VIRTUOSO VAI WAS SIZZLING HOT IN THE FIRE GARDEN

For all you fans of heavy rock guitar out there, i`m sure this album isn`t
a lost treasure to you. I`m talking hardcore fans now and not Mickey
Mouse fans who swoon over pop metal like Motley Crue & Def Leppard,
i mean the real fair dinkum stuff. And who better articulated virtuoso
heavy rock guitar better than american ace axeman Steve Vai, who
is about 50 these days but still cranking out some very innovative
and original fusion hard rock music, albeit repetitive instrumen-
tal material. But back in 1996, Steve Vai must have had a brainsnap
or rolled out of bed the wrong way, because he recorded an album
which actually did feature him singing on a few tracks, and not
too unconvincingly either, which i regard as his best album by
quite a long way over the distance. The album is a conceptual
affair called FIRE GARDEN. It`s a CD jammed packed with enough
material to warrant a double album set, the album is grouped in-
to two parts, Phase 1 and Phase 2, each with 9 songs a piece. The
first part of the album is entirely instrumental, and the second
part, minus the interlude `Deepness` and the finale `Warm Regards`,
are vocal selections. Vai of course is not just a heavy metal head-
banger thrasher, he plays a wild mixture of just about anything -
metal, rock, avant garde, doowop, jazz, classical, grunge, even
occasionally something a bit traditional bluesey. He was tutored
as a young man in Frank Zappa`s band, hence his experimental
and eccentric diversions into uncharted musical territory in the
years following. Vai is best known perhaps for his contribution
to the first two David Lee Roth solo albums in the late 80`s,
which while entertaining and original didn`t quite capture the
spontaneous magic of Roth`s former band mate Eddie Van Halen.
He had a couple of minor instrumental hits following his de-
parture from the Roth fold, and he seem destined to play out
his days as a solo musician without a vocalist in sight. That
has come true, he never has played in a band as a permanent
member and no one else has come along to sing along with him
on his solo albums. But on FIRE GARDEN he must have said to
himself, `lets sing some shit for once man`. The pick of the
bunch on FIRE GARDEN with the instrumentals would have to in-
clude the medley masterpiece `Fire Garden Suite`, which is
structured into four diffrent stages, the churning `Dyin` Day`
and the speed metal tinged stunning opener `There`s A Fire In
The House`. The pick of the ones which Vai puts a vocal to,
there is only 6 in fact if you omit the childish parody `When
i Was A Little Boy`, would include the angry and confrontation-
al `Damn You`, the lewd,double entredre laden `Aching Hunger`
and the emotive hearttugger `Brother`, which seems to be a very
personal story sung from his own life experience. One very eclec-
tic and daring mixture of many musical forms, FIRE GARDEN is
Steve Vai`s definitive testament to the music world. And to top it
off, he even sings on here so you cant say it`s just another wank-
erish instrumental rock album from someone who didn`t grow up.