To my mind, "Alien Love Secrets" is among the best works Steve ever released. Definitely his best instrumental work. The DVD is also worth every penny.

This album contains two true gems 'The boys from Seattle' (which sounds very hendrixian - and in a beautiful way, without being pompous, this is one of the finest songs i have heard for a while, a sort of breath of fresh air into the current mediocrity of the music scene, had Jimi written this one, it would have been considered as one of his better songs) and 'tender surrender'; i'm less a fanatic of the heavy distorted stuff - though 'Die to Live' is very pleasant - of the rest of the record but i must admit there is an excellent guitar playing throughout the album, and this goes beyond just being a shred player, there is a lot a subtlety and work throughout (the progressive complex metal piece Kill the guy with the ball/The god eaters which ends with subtle harmonics); i don't regret my purchase, the thing that the record is short is not a problem for me, quality is always over quantity.

This album is a bit short, and VERY sweet. I also own Fire Garden, which I really like, and The Ultra Zone, which can be a bit strange at times, but that is just Vai's eccentric style. I would say that there is strangeness on this album too; the track Ya-Yo Gakk. Aside from that and a somewhat schizophrenic track Kill The Guy With The Ball/The God Eaters, it is quality musicianship and several different styles of it. Very enjoyable music from a very talented man.

One thing that I love about Steve Vai is that he rarely resorts to making a song out of drums, a repeating bass line, and a guitar solo a la Yngwie Malmsteen, but keeps the melody through his songs. He has just the right amount of solo in his music, which is shown in this CD.

Alien Love Secrets has three AMAZING songs, Bad Horsie, Juice, and Tender Surrender. Tender Surrender perfectly builds tension and lets it all go in a second, perfectly. The Boy from Seattle and Kill the Guy with the Ball are both solid songs also.

Die to Live random at times, and I didn't much care for it. Ya-Yo Gakk is funny the first time you hear it, but gets annoying thereafter.

I would recommend this CD. It certainly has some 1st class music on it, and my three favorite Steve Vai songs.

The only down-side of this CD is that it's short. Even so, it's easily a 5 star CD and it features some of Vai's very finest studio guitar work. Song by song:

Bad Horsie: this is a drop-tuned monster of a nightmarish tune: picture yourself riding a locomotive as though it were a steam-belching, fire-breathing steed, and that's kind of what you get here... shrieking, insane guitar, wah-pedal galore, slide guitar, whammy bar, blazing solos, etc.... on his "Live at Astoria" DVD, vai introduces this song with, "Welcome to the heavy metal portion of the evening..." which was pretty accurate: this is a HEAVY tune.

Juice: shorter, often compared to Eric Johnson's "Cliffs of Dover" because it has a similar joyous and bouncy vibe about it; but whereas Johnson plays stuff I had previously thought too beautiful to achieve with a pentatonic scale, Vai is more like "Cliffs of Dover" ON STEROIDS: no particular scale adhered to, just some fo the VERY BEST GUITAR SOLOING I've ever herad from Steve Vai, or anybody for that matter... he does that tap/hammer stuff where both hands are moving all over, and yet keep in mind: this is all done over the top of a bouncy, joyous theme. This is just a GREAT song. Amazing!

Die to Live: this is also short, and for me, is an exercise in nuance and tone: I have the music for this CD and I can almost play this song... I can't play it anything like Vai, though, because he plays with just exactly the right dynamics in every situation with the amp set just perfectly, and while the song is nothing like Juice in terms of sheer shredding speed or agility, he does flow from section to section in this song with such fluid effortlessness... it's astounding! And yes, for pure listening enjoyment, it's a very beautiful song. Once again: amazing!

The Boy From Seattle: good chord-strumming kinda thing: again very difficult to play with the sort of effortlessness that Vai achieves: tonally brilliant, getting the pop and snap out of the cleaner-sounding amp that he does here. And once again, in terms of simple aesthetics: a very nice tune to listen to.

Ya-Yo Gakk: entertaining little tune featuring Vai's two year old toddler singing "Ya-Yo Gakk" which Vai then answers with his guitar, mimicking all the little nuances of the youngster's voice... entertaining, imaginative, and obviously extraordinaily difficult to accomplish, but not as fun for the listener after just a couple spins.

Kill the Guy With the Ball / the God Eaters: uptempo featuring some sort of crazy noisemaking that sounds like his guitar is making weird noises from "the back of its throat (for lack of a better way of explaining it)... heavy on the drums in this one; the end of the song has a lot of guitar effects... I'd summarize this as one of those whacked-out Vai extravaganzas that's unfortunately not quite as accessible as the rest.

Tender Surrender: brilliant instrumental ballad: just stark, flat-out amazing. The depth of emotion he achieves on this tune, particularly during the guitar solo and during the transition out of it back to the main theme: astonishing! It may be the best guitar solo he's every played: not in term of the number of notes, but just in how well it fits and where it goes emotionally. I rank this as overall the best instrumental ballad that Vai has EVER written thus far: slightly AHEAD of both "For the Love of God" and "Whispering a Prayer". He was nominated for a grammy for this song, which should tell you how accessible it is to the less-guitar-crazed listener, and yet it's still a mind-blowing technical experience as well. Brilliant! Bravo!

In summary: five GREAT songs here, and 2 that are off-the-charts mind-blowing. Even with the two somewhat weaker tunes and even with there only being 7 songs and it being a short CD, this is still an easy 5-star review: that's how good the really good tunes are: this is a must-own for any Vai fan and any guitar nut, but even beyond that it's just plain good music.