Listener Reviews & Comments While there are some great improvisations and compositions, why did Holdsworth who possesses one of the most distinctive and beautiful guitar tones in jazz choose to make his guitar sound like a cheesy '80's era synthesizer? I suppose for 1986 the synthaxe (essentially a guitar shaped synth trigger) was the very apex of technology, but today it sounds badly dated and gimmicky, yuck. There is some beautiful playing on this album and not every solo is a synthaxe adulterated one, thank god. Atavachron isn't really a bad album as far as the compositions and playing are concerned. But there's little warmth due to the dated sounding and mechanically cold synthesizers, not to mention Chad Wakerman's incredibly annoying and also badly dated electronic drums. If you're new to Allan Holdsworth don't start here.