Last Day In Paradise

Keeping with the Jazz theme we continue on down into the vaults with a band I featured early on in the days of the blog. The Alex Skolnick Trio, are just that, a Jazz trio with modern takes on Hard Rock classics. Led by current Testament Guitarist Alex Skolnick, the band has been together since '01.

The trio have released four albums so far. Alex is a bit busy of late with Testament, but also with his world music project, Planetary Coalition. Needless to say the Trio isn't really active of late. In any case let's shine a little light onto their '07 release, 'Last Day In Paradise'. This album unlike the previous two features more of the trio's original material as opposed to cover tunes. There are however a couple of covers here though. The classic "Tom Sawyer" from Rush and "Revelation (Mother Earth) from Black Sabbath. And if you wanna get technical there's "Practica Lo Que Predicas" a Latin take on the classic Testament track, "Practice What You Preach". At ten tracks in length this album is really solid and gets you right in the grooves and leaves you wanting some more. For me this breaks the stereotype that Metal Heads can only play one style. Seriously just listen to any Testament record Skolnick plays on and this and you'll have an appreciation for what I believe is a seriously underrated player.

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