March 2020 Feature Release - The Guardians Edition

It's now March which of course means that we'll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we're asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. Ben & I will certainly be contributing & we look forward to hearing your thoughts too.      

This month's feature release for The Guardians is 1988's debut solo album from Californian neoclassical metal shredder Jason Becker. Jason was a child prodigy who was tremendously influential on the niche instrumental guitar shred scene back in the day. Particularly a young Marty Friedman (who he took under his wing & taught some of the more challenging sweep picking techniques) & Morbid Angel's Trey Azagthoth (who has repeatedly sung his praises in the media over the years). Unbelievably , Jason was only 19 years old when this record was released.  He contracted the horribly debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis later in life which tragically stunted his career but this album is a testimony to his unquestionable talent.

Neo-classical virtuoso guitar albums don't leave me with very much to say in the best of times. But I will say this: Jason Becker had chops. Holy crap, the cleanliness in every note that he played on this album was crisp and precise.

However, playing a lot of notes really fast doesn't always mean the music sounds good. This album does have a lot of compositional faults that I highlighted in my review, but many of them stem from the fact that, Becker is the only thing that your ears can hear. Everything else is pretty generic and safe.

I will say that this album does get better later on, but getting over that first hurdle can be a difficult one. When you see the album cover of Jason Becker and his guitar and that's it, you already know what you're getting yourself into by listening to this. When it comes to shredders, John Petrucci and Steve Vai do it way better all around.

6/10

I found out about Jason Becker and his story back in 2018 with the release of Triumphant Hearts, so I'm really glad that this album surfaced on here so I could check it out and see what he was capable of before his unfortunate circumstances arose.

In terms of pure shredding and technical skill this album is great, although a bit redundant. Obviously the neo-classical style revolves around a ton of scales played at lightning fast speed, but it's overused a bit much for it's own good for most of the album. It all starts to run together fairly quickly even though there are still standout tracks like "Altitudes", "Air", and "Eleven Blue Egyptians" that highlight Becker's skill in different ways from shredding scales, to softer and calming clean sections, to more riff and groove focused lines. 

However, all the skill in the world doesn't fix messy transitions and generally weak songwriting in general, which is where Perpetual Burn falters. This album is definitely just a showcase of skill, with Becker jumping from one lick and idea to the next with almost no regard for flow or how each part contributes to the song. If anything, when he plays riffs instead of the normal neo-classical scale jumping it comes off as awkward and weak, meaning this album is without a doubt just a solo showcase. 

That being said, I'm a huge fan of guitar noodling like this, so it's still solid enough for me to give it a 3.5 / 5. It's such a shame that life had other plans for Becker since from this point forward he wouldn't be able to play like this ever again, since there was a ton of room for him to grow as a songwriter on top of his immense skill with the guitar. 

I gave "Perpetual Burn" a few revisits today & found that I still quite enjoy it. I actually bought it on CD way back in the very early 1990's & was blown away by Becker's technique at the time, especially for someone so young. I do have to admit that I've never been particularly comfortable with his neoclassicisms though as they often sound like exercises more than actual music & even delve into Xmas carol schmaltz at times (see the disappointing "Air" for example). Thankfully a good half of "Perpetual Burn" takes a more traditional progressive metal approach & it's this material that really interests me. The album highlights are certainly when Jason goes for melody over technique & the crunchier metal sections are also among the more exciting moments so fans of Marty Friedman, Cacophony & Yngwie Malmsteen should be all over this record. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I slightly prefer it to Yngwie's highly celebrated "Rising Force" debut.

3.5/5