Solo Albums #9

I think this is going to be a good year as far as new releases go. There are a lot on the horizon that I have written down on my calendar. One of those that I was excited about is John Frusciante's 10th solo album, The Empyrean.

The album starts off with a 9 minute, guitar-solo instrumental that would make Carlos Santana proud. The track, entitled "Before the Beginning", is a bit reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Marooned" instrumental from The Division Bell.

The next track is a beautiful cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" from his long out of print Starsailor album. The Empyrean is one of Frusciante's more cohesive albums since Shadows Collide With People. From February 2004 to February 2005, John Frusciante released 6 discs of new music. Each of them are good, but in most cases, each song starts to sound the same over the course of the disc. But as with Shadows Collide With People, The Empyrean is more diverse and Froosh shows off his guitar chops a little bit more than on recent albums.

Froosh's vocals on "One More of Me" stopped me dead in my tracks because I thought for a moment that he got Terry Callier to be a guest on this album. But it is in fact John Frusciante singing. Impressive.

Guests on this album include Flea on 6 tracks, and Johnny Marr of the Smiths contributing guitar to 2 tracks.

Overall, it's a very pleasant album that I am looking forward to spending a lot of time with. I also really love the album cover. Another contender for album cover of the year.