Our friendly giant John Petrucci, has returned with a fresh new album, outside the Dream Theater universe. Re-uniting with his ex-band mate super-drummer Mike Portnoy and the bassist Dave LaRue, he’s showing a strong effort to go away from the long sweep-picking solos he’s known for and he does a pretty good job, delinvering something something funky and groovy but at the same time, heavy and aggressive.
The influences are many found in ths album, most of them childhood guitar heroes of John such as Steve Vai, George Harrison, Buck Dharma, Garry Moore, Rory Gallagher, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and more modern bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Green Day.
Track list:
- ‘‘Terminal Velocity”: A mix of heavy rhythms and grooves, it feels like an extremely long solo by John.
- ”The Oddfather”: A reminesence of the Liquid Tension Experiment.
- ‘‘Happy Song”: An inspiring song with a confidence growing sound.
- ‘‘Gemini”: A mix of heavy whammy bar use and flamenco guitar playing.
- ”Out Of The Blue”: Like listening to David Gilmour guitar rhythyms.
- ”Glassy-Eyed Zombies”: In here, John shows off his Dream Theater roots.
- ”The Way Things Fall”: The same is here as menthioned before.
- ”Snake In My Boot”: Sounding brilliantly, it time-travels us back to the 80s.
- ”Temple of Circadia”: A beautiful story told by the electric guitar, bass and drums. Period.
FINAL SCORE: 4.5/5
