Steve Stevens
Atomic Playboys

Perfect album for an ideal metal soundtrack of 'Outrun' (back then I used to fiddle with the third channel of the car radio before starting to play, but there were only two...), too bad it was released in 1989, which means three years after 'Outrun'.

We are talking about the first solo album by Steve Stevens, genius and rockstar of the six-string, who over the past twenty-plus years has played and collaborated with half the world: Billy Idol, Michael Jackson, Tony Levin and Terry Bozzio, Robert Palmer, Vince Neil... although his name remains tied to the albums he played for and with Billy Idol (you can see there's chemistry among rockstars...), as well as one of the hallmark pieces for guitar in the '80s, namely the soundtrack of 'Top Gun'.

Well, let's say right away that this album is a blast: sunny, musical, hard, it rocks like crazy with an amazing groove for all 11 songs that make it up. Steve must have been really into Van Halen back in the day, because Eddie's influences are all there: round and full rhythms, choruses coming at you from all sides, breathtaking solos that always favor musicality over technique for its own sake. The album, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, is played like a dream, and the level of compositions is more than interesting. Steve Stevens also shows that he has quickly digested and reworked Joe Satriani's stylistic lesson (especially regarding the rhythmic parts), who at that time was exploding onto the scene as a guitar hero phenomenon.

Let's take a look at the songs: "Atomic Playboy" is a perfect track to open an album: it starts immediately strong, with Steve showing us right away how he likes to play: a driven verse (but not too much) that explodes into a fully sung chorus with a little backing vocal, a small break to catch your breath, then a badass solo that shoots back into the chorus. Pure California! "The Power Of Suggestion," on the other hand, surprises the listener: one expects a hard album, and instead, here's a track I'd describe as Huey Lewis-esque (the title already echoes scenarios from Back to the Future...): Steve demonstrates he knows how to master his instrument in an almost total way, with very cold clean sounds and a solo that is a real masterpiece of musicality. Van Halen, as mentioned before: then there is "Sould On Ice", "Woman Of A 1000 Years", "Action", "Slipping Into Fiction" and "Pet The Hot Kitty," which unequivocally demonstrate how Eddie influenced entire generations of guitarists like no other.

Don't worry, there are also the big rock ballads that scream the '80s: "Desperate Heart" and "Evening Eye" are two excellent tracks (especially the second, less obvious and more articulate), ideal for any late '80s teenage makeout session. I want to close with the little gem of this album, namely "Run Across Desert Sands": we are facing a guitarist's declaration of love for flamenco, and this love shines through in every single note of the piece. In the following years, Steve will abundantly demonstrate that he is a great flamenco interpreter, but that is another story...