Magic is a recent effort from German guitar wiz Axel Rudi Pell, and it's a good one! This album also features the rippin' vocals of former Yngwie (aka GOD) Malmsteen's frontman Jeff Scott Soto, who, like good wine, seems to only get better with time. Magic is Pell's strongest, most orchestrated and musically diverse album yet, and that's a really good thing. Throughout his career, he's suffered from being discarded as a Malmsteen clone, and although you still hear the Malmsteen and Blackmore influences (a fact that he proudly displays in his liner notes) in his playing, he's developed his own style, while managing to evolve as a guitar player and songwriter somewhere along the way.

The album opens with the classically influenced and tremendously orchestrated "Swamp Castle Overture," which leads you right into the fist-bashing anthem "Nightmare." Filled with heavy guitar riffs and soaring, over the top soloing, this track gets you ready to receive Pell's full guitar assault. Tracks like "Playing With Fire," "Prisoners Of The Sea," follow that realm, but it's on the fiery "Light In The Sky" that Pell disintegrates your skull! Not to mention Soto's glass-shattering screams.

The cool thing about Magic is that it's like two different albums in one. There's the FIST IN THE AIR KICK YOUR MOTHER-F-IN' ASS side which I just described, and then there's the epic, classically-influenced side. This is where Pell's true brilliance shows. From the Zeppelin (specifically Kashmir) influenced title track, to the melodically diverse epic "The Clown is Dead" (MetalGod's Pick), the orchestration and virtuosity show. It's a pleasure to listen to it. Closing this album is "The Eyes of The Lost," a beautiful song with a melody that is reminiscent of early Malmsteen with hints of Uli Roth. Guitar fans should be listening, for this is Pell's Magnum Opus!!

-MetalGod

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