Joe Satriani - Professor Satchafunkilus And The Musterion Of Rock Format: Album Release Date: 31st Mar 2008 Label: Sony BMG Rating: In the long and dodgy history of criminal album titles 'Professor Funkilus' is up there with 'Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water' and 'Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness' as outstanding examples of literary rock diarrhoea.  Fortunately Joe more than compensates for grammatical crimes against humanity with this spanking new collection of uber guitar wizardry. This is his thirteenth album and an amazing 20 years since his big breakthru release 'Surfing With The Alien'.  In the intervening years he has proved himself time and again to be one of the elite guitar toting semi gods of the rock world. Hendrix could make his strat sound like American bombers dropping napalm on Vietnamese villages.  Well, Joe takes it to the next level.  His guitar can go on a two week all expenses holiday to the moons of Jupiter, do a bit of yodelling and imitate a nun with her arse on fire (often within the same song).  Certainly there is no doubting his prowess and technical mastery of his instrument, and that he can play like a three handed woolly hatted elf on speed, but can you whistle to any of the tunes ??  Well, yes you can, provided you've got two tongues and a pair of Mick Jagger proportioned lips.  Yep, unlike his former pupil and other contemporary axe mangler, Steve Vai, Joe actually brings some memorable tunes to the party. The album comprises ten guitar dominated instrumentals, with one exception 'I Just Wanna Rock' which sounds like Daft Punk meets AC/DC and has a 'robotic' voice over doing the vocal, which despite its high cheese content is great fun.  It has corny attention grabbing first single off the album written all over it. Jaws will hit laminated flooring areas with repeated regularity when exposed to the stunning playing on 'Overdriver', 'Andalusia' and especially the demonic 'Asik Vayesel'. Although i say it myself the album is on a par with the earlier creative peak that was 'Flying In A Blue Dream'. If you snap up the special edition version you get a bonus dvd containing the traditional extra live footage and all the bells, whistles and whammy bar action you could wish for.

Written by: John Haylock