RECORDS
RISING FORCE Yngwie Malmsteen (Polydor) The future of heavy metal wears...red nail polish? That’s the image on the cover of Yngwie Malmsteen’s American debut, Rising Force; a well-manicured hand gripping a battered, puke-yellow Stratocaster out of the fire.
RECORDS
YNGWIE TO TIPPERARY
RISING FORCE Yngwie Malmsteen
(Polydor)
The future of heavy metal wears...red nail polish?
That’s the image on the cover of Yngwie Malmsteen’s American debut, Rising Force; a well-manicured hand gripping a battered, puke-yellow Stratocaster out of the fire.
But you need only flip the cover to realize our boy Yngwie (Ing-vay) is a man in the pure metal sense of the word. Open shirt, widemouth grimace, flailing at a guitar behind his back. This is the stuff that’s earned him the coveted title of the most-imported heavy metal artist in America.
Oy vei, Yngwie.
Funny, then, that Rising Force sounds not like the new face of metal but more like a continuation of the Gothic-rock tradition started by Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Tony lommi and any other British guitarist who’s lived in an old castle or tried to recreate Bach, Beethoven and Mozart licks on their axes.
The cover graphics are even done in hardto-read (see if you can figure out this guy’s middle initial) Olde English lettering.