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 this just sucks Mar 13, 2010
this is the worst steve vai cd yet. i love flexable, passion and fire garden but this just sucks.
if you want recent vai get the new dvd and leave this cd to rot.
 Brilliant streaks offset Jul 27, 2009
3 1/2
Contradictory release finds Vai at is instrumental (and compositional) best, while distractingly dabbling in his most turgid vocal-driven exercises to date, thankfully only making small appearances in an otherwise impressive sonic statement.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Steve Vai's Expanding Out Jul 17, 2008
Excellent...Excellent...Excellent...Excellent...
Wow, I've never heard Steve create or play such artistic material before. After a single listening, I have to say this is his best work to date. No catering to the musical no-nothings, or to the mindless head-bangers, or to the people who take comfort in familiar sounds.
This is musicians' music, very tastefully and skillfully done, and will no doubt remain one of his major opuses.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Real Illusions Or Just Real Strange? Apr 02, 2008
There isn't a single memorable solo on the entire album. I've never understood how a musician with as much music theory knowledge as Vai can improvise some of the most unfeeling, go nowhere solos I've ever heard. Plus his use of the whammy bar is usually way too much for me, resulting in more noise than anything meaningful. He's got great vibrato and great technique along with his command of the whammy bar, but rarely come together to make a lasting musical statement.
I can appreciate a song for more than just a solo however, and in that sense Vai has written some decent tunes here. Building The Church obviously being the best of the bunch, with everything coming together on that one to make a cohesive whole. Midway creatures is a good listen as well. K M-Pee-Du-We strives to be emotional but instead is completely forgettable. Dying for Your Love and Firewall are strictly filler material. Yai-Yai is obviously amusing to Steve Vai, but I doubt anyone else will get the joke or appreciate the 2 minutes and 36 seconds of space this noise experiment takes up. Freak show excess is Vai noodling with his normal arsenal of technique, which consists of excessive whammy bar usage and legato/tapped runs. It's also forgettable; as Vai doesn't have enough drop your jaw on the ground technique to make an exercise like that memorable. Under it All is pretentious, with one of the most annoying song endings I've heard in a while.
I know Vai really believes in what he's doing, and I give him credit for being true to his vision. That doesn't mean I have to like it. This album leaves me cold, with zero desire to give it repeated spins. The only Steve Vai album thus far that worked from beginning to end was his first, Passion and Warfare. His vision was fully realized on that album, and he doesn't done anything since to come close to equaling that one. Real Illusions included.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Experimentally delicious! Sep 29, 2007
Alright, that's a weird way of putting it, but Vai is known for his weird musical tendencies, and that's what you get with this. What is interesting is that about four songs have vocals. Steve's vocals! And even though singing isn't his forte, he's not bad at it. There's the fun and upbeat "Firewall" and the more tender and intimate "I'm Your Secrets" and a few others. Vai is still his experimental self, going all out with "Freak Show Excess", a more laid-back jam with Jibboom, fun with effects on Yai Yai, and a live, spiritual, cinematic piece called "Lotus Feet".
I like Steve Vai, the experimentalist, and in that vein, I was rewarded when I bought this.
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