AUTOMATIC

Dweezil Zappa, at this point in his career, and just over thirty years old, shows much more maturity on this album than on his previous solo albums (despite performing a cover of a famous children's song).

The majority of the songs are instrumentals, and feature Dweezil's now evolved songwriting and guitar stylings. While his Eddie Van Halen influence and training still show up from time to time, he also shows some signs of influence from Steve Vai, and, of course, his father. His compositions are much more complex than on the earlier albums, using more unexpected chord changes, rhythm changes and time changes. he even sounds very much like Frank on the experimental Therapy and especially on Shnook.

The only vocal track is a cool version of You're a Mean One Mister Grinch, with brother Ahmet performing the baritone vocals, and including a metal break.

Dweezil at this point was quite ready to carry his father's music, but he was getting close.

This is Dweezil's first album under his own name for nearly a decade, and is the first predominantly instrumental guitar album he has released. He is now working under the musical ideal of "Anything at Anytime for Any Reason at All", which has certainly meant that this album has many different ideas and approaches. In the sleeve notes, Dweezil says that he thinks that Frank would have enjoyed it, and I think he's right.

There are some very bizarre numbers such as "Shnook" and opener "Fwaktension" where Dweezil proves that he is one of the fastest guitarists around. He can also put rhythm into seemingly impossible time signatures, as well as letting his fingers fly off at tangents. There are also some more serene numbers that are actually cover versions, such as the all-guitar takes on "Hawaii Five-O" and "Les Toreadors". Possible one of the most typically Zappa-esque numbers has to be "You're A Mean One Mister Grinch" where brother Ahmet provides lead vocals. It rocks and moves with some great music behind the 'delicate' singing.

A great album filled with a sense of humour to just take the edge off what is quite a pretentious album. Wonderful.

originally appeared in Feedback #62, May 01