The Flake Zone

Many of you probably remember Racer X from the 80s shred wars. Well, they got back together a few years back, and their latest studio album is REAL proof that they have lost none of their fire.....

The CD cover is funny like a mofo!! The guys in the band made up their own costumes, and they resemble something out of a '60s Japanese sci-fi movie.

SUPERHEROES

Jeff Martin - Motorman - Vocals

Paul Gilbert - The Electric Bat - Guitar

John Alderete - The X-tinguisher - Bass

Scott Travis - Cowboy Axe - Drums

Songs In Order Of Appearance

1. Superheroes - This song is a BADASS fucking tune!! Double kick-drums....soaring vocals...impossible shred guitar (can I burn MY guitars now???) and underneath it all amazing bass work. This song truly allows this band to shine. A GREAT opening track!!! Blows you back against the wall, keeps you there with tremendous force, and when it is over, you just fall face first to the floor....KLUNK!!!

2. Let The Spirit Fly - A great steamroller of a tune..cool choruses..Jeff Martin has a great voice...during the verses it sounds as though he his singing through a cheesy, worn-out bullhorn that is getting it's power from an exhausted hamster running on a little treadmill. Sounds really cool!!! Great vibe!!

3. Godzilla - AAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! LKGUYLFPIHFEW:OUFHEWOU!!!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!! SHRIEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is probably the coolest cover of this song I have ever heard. Starts out with a cute li'l innocent guitar thang...nice quiet...reminds us of a cute li'l gurl playing with flowers in a beautiful mountain meadow somewhere in the foothills of Mt. Fuji....then the song starts in with a seriously HEAVY RIFF!!! In the original version, there was a guitar lick as part of the musical hook, but in this version that part is sung by Jeff Martin. Kickass!!!

Godzilla himself even does a guest appearance on "background blasts"....wonder how they were able to get close enough to record his vocal parts without getting fried, flattened, or both!! In the middle there is a part that sounds like another song...David Bowie's "Fame", however instead of singing the word "Fame" from high to low, the word is Godzilla (with the word "Fame" thrown in at the end haha).Fucking great revision of that song!!!

4. Dead Man's shoes - mid-tempo double-kick tune...great tone on the guitars...nice thick slabs of crunchy MEAT!!!! YIPPEEEEEEEE!!!!!! Nice quiet part in the middle that leads into a beautful Malmsteen-esque guitar solo. Really pretty song that ROCKS!!!!

5. King Of The Monsters - GAWD!!!! This song SMOKES!!!! It Breathes FIRE even!!!! YAH!!! YAH!!! FIRE!! FIRE!! FIRE!!! HEHEH HEHEHEH HEHEHEH!!!!! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!!!! HEHEHEH!!! FIRE!!!!

Instrumental tune that would put most other musicians to shame. Starts out innocently enuff, then launches into a FURIOUS attack!!! Guitar pyrotechnics everywhere!!!! With Scott Travis's rock solid atomic double-kick slam blasting away underneath!! AIEEEEEEEE!!!! LOOK OUT!!!!! It ends with a cool feedback-drenched guitar howl sounding like a Univibe (a guitar effect first used by Hendrix) on acid!!! Sounds like the guitar is screaming "SAVE ME FROM THIS SHRED GUY!!! SHRIEEK!!! AAAIEEE!!

6. Mad At The World - I SWEAR I have heard this song before...dunno where...the intro especially sounds so familiar to me...mid-tempo generic-based song with cool guitar solos and riffs on it. Very much reminds me of something Tesla would do.....has a guitar lick at one point in the song that starts slow and goes faster that was first used in the public arena by Neal Schon....Pretty tasty song.

7. Evil Joe - "This is Joe...." pretty cool song....a serious rant about the evils in today's society - and how we here in America tend to ignore such threats....

We populate, contaminate
And suffocate in our own waste
So now Kuwait can celebrate
And salivate
While we all eat barbiturates
And aspirate in our V-8's
While crashin' on the interstate

8. That Hormone Thing - LMFAO!!!!! Song about love...with a slammingly cool riff...GREAT skin beating work by Mr. Scott!!!! And a great harmony guitar solo....hey for Mr. Paul G to NOT solo during a Racer X song would be criminal!!!

Ya make my cold heart sing
Doing that hormone thing
Crucified on your G-string
Doing that hormone thing
For you I'd do anything
Doing that hormone thing
Squeakin' on my bedspring

These guys, despite being crack musicians, have a REALLY warped sense of humour that allows their songs to shine with a sense o' great fun and hilarity!!!

:) :) :)

9. Viking Kong - GODDAM!!! Another instrumental.. Flawless blazing fast solo work from one of the ShredKings!!!! Can I burn my guitars already? It is guys like this that give me an inferiority complex..... ;) Thing is, that most of the fretwork on this particular song sounds very much stylistically like Michael Schenker!!!

10. Time Before The Sun - starts out with quiet acoustic guitar etude...reminds me of Queensryche....interesting lyrical idea...what was it like for God to be by himself before he created the Universe? Pretty cool tune......

There Is No Sunrise
There Has Never Been A Rain
Only An Emptiness
No Time, No Fear, No Pain
No Bodies Crying Out
No One Has Yet To Pray
No Light Has Shone On Down
There Has Never Been A Day

11. O.H.B. - This stands for "One Hot Bitch". The title needs NO explanation....steamroller tune about something all of us guys (and all of us lesbians) have experienced at least ONCE in our lives!! ;) LOL!!

She's a dancer, she's a midnight queen
A fast movin' woman
Moves her motor mean
She affects me, with her sex machine
God dammit she's the ultimate dream

All in all I would say that rockers who are NOT into great musicianship will not dig this album. The technical ability of this band IS amazing, but perfectly complements (instead of overshadowing) their songwriting talents.

I would be very interested in hearing their live album they recorded at the Whiskey in L.A. last year called "Snowball Of Doom". If a studio album of theirs is as intense as this one, imagine how they are live!!!

Click to purchase

Something else here.....this band allows Scott Travis to REALLY play...as compared to the stuff he does with Judas Priest which is a more mainstream four-on-the-floor type of drumming. Scott DOES create all his own drum parts for Priest's material, as he said "There are no other drummers in the band....", of course, Racer X and Priest being two different musical animals.

One other thing...though in this review I have consistently made reference to Paul Gilbert, Scott Travis and Jeff Martin, the unsung superhero here is John Alderete. He HAS to be a great bassist just to keep up with these guys, and he plays extremely solid and consistent low end stuff. I would imagine that he is a real motherfucker on bass. My hats off to him for keeping that low end together!!!!

Overall, for this cd, I give it 2 thumbs up!!!

You can visit their website to find out more. Here is a royalty check Jeff Martin received from BMI that should shatter the mythology that once you have a record out, you are rich...

CD REVIEW BY HARDROCK69!!!