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To remind us of the good old days when the Shrapnel shredders were ruling the instrumental hardrock scene, the American guitarist Rusty Cooley releases his shredfest upon the earth. Guitarplayers like Jason Becker, Tony MacAlpine and Vinnie Moore to name a few got worldwide recognition through the Shrapnel Record label. Besides this solo endeavour Rusty Cooley managed to cooperate in a few projects like A Tribute To Jason Becker, Book Of Reflections and Shawn Lane Remembered. Rusty is also working with his band Outworld on a new release later out this year.
I think that when you mix the guitarplaying from the people mentioned above you get a glimpse of what to expect. The songs on this record are written between 1998 and 2002 so most of the material is solid enough to stand the test of time. Although it’s a shredfest without boundaries you will notice that the basis is song orientated and no mindless riff connecting attempt. Maybe that’s why Rusty decided to put two songs as instrumental and as a bonustrack the same songs with vocals (Dominion and The Butcher) on this cd. The synthetic sound of the drumcomputer is bad because you can actually hear it’s from a soundbox. Next time please use a better one or a real drummer. The heavy songs and the speedsolo’s from Rusty are a good compensation for the lack of a decent drumsound so it’s not a real problem. Some people will get scared by the ammount of continues shredding and I must confess you get the feeling of saturation sometimes so a little more dynamics next time would be appreciated.
This last sentence is of course blasphemy for the real guitarfreak but every guitar minded metalfan must allow himself to hear this tribute to the instrumental heavy metal years.
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