{"id":6944,"date":"2012-08-14T00:00:37","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T00:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=6944"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:26:43","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:26:43","slug":"album-review-steve-vai-the-story-of-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-steve-vai-the-story-of-light\/","title":{"rendered":"STEVE VAI – The Story Of Light (2012) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

STEVE VAI
The Story Of Light<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nFavored Nations (2012)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/td>\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Best known to hard rock fans as the guitarist for David Lee Roth and Whitesnake during the respective height of each of their careers, Steve Vai is known worldwide as one of the premier guitarists in the world today. In fact, he is one of a very select few in the genre who has found mega success as an instrumentalist. The Story Of Light<\/em> is Vai\u2019s eighth studio solo album.<\/p>\n

It must be hard to be Steve Vai. Trying to record a new album must be tremendously challenging with albums like Passion And Warfare<\/em> (1990) and Fire Garden<\/em> (1996) in your discography. What Vai does here though is offer a mix of new dynamics and tried and true rock \u2019n\u2019 roll formula.<\/p>\n

The best example of this are the opening two tracks. The album\u2019s namesake kicks things off with an exploratory, introspective sounding tune topped off by a foreign language narrator. \u2018Velorum\u2019 pulls up behind it with a much more straightforward and driving hard rock beat complete with screaming guitar melodies. \u2018Gravity Storm\u2019 is a groovy rocker as well, that comes off like a jam. I would be willing to bet that this song will be a highlight of his set at just about any tour stop. <\/p>\n

The best moments here for me though are the ones where Vai allows a vocalist in to take the songs into more traditional sounding territory. The Beverly McClellan (The Voice<\/em> contestant) led heavy blues of \u2018John The Revelator\u2019 is insanely good. It grinds so hard you just want to crank it to 11 and scream along. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Vai smashed his guitar every night at the end of this song.<\/p>\n

The gentle \u2018No More Amsterdam\u2019 is as beautiful as it is technical and features the distinct vocals of alt-rock legend Aimee Mann. Vai provides the vocals for the mysterious sounding \u2018The Moon And I\u2019, which reminds me more than a little of some of Yes\u2019 classic work. The vocals interplay with the guitar on this song in such a way that it comes off as a duet of sorts.<\/p>\n

Overall, this is a solid album from start to finish. If you like mostly instrumental guitar albums, Vai is your man. Same as he always has been. If that isn\u2019t your thing however, this won\u2019t convince you to make an exception like some of Vai\u2019s other albums could. The Story Of Light<\/em> is slightly less fluid than Vai\u2019s classic work but will still leave you wondering how the hell he plays like that.<\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STEVE VAIThe Story Of Light Favored Nations (2012)Rating: 6.5\/10 Best known to hard rock fans as the guitarist for David Lee Roth and Whitesnake during the respective height of each of their careers, Steve Vai is known worldwide as one of the premier guitarists in the world today. In fact, he is one of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,362],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-steve-vai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6944"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12026,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions\/12026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}