SilentScream213 As far as guitar hero shredders go, Vinnie Moore is probably my favorite. Is he the fastest, most technical, or most flashy? No, none of those things. And even then, this is one of his most subdued albums. For The Maze is not showcasing just Vinnie, the Shredder – it is showcasing Vinnie, the Songwriter.

What sets him apart from most other shredders is his penchant for mood and well-crafted SONGS, not just shred wankery. And this album is perhaps where he delves into evoking scenery and mood with his songs most. There’s something that sounds very… Japanese, about this record in places. The country’s penchant for simple but memorable (and cheesy) melodies focusing on mood always finds its way into anime and game soundtracks, and I feel this could easily be such a soundtrack, especially with its instrumental nature.

Cryptic Dreams is the first slow number, and it masterfully displays long, gentle guitar notes creating very pretty melodies without delving into shred territory really at all. Shimmering picked notes underlay a simple but effective lead that succeeds in evoking a prettier, calmer scenery. Never Been to Barcelona is the token acoustic track and transports you immediately to the scene of some Spanish place, full of culture. It’s my least favorite track, but it’s got great bass work and serves to highlight the eclecticism here.

Rain is the closest moment to what sounds like an old Japanese VN OST – just perfectly encapsulates a rainy night in the city. A quiet city, though – everyone’s gone home, despite the neon lights still reflecting on the wet pavement. But you’re still out, because right now, there isn’t anywhere that feels more “home” than alone in the rain. The last track I’ll highlight is In the Healing Garden. Despite being the big closer, this sounds more akin to after the finale. This isn’t between the hero and the villain – this is a tense will-they-won’t-they between almost lovers, or a suspenseful fissure between friends, comrades. In the end, they each turn away and walk off in opposite directions, but the chance of reconciliation remains hanging in the future.

I’ll never complain about the slower songs here. The issue instead lies with the faster songs; that is, because they aren’t fast or energetic enough. The rhythm section is especially lacking on this album. The drumming is, to say the least, disappointing. It sounds much closer to Rock drumming than Metal. There’s almost no double bass, snare hits are spaced apart with virtually no faster, aggressive beats, and it’s just… kind of boring. This style works fine for the slower songs, but really takes away from faster tracks.

I won’t say it’s my absolute favorite Neoclassical Metal album, hell it’s not even my favorite Vinnie Moore album. But it’s one of the most unique, memorable, and evocative. If you need to feel like you’re in a movie, throw this on and let your imagination run wild.

siLLy puPPy After the unexpected death of Randy Rhoads in a 1982 airplane crash, a sudden void in the world of metal music opened but it wouldn’t take long for a new gold rush to attract the prospects of guitar god status for a whole slew of burgeoning young and inspiring guitarists to become the top dog in the neoclassical shredding game. While Yngwie Malmsteen successful usurped the throne quite quickly in terms of technical playing skills, what most disliked about his approach was that he was fairly soulless in his delivery, a trait that many technical playing musicians have been accused of and in the case of many in the 1980s, quite accurate.

VINNIE MOORE was one of the early shredders who took the whole “keep it emotive” mantra to heart and delivered one of the earliest technical instrumental neoclassical shredding albums on the Shrapnel Records label which was notorious for swooping up young talented guitarists and putting them to work to conjure up the most impressive technical chops they could muster up. Born in New Castle, Delaware in 1964, MOORE was only 22 years old when he released his debut album MIND’S EYE in 1986 which beat classic shredding albums from Jason Becker, Marty Friendman and Cacophany to the punch by a over a year. While the basic premise of these types of albums was basically a musical business card to attract employment from bands and artists looking for the best talent on the market, every once in a while a guitarist proved to be talented enough to actually create an album just as compelling on many levels.

MOORE had that gift of keeping the music interesting and listenable all the while cranking out the most demanding musical scales at breakneck speed that kept ratcheting up the bar for new players seemingly on a monthly basis. Considered one of the best neoclassical shredding albums of all time, MOORE proved to have a talent that artists like Malmsteen didn’t. A sense of exquisite melody, arrangements and dynamics as well as an arsenal of tones that kept the album out of the one-dimensional doldrums that many such artists instantly fell into. A virtual blueprint for what Symphony X would adopt as its primary metal style, MIND’S EYE showcased MOORE’s phenomenal talent as a speed guitarist but proved to be an excellent band album with keyboardist Tony MacAlpine, bassist Andy West and drummer Tommy Aldrige all delivering equally compelling performances with each musician paying attention to the overall dynamics of the musical flow and the melodic construct above all other and only then allowing the blitzkrieg of high octane shredding power to whiz by at unthinkable speeds.

