Steve Vai - 1996 "Fire Garden"

 Fire Garden is the fourth studio album by guitarist Steve Vai, released on September 17, 1996 through Epic Records. The album reached No. 106 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and remained on that chart for two weeks, as well as reaching the top 100 in three other countries.

As described by Vai in the liner notes, Fire Garden is a concept album divided into two "phases": "Phase 1" comprises tracks 1–9 and is entirely instrumental (with the exception of Devin Townsend's backwards vocals on "Whookam" and some more vocals toward the end of "Fire Garden Suite"), while "Phase 2", the remainder of the album, features Vai on vocals on every song except the instrumental "Warm Regards". Fire Garden was intended to be a double album, but during mastering Vai heard about the new 80-minute CD format (instead of 74 for a standard CD), which meant that both sides were able to fit onto a single disc.

"Dyin' Day" was co-written by Ozzy Osbourne during the writing sessions for Osbourne's 1995 album Ozzmosis. Another song from those sessions, "My Little Man", made its way onto Ozzmosis and is credited on that album as being co-written by Vai.

A recent acquisition and boy does Vai and crew deliver the goods here. All bases are covered : from all out dazzling heavy rock, to funky , to soulful, to clever. Hey complex yet emotional touching so many bases that to not have this part instrumental part song based cd would be too rob yourself of a genuinely exhilarating rock / great music thrill. Steve Via known to many for his guitar pyrotechnics yes but until now I didn t realise his excellent song writing abilities teaming up here with equally talented team of players. Fire Garden is the equal I think to much acclaimed Passion and Warfare, slightly less heavy rock than that lp, better songs and more variety. Stand outs for me is the 10 minute suite Eastern influenced title track, the rollicking Little Alligators and soulful Bother amongst several others.

Fire Garden is beautiful, rocking, dazzling and premier league music. Yeah its that good.

Track listing:

All tracks are written by Steve Vai, except where noted.

"Phase 1"No.    Title    Length
1.    "There's a Fire in the House"    5:26
2.    "The Crying Machine"    4:50
3.    "Dyin' Day" (Vai, Ozzy Osbourne)    4:29
4.    "Whookam"    0:36
5.    "Blowfish"    4:03
6.    "The Mysterious Murder of Christian Tiera's Lover"    1:02
7.    "Hand on Heart"    5:25
8.    "Bangkok" (Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Tim Rice)    2:46
9.    "Fire Garden Suite"
          "Bull Whip"
          "Pusa Road"
          "Angel Food"
          "Taurus Bulba"  9:56

"Phase 2"No.    Title    Length
10.    "Deepness"    0:47
11.    "Little Alligator"    6:12
12.    "All About Eve"    4:38
13.    "Aching Hunger"    4:45
14.    "Brother"    5:04
15.    "Damn You"    4:31
16.    "When I Was a Little Boy"    1:18
17.    "Genocide"    4:11
18.    "Warm Regards"    4:06

Total length:    74:05

Personnel:

    Steve Vai – lead vocals, guitar, all other instrumentation (except where noted), arrangement, engineering, production
    Devin Townsend – lead vocals (tracks 4, 9)
    Will Riley – keyboard (track 14)
    John Avila – bass (track 2)
    Stuart Hamm – bass (track 3)
    Fabrizio Gossi – bass (track 14)
    Chris Frazier – drums (track 1)
    Greg Bissonette – drums (track 2)
    Deen Castronovo – drums (tracks 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 15)
    Mike Mangini – drums (tracks 8, 9)
    Robin DiMaggio – drums (track 14)
    C.C. White – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
    Tracee Lewis – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
    Miroslava Mendoza Escriba – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
    Kimberly Evans – background vocals (tracks 12, 17)
    John Sombrotto – background vocals (track 17)
    Mark McCrite – background vocals (track 17)
    Jim Altan – background vocals (track 17)
    Julian Vai – spoken vocals – track (18)