STEVE VAI – The Story Of Light (2012)
*
“The Story Of Light” is the new STEVE VAI studio album to be released on August 14, and as his acclaimed 2005 album ‘Real Illusions: Reflections’ (Vai’s most recent studio release), it’s a concept work.
In a true Vai style, the CD takes you on a journey from the opening title track for 12 exciting compositions.
As expected, this mostly instrumental album is crafted with a monster and complex production (rare to hear these days), soaring multi-layered guitar tones, and tight harmonies. It’s a beautifully expansive work that orbits within a galaxy we’ve visited before, and Vai is truly awesome throughout.
The opening two tracks are very epic sounding as you can probably imagine, both using 7 string guitars to get full sounding chords to build atmosphere.
Title track “The Story Of Light” is a very complex and layered song where the guitar keeps a simplicity that binds the parts together as the drums and keyboards jump around in the background with scattered rhythmic stabs.
“Velorum” on the other hand is a more uptempo rock track with singing harmony melodies and ethereal verse sections where a single guitar plays the melody, the chorus sections sound really heavy with the 7 string guitars being used and the syncopated breakdown is superb.
The album offer some nice surprises as well.
Vai covers Blind Willie Johnson’s “John The Revelator” with a gospel choir and an amazing vocal performance from Beverly McClellan (a finalist on The Voice). I was instantly transported back to watching ‘Crossroads’ for the first time. This is how I remember Steve Vai sounding as well when heard his playing in David Lee Roth’s ‘Eat ‘em & Smile’.
Steve also duets with singer / songwriter Aimee Mann on “No More Amsterdam” to great effect. It is an unusual song for Vai, a very orchestrated lush sounding composition and his vocals creates a rare contrast with Mann’s register.
And of course, Vai gets in his share of familiar arena-rock workouts like the killer “Gravity Storm” and “Racing The World”, and mellower inspired compositions such as “Creamsickle Sunset” and “Mullach a’ tSi”.
Another of my favourite tracks is “Weeping China Doll”, this is a classic Steve Vai track with heavy 7 string solo guitar building the intro before the densely layered backing track enters. The track is ballad style with some of Vai’s famous Wah effected solos and layered anthemic riffs throughout that reminded me of his work with Whitesnake mixed with ‘For The Love Of God’.
All in all, “The Story Of Light” takes music and guitar playing to a whole new standard, as usually happens when Vai takes his time (it has been seven years) to create.
Vai thoroughly showcases his brilliance in each song through a variety of different guitar techniques such as tapping, whammy bar use, great finger picking patterns in background guitar parts, and, of course, complex use of different musical scales.
Among this vast amalgamation of virtuosity is Steve’s uncanny ability for melodies. Throughout the CD the compositions feature a very high amount of them, some truly memorable.
All Steve Vai albums sparks interest in the listener, and “The Story Of Light” is not the exception. In fact, it is one of his best albums ever.
Recommended.
01 – The Story Of Light
02 – Velorum
03 – John The Revelator
04 – Book Of The Seven Seals
05 – Creamsicle Sunset
06 – Gravity Storm
07 – Mullach a’ tSi
08 – The Moon And I
09 – Weeping China Doll
10 – Racing The World
11 – No More Amsterdam
12 – Sunshine Electric Raindrops
BUY IT !
www.amazon.com/Story-Light-Steve-Vai/dp/B008ANFRGQ
