Impellitteri .. cheesy? but rippin!

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Kapo_Polenton

Kapo_Polenton

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So I am listening to what appears to be this guys latest offering on you tube and have to say that his playing and tone are absolutely huge. He has always been a bit of a cheesy player who sometimes suffered from the pinball effect in his playing but when I now more closely listen to his back catalogue and latest few offerings, he has found his sound and dialed it in. This album I am listening to has some blatant rip off sounding Yngwie and In Flames stuff but he mixes it up enough to make me think it is pretty damn cool. I love the obvious "see the light tonight" rip on the tune at the 7:00 min mark. For the rest, the neoclassical shit is great as are his leads and these super aggressive harmonic squealies that pop all over the place. Whatever he is playing amp wise these days (boosted Marshalls?) is killer sounding.

check it out here... it hooked me the whole way through:

 
I'm a huge Impellitteri fan! That is off of his release from 2004, which was good, but not his best. The solos certainly are ripping though. He had a shake up on vox for the record, Rob Rock is normally his singer (though he is best known for the Graham Bonnet release Stand In Line 1988). The direction of this Pedal To the Metal was more of an homage of bands that he liked, so you have an Ozzy styled song, an In Flames song, a new metal song, etc...

He is so good, it's sickening. I think that if people haven't heard him since the Stand In Line years, they should re-evaluate, as he is not an Yngwie clone by any stretch. If you like this release you should check out System X, particularly the songs Rock and Roll Heroes and Perfect Crime. His newer releases Wicked Maiden and Venom have some incredible riffing and are in a heavier vane, but he lost some of the melody in the solos (he went over the top with 100% speed all of the time-similar to Petrucci on Train of Thought).
 
shredhead7":qjfdvwhe said:
I'm a huge Impellitteri fan! That is off of his release from 2004, which was good, but not his best. The solos certainly are ripping though. He had a shake up on vox for the record, Rob Rock is normally his singer (though he is best known for the Graham Bonnet release Stand In Line 1988). The direction of this Pedal To the Metal was more of an homage of bands that he liked, so you have an Ozzy styled song, an In Flames song, a new metal song, etc...

He is so good, it's sickening. I think that if people haven't heard him since the Stand In Line years, they should re-evaluate, as he is not an Yngwie clone by any stretch. If you like this release you should check out System X, particularly the songs Rock and Roll Heroes and Perfect Crime. His newer releases Wicked Maiden and Venom have some incredible riffing and are in a heavier vane, but he lost some of the melody in the solos (he went over the top with 100% speed all of the time-similar to Petrucci on Train of Thought).
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Nice review. Sounds good to me, I love the power metal/shred stuff for sure, my cup of tea. I haven't checked any of his albums for a long time, I will make the effort to give him a listen though.
 
shredhead7":35akd131 said:
I'm a huge Impellitteri fan! That is off of his release from 2004, which was good, but not his best. The solos certainly are ripping though. He had a shake up on vox for the record, Rob Rock is normally his singer (though he is best known for the Graham Bonnet release Stand In Line 1988). The direction of this Pedal To the Metal was more of an homage of bands that he liked, so you have an Ozzy styled song, an In Flames song, a new metal song, etc...

He is so good, it's sickening. I think that if people haven't heard him since the Stand In Line years, they should re-evaluate, as he is not an Yngwie clone by any stretch. If you like this release you should check out System X, particularly the songs Rock and Roll Heroes and Perfect Crime. His newer releases Wicked Maiden and Venom have some incredible riffing and are in a heavier vane, but he lost some of the melody in the solos (he went over the top with 100% speed all of the time-similar to Petrucci on Train of Thought).
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Me too. Grew up on him. Used to see his old band Vice which was fronted by Rob rock actually when I was a young teen! They have a 4 song EP that is on YouTube. I’ll see if I can find the link. Chris is a legit monster.
 
shredhead7":2t4h18d7 said:
I'm a huge Impellitteri fan! That is off of his release from 2004, which was good, but not his best. The solos certainly are ripping though. He had a shake up on vox for the record, Rob Rock is normally his singer (though he is best known for the Graham Bonnet release Stand In Line 1988). The direction of this Pedal To the Metal was more of an homage of bands that he liked, so you have an Ozzy styled song, an In Flames song, a new metal song, etc...

He is so good, it's sickening. I think that if people haven't heard him since the Stand In Line years, they should re-evaluate, as he is not an Yngwie clone by any stretch. If you like this release you should check out System X, particularly the songs Rock and Roll Heroes and Perfect Crime. His newer releases Wicked Maiden and Venom have some incredible riffing and are in a heavier vane, but he lost some of the melody in the solos (he went over the top with 100% speed all of the time-similar to Petrucci on Train of Thought).
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Ok that makes sense.. a friend of mine lent me the last two releases and you are right about the riffing and the leads. Riffs are great but the leads lost a bit of the melody. Either way, he is a super entertaining player with chops that stand out on their own. I give the guy props.
 
