Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force - Alchemy

1. Blitzkreig
2. Leonardo
3. Playing With Fire
4. Stand (The)
5. Wield My Sword
6. Blue
7. Legion Of The Damned
8. Deamon Dance (7,105,726)
9. Hanger 18, Area 51
10. Voodoo Nights
11. Asylum
    

Album Cover:

Total Playing Time: 68:17 m:s

Review date: 08/02/2000

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Opening track, "Blitzkrieg", starts the album off in typical neo-classical style with Yngwie's guitar emulating a violin as he races up and down the fretboard for this instrumental. Vocalist Mark Boals first sees action after the Gregorian chant which starts off "Leonardo" dies away. Mark's style of singing is in the higher registers which suits this style of music. From this point onward it is really a case of a neo-classical hard rock assault on your senses with Yngwie taking every possible opportunity to display his undoubted guitar skills. Mark Boals and the rest of the band do an excellent job of providing the necessary background, but there is no doubting the star of the show. There isn't a great deal of variety on display and the pace never really drops below frantic. Stuck in the middle of this is an instrumental called "Blue" which has a more sensible pace and which interjects a sense of melody to proceedings. The culmination of all activity is the instrumental final track, "Asylum", which ranges from a reckless display of fretboard racing at the start, through some slower classical guitar to the suitably dramatic ending where Yngwie is off on a speed mission again.

I'm sure existing Yngwie fans will love it, but the faint hearted or casual listener will find this fairly inaccessible. I'm left thinking that maybe that covers album he did a while ago would have been better introduction to his work for me.