Impellitteri - Eye Of The Hurricane

*=Staff's pick	Eye of the Hurricane* Shed your Blood* Fuel for the Fire Race into the Light* Bleed in Silence Master of Disguise On and On* Everything is You Kingdom Fighter* Halloween Paradise Warrior Fly Away* Glory Hold the Line Victim of the System

Genre	Heavy Metal	Rob Rock	Vocals
Tracks	16	Chris Impellitteri	Guitar
Runningtime	62 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	JVC	James Amelio Pulli	Bass
Release	13 Oct.1998	Ken Mary	Drums
Country	USA	Edward Harris Roth	Keyboards
Similar artists	Axel Rudi Pell

This is very basic - it's down-to-the-roots hard rock/heavy metal. But I can never drop the feeling when listening to an album with Impllitteri, that it is something about them that makes the difference from another albums from groups in this genre. Even though it's american, and you still can hear that very vividly, their sound has a lot of german metal in it. We get the usual fastpaced songs when it comes to Impellitteri, with killer refrains, the 1-2 excellent instrumental tracks and the well-written lyrics sung with excellent vocals on this release too. It is very well done, with focus mainly on strong choruses, and - of course: Chris' guitars....

Chris Impellitteri is a guitarist that will end up somewhere in the toparea, if someone finally decided to make an ultimate list of stringbenders through time. He is often seen on covers of leading guitaristmagazines, and are beeing mentioned in the same sentences as John Petrucci, Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen.

This album offers us a very strong set of songs, and that includes the re-release of the 1993 mini-cd Victim of the System. It starts off with 3 more or less fastpaced songs, followed by a really great instrumental track where Chris take the opportunity to demonstrate the speed and agility that his fingers possess. From there it goes on with songs of high quality in good speed until the closing ballad on the main cd, only interrupted by one of the most beautiful song I have heard in my life - On and On. It's a simple love-ballad with the usual hooks and it sounds like it's made after the standard radiohit-blueprint (which he perhaps have stolen out of Mr.Big's rehearsalroom once?), but I can't help loving it - it just attaches to your brain, and it refuses to go.

I have to say I don't understand why Chris doesn't take more advantage of the fact that he is a highly skilled guitarist than he do. Of course - we get the wirling solos, smart riffs, passages and licks, but - not enough of them. But feels like there are room for so much more in those songs - perhaps that is one of the reasons I feel it is a little thin sometimes.....

The production is fully acceptable - it's clear and well-produced, but it is very thin - very basic, focusing on Chris' guitarvirtousing acts - not much energy in the bassdrums here....but no matter how skilled and enthusiastic the guitarist are, I always think that there are something missing when there are only one of them.

But in all this is a very good album from Impellitteri - he once again serves us high-quality metal. Well done!
You should certainly check this out - and his earlier releases - if you are a fan of wellplayed metal with focus on guitars a' la Axel Rudi Pell for example.

See also review of: Venom , Pedal To The Metal , System X

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	9	9

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Tommy