BORREGO

3.5 stars. I had no idea who Marco Minnemann was until seeing him in concert and having my pants blown off. I mean my son in law was mumbling away "Oh my God" over and over. Best drum show I've seen and I've seen plenty. Anyway I also had no idea how prolific this man is with all the projects he's involved with plus this his solo stuff which I counted something like 19 studio albums he's released. Obviously with his talent and connections he's got some guest on this one, most notably Joe Satriani and Alex Lifeson. This is a double album with four bonus tracks at the end of disc two.

So like almost all double albums we get hits and misses in fact I find disc one ends badly with those last four tunes. Love the opener though called "Sandstorm" for it's heaviness. Vocals in this one and it becomes fairly uplifting 3 minutes in. Check out Satriani after 2 minutes on "The Healer". "Thunderstorm" is cool with the piano and crashing drums. Violin and some great drumming on "Sculpters" Not into "A Random Place" at all but along with the opener my other favourite track from disc one is "Gold Digger". I like the atmosphere and melancholy. Disc two opens with a car starting in "Horsepower". Satriani impresses here. Not into "3 Ghosts In A Saloon" but the short next one "Homicide" is cool. Dark and experimental actually. Yikes on "Lady In White" and "Broken Part" but "What Can I Hide?" makes up for them and this is part of my top three songs along with the two from disc one.

So some great sounding tracks along with some songs that really are not my thing. Very much a mixed bag for sure.