Steve Vai

Alien Love Secrets (Relativity)
by Joe Hacking

There aren’t too many guitar gods left. Clapton and Van Halen both look and play like retired CEOs. Stevie Ray Vaughan is gone. Yngwie can’t get back what he so briefly had. Luckily, Steve Vai has returned with his new release, Alien Love Secrets (Relativity), a 33-minute collection of mind-blowing, guitar-driven tracks.

“I just shut up and played my guitar,” said Steve, paraphrasing his mentor, Frank Zappa. Unlike previous releases, Vai goes right for the jugular with this collection of tunes. “Bad Horsie” (based on the solo he did in the movie Crossroads) growls, crunches, raunches, neighs and wails. “Juice” reveals his lessons from high school friend and fellow guitar god, Joe Satriani. “The Boy From Seattle” pays homage to Jimi Hendrix and his unique chording. “Ya-Yo Gakk” is a compilation of hours of scrap DAT recordings Vai made of his two-year-old son Julian goofing around. The resulting song reveals Vai’s genius and humor.

Alien Love Secrets is one hell of a teaser. It catches Steve Vai at an enthusiastic period in his career. The music is full of Vai’s energy; you can hear it in every chord, note and high-speed run. Alien Love Secrets displays his ever-evolving compositional and technical abilities, his commitment to discipline and production. Yet Vai himself adds: “In my mind, I cut loose; that’s where the freedom is.”