Blue Lightning

For the better part of the past decade Yngwie Malmsteen has basically come to embody the true definition of a solo artist, taking complete control of every aspect of the studio work that has been trickling out in a notably incremental fashion and recruiting touring musicians that could best be described as unknowns. The consequential shift in songwriting priorities, which has largely resulted in a return to a more instrumental-focused and shred dominated formula that bears some similarity to the 1984 Rising Force debut, but lacked much of the iconic elements and idiomatic hooks that made the original an undisputed classic, has naturally stirred controversy among both fans and detractors alike. It's understandable given that much of his core audience was codified during the days of Marching Out and Trilogy when he had a full fledged band and wrote songs catering to more of a mainline 80s metal crowd that were okay with a indulgent lead guitar display. Suffice it to say, nothing that has come down the pike since the end of his brief studio collaboration with Tim "Ripper" Owens has resembled what originally put the Rising Force name on the map, and Malmsteen's 2019 offering Blue Lightning ventures about as far from said sound as could possibly be imagined.

The best way to describe this album as what Inspiration Part 2 would have sounded like had Yngwie opted to handle all the vocals on his own and focused almost exclusively on the blues/rock roots of his style. It consists primarily of cover songs from the 60s and 70s, reinterpreted through Yngwie's shred-happy lens, but surprisingly enough recreated in a manner that is more indicative of the era from which these songs originated. Certain liberties are taken with the introductions of Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" and "Purple Haze" that showcase an abrupt Neo-classical shred element, but much of the noodling that follows during the subsequent lead breaks consign themselves to the blues box. Generally Yngwie's more mystical tendencies as a player are contained within the more mystical leaning songs being reinterpreted, with "Paint It Black" and "Demon's Eye" coming closer to Yngwie's past shred triumphs, whereas "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Forever Man" simply come off as retro-rock romps with a correspondingly rusty, old school bluesy swagger that's been speed up something fierce. Perhaps the lone outlier of the bunch is the cover of ZZ Top's "Blue Jeans Blues", which finds itself sounding like a shred-obsessed 80s reinterpretation of a 70s blues rock coaster, modifying the cooler tone of the original into something quite hot and bothered.

Despite being a pretty drastic change in musical relative to even the past couple go-it-alone albums that Yngwie has ushered unto his audience, this format ends up working far better with his voice and overall vocal style. While Yngwie's guitar playing is very much a staple of power metal at its best, his husky baritone swagger is definitely more at home in the looser, mellower world of 70s hard rock. Even the original compositions that contain sung parts in "Blue Lightning" and "Sun's Up, Top's Down" reveal a mad Swede who's heart is in both the Mississippi Delta and the British Isles. Between these more easy going tunes of life and love and his rather soulful rendition of the Space Camp classic tune "Forever Man", he basically finds his vocal home as a hybrid of Eric Clapton and Jeff Healey, to the point where it becomes impossible not to picture him converting those high stage kicks into a martial arts routine that cleans up a rough bar in the American Midwest. Of course, Yngwie doesn't make a complete break with his Neo-classical shredding past, and ushers in a fleeting yet reasonably effective instrumental jam in "Peace, Please" that's about on par with most of the ones that were featured on his albums since Facing The Animal.

It would be a massive stretch to call this Yngwie's crowning achievement as a musician and songwriter, and this steadfast fan would definitely put all of his 80s and 90s classics a sizable cut above it, but it is a nice little change of pace and a mark of a versatility that Malmsteen's detractors insist is not present. It's perhaps about as metal as your typical Joe Satriani or Paul Gilbert album, but it is definitely well performed and Yngwie definitely selected a group of songs that were tailor made for his voice type, which is more than can be said for his previous attempts to be a power metal vocalist on the last two studio outings. It channels the very era that metal was born from, and it does a decent job of melding Sweden's king of shred's over the top playing style with a genre of music that doesn't tend to exemplify overt virtuosity. Calling it a return to one's roots might be a bit of a misnomer given that none of his recording projects have ever sounded like this, but if one is counting the very beginnings of Malmsteen as a guitarist, it's a description that is fitting. A decent listen for anyone who enjoys rock, though Malmsteen's core fan base will probably not take to it, and all the shrieking voices insisting that he's all shred and no soul will continue to grasp for abstract explanations of precisely what they mean by soul.