PREMONITION

The music of Tony MacAlpine seemed intriguing enough to me to be tried out at least once as I read a few interesting reviews about it recently. I decided to go for "Premonition" for the simple reason that the song titles seemed promising and diversified to me. I'm really interested in exotic cultures, world history and classic music and titles like "Winter In Osaka", "The Czar" or "The Violin Song" woke a glimmer of hope and interest in me.

Well, you see me pretty much disappointed as the album doesn't hold what it seems to promise. There are no violin parts, no exotic folk sounds, and no historical elements. This album is just a random happy metal shred record filled with overwhelming riff masturbation. MacAlpine is surely a gifted player but he has no vision, no concept and not quite a diversity of emotions to share with us. After a few songs, he repeats himself and the album gets quite boring and only convinces as solid background music or for the guitar players out in the world that want to learn something from this gifted musician. Technically, this album is interesting but practically, it's forgettable. Anybody else won't be attracted by this album. A few memorable melodies and well made solos can't save much in here as the same patterns are repeated in an exhaustive way.

Even the solo albums of Timo Tolkki are more entertaining as they are at least more experimental. Another reviewer said that this album has fewer experiments and goes back to the basics. Well, it goes too much back to basic boredom and I should have probably checked out a different album from Tony MacAlpine first but let me tell you that my first experience didn't charm me enough to waste more time and attention on this. A good regular album of progressive, neoclassical or power metal will do a better job than this mediocre effort.

Originally published on www.metal-archives.com on October 5th of the year 2011.