mista

Review born solely from the excitement that Iron Maiden evokes in any respectable metal soul, you’ll improve... for now it’s two. But there was no need for the "listening advice," come on, you didn’t review an obscure album;-)

Meanwhile, thanks to s.c squalo and ocram for the kind comments, this album is truly a delight for the ears, even for the most demanding ones, so much so that it still resides in my trusted CD holder. As for Fidia, thanks a million for your interest; with Pandaemonium, we definitely do not follow the AOR and Hard Rock evolution of Edguy and their peers. Return To Reality is a Power-Epic metal album, much closer to the sound of Blind Guardian than Rhapsody (in fact, Flash has somewhat exaggeratively called us their clones). Anyway, on the website (and on the Underground Symphony's site) you’ll find downloadable samples that allow you to quickly satisfy your curiosity, although I doubt we align with your tastes. For the third album, while remaining in an epic context, we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by darker and grittier sounds alternating with almost lyrical parts (like Nightwish), and we hope to produce something nice :-) As for Savatage, I highly recommend THIS album to you; I can’t see how you wouldn’t like it, as it has little to do with their later works (the ones you might have heard), here it’s just top-notch Heavy Metal. BYE!

I have to clarify for a moment; I don’t mean to say that reaching the "peaks" of an angel or a Petrucci comes solely from natural predisposition by practicing an hour a day. It also requires a lot of training, but the point is not to focus only on that!

Honestly, even in the beginning, I never played the bass more than 4-5 hours a day, and today I’ll be playing six or seven a week (damn job), without my technique suffering too much. I also believe that you should never get too hung up on technique because sooner or later you reach your "peak." Personally, I’ve never sat at the desk redoing the same pattern two hundred fifty times; I’ve always preferred to play along to records, even improvising, or to play my own pieces. Today, my technique is definitely not academic—I took lessons from a guitarist mostly on music theory while I developed my own approach—but I don’t really care that much. I prefer to work on creating a cool bass line rather than just marking a tick on the metronome. However, I don’t want to undermine more academic approaches, which definitely help and speed up learning, as long as one doesn’t overdo it and end up becoming a standardized musician.

Come on, what are these distinctions! Melodic speed metal? Would that be a subgenre of power? But the term speed metal was born to define completely different bands. These guys play very fast power metal (as you said, Fabbiu), let's not get too tangled up in subgenres of subgenres. We can't just reduce all the characteristics of a band to a single definition! Otherwise, what do the Blind do? Epic power bard metal with speed undertones in their early works?

Dear G, I would have you reread your comment in a few years, to make you understand how wrong you are...

Elio bad music!? Come onnnnnnnnnnn!

@dreamwarrior: your criticism is not entirely unfounded, and I'll tell you more— in my experience, I've noticed that the less capable someone is at playing, the more they tend to criticize the legends; true musicians think twice before bothering a Malmsteen or a Vai. However, it’s also true that the discussions we have here are somewhat like those about soccer; Italians are a nation of coaches and guitarists!!

Unfortunately, the story that if you train hard you become as fast and skilled as whoever you want is a colossal lie! Even to become a mere sprinter like Angelo requires a natural predisposition, like, you know, in athletics. To be a "rock" musician, especially, a lot of natural talent is needed; training can help, but it's not essential at all. Furthermore, generally, the "technical peak" is reached in a few years (I'd say between 4 to 6), after which improvements in mere technique are much slower and not very decisive. Of course, style, on the other hand, can continually evolve. @Marco: Al Pacino rules!!

Yes Marco, I've seen it. I'm a fan and collector of "Gangsta Movies" (Reservoir Dogs, Carlito's Way, Scarface, etc.), but the best one remains the first!