Description

Black vinyl with insert. Limited 444 numbered copies

Veteran neo-classical six-string magician Chris Impellitteri is one of those rare guitar heroes capable of restraint when he sets his mind to it — no mean feat in a category virtually defined by noodling excess. Indeed, his attention to actual songcraft, as opposed to the flurry of notes contained in that small portion of music called the solo, is refreshing and inspiring, and leave one pining for the good old days of Gary Moore’s metallic period, or even Malmsteen himself before he ran out of song ideas. Anyway, as hinted at in the title, Pedal To The Metal finds Impellitteri’s eponymous band tackling numerous heavy metal subgenres — not just his neo-classical specialty, of which the only clear examples here are the power metal-leaning The Writing On The Wall and the excellent Destruction, which is an obvious knock-off of Malmsteen’s I’ll See The Light Tonight, but a good one, at that. Older metalheads with a strong knowledge of genre history will probably find this album a bit too obviously derivative from other sources, but younger listeners carrying no baggage may think it brilliant for its variety of scope.

Track list:
1. The Writings On The Wall
2. Crushing Daze
3. Destruction
4. Dance With The Devil
5. Hurricane
6. Judgement Day
7. The Iceman Cometh
8. Punk
9. Propaganda Mind
10. Stay Tonight
11. The Fall Of Titus