Joe Satriani brings the heat with his new single and video Sahara — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
A preview of the legendary guitar hero’s upcoming studio album The Elephants Of Mars (due April 8), the track — which also features drummer Kenny Aronoff, bassist Bryan Beller, and Eric Caudieux on keyboard, cümbüş and oud — mixes Satriani’s signature fretboard pyrotechnics with flowing Middle Eastern grooves worthy of the song title.
Not that Satriani needed to get his groove back. When the pandemic forced him off the road, he had an admirably productive workingman’s holiday that ultimately gave him and his touring band — all recording remotely in separate areas of the world during lockdown — the ability to deliver an album-length journey that never dulls. The Elephants of Mars crackles with an exciting new energy, briskly traveling through stylistic roads that feel freshly updated, viewed through new eyes.
The guitarist challenged himself to create a “new standard” for instrumental guitar albums to be measured against — one which would work from “a new platform of his own design,” as he terms it. “I want to show people that an instrumental guitar album can contain far more creative and entertaining elements than I think people are using right now.”
From the gripping, sci-fi madness of Through A Mother’s Day Darkly to the general endorphin levels that peak as the elephants finally roar in the title track, The Elephants of Mars will stampede across your mind, leaving a sonic imprint that doesn’t fade. Made with time constraints removed, The Elephants of Mars represents the album that Satriani himself hoped he could deliver with his band. “We did everything. We tried the craziest ideas. And we entertained every notion we had about turning something backwards, upside down, seeing what could happen.”
Watch Sahara above, hear more from Joe Satriani below, and keep up with him at his website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
