Speed Metal Messiah

Never thought I'd be writing a review here, but seeing zero reviews for someone as talented as Joe Stump - I'll give it a try.

In short - Joe Stump, assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, is a shred guy borrowing much from Yngwie, Blackmore (you could have seen that one coming), Roth and company. Still there's much more to him than that. Relying purely on instrumental music (as far as his solo albums go - for stuff with vocals try Reign of terror) his job of being interesting throughout the whole record is harder than that of his idols. Still he manages to pull it out perfectly! I'm no big fan of shredders (and I listened to quite many from Moore, Angelo, Becker, Bellas, Gilbert, MacAlpine to Impellitteri, Tafolla and dr. Frankenshred) and most of them usually tend to get a little (or a lot) boring after a while, especially if they're doing just instrumentals. However, Stump is definitely not just one of them (although I do highly like some stuff by before mentioned guys too). His songwriting skills are what lifts him up from being just a shredder. His playing is beyond endless scales and just speed speed speed (although speed is not missing either), with mindblowing melodies hidden thorughout the compositions. He uses a lot of thrash-style riffs so it makes him a lot more dynamic and possibly more interesting to a standard metalhead. Rarely makes overly simple-structured songs in the manner of traditional metal, but he's not to be placed under progressive tag in the narrower sense of the word (Petrucci & company) although many of his songs definitely do progress from a melodic point of view. He uses a lot of arpeggios in a more developed and more intense manner than, for example, Yngwie and makes a lot more use of them than many others. In short you might describe him as a heavy-thrash version of Yngwie on steroids (he's often cited as a Yngwie plagiarizer and while there is the obvious look-factor and musical influences which Stump as Yngwie fan admits, it's still far from the truth). His music is rather intense, complicated and fast so it might take a few listens to realize what you're listening to, and many many more to figure out all of the geniosity. Also don't expect to absorb his whole album too fast.(maybe that's why he's getting so much less credit than he deserves) He has more material in one song than many have in a whole album so going one or two songs at a time is also not a bad idea, but once you've absorbed them - there's no way back.

Now to the main thing - Speed Metal Messiah is his last, and easily the best studio album. As a whole it's much more on the neoclassical side than his previous albums. Maybe because of that a bit less focused on the slower thrash riffs like earlier Facemelter, Sorcerer's Apprentice or Ultraviolence, but with other wild cards up it's sleeve, bringing new dimensions to his work. Starting with a short arpeggio-madness Prelude, you know where this album is going to take you - blazing neoclassical heaven. There's only one Hendrix-style wah track (Retroactivity) and while not bad at all, it's still the (only) downpoint of the album. Shredders getting bluesy and ripping Hendrix...that usually doesn't work very well for me and it's out of place here. Other than that everything is first class and it's hard to point something out as the tracks are very even, with one track being slightly better than the other at one time and then the list switching around depending on the mood. There's the awesome energy of the title track, the epic oriental Eastern beast, very melodic and even kinda melancholic in the middle Weapon of choice with killer arpeggios in the very beginning and ultra intense high-speed Psycho shred suite in two parts - a piece which Stump himself calls one of his technically most demanding ones. It's interesting to hear such high speed shredding for the duration of the whole song, almost without rest (and he pulls it off live without a problem), while the piece itself doesn't lose one bit on the quality-songwriting side and is absolutely mindblowing. The production is improving from his previous works and while being solid enough to present the music, I still see room for improvement. Some of his fast riff-work on lower strings can get murky (beginning of the title track is the best example).

To sum it up - this is a great album by a very underrated guitarist. All fans of heavier music, not at all necessarily shred fans, who are not lazy to give a few careful listens and want something dynamic that will stand the test of time and not get boring after a few listens - get this album. Get it now!! Night of the living shred also might be a good place to start for those with less patience and in search for more heavy riffs.