Review by Daniel for Vinnie Moore - Mind's Eye (1986)

Delaware-based guitar virtuoso Vinnie Moore was a major influence on me as a young musician. I picked up his 1986 debut album “Mind’s Eye” on CD through my father who had spotted it for cheap in a second-hand store & thought I might like it some time in the very early 1990’s & I then followed it up by purchasing Vinnie’s 1991 third album “Meltdown” shortly afterwards, both proving to be important players in the shaping of who I wanted to be as a guitarist. Swedish icon Yngwie J. Malmsteen had already opened my eyes to the possibilities in regard to super-high velocity, ultra-technique-heavy instrumental guitar music but, despite the fact that Vinnie was clearly influenced by Yngwie, he offered something additional that gave him the edge over the great man in my opinion, at least from a compositional point of view. You see, Vinnie knew how to write great melodies & construct pieces that work as songs as well as they do demonstrations of his technical proficiencies. Yngwie wasn’t as adept in these areas & also tended to verge on the cheesy a lot more often. He also pushed the neoclassical component much further than Vinnie who used it more sparingly & subsequently gained maximum impact from it.

Vinnie was already very well connected when he recorded “Mind’s Eye” & you can see evidence of that in both the fact that the album was released on Mike Varney’s Shrapnel Records label (which would go on to become the premier label for this style of music shortly afterwards) & also in the amazing line-up of musicians he had supporting him. I would imagine that Mike had connected him with fellow Shrapnel shredder Tony MacAlpine who provides some amazingly accomplished keyboard work here for a multi-instrumentalist. Tony would release his debut solo album through Shrapnel the following year but his contribution to “Mind’s Eye” is the most significant of the supporting musicians with his performance leaving most full-time keyboardists in the dust. The rhythm section is no less well credentialled though with talented Dixie Dregs bassist Andy West & legendary Ozzy Osbourne/Thin Lizzy/Whitesnake drummer Tommy Aldridge ensuring that Vinnie had a rock-solid basis from which to showcase his astounding skills.

The purely instrumental tracklisting begins in a rich vein of form with the entire A side being very solid indeed & highlighted by the spectacular “Daydream” which is a genuine shred classic in my eyes (& as usual for me it’s the least popular track on the album – go figure). The way that Vinnie balances out some truly memorable melodies with extreme technique is remarkable & is a very rare talent in this niche marketplace. The B side isn’t quite as strong with the quality level dipping a touch on a few tracks & this is usually the result of melodies that edge towards the cheese line a little or licks & structures that take too much of a neoclassical route as I’ve never found that style of guitar playing to be as attractive as Vinnie’s more mysterious & exotic one. You see, regardless of the technique on display, it’s Vinnie’s ability to create spacey, moody atmospheres that’s the real differentiator from his peers & represents the main attraction for an album like “Mind’s Eye”.

It's interesting that “Mind’s Eye” is almost universally tossed into the neoclassical metal bucket alongside the Yngwies & Jason Beckers because there really isn’t all that much of a classical influence in the song structures & accompaniment here. It’s really just Vinnie’s use of similar lead guitar techniques to those guys (i.e. sweep-picking, strong use of pedal notes, etc.) that provides the link with classical music but that’s not enough for me to want to label “Mind’s Eye” as being inherently neoclassical & it’s perhaps this distinction as much as any that sees my favouring a record like “Mind’s Eye” over other highly regarded releases from the genre like “Rising Force” or “Perpetual Burn”. To my ears this album sits somewhere between your classic heavy metal sound & a more expansive progressive metal one with MacAlpine’s keyboard work being the main link to the progressive side of that equation.

Regardless of what you label it as though, there can be little doubt that “Mind’s Eye” is a magnificent example of instrumental guitar wizardry & it was always going to appeal to someone like myself who not only understands just how difficult it is to pull off a lot of this stuff but also lives for soaring lead guitar hooks. If any of you ever listen to my 1999 solo CD you’ll no doubt hear a strong Vinnie Moore influence in the opening track as I get the feeling that I might have taken a fair amount of inspiration from “Mind’s Eye”. If this is neoclassical metal then it’s the finest example I’ve ever heard & it should be essential listening for any budding young shredder. Just don’t take it too personally when you inevitably discover that you’ll never be half as good as this bloke because none of us will be. He’s nothing less than a total freak of nature.