Adopted by Frank into the Zappa family bands in 1987, Mike Keneally, guitarist and keyboardist, just released his first solo album, hat. Because of that adoption, it is no odd coincidence that hat contains many of the trimmings and base metal grooves familiar to Zappa fans.

hat is twenty-five songs with times ranging from 7 seconds to almost 15 minutes with wacky titles like: "My Immense Superiority Over Silverfish," "Ugly Town," "Johnnie 1-Note / The Exciting New Toothpaste From Mars," or "Day of the Cow." Lyrically, the album never threatens to take itself too seriously.

Musically, Keneally is as serious as an IRS audit. Mixing popish jazz, metal, and funkish rock to form eutectic alloys, his compositions are works of tangled craftsmanship accentuated with razor guitar licks that always ride the edge. With lots of good-natured spoofs, he sings of car lust on "The Car Song," jokes about the vanity of actors on "Eno and The Actor," and closes the album with a tribute to Frank Zappa; "Lightnin Roy."

Beyond abstract and pointing toward the twilight zone, hat is a masterpiece...but not for everyone.

Reviewer:  Tom Elliot, courtesy of Flash Magazine.