Album length: 59:15
Production: Tony MacAlpine
Label Sun Dog Records
Release date: April 21, 2015
Rating: 8.5 / 10
“Concrete Gardens” is Tony’s twelfth studio album overall. The musical great, who turns a round 55 at the end of August 2015, strung together solo studio albums practically back to back all through the nineties. Then in 2001 it all ground to a halt. In the meantime he made a good living as a collaborator of Steve Vai and on the G3 project. Fully ten years went by before Tony finally put out a self-titled new studio album in 2011 on the label of Steve Vai’s employer, reviving his solo career. Four years later, “Concrete Gardens” came into the world too.It’s not Jason Becker, it’s not Marty Friedman, it’s not Kiko Louriero or Chris Impellitteri. It’s Tony MacAlpine. Head, beard, the whole package. Tony MacAlpine is an American virtuoso, first a guitarist and keyboardist, but also a composer, arranger and producer. The man is considered one of the most unique bridges between classical music and metal shredding!
Tony invited drummer Aquilles Priester (Primal Fiear, ex-Angra) to join in, but otherwise he played pretty much everything else himself, except for the bass guitars, where he got help from three additional bassists. Just under an hour of music is a launch straight into a full-on guitar fantasy, flying on the wings of top-notch wizardry with the guitar bible and masterful command of the language of six-, seven- and even eight-string theory.
For all the spiky, bristling attitude left behind by the “post-thrashy shredding” of his guitar phrasing, the album has an exceptional liveliness and a real live-show feel. With a great split among the three basic building blocks, guitar, bass and drums, it fills out and uses the whole sonic spectrum effectively. Even though the album’s core language of musical expression is the guitar, there’s plenty of room in the story for Priester to stretch out big time on the drums. The way he loosens up and shakes out the guitar phrases with witty, layered forms, through his drum passages, is flat-out stunning. No wonder he made the short list of candidates to replace Mike Portnoy at the Dream Theater auditions. And of course the album also includes a ton of relentless double-bass-drum pounding, which goes hand in hand with its general metal vibe.
As is usual with Tony MacAlpine, “Concrete Gardens” is seriously weighed down with classicism. At times so many notes get fired off per unit of time that your ears can get saturated, which brings on a feeling that the whole story repeats itself a bit and comes off as monotonous. Still, Tony remains devoted first and foremost to big-time musicality, so the songs of course have head and tail, with fully worked-out lead motifs that take the dominant position despite the constant sieving of the staves with guitar bursts. And so nobody gets the wrong idea that MacAlpine is only a guitar “shredder,” the song Maiden’s Wish is tacked on at the tail end, where Tony shows off outstanding hand skills in classical piano playing. That makes total sense, of course, since we know he’s an academically trained pianist. Treats like this were a staple of most of his early records. And not everything on the album is subordinated to sheer speed and flexing muscles. There are also moments played at a slower tempo, where the guitarist’s superb feel for melodic compactness really shines, along with his knack for dosing out just the right amount of notes and arranging them just so (Poison Cookies).
As a whole, the album also has a rich crop of moments that lean experimental, and Tony takes diligent care that the songs don’t fall apart in their motifs because of it. That’s why they keep a lot of compactness. One of the most successful examples in this direction is Square Circles, where Tony is joined by special guest, the outstanding guitarist Jeff Loomis (Arch Enemy, ex-Nevermore). The album also gets distinctly dark a few times, like the songs Man in a Metal Cage and, near the end, Red Giant. Both are built on a mid-tempo but venomously rolling beat, driven by Priester’s double bass drum pedal.
“Concrete Gardens” is the album true Tony MacAlpine fans can only wish for. It’s a fresh wet dream for everyone who loves boundless guitar slicing and top-shelf virtuosity, dosed with a hefty helping of musicality that binds the album’s body together and holds it up.
words by: Aleš Podbrežnik
track list:
01. Exhibitionist Blvd. (4:28)
02. The King’s Rhapsody (4:45)
03. Man In A Metal Cage (4:20)
04. Poison Cookies (5:06)
05. Epic (5:00)
06. Napoleon’s Puppet (5:13)
07. Sierra Morena (4:52)
08. Square Circles (5:12)
09. Red Giant (5:10)
10. Confessions of a Medieval Monument (5:43)
11. Concrete Gardens (5:03)
12. Maiden’s Wish (4:19)
lineup:
Tony MacAlpine – guitar, keyboards, bass guitar
guest musicians:
Aquilles Priester – drums
Jeff Loomis – guitar on track no. 8 (left channel)
Pete Griffin – bass guitar on tracks no. 1, 4, 6, 7, 8
Lucky Islam – bass guitar on track no. 9
Sean Delson – bass guitar on track no. 11
