Yngwie Malmsteen
Parabellum

When I listen to this album I come to think that scene from Crocodile Dundee when he in the New York hotel refers to having seen TV once and when he turns it on points out that what was on was what he saw that time and turns the TV off. I heard Yngwie once long ago and this album is what I heard. I look upon Yngwie as a caricature of a musician, he is extremely skilled in the craft of playing the guitar but all he can write are dreary neoclassical compositions that sounds the same every time. No alarms and no surprises as Radiohead sang once, one of my favourite songs as the chorus points out what I usually hear when reviewing albums, and especially Yngwie’s albums. I had albums by him once but got rid of them as they were just gathering dust in a box somewhere.

Over half of the songs are instrumental, those songs sound the same, more or less. They are inspired by the classical music, hence the neoclassical term, Paganini is mentioned in the press material and his name change to Johann as well as his son’s name tells us that he is very much inspired by the classic composers of centuries past. Not a bad inspiration, but he is nowhere near the standard of those composers. He sings himself on this album and does so on four of the tracks, those are more towards the standard of the genre – and they sound way better than the instrumental songs that just feels like “look at what I can play but I can’t be bothered to compose coherent songs.” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy complexity in music, progressive ideas and once he probably was an inventor, but now he is old and dull and I can’t really see what this offers that wasn’t on Rising Force or any of the other twenty subsequent albums.

He was better with Alcatrazz, at least they did some excellent songs – I can’t say that I have heard any such quality from anything with Yngwie Malmsteen as the artist’s name. This feels like another dull album with some stunning guitar playing, some decent vocals, strong production, a well-dressed piece of dirt is probably a fitting way to describe it. Sure, the man is a way better composer than I am, but that isn’t much to be proud of, and I don’t think that he is a particularly good composer as his albums are mostly the same and mostly dull. This album feels the same and I find that to be a bit sad considering that I would have liked to know how it would sound if he could stop thinking of showing off and instead focus on composing great songs for his excellent skills – if he did that it would be exciting.

This album works best in the background, it is fine when you are using the vacuum cleaner or the blender. Honestly, this album is best when it is not played at all. And I believe there are more who think the same, I noticed that the vinyl limited to 300 copies are still in stock at the label’s store now a month after release. Does that prove that I am not the only one thinking that if you have heard one album by Yngwie you have heard them all? This album once again proves that to me.

HHHHHHH