Mordred's Full Review: Is There Love in Space? by Joe Satriani
After a wildly successful G3 tour (along with Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen), and a hot selling live album/DVD you might think Joe Satriani would want to take a break. Fortunately, for fans of his unique blend of instrumental guitar, that wasn't the case. Is There Love In Space? is his brand new release and sees him continuing along similar stylistic lines as his last offering, 2002's Stange Beautiful Music.
The bulk of Satriani's career has seen him release albums that functioned as cohesive wholes; records that worked very well when played start to finish. Obviously he's had a lot of hit singles, but it used to be the case that if you liked the single you were reasonably assured of liking the album. Starting with Strange Beautiful Music and continuing with Is There Love In Space?, Satriani seems to be all over the map where one song may sound nothing like any of the others. This isn't a bad thing, diversity is usually good, but it can make the albums a little less approachable than they might have otherwise been.
The album opens with "Gnaahh" which is a funky number that might be the most simplistic song Satriani has released in years. It's catchy to a point, but does seem somewhat repetitive. This is followed up with "Up In Flames" which sounds like Satch was listening to "Summer Song" off of The Extremist right before he recorded it. Immediately following that is a heavier rock number called "Hands In The Air". Nothing really flows together, which in this case works against the individual songs because there isn't much that jumps out at the listener and demands attention.
There are two vocal cuts on the album and they work to a degree. On "Lifestyle" Satch has a heavily processed vocal line that was initially off-putting but as the song goes starts to make a lot of sense. It's not as catchy as a track like "Big Bad Moon", but it's hard not to sing along with the sparse blues-on-acid vocal line. "I Like the Rain" is more of a throwaway cut, but Satch is too good of an artist to write a truly bad song.
Satriani's love affair with crazy tones and effects is again present on this album. The fuzzed out wah of "The Souls of Distortion" is a great example of what the man can do with his feet as well as his hands. It's a heavy rock number over a thick groove that works amazingly well. Of course Joe isn't afraid to slow things down on tracks such as the delicately eastern sounding two-handed tapping exercise "Bamboo" or on the mid-tempo title track. Joe seems completely comfortable playing in any style or sound and unafraid to stretch out, even when things don't make perfect sense.
The real reason to purchase this album though is the magnificent, ten minute long track "Searching". This slow going blues number sounds like it would have been perfect closing out the man's eponymous album. The groove here is miles deep and the band gets to stretch around quite a bit; for one of the few times on the album, bassist Matt Bissonette and drummer Jeff Campitelli get to come out into the forefront and show their chops as well. Everything just comes together and it's quite possibly the best thing he's recorded since 1998's Crystal Planet.
Joe seems to have left most of his shredding days behind and is now content just to play whatever he feels like. Is There Love in Space? may not be the best record the man has recorded, but I doubt he cares. He certainly makes a case for being the coolest guitar player out there and I doubt his legions of fans will be disappointed.
With a staggering 13 Grammy nominations, 11 solo albums to his credit and over 10 million copies of his albums sold worldwide, Joe Satriani has achiev...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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