I’m not sure where it fits into the concept of the album.
That’s not to say anything is sacrificed for the sake of simplicity. This is as mainstream as Passion and Warfare gets! An uptempo rock track like this is an easy point of entry for the uninitiated. “I Would Love To” was the most accessible track on the album, and it too was chosen as a single/video. It was an obvious choice to release as a single/video, with Thomas McRocklin playing young Stevie. The school room theme had some comparing it to “Hot For Teacher” by Van Halen, but there’s no similarity beyond that. It’s amusing but it has a short shelf life. While this is a smoking track, the dialogue (performed by Steve’s actual grade school teacher) doesn’t stand up to repeated listens. The second half of the album commenced with the jokey “The Audience is Listening”. You can’t close a side better than with “For the Love of God”. That’s not a sitar on the song either, just Steve wrenching sounds of the guitar that it was not intended to make! The melody that it is based on becomes increasingly more complex and expressive as the song progresses. Considered by some as one of the greatest guitar songs of all time, you can hear what all the hype is about. Then a deep breath and it’s onto the serious album epic - “For the Love of God”. “Ballerina 12/24” is a short transitional piece that shows off the Evontide harmonizer – the notes are moved up a few octaves making it sound unlike a guitar at all. “The Riddle” is a long epic that goes to exotic territories, and many textures. It sounds like there are backwards guitars on this song, but who knows! I’m sure Steve can make his guitar sound backwards. That’s right - the answer came before the riddle. Clearly these ideas had been gestating a long time before they were fully realized on tape.Īfter a brief dialogue snippet (a tape of a preacher that Steve recorded off the radio many years prior) comes the track “The Riddle”. It’s an old melody, and part of it appeared on Flex-able and an Alcatrazz album as well. There is a melody here, however, that recurs through the length of the album. “Answers” is less accessible, a cute dance of strange munchkin-like melodies. Steve remembers to throw enough melodic hooks down to keep it listenable for laypeople. With the expert rhythm section of Stu Hamm (bass) and Chris Frazier (drums), there is no way this would suck. It’s that 7th string that enables Steve to dig low on the groovy “The Animal”. I believe he stated in an interview that there is hardly any 6-string on Passion and Warfare at all. Steve was using his new Ibanez 7-string guitar exclusively now. Those bizarre sounds compounded with Steve’s impossible fretwork means this is one hell of an ambitious song and album. Steve used an Eventide harmonizer to give his guitar flute and keyboard-like tones. The “concept album” aspect means that the songs have movement and go to different places, trying to convey these ideas to the listener. It’s not mindless shredding for the sake of shredding. Guitars build layer after layer, playing melodies that don’t seem possible to perform with fingers. Steve composed a chunky rock track with so much guitar that I doubt he even knows how many tracks of shredding is on it anymore. There is some dialogue on and between songs (some performed by Steve’s then-Whitesnake bandmate David Coverdale), and the liner notes trace out some of the dreams that inspired the music. “Liberty” opens the CD, which is actually a lyricless concept album. Of the dream, Steve remembered saluting a flag he didn’t recognize, with an anthem playing. “Liberty”, said Steve, was a melody he heard in a lucid dream and tried to recall. Some of the music dated back almost a decade. Some consider it to be Steve’s “real” debut album. Now his student Steve Vai was on the charts with his own solo album.ĭifferent from Flex-able, which was basically just released demos, Passion and Warfare was a fully realized piece of art. Joe Satriani had recently become a household name with albums such as Surfing With the Alien and Flying in a Blue Dream, but Flying had vocals on some songs. I didn’t expect it to chart, but it did! It was an exciting time for instrumental guitar records. Passion and Warfare was released in 1990. STEVE VAI – Passion and Warfare (1990 Relativity)
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