DYI Yngwie
DID I EVER tell you the story about when I first came to America?” Yngwie Malmsteen asks a few minutes into his conversation with Guitar World. The Swedish neoclassical shred legend is calling from — where else? — his Ferrari (“Sun’s up, top’s down”), and as the wind whips by in the background, he unfolds a tale from his past to illuminate how he approached the insane guitar work that characterizes his new albumParabellum
“I was a little kid, like 18 or 19, and I was new in the country — I spoke English but I didn’t know some of the terminology,” he begins. “And right away I recorded one album with [Los Angeles-by-way-of-Nashville metal band] Steeler. We did it in one day, in a barn. Then right after that, I did the Alcatrazz album [1983’s No Parole from Rock ‘n’ Roll], and we had a producer there. It was really proper. I did a solo, and I’ll never forget it — the producer goes, ‘Oh, yeah, that was really good. Let’s do one more, but a little slower — remember, less is more.’ And I honestly looked at him and went, ‘You mean more is more, right? You made a mistake!’ ”
Malmsteen lets out a laugh, but he’s also deadly serious. “That wasn’t a joke,” he says. “To me, more is more. And that became my thing.”
Indeed it will only serve to further cement the Malmsteen legend, and maybe even nudge it a bit further along. From the unaccompanied shred salvo that kicks off the fierce album opener, “Wolves “ at Presto the Door Vivace ,” to in the C # neoclassical Minor,” the romp majestic note spirals that punctuate the power ballad “Eternal Bliss” to the pummeling rhythms and lightspeed harmonized lines of “Toccata,” and the staccato, flamenco-esque acoustic picking of “(Fight) the Good Fight” to the kitchen-sink six-string indulgences of the eight-minute instrumental closer, “Sea of Tranquility,” the new record is an Yngwie-on-steroids shred extravaganza, and light years away from its predecessor, the bluesy (though, admittedly, still pretty shreddy) .
