If variety be the spice of life, then play on. Brooklyn, NY-based guitarist Alex Skolnick echoes that in spades the 2025 release of Prove You’re Not A Robot by the Alex Skolnick Trio. Free form jazz merges with Steve Howe influenced guitar sounds and easy on the ears Hank Marvin style melodic guitar works. Assisting is the rhythm section of Nathan Peck (bass) and Matt Zebroski (drums).

Highlights include the Steve Howe / Chick Corea inspired “Armando’s Mood”, which is actually an electric reworking inclusive of Howe’s most famous short form acoustic guitar work, “Mood For A Day”. Featuring the core music of the Howe track while building a harder shell for the extended 7:46 second version here, it’s a fascinating mashup of sorts. True the song has been plentifully covered over the years in its original acoustic guitar intent, yet Skolnick and company toughen it up giving it a vibrant, fresh edge adding fresh imaginations.

The album picks up with the sentimental etchings of “The Polish Goodbye” and the Euro-tinged electro-fusion of “Parallel Universe”. In his extensive liner notes, Skolnick goes off on the Prove You’re Not A Robot ethos permeating our 21^st century culture which means programmed humans being forced to prove a double entendre. In an era where technology supersedes content and intention, the Alex Skolnick Trio go back to the roots of electric / eclectic progressive jazz-rock fusion and comes up aces.