Steve Vai
Passion And Warfare

THE REVIEW

The reason that compels me to review this album, despite it already being commented on three times, is inherent in my rating. Two out of five. Therefore, mine will be a negative review in contrast to the other three already published on this site.

Let's start with the cover. It fairly well summarizes the character of the album, and its style is very similar to that of David Lee Roth's solo album (in which Vai played), "Eat 'em and smile." "Passion and Warfare" is from 1989 and features the following songs:

- liberty: serves as the album's intro, it’s enjoyable, but with quite trivial harmonies and in the end it leaves nothing
- erotic nightmares: starts with a rocking riff that’s not bad, but evolves into an instrumental chaos overwhelmed by presumptuous guitar experiments: guitars intertwining, effects, slides, and various antics. Vai’s style certainly appears distinctive, though not his compositional vein. The mystical segment near the end rises from nowhere and fades away just as quickly
- The animal: great opening riff and guitar groove off the charts. Rather inspired solos, but even here, the further it goes, the more ideas for the song run dry, favoring the insane performances of Zappa and Satriani's student.
- Answer: one of the most well-known pieces, also for its very flashy funky intro. Needless to say how the song evolves. Even here, it starts with a truly remarkable solo, but then gets lost in harmonic arrangements made by someone who doesn't know how to make them.
- The riddle: melodically connected to the previous song. Very interesting harmonic experiments in Vai's solos, which sit atop the (poor) rhythmic soul of a song dragged on a bit too long.
- ballerina 12/24: great guitar piece, made unique by the sound and frantic use of the octaver. One of the album's best pieces.
- for the love of god: here we ascend to heaven, because finally the solo remains worthy till the end and the arrangements aren’t as affected as usual. The best.
- the audience is listening: irresistible intro for the expressiveness of Steve’s guitar... starts with an irresistible riff for everyone, then strengthened by the usual grandiose distortion and sporadic use of harmonics. Then nothing, really. Even the solos here are banal.
- I would love to: an honest piece, a very eighties rock, it passes through pleasantly.
- Blue powder: a slow piece of the same kind as for the love of god. Expressive guitar that oscillates between harmony and technical prowess. However, we're at a rather low compositional level.
- Greasy Kid's stuff: Not bad this rock piece, also filled with unusually original variations.
- Alien water kiss: a sound experiment. There's room in an album for such a track.
- Sisters: after for the love of god, there's this gem. Clean guitar reigns, Vai almost seems to want to blend a Knopfler style into his sounds. What emerges is a fantastic intimate song.
- Love secrets: this song annoyed me so much that it brought my personal rating of this album down by one star. It seems like messing around with synthesizers. When bad taste knows no bounds. Ending with sisters would have been much more stylish.

Conclusions: an album for guitarists only, but to be listened to with critical judgment. There are many ideas, but laid down in a confusing way and without compositional skill. Goodbye everyone. Squalo.