Impellitteri - Grin and Bear It (1992)^{Release ID: 10980}

With the turn of the 90’s, guitar-hero-lead Neoclassical Metal was one of the many Metal styles to see a sharp decline in both quantity and quality. Impellitteri’s sophomore album “Grin and Bear It” is unfortunately not an exception, but rather a testament to that fact.

Grin and Bear It manages to be the top Neoclassical Metal album of the year by this fact alone. While Impellitteri’s debut not only had very memorable guitar leads, it also was commanded by the legendary Graham Bonnet on vocals. New vocalist Rob Rock does a good job and even has a similar sound to Bonnet, but he can’t match the man when it comes to crafting earworm hooks and interesting lyricism. Impellitteri himself is still putting out impressive solos and riffs, but similarly, they just aren’t very memorable. There’s also a lot less “power” on this one compared to the debut, and it sounds more in line to hit some commercial success (though I’m sure it never did).

One plus is that the production is much better than the debut, which was a mess for no good reason. None of the songs are bad by any means either, it’s just nothing to write home about. The track “Power of Love” is an easy cut above the rest, with some classic Power Metal sensibilities to it.