Review by Daniel for Yngwie J. Malmsteen - The Seventh Sign (1994)

By the middle of the 1990’s, I would definitely class myself as a complete shred-head. I simply couldn’t get enough soaring guitar solos & searing technique in my life at that point & would go well out of my way to keep track of what the key players in that field were doing, despite my obvious affiliations with the extreme metal scene. That passion would see me continuing to purchase each successive Yngwie Malmsteen release as they hit the shelves, having first discovered him through 1988’s excellent “Odyssey” fourth full-length. Yngwie had been pretty consistent in his ability to keep me interested over the five or so years too with just the one blemish in 1990’s fairly flat “Eclipse” album. But I have to admit that my patience was weighing a little thin given that each record was generally pretty similar to the last one & offered little in the way of innovation or experimentation so I could definitely see my enthusiasm wavering a touch with each record. I think I was just starting that descent when 1994’s “The Seventh Sign” hit my CD player & I’d only stay with Yngwie for another year before admitting that I owned more than enough of the Swedish guitar god to keep me satisfied. I do remember “The Seventh Sign” being a little flat anyway though so perhaps that played a role in my defection? I thought I’d find out this week.

“The Seventh Sign” was recorded at New River Studios in Florida & was his first album for Japanese record label Pony Canyon after leaving his US label Elektra Records who had released 1992’s “Fire & Ice”. I’m not really surprised at the move given how massive Yngwie has always been in Japan. As with “Fire & Ice”, Malmsteen would once again elect to produce the record himself & the results are pretty decent with all of the different elements being very well balanced. There are a few moments when I’d suggest that the rhythm guitars are a little dirty & could have been cleaned up a bit but, in general, “The Seventh Sign” sounds bright & in your face with a big rhythm section & suitably anthemic vocal hooks. As was often the case with Yngwie records, the band lineup he’s gone with for his seventh album had changed significantly from the one we’d received on “Fire & Ice”. Hired gun vocalist Goran Edman (Madison/Time Requiem/Brazen Abbot/Glory/Johansson/John Norum/Karmakanic/Nikolo Kotzev’s Nostradamus/Talisman/Vinnie Vincent Invasion) had departed after contributing to the last two Malmsteen records with another vocal journeyman Michael Vescera (Loudness/Magic Kingdom/Obsession) jumping in for the next two. Yngwie elected to handle the bass guitar tracks himself this time with Svante Henryson moving on to Brazen Abbot while drummer Bo Werner had been replaced after just the one record with prolific skinsman-for-hire Mike Terrana (Artension/Avalanch/Axel Rudi Pell/Emir Hot/Hardline/Iron Mask/Masterplan/Metalium/Rage/Savage Circus/Tarja/Tony MacAlpine/Vision Divine/The Ferrymen). In fact, keyboardist Mats Olausson (Ark/Glory/Iron Mask/Silver Mountain) was the only remaining member from the group that recorded the “Fire & Ice” album & I’m gonna presume that he & Yngwie were fairly tight as Olausson would remain with the band for the entirety of the 1990’s.

If you have even a vague understanding of Yngwie’s previous work then you won’t be terribly surprised by the musical direction of “The Seventh Sign” although it admittedly traverses a number of different subgenres along the way. As with most of his recent releases, we get a mixture of power metal, hard rock, glam metal, heavy metal, neoclassical metal & classical guitar pieces with heavy metal being the thread that ties them altogether in my opinion. That being said, I see no reason to throw any additional primary tags at this record. As with the vast majority of Yngwie’s work, the tendency to want to go with a neoclassical metal tag is overstating the importance of the classically-inspired solos with most of the song structures being more traditionally metal or rock based. Those solos do make the album more cohesive than it might otherwise have been though given the genre-hopping that takes place but Yngwie is most certainly guilty of self-plagiarism as there’s very little that you haven’t heard dozens of times before in that regard. He’s no doubt the finest exponent of his craft that we’ve ever seen but the scope of his creative ideas is very limited & I think this contributed to me tiring of him over time.

Most of “The Seventh Sign” is pretty good to be honest & it certainly starts in solid fashion but, as with most Yngwie albums, there are a few genuine stinkers thrown into the mix & this time I’ve found a couple of them to be disastrous enough to taint my overall impression of the album as a whole. The utterly disgusting attempt at glam metal commercialism that is “Prisoner of Your Love” is by far the worst of them & sits amongst the worst travesties ever attempted in metal in my opinion. The cheesy neoclassical instrumental “Brothers” isn’t much better though & I think it’s fair to say that “The Seventh Sign” would have been a pretty decent Yngwie record without those two. Neoclassical heavy metal number “Forever One” is pretty flat too but it’s not in the same post code as that detrimental duo. The best material can be found in Yngwie’s heavier power metal efforts on this occasion with opener “Never Die”, the doomy “Pyramid of Cheops” & the exciting “Crash & Burn” being my personal highlights but I’m afraid that all that good work has been tarnished by the previously mentioned shockers which have simply left too bad a taste in my mouth.

Up until this point, 1990’s “Eclipse” album was the only Yngwie record that I’ve struggled with but I’m afraid to say the gratuitous repetition & my general tiredness of Malmsteen’s approach have collaborated with the ill-advised commercial indulgences enough to see me painting “The Seventh Sign” with the same brush. The experiences of this week have seen me finding it completely understandable that I would only give Malmsteen one more crack before moving onto new musical challenges. The better material here is easily up to the task but the album’s failings sit solely with the few duds which overpower the album’s strengths, seeing it simply commanding more cringes than I’m comfortable with in my metal.

For fans of Cacophony, Axel Rudi Pell & Alcatrazz.