It’s no secret that I’m a big Joe Satriani fan, he has probably been the most influential guitarist to me over the past 20 years and I always look forward to hearing new music so I was very excited when my promo copy arrived this week. The most exciting thing about Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards is that it comes at a very interesting time in Joe’s career, for the first time Joe is now the guitarist in a Rock band, Chickenfoot which has changed the way he approached this album. For Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards Joe decided to use the same recording studio, Skywalker Sound which has an epic sized room to rehearse, write and record. The important part of this decision was that Joe has returned to a live recorded sounding album which has been absent for the past few albums, this sound is more like the Flying In A Blue Dream, The Extremist style production. The band lineup for this album was Jeff Campitelli, Allen Whitman, and Mike Keneally on Keyboards which worked really well especially on tracks like Littleworth Lane and Two Sides To Every Story which are my favourites purely for the reason that this is not what you expect to hear Joe playing aside from on his self-titled album and even then he has really taken it up a notch.

The album opens with a track that to me actually sounds more like a track from Dave Weiner’s On Revolute than Joe but of course it has Joe’s unmistakeable phrasing and melodies that are so easily identifiable plus that wonderful lead tone that is so articulate and expressive, again similar to Flying…. The track has a brilliant, fierce solo with Joe attacking the guitar which compliments the subtlety of the melody nicely.

Dream Song opens with a great funky Wah riff in the left channel that acts as a pedal while the arpeggiated keyboards gently bubble away over the top setting up a subtle backing for Joe’s delicately overdriven lead melody layered over the top. This is old school Joe doing his Rock Ballad thing complete with legato solo, love it.

Pyrrhic Victoria sounds more like the recent Satch tracks from Super Colossal or Professor Satchafunkilus but the guitar tones are so much better, great rhythm crunch guitars tracked left and right for the main verse. The chorus is quite elborate in comparison to the verse, very anthemic, but then Joe is known for this kind of juxtaposition of contrasting musical themes. Again the guitar solo is played with a lot of ferocity and as with all of this album Joe’s blues/rock roots are showing through here too, maybe due to his experience with Chickenfoot but maybe this is something influenced by his recent tour with Experience Hendrix?

Light Years Away, well if you haven’t heard this yet where have you been? Joe recently posted this track up on SoundCloud.com for all to hear and it’s a storming track. The main riff is something you would definitely hear Chickenfoot playing with Jeff Campitelli laying into the drums like there’s no tomorrow and the bass of Allen Whitman rumbles so hard in my headphones it makes my head vibrate! Another classic Joe track, this album certainly starts strong!

Solitude, I love this track, it reminds me of the solo tracks from his early albums such as Midnight or Day At The Beach, it’s just Joe, his guitar and some delay and reverb! The track was originally not meant to be a solo piece but everyone fell in love with the demo so it earned it’s place and it makes for a perfect break in the album’s pace in time for Littleworth Lane.

Littleworth Lane. WOW! Seriously, WOW! This track is incredible, I haven’t been this floored by a Satch track since I first heard Sittin’ Round and Slow Down Blues from his album Joe Satriani. Even then, this is on another level. The intro sounds like Black Crowes but then is settles into a slow blues with the Hammond Organ simmering in the background that would bring a tear to B.B. King’s eye, such amazing melodies, phrasing, feel and emotion. There is a chord progression about half the way through that is so Joe, I’m not even sure what he does without sitting down and analysing, I’ll do that soon, but it takes it out of a standard progression and adds his own stamp on it.

The Golden Room is a good track to follow the leftfield Littleworth Lane with it’s Eastern flavoured melodies that Joe loves so much and percussion that sounds like Tablas or something similar providing an interesting groove with the keyboards of Keneally embellishing the atmospheric pads with little melodic fills while Joe leaps across the fretboard. While this track never takes off, it doesn’t really need to it just simmers throughout and then gently breaks down little by little for the last couple of minutes.

Two Sides To Every Story another of my favourites from this album, Mike Keneally is in his Hammond element here with some really funky playing while Joe almost sounds like Robben Ford! If Joe wanted to show his diversity as a musician this album is probably the album that totally achieves this. The blues influence in Joe’s playing is again strong in this track, great groove from the band and wonderful playing from Satch.

After nearly a minute of stirring ethereal keyboard intro Wormhole Wizards springs to life with a driving bassline before Joe’s guitar enters with the main theme. This track has quite a minimal use of guitars considering it is one of the rockier tracks, a single guitar playing the melody before the rhythm guitars take over about half way through and then back to a single lead guitar for the signature legato solo. This track also has a keyboard solo from Mike Keneally which I think is a first for a Joe Satriani album? Definitely deserves to be there too, fits in so perfectly.

The penultimate track Wind In The Trees opens with clean open harmonics drenched with delay kind of like Rubina from Joe’s debut album Not Of This Earth but with an interesting lead that sounds like a mixture of distorted Wah mixed with AutoTune! Not sure what he used for this effect, I daresay something from Electro-Harmonix! Very laid back and relaxed ballad style that Joe always does so well.

God Is Crying is the final track on Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards and builds slowly from a cleanish guitar part that slowly cranks up the volume before kicking into the the main theme after about 45 seconds. The main melody sounds like Joe multitracked quite a few guitars at different octaves, either that or he is using his Electro-Harmonix Micro Pog which has used so often over the past decade. Again the chorus on this track is anthemic as it probably should be for the concluding track on an album and has Joe using his Vox Big Bad Wah a lot throughout.

This is one of the strongest albums that Joe has released for a while and it takes a few listens to really appreciate everything that is going on but just keeps growing and growing on you. I hope Joe manages to fit in a tour to Australia for this album although that is looking unlikely for a while as he is due to return to the studio in January 2011 after a short UK tour for the next Chickenfoot album!

Head over to satriani.com to find out how you can pre-order Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards.

Check out the Joe Satriani Webisodes and Podcasts for explanations from Joe about the recording process as well as each track.