Chronicles of an Evolution

Mago de Oz’s guitarist Jorge Salan displays his talents on Chronicles of an evolution, his latest solo project. This album without a doubt is filled with great overall guitar work and musicianship. If you are looking for a great shred-fest in the likes of Joe Stump, Michael Angelo however, then this is not really the album for you to get.

Instead what you will find is a well written progressive rock album, featuring collaborations with the likes of Danny Vaughn (Tyketto, Waysted), Jeff Scott Soto (Journey, Malmsteen) and Bob Daisley (Gary Moore, Rainbow, Ozzy).

Most of the tracks on the albums like “Under the Moon”, “Dedication”. “Enchanted by You” and “What you were” are classic hard rock tracks and are not instrumentals but do feature Jorge quite a lot on guitars. I just can’t get past the soft sound and fitting meek vocals, sorry!

“Chase the Fire” and “Risk” do have a nice speedy bluesy rock feeling to it, even with some resemblances of Mr. Joe Satriani himself in it and that fitted my taste a little bit better, as did the 30 seconds shredder “Hand Experiments”.

Overall I must be honest and say that the album was not the worst that I have ever heard, and is easily listenable, but far too soft for my likening.