Steve Vai - 1995 "Alien Love Secrets"

Alien Love Secrets is an EP by guitarist Steve Vai, released on March 21, 1995 through Relativity Records. The EP reached No. 125 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and remained on that chart for two weeks, as well as reaching No. 72 on the Dutch albums chart.

Alien Love Secrets was written and recorded in less than six weeks as a stripped-down guitar, bass and drums record with minimal keyboards. According to Vai, he had wished to maintain a steady output of material following his 1993 album Sex & Religion, but the recording process for the 70+ minutes of his subsequent 1996 album Fire Garden was taking too long. The EP was therefore purposely released in anticipation of Fire Garden. Stylistically Alien Love Secrets marks a return to the more familiar instrumental rock of Vai's 1990 album Passion and Warfare, following the highly mixed reception to Sex & Religion.

Notable tracks include "Bad Horsie", which was derived from a riff played by Vai during the final scenes of the 1986 film Crossroads; "Juice" was featured on the soundtrack of the 1996 PlayStation video game Formula 1; "Ya-Yo Gakk" is a call and response interplay with vocal recordings of Vai's young son Julian; "Tender Surrender", one of Vai's most popular songs, bases itself around a familiar sound, structure and tempo as Jimi Hendrix's "Villanova Junction Blues" from his 1999 live album Live at Woodstock, although written in a different key; and "The Boy from Seattle", which is a tribute to Hendrix written by Vai.

After the disastrous full-band heavy metal project of Sex & Religion, Steve Vai returned to recording solo with Alien Love Secrets. It's a moodier, more atmospheric collection than his masterpiece, Passion and Warfare, which makes it slightly revelatory. With the new sonic textures, the guitarist again demonstrates his fluid technique, which manages to never become completely mechanical.

You can always count on lil’ Stevie Vai to deliver something completely off the wall…except when he’s trying to play it straight.

Compared to Passion and Warfare and Sex & Religion, Steve plays it remarkably straight on the stripped back mini-album Alien Love Secrets. Remarkably straight for Steve Vai, that is. This is a guy who is known to make his guitar sound like anything except a guitar.  There’s plenty of that here (check out “Bad Horsie”, which sounds like some kind of bad horsie at times), but there are also actual grooves and riffs too.  Alien Love Secrets is an instrumental mini-album that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Alien Love Secrets will still be incomprehensible to some, but it’s probably Steve’s most accessible release overall.  Without the layers upon layers of tracks, you can get in there and just listen.  If you want more, there is a cool DVD release, with a video for each track on the album!

This specially priced, seven-track mini-album could have been titled the "Many Moods of Stevie Vai" given its stylistic sweep. "Bad Horsie" is a widescreen, effects-laden monster, "Juice" is a high-speed boogie, "The Boy from Seattle" verges on Metheny territory and "Tender Surrender" oozes with subtlety and taste. All this, plus a thrashing rocker that football coaches can motivate the troops with: "Kill the Guy with the Ball."

A really great disk that showcases Steve Vai's talent and his "not-afraid-to-try-anything" compositional skills.
"Juice" will make your head swim with the riffs and hooks and chops showcase! "The Boy from Seattle" will keep you humming all day. Great addition to your collection!

Tracks Listing

1. Bad Horsie (5:51)
2. Juice (3:44)
3. Die to Live (3:52)
4. The Boy from Seattle (5:04)
5. Ya-Yo Gakk (2:52)
6. Kill the Guy With the Ball/The God Eaters (7:02)
7. Tender Surrender (5:09)

Total Time 32:14

Line-up / Musicians

- Steve Vai / guitars,bass,programming
- Deen Castronovo / drums
- Tommy Mars / organ
- Julian Vai / vocals