John Petrucci
Suspended Animation

Finally!!! After so long and so much waiting, I find myself in front of the first solo CD by one of my favorite guitarists, the great JP from Dream Theater!

After a first fleeting public appearance with the work "An Evening With..." alongside Jordan Rudess, the Dream's soloist finds within himself a spectacular strength of spirit and manages in 5-6 years of spare time (due to continuous productions and world tours with D.T.) to compose pieces, study them, prepare them, record everything and release them almost simultaneously with the release of the band's eighth work from New York.
For the pleasure of all lovers of the rock instrument par excellence, for all Dream Theater fans, and for all lovers of the hyper-technical prog metal guitarist, know that from my point of view Petrucci's is truly an excellent product!
The Guitarist (and it is not a mistake to have called him Guitarist with a capital "G") born and raised in Long Island rightfully enters, with this record, the Olympus of the Greats.

First of all, I won't tell you what I had to do to get it, considering that Petrucci decided to sell his record directly from his personal website, from which it's possible to access the SOUNDMINDMUSIC site, avoiding all those bureaucratic processes linked to distribution, commercialization, import-export... (something that I absolutely do not agree with).

Suspended Animation, that is the name of his solo album, is not presented in boxed editions... digipak... or any edition aimed at collectors, rather in its genre it is simple and even the booklet included is sparse... only two pages specifying the track list, the band members among whom we find Dave LaRue on bass and Dave Dicenso on drums and the usual thanks to relatives, friends (Satriani and Vai) and the companies such as Mesa, Ernie Ball, Di Marzio...
Perhaps our dear John is not so much thinking about advertising a pleasant product as highlighting the extreme elevation of its contents.
This disc could indeed be compared to 80s-90s guitar works on par with Vinnie Moore's "Time Odyssey" or Joe Satriani's "Surfing with the Alien," extremely high in technique and fabulous in many melodic glimpses, perhaps one of the most beautiful guitar albums I've listened to in a long time.
The 61 minutes within which the 8 completely instrumental songs that this album is composed of unfold, "flow by with pleasure" between moments of very high technique (the solo of Curve is tangible proof of this) and moments of touching melody (Wishful Thinking, the fourth track is a striking example) to the face of all those who speak of technicality without feeling.

The pieces I particularly enjoyed were:
Jaws Of Life: a metal-prog slice of the DT's Petrucci from the good old days; the sounds are dark also because he pushes a lot with his 7-string, but around the 5th minute of listening he starts warming up his hands, dropping strums at 180bpm with the precision of a metronome... truly mind-blowing!
Glasgow Kiss: a sort of instrumental metal ballad that at times seems taken from "Alive in Ultra World" by Vai, the riff that accompanies the whole song is beautiful (if you search online, you might also find the video of this song performed live in his last G3).
Wishful Thinking: one of the two slow pieces (the other is "Lost without you"), beautiful in melody and in the crescendo, with a Petrucci who brings out the typical perfect notes that fit perfectly in a slow piece without ever falling into the banal and without ever exceeding, truly fabulous!
Curve: at a first listen, the song reminded me of "The Extremist" by master Satriani, but in the long run, I too perceived a technical gap between the two (if you listen to the attached samples you will be pleasantly impressed!) I believe this piece was meant to be a bit like the "seventh" song on Vai's records, the one where the guitarist puts in everything he knows at a technical level: Sweep, String Skipping, tapping, very fast and precise legato and terrifying alternate picking... to listen to in order to realize WHO we are listening to.

I highly recommend this disc to all those who love this guitarist for what he has done with the Dream and to all lovers of the Guitar in general. Truly a beautiful disc that will certainly serve as a business card (if there is still the need) for the New Yorker.
To obligatory buy and "park" between Vai's Passion and Warfare and Malmsteen's Rising Force.