Artist: Impellitteri
Label: Metal Heaven
Release: 2009
Running time: 43.02
Rating: 3.5/5
Chris Impellitteri, the venomously fast American guitarist, is back with a new album, “Wicked Maiden”. Right off the bat: Rob Rock has returned to the fold, and to this day he remains the best fit Chris has had among all his singers (not that there were many — really it’s mostly just Graham Bonnet). There are plenty of ideas again, but above all there’s anger, anger, anger… “Wicked Maiden” is a razor-sharp album from head to toe.
The album opens with the title track, which veers into “Painkiller” territory, or into a similar “Halford-esque” solo from his Halford debut “Ressurection”. Chris of course brings his own take on metal, stamped with that old-school speed of American bands from the mid-eighties, which drapes a veil of evil over the album’s dark atmosphere. That’s exactly what the main riff of The Last Of The Dying Breed sounds like, carrying on the opening fury of the new record, while The Weapons Of Mass Destruction, among the first three tracks, feels a shade more deadly thanks to its “thrashed-up” chorus.
Aggressive, even faster, even more all-out. The production itself, the white-hot riffing and the commanding performance of the excellent Rob Rock, who doesn’t slip for a single moment, all convey that feeling. Chris Impellitteri is once again hellish in his solos, and besides the tight engraving of the core motifs and how successfully they’re showcased on the album, these remain a special treat and a chapter of their own, one where all you guitar-hero fans will find plenty of legit reasons to jerk off! Take the track Vision, where Chris once again stuns right at the start with his classical, baroque-style playing. The song then turns into the album’s oddball. In the pre-chorus it’s heavy, wrapped in doomy hard rock, but it comes with a contrasting, possessed metal chorus that’s still incredibly singable. The added keyboards have a deliberately villainous tonal color. A special “curveball” that effectively stirs up the dynamic development of the album is the hard rocker Eyes Of An Angel, with its mild AOR chorus melody. The track is shaped by a deliberately “ugly,” possessed, raw production that will appeal more to hardened metalheads than to rockers. If the first four tracks are pure metal, the second half keeps offering a nice dose of deviation. The track driven by a cunningly twisted rock n’ roll drive is Hi-Scool Revolution. Some “poison glam chicks” from the edge of the late eighties going into the nineties would be happy to hear this on the album. The metallic rolling comes back to life in Wonderfull Life, and evil returns with the wickedly dark Holy Man, whose chorus even carries some of the old-school lines of early Annihilator.
Chris Impellitteri has put out an album just as you’d expect and demand. But it brings nothing new in terms of this musician’s development. The only novelty is the renewed confirmation that, as a guitarist, he works brilliantly with an out-of-the-ordinary vocalist like Rob Rock, which, well, is no longer news. The album has dynamics, variety, and interesting ideas. But Chris has said all of this in the past too. So “Wicked Maiden” is an album that all his devoted fans will enjoy, and anyone who doesn’t know Chris Impellitteri yet will definitely be impressed in a flash by his brilliant guitar playing, with its incinerating fast soloing and all-out riffing. Wicked Maiden is a very good new Impellitteri studio album, but without any standout moments.
Lineup
Rob Rock – vocals
Chris Impellitteri – guitar
James Pulli – bass
Brandon Wild – drums
Production
Chris Impellitteri
Track list
1. Wicked Maiden
2. Last Of A Dying Breed
3. Weapons Of Mass Distortion
4. Garden OP Eden
5. Vision, The
6. Eyes Of An Angel
7. High School Revolution
8. Wonderful Life
9. Holyman
10. The Battle Rages On
