TRANCE-FUSION

It might be obvious by the number of his albums I have reviewed so far that I love Frank Zappa's music. I also love his guitar solos. I consider him one of the great masters of the guitar, and one of the most distinctive players ever. But these albums of guitar solos without the rest of the songs around them are starting to get tedious.

These tracks, mostly edited together into a long, bluntly changing solo. Many of the riffs are obvious. You can recognize The Torture Never Stops (more than once), Inca Roads and Easy Meat, as well as others of Zappa's favorite rhythms to solo over.

His solos, as usual are remarkable. But Zappa usually seemed to prefer to solo over very simple chord progressions. That's where the problem of this album lies. His backing bands were great, and could sometimes make the simplests riffs into something special, but an hour of this gets tiring.

The best parts of the album are the opening and closing tracks, both featuring Frank playing guitar solos along with his son, Dweezil. Their styles are different, but they mesh amazingly well.