Recommend some instrumental guitar shred (heavy metal?) albums?

[MalVeauX]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build up a few more albums to enjoy a specific genre of music, but I'm looking for well recorded versions of this stuff. Sometimes that can be hard to find. I'm happy to just buy the CD albums ideally. Not looking to have multi-channel or high res stuff. Not looking for vinyl for this stuff. Just CD or downloadable lossless (FLAC or something similar). Again, prefer CD, and I'm happy to buy used!

Specifically looking for more well recorded albums of the genre: Instrumental Heavy Metal Guitar. But specifically electric guitar and specifically the shredding type. I apologize if this is not the right description. But basically there are excellent artists out there that can really shred with speed and high technicality on electric guitar and they do it as mostly instrumental, no vocals. It's probably more akin to Metal as a genre or Heavy Metal I think. Usually not like rock.

To help narrow this down, some examples of artists that I am referring to and already listen to:

Jeff Loomis
Marty Friedman
Michael Angelo Batio
John Petrucci
Marco Sfogli
Buckethead

If you are familiar with these artists, I'm happy to hear about what your favorite or best album(s) are from them. And I'm happy to learn of new artists. I've looked at lists of course, out there, like the top 50 shred artists out there. But, that doesn't mean the album is great and recorded well. Not all CD's are equal after all. So again, emphasis on best recordings in terms of the albums if possible.

Thanks!

Very best,

 

[highfigh]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build up a few more albums to enjoy a specific genre of music, but I'm looking for well recorded versions of this stuff. Sometimes that can be hard to find. I'm happy to just buy the CD albums ideally. Not looking to have multi-channel or high res stuff. Not looking for vinyl for this stuff. Just CD or downloadable lossless (FLAC or something similar). Again, prefer CD, and I'm happy to buy used!

Specifically looking for more well recorded albums of the genre: Instrumental Heavy Metal Guitar. But specifically electric guitar and specifically the shredding type. I apologize if this is not the right description. But basically there are excellent artists out there that can really shred with speed and high technicality on electric guitar and they do it as mostly instrumental, no vocals. It's probably more akin to Metal as a genre or Heavy Metal I think. Usually not like rock.

To help narrow this down, some examples of artists that I am referring to and already listen to:

Jeff Loomis
Marty Friedman
Michael Angelo Batio
John Petrucci
Marco Sfogli
Buckethead

If you are familiar with these artists, I'm happy to hear about what your favorite or best album(s) are from them. And I'm happy to learn of new artists. I've looked at lists of course, out there, like the top 50 shred artists out there. But, that doesn't mean the album is great and recorded well. Not all CD's are equal after all. So again, emphasis on best recordings in terms of the albums if possible.

Thanks!

Very best,

One of the better ways I have found to hear music of a specific genre is with Pandora- I let it pick the music, then I hit the thumbs up or down buttons, which filter the stream, but when I start using a new channel, I let it go and that exposes me to more artists and if available, more songs. I also watch a lot of YouTube videos.

Steve Morse
Joe Satriani
Steve Vai
Allan Holdsworth
Greg Koch
Frank Gambale

While not necessarily metal, they all can/could play- Holdsworth passed in 2017.

 

[Eppie]

Those are good recommendations but not metal, as mentioned. I was going to mention Joe Satriani as well, and Steve Vai can shred but for heavier stuff check out Yngwie Malmsteen. He has a huge catalogue.

 

[Pogre]

Tool albums tend to be very well recorded and are definitely heavy. Look at Chevelle (La Gargola is my favorite album by them) too. Of course for some true old school heavy metal shredding one needs not look much further than Metallica's first 3 albums (Kill 'Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets). Kill 'Em All is still one of my all time favorite albums. Megadeth has some great entries as well. "Peace Sells" and "Rust In Peace" are standout Megadeth albums for me.

 

[Kvn_Walker]

Mick Gordon: DOOOOOOOOOM

Sonic Mayhem: Quake 2:

Probably not what you're looking for, but I love rocking out to those OST's.

 

[SimplyEpic]

Another you may be interested in is "The Great Kat". She is one of the fastest guitar players on record and likes to take classical and turns it into thrash metal. She definitely shreds.

 

[Pogre]

Another you may be interested in is "The Great Kat". She is one of the fastest guitar players on record and likes to take classical and turns it into thrash metal. She definitely shreds.

Oh really? Never heard of her, but that sounds like something I might get into. I listen to Apocalyptica every once in a while and they do something similar.

Pretty cool solo at the beginning. This is the first time I've seen this particular video.

