I’m not one of the unconditional fans of the modern guitar virtuosos. My guitar heroes were (and still are) Hendrix, Zappa, Page, Iommi, etc. More recently Buckethead and several more jazz oriented guitar players as Aram Bajakian or Marc Ribot. But I admit, I was quite into “Flying in a Blue Dream”, it was an album I loved and I still do. Although I had listen almost each and every album he played on, including the G3 project and the hard rocking Chickenfoot, I always find at least a couple of great songs, nice passages, interesting parts on his works.
Satriani came into focus when one of his first students, Steve Vai started mentioning his name quite often. His students included Kirk Hammett of Metallica, David Bryson of Counting Crows, Kevin Cadogan from Third Eye Blind, Larry LaLonde of Primus and Possessed, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Rick Hunolt (ex-Exodus), Phil Kettner of Lääz Rockit, Geoff Tyson of T-Ride, Charlie Hunter and David Turin. During the G3 tours, which he founded in 1996, he invited and collaborated with several famous guitarists such as Vai, LaLonde, Timmons, Steve Lukather, John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May, Patrick Rondat, Paul Gilbert, Adrian Legg, Steve Morse and Robert Fripp.
“Unstoppable Momentum” is the fourteenth studio solo album by Satriani and it’s scheduled to be released on May 7. He will tour the album with Marco Minnemann on drums and Bryan Beller on bass. The album was recorded by Joe Satriani – guitar, production, Mike Keneally – keyboard, Vinnie Colaiuta – drums, Chris Chaney – bass and engineered and co-produced by Mike Fraser. Read more Joe Satriani – Unstoppable Momentum (2013)
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Steve Coleman & the Five Elements – Functional Arrhythmias (2013)
Steve Coleman began playing music just days before his 14th birthday and nowadays, 43 years later, Steve Coleman’s music it’s still fresh and he’s still hungry to explore magical-mystery places, unrevealed paths and dimensions, he’s still searching for the unheard and unconventional.
And many of his incredible musical adventures are still available for free download on his official site, at the download section (including some of those albums I had falling in love with more then two decades ago as “Rhythm People”, “Black Science”, “Drop Kick”,”The Tao of Mad Phat”or “Anatomy Of A Groove”). Really cool, but don’t you ever forget, artists need our full support to be able to deliver unconditional art in a world of conditional and conditioning. Read more Steve Coleman & the Five Elements – Functional Arrhythmias (2013)
Deep Purple – Now What (2013)
A band formed 45 years ago are getting to their 19th studio album and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide, including 7.5 million certified units in the US. If this isn’t a true hard rock legend, don’t know what it is.
Drummer Ian Paice was there from the beginnings in ’68, bass player Roger Glover and singer Ian Gillan joined the band for the first time in ’69, guitarist Steve Morse replaced Ritchie Blackmore in ’94 after the band was refused by the touring replacement of Blackmore, the legendary Joe Satriani. Don Airey joined in 2002, when founding member, keyboard player Jon Lord announced his amicable retirement from the band.
I heard the single “All The Time In The World” for the first time and as result, I almost skipped the album. It’s a quite tasteless, mediocre, forgettable single, pretty bad choice I think. Fortunately I was curious enough and I had the time and the patience to listen into the whole album and I was pleasantly surprised. Read more Deep Purple – Now What (2013)
Autism – The Crawling Chaos (2013)
Autism is an instrumental post-rock project from Lithuania. After releasing a digital debut EP “Falling Motion”, which got quite positive reactions from post rock fans all over the globe, Autism has released a brand new album “The Crawling Chaos”. The new release contains 6 tracks, while the sound it’s much heavier, metal rooted and the atmosphere it’s darker, but nicely layered and filled with memorable melodies.
That’s, what the man behind AUTISM project had to say about the new album : “When I started writing new material for this album, I decided that this time, I want to hear some vocals. Making instrumental music was not enough, so after some interesting experiments I decided to Read more Autism – The Crawling Chaos (2013)
Snog – Babes In Consumerland (2013)
After having Iggy ready to detonate himself with a dynamite-belt, now we’ve got a babe in the same pose and situation. It’s something really sick going on, or this is just another usual Monday morning?
