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Fire Garden

Steve Vai - Fire Garden Audio CD

A fair review of the Steve Vai "Fire Garden" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Steve Vai reviews here, or go back to the Steve Vai tabs.

Band: Steve Vai
Title: Fire Garden
Rating:

Release Date: 1996-09-17
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: There's a Fire in the House 2: Crying Machine 3: Dyin' Day 4: Whookam 5: Blowfish 6: Mysterious Murder of Christian Tiera's Lover 7: Hand on Heart 8: Bangkok 9: Fire Garden Suite: Bull Whip/Pusa Road/Angel Food/Taurus Bulba 10: Deepness 11: Little Alligator 12: All About Eve 13: Aching Hunger 14: Brother 15: Damn You 16: When I Was a Little Boy 17: Genocide 18: Warm Regards

Floored x2
. I just couldn't resist the urge to exploit a comment left by another reviewer:
"I think the man lacks soul and passion, and much of his music sounds very mechanical . . " !!!!!!!!!! I'll now pick myself up off the floor and attempt to get my head around that comment.

That's what floored me the 2nd time. The first flooring was, of course, this amazing work by Mr. Vai. If The Suite had been the ony work on the disc, my face would still be melted.

hit & miss, but for $4.99 not bad
99, so not too much to complain about, a good value. I got it for $4.
However, why should I care what you did with your weenie, and how old you were, or what you do with it now?! Cut it off if you like, or take Viagra if it's too small. Then write a song about it.
Too many noises, bees, fire engines, etc. I deleted half the songs, what's left gets 4/5, as it is the album gets 3/5.
.

Too Weird & Unmemorable For Me
I think the man lacks soul and passion, and much of his music sounds very mechanical. Okay, so I'll admit I'm far from a Steve Vai. Most of his whammy bar work sounds like noise to me and gets very annoying after a while. The only exceptions are Passion & Warfare and Eat Em & Smile by David Lee Roth. Those two albums worked very well I feel, with none of the weird Steve Vai filler I can't stand.

Back to Fire Garden. First of all this album is divided into two halves, one being instrumental and the other vocal. Besides the song All About Eve the vocal tunes are totally unmemorable, with silly lyrics (Brother) to boot. Steve isn't the worst singer I've ever heard, but he's totally unremarkable in the role as well. Additionally the vocal tunes feature very short, unmemorable guitar solos, so for me there is no reason to listen to those songs. As I said, All About Eve is the exception, with a gorgeous, haunting melody and short but sweet guitar solo.

The instrumentals aren't bad, but no where near the quality of the stuff on Passion and Warfare. There's A Fire In The House kicks the album off with a lot of energy and is one of my favorite songs on the album. The Crying Game follows and it's okay. The song has some great outro soloing however. Dyin' Day is a beautiful song which kind of reminds me of All About Eve as they both have a beautiful, almost haunting quality to them. Blowfish, Hand on Heart, Bangkok, and Warm Regards do nothing for me. The latter featuring some kind of cheesy drum programming and synth work that gives the song a cheap feeling.

The following are total weird filler and I hate when Steve feels the need to include stuff like this: Whookam, The Mysterious Murder of Christian Tiera's Lover (could that be any more long winded?), Deepness, and When I Was a Little Boy.

I've saved the best for last, and that's the Fire Garden Suite. This is classic Steve Vai, and in my opinion the sole reason to purchase this album. Steve brings his compositional abilities to the fore on this song along with fantastic musicianship. The song has a very raw feel to it, unlike Passion and Warfare which was heavily effects driven, with multiple guitar tracks on each song. The Fire Garden Suite features very little of that, and even has some great acoustic guitar and sitar work. This is Steve Vai at his best, it's unfortunate more of the album didn't feature work like this.

So in summary, the songs I feel work are:

1. There's a Fire In The House
2. The Crying Game
3. Dyin Day
4. Fire Garden Suite
5. All About Eve

The rest of the album does nothing for me. I'm sure this review is going to piss off the die hard Steve Vai fans, but I'm sorry, I call em like I hear em. I can't give more than two stars for an album with 18 songs when I only like five of them. I would have bumped it up to two and half stars for the amazing Fire Garden Suite, but Amazon doesn't allow half star ratings. I'm sure true Steve Vai fans love the album as they probably have much more patience for the weird stuff as well as Steve's vocal experiments. If like me you're not a hardcore Steve Vai fan I recommend getting this one used for cheap, because it's definitely not for the casual listener.

Fire Garden
Steve's best work. . my favorite album by him. . . and I have them all. Diverse and melodic, hauting and sublime. . . Vai has it all on this one.

Technical perfection and compositional elegance
There is Itzak Perlman, Andres Segovia, Pablo Casalles, Jacqueline Dupre and a very few classical players of stringed instruments that might be in the same league, but when it comes to electric guitar only Yngwie Malmsteen is even close and Yngwie has interest to other guitar players. It's not often that you can afford to buy the very best of anything, but for a few dollars you can buy a Steve Vai CD and easily argue that Steve is one of the very best players of any instrument in the history of recorded music from a technical standpoint.
Technically Steve can compose amazing works of music, and in fact composed a critically acclaimed classical album recently, so it then comes down to whether you like what he does or not. From a compositional standpoint Steve's music is like drinking a fine and rare French Bordeaux wine; The balance, complexity and intensity may be an acquired taste if you are used to Pepsi, but once you get used to it, not much tastes as good or is as satisfying.
This has probably some of his most accessible pieces in it but is still an amazing work. I can play parts of it in front "normal" people and it does not offend, but it is still Steve Vai in all of his glory. For more of the story of the album concept see his Vai. com site, but if you are looking for an introduction to Steve's music this is an excellent starting point. Along with "Passion and Warfare" it is also one of his higher points (although they all are), and that is a very high point indeed.

You can see a complete list of all Steve Vai discography, or go back to the Steve Vai tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.