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Satriani, Joe
Not Of This Earth (1986)
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 Rank: 4 guitars out of 5 Really enjoyed it |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Satriani's first official release. Named after the infamous terrible movie of the same name, this album is a lot better than it! What is surprising about this record is that all of the drums are electronic (though trying to sound real, in an 80's way) but it all sounds great. I freaking love this album. So many brilliant ideas, all put together so well, so many fantastic solo's! Satriani still plays "Hordes of Locusts" live - it's a rocking track. I have a copy of this album in blue vinyl as shown! "Headless Horseman" is a fantastic tapping track, "Rubina" is a wonderful tune, and "Driving At Night" captures the mood wonderfully. Strongly recommended! My ranking: 4 - Really enjoyed it |
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Surfing With The Alien (1988)
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 Rank: 5 guitars out of 5 Masterpiece! |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
The album that launched the most popular instrumental guitarist for the past 20 years! And rightly so! Every single track of this album is brilliant. The melodies are singable, the shredding is mind-popping and unbelivably clean, the tapping is bril, look, if you haven't heard it, you haven't truly heard someone play the guitar properly. This is the album, yes the album, which inspired me to learn to play guitar. I went out and bought myself a Jackson, the tab book of this album, and spent the next three years trying to get to grips with it! And I still can't play it! It's quite difficult to understate the impact that this album has had. It's since been re-issued in a re-mastered form. How many other instrumental rock CD's can claim the same? Hardly any. This album made Satriani a household name. In an interview on his video, "The Satch Tapes", he said that he purposely wrote the album to "Serve the guitar up on a silver platter" - and he's done just that. I've also got a signed copy of a 12" vinyl single that has "Satch Boogie" on both sides. Satch obviously didn't read the label and wrote "Surfs up!" :) I've actually got quite a few vinyl singles of his, which I will get around to uploading one of these days. My ranking: 5 - Masterpiece! |
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Vinyl Singles (1988)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Above is a couple of 7" Satriani singles that I have from the 'Surfing' era. The one on the left is "Surfing With The Alien" - bizzarely showing the "Not Of This Earth" artwork, in the middle is "Always with Me, Always with You", and the last is "Satch Boogie". I had volunteered at my local university radio station (doing an instrumental rock show :), and they had a bunch of these singles sitting in the library. I asked the station manager if I could possibly buy them, to which he offered me a very nice price. Thanks mate. |
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Flying In a Blue Dream (1989)
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Rank: 5 guitars out of 5 Masterpiece! |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
The classicest of the classic Satriani era! 18 tracks, yes, 18 tracks of unadulterated guitar pleasure! Backwards guitars! Banjo solos! Double handed delayed harmonies! Heavy Funk! Genius in raw form! Another classic from Satch. Title track is a ripper, as well as "Back to Shalla Bal" (still heard on TV sport channels if you listen carefully :), and so much other musical sparkling. A feat that only a few have reached. My ranking: 5 - Masterpiece! |
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More Singles (1989)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Here's something that is a bit strange. A 7" vinyl with "Always with Me, Always with You" on both sides, and no label or artwork. Weird. Also an "I believe" vinyl single, and a "Flying In a Blue Dream" vinyl single. |
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Bootlegs (1989)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Couple of good bootlegs. "Guitar Killer" and "Lead Guitar" are both great early ones from the Surfing days. "Lead Guitar" has a great blues jam at the end, and "Master Of The Art" is also quite good from the "Flying.." era. |
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The Extremist (1992)
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 Rank: 3 guitars out of 5 Was ok |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
3 years later grunge had arrived and scared Satriani into going a bit more straight rock. While this album still has some good songs on it, in my opinion it just doesn't quite hold up to the previous efforts (which would have been hard). Australians will recognise "Summer Song" as it was ripped off for the theme to the TV soapie "Heart Break High". All in all, there's some good stuff on this album, but I get the feeling that Satriani isn't pushing himself as much as he could have. He's proved himself and now can just settle for pumping out the rock tunes. Lots would disagree though, so listen to it yourself and see what you think. I have quite a large Satch collection so I'll be adding to this page in the future! My ranking: 3 - Was ok |
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The Satch EP (1993)
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| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Strange promo 45 EP issued by Relativity Records. Unfortunate title as it is what his original EP was also called. (His original EP is exceedingly rare and sells for something like >$500 these days, he only pressed about 1000 of these and are extremely collectable). Anyway, this EP contains 4 tracks: 1. The Extremist 2. Banana Mango 3. Summer Song 4. Crazy Tracks 1 and 3 are both taken from the "The Extremist" album. Track 2 appears on the "Time Machine" album, except titled as "Banana Mango II". (He originally wrote "Banana Mango" as a 2 minute song on the original EP, this one is the slicker and not as enjoyable 6 minute version). The only differences between any of these songs and the album versions is that "Banana Mango" has an extra 5 seconds preceeding it that consist of a drum-tap count in! Worth the price alone! |
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Time Machine (1993)
