George Bellas returns with his
3rd solo album. His first two were pretty much shred by numbers
with odd time signatures and in places pretty hard going. However,
Bellas was also involved in the first excellent Mogg/Way release
and also handled all guitar parts (as well as composition) on
the impressive second Ring Of Fire album 'The Oracle'. He has
also done time with Royal Hunt / Artension vocalist John West
so he is no stranger to working in a band environment.
Stylistically Venomous Fingers continues the trilogy started
with Turn Of The Millenium and Mind Over Matter, that is its
full of complex progressive traits, advanced guitar technqiues.
Its has a bit more of a neo-classical feel to it than Bellas'
previous two solo albums. If you are not a fan of intense
high octane playing then this is probably not up your avenue.
But, if you partial to fretboard mastery at blistering speeds
you will find a lot to enjoy on Venomous Fingers.
The album is split between short 'guitar orchestral' type
pieces with the guitars providing all the harmonies and counterpoints,
and then there is the long (and some are long - Journey
To The Stars is 11 minutes!) and more band orientated
workouts. Bellas certainly has command over the instrument
and his compositional style is home to very complex structures....many
of which it must be said do get very intense. Unfortunately
there are not many places in the longer tracks that show a
graspable melody (ala Satriani) that allows the more general
listener to really focus on. Instead its more a barrage of
arpeggios, super slick sweep picked patterns and ventures
through an assortment of scales.
I found myself being drawn to the shorter tracks that do
display much more melody. Forever is a very tasteful classical
piece (minus guitar!) that I would love to heard built on.
Opener Discovery has an almost
Yngwie type unaccompanied feel and has a nice blend of guitar
work. But for the most part I found it quite difficult to
distinguish one track from the next.
I am sure the army of Bellas' instrumental works will lap
Venomous Fingers up as there is a lot of good, but sadly to
these ears it tends to lack a little purpose but does showcase
Bellas' phenomenal chops.
