Artist:  Carmine Appice Project
   Title: The Ultimate Guitar Zeus
   Label: Escape Music

Carmine Appice is probably one of the most respected drummers worldwide and his long and varied career has seen him perform with some of the biggest names in modern rock music.  Including the likes of Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck and John Sykes in one band or another, although it's his Guitar Zeus projects in 1996 and 2001 that really saw Appice bring together the likes of Mick Mars, Ted Nugent, Stevie Salis, Brian May, Slash, Ritchie Sambora, Yngwie Malmsteen, Doug Pinnick, Vivian Campbell, Pat Travers and even John McEnroe and Steven Segal on one project!

The two albums were only available in Europe through import in the past but now Escapi Music are set to release the best of these two albums on one disc entitled ‘Ultimate Guitar Zeus’.

The album opens up with ‘Days Are Nights’, a track that feature the mighty Ted Nugent on guitar and really gets this album off to a fantastic start.  The tracks may be old but they still sound fresh and show that a good tune is timeless.

The album shows the diversity of all the guitar players featured on the album with Brian May lending his six string skills to ‘Nobody Knew’, a more gentle track to that of the opener but still a stomping track and Mays immaculate riffs near the end of the track are superb.

The album is full of gems and gives credence to Appice and Kelly Keeling as songwriters as well as first class musicians.

The album also gave me an insight into the Rod Stewart classic ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ that I never knew, the fact that Appice co-wrote the song with Stewart.  And the version of that song also appears on the album thankfully without Stewart on vocals, but Carmine himself and helping him on guitar duties is the legend that is Pat Travers, giving the track a lot more bite than the Stewart version.

If you weren’t able to get a hold of the original versions of the Guitar Zeus albums then I would heartily recommend you go out a get a copy of Ultimate Guitar Zeus you wont be disappointed.

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