ATTACK OF THE NEON SHARK

This is the debut album from this Italian guitar hero and was released as one of far too many guitar axe heroes albums back then. In the forefront of this trend; Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen. Jumping on this bandwagon; the likes of Alex Masi and his record label Metal Blade. This trend died when one too many guitar albums was released and the amount of same sounding albums based on the same formula killed the trend among the bigger labels. But this scene never went away and will be here as long as air guitars is being manufactured and used by young men.

Yes, I can hear that Alex Masi is a superb guitarist and he also gets a lot of help from the likes of Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Scott Soto, Frankie Benali and David Michael Philips. Ane the result is not that bad. It has this 1980s sound, which I despise, and the tracks here are pretty boring. Boring enough to let the musicians shine. But on their own......... pretty dire stuff. I am not that big air guitarist myself, having had my last one smashed up by an ex girlfriend so this album is not hitting the target audience in my case. The version of ELP's Toccata is a bit dire too for my liking.

In short, a decent album and nothing more.

2 stars