When you talk about Alex Skolnick most people will immediately think Testament. Skolnick was the
real Testament guitar hero, allthough Eric Peterson probably is the main man when it comes to writing. Through the time some great players have tried to fill the shoes Skolnick left when he parted with Testament, but no matter how you put it, Alex Skolnick will forever be thought of as
the Testament guitarist, and rightfully so.
Today another breed of music lovers, are sinking their teeth into the great work that comes from the mind and hands of the hailed guitarist; jazz heads. Because what happened after Skolnick left Testament in 1992 was that he went back to school, literally. Skolnick reinvented himself and his playing, and some years ago he immerged as jazz guitarist, and in 2001 he formed
Alex Skolnick Trio.
Allthough Skolnick focused on jazz, he never lost touch with the metal world. He played on the
Savatage album Handful of Rain, and on the tour which led to the
Savatage live release
Savatage Live in Japan. He is also a member of the very accomplished trio Attention Deficit, that apart from Skolnick is made up of bassist extraordinaire Michael Manring (whose solo album Thonk Skolnick also played on) and Primus drummer Tim "Herb" Alexander, who at that time were on a break from Primus.
As said Skolnick will forever be linked to Testament, and that link has proved to be very strong, so strong that in 2001 he and Testament released the album First Strike Still Deadly. The album is made up of rerecorded tunes from the two first Testament releases The Legacy and The New Order. With First Strike Still Deadly, Skolnick proved himself a long hailed and very missed Testament guitar hero, and the fans wanted more. This gave birth to the idea of the original Testament tour, which has been raising hell in clubs and venues for quite some time now. The latest on Skolnick and metal is that Skolnick will be a featured on the upcoming release from Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
So Skolnick didn't leave metal when he left Testament, he just started to explore the world for new ground to conquer. And with fellow New York's New School University (where Skolnick studied jazz) school mate Matt Zebroski and bassist John Davis (who today is replaced by Nathan Peck) he claimed some land in 2002 with the first
Alex Skolnick Trio release, the highly acclaimed Goodbye to Romance: Standards for a New Generation. And yes it did feature a jazz standard based on the
Ozzy Osbourne tune, along with standards based on bands like Kiss, The Who and Black Sabbath.
Now they are back with a new release and a new bassist. As said some times now, Skolnick has a hard time letting the metal world go, and just like Goodbye to Romance: Standards for a New Generation, 6 of the 11 track on Transformation are based around hard rock/metal themes by Judas Priest,
Pink Floyd,
Scorpions,
Iron Maiden and
Dio. Based around is the right term because they are not covers, they are a jazz tunes that evolve around a theme, that just happens to be hard rock/metal.
To some this may sound cheesy, but Transformation is very far from cheesy, this is very good music. The beauty of this album is that even though you don't know the themes or even if you do, you don't realise it, because this is 11 very good jazz tunes played by a very competent trio.
The title of the album is very fitting; Transformation, because this is exactly what has happened to not only Skolnick but also to the six tunes, that were once something completely different, and if nothing else a far cry from Jazz.
The album kicks off with the title track
Transformation, and if you had any doubt about the style of the album before you hit the play button, all pieces fall into place now. This track just speaks for the whole album, this is great jazz and that's it. But unlike the rest of the tracks,
Transformation has something that the others don't; vocals. Not vocals as in words, but as in tones sung as back up to the melody. The tune also separates itself in another aspect, there's a distorted solo, which only happens on one other tune on the album. The last thing that makes this tune stand out, apart from the fact that it is a great tune, is the cello played by Dave Eggar, which gives an extra atmospheric feel to
Transformation.
Although I have never been a big fan of Judas Priest,
Electric Eye just sounds drop dead gorgeous, but it is probably because it sounds nothing like Priest. Sure the riff is there, and there are known bits here and there, but the jazz standard twist just gives it so much more life. To me the trio has really brought the tune alive and made it vibrant, and the tasty double bass solo and the super drumming just tops it all off.
