Earlier this year, Steve Vai released Inviolate, his new studio album on Favored Nations/Mascot Label Group. In many ways, it’s a reactionary album to the pandemic in that it was both and approached differently than any of his previous releases. Over 40 years as a composer, Vai has routinely delivered incredulous guitar stylings with a panache for providing mind-bending compositions, with an end effect suggesting anyone can do what he does. If you were to ask 20 people to name the best living guitarists on the planet, there’s a good chance Vai would wind up on all 20 of those lists. His technicality as a player is already the stuff of legend. Inviolate features the lead track “Teeth of the Hydra,” a composition Vai wrote and recorded with a one-of-a-kind custom triple-necked guitar he coin...