Like many people, I suppose, I got into Joe Satriani courtesy of
\nhis ground-breaking album
\nSurfing With The Alien<\/i>. I’ve been fortunate enough to see
\nhim perform in concert, and experience my jaw scraping the floor of
\nthe arena watching Satriani do things on a guitar that didn’t seem
\nhumanly possible. I have every album Satriani has released (not
\nincluding
\nG3 Live In Concert<\/i>), and occasionally pull those out of the
\nPierce Memorial Archives when I need to clear out the mental
\npipes.<\/p>\n
Yet I can’t help wondering, when I listen to
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i>, Satriani’s first full-length disc, why
\npeople made such a big deal out of this album. For all of the hype
\nthat has surrounded Satriani (most of which is deserved),
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i> demonstrates a lot of flash, but not as
\nmuch substance musically.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake, Satriani proves right out of the gate that he
\nis an outstanding guitar player, as evidenced by the title track.
\nHe chooses to let a lead\/rhythm line of his guitar do the work of a
\nvocalist, and the power he unleashes by doing this is unbelievable.
\nBy the time he gets to the lightning-fast riffing in the solo, the
\nlistener will be hooked.<\/p>\n
One wishes that all of the cuts on
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i> were of this caliber. Indeed, tracks like
\n“The Enigmatic,” “Hordes Of Locusts” and “New Day” all capture the
\nsix-string frenzy and power of Satriani. But the bulk of this disc
\nfinds Satriani actively searching for his instrumental voice, and
\nnot always making the correct choices.<\/p>\n
Take “Rubina,” for example. Admittedly not a bad track, it
\noccasionally seems to be without purpose, not exactly knowing which
\ndirection the music should go. That tentativeness is also heard on
\ntracks like “Driving At Night,” “Memories” and “The Snake” – tracks
\nwhich should have been slamming the listener’s head to the ground
\nwith their power, but end up bouncing off of the headphones with a
\nsplat.<\/p>\n
One part of the problem seems to be that Satriani is trying to
\ndo too much on his own. Yes, I know he handled the lion’s share of
\nthe duties on
\nSurfing With The Alien<\/i> as well, but on
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i>, it sometimes sounds like Satriani became
\noverwhelmed with trying to be a whiz on guitar, bass and keyboards,
\nand trying to balance the three to make it sound like an actual
\nband. The second problem is the drum work of Jeff Campitelli – no
\noffense, but I sometimes found it hard to believe that I wasn’t
\nlistening to a drum machine, that’s how robotic these rhythm tracks
\noften sound. Granted, something could have also been done in the
\nmix to remove the tinny quality of the percussion sound, but
\nsometimes you have to work with what you laid down on tape.<\/p>\n
Yes, everyone needs to get their start somewhere, and I know
\nthat without
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i>, we wouldn’t have such Satriani
\nmasterpieces as
\nSurfing With The Alien<\/i>. But one would be hard-pressed to say
\nthat
\nNot Of This Earth<\/i> is of the same caliber. Let’s call this
\none a learning experience that’s for the die-hard fans only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5762],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-37582","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joe-satriani","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37582"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}