Band:	Rusty Cooley
Album:	Rusty Cooley
Style:	Instrumental, Shred, Heavy metal, Power metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	September 12, 2008
A review by:	Raiden

01. Under The Influence
02. The Butcher
03. Dark Matter
04. Dominion
05. E.B.E.
06. Hillbilly Militia
07. Jazzmine's Song
08. War Of The Angels
09. The Duel
10. Piece Of Mind
+ Guitar Lessons
+ Tablature

Style: Heavy Metal
Country: USA
Label: Lion Music
Length: 53:19
Recorded: 2008

Line-up:
Rusty Cooley - guitars


Those of you out there that like ultra-technical guitar solos are in for a treat with this solo album from Outworld guitarist Rusty Cooley. What you will hear throughout will be fully focused virtuosic guitar playing from the elite shredder. This self-titled album was originally released in 2003, but is getting a re-mastering job for a re-release in 2008; this time featuring a bonus DVD with guitar lessons among things. But as we all know mindless guitar jamming doesn't make the perfect album, so let's see what else Rusty has to offer.

From the first couple songs you do get the feeling that the whole album is going to turn into one 55 minute long over the top guitar solo. Straight away you can tell that Rusty is an excellent guitarist though. He just flies up and down his fret board. From the sounds of it, his guitar is more familiar to him than the back of his hand. He seamlessly flows from note to note at incredible speeds. This self-titled album, as you'd expect would be obvious, has the guitar as the primary standout instrument. But this is also the case in the sense that there are no vocals. The guitar has to do all the work with making each song a solid composition. There are drums that provide a nice foundation too but the guitar is really the lead instrument.

Most of the tracks on this album contain a high percentage of random non-repeating solos but Rusty has done pretty well to squeeze some structure in his songs too. Sometimes you get groups of the same pattern with a nice falling feel as he slowly moves down the fret board. If the whole album was just one long fiddling guitar solo it would get pretty boring pretty quickly so I was glad that I started to hear some structure as I got through listening to this album.

If you're a fan of highly technical guitar work then look no further because Rusty Cooley is one of the world's best guitarists. This album is worth checking out just to hear what a guitar master sounds like. A lot of it is all in the same vein and some might find its entire 55 minutes to be a bit much but it's all interesting.