Joe Satriani - Super Colossal Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 11.18.2006
The return of the master.
Joe Satriani Super Colossal
2006
Sony
8.0
One of the most admirable things about Joe Satriani, jaw-dropping skill aside, is his remarkable ability to inject emotion into his music, a sort of sonic fingerprint, if you will. Sure, all the technical prowess that Satriani is known for is still here, but he is far from a mindless random noodler, rattling off scale after scale after scale in a dizzying array of increasingly faster notes. There is a great deal of deep thought behind this, from imagining the guitar player as Colossus of Rhodes (title song) to a song striking a chord so deep after the horrific scene (Ten Words) in New York on September 11, 2001, that an artist shelves it for 5 years, only to see the light of day now, to speculation about very rapid transit using redshifting, all without a single word. In fact, the only vocals on this are during a sort of crowd-follow-the-guitar sing-a-long, which somehow segues into a nineteenth century classical composition.
While Satriani is laying back, going well into a groove here again, this album is not quite up to the stellar Is There Love In Space?, which was almost transcendental. Musically, it is not quite as forceful or encompassing and at times, descends into the arena of goofball. Most of Satriani's signature guitar licks are here and there is a sense of mastery and accomplishment hearing him play. He is clearly not only very gifted, but in complete command of the instrument. One wonders exactly how he would ever wind up winging it, just flung out on a limb guitar-wise, as it certainly never seems to happen. Even when Satriani switches to other instruments, he does not drop much proficiency.
If the age of the guitar hero is dead and gone, no one ever told Satriani and he's still out there slugging away or maybe someone whispered it to him and he's out there, perhaps hoping to stick around long enough to see the eventual return of those days.
One of the greatest and worst touches of this release is the packaging. The artwork is an unholy mess, as if someone went nuts with an etch-a-sketch and some water colors, sometimes vaguely resembling Satriani, mostly just making a mess out of things. Then again, fuck it. We've probably seen enough of the bald guitarist, his mirrored sunglasses and chrome guitar anyway...for the good part, there is a brief description of the impetus behind each song as noted by Satriani himself. To say he's brilliant is an understatement, but to be able to get behind a lot of this is a very, very good thing. Kudos to Satch for that. Credits are also here, but a notable absence is Ibanez...hmmmm.
The 411: At many times fun, many times intriguing, this album takes an easy place among all of the other Satriani gems, even if it seems a bit stale at times. Those liner notes were worth an easy point or two and it's something I seriously hope he continues in the future. Great guitarist, great playing, good songs, definitely a release and an artist worth your time. Recommended.
