Search - Racer X :: Live at the Whiskey: Snowball of Doom

Good Enough - But Could Have Been Better

Mr. N. Crowson | Stamford, Lincs United Kingdom | 03/25/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The best advice I can give to any Racer X fan considering buying this album is offer the following words-If you want to hear technically perfect and well produced live recordings of the tracks listed then you've come to the right place. Add it to your shopping cart right now.I personally wasn't overly impressed with the track choice and feel that the set listing could have been much better. I also found myself missing those guitar harmonies that blitzed their first two studio albums and subsequent live albums. Racer X to me was lots of fast guitars and insane guitar battles - the songs (although strong) came a long way second to the guiar wizadry on offer.However, knowing that this was Paul alone on guitar I thought that plenty of improvised passages and terrifying guitar licks could compensate for this. Well maybe they could have, but I found myself a little disappointed that with the exception of a little improv at the end of OHB that there weren't any scary cadenza passages.As stated above this album consists of strong live recordings of a mixed bag of songs. Personally, I would recommend that you buy Paul Gilbert's excellent 'Beehive Live' or his hard to find Jimi Hendrix tribute CD (try looking on ebay), both of these I feel are far superior if you want to hear Paul play the guitar in a more overblown context."