Joe Satriani - Shapeshifting.

Joe Satriani
Shapeshifting

(Sony Music/Legacy Recordings)

9/10

By Paul Davies


Not the first guitar virtuoso to tap into releasing instrumental treatises of seemingly limitless sonic landscapes. Yet, Satriani consistently zooms off terra firma and into the stratosphere with his Ibanez musings and singular imaginings of sound craft during a so-far stellar solo career.

Inviting the listener to buckle up for another discursive ride of a lifetime, lift-off begins with crisp power on the titular opener and doesn’t let up as Big Distortion continues this head trip into otherworldly dimensions of sound.

With a head shaped like a bullet, the synaptic connections inside it are probably colliding as fast as protons and electrons searching for the god particle in the Hadron Collider. And as sharp and precise as laser beams zapping across a well-fingered fretboard, Satriani’s sonic delivery pierces the brain’s hearing receptors quicker than you can say shrink.

Throughout a release that demands the total concentration of his audience, Satriani produces constant blasts of explosive futuristic guitar sounds like serried ranks of sizzling isotopes to create musical fusion. And fusion is what Satch does the best by melding together supernatural sounds alloyed by a range of deftly controlled guitar effects

There’s also a commercial edge to some of these instrumental tomes proving this isn’t art for art’s sake but a real effort to update his presence and engage his audience as on the snappy Nineteen Eighty and the quirk some Ali Farka, Dick Dale, an Alien and Me.

However, it's not all flash, bang, wallop as two beautifully constructed tracks All For Love and Teardrop proves with their mournful, melancholic texture gently slowing the pace to hit the sweet spot.

With his trademark supersonic adventures into musical sound waves, there are plenty of curveballs here to provoke many replays for both tech-heads and ordinary fans alike.

Clearly having fun in the studio making this record, Satriani blends in different genre rhythms as Perfect Dust twangs a jaunty country-blues riff and Here The Blue River chips in with a reggae styling. There’s even a guest spot by Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) playing a mean mandolin on Waiting.

Along with the hooks and melodies, it’s his clusters of tonal exploration which keeps the listener on their mental toes as Satch knowingly goes heavy spectral on Spirits, Ghosts and Outlaws.

Never no ordinary Joe by any stretch of the imagination, this alumnus of Deep Purple mark VI (Blackmore’s thrilling replacement to complete The Battle Rages On tour) and current member of Chickenfoot, Satriani keeps on shapeshifting at the cutting edge of guitar wizardry on this adventurous and gallivanting solo release.