Track Listing
1. Raise Hell
2. Prelude to Madness
3. Concentration Camp
4. City of the Dead

Some progressive metal bands take the easy way out of their guitar work by playing, essentially, power metal songs with some odd timing and little scale flourishes tacked on the end of the leads. Boring! Give me some prog that's fierce with its attitude and its riffs.

Rusty Cooley is a guitar playing alien for another planet. Seriously, Outworld is in dimension Shreddus Extraordinous where time runs at different speeds and somehow he ended up on Earth.

Taking their name from the Mortal Kombat franchise, Rusty joined with Kelly Carpenter, his previous bandmate from the band Dominion, to reform Outworld as an outlet for his creativity and metal yearnings. Rusty lets you know from the start that you're dealing with a different level of guitar player--the shredder. Dare you cut heads with this guy because when he picks up the pace, the rest of you wannabes might as well just take a couple steps back to avoid the flashburns. His seven-string work is on an amazing level and thankfully, he knows that a good, solid riff will carry a song more so than a speedy lick.

Their 4-song demo is expectedly chaotic, a mess to anybody not claiming to have prog leanings. "Raise Hell" opens with a fantastic staccato riff that descends into nightmarish moments of Kelly wailing like he's careening off a high building with nothing left but his last breath. The second number, "Prelude to Madness", is an instrumental combining Yngie Malmsteen fretwork with Savatage piano runs. One could almost see it as a Chris Olivia (RIP) tribute piece. "Concentration Camp", clocking in at around 10 minutes, is the longest with movements that shift with various feelings from moodiness to calm to outright panic complete with jackboots a-stomping and Hitler soundbytes. "City of the Dead" is probably the only number structured and played close to a single with the guitar work more laidback and supportive.

The rest of the band members?--certainly, they're excellent musicians or they probably wouldn't be able to keep company with Rusty's skills. Mind you, there's no riffs that will transcend into the mass audience like "Crazy Train", but for metalheads that that are looking for a challenging listen, Outworld should provide.

Bottom Line: ...arpeggio, legato, modes, phrases...shred metal meets prog.

Score: 8.0 of 10

Note: If you are so inclined, go to Rusty's site (http://www.rustycooley.com) and download a couple of his solo movies. Watching him is like watching an action movie and thinking you can jump off buildings and beat up roomfuls of people. Then you pick up your guitar and get reality checked by your own crappy playing.

--Nailer 06.08.04