JOHN PETRUCCI

This album has some stunning craftsmanship!

So cool to see Portnoy and Petrucci working together again!

It is an improvement on the previous solo album - which I already felt was a strong record. "Glasglow Kiss" and "Damage Control" to me are perfect tracks - absolute killers! Petrucci has a lot of creativity when creating these stunning "power-riffs". This is really what makes these two albums fascinating - not so much the soloing / shredding (though for metal lovers they are welcome additions). "Animate Inanimate" is also incredible.

Highlights: "Terminal Velocity", "Temple of Circadia", "Oddfather" "Happy Song". The blues-ey "Out of the Blue" is a pleasing interlude.

If I can get a "wow" feeling when spinning the tracks for the first time - that's when I take note and want to share and praise the musical goodness contained within.

The wider prog community will likely see this disc as decent but not essential. Prog-metal / DT fans should pick this one up and spin it over and over. As has been noted - the style is heavily inspired by Satriani/Vai records. This will determine your liking/disliking for this disc.

Better than the mediocre and disappointing LTE3, and on par with the solid and re-invigorating "View from the Top of the world"

3.7 stars

Enjoy!

A very strong one from Mr. Petrucci! Far better and more mature than his first solo, fifteen years ago. Terminal Velocity is a showcase of John Petrucci's technique and composition skills and he nails both of them flawlessly! Every single instrumental is worth your time and can be entertaining and joyful or reflective and emotional. Mike Portnoy plays his parts perfectly, just like you would expect, and Dave provided some clean and wonderful bass to the album as well. Overall a very strong album that's definitely worth your time, and without a doubt the best instrumental album of 2020! Simply amazing.

John Petrucci is back to solo efforts after a 15 year interregnum. TERMINAL VELOCITY presents the listener with a lighthearted sound that takes few risks and never attempts to explore new audio-scapes. There are hints of excellence here and there, but the record never grows to firmly hook up the listener. It can be an enjoyable listen, and will certainly appeal to fans, but considering the credentials of this musician it is a somewhat disappointing record. There are dozens of instrumental records out there from luminary guitarists that do not really stand out. This is just one more of those.

it's a pleasure to review for the first time in this site for PETRUCCI's masterpiece "Terminal velocity" terminal , gemini , temple of are very good songs for a guitar player and guitar lover. out of the blue (inspired by Vai's tender surrender ) is perfect ... snake in my boot a nice hard rock piece... The Way Things Fall is a greaat ballad metal song ... but the oddfather is a masterpiece : the last two minutes can send you in ecstasy ... the little cherry on the cake????mr Mike Portnoy on drums one of the best instrumental album I ever listened to 5 stars

I've never been too keen on these guitar instrumental types. You know the ones... Joe Satriani... Steve Vai... yeah, those types. While I "like" them, and appreciate and respect their talent, I've always found "shred" albums tend to get fairly mundane fairly quickly. But this isn't just another guitarist, no sir, this is John freakin' Petrucci of Dream Theater dammit! And this is an album I just had to have!

As a die-hard Dream Theater fan and a guitarist myself (my aspirations to be this good withered away a long time ago), I was super excited to hear this. John Petrucci has long been one of my all-time heroes, and it was about time we got to see him strike out on his own.

However, while there are some fantastic tracks here, 'Suspended Animation', like all the others, quickly becomes just another one of those guitar albums.

I mean, the positives are that the songs are well-written and performed perfectly. We all knew Petrucci's technique was impeccable and this album does nothing but prove what everyone already knew. 'Jaws of Life' and 'Glasgow Kiss' are probably the two tracks most people are familiar with, and damn right, they are good songs! But the absolute star of the show is 'Tunnel Vision', which is an incredibly underrated song and easily the best off the album.

Sadly, after that, the rest of the songs are fairly average. Good exercises in technique and everything you'd come to expect, just not overly memorable. This is why 'Suspended Animation' is nothing more than a good album. Other than the first three tracks, the rest mostly serve as material for guitar nerds to study and learn, or for Petrucci to show off how Godlike he is.

Mostly the latter.

And I'm jealous.

Elated and inspired. A natural journey through joy.

Since John Petrucci is one of the must successful and acclaimed guitar players in history of prog, is very hard to approach a solo album of him without the band in which he has developed his unique technique. Maybe for his fans this solo album do not come as surprise or groundbreaking in any way, but does he has to surpass his own material in Dream Theater? I think not and he has made one of the must refreshing instrumental guitar albums for sure.

Let's see, what do we have here? A perfect balance between heavy riffs, nice melodies, technical at top class and many solos. Yes, nothing new in this types of albums, but all those parts and styles are really great worked and shows a lot of musicality sense and is touching, not only shredding. For instance, a track like "Glasgow Kiss" is completely uplifting and fresh, and even with the complex arrangements it presents, there's soul there and a lot of nice feelings along to it. Wishful Thinking and Lost Without You are the other tracks where you can feel your soul lifted and have a wonderful journey through the sounds. Just great.

Now, for the more prog metal fans, Damage Control and Jaws of Life seems like the perfect fit. Heaviness, strength, power and very nice melodies and harmonies within. Nothing sounds out of place and even though the tracks are long, it never reaches a point of overwork or trying too hard.

One of the biggest challenges for instrumental albums is to keep it fresh and rememberable, you know, those sequences or melodic lines has to be memorable and in this case is a total win. You can keep the tunes in your mind for hours.

Of course, this will satisfy most fans of prog metal, but I'm sure people with likes of instrumental music will find something nice to enjoy. I just hope people stop prejudging him and hear it without closed mind, because they will miss a lot of joy around here.

