No question: Satriani game is beyond doubt and Crystal Planet impressively demonstrates that Satriani is one of the absolute top Gitarissten. Pleasant also that Satriani does not push his skills to the fore and exhibitionist issue, a challenge that many guitar virtuoso has already succumbed. Nevertheless, the music lives primarily from Satriani's virtuosity, as the album suffers from the drawback that Satriani songwriting not having the same championship dominated as his instrument. The pieces are generally quite rocky, repeatedly enriched by Blue elements and jazz harmonies. Highlights are "raspberry jam delta-v" and "psycho monkey". But they are always similar and quite featureless under construction in the formal and tonal system. By part at a time the album is then not much more than a way rippling right presentation of guitaristic skills Satriani. The soon-adjusting monotony that is somewhat broken up times by pieces like "A piece of liquid" or "ZZ's Song", thus gaining a meditative character.
