Engines of Creation by Joe Satriani (CD, Mar-2000, Epic USA)

Joe Satriani and electronica. Do they mix? For the most part, yes. There are a lot of electronic beats on this one, but he plays around them in fine fashion. "Devil's Slide" starts this one off and is a classic example of his ability to create exciting, original riffs. "Borg Sex" is a very playful number and is more electronic-oriented, but very enjoyable just the same. "Attack" is a very cool song that hearkens back to the good old days of shred. "Clouds Race Across the Sky" is another in his famous repetoire of beautiful, slower numbers and has a great ambient feeling to it. "Champagne" is a great slide number. Overall, this is definitely not his best work, but very worthy of praise as it can easily blow away most music that is out there today. As a side point, this is a great album for fans of the band Praxis, as it provides a good balance of good-old shred and thumping beats. Listen to this one a few times and it will grow on you. I guarantee.

This CD is again different from his other masterpieces. At first, it sounds a bit strange with all those techno drum ryhtms and synthesizers. For me personally, I had to get used to almost all Satriani CD's, since his music is not that easy listening like most popular top 40 (commercial garbage) hits.

Joe's music is much more complex than regular "top 40" songs with extremely melodic and detailed guitar playing. The main strenght of his instrumental work is the melody, which is so present that you won't even miss vocals. The same story for this CD. The style of the tracks on it varies a lot.

The first 3 are very techno rythm orientated, number 4 is a classic brilliant song in the style of Always with me ... Always with you. It is also the only one with a full band. Number 5 is a song with lots of "noisy" techno influences, but it also contains one of the most sensitive guitar melodies on the album, which gives it a great contrast. Number 6 reminds me of his Joe Satriani album and Jeff Becks recent work. Track 7 is very relaxing, number 8 a great intermezzo/intro that changes in my personal favorite track 9 (Power Cosmic-PartII). Track 10 is again a very sensitive relaxed song with a harmonizer effect on his guitar. Finally, track 11, the title track, is a worthy end of album song. The only thing I dislike about the album is it's length. 53 minutes is way to short! But I'd never question Satch's integrity. (-:

DO... GET this CD if you're a Satch fan. Worth any price on EBAY.

DTD