Member:
Dragonflame713
(Profile)
(All Album Reviews by Dragonflame713)
Date:
11/11/2003
Format:
CD (Album)
Venomous Fingers is the title of the first release on the Lion Music label for George Bellas. Prior to this, George has quite a formidable résumé to his musical credit. In addition to his solo career with Shrapnel Records which featured the albums Turn Of The Millennium (1997) and Mind Over Matter (1998) , he has played in Ring Of Fire (former Malmsteen vocalist Mark Boal’s band, which also featured keyboardist virtuoso Vitalij Kuprij), contributed to playing and writing for an album by current Royal Hunt vocalist John West, playing on Magellan’s Hundred Year Flood and also was to be the guitarist for UFO (which unfortunately couldn’t use the name due to legal reasons, so they went under Mogg/Way) He also has a vocal band called Audiodrome. On top of all of this, he has been developing musical software entitled Maestro. His guitar style is firmly rooted in the neoclassical styling, and this is in ample evidence on this recording.
This album is all George Bellas: guitars, bass, keyboards, and the drums sound as if they are played with a computer. The album is an excellent workout in very fluid neoclassical guitar soloing, and the music backing it is rich and colorful. It never really gets stuck in one place musically, and flows very beautifully from one track to the next. The tracks range from the long epic arrangements such as the 11 minute “Journey To The Stars”, to very short interludes such as Symphonia I and II, that connect the pieces throughout the album. There are aggressive pieces on the album such as “Run For Cover”, but also somber and dreamy pieces such as “Mayhem” (interesting title for a piece like this I must say here…)
While a comparison to Malmsteen is more than fair here, George seems to exhibit a much better sense of melody in his playing and arrangements. If you are a student of guitar, or simply just love the neoclassical styling in lead guitar playing with some rich and colorful arrangements beneath it, then this album is for you!
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