Friedman

Guitarist Marty Friedman surprised the metal and guitar community with the release of his fine new age-influenced Scenes. On that release, he proved that he wasn't just another shredder, but rather an intelligent and sensitive player with strong compositional skills. With Introduction, Friedman continues to build on this formula, but with more maturity and musical diversity. Themes are not just introduced and abandoned in favor of gratuitous technical noodling, rather the compositions are thoughtfully explored and brought to a natural conclusion.

Bad DNA, Marty Friedman's 2010 offering, is a hard one to place in the discography of the great Marty Friedman. I bought it on impulse again, buying it the day it came out in Japan. It seems he took the experimental electronic influences scattered scarcely across his post-Megadeth albums (think Cheer Girl Rampage) and incorporated them further into his guitar-driver music. In addition, the liner notes say that title track Bad DNA, Weapons of Ecstasy, and Glorious Accident are written by Friedman, Matsuura. I suspect it involves Takeomi Matsuura, who does some sequencing work on this album too and not the well-known Japanese pop singer Aya Matsuura. Anyway, on to the content!

Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, supported by Megadeth drummer Nick Menza and Kitaro keyboardist Brian BecVar, recorded and produced Scenes in part with Kitaro in his own 32-track digital studio, Scenes achieves a level of musicality that further established Friedman as one of the greatest composers of our era.