We started this week with a trio of posts on . . . viciousness (beginning here). Then we assisted in the disfigurement of a goddess. And yesterday was all about the venomous hatred in Anaal Nathrakh. Granted, we did have the thing about the epic Indian feed and the photos of Phro in a miniskirt, but musically speaking, it’s been a pretty pummeling week so far.

We do like to keep you a little off-balance here at NCS, so this seemed like a good day for something . . . completely different. Three completely different somethings, to be precise. We don’t often venture outside our comfort zone around here, but we’re definitely doing that today. The thing is, we’re still sort of staying true to the “no clean singing” mantra — because there’s no singing at all on our first offering, and almost none on the second.

So, ready, set, GO!

THE ALEX SKOLNICK TRIO

The last time we featured music similar to this next band (pictured above), it was the day before Thanksgiving last year. In a post called “Guitar Wizardry”, we featured new music from Joe Satriani and old music from Buckethead. That set off an interesting dialogue in the Comments section about guitar heroes and the connections between them, and of course, Alex Skolnick‘s name was mentioned more than once, in the same company as Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Young, Jeff Beck, and John Petrucci, along with Satriani (with whom Skolnick studied long ago) and Brian “Buckethead” Carroll. (more after the jump, including ear candy . . .) Continue reading »