A masterpiece through the ages. The great, the unique, the invincible, the eternal.

It transports us into a magical musical world, or malmsteen alone knows the secret.
A pure jewelry !

Amazing.

From a technical standpoint this is the perfect guitar work I've ever encountered so far in metal. It is just mind blowing.

In some way I can see the appeal in this kind of music, but this particular album's music just doesn't cut it for me. I heard this album the first time many years ago and I was asking - and still am- that what is the point? To showcase some technical mastery and neglect other aspects in songwriting? Well, appreciate it if you can, me I can only find some meaning in 'Now Your Ships Are Burned' and 'As Above, So Below' because it seems the songs with added vocals had a needed positive effect. A wise man (Lao Tzu) once said: "The great way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths." To me it appears that Yngwie is a side path man...

My slant - a Freudian style explanation, if you will - is that Yngster displaced his dingus with a guitar, and consequently, instead of choking his chicken, an innocent Fender StratoCaster was the object of wankery

This is such a great album, Yngwie had very weak and thin guitar tone around this time but otherwise everything is here. I feel like the maestro himself was still careful enough to include some actual music and composition here instead of just shredding mindlessly all day, it might not be always that clear, but it's there. Yngwie studied baroque music in his youth and applies it here, like that's the whole point of "neoclassical" metal. Studying the songs more closely reveals lots of funny sounding soloing ideas for anyone patient enough to learn them, they're mostly not as difficult as they might sound.

Written by Metal Rasputin on 13.07.2021 at 20:06

This is such a great album, Yngwie had very weak and thin guitar tone around this time but otherwise everything is here.

I agree, the mixing of the guitar is not perfect here. But technically this album is brilliant, and I think guitar techniques is not overdone here, since the songwriting in total is quite balanced and really good.

Really cool debut. It's rare for a (mostly) instrumental album to be this memorable and fun all the way through. I'm even tempted to put a 9, maybe next time I revisit the album.