SHAMPOOHORN

The first album by Z, the band fronted by the two sons of Frank Zappa, Ahmet & Dweezil (AZ/DZ) is quite a rollicking experience. While Frank's humor, and some of his music style can be heard in the recording, the primary comparison can be made to former FZ sideman (and all over this album), Mike Keneally. In fact, although Dweezil gets songwriting credits for all of the songs, with Ahmet adding on some, most of the tracks sound like they could have come from a Kennealy album.

The songs are nearly all hard rock, with Zappa-like rhythmic and tonal twists. There is some amazing guitar work interspersed throughout this album. Some of it I'm sure is Keneally, but Dweezil's playing is also exquisite. My personal favorite is Rubberband, where the Dweeze shreds somewhere between the styles of Steve Vai and his mentor, Eddie Van Halen.

This isn't quite a masterpiece, but it would be a great fit in any heavy prog collection.