Carmine Appice’s Guitar Zeus – The Definitive Guitar Zeus

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The Guitar Zeus albums were a project by legendary drummer Carmine Appice, featuring several of the best and most highly respected living guitar players in rock music and Kelly Keeling on vocals. The original two albums were released in 1996 and 1997, and have seen several reincarnations since. There has however never been a way to get every track from these sessions, but this new three-disc collection is as close as it has so far been possible to get. Previous releases have included Guitar Zeus 2001, which was simply the second album on a different label, The Ultimate Guitar Zeus on Escapi Music, which was just a single-disc compilation of selected tracks from both albums with one bonus track, and last year Guitar Zeus: Conquering Heroes, with the complete albums in their original running order, but none of the bonus tracks. For this release the original albums are present on the first two discs, in their correct order (despite the incorrect track-listing for the first disc, which misses out Nobody Knew (Black White House between So Long and Guitar Zeus – Part 1), and then a nine-track third disc. This includes the bonus track which appeared on The Ultimate Guitar Zeus (a grooving Do Ya Think I’m Sexy with Pat Travers) and four more bonus tracks from Guitar Zeus Japan, an album of tracks re-recorded with Japanese guitarists. These are the four songs recorded on that album they were not on the original albums. Lastly, for no apparent reason, two tracks from each of the main albums are included again. What is therefore missing are the eight re-recordings from Guitar Zeus Japan, but since they’re repeated songs, that’s not a huge loss. The bigger problem is the absence of a second version of Under The Moon & Sun featuring Edgar Winter, which appeared on the 2003 re-issue of the first album.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2010, Albums, Hard Rock, Quick.Play Reviews, Re-release, Carmine Appice's Guitar Zeus