Chickenfoot

As promised....

Let's just get this out of the way first. One of the biggest arguments in rock music is stating a preference between Van Halen vocalists -- the eternal Dave vs. Sammy debate. I'll settle it right now: It's stupid and invalid. Dave was a front man first and a singer second. Sammy was a singer first and a front man second. Sammy is a better singer by far. Dave was a better ringleader for the Van Halen Carnival. Which made the band better? NEITHER OF THEM!! People who argue about this seem to forget that all of the music came from Eddie. The Dave-era music, the Sammy-era music. If people don't like that the classic VH sound disappeared when Sammy took over for Dave, well, blame Eddie.

I bring this up because you can't talk about Chickenfoot without mentioning Van Halen. Sammy Hagar as the singer. Michael Anthony playing bass and singing the harmonies with Sammy, like he did in Van Halen. The band propelled forward by an insanely gifted guitarist. Yes, at times Chickenfoot sounds a lot like 80s/90s Van Halen. Concession made.

But the big difference here comes down to the guitar player. Eddie Van Halen or Joe Satriani? I'll say that Joe is arguably a better guitarist than Eddie. While Eddie has spent this last 10 years alienating and replacing his bandmates with people that are probably easier to control (Eddie's own teenage son and the creatively unemployed David Lee Roth), and acting like the Howard Hughes of rock music by recording hundreds of tracks that have never been heard by anyone, Joe has been busy. Joe releases instrumental (and occasionally vocal) solo albums; yes, Joe's guitar playing is expressive enough to serve as the voice of an entire album. Joe tours, on his own and in the G3 package tour with other actual guitar heroes. Joe even writes songs that are so darn catchy that mopey-melodic British pop bands get accused of plagarizing them.

Chickenfoot sounds like a band that has an incredible guitar player. Van Halen was a band that existed to serve as a showcase for an incredible guitar player. One of Joe's lifelong musical ambitions was to be the guitarist in a great band. He's the guy who wanted to play a role, to be a part of something he couldn't do on his own.

Chickenfoot has a rhythm section between Michael Anthony and Chad Smith (drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers if you aren't familiar) that sounds like they've been playing together for decades. In fact, the whole band does. The evidence? There's one song on the album, a really strong bluesy rocker called "Down the Drain" that these guys wrote in the studio... while they were recording it. The one time they ever played that song before playing live shows was the time they recorded it for the album.

The album itself sounds great. Yeah, there are echoes of Sammy-era Van Halen here and there, but if you listen to it enough times you hear the band come into it's own. My only gripe is the song "Runnin' Out," which is somewhat bland and forgettable, and is really the only smudge on what would have been a landmark of an album without it.

If you like the loud rock music and you need a CD to play while you're driving down the highway with the windows rolled down? Here ya go.