Member:
Designshed
Date:
9/5/2003
If I had to used one word to describe this it'd be "Youthful".
This 1984 release was Vai's first album and his future potential was made quite obvious with it. The disc has a light-hearted amateurish quality. This is a good thing: it's not overly slick the way some of his later albums are. Problematicly, it's very disjointed and almost random in it's layout. There are well constructed songs on here and lots of snipets and weird chunks too. There are a few instrumental tracks that I just can't even listen to at all . . .
He was still hiding under Frank Zappa's skirt here, lifting many FZ writing quirks, traits and that unmistakable irreverence and humor. You'd swear parts of this album were actually from an 80s FZ release (like the melodic fusion of "Bledsoe Bluvd" complete with some unmistakable Tommy Mars scat singing).
"Little Green Men" is a lot of fun with riffs based of the Close Encounters notes and ETI lyrics. Yes, the little alien voices are annoying . . . and they're something that appears on other Vai albums, he must like that stuff, but the rest of the song really works, so I can look past them. I like "Lovers are Crazy" a lot too. Oddball sorta ska thing going on with some hillarious lyrics. These two tracks are pretty funny and I kinda wish he had kept more of this sense of humor on subsequent albums.
"Viv Woman" is a straight up rocker and "Salamanders in the Sun" is a total FZ instrumental knock-off. Anyone that doesn't know his full capability as a guitarist needs to hear "The Attitude Song" where he just burns down the house. About 10,000 notes in 3 minutes. "There's Something Dead in Here" is pure unintelligble and ugly guitar skronk. The acoustic "Burning Down the Mountain" is a beautiful atmosphere piece. Yeah, it's all over the map. Something for everybody, but also that means something to annoy eveybody too . . .
The album has many moments of uninhibited musician joy and many moments of FZ rip-offage and many moments of "WTF was he thinking?" rookie decisions. When it first came out I didn't like it all that much, but to go back and revisit it now while reflecting on where he went with his career, I find I like this album more than a little. It was a strong and interesting first album from an incredibly talented guitarist.
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