Alex Skolnick Trio: Veritas

Posted by Luminator (A) on January 24, 2015 at 23:50:56

For over a quarter century, I have carried the thrash metal flag/banner for us audiophiles. It can be a lonely job, but since I was actually there in the 80s, I am one of the few audiophiles qualified to do so.

All these years, I have been writing about Bay Area thrash band, Testament. Through Testament, we audiophiles know about guitar whiz Alex Skolnick, who, as a teenager, had taken lessons from none other than Joe Satriani. After 1992's The Ritual, Skolnick left Testament, moved to Brooklyn. Drummer Louis Clemente also moved to New York, but apparently, he dropped out of music. Meanwhile, Skolnick joined Savatage, for 1994's Handful Of Rain. Via this Savatage connection, Skolnick would later become a touring guitarist for Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

While living in Brooklyn, Skolnick studied jazz. So in the early 2000s, he formed the so-called Alex Skolnick Trio. AST would do jazz versions of popular rock songs. On AST's last album, 2011's Veritas, they expand the bubble. Here, they have just one cover, Metallica's "Fade To Black." The other songs on Veritas are jazzy projections of what they think other artists would sound like.

Veritas can come across as world beat. As such, it has found a home, here in the By Area. It really is in tune with our sunny afternoons. It fits in with the small coffee and pastry shops in San Francisco's Mission District. It fits in on those grassy areas around Oakland's Lake Merritt. It fits in with the farmers market at Jack London Square [AST should play there!]. It fits in at the second-floor restaurants at Bay Street Emeryville [too bad Magnolia and their Martin-Logan and Sonus Faber speakers are no longer there]. Veritas feels right, when you are stuck in traffic (either direction) on University Avenue in Berkeley. It's about those rare but spectacular warm, calm, and fog-free days at the coast, from S.F. to Santa Cruz. Dunno if the nudists listen to Veritas, though. It also reminds me of Santa Cruz's Pacific Avenue Mall, before the commercial rebuilds of the mid-90s.

But never mind all of the Bay Area name-dropping. Wherever you are, get Veritas, and form your own musical connections, experiences, and memories.

Incidentally, the track listing on my copy is all wrong. So do not follow what is printed on the back of the album. But anyway, as audiophiles, many us will argue that Veritas is a better-sounding recording than any of Testament's, Savatage's, or TSO's albums. If you are used to bum-rushing through thrash metal, you are going to have to slow down (for me, it means putting down the thrash metal flag/banner), relax (more than half the songs are longer than 5 minutes), and get caught up in the moods of Veritas. Recommended.

The Audiophiles' DJ,
-Lummy The Loch Monster

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Topic - Alex Skolnick Trio: Veritas - Luminator 23:50:56 01/24/15 (3)

RE: Alex Skolnick Trio: Veritas - fantja 17:46:21 01/27/15 (0)

RE: "Lummy The Loch Monster" - Ivan303 19:57:35 01/25/15 (1)

Haven't Been A Seahorse In Years - Luminator 20:25:25 01/25/15 (0)

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