New Satriani
- Thread starter BlazeES
- Start date
The new Volbeat, is another I need to grab yet.
Just finished up..
First impressions:
Many a fresh approach, and a handful of tracks that I'll honestly say are a bit of a shocker. There's a few funky tracks, some light-duty piano in there on one - WTH? - and two I'd say are completely new direction type tracks.
I always look forward to being grabbed by three or four songs on each release and I can say definitively that the dude has done it again. Still early, as many of his albums require repeated listens
and certainly open-air with the sub on is going to present a different impact - - not to mention the transformation I expect laying down my favorites onto tape. I can say this though, this
is the first album in quite a while that doesn't sound spectacular through my tube/headphone amp and I blame part of that on the engineering & layers.
Heard some Chickenfoot bleed over influence at points in there too.
Opens up strong, takes some interesting twists & turns throughout and then seems to peter out in what I would characterize as an unfinished package.
There a few timing change ups that blew me away and one particular song where the lead break-out is completely blazing fresh but unfortunately the rest of the song (end-caps) is sort of lame,
but again it's early and I've not listened to this
on my speakers..
You can check out the full album on boobTube here:
unaffiliated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5c5B7p-tOI
unaffiliated
First impressions:
Many a fresh approach, and a handful of tracks that I'll honestly say are a bit of a shocker. There's a few funky tracks, some light-duty piano in there on one - WTH? - and two I'd say are completely new direction type tracks.
I always look forward to being grabbed by three or four songs on each release and I can say definitively that the dude has done it again. Still early, as many of his albums require repeated listens
and certainly open-air with the sub on is going to present a different impact - - not to mention the transformation I expect laying down my favorites onto tape. I can say this though, this
is the first album in quite a while that doesn't sound spectacular through my tube/headphone amp and I blame part of that on the engineering & layers.
Heard some Chickenfoot bleed over influence at points in there too.
Opens up strong, takes some interesting twists & turns throughout and then seems to peter out in what I would characterize as an unfinished package.
There a few timing change ups that blew me away and one particular song where the lead break-out is completely blazing fresh but unfortunately the rest of the song (end-caps) is sort of lame,
but again it's early and I've not listened to this
on my speakers..
You can check out the full album on boobTube here:
unaffiliated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5c5B7p-tOI
unaffiliated
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2010
- Messages
- 9,794
Thanks for the review, Tony. I like to hear comments to sort of scope out whether I would buy the CD. When I get a new CD from an old favourite (artist, or band) I can, usually, tell by the first 20 seconds of each of the songs how an album rates. I have the habit of playing the intros on each of the tracks, before I settle down to listening to the whole shebangs. After playing the album a few times, I find some tracks which I felt were middle-of-the-pack now becoming better.
Nando.
Nando.
Developing impressions..
Multi-listening required on this disc!
Still think it opens up strong & awesome; always like it when the first song is a slam dunk.
The first four songs are power-houses and their order is untouchable IMHO..
Upon repeated listening with various headphone attempts and EQ manipulation, I'm still convinced
that this isn't entirely a "cans" production. A few songs are a bit too toppy and I'm noticing sibilance
on a few of the later tracks due to the way they were engineered. Not a huge thing but the presence
and spacial representation open-air is much more enjoyable to my ears. I'm sure the warming process
of laying these songs down onto some Type IV will help to smooth out the rough edges.
I put this album almost up there with this short list of my all-time favorites:
'Crystal Planet'
'Engines of Creation'
'Is There Love in Space'
'The Extremist'
'Flying Through a Blue Dream'
and of course -
'Surfing With the Alien'.
There's a gob of new approaches, techniques and arrangement on this album;
much less predictable than most of Joe's albums of last 10 or 12 years.
What is a small distraction to me is the fizzle of song choices and their order on the back-side of the listening experience;
I would have arranged things differently but that's the beauty of tape -
I can fix that little problem!
80% of this album will mix well with a handful of favorite tracks from his last 3 albums..
Multi-listening required on this disc!
Still think it opens up strong & awesome; always like it when the first song is a slam dunk.
The first four songs are power-houses and their order is untouchable IMHO..
Upon repeated listening with various headphone attempts and EQ manipulation, I'm still convinced
that this isn't entirely a "cans" production. A few songs are a bit too toppy and I'm noticing sibilance
on a few of the later tracks due to the way they were engineered. Not a huge thing but the presence
and spacial representation open-air is much more enjoyable to my ears. I'm sure the warming process
of laying these songs down onto some Type IV will help to smooth out the rough edges.
I put this album almost up there with this short list of my all-time favorites:
'Crystal Planet'
'Engines of Creation'
'Is There Love in Space'
'The Extremist'
'Flying Through a Blue Dream'
and of course -
'Surfing With the Alien'.
There's a gob of new approaches, techniques and arrangement on this album;
much less predictable than most of Joe's albums of last 10 or 12 years.
What is a small distraction to me is the fizzle of song choices and their order on the back-side of the listening experience;
I would have arranged things differently but that's the beauty of tape -
I can fix that little problem!
80% of this album will mix well with a handful of favorite tracks from his last 3 albums..
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