SECRETS

Allan Holdsworth has always been one of the best guitarists in the prog and fusion world. But what he is not, is one of the better synthesizer programmers out there. And that is where I find fault in this album. His playing, as usual is spectacular. But on at least half of the songs on this album, he plays the synthaxe, that weird looking guitar/synthesizer hybrid. And his synth patches tend to drag some of the songs down. He tends to gravitate towards patches that that sound sort of like Toots Thielemans' easy listing harmonica.

On the plus side, Vinnie Colaiuta is probably the best drummer Holdsworth has played with since Bill Bruford. And Peril Premonition has some of the best guitaring you'll ever hear from Holdsworth. And that's saying a lot.