Alex Skolnick's own
Fear of Flying, is super sensitive, quiet, dreamy and wonderful. This is a tune that will prove those who regard Skolnick as a mechanical 80's shredder wrong, because
Fear of Flying is anything but mechanical. The tune just has so much emotion that it oozes of it, it reminds me a bit of Steve Vai's For the Love of God, which has the same feel of sheer emotion. I don't like to call music art, but both tunes come close in my book.
Pink Floyd's
Money is probably one of the most famous basslines ever played; it is immediately recognisable, which is also the case for the
Alex Skolnick Trio version.
One of the things that make
Pink Floyd tunes so magical, and at the same time, so hard to capture when you play their tunes, is the feeling and atmosphere of the
Pink Floydian universe, and
Alex Skolnick Trio has captured that very feeling so gracefully, but at the same time they have made it their own.
Both Feet In, written by Matt Zebroski, is another tight but mellow original with a bit of a twangie guitar sound to it. When listening to
Both Feet In,
you get the feeling that you are on the beach on a hot summer night, sitting in you car with the top down, watching the tide coming in while chilling to the cool tones on the radio, right one dude!
Another original is
Scorch, which features Grammy winner
Charlie Hunter on his 8-string guitar. The tune has a swingy feel to it, almost bluesy and at times even country, but it also has parts that remind me a bit of Weather Report. So
Scorch is very diverse and in some terms a bit of an odd tune. You can say that it's a bit like bastard dog that has grown strong, proud and loveable, even though you can't really tell what breed it is.
Another tune that really becomes very very tasty as a jazz standard is the
Scorpions classic
Blackout. Somehow just like with Electric
Eye the tune just becomes so much better when played by the
Alex Skolnick Trio.
The drum work of Matt Zebroski really stands out in
IMV/The Trooper which is an odd mix of the Maiden classic and one of Skolnick's originals, but you don't really realise what is what because
IMV/The Trooper flows together in a perfect mix. The tune does not keep the intensity from the intro riff of The Trooper all the way till the end; it sort of goes into its own strut and stays very cool. This will keep you on the edge just waiting for mayhem (The Trooper riff) to break loose again, but when you have accepted that mayhem has blown over, the world collapses, and the trooper comes charging at you once more, and which almost make you feel like reaching for that musket.
This tune might be called
No Fly Zone, but somehow this is not a very fitting name, because it simply just flies, and you cannot help yourself but to get into it, and just groove along. Great bass lines, great guitar work with lots of unison runs and solos, backed up by super tight and swinging drums, nice!
After our highflying adventure
Alex Skolnick Trio brings us down for a soft landing with the very softly played Latin inspired acoustic version of
Dio's timeless classic
Don't Talk to Strangers, one of my personal
Dio favourites! Another great sentimental track, that will only bring you down, pun intended.
The last tune is yet another classic, Deep Purple's
Highway Star, which features the only other distorted solo on the album, however it's nothing like Ritchie Blackmoore and it is absolutely nothing like Skolnick's soloing in Testament. Highway Star is not my favourite Purple track, and no it is not Smoke on the Water either, far from it actually. I must say that it's not one of my favourites on Transformation either.
So to sum it all up, this is a very very good jazz album, because make no mistake of it, this is jazz and nothing else.
This is not like Pat Boone's cheesy album In a Metal Mood, and neither is Alex Skolnick a metal guitarist who pretends to play jazz. With his trio Skolnick shows that he is a very versatile guitarist, who has studied Jazz for many years, and by doing so and at the same time being a great musician, he has become a very accomplished jazz guitarist.
If it weren't for Alex Skolnick, this album would not have made its way to our mailbox, though personally I'm very happy that it did, but I'm also into jazz. The thing is that we are a hard rock and heavy metal webzine, so you can say that Transformation is not really reaching its core audience with us, but hopefully it will reach those of our readers who are into good music and having a good listening experience, I sure did.
Written by
Morten Saturday, November 19, 2005
Show all reviews by MortenRatingsMorten: 7.5/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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