VARIOUS ARTISTS – A TRIBUTE TO VAI/SATRIANI – Lords Of Karma

Hey, look at this folks! A tribute album that doesn’t see Bob Kulick involved! Hell didn’t freeze over yet! Anyway, here’s a half/half tribute to Steve Vai and Joe Satriani, like they are not worth a full tribute CD. They are, at least considering how many people and bands that are being paid tribute to. Bruce Kulick starts the whole thing (at least there’s a Kulick involved), the first of five tracks in honor of Satriani, “Always With Me, Always With You”. Nice job, with a little mellow acoustic guitars. Then Jake E. Lee takes over and surfs with the alien. Now Jake is and always was my favorite Ozzy guitar player, no offence to the others, but if Jake had died in a freak accident in 1982, he would not be less talked about and remembered than the great Mister Rhoads. But, back to the tribute, Jake does a great job, just like most guitarists featured here. It’s easier to copy than be creative, and this discs proves just that.

George Lynch hasn’t impressed me much lately, maybe he would if I played guitar myself, but in “Shyboy” he does a nice input. That song also has Jason McMaster on lead vocals, and it is supposed to have vocal God Tony Harnell in there, too. However, I think the producer forgot to mix in the latter. And what a bummer that is. The reason why tribute albums like these are made is not to pay tribute to someone, but to cash in on diehard collectors who will buy anything a former Kiss or Dokken or TNT member plays on, so this is a rip off for any TNT collector. If I had paid for this disc I would thrashed it completely in rage. (Yes, yours truly is a serious TNT collector.)

All in all, this is one of the better tributes. It is not put together by musicians that are not capable of paying respect, like so many other tribute CDs. (Like when Yngwie slayed “Mr. Crowley”…). On the other hand, this is mostly for musicians, as the music always was I think, and that makes it a bit redundant – young guitar players might as well learn from the originals