"Gamma was a logical progression after doing the Open Fire record"
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Calling Gamma a "logical progression" is Montrose insisting on craft over mythology. Rock history loves the story of sudden reinvention - the lightning bolt, the epiphany, the ego trip. Montrose frames it as engineering: you run a circuit, you test the voltage, you move to the next build. Coming off Open Fire (his synth-forward, instrumental left turn in 1978), he was already signaling he didn’t want to be trapped as the guy who made one perfect hard-rock template. Gamma wasn’t a “new direction” so much as the next iteration of a musician treating the late-70s as a lab.
The word choice matters. "Logical" is a quiet rebuttal to anyone who heard Open Fire as self-indulgent or confusing. It recasts risk as inevitability: if you followed the internal math of his interests - texture, technology, and precision - then a band like Gamma, with its sleek, sometimes futuristic hard rock, practically had to happen. That’s the subtext: you can disagree with the taste, but you can’t argue with the trajectory.
There’s also a pragmatic cultural context humming underneath. By 1979, rock was being squeezed from both sides: punk and new wave making classic guitar heroics feel bloated, and arena rock demanding recognizable brands. Montrose chooses neither nostalgia nor surrender. He builds a bridge: keep the guitar, absorb the machines, tighten the songwriting. The line reads like an artist defending evolution in a marketplace that punishes it, making the case that growth isn’t betrayal - it’s continuity.
The word choice matters. "Logical" is a quiet rebuttal to anyone who heard Open Fire as self-indulgent or confusing. It recasts risk as inevitability: if you followed the internal math of his interests - texture, technology, and precision - then a band like Gamma, with its sleek, sometimes futuristic hard rock, practically had to happen. That’s the subtext: you can disagree with the taste, but you can’t argue with the trajectory.
There’s also a pragmatic cultural context humming underneath. By 1979, rock was being squeezed from both sides: punk and new wave making classic guitar heroics feel bloated, and arena rock demanding recognizable brands. Montrose chooses neither nostalgia nor surrender. He builds a bridge: keep the guitar, absorb the machines, tighten the songwriting. The line reads like an artist defending evolution in a marketplace that punishes it, making the case that growth isn’t betrayal - it’s continuity.
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| Topic | Music |
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