After a couple of outer-space journeys that did not necessarily fit the veteran well, Joe Satriani has returned to Earth as part of an ass-kicking power trio that wants to melt your face off.<\/p>\n
The legendary guitar player is backed up by drummer Chad Smith (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and bassist Glenn Hughes (of Deep Purple and Black Country Communion). The three drive each song with energy and verve. At 12 songs \u2013 with only one longer than five minutes \u2013 the album is a lean nod to Satriani\u2019s first couple albums, the ones that got us all hooked on him in the first place.<\/p>\n
Because this isn\u2019t a step forward, but rather a consolidation of strengths, there\u2019s not a lot that hits the listener with the visceral thrill that Satriani\u2019s early work did. Maybe we\u2019re just used to those fluid guitar runs and the melding of hard rock, funk, soul, and jazz guitar playing \u2013 enhanced by lightning-fast hammer-tapping \u2013 that define Satch\u2019s work. Certainly, he sounds like nobody else, though many have tried to sound like him over the years. <\/p>\n
To be sure, the best tracks are front-loaded, with \u201cEnergy\u201d blasting out of the gate like a stock car at the Indy 500 and setting the tone for the record, making you miss when this sort of guitar rock was normal and not a fringe anomaly. \u201cCatbot\u201d is even better, the most modern-sounding track here, fusing elements of funk, fuzzed-out bass, and Satriani\u2019s scratchy, gritty tone. Smith\u2019s drumming is robotic and repetitive, which mostly works for the track, but one wishes it had a bit more flair to complement the guitar work. \u201cThunder High On The Mountain\u201d lives up to its title, Satch\u2019s stormy riffs, tapping skills, and a bit of strings coming together in a near-epic.<\/p>\n
Things get a bit slow after that; though the fluid guitar work is top-notch on \u201cCherry Blossoms,\u201d \u201cRighteous,\u201d and \u201cSmooth Soul,\u201d it\u2019s not quite enough to elevate the tracks to must-hear status. Same for the title cut and the closing \u201cForever Ever,\u201d which retains a lyrical grace in its playing. Note that there are no vocals on this album anywhere, which is just fine. <\/p>\n
That said, the boogie-on-steroids \u201cHeadrush\u201d continues a theme of aptly-named songs, coming at a necessary point on the disc and giving your blood pressure a much-needed jolt (seriously, if you don\u2019t have any caffeine handy, this song will do the trick). \u201cSuper Funky Badass,\u201d despite the title and seven-minute runtime, doesn\u2019t really get going until about four minutes in and really doesn\u2019t live up to the \u201cfunk\u201d in the title (Chad Smith should know better, but Satriani\u2019s playing is fantastic all the same). And \u201cInvisible\u201d is a mini-epic unto itself, with Hughes getting a bass solo of sorts and the band going haywire behind him.<\/p>\n
What Happens Next<\/i>, apparently, is that Satriani rediscovers the sound that pushed him to commercial success and creates something more personal than many of his recent outings. If you\u2019re a fan, this familiar territory is a welcome sight, and certainly Smith and Hughes have enough chops to not only keep up with Satch but create a dynamic interplay that I hope stays intact. This isn\u2019t an album that reinvents the fretboard the way Surfing With The Alien <\/i>did \u2013 not that anything ever could \u2013 but it\u2019s a nevertheless a solid slice of intense guitar rock, and that\u2019s a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5762],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-45199","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-joe-satriani","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45199","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\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45199"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}