Posted on: October 10, 2011 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

There is a conscious decision by Joe Satriani to come up with a guitar line to open up eir “Super Colossal” that is indistinguishable from Billy Squier’s “Stroke Me”. After this riff goes the way of the dinosaur, something that resembles Nelson’s “Love and Affection” and Winger’s “In The Heart of the Young” dominates the rest of the track.

Joe Satriani has definite guitar skills that is true, but with all of the songs on “Super Colossal”, there seems to be that vocal component missing. The songs here all sound as if they were pulled fully from the hair metal era of the eighties and early nineties, but all is needed is a charismatic lead singer to really make the disc into something memorable. As the disc is now, what individuals will need to do to get the greatest love for Joe Satriani is pull up a nice comfy cushion and a bag of good ‘cheeba.

This is music to zone out to; the compositions are not those that will incite individuals to anger but just make them think. The different sounds achieved by different tracks on “Super Colossal” give individuals more than enough fuel to keep listening, even without the aforementioned vocals to tie everything in together. What breaks the disc open for me is the soloistic work that is the norm during “Redshift Riders”; the use of distorted guitar work in its interaction with the much more pedestrian fare that is the foundation for this track allows Satriani to go another new direction. However much I wanted to type up that this album started dragging down by a certain point, the empirical fact is that Satriani has enough in the way of tips and tricks to use on eir guitar that individuals will be locked in for the duration of the disc. When one slides in “Super Colossal”, they must be ready for the music that Satriani is going to play. This is not going to be the more metal-influenced power metal of bands like Blind Guardian or the crunchy assault of a number of other bands. Satriani finesses eir listeners and like the “Ladies’ Man”, slides in subtly and sexily into the pants of everyone that is listening. Thirteen different cuts that are at the bleeding edge of rock give “Super Colossal” a sound that is distinct and dense enough to make individuals listen in a number of times before they totally get everything that Satriani has to say with this album.

Top Tracks: Ten Words, Made of Tears

Rating: 6.2/10

Joe Satriani – Super Colossal / 2006 Epic / 13 Tracks / http://www.joesatriani.com / http://www.epic.com / Reviewed 24 March 2006

[JMcQ]

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