Although “Babes in Consumerland” coming 21 years after their debut left-field dancefloor hit “Corporate Slave”, it was my first direct collision with Snog and I’m sold. The 10 tracks of “Babes in Consumerland” are a gloomy mixture of 80’s flavored electronics and beats, subversive pop hooks, post-industrial resonances with humor to keep us sane and contains acid criticism of our regression and comfortable consumerism. Great lyrics, simple, but very effective music and arrangements, a little bit of sex, a little bit of politics, perfect mixture and outcome.
The album have several key-tracks. My favorites are “The New Cocksucker Blues” (“Have you sucked some cock today?” respectively “I piss on you when you’re on fire”) which is a kinky reference to the music industry, but might be also related to The Rolling Stone’s 1970’s “Cocksucker Blues”, the last single The Stones had to produce for Decca Records which obviously the has been never released; “Everything Is Under Control” – which is a strong parody of pop music and culture and proves only that actually nothing is under control; “21st Century Lullaby” with a charming Pink Floyd versus David Bowie taste or the industrial fueled “The Corporate Homoerotic Cyclists”. Read more Snog – Babes In Consumerland (2013)
Blush Response – Tension Strategies (2013)
Blush Response was an electropop group formed sometime around 2000 and featured Billie Schubert, Trevor Gagner and Brandon Flowers, who left the band in 2001 and formed The Killers with Dave Keuning.
This Blush Response have nothing to do with that one. Eventually, it’s just another case of bad choice of name. The solo project of musician Joey Blush is based in New York and was created in 2009 and officially launched in June 2009 with the release of “Reduce You”, a two track release, featuring demo versions of songs.
The debut album, “We Are Replicants” was released in 2010, shortly after followed by the single EPs “Control Freak” and “Impossible”.
Joey Blush remixed Dangerous Muse’s single “I Want It All”, TENSE’s “Disconnect Myself”, iVardensphere’s “Bonedance”, Batillus’s “Cast” and Pouppée Fabrikk’s “H8 U”. In early 2012, he was tapped to add additional synth programming to the new Fear Factory record “The Industrialist”. He also provided a remix for the deluxe edition CD.
The second Blush Response album, “Tension Strategies” was released on March 05, 2013 on Tundra in the US and Haujobb’s label Basic Unit Productions in Europe and Russia. Read more Blush Response – Tension Strategies (2013)
Trilok Gurtu – Spellbound (2013)
Trilok Gurtu is an Indian percussionist and composer, he was born born in Mumbai, India on 30 October 1951 and his work blending traditional Indian music with jazz fusion, world music and many other different genres.
Trilok Gurtu has collaborated with many artists, including Terje Rypdal, Gary Moore, John McLaughlin, Jan Garbarek, Joe Zawinul, Bill Laswell, Maria João & Mário Laginha, and Robert Miles.
Gurtu began playing western drum kit in the 1970s, and developed interest in jazz. In the 1970s, he played with Charlie Mariano, John Tchicai, Terje Rypdal, and Don Cherry.
In the 1980s, Gurtu played with Swiss drummer Charly Antolini, bassists Jonas Hellborg and with John McLaughlin in McLaughlin’s trio, and performed at least one concert opening for Miles Davis.
“Spellbound” is an expression of Trilok Gurtu’s great admiration for the man and musician Don Cherry, but also have some moments with a strong Miles Davis flavor.
Although the album starts with a 33-second improvisation in a duo with Cherry on trumpet and Trilok Gurtu, “Spellbound” contain no other recordings with Don Cherry. Read more Trilok Gurtu – Spellbound (2013)
Queensryche – Frequency Unknown (2013)
And here it is, the new ‘ryche product, not really sure now if this is really the thirteenth Queensrÿche – honestly, I don’t think so – or the first album by Geoff Tate’s version of the ‘ryche – which seems more appropriate. Since I mentioned the war between the two sides of the band, the preliminary injunction lawsuit, disputing ownership of the band name, resulted in a verdict that allow both Tate and the other band members to use the band name until the next court date, scheduled for November 2013. The “other” half – actually 90% of the band – will release their album in June, although, the first single, “Redemption”, was released on March 25, 2013.
I know, generally speaking, the truth it’s somewhere in between, but this whole thing of Tate claiming the Queensrÿche name after he was the one who always was complaining about the metal content of the band and always tried to force his bandmates to leave behind the rock and metal roots and do “other” things, try different approaches and sounds, now smells pretty bad. And listening “Frequency Unknown” and the desperate struggle to prove that they are rock and metal and “true warriors”, make them look – and sound – quite ridiculous. I was curious why the hell Tate felt the need to re-record some classic ‘ryche tracks (I Don’t Believe in Love, Empire, Jet City Woman, Silent Lucidity) and his answer was shocking and cynical: “The money. The record company really wanted those for resale and licensing and all that kind of that stuff, so they said: ‘We’ll give you a lot of money for it.’ And so I said, ‘Okay, beautiful!’ They wanted them to sound, you know, as close as we could make them to the originals. And that’s what was really hard, was making them sound that way.” Well, the result it’s actually not so satisfying. Unfortunately, they managed to sound only as an imitation. Read more Queensryche – Frequency Unknown (2013)
Iggy and The Stooges – Ready to Die (2013)
Iggy Pop and James Williamson on a record again was one of the ultimate rock’n’roll dreams. The Stooges ever playing again was another one. Then dreams came true. The fourth Stooges studio album, “The Weirdness” was recorded and released 34 years after its killer predecessor “Raw Power” and features founding members Iggy Pop (vocals), Ron Asheton (guitar), and Scott Asheton (drums) along with new band member Mike Watt (bass guitar), but also guest musician Steve Mackay (saxophone), who also appeared on the Stooges’ 1970 album, “Fun House”. And the album was engineered by Steve Albini.
Unfortunately, Ron Asheton was found dead in his home on January 6, 2009 and any further The Stooges performance became – once again – improbable. Iggy released a smooth incursion into a jazzy world with his 2009 effort “Préliminaires”, then last year released a covers album entitled “Après”, which featured renditions of songs by Serge Gainsbourg, Henri Salvador, Harry Nilsson, Georges Brassens, Edith Piaf, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Yoko Ono.
But Iggy Pop stated that “although ‘the Stooges’ died with Ron Asheton, there is still ‘Iggy and the Stooges’ and somehow managed to convince James Williamson to return as guitarist. Williamson, who was responsible for the seminal guitar sound on 1973’s “Raw Power”, gave up the guitar and worked as an electrical engineer before becoming Vice President of Technology Standards at Sony. Read more Iggy and The Stooges – Ready to Die (2013)
The Bunny The Bear – Stories (2013)
I think they are funny. And honestly, humor it’s one of those qualities I appreciate in music while I’m a devoted Frank Zappa fan. But The Bunny The Bear reminds me of Green Jellÿ, obliviously a much modernized, updated, electronic fueled and club oriented version, but at basic level, the concept it’s pretty much the same: metal, fun and reaching out a larger audience by adding modern electronic layers, techno and trance flavor and vibe.
But while most of the “metalcore” labeled nowadays bands suffers from serious lack of inspiration and mainly only delivering sound, but never songs, The Bunny The Bear once again manage to gather a few good ideas and write several memorable themes and they have a couple of good songs. So, this “Stories”, the band’s third studio album it’s a refreshing mixture of catchy melodies, powerful riffs and banging electronics.
Matthew Tybor (The Bunny) and Chris Hutka (The Bear) have for you 11 tracks which were released through Victory Records on April 16th, 2013. Bang on this!! Read more The Bunny The Bear – Stories (2013)
