This album features a rather unusual combination of musicians: Tony Levin (King Crimson) on bass, Terry Bozzio (Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck) on drums, and surprisingly enough, Steve Stevens (Billy Idol, Michael Jackson) handling the instrument of rock---all guitars. Such an unusual mix of musicians could either result in a total disaster or an incredibly novel sound, and fortunately for us, the music inclines towards the latter. While I would easily acknowledge that Levin and Bozzio are virtuoso musicians, it's a lot harder to see Stevens in their avant-garde company. But in this release, it is Stevens' guitar work that really stands out. Thinking about it, when I listened to Michael Jackson's Bad, my favourite part of the whole album was the guitar work in Dirty Diana, and the Top Gun Anthem was one of the first things I learnt to play on my guitar.
The music on this release could be classified as progressive avant-garde jazz. The progressive and avant-garde aspects comes from the background of these musicians, and the jazz comes in part from the live improvisation: apparently the album was recorded in four days in an intense studio session. The number of takes were limited and there is no creative editing---just the way I like my music. The nature of the recording alone best describes the music, which does sound spontaneous, novel, experimental, and jazzy. The chemistry between these musicians is clearly apparent. All songs are instrumentals and there is not a single song that's less than seven minutes long. This is a must-get for any progressive or rock music fan.