Not only does the album showcase the virtuosic talents of the musicians on board but also delivers a mature, even triumphant feeling of glory and the ability to overcome all obstacles with a brilliant symbolic album cover artistic statement to match. The music which is neoclassical shredding in nature is actually more of an early progressive metal album in terms of composition and perhaps not in the same league as Watchtower in terms of over the top time signature deviations, it’s obvious today how much MOORE influenced Symphony X’s foundation for it’s neoclassical progressive style that propelled that band to the top of the prog metal world in the 1990s. Had MIND’S EYE showcased a talented singer perhaps the album would received the plaudits it deserves but as it stands it’s basically reserved for only those advanced musicians who can comprehend the difficulties of lightning fast arpeggios, string skipping and nanosecond changes that offer a technical control beyond the comprehension of most non-musicians.

I always find it laughable that many who are unable to comprehend this advanced musical style think they can even begin to have the ability to critique such complex and demanding music. True that it was given an accessibility factor as a selling point but the true nature of the album lies below the surface beyond the melodic forefront and the classical sweeps. MIND’S EYE proved to be one of the more popular neoclassical shredding albums of the 80s and even sold over 100,000 copies making MOORE “one of those Malmsteen clones who was much more interesting.” A true rare crossover success story. Personally i absolutely adore this type of music if it’s done with a fitness and accomplishment that extends beyond the mere goal of playing fast however speed is an incredible drug in the metal game especially in the adrenalized 80s long before such things as drone metal and funeral doom metal were even considered. MOORE caught the attention of Alice Cooper and he played on his “Hey Stoopid” album in 1991 and eventually played with both Jordan Rudess as well as the more modern version of UFO. For me this is an outstanding masterpiece of guitar shredding mixed with classic progressive metal.

lukretion My reaction to Malmsteen’s post-1990s albums is almost as predictable as the formula he used to write them. Invariably, I end up concluding that the Swedish guitar wizard has done better elsewhere. Attack!! is no exception, although there are more surprises here than what I was expecting going in. This turns out to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Malmsteen seems to have tried to shake things up a bit across the 15 tracks that form this record, which is never a bad thing. On the other hand, the new directions he experimented with in some of the songs seem somewhat misguided and give the album a fragmented, disjointed feel overall.

In the album’s first-half, Yngwie seems busy attempting to revive the sound and spirit of his glorious past. Fast neoclassical guitar scales abound in the construction of riffs, leads and solos, absolutely dominating the soundscape and instantly bringing to mind the true essence of the genre. Differently from the neoclassical power metal strain that became popular in the 1990s, the spirit of songs like “Valley of Kings”, “Ship of Fools”, or the title-track, is truly rooted in the classic origins of the genre, displaying a hard rock swagger that instantly connects to the music of the 1970s (Deep Purple, Rainbow). Enlisting Doogie White on vocals was a clever move to make that connection even more credible, as the singer does a good job at infusing the polished baroque melodies with some healthy rock ‘n’ roll grit. With the guitar and voice firmly put at the heart of each song, the other musicians are vastly relegated to an inconspicuous sparring partner role, which is mad considering the talents Yngwie managed to enlist here (did he really need Derek Sherinian to play simple chords in a handful of tracks?). But this won’t surprise anyone who is familiar with Malmsteen or who has simply glanced at the endless list of musicians that have transited in his band over the years.

If the album’s first-half flows away pleasantly albeit with a general sense of deja-vu, the second-half is where things start going awry. Here Yngwie attempted to shake things up with a handful of tracks that depart from the usual neoclassical formula, but unfortunately took things in directions that are not particularly convincing. If the detour towards classical instrumental music (“Baroque & Roll”, “Air”) fits well with the album’s overall aesthetics, I cannot say the same about the AOR inflections of “Stronghold” and “Touch the Sky”, or about the straightforward but insipid rock ‘n’ roll vibes of “Mad Dog”. The major offender, however, is “Freedom Isn't Free” a fuzzy blues affair that may nod to Jimi Hendrix, but in a way that would have made the poor man roll over in his grave. The fact that Yngwie decided to sing this song himself with a performance which isn’t exactly for the history books, only adds to the woes of what must be the album’s absolutely lowest point.

The combination of inconsistent direction and lack of quality makes the album’s latter part a chore to sit through and, by the time I get to “Freedom Isn't Free”, I usually press the STOP button because I can’t seem to make myself care about the LP anymore (which is a pity since “Majestic Blue” and “Valhalla” are not bad songs, actually). The shaky sound production isn’t exactly encouraging repeat listens, either. Unsurprisingly, the guitars dominate the soundscape, but they are mixed oddly with the rhythm guitar hard-panned to the right and the bass hard-panned to the left in the stereo mix, giving an odd, disjointed feel to the overall sound. The sudden spikes in volume that occur whenever the lead guitar kicks in contribute to the same unpleasant effect. The drums are also mixed in a strange way, very loud and in your face but with a flat, lifeless sound that at times is actually annoying (the snare in “Attack!!”).