A strong 4 stars album. Even with the high standards that the same Petrucci brings over his shoulder, this album is successful and will please everyone. the musicians, no need to say, are top class and the production is great. One of the best instrumental albums I have heard in years. Hope he won't wait another 20 years to throw a second album.

Masterful John shines, but leaves the listener a bit lonely

John Petrucci has often been accused of being technically superb but lacking soul in his music. Therefore many reviewers I've spoken with complain that they find his playing style simply unbearable in comparison with great metal/jazz rock/fusion guitarists (such as Petrucci's own idol Shawn Lane) or even Steve Vai, Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert. As I always argue, that is not necessarily so - as Devin Townsend's insane riffs could be interpreted as smothering or as empowering - it's rather a matter of taste.

In a recent video Petrucci confesses that alternate picking is probably his strongest ability as a guitar player. In that, I must say, he is truly masterful and that is exactly what you should expect from Suspended Animation album.

Sound and impressions

I've followed Petrucci's artistic path since 2003 and I must say, Suspended Animation is distinctively different from his main project Dream Theater (whose Octavarium album was oddly recorded at the same time) or even some side projects like Liquid Tension Experiment and, of course, collaborations with Jordan Rudess. Two of the songs have been featured on G3's Live in Tokyo album, though.

As a fully instrumental release, John composes and plays all guitar parts himself, which gives him the opportunity to really excel in a play style that had so far been incompatible with Dream Theater. His uplifting speed-riffs and powerful soloing in so many registers creates an album that is a combination of prog metal and fusion with hints of jazz, blues, and rock' n roll. Nevertheless, it has some immortal tracks, like Jaws of Life, Glasgow Kiss, Tunnel Vision and Wishful Thinking.

The undeniable upside of this album is that John expresses himself musically without having to limit his play to fit in a band's concept of an album which often happened under the hard-handed leadership of Mike Portnoy. Ironically, this is also the downside, because using drummer and bass player simply as fillers makes the album lack versatility and offers less listening experience than regular DT or Liquid albums.

In that sense I found myself amazed how similar Perucci's 2005 album Suspended Animation and Paul Gilbert's 2010 Fuzz Universe really are. The question is, though, which one has more character?

Very solid 3 stars.

I am not a fan of Dream Theatre, but I am interested in instrumental music. It was a reason why I listened to this Petrucci solo debut.

No surprises. I heard him playing solo on G-3 live album recorded in Tokyo, where Petrucci played two songs from this, his solo debut album. And I can say, that concert versions are very close to studio originals.

You can hear technically skilled guitarist playing melodic power metal with prog elements. I believe that Petrucci know how to play guitar, or let say - heavy metal guitar. This album is confirmation. Rhythm section is just supporting team for demonstration of his guitar soloing abilities.

But after listening of full album, I didn't change my opinion I had still from listening of Petrucci playing with G-3 in Tokyo: he is a professional heavy metal guitar player, but not a progressive composer and arranger. Songs sound quite melodic, but in fact are not full range compositions at all. Its more high quality demos for demonstration of guitarist technical abilities. And I can confirm, that as such demos the compositions are great examples. But for being great prog songs, there are not enough originality both in composition and performance.

I believe axe-heroes fans will like this album, possibly DT maniacs as well. For all other listeners this album is listenable, but not too much attractive. And in all cases I prefer Steve Vai or Satriani (from the same field).

As so often is the case on this great site the overall average rating of an album is the correct one .... This is one of the most important conclusions I can make of Suspended Animation. And I really would have liked to say something completely different !

And how is this possible ? Is this a poor album ? Well, no, not really but somehow it falls short. And this is best explained by comparing this album with what Liquid Tension Experiment has done with their first two albums. Those two albums were spontaneously constructed, at least that was what it seemed. And John Petrucci must have thought: I can do this also with a solo release ! And the problem then is that the mentioned spontaneity is gone. Like other reviewers already mentioned this is just an expression of someone who can play the guitar very fast and in a very technical way. All praise for that but in a way it lacks the authenticity that LTE had.

That's in a nutshell what Suspended Animation is about. If you like just great technical guitar play this one is yours but if you want to feel the inspired stuff done like in the LTE-project then you will get disappointed with this output. But on the other hand it really goes too far for me to give the album two stars or even less because of just the feeling it expresses. The musicianship is simply too good and the compositions are well done. So I'm in doubt between three and four stars here but feel that three is the more adequate score for this (3,3).

As a big fan of Dream Theater, and especially as an admirer of the playing of John Petrucci, I was excited to hear of his solo album. After hearing the end result I was pleased. It was exactly what I had expected and made a pleasant guitar driven listening experience.

Suspended Animation is obviously concentrated only on guitar, with bass and drums taking the back seat but still offering solid contributions to the overall sound. In other words, they create the space for Petrucci to flex his musical muscles. His playing is all over the place, and most of the time over the top. He can play emotionally and slowly too, though it is on minority on this album, which is fine by me.

The songs are pleasant enough with great melodies and I even ended up humming several of them after listening to this. The style is in the vein of Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, with the emphasis being a bit more on the metal side of things. It's nothing groundbreaking, but I disagree with many that Suspended Animation sounds like your typical Satch or Vai album. You can really hear Petrucci's own individual style through every song. So while the album is a bit generic, Petrucci really makes it his own.

So in conclusion, the album is a good one, I would say a must have to those of us who like instrumental melodic guitar rock with lots of showing off. 3 stars.