Paul Gilbert’s Zooming us from his home in Portland, Oregon. He’s armed with his purple Ibanez Fireman (a guitar, not a euphemism), and as we speak he noodles away whenever the occasion arises. “After dinner my job is to wash the dishes, and I hate it! But yesterday I put Iron Maiden’s Killers on my headphones – hearing Wrathchild with Paul Di Anno just killin’ [Gilbert plays the riff and emulates Di Anno’s screaming delivery], and then the song Killers, y’know, the gallop [he performs a section perfectly]. I never had that much fun washing the dishes in my life!”Gilbert’s 54 now, and on great form, his enthusiasm for his own album and the ten that changed his life is utterly infectious. For many he’ll forever be the Shrapnel-stable shredder behind uber-metallers Racer X, and the six-string powerhouse for supergroup Mr Big, but his latter-day albums show another side to him.Due to lockdown restrictions Gilbert wound up playing bass and drums as well as guitar on his 16th solo album, Werewolves Of Portland. Overseen by producer Kevin Hahn at Portland’s Opal Studios, it follows on from his 2019 collection Behold Electric Guitar in being a highly melodic record; more tunes, less shred. It’s sometimes daffy, and always eclectic – with funk, blues boogies and jazzy moments in the rocky mix. Gilbert’s fretboard flash is still absolutely present, but somehow sublimated – these days he plays the guitar the way, in another life, he might have sung. And his regular sublime use of slide only adds to the vocal quality of his lead lines.Listen to the opener Hello North Dakota and you’ll hear a slightly Brian May/very Gilbert instrumental version of that state’s anthem; but if you watch the lyric video Gilbert’s singing his own lyrics as he plays: ‘As long as they don’t steal my guitar collection/Just take your burglary/A different direction from me/I don’t care one iota/Goodbye Portland, Hello North Dakota.’ Portland’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons this past year, the city laid low by a wave of rioting and crime, and he’s considering moving, possibly to North Dakota.But Werewolves really isn’t a political tract. Gilbert can’t be getting on his soap box when drawing inspiration from his favourite local bakery (Argument About Pie), the Russian composer Shostakovich (Professorship At The Leningrad Conservatory and A Thunderous Ovation Shook The Columns), or giving Warren Zevon a knowing nod with the title track. When he plays us a snippet of lovely mid-tempo tune Meaningful he sings along with more notional, unrecorded lyrics: “What makes me wanna get up in the morning/What makes me wanna tell my friends that they gotta see this/Like an upside down guitar from the guy in Kiss/Whoa!"