I have most of the albums. His tone and playing is almost always top-notch. Favorite album is '94's Answer To The Master. Haven't heard the newest one, but the one that came out in 2015 was pretty good.

I like Chris' guitar playing and riff writing a lot, but he reuses a lot of riffs/licks. And for most albums, it's tough for me to listen all the way through in one sitting because 99% of the songs are 4-minute rippers, and after 2-3 songs they start to blend a bit.

Not knocking the band or Chris at all, I consider myself a fan.

I know he's used Jubilees quite a bit, and I'd assume some modded Marshalls.
 
Here's the demo I was talking about:







Man these guys were something to see when I was a kid! Lots of great players around the New England scene back then. Anthony Bambino was another local shredder that LOOKED like he was going to take off big time. He was in a band called Spoiled Rotten. Put out a few solo albums when he moved to LA but never took off it seems. Stet Howland and Doug Blair of WASP were also local guys in the band Run 21. Tony McAlpine was also local to us. Lots of killer players and was a great place to grow up playing music. HUGE scene back then.
 
JerEvil":3mpjnqnc said:
Here's the demo I was talking about:







Man these guys were something to see when I was a kid! Lots of great players around the New England scene back then. Anthony Bambino was another local shredder that LOOKED like he was going to take off big time. He was in a band called Spoiled Rotten. Put out a few solo albums when he moved to LA but never took off it seems. Stet Howland and Doug Blair of WASP were also local guys in the band Run 21. Tony McAlpine was also local to us. Lots of killer players and was a great place to grow up playing music. HUGE scene back then.
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The more I listen the more it sounds like Chris has been riding the same riff since 1984... but it's a hella good riff! :P
 
JerEvil":4ose9z2b said:
Here's the demo I was talking about:







Man these guys were something to see when I was a kid! Lots of great players around the New England scene back then. Anthony Bambino was another local shredder that LOOKED like he was going to take off big time. He was in a band called Spoiled Rotten. Put out a few solo albums when he moved to LA but never took off it seems. Stet Howland and Doug Blair of WASP were also local guys in the band Run 21. Tony McAlpine was also local to us. Lots of killer players and was a great place to grow up playing music. HUGE scene back then.
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Wow, thanks for posting this! I've had the Black EP since 1988, but I never knew that he was in a band before that release. It's cool to see how his style developed, mostly his vibrato, between this and the Black EP. I think the leap between Stand in Line and Grin and Bear It is another one, where he clearly went back to the woodshed and the metronome and polished his technique.
 
Salos":2y4h9ujn said:
I have most of the albums. His tone and playing is almost always top-notch. Favorite album is '94's Answer To The Master. Haven't heard the newest one, but the one that came out in 2015 was pretty good.

I like Chris' guitar playing and riff writing a lot, but he reuses a lot of riffs/licks. And for most albums, it's tough for me to listen all the way through in one sitting because 99% of the songs are 4-minute rippers, and after 2-3 songs they start to blend a bit.

Not knocking the band or Chris at all, I consider myself a fan.

I know he's used Jubilees quite a bit, and I'd assume some modded Marshalls.
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Agreed. He does reuse a lot of riffs and motifs in his solos in the releases between Answer and Crunch. I love the legato stuff that he does on Answer that he doesn't use as much after that...Hold the Line and Answer solos in particular are crazy good.

I know that he uses a modded Plexi that was done by John Suhr as his main amp since the Screaming Symphony album. I believe that he also uses a Tube screamer and even though he uses Strats a lot, the records are usually done with a combo of Humbucking guitars and the strats. In either case, he has the best Plexi sound that I've ever heard and I have chased it for years.
 
Phenomenal player. I dig a lot of of his stuff. Wicked maiden was a great album!
 
One of my guilty pleasures is LIKING his song’s melodies. I love most of his CD’s because of this. The guitar playing is a given to like but, Rob Rock and Graham Bonnet rule too! I need to get his last 2 CD’s.
 
I always liked his playing from the get go way back in the late 80's. Neo-classical, hard rock and melodic metal is what I like the most.
 
Kapo_Polenton":2nqvlg28 said:
I love the obvious "see the light tonight" rip on the tune at the 7:00 min mark.
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Oh wow, that is so derivative....you can't do that :lol: :LOL:
 
JerEvil":2zsyj8fq said:
Here's the demo I was talking about:







Man these guys were something to see when I was a kid! Lots of great players around the New England scene back then. Anthony Bambino was another local shredder that LOOKED like he was going to take off big time. He was in a band called Spoiled Rotten. Put out a few solo albums when he moved to LA but never took off it seems. Stet Howland and Doug Blair of WASP were also local guys in the band Run 21. Tony McAlpine was also local to us. Lots of killer players and was a great place to grow up playing music. HUGE scene back then.
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Doug Blair is a monster !!! So was Paul BiBartolo from Bang and later on Spread Eagle out of NY. Let's not forget Nuno either, or Joe Stump.
 
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