One has to give high marks to guitarist and composer Frank Gambale. While an unabashed jazz-rock fusioneer, Gambale has always made music that was as interested in lyricism and inventive harmonic interplay as complex riffs and arpeggios. Gambale is a composer of the first order and, as he has gotten older, his writing style has become increasingly engaging melodically; his sense of harmonic architecture is full of shapes and colors and is weighted by use of the imagination that indulges flights of whimsy. He also understands on a cellular level the importance of ensemble communication. Accompanied by Billy Cobham on drums and either Ric Fierabracci or Steve Billman on bass, Gambale offers listeners 12 new cuts that range from a near singing quality ("Foreign Country," "Bittersweet," "Table for One") to a harder-edged jazz full of knotty yet emotionally charged and conscious improvisation ("May the Fourths Be With You," "Smug," "Complex Emotions"). Certainly this is a guitar player's record, but it is one that has its roots in aesthetic beauty rather than in mechanics. ~ Thom Jurek, cduniverse.com

   Guitarists are a funny lot; so many of them, not content with the harmonic/intervallic potentials of standard guitar tuning, experiment with a myriad of alternate tunings, sometimes with the expressed purpose of emulating the kind of chromatic chordal capabilities of the piano. As if there isn't enough to explore with the standard instrument, they feel a burning need to reinvent its harmonic capabilities, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Take fusion-burner Frank Gambale who, with his Neauveau Tuning, has reinvigorated his playing and, with Raison D'etre , his solo career.
   While Gambale has always been known for monster chops, harmonic sophistication and a breadth of tone that separates him from some of his contemporaries, his recent albums, while never short of technically impressive, have become somewhat samey. Well, all that has changed—almost. From the opening finger-picked arpeggios of "Foreign Country," which sounds like Allan Holdsworth meets the Dixie Dregs, you know something different is going on. Sure, the legato lines are there, and the burning solo tone; what is new are the voicings made possible by his new tuning, the capability to play chords with a chromatic closeness. And with these new harmonic possibilities open up a fresh new approach to soloing. Gambale has, quite simply, never sounded this good...By JOHN KELMAN, allaboutjazz.com