Joe Satriani announces ‘The Elephants of Mars’

Album will be available Apr 8th

Joe Satriani is kicking off the new year with a new album called The Elephants of Mars, set for release on April 8th via a new partnership with earMUSIC. The guitarist’s 19th studio album will be available on limited CD featuring seven double sided cards of original artwork by Satriani representing each song from the album. In addition, several colored vinyl options will be available, including standard black, orange, pink and a special purple version sold through Guitar Center only. The album’s first single, “Sahara,” is available now with a performance video directed by ZZ Satriani.

Satriani had an admirably productive workingman’s holiday, with pandemic forced time away from the road, that ultimately gave him and his touring band, all recording remotely in separate areas of the world during lockdown, the ability to deliver an album length journey that never dulls. The Elephants of Mars crackles with an exciting new energy, briskly traveling through stylistic roads that feel freshly updated, viewed through new eyes.

The guitarist challenged himself to create a “new standard” for instrumental guitar albums to be measured against, one which would work from “a new platform of his own design,” as he terms it. “I want to show people that an instrumental guitar album can contain far more creative and entertaining elements than I think people are using right now.”

From the gripping, sci-fi madness of “Through A Mother’s Day Darkly,” to the isolation felt in a decaying urban landscape, as depicted in first single “Sahara,” to the general endorphin levels that peak as the elephants finally roar in the title track, The Elephants of Mars will stampede across your mind, leaving a sonic imprint that doesn’t fade.

In 2020 with all time constraints removed, the album truly represents the album that Satriani himself hoped he could deliver with his band. “We did everything. We tried the craziest ideas. And we entertained every notion we had about turning something backwards, upside down, seeing what could happen.”

  1. Sahara
  2. The Elephants of Mars
  3. Faceless
  4. Blue Foot Groovy
  5. Tension and Release
  6. Selling the Seas of Ganymede
  7. Doors of Perception
  8. E 104th St NYC
  9. Pumpin’
  10. Dance of the Spores
  11. Night Scene
  12. Through a Mother’s Day Darkly
  13. 22 Memory Lane
  14. Desolation

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com