YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN "Spellbound"

Many things have been said about the swedish guitarhero from Stockholm, Sweden. One of them is that he hasn´t come up with interesting songs since the late eighties with a few exceptions. Almost everyone compares his later stuff to the classic ones he released when he was young, naive and full of "world domination dreams". People also say that he´s is just re-using the riffs and chromatic scales he´s always played. But if we just look at this record for what it is. Neo-classical rock/metal with a huge amount of the so called shredding included, it is a quite solid record. I am not a world class guitarplayer myself, but I can keep up and play ok, but I have learnt to hear if somebody knows what they´re doing. And even if Yngwie´s ego is larger than life and he is a very difficult person to deal with, he´s a monster on his instrument. Some say he´s just supertechnical but has no "feeling" when he plays. On this record he plays a  few different styles. Some songs include blues, and some pieces sound a bit spanish influenced, which he plays very well and he also (of course) plays fast just to make all the shredders out there jelous. Otherwise it´s that neoclassical stuff he often does with powermetal added to the mix, not very innovative but it fulfills its purpose. The only thing that I dislike on this record is the vocals. Yngwie has changed vocalists almost his entire career, and this time he handles the vocals himself. He just sings on three songs, but I don´t know what´s the point of not hiring anyone else, ´cause Yngwie has a voice that is quite boring, not very much of a rock/metal vocalist. Maybe there were trouble with hiring other vocalists due to Yngwie´s temper or something else we don´t know. I think this is why we either hate him or love him. He is a genius, and there´s a very thin line between a genius and a madman. The untamed genius of the axe has released another album, and he will continue until he turns 80 or something. If we exclude the vocals, this record is really great. The guitarplaying is painfully well done.
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7,5/10