Vai/Gash

The recording dates from 1991; the release is 27 January 2023. Favored Nations issued it as FN 76852, eight tracks, and Sony Music Japan International put out the Japanese edition two days earlier as the Blu-spec CD2 SICX-30162. The singer is Johnny Gash Sombrotto, a friend Vai had grown close to over a shared love of motorcycles. They made the record in 1991, but Sombrotto died in a motorcycle accident on 7 September 1998 and the music was never published. The cover is a photograph of Sombrotto himself, showing the extensive burn scars he sustained in a motorcycle crash in 1977. Vai announced the album on 10 November 2022 alongside the lead single In The Wind. Among his records it is an outlier: a straightforward rock album with a singer at the front of it. The running order here is the import CD's as printed.