Mystery

I'm proud because I am here today to review a classic heavy metal album from my country Hellas. And that album belongs to a band that everyone in the underground metal scene knows. It is one of the first, if not the first neoclassical metal bands in Greece and the brainchild of Angelo Perlepes, a person who has mastered the guitar and is nowadays considered a guitar virtuoso.

In “Mystery” you can find classic heavy rock/metal riffs combined with neoclassical lightning-fast solos which are calculated and played flawlessly. Seriously, the songs here seem to have been rehearsed millions and millions of times (I'm talking about all the instruments) and I bet this applies because the band was formed in 1986 and this album didn't come out until 1991 so yeah, that is a big time-gap for the band to complete the songwriting and make improvements on their playing style and their chemistry between each other.

“Mystery” of course is a very melodic record and that is justified by the fact that all the songs have keyboards which bring an elegant touch to the songs and also there are a lot of riffs inspired by guitar god Ritchie Blackmore who has also influenced Angelo a lot to write these good pieces of music. Specifically, For lovers of classic 70's and 80's speed heavy rock, I recommend “Do Me Love”, Angelo's very own “Spotlight Kid” or “Jet To Jet” if you may prefer, “Unicorn” which has some cool guitar arpeggios and an anthemic refrain. Speaking about anthems, the title track is another highlight in its own right.

Another thing I'd like to mention is how good the vocals are. Pure manly 80's vocals with a very good accent. Even the falsettos here sound masculine and this is what I like. The fantasy lyrics are very poetic even if there are one or two typos in the CD booklet and of course how can you call yourself a rockstar like Mr. Blackmore if you don't write songs about women? This last sentence is connected with my opinion that “Baby Blue” is a good rock song meant for radio play and much better than the boring “Since You'Ve Been Gone”.

I honestly don't have to say anything else about this album. It is fun, it doesn't tire the listener at all, with its duration staying at 30-35 minutes, It promises quality melodic heavy metal music and not poppy rock for the masses, it is professionally written and recorded, with traditional techniques and there is not even one song that will make you yawn.

It's not that I dislike Yngwie Malmsteen, but I do take umbrage at him becoming so synonymous with the neoclassical shred genre, that no one else ever seems to get time in the spotlight. So I took matters into my own hands and discovered a Greek guitar virtuoso named Angelo Perlepes. His 'Mystery' began in the mid-80's and was influenced by Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, and Deep Purple. My expectations were high and hopeful, and kicked square in the groin within the first two tracks.

Neoclassical metal is often stymied by a vocalist, and Mystery is no exception. The singer's prosody sounds unnatural and awkward, which, in fairness, may have something to do with the lyrics. "I'm just tired of being mistreated by female superiority" is one of many spittake-inducing zingers on display here, and I'm pretty sure it's against the law to steal from Anvil's trash can. To attribute my disappointment with 'Do Me Love' and 'Baby Blue' entirely to the vocalist wouldn't be at all fair, though. One of the many victims of a painfully dated and out-of-place space-synth intro, Baby Blue also features a frustratingly slow series of humdrum percussion, and most inexcusably of all, guitar-work that consists only of a powerchord progression that wouldn't sound out of place in an album by The Cars. There are of course occasions where Perlepes gets to shred, but its such a jarring juxtaposition following the mega-cheese "Tell me baby what went wrong, cause all this love should be so strong" chorus.

Just as I was about to give up on Mystery and begrudgingly return to Rising Force, 'Unicorn' and 'Burning Eyes' managed to win me back with some of the album's more ambitious classical shredding that was largely missing up until then. Most fans of Malmsteen would also extend their lower lip in approval at the technical know-how in the long-awaited instrumental 'Angel's Cappricio'. Alongside it is one of the most memorable and talented bass sections in the album as well. If you were feeling generous, it remind you a bit of Akira Takasaki's eccentric solo work. But all in all, it's disappointing that Perlepes only managed to prove himself as an accomplished shred guitarist and arpeggio aficionado within the last five minutes of the album. A mystery this most certainly was, that only the most diehard of neoclassical shred fans will bother to solve.