Below, check out Planet Rock's premiere of "Bop!," a previously unreleased track by Steve Vai. The song will appear on Vai's Modern Primitive/Passion and Warfare 25th Anniversary Edition, which will be released June 24.
"Bop!" is the opening track from Modern Primitive, which collects Vai's song sketches and works-in-progress from the period following the release of his debut album, Flex-Able, in 1984.
"The music on Flex-Able is so vastly different from Passion and Warfare, one could wonder if the same guy actually made both records," Vai wrote in the liner notes for the collection. "Modern Primitive is the missing link between these two records. It's sort of Cro-Magnon Vai." In addition to the first-time release of his "lost" Modern Primitive music, Vai will celebrate the 25th anniversary of Passion and Warfare with a world tour that started May 28. It features—for the first time ever—full performances of the album. You can check out the dates here.
"Performing this record from top to bottom (with some very special surprises in the works) is something I've always dreamed of doing," Vai said. "There are songs here I've never performed before, and I'm delighted that 25 years after its release, I feel as though my guitar chops are as much up to the task as ever before."Often cited as one of the greatest and most influential instrumental rock guitar albums ever recorded, Passion and Warfare was originally released through Relativity/Epic Records in September 1990. Inspired by a series of dreams Vai had experienced as a young man, Passion and Warfare has been described by the artist as "Jimi Hendrix meets Jesus Christ at a party that Ben Hur threw for Mel Blanc." Recorded at The Mothership, Vai's home studio in the Hollywood Hills, Passion and Warfare includes the classic track, "For the Love of God," cited as one of the best solos of all time in a GuitarWorld.com poll.
The Passion and Warfare 25th Anniversary Edition disc includes, as bonus tracks, four previously unreleased recordings from the Passion and Warfare sessions. Modern Primitive/Passion and Warfare 25th Anniversary Edition is being released as a 2CD physical collection, and each disc will be available as a sepárate title on all digital platforms. The 2CD version will be housed in a four-panel soft-pack with a 20-page Modern Primitive booklet and a 24-panel Passion and Warfare poster fold.
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