Despite being a drummer for 20 years and working on the tri-state circuit for the past 10 or so, this is my first review of an record...I'm venturing beyond my usual reviews of electronics, cigars and other various stuff, so I hope this is helpful.

I've played the drums for over 20 years yet composition has become a passion and Satriani has been a tremendous part of my inspiration in conveying musical ideas to my guitarists in order to have them expand on an idea or concept. Very few players can even try to dsiplay the tehnical chops that Satch vividly displays on Crystal Planet -- Some of the squeals and ostinatos are so incredible and his use of effects is extremely tasteful - though ironically at first I didn't appreciate it...more on that later.

Crystal Planet is a 67 minute and change album of absolutely virtuosic guitar playing in some of the most extreme guises -- Although I've purchased plenty of J.S. material, C.P. was shown to me by my guitarist, and the funny thing is at first it struck my as a modern attempt at glorifying the guitar personna of the 80's...I was so wrong. Within 2 minutes I was hooked. There are no vocals on this album -- TO me this is a great thing - there are some guitarists who play guitar incredibly but insist on singing despite having a terrible voice (ahem, Eric). Satch just says "to hell with the vox, let's get on with the guitar!" The album cover is a classic semi-fisheye shot of Satch with his Chromed-looking custom Ibanez Axe. The picture is timeless, and the expression pretty much captivates the attitude; A shy coy grin with that "yeah...just watch this brotha...." nothing but confidence. Satch gets together with Jeff Campitelli, Stuart Hamm, Eric Caudieux among others to slam out this incredible collection:

1.Up In The Sky
2.House Full Of Bullets
3.Crystal Planet
4.Love Thing
5.Trundrumbalind
6.Lights Of Heaven
7.Raspberry Jam Delta-V
8.Ceremony
9.With Jupiter In Mind
10.Secret Prayer
11.Train Of Angels, A
12.Piece Of Liquid, A
13.Psycho Monkey
14.Time
15.Z.Z.'s Song

The album starts with a fast furious "Up in The Sky" the track is a strong knock-out punch of an introduction and Joe illustrates his accurate fingernig ability with a few cathy fast repetitive phrases on top of a rock/thrash/gallop beat with sloppy open hi hats and a very plain but dominant and workable bass riff. The next cut is a bluesy feeling "House Full of Bullets" in which satch plays over a domineering blues bass riff and paints his vivid solos and shows off some extremely tasteful phrasing.

There are some extremely intersting tunes in which Joe's absolutely virtuosic playing can bring a tear to your eye or just force you to jump up and play air guitar while stag-walking a make believe stage in your apartment..."A Piece of Liquid" shows off some incredible squeals and effects and track 14 "Time" Is one of my favorite Satch tunes of all time - it starts out with an odd and huge strong bass riff with plenty of space, only a few staggered guitar phrases and slides - Joe then opens up into an amazingly technical barage of fast but perfect phrasings and then the most inspirational chorus in which he does a triplet based bar-walkdown through multiple different modes while maintaining this triplety - ostinato-ish chorus phrasing. The only part of this tune that depresses me is the breakdown in which the time and feel of the tune totally change -- The change is still awesome and the guitar work is killer, but I would love to hear one more of those ostinato guitar lines - just so much color and feeling scrunched up into this amazing phrase - Joe, you are a guitar god....but we all know that.

I could go on forever about these tunes, but the bottom line is that this album is a must have, whether you are a rock over, guitar lover or all around music lover. For any musician, if you don't yet have this CD, BUY IT - there are so many ideas, you can drive your emotion and spark your compositional flame with so many ideas into virtually any genre of music by listening to this CD- rock, thrash, tech-thrash, acid jazz....the list goes on. THere are no vocals to cloud anything up *(An aspect of this album that I adore by the way - unlike other awesome guitarists who play guitar astoundingly, but can't sing for a damn [ I won't mention names...ahem...Eric] )

A fantastic must buy album - highly recomended for when you need some musical inspiration or if you just want to be wowed by one of the best guitarists on the plantet. Joe kills it on Crystal Planet.

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Driving