le Mistral from NY, who is also a musician, but on mandolin and in the country band Morphine plays and / or the singer Jimmy Ryan from Indiana of the metal bands Haste The Day, Trenches and Upheava (who also likes to cycle!) ...

Ryan's latest instrumental Grooveyard Records project is called '21st Century Riffology'. On the album he demonstrates as a music veteran on 21 tracks and for fifty-one minutes of "Excellent, powerful, dynamic, blues-based, heavy guitar rock riffology ...".

'21st Century Riffology' is a collection of short, energetic, intelligent instrumental guitar riffs, which Jimmy Ryan (guitar, bass) recorded together with Dan Van Schindel (drums, percussion) as "new musical plan of the future, that everyone desperately needed has ... "(according to Ryan's explanation on the inside of the CD cover).

The almost shortest number is the opener "Event Horizon" (1:24), the longest "Ad Astra" (5:14) and the shortest time, the closing "Zenology" (1:14). In the long track list, songs like "Speedloader", "Superchunk", "Skullduggery", "Funkalicious" and "Inside America" ​​that stand out (even if the choice of name ...) are more striking.

This is obviously an album for every guitar fan, for every lover of high quality, authentic hard rock music and for those who are looking for the new musical blueprint of the future ....

Eric Schuurmans / Rootstime (Belgium) (December 2017)
 

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This is something different – but maybe not so much on reflection. Jimmy Ryan has produced an album to fit our digital day and computerized age. He explains it all in a short essay on the inner sleeve; we now live in times where the “consumption of music” (his words, he didn’t write “enjoyment” of music) is very different from what we were used to in earlier times. The biggest market for music is the younger generations, fluent in the use of digital technologies of all sorts and who navigates through life by myriad of apps and interactive websites accessed on hand-held devices. Their taste in music is not necessarily all that different from that of ours older folks but it plays a different role in their lives. It has to be squeezed in, in small doses, so as to fill unprecedented voids in an otherwise busy life, lived in a hurry and on the go. Turntable stacks and cd players have been assigned to history while smartphones and earbuds have taken their place as the principal mediums.

And it is not only them, the “millennials” – this is all our lives now, even if we, the royalty of old and bygone age, pretend to be different and do things better. We no longer enjoy our music in our own space, living rooms and bedrooms, but wherever the day takes us; on buses and trains, during lunch breaks and TV commercials ... Our habits have changed; we live by browsing, music is looked up on apps, listened to for a minute or two before we tire of it and download something else to sooth our restlessness. Anything over a minute long tries our patience and we hurry to load down the next song – or some sport fixtures.

Does this really work, do we, or can we, enjoy music living like this, amidst everyday noise and cacophony? Have the digital technologies done music any good, have they robbed us of a better world, that of turntables, vinyl and CDs? On this album Ryan acknowledges the challenges of the day faced by the serious musician and takes them on. I don’t think something quite like this has been tried before; cramping 21 songs onto a single album, 50 minutes long! But this is how he sets out to meet the needs of the restless browser who believes s/he doesn’t have the time (or perhaps rather, the stamina) to listen to a song in its full length?

So much for the intellectual reply to, or elaboration on, Ryan’s inner sleeve essay and ponderings on his packaging of his musing into short bursts of high-octane rock. Here is the truth: this is only about the form, a very superficial appearance! Everything about the music on this album is very traditional, rock as we know it in different guises and cutting across different styles and even genres. The music stays the same even if our listening habits have changed. This album caters for both; a change in the “consumption” of music brought about by new technologies and our taste in music which tends to stay true to traditions that evolve and mature at their own pace.

The essay on the inner sleeve gives Ryan’s perspective to his experiments on this albums but to those who are already familiar with his past efforts there is precious little new here; his guitar sounds great as ever and without the support of a full ensemble and vocals (on this album he is accompanied by Dan Van Schindel on all things battered while plucking all the strings himself) we get a ring seat to his formidable abilities and versatility, his total mastery of the rock guitar. On this album he crosses the wide grounds of rock territory, from the epic, operatic and symphonic, through the gravels of hard rock, blues and metal. He is one very learned musician; to name another guitarist with this breadth and depth you would have to think long and hard – and probably fail. The songs may be short (you won’t notice) but brace yourself; they will take you places!

Let me leave you with this frightening thought; the time of Jimmy Ryan and other great musicians may soon be up! Late last summer it hit world news that the 10th symphony of the great German composer Gustav Mahler had been performed by the Austrian Bruckner Orchestra. This would not have been newsworthy except for the fact that Mahler died well before finishing the work. The symphony performed by the orchestra was Mahler’s, finalised by MuseNet, an algorithm that writes music better than most and has the ability to “learn” and master styles and quirks of musicians and composers of flesh and blood. Is this the future of our musicians – or will there be any future? Artificial Intelligence and robotics are already resigning unskilled, skilled and trained artisans out of their professions and into unemployment or, at best, low paid service sector jobs like fast food preparation (and even these jobs are being destroyed by AI and robotics!). Can we be sure that the next Jimmy Ryan album will actually be played by Jimmy Ryan himself? That the next time we pull up at McDonald’s for a Big Mac, playing the latest Jimmy Ryan album on our car stereo, it won’t be the man himself serving us the burger?

Thor Indridason / Guitar Rock Appreciation Society (United Kingdom) (January 2020)
 

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