FREAK GUITAR - THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

Sub-genre: Extreme/Technical Metal (loose fit)
For Fans of: Steve Vai, Zappa, Spastic Ink, New and unusual ways to abuse a guitar
Vocal Style: Instrumental except one song
Guitar Style: Primarily very warm Hard Rock to Metal tube distortion. Clean breaks with no effects beyond wah pedal. Eklundh uses tons of whammy and slides in conjunction with harmonics for solos. He also does some rather unique percussive things with his guitar.
Keyboard Style: Few and far between, 80's mono sound used in Fletch theme cover and occasional bass.
Percussion Style: Straight forward rock set, occasional programming, guitar beating, and..beatboxing (mouth drumming)
Bass Style: Picked, occasional synthed
Other Instruments: Horns in one song, Epson Printer, "Gorf" video game, weather, crowd noise

Summary: Guitarists, especially those considered metal guitarists have been doing solo album ad nauseum for years. Very few set themselves apart, the usual is to span 40-45 minutes with 9 or 10 songs of very basic verse chorus verse chorus bridge/solo verse chorus structure. Mattias IA Eklundh is not one of those guys. 23 pieces in nearly one hour of music. Here and there we hear the familiar structure, but Eklundh strays from the conventional early and often. Even the seemingly simple becomes exciting. Everything in life is musical to him. Even the tedious start up sequence of a desktop printer has a rhythm that fits Mr. Eklundh's twisted designs. He keeps few secrets either. The liner notes explain in detail the method and madness to each of his compositions on "The Road Less traveled". Odes to other musicians, family, video games and perhaps the must technically insane cover of "Smoke on the Water" grace the album. The motif is usually light hearted and comical with occasional spurts of seriousness. There seems to be considerable effort to maintain flow and not let his technical genius become overbearing.

Final Score: Brilliant work, a worthy addition to any progressive collection. Short of being a masterpiece though, 4 stars.

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