Marty Friedman has always been a guitarist with a huge personality. From his first appearance beside Jason Becker in Cacophony, his brief solo period marked by the fantastic "Dragon's Kiss", and then his excellent era as Megadeth's guitarist -during which we saw some almost new age releases-, he has characterized himself by his use of the most exotic scales and rhythms.

Now, after having left his place in Megadeth to Al Pitrelli, he has released another solo album that has personally surprised me a lot, and not because of the exoticism of his scales, that continue to be Marty's "trademark", but because of the hardness of some songs -the record's title isn't casual-; a hardness that should be understood within the context of a guitar genius like Mr. Friedman. However, this is not the record's only curious feature. Another striking characteristic is the sort of guitar-based-techno-metal that he plays in songs like "Cheer girl rampage", which actually sounds like the soundtrack to some PlayStation game. Don't be afraid: if techno had any reason to exist, it would be like Marty Friedman plays it (or Jeff Beck, or Joe Satriani, ... it looks like the electronic thing is the trend nowadays among six string demons). As soon as you listen to the speed at which he fires his scales, you forget that you could be in a Valencian disco where they serve more water than anything else (!).

In other words, Marty has taken his exotic scales, mixed them with Megadeth hardness and added a bit of Tekken 3. It may be difficult at first, but in the end the effort of listening to the record a second time opens up the gateway to never putting it back in its box.

Fausto
Translation: Fausto Navarro http://faustonavarro.com