Overall, Attack!! leaves me with the general impression of a less accomplished and less inspired version of the sound Yngwie pioneered in the 1980s, with the further aggravating factor of a highly inconsistent and misguided second-half. For some, Attack!! may still be better than the two albums that immediately preceded it, but we are a long long way from anything that might resemble a reasonable return to form.

SilentScream213 I respect this, and I am glad even Metalheads can appreciate it, but I unfortunately don’t really enjoy it. Also… this is not a Metal album. There is some electric guitar, yes, but the Neoclassical label is a misnomer and likely only attached due to Becker’s past.

What we have instead is a New Age Modern Classical album, full of synthed instruments that still sound a bit cheap, but are composed nicely. I do actually like myself some nice New Age, but only when it is emotionally provocative. This is more like… putting notes together for the sake of it. It doesn’t achieve any nice moods or atmospheres. Which was exactly like his guitar playing, and I wasn’t a fan for the same reason. I like the song Blue, but that’s it.

It's at least consistent in quality, there aren’t any bad tracks per say, it’s just a style that doesn't much appeal to me. Props to its development though.

lukretion After two LPs recorded with different guest musicians, Swedish guitarist Thomas Wolf decided to gather a proper, stable line-up for his neoclassical metal project Stormwind. Joining Wolf on th band’s third full-length, Heaven Can Wait, are singer Thomas Vikström (ex-Candlemass), keyboard player Kaspar Dahlqvist (Treasure Land) and drummer Patrick Johansson (who will shortly afterwards join Yngwie Malmsteen’s band). All three newcomers are first-class musicians, who definitely elevate Wolf’s project to a whole new level compared to the previous instalments of the band. This allowed Wolf to write songs that are more aggressive and technical than the ones he had written for his previous two records, straying away from the melodic neoclassical hard rock sound of those albums and towards a neoclassical power metal style similar to that pursued by Malmsteen around the same time.

With such strong premises, the expectations for Heaven Can Wait are understandably high. Unfortunately, the album falls short in multiple ways. There are two main shortcomings. First, I have the impression that on this record Wolf had not yet found the right songwriting formula to fully exploit the talents of his new line-up. By penning fast, aggressive pieces he may have tried to play to the strengths of Johansson’s ultra-technical drumming, Vikström’s powerful voice, and Dahlqvist’s fluid soloing abilities (in addition to Wolf’s own technical prowess). But, in doing so, he forgot one essential ingredient of neoclassical metal music: strong melodies. There are very few songs, or parts of songs, that are memorable and catchy here. Most of the album flows away anonymously amidst keyboard/guitar solo duels, tons of baroque-sounding riffs and leads, and a lot of other musical tricks that tick all the right boxes of the neoclassical metal style (alternation between mid-tempo pieces and faster songs; tempo halving/doubling between verse and chorus; relentless double-bass drumming), while failing to leave any lasting impression. I also think that Wolf did not yet know how to write for Vikström’s voice. The singer has an expressive tenor voice, with a good range and lots of character. Many of the parts for his voice here force him to use his upper register in a way that comes across as strained, inevitably sacrificing expressivity and character.

But what really kills this album, in my opinion, is the abysmal production. Stormwind have a history of badly produced albums (hint to all guitar heroes out there: it is OK to leave the control knobs to external producers, once in a while, if you are not up to scratch), but I think Heaven Can Wait beats them all hands down. The sound quality of this album is truly demo-like. The instruments do not blend with each other at all, either because they sound very separated in the mix or because they are piled senselessly on top of one another. The voice is way too upfront in the mix, in a way that highlights all the little imperfections in Vikström’s singing. The drums are also too loud and often drown out a lot of the other instruments. Sometimes this is actually a blessing, because Wolf’s rhythm guitar sound is terrible: muddy and raw, this is definitely not what is needed to do justice to his polished, ornate riffing. This reckless production job makes listening to this album a rather painful experience.

Overall, Heaven Can Wait is a disappointing affair. Stormwind’s previous LP Stargate was impressive, not least thanks to the use of a highly skilled female vocalist as lead singer, which is rather unusual for this style of metal. On Heaven Can Wait, Thomas Wolf put together a whole new line-up consisting of top Swedish musicians and went for a more traditional take on the neoclassical genre. The move did not pay off here: Stormwind lost something in terms of originality while at the same time did not realize huge gains in terms of improved performance or songwriting. On the contrary, the songs Wolf wrote for Heaven Can Wait are not nearly as impressive as the first 5/6 tracks that had appeared on Stargate. Add the fact that the new album sounds terrible, and it is hard to recommend Heaven Can Wait to anyone beyond the strictest circle of Stormwind’s hardcore fans and collectors.