Yngwie Malmsteen is hardly the only guitarist to use incredibly fast shredding techniques to play supersonic solos and racing riffs.
But he’s easily one of the best. His brand of lightning quick neo-classical metal (metal incorporating ideas and techniques from classical guitar) is very 80s, but very cool. He’s been rated by Time magazine as being the 9th best guitar player of all time.
One of the reasons that he is maybe more obscure is because a lot of his songs are so intensely fast. But there are plenty of tracks that, although admittedly pacey, are very much catchy metal tunes.
“Rising Force” is a blur of shredding and soloing. However, Malmsteen has crafted a particularly accessible head banger with this. His vocals are surprising good, and the melodies are classic. The song is rhythmically quite complex, as you might expect from a classically influenced guitarist.
Where the song really gets awesome is the guitar solos. He runs up and down arpeggios and scales at truly astounding speeds, which isn’t the most expressive style of soloing, it’s true, but it’s awesome to listen to!
“Rising Force” was released in 1988 on the album Odyssey, which is slightly confusing because he released an album called Rising Force in 1984.