The term virtuoso tends to leave me cold. It suggests a player who, whilst at the peak of technique, is liable to have forgotten about the song and, all too often, the instrumental records they offer up are depressingly clinical. This is not, however, a charge that can be laid at the door of Joe Satriani. Whilst it is true that Joe has likely forgotten more about technique than most ever know, he’s possessed of a mischievous sense of humour and a gift for melody that sees him place the song first, last and always in his list of priorities. As a result, his albums are endlessly listenable and on this, his seventeenth, there’s a freshness in the air that will delight bedroom guitarists and hard rockers alike.
From the moment a rat-a-tat snare kicks off the sanguine bass groove of the title track, there’s a feeling of vitality on Shapeshifting and, as Joe unleashes a monstrous, blues-infused groove that sounds like it’s being blasted out through Clapton’s Marshall stacks circa his time in Cream, you won’t be able to suppress your excitement. What an opening! Crank the volume and it’ll blow your socks clean off as Joe unleashes an exquisite melange of melodic breaks and thunderous riffing. Joe’s not done rocking you, either, as he kicks into the dirty road rock of Big Distortion, a greasy, AC/DC-esque rocker with a glint in its eye and just a hint of danger in its arrangement. In contrast, All For Love, is a warm, romantically-inclined ballad that features a solo of such sublime, Gilmour-esque beauty that you can almost see it as a liquid sob that seems to float in the air just in front of the speakers. Wisely, Joe keeps such moments of mellifluous wonder short, knowing full well that to overplay them would be to stifle them, and so the spacey Ali Farka, Dick Dale, An Alien And me arrives to take the listener off to a different plain altogether. It’s fun, flighty and entirely insane, which surely is the point, and the blistering Dick Dale section in particular positively sizzles. The pace slows a touch on the introspective Teardrops, a subtle track built around a skittering beat that expands slowly, emerging as the perfect soundtrack to a Western. Then Joe tips it all up on its head and hits hard with the rattling blues of Perfect Dust, which has a neat Buddy-Guy-Covering-Gary-Moore sort of vibe. Rounding out the first half, the blazing Nineteen Eighty sounds like Thunderstruck sped up and used to score a surf scene in an action movie. Bluesy, rocky and effortlessly cool, it may actually be one of the best songs to which Joe has ever put his name.
Kicking off the second side, the silky groove of All My Friends Are Here has a lovely, folky melody that sticks in the mind. Next up, the gritty Spirits, Ghosts And Outlaws, sees Joe cranking his amp up to eleven, unleashing some satisfyingly meaty, Crazy Horse-style licks as the band kick out the jams behind him. It’s one of those tracks that reminds you just what a rock demon Joe can be when the mood takes him, and it’ll slay when he hits the stage down the line. However, with the heat of the amps starting to cook the room, it’s time to dim the lights for the jazzy Falling Stars, a sedate number with a groovy bass line, some wonderfully understated lead work and a gorgeous, piano coda. Sleigh bills introduce the glimmering Waiting, a short poignant piece that recalls Mike Oldfield, before the bouncy dub of Here The Blue River takes us to album closer, Yesterday’s Yesterday. A light-touch finale that pairs jaunty whistling with the sweet sound of the acoustic guitar, you can imagine it over the credits of a coming-of-age drama and it proves to be a strangely evocative closer.
Joe may well be one of the finest guitarists on the planet, but he’s never lost his love of a good jam and with Shapeshifting he’s pulled together one of his strongest collections yet. From the blistering hard rock of the title track, through the awesome Nineteen Eighty, right up to the delightfully cinematic closing track, Joe and his band keep things tightly focused, each track telling its story and departing long before any welcome is worn out. It makes for a compelling album that passes surprisingly swiftly. The perfect album to play to anyone who believes instrumental albums can’t be a whole host of fun, shapeshifting is an absolute gem. 9/10
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