TRILOGY

This was the first album I ever had from this now legendary swedish guitarrist. I remember when I bought the LP in 1987 and I was surprised of how good he was on guitar. The cover was quite impressive too. However, it soon became clear to me that Malmsteen was definitly one of those musicians where showing off their skills is far more important than good, consistent songwriting (or anything else, for the matter). He definitly overplays here, spiting far more notes from his Fender Stratocaster than the songs ask for. While he is backed by excellent musicians like the Jens Johansson (who would gain much fame as a member of Stratovarius in the 90´s) and his brother Anders, plus a fine singer (Mark Boals), little room is given to those since his ego was already upfront all the time.

Not that Trilogy is bad, far from it. In fact, if you are a guitar fanatic, you´ll probably enjoy Malmsteen obvious great technique and skill, specially on the instrumental title track, where he really shines. His classical background is evident, as well as a great influence of Deep Purple´s Ritchie Blackmore. He also proved that he had a promising knack to write fine melodies and hooks. But again it would be nice if he had paid as much atention in developing thpse songs as a whole and give the audience something more than just average arena rock stuff to back up his solos. Certainly he had good enough musicians to develop bolder arrangements too. Like Blackmore always did.

Still, I like this album. It is good, it could be better, but good anyway. Definitly not essential. 3 stars.