Yngwie J. Malmsteen – Spellbound

Once a great composer, a revolutionary musician and a bright spark of inspiration, young Yngwie J. Malmsteen managed to shock all the world and especially the United States of America with his music. It has been almost three decades since his first albums with “Steeler” and “Alcatrazz“. Soon enough, his talent could no longer fit any band and he finally set to create his own band, Rising Force. Amazing music, creative riffs, unforgettable solos and some of the best singers passed through his previous seventeen albums. I don’t know why but such things exist no longer and it’s a shame and pity that it’s likely the end of an era.

I am in the very unpleasant position to tell you that our former guitar hero seems to have left himself out of ideas, out of motive and out of something new in his music. It doesn’t seem to mind that much if you follow his long year career, as many claim he keeps on playing the same things over and over again, some others may tell you that even his riffs sound like solos and he only hires musicians to keep him energetic and into the spur of a possible momentary attraction of the crowd. What is really true or lie on all these? And why does Yngwie leave himself so exposed to all his fans and his possible enemies?

The truth lies somewhere between the evolution of music in general and his egoistic twisted mind and behaviour all these years. You can never convince a perfectionist that he’s doing things wrong because he’ll always find a way to prove you wrong even if you are not. If you tell him that it can’t get any further, he’ll claim bluffing that everyone tries to become a new Yngwie Malmsteen (sometimes though he’s very correct in this point of view). The first signs of Yngwie’s decay started showing after the release of the great albums ”Attack!” and ”Unleash The Fury” with Doogie White on vocals.

He managed to get a wild card in his band, Tim ”Ripper” Owens, whom he didn’t help with his compositions in the two albums he participated and unfortunately Tim left the band, Yngwie has taken over the vocals, the bass and the guitars in this recording. He did it all himself and if you don’t work as a team, then you shall be on your own. Sometimes his partners would save him with their skills ans performances but not anymore, as he completely screwed my ears with this latest lame album he releases, called ”Spellbound”. It’s what we can call ”I don’t pull a spell on you, even if you ARE mine”. Bollocks!

Repeated ideas, lame vocals, thick and cold production which leaves no room for second thought and raises the hatchet of burial way up in the sky, yes my former hero, this time you managed to make even me, one of your most die-hard fans get angry with your bullshit and ego. If this is the way you wanna treat your music it’s ok, if you have no respect for your 30 years of glory, it’s still ok. But you can’t treat your fans like rubbish and your musicians that helped you in the past like hollow existences. I won’t even get in the procedure to analyse this album. Just a hint: AVOID listening to it in order to keep liking him still.