Tortured Souls

Vortex is Neal Schon’s ninth solo album, and is an all instrumental exploration of rock, jazz and world music. Stepping into this album was like stepping into an alien world. It was dangerous and exciting, beautiful and alluring, and gave you this sense of wonder. The best thing about this album was that it got you lost somewhere. The rhythm and beat gives a nice, steady ground to walk on while the guitar dazzles and reverberates through your entire body. The energy from it is intense and you could tell it was going to be one of those albums within seconds after pressing play.

Inattentive consumers picking up this album because they confuse it as being by the testicularly challenged American glam rockers will be in for quite a surprise. This is the Canadian band named Slaughter, and their lone 1987 album, Strappado (named after a medieval torture tactic that had victims suspended by their hands, while these were tied behind their backs), contained improbably raw blackened thrash reminiscent of the earliest works of Voivod or, say, Sepultura…