When it comes to female electric guitar players Jennifer Batten without doubt has the honour of having the highest profile of them all. She first burst onto the scene during the 80’s when she showed herself to be a master of the two handed tapping technique made popular by Eddie Van Halen. There are many who will never forget the first time Batten’s version of “Flight Of The Bumble Bee” was aired and guitar magazines picked up on her undeniable talent and she was often to be found in magazines like Guitar Player and Guitar For The Practicing Musician where she submitted many tutorial columns. To top all that Michael Jackson secured Batten's talents for his touring band and more recently Jeff Beck employed Batten's unique playing in his band.

When you consider such a career it comes as a surprise to find that, so far, she's actually only released two solo albums, 1992's “Above, Below And Beyond” followed by 1997's “Momentum”. Well here in 2008 Batten has finally gotten round to releasing the third album entitled “Whatever”. Released for sale as a twin pack featuring an audio CD and also DVD the review copy only features the CD portion of the set, described by Batten herself as “guitaronica” which allegedly implies a mixture of high tech’ mixed with guitar. I guess if I had to be frank though whatever she was trying to achieve here it's passed me by somewhat.

As an album Whatever features state of the art recording and production, oodles of guitar sounds and tones and, in fact, is a veritable chocolate box of sonic effects and styles. However some of the music is just too wacky and way out to be a rewarding or fun listen. Take “Inner Journey”  for example, a track which Batten describes as the albums comic highlight. In reality it's a musical journey through the various digestive tracts of the body using burps, farty noises and grunts that doesn't really make any musical impact at all, sure  it features some awesome chops but in the context of the song they simply become pointless.

Ok there are some good moments here, “Ricochet” has a great energy to it thanks to the way the guitars dip in and out of the rhythms and the title track has some very Jeff Beck like phrases and guitar sounds but ends too soon and  the acoustic nature of Fearless, with the spirit of Michael Hedges running throughout, is a definite highlights sounding spontaneous but, in general, it's all a bit underwhelming. Maybe the music stands up better when put alongside the video element and perhaps then things will have more impact but without the benefit of the video Whatever will sit alongside Steve Vai’s “Flexable” and “Flexable leftovers” as an album of superb guitar but slightly too wacky and crazy for everyday consumption. My advice would be to take a trip over to Batten’s website and have a listen to samples and if you like what you hear take the plunge. What hasn’t worked for me may work for you..