Steve Vai is one of that motley band of guitarists who emerged in the eighties and rewrote guitar playing rules with speed, insane licks and gimmickry. However unlike the rest of them, Mr. Vai is not boring. Steve graduated from the school of Zappa after about two or so years in his band before working with Alcatrazz, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake, and then busting out on his own properly with the groundbreaking Passion And Warfare. Vai showed us that you can have insane chops with delicate ideas and passionate emotive playing. Whilst my own guitar style could be no further from Vai's, I always look back to his work for inspiration and ideas, and when I want to learn some new techniques. Even my guitar (Ibanez Jem) and distortion pedal (Jemini) are his signiture series. Needless to say, his music has had a profound impact on my life, and is a man I respect greatly.
So, this album, Alien Love Secrets, was also released on VHS at the same time, contains some great tracks, let's run it down. Vai's wailing guitar and horse sound effects take us into the first track, Bad Horsie. A chugging train like riff with some deep distortion and a slick guitar melody showing insanely precise harmonics. It's a proper heavy steamengine track, plowing down all in it's path. Vai's use of the wah pedal here is to give total control of the tone and uses it to sculpt out his sound perfectly, as opposed to Hendrix's more experimental and freeform use of the pedal, indeed Vai's signiture wah pedal is known as the 'Bad Horsie' due to this song. Before the main solo we get some nice overdubbing, but the solo is standard Vai fare, not any of his emotive playing, but then this track is a hard rocker, so does it need it? Also nice flanger comming in. Juice is the title of the next track, a short little stunt guitar piece, fast and audatious, keeping some high octane action going, it's an all american rocker. Again this is more of a showoff piece, getting some feelgood energy going, some usual shred soloing and some unusual rhthym playing here. Die To Live is a softer more emotive track, with a distinctly nostalgic feeling to it. It sounds like a celebration and rememberance of life. It's still got a technical element to it, but this doesn't get in it's way, it's also quite fun to play, though bit of a guitar tongue-twister. The solo is delightfully beautiful, the rhythm is forward moving and all fun.
The next track is The Boy From Seattle, a softer more strummy upbeat guitar with a sense of the previous two tracks mixed into one feeling. It's upbeat and kinda fun with some decent melodic elements. A talkwah occasionally makes an appearance, with a line of daddadadaaddada, before the track starts to get quiet, and the guitaring goes into Hendrix mode, which is alright as this song is a tribute to Hendrix. We also get some nifty Vai trickery with delays and such creating a layered sound. Ya-Yo Gakk is a really fun tune, heavy metal guitar mixed with babytalk. His son would say something, and then Vai replicates it on guitar. We get some usual heavy metal soloing and riffing, but let's face it, this track is Vai just having fun, so he's allowed to. After this little diversion, we get to the real meat of the album, Kill The Guy With the Ball-The God Eaters. Some rolling drums and talkbox trickery takes us propelling forward into a really heavy riffage-filled track. It's speedy and thrashy and contains some great funk guitar (though played in metal style). It's full of menacing energy, and the drumming is almost computerised in it's precision. We get the usual Vai licks and some heavy sections we can only assume are left over from his previous album (the metal-tastic Sex And Religion) The track goes into screeching alien orgasm mode and then we enter the angelic second section, The God Eaters, a beautiful gentle guitar melody accentuated with some heavenly synth chords. It builds up and has some great releaving spirity feelings in it, kinda gentling the listener down and raising us up at the same time in preperation for the next track, the highlight of the album (and one of the highlights of his career), Tender Surrender. A sharp chord introduces us to a quiet kinda lounge jazz fusion, we have a soft silky melody and a rhythm based on a Hendrix song. The percussion just helps us plod forward, we get to the soloing section, first off a more bluesey solo, gentle and sweet, and goes for a section before hitting the proper solo, Vai's most impossible and orgiastic solo, which exudes such pleasure and passion. It's technically complex as well as emotionally complex, the speedy notes here given a smooth liquid texture as they just roll into your ears, it gets more passionate and more, until we get to the repeated shred section, the pleasure zone. The passion dies down, and we return to the tender embrace of the main melody, and the song ends playfully and wah-filled. We have surrendered.
This is by no means Vai's best album, however it includes Die To Live, and Tender Surrender, so it's definately worth picking up. As a major fan of his, the more purist approach to this album makes a neat break from his usual experimentation and on Tender Surrender, really lets the passion of his playing shine through. It's a good CD.
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