Considered the pioneer of shred guitars, Michael Angelo Batio has scoured his whole collection of music in order to give us a compilation of some of his most well known and best material with “Shred Force 1 (The Essential Mab)”. While I cannot say that I’ve followed Batio throughout the years, I can definitely see his influence upon today’s hard rock and metal guitarists as he is the one who invented the double guitar and became legendary with his special talent to use both left-handed and right-handed guitars in the same track at times. All 15 tracks (2 of which are bonuses) off of “Shred Force 1” are Batio‘s most impressive work with each track including awesome everything while having a classic heavy metal feel combined with hard rock at several times, and that makes this album very dynamic and interesting as almost each track appears to be taken off a past album that Batio has put out over his entire solo career. The originator of the double guitar shows his talent in each track and it truly shows that he has inspired musicians of today and surely of the future, and his talent unwavering with the pure shredding having both an awesome and classic feel in each track. I’m not quite sure if there will be another compilation to come in the future, but you can bet that Batio’s career is not over and he has plenty more to do with his creation.
You can purchase “Shred Force 1” via iTunes here, listen to the track “2x Again” via YouTube below, and stream the entire album on Spotify here.
Just a metal head who loves just about all metal. I want to spread the word about the REALLY great bands out there, well known and underground. I do this for fun and don’t want any sort of money from doing reviews. It’s its own reward. I also do daily reviews for my own review site, Head-Banger Reviews, where the reviews are longer and daily as mentioned. No bullshit, just here to have some fun, listen to cool music and meet cool people.
