Label: Sun Dog Records
Release year: 2017
Production: Tony MacAlpine
Album length: 30.04
Genre: art rock / guitar rock
Tony MacAlpine is yet another one of those guitar heroes who went solo by putting the guitar at the center of their musical universe and vocabulary, and over the years has spoiled especially the more demanding music fans, or let’s just call it guitar rock fans (in his case you can say guitar metal too), with wild tricks and top-notch guitar virtuosity that never loses its red thread or its sense of inspiration.
Before this new album came together, Tony went through a grueling health ordeal: he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the situation was very serious. Just when he had announced that things were under control, he had to go back for a second round of chemotherapy. But clearly his willpower and strength, and his body too, withstood the brutal test. So the man has come back to himself, chased off the evil spirits, and the new album is also an “imprint” of the times he’s lived through over the past two years.
From “concrete gardens” to “chrome castles” – that’s one way to describe the step Tony took between the previous “Concrete Gardens” and the new album. The new album is tailor-made for all fans of his playing who have followed him faithfully ever since his outstanding debut “Edge Of Insanity”.
The man sticks to his signature musical premise with the new album, too. As always, what jumps out most is his mastery of the guitar-exposé craft and his classical polish. The album is once again soaked in neoclassical guitar finesse, and once again he keeps us hooked without a break from the first second to the last. He’s backed every motif with hefty guitar riffs and the occasional “shredding” excursion, so this album, too, is mostly full of direct sharpness, with decidedly pouty phrasing, decked out with charging distortion that guarantees the record’s concrete, all-around metallization. In his soloing, Tony of course also wanders off into jazz territory, which he fuses masterfully and with incredible sensuality into the otherwise “schoolbook literature of classical music”. At times Tony can also be deliberately chaotic, which is no longer news for him but a trademark, and once again he steers it so skillfully that the listener often has no idea which direction a given track on the album will take. That’s the element of unpredictability he strengthened in his work especially during his apprenticeship years hanging out with Steve Vai, who is otherwise famous for his occasional excursions into the irrevocable “weirdness” of guitar playing.
Tony once again played the keyboards and guitar himself, and also took care of the programming. The bombastic and explosive rhythmic kinetics of the album come courtesy of Hungarian drummer Gergő Borlai (Scott Henderson, Gary Willis, Hiram Bullock) and bassist Pete Griffin (Generation Axe Tour, Giraffe Tongue Orchestra, Zappa Plays Zappa). They’re extremely seasoned, versatile musicians whose cunning skills convinced Tony to offer them a spot on the album!
Individual motifs, which the unbreakable shredder Tony again played on seven- and eight-string guitar “paddles”, he’s backed, as usual, with artful keyboard work, or placed them in a spot within the composition that matters for building the mood, especially in the openings of tracks. MacAlpine plays with such unfathomable zeal again, as if he were only just about to release his first album. And that’s the essence of the whole thing. That great heart and fire in his approach to everything he takes on. Let’s hope the road brings the man to European stages and that he manages to present this exceptionally beautiful new studio album to a European audience. That’s the least the newly composed material deserves.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
1. Chrome Castles
2. Electric Illusionist
3. Synthetic Serenity
4 Death of Roses
5. Axiomatic Jewels
6. Entropy
7. Shundor Prithibi
Lineup:
Tony MacAlpine – guitar, keyboards, programming
Pete Griffin – bass guitar
Gergő Borlai – drums