 

[lovinthehd]

First thing I thought of was my old vinyl LP anthology called "The Guitars that Destroyed the World" but don't think that's quite the same thing you're looking for nor do I consider it a particularly well executed recording. It's either Led Zeppelin or Tool for me for the most part in this genre....the Buckethead I listen to is more mellow (like Colma....but then anything titled Colma should be a bit "deader" perhaps ).

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Those are good recommendations but not metal, as mentioned. I was going to mention Joe Satriani as well, and Steve Vai can shred but for heavier stuff check out Yngwie Malmsteen. He has a huge catalogue.

Yngwie Malmsteen is partially responsible for some of my hearing loss, after attending his concert in BB King’s venue in NYC some years back.
He’s a maestro of electric guitar .

 

[Pogre]

Yngwie Malmsteen is partially responsible for some of my hearing loss, after attending his concert in BB King’s venue in NYC some years back.
He’s a maestro of electric guitar .

He really is. I was never a huge fan, but he was on my radar and a lot of my friends had his cassettes. He really was one of the best. A true virtuoso.

 

[MalVeauX]

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback so far.

So, trying to avoid stuff with vocals. It sort of eliminates any album that has seen radio time. It's pretty specific to a few artists that are top tier shredders on electric guitar and they release instrumental albums where they just showcase their skills. And of those, looking for those well recorded ones.

I will start looking at these artists mentioned above by everyone for any instrumental albums that are regraded as being well recorded. Thanks!

I'll try to provide more examples to help illustrate:

Marty Friedman, Rock Box from True Obsessions:

Michael Angelo Batio, On the Double from Hands without Shadows:

Marco Sfogli, Andromeda from There's Hope:

John Petrucci, Tunnel Vision from Suspended Animation:

Jeff Loomis, Azure Haze from Zero Order Phase:

Very best,

 

[SimplyEpic]

Since you brought it up I actually dug out some of The Great Kat's albums. Still like some of her stuff but the recording quality does suffer a little and makes it worse having to listen through my computer but she still shreds lol.

 

[SimplyEpic]

As a side note I think her only album in HD is Bloody Vivaldi.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

try out some Animals as Leaders.

 

[Hobbit]

Buckethead - Population Override
Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt 2 - Scenes from a Memory
Felix Martin - Mechanical Nations
Jeff Beck - wired
Paul Gilbert - Fuzz Universe
Shawn Lane - Powers of Ten
Guthrie Govan - Erotic Cakes. (or The Aristocrats - the Aristocrats)
Jennifer Batten - Above below and beyond
Derek Sherinian - Oceana (Lukather, Mcalpine, Bohnamasa, Stevens, Aldrich - mixed and mastered by none other than Simon Philips)


and I can't leave out the obvious:

Vai - Passion and Warfare
Satriani - surfing with the alien.
Eric Johnson - Ah Via Musicom (maybe not hard enough?)

 

[highfigh]

Jeff Beck - wired

If you're going to put this up, you should include Blow By Blow.

 

[Eppie]

I have a couple Jeff Beck albums, including Wired, but consider those more classic rock than metal. Maybe just splitting hairs now. Satriani's Surfing With the Alien sounds pretty good.

That Batoi track above... wow!

If we're talking instrumental then I would be remiss in not mentioning Al Di Meola. Elegant Gypsy is a great album. It's not metal, but Di Meola is an amazing technical guitarist. I think this album has a latin flavour. It's from 1977 but I remember that the quality was very good at the time. Check out this track:

 

[Pogre]

Ever heard of the 2 Cello guys? This is a really fun guitar center video they made with Steve Vai. It's all instrumental and electric guitar/cello heavy.

Another fun one.

 

[Eppie]

Yngwie Malmsteen is partially responsible for some of my hearing loss, after attending his concert in BB King’s venue in NYC some years back.
He’s a maestro of electric guitar .

Yngwie is amazing but some of his albums include vocals and he mixes in orchestral music as well. A pretty varied catalogue so may take a little research to find the pure instrumental stuff that MalVeauX is looking for.

I never got to see him live. Lost my hearing due to the likes of Randy Rhoads, Ted Nugent, Joe Perry, Angus Young and Eddie Van Halen. Nugent and Aerosmith were particularly loud.

Haven't seen that Thunderstruck video for a while. That is a fun one!

 

[Hobbit]

If you're going to put this up, you should include Blow By Blow.

It was a tough call, I went with wired only because it "rocks" a little harder and is a little more progressive IMO. I'm a big Hammer fan too.