Inspiration

by

Yngwie J. Malmsteen

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10 songs. One Hour. 9 musicians. Sounds like a cheesy rock game show? Nope. It's the Yngwie cover album. Yngwie, the excellent guitarist, has came out with an album consisting of some of the best 1970's hard rock. Carry On Wayward Son is more metalized, Pictures of Home has that classic Purple-like solo, Gates Of Babylon is a thrilling 7:00 minute killer, with Yngwie playing sitar! Manic Depression is an excellent blues-metal, with Yngwie singing, In The Dead Of Night has the best instrumental section known to prog-rock, Mistreated is that great classic from Deep Purple's Burn, great bluesy riff, Sails of Charon has that classic Scorpions solo, note by note. Anthem is that ol' Rush song, with the weirdest, yet hardest riff known to man. And, the Grand Finale, Child In Time, with the longest solo yet. About 4 minutes of soloing. GREAT! Excellent covers from Kansas, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Hendrix, UK, Scorpions, and Rush. GUITAR RULE!

Coming off the rather bland MAGNUM OPUS, Yngwie returned the following year in 1996 with INSPIRATION, an album of cover songs showcasing his incredible command of the electric guitar as well as some of the songs that were important to his growth as an international rock guitar star. Backed by a host of former bandmates, Yngwie lays into classic works by Kansas, Rush, Scorpions, and of course Deep Purple and Rainbow, the bands of his idol Ritchie Blackmore. Lots of times in the rock world, cover songs never live up to the originals, but that isn't the case with INSPIRATION's 10 tracks where Yngwie puts his own spin on these tunes, and it usually works out for the better. The show starts off with the Kansas classic "Carry On Wayward Son" re-uniting Yngwie with RISING FORCE and MARCHING OUT era vocalist Jeff Scott Soto. The song really shines given Yngwie's ultra heavy guitar tone and searing solo. We are treated to no less than 4 Deep Purple songs, "Pictures Of Home" (from MACHINEHEAD)"Mistreated" (from BURN) "Demon's Eye" (from FIREBALL)and "Child In Time" (from IN ROCK) and 1 Rainbow tune "Gates Of Babylon" (from LONG LIVE ROCK'N'ROLL) proving that the Blackmore influence was profound on Yngwie. These songs are excellent renditions, especially "Child In Time" which has Yngwie teaming up with his TRILOGY vocalist Mark Boals in what is probably the best track on the disc. We also get Hendrix's "Manic Depression", the classic U.K. tune "In The Dead Of Night" featuring superb drumming from Anders Johansson, Scorpion's "Sails Of Charon", and Rush's "Anthem". As stated earlier, lots of musicians from past Yngwie albums are here such as Joe Lynn Turner, Boals, Scott Soto, the Johansson brothers, Mats Olausson, and Marcel Jacob. The disc is produced extremely well and all the songs are full of the guitar onslaught that is an Yngwie Malmsteen CD. Even though he is playing songs by other artists, his trademark neo-classical stylings and over the top playing are all here. The solos sound very improvised and Yngwie seems to be having lots of fun this time out. Check out the long improvisation on "Child In Time" for some of his best playing in a long time. Yngwie has always claimed that he improvised his solos on the spot during recording, but these solos sound a lot less constructed than on previous albums, a trend that would continue on later efforts and had begun around THE SEVENTH SIGN period. The 2000 Spitfire re-issue contains a rather lenghty interview as well as some previously unreleased demo songs from Yngwie's early days.

Full of firey playing and great interpretations of classic rock material, INSPIRATION was a great idea for an album at a time when it seemed Yngwie was lost to the world in a sea of grunge and the beginnings of the nu-metal movement. Not his best, but still a fine effort. Yngwie would resurface two years later on a major label (Mercury) and the album FACING THE ANIMAL which would prove to be better than his last couple of releases.