*****Surfing with the Alien by Joe Satriani – Weep Techno Engineers, Satch Is Better than Machinery

If you are looking for a fan of Joe Satriani, I am not.  I like this Satch disk.  That is it.  Yes, it is true; I didn’t much care for his more recent work with Chicken Foot much too.  (Though I reviewed Chicken Foot first, I have been more familiar with Surfing with the Alien, since high school c. 1996, which I got after liking The Extremist.  However, I no longer like The Extremist).  I have never heard anything else of Satch’s, other than Surfing with the Alien that I liked or didn’t bore me.

I am positive that he is a phenomenal guitarist, but it is just that I never seem to like the music he solos over.  When Satch is king, he spoils the stew.  He usually sets it up so that he is the star, and the other instruments just support him.  He is a hog of the good music on his albums and usually I hate that, but this album despite being the guitar virtuoso at the center of attention, as if he is only person at the show is any good, this album is really good, really.  This is Joe’s best work so far as I know.  I do know a Satch fan who thinks Surfing with the Alien isn’t his swansong though, but as far as I know this is his best.

My favorite song on the album is track 4, “Always with Me, Always with You.”  Usually, I am not a fan of slow music, but this song is great.  Think Tears of Sahara if you are a Tony MacAlpine fan, oh yeah I forgot Tony MacAlpine has consistently put out better music than Satch, and suffers from obscurity.  This is a problem for many musicians, but I digress.  Track 4 is so lyrical, and Joe leaves nothing aside in the song that could hide his anything but perfect playing.  No computer techno beats could touch a song like this one.  It takes a human musician’s touch to make music like this.  You can’t program something as good as this for programming can’t account for the inflections of one’s touch on their instrument (provided that you are a good musician).

Just like a 5 star album should be, every track is awesome.  No second on Surfing with the Alien is wasted, start to finish, well almost, track 6, “Circles” is terrible.  That one almost got by me because my 100 disc shuffler usually never plays track 6 on any cds.  I have to wonder if the engineers where paranoid about the number 6.  666 the number of the beast or even the number 6 on its own sometimes creeps people out.  As I write my reviews, I usually have the disc in player while writing.  Oddly enough, at this point in the review track 6 came on, just as I was musing over how this disc is flawless.  Lol!  I have had this disc in the player for probably more than a year and never heard track 6 once, as usual, due to the weird engineering of whoever made my (actually, my wife’s) disc changer contraption.

**** Madness by Tony MacAlpine – MacAlpine Should Have Been a Household Name for Musicians

I have quite a hard time differentiating MacAlpine’s early albums stylistically, but in this case that is a plus.  Cerebrally, he rocks hard, as some that is physically and spiritually gifted.  If you like the guitar virtuoso genre, then don’t miss this one (or any other of MacAlpine’s work for that matter!), and even someone who generally listens to good music and general will probably find this album to be a treasure.

**** Freedom to Fly by Tony MacAlpine – Great Album from a Guitarist that was Virtually Unrecognized

Tony MacAlpine is one the great success stories of the guitar virtuoso movement.  He made his way to the top the hard way, by releasing album after album of solid great music, even when largely going unnoticed, except for a few small elite listeners.  His story has been a story of determination.  This is one of those albums that helped MacAlpine prove himself, and if you listen to his music, you’ll know that at every stage of his game, he has been better than his white skinned “virtuoso” peers that have raked in the big bucks.

I picked up on Tony MacAlpine around the year 2000 when he joined up with Planet X.  By then, Tony MacAlpine had already released several great albums, the best of which is probably Maximum Security.  I got to know Planet X, because I was a fan of their previous keyboardist, Derek Sherinian, whom I should also say has put out many outstanding solo albums.

**** Madness by Tony MacAlpine – Better Than What I Usually Hear On the Radio Waves

This album is much in the style of Joe Satriani.  However, it is better.  MacAlpine’s skills are nothing short of astonishing.  It is difficult to describe why, except that the musicians seem to be more in synch.  I would definitely say that though the drums on Madness are reminiscent of whoever drums for Satch, but they are generally more complex and also boldly unafraid to be assertive than what Satch allows his drummers to play.  I wouldn’t be surprised if MacAlpine counted Satch as one of his favorite musicians when he crafted this album.

***** Maximum Security by Tony MacAlpine - Possibly the Best Shred Album Ever

Move over Joe Satriani.  There is someone who has fewer fans than you and is far more gifted.  Maximum Security is one of Tony MacAlpine’s better albums, and it is far better than anything the far more popular Satch has released.  What makes this album so awesome is the control MacAlpine exhibits over his guitar playing.  He isn’t just playing the notes; he is feeling the notes, such that the subtleties of this album that make it so awesome are probably measured better with microns rather than the larger unit of measurement, the millimeter.  This is a achieved because Maximum Security has a lot of bends and whammy bar work that is exceptionally tonally precise.  If you know anything about music, then you know that there can be more than 12 tones before reaching an octave.  For example, one can bend a note a quarter of a note, which is different than a quarter note of time.  What I am referring to his a quarter of a tone, not a quarter note, which refers to the length of time that the note plays for in notation.  The subtleties of this album probably make such that it would be impossible to tab it or use musical notation to describe the song unless one has heard one of the songs on this album first.  Sit back and listen, and stop guess exactly how much MacAlpine bent the note, and just appreciate the tremendous song writing and virtuosity on this album, which is great from start to finish.