Yngwie Malmsteen
Fire & Ice

The position Malmsteen assumes on the cover of this album, right leg bent, the other stretched, must be of combat: with the same position in 'Trilogy', he defeated a dangerous three-headed Hydra with his Strat, and in this album, he manipulates, like a seasoned alchemist, ice and fire.

Yes, because it is the combination of these two elements that's needed to erase the terrible 'Eclipse' from two years before, an album blatantly leaning towards sounds far too commercial for the Swede's standards. With 'Fire & Ice', he partially succeeds. The instrumental Perpetual offers good omens, especially due to the presence, something almost missing in 'Eclipse', of neoclassical sounds. The track, although not comparable to the celebrated past instrumentals, stands as an excellent opener.
But the following Dragonfly and Teaser plunge the Swede back into those terrible hard rock clichés that were the downfall of the previous album. The problem is that if one wants to play AOR pomp, one cannot do without memorable melodies which both songs lack. Especially Teaser, chosen as a single, is as banal as the genre can propose, stuff that bands like Dokken, Ratt, or TNT probably used as B sides.

But the plot twist is just around the corner: a string quartet, accompanied by a soft flute melody opens How many miles to Babylon, a couple of minutes of dramatic pathos that flows into an epic mid-tempo where Goran Edman's voice, even being the least skillful singer ever hired by Malmsteen, fits perfectly into the genre. In Cry no more, another pleasant surprise: a sort of epic blues opens this power ballad, interspersed by the string quartet launched into a typically baroque air. An atypical but irresistible track.
In No mercy, fast and powerful, the Blackmore-esque Rainbow peek through and again highlight the quartet, involved in the central part of the track with a re-interpretation of a famous Bach aria. A sitar introduces C'est la vie, a song with oriental hues that aims to echo the famous Gates to Babylon by Rainbow era Dio. Malmsteen will continue to include a track of this type, introduced by the usual sitar, in his subsequent albums. The problem is that the Swede fits oriental music about as well as a square peg in a round hole and hence the result is already predictable: to be skipped…

Another instrumental, Leviathan, suggests a clearly recovering Malmsteen who, even if not causing awe, seems to remind us that the electric Paganini is still alive. The title track astonishes: perfect the fusion between baroque music and hard rock sounds, with a long Vivaldi-oriented solo and strong Hard pomp follow-up. In short, what didn't succeed with Dragonfly and Teaser succeeds perfectly here. More Rainbow and string quartet in the fast Forever is a long time, while the ballad I'm my own enemy is dull and flat, absolutely incomparable to the famous Dreaming. Ugly Hard rock mixed with funky follows in All I want is everything, a track clearly for filler. The brief acoustic interlude of Golden dawn introduces Final curtain, a powerful and orchestral song, not a masterpiece but great for closing the album.

What to say, probably, given his current bulk, the Swede would no longer be able to assume a combat stance, but perhaps he can still give us some good tracks. 'Fire & Ice', far from being a masterpiece, is the album of partial redemption after previous disappointments, the classic album that sometimes excites, other times bores. I'm not allowed to do so but a 3.5 is well deserved.