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Rank: 3 guitars out of 5 Was ok |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Double CD consisting of a bunch of new material, some old stuff (from his original EP), and a live set. I'm not a huge fan of this CD. The original stuff is ok, but a bit boring. Nothing really cohesive or all that interesting. Satch seems to have gone for a "let's pile on the reverb to everything" sound, and I don't think it really works. Tracks like "The Mighty Turtle Head" and "Speed Of Light" are just a bit boring. Satch seems to have fallen into a "I know what works" method and has just put himself through the paces. However the reproduction of the tracks from the original EP is worth the price. "I Am Become Death" is a great track, as well as "Banana Mango". Unfortunately he left off one track from the original, titled "Talk To Me", which is a bit if a disappointment. I had an mp3 of this track years ago, and it's really good! The last song on the first CD, "Woodstock Jam" is a 16 minute jam, performed live, which is based all around a short atonal phrase. Keyboard sfx are combined to make a strange, spaced out jam that is just lots of fun. The second CD is contains a live set, which is very good. Lots of favourites, all played fantastically. What I really like about Joe is that he hasn't succumbed to the Steve Vai mentality of "it's ok to fix stuff up on a live album". There's no overdubs and practically no mistakes! My ranking: 3 - Was ok |
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Joe Satriani (1995)
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Rank: 3 guitars out of 5 Was ok |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
After being slightly distraught from "Time Machine", I was really excited when this album came out. Still expecting music "hard-rocking good times" tunes, I was not particularly impressed with the slow and mellow sound. Satch's tone seems to have gone down the toilet, and his songwriting has changed from playing happy high energy rocking tunes to a more mellow and laid back rock sound. With depressing tracks like "Down, Down, Down", "S.M.F.", "Moroccan Sunset" and "Sittin' Round", I can't say that I really enjoy a lot of these songs. What annoys me more is the overall sound - everything just sounds a bit smaller and less impressive. The drums sound like I recorded them (ok, perhaps not that bad), and the rhythm guitars sound blah. But, I will say one big plus for this album, it's nice to have on in the background! There's a great documentary (which you can't seem to get here in Australia) named "Reel Satriani", which chronicles the recording of this album, in particular "Luminous Flesh Giants". It's a great watch and a must see for Satriani fans. My ranking: 3 - Was ok |
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Crystal Planet (1998)
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 Rank: 2 guitars out of 5 Didn't enjoy it |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
With a completely new shaven head look, Satch's new album is back to the "Extremist" era sound! More rocking, more upbeat, more fun. Still a dissapointing album for me. I personally took this album to mean that Satriani has firmly planted his foot in the "hard rock" camp, and will never move back to his more groundbreaking Surfing/Blue Dream era type sound. There's a couple of nice tracks on this album. I really enjoy the blues "house full of bullets" and "Raspberry jam delta-v", but there's just too many blah songs. "Ceremony", "Love thing", "Lights of Heaven" (yawn), "Secret Prayer" (yawn) all just sound like Joe on auto-pilot. He's capable of so much more. However, the stand-out track is "Time" - a track that apparently was left off Surfing With the Alien. It's fantastic! About 3000 times better than the rest of the album combined, it shows Joe being inventive, fun and melodic! The intro has a massive punchy rhythm track, his lead sound is back to screaming, the melody is great. The chorus is just amazing! The solo is a complete wah laden shred fest, there's some cool SFX, an ending that morphs into a different time signature... what the hell more could you want?? I find it really difficult to understand how he could include this brilliant track on the CD and then produce half of the other ones! My ranking: 2 - Didn't enjoy it |
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Engines Of Creation (2000)
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Rank: 4 guitars out of 5 Really enjoyed it |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
Joe finally brings out an album that he'd been threatening to do for years, something interesting! Combining techno beats and guitar melodies, and taking a lot from Jeff Beck, Joe proudly proclaimed that he didn't use an amplifier at all during the recording of the album. And it's pretty cool! Opening track "Devil's Slide" is a cool electronic rocker with a majorly spaced out guitar sound. Track 2, "Flavor Crystal 7" sees Joe returning back to his "oh, who needs a melody anyway, let's just bash out chords with lots of reverb". Not too impressive, but then he rips out "Borg Sex", a nice track, with lots of cool bits. And a GOOD MELODY. "Attack" is really great as well. "The Power Cosmic 2000 Part I" is a fantastic opener - one which I reckon should have opened the album :) It's continued on with part II, which has some great arpeggios and nice playing. So in all up, I really quite enjoyed this album - a much more interesting release than the previous few. My ranking: 4 - Really enjoyed it |
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Additional Creations (2000)
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Rank: 4 guitars out of 5 Really enjoyed it |
| Reviewer: lach (96) |
This CD was a radio-only release single that featured 3 tracks from "Engines Of Creation", completely re-done, and a bonus track "Turkey Man". Dunno why on earth it was a limited release - why couldn't the fans just buy it in the shops? I think that I enjoyed this CD more than the actual album! Opening track "Borg Sex" has a rocking (real) drumkit throughout the whole thing, "Turkey Man" is a nice up-beat rocker, "Flavor Crystal 7" also has a rocking drumkit through the whole thing and it ROCKS! "Until We Say Goodbye" has been remixed with extra techno drums + synth pads, and it sounds bril! Get this CD! My ranking: 4 - Really enjoyed it |
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