YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN — Rising Force (review)

YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN — Rising Force album cover Album · 1984 · Neoclassical metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
SouthSideoftheSky
Far beyond...

Heavily inspired by Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow, Brian May of Queen, Randy Rhoads of Ozzy Osbourne and Steve Hackett of Genesis as well as Classical music composers, in particular violinist Niccolò Paganini, Yngwie Malmsteen created Neo-Classical Metal with this impressive debut. It is useless to comment on Malmsteen's playing skills as they are widely known and rarely contested, but the equally impressive skills of keyboardist Jens Johansson is not often emphasized. The rest of the band consists of Jethro Tull drummer Barriemore Barlow and vocalist Jeff Scott Soto. However, the music on this album is mostly instrumental.

Though heavily skilled on their respective instruments, instrumental skill is not the whole picture. The quality of the compositions is always the most important aspect of any music and while many, if not most, of Malmsteen’s other albums are lacking in that department, not so here. This debut album brings together some of his very best compositions and there is not a moment of thoughtless guitar shredding without melody and structure. All the songs are memorable which is not easy to achieve considering that this is mostly instrumental music.

The guitar and keyboard duels of Yngwie and Jens Johansson are great and while many bands did similar things in the 70’s (Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord in Deep Purple and Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman in Yes, for example), nothing of this intensity and speed had been done before (not to my knowledge, anyway). But these solos are well integrated into the overall compositions and they do not come across as overdone. The use of acoustic guitar, piano and harpsichord gives the music a Classical feel and the arrangements resemble those of Classical Symphonic music, but all in a traditional Metal framework.

This groundbreaking and highly influential album is essential listening! Sadly, Malmsteen would never again make anything as great as this.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 2 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 7 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 7 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed