IN THIS LIFE

If you like your Jazz/Fusion heavy, then I'm sure your already familiar with Australian drummer Virgil Donati. He's an in demand drummer when it comes to this style of music, playing with the who's who of this sub-genre. I always remember when Derek Sherinian left DREAM THEATER to do his own thing, the first thing he did was to connect with Donati. And then after it was clear they had this chemistry together, Tony MacAlpine was brought in on guitars. And the result was Derek's first solo album. Interesting that Derek would keep Donati for his PLANET X project along with MacAlpine but brought in drummer Simon Phillips for his solo stuff which I do prefer.

"Virgil Cane is the name..." oops wrong Virgil. So Donati released what? Three solo albums in the 90's if you count his ON THE VIRG album under that band name, and three in the 10's. He's so busy with other people's music. My favourites are the ON THE VIRG one and then the "Just Add Water" album with Scott Henderson on guitar, and there was no keys on that one. Lots of keys on this 2013 recording called "In The Life". This is a little different from the 90's albums in that he's gone and brought in a lot of musicians for the different parts, instead of the more band efforts of the 90's.

This is a strong album that sounds amazing. Really punchy and heavy at times with riffs, but there's plenty of atmosphere created by the synths as well. Getting close to 67 minutes of music here over ten tracks. As usual we get a couple of talented Australian guitarists helping Virgil out in Brett Garsed and Simon Hosford. Nice to see Italian Marco Sfogoli here too, and he's the main guitarist. Virgil has played with some talented guitarists no? That "Live In London" disc for example which is a Steve Vai solo record is a great example. But there are many. We actually get some english horn and oboe on "The Fall Of Dreams" which was surprising, and cello on "Paradise Lost".

This is a consistent record despite it's length and a very solid 4 stars. It's hard even to pick out a few tracks from the bunch but the opener "Rhythm Zero", the closer "The Empire" along with "Trinity" might be slightly better than the rest. Slightly.