| Review by Marc P March 1, 2003 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
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Performance:  Sonics:  |
Strange beautiful music: a title that says it all when you’re not a Satriani fan.
When you are a Satriani fan, the title could have done without the “strange”. Because it’s far from strange to anyone familiar with his recordings. He should have called it “back to my old form”. It would be a lot better decryption. Joe Satriani went back to his old style of playing guitar music after his album Engine of creation. No weird sound effects, the extensive use of computer enhanced music is gone. Just straight foreword rock on this one. And that’s the way I like it.
Anyone saying SACD isn’t right for Rock should listen to this. This album ROCKS, and it Rocks hard. Guitars screaming like there’s no tomorrow, but never losing sight of the musicality. Joe is a master at the song without words. He just lets his guitar do the talking.
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| Review by ravnspore May 22, 2003 (2 of 2 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
Bought this album just to have another SACD surround disc, and
expecting that the sound would be a little harsh, as that was my
experience with other SACD's like Journey Greatest Hits (although not 5.1)
But to my surprise this is a fantastic SACD. The sonics are fantastic
and the mix is fantastic - again this kind of music seems to fit surround
sound perfectly, and certainly is more exciting than Stereo only.
Joe is a Guitar-God and tought amongst other Eddie Van Halen, so the
playing here is out of this world, coupled with a backing band full of
serious chops.
If you want a Rock SACD, this one is a fantastic place to start and,
as mentioned, in surround, Joe's playing is just magnified ... 5.1 times!!??
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| Review by jimmyjames8 July 22, 2003 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
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Performance: Sonics: |
| Title says it all. It's heavy, it's melodic, it's electronic in parts (but nothing like Engines), it's beautiful (to these ears). Fairly futuristic electric guitar instrumental music. Yes, that's it. An all out sonic assault to be sure. Not for everyone but I like hard rock, heavy metal and just about all jazz from the 50's to the present. If you liked Surfing with the Alien and have an SACD player, you will like this disc.
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| Review by martmann August 7, 2006 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
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This was my very first SACD, It's also the SACD that convinced a friend of mine to go SACD (costing him a new receiver and SACD player). I've bought a number of SACDs since (also some DVD-A), but none compare in multi-channel & engineering quality.
Steely Dan's Gaucho, comes close (particularly considering the age of the source material), and Pink Floyd's DSOTM is very good, but the shear quality of this SACD is amazing.
From his cover of "Sleep Walk", evoking a quiet night on a Hawaiian beach, to the funky bluesy sound of "Hill Groove", to the crunchy sound of "Seven String", to my disc favorite "Chords Of Life", this SACD covers a lot of sonic ground, and I think many non-Satch fans could enjoy this disc.
This disc has no vocals at all (as far as I can tell), and really doesn't need any, Joe speaks fluently with his guitar, more so on this disc than many of his others.
Now if they would just release "The Extremist" on SACD, I would be a very happy JS fan.
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| Review by Robert W May 24, 2007 (0 of 1 found this review helpful)
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| I have to disagree with the over all quality of the sonics on this from some of the other reviews here. I mostly enjoy the stereo mixes on SACD (or DVD-A) as I'm sort of a purist, however the 5.1 mixes can be good too if done right. This SACD is another good to great performance from Joe and if you are a fan you will enjoy it. This is the first SACD where I didn't think that the sonics at least matched the Redbook CD. They are OK, and maybe a bit more detailed than the CD, but over all the sonics are just average with even less gain than the CD. So if you already own the CD, this is not a must unless you have to have the 5.1 for collection sake.
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| Review by analogue February 25, 2009 (1 of 1 found this review helpful)
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If you like instrumental rock music by a great and gifted guitarist then I would recommend this superb sacd to you. I believe it's recorded digitally in high rez pcm but the sound is very good if a little truncated. For example the bass could be deeper perhaps, the drumming fuller and the soundstage in the studio more open. There could be a tad more seperation in the different instruments.It just could have been a tad more real sounding.
What makes this one special, however is Mr. Satriani's guitar playing. He tries just about every tempo of playing on this album. Incredibly fast, romantic and mellow and crazy mercurial playing where you wonder how many fingers he has. But it;s not noise.....it's creative beauty. He almsot talks with his guitar. There are tracks that sound Egyptian in feel.....others are sentimental and nostalgic....some romantic and others just terrific rockers.
I wonder how good this one could have been if it was recorded in pure dsd. In any case..highly recommended because of the guitar virtuosity of Joe Satriani.
Fantastic music but not the very highest pinnacle of what sacd is capable of doing. But definitely worth buying for sure if you love great guitar playing from a master.
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Sonics: 
