Vinnie Moore: Aerial Visions

UFO six-stringer flexes his creative muscles.

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Axe-fest albums can, notoriously, be just a bloated showcase for unrestrained widdling. But not so Vinnie Moore’s eighth solo album.

He makes each and every track a proper song, with a well-developed progression. So whether it’s the dirty throb of Mustang Shuffle, the ominous shades of The Dark Dream or the nostalgic phrasing of Looking Back, the emphasis is on joyful groove and sonic delight.

There’s even space for a cover ZZ Top’s La Grange, with Moore’s six strings doing an very good job of evoking Billy Gibbons’s salacious drawl. The top cut, though, must be the immense A Million Miles Gone, a multi-textured epic positively dripping emotion and bristling with technique. Awesome.

Essi Berelian

Whether it’s magazines, books or online, Essi has been writing about rock ’n’ metal for around thirty years. He has been reviews editor for Classic Rock and Metal Hammer, rock reviews editor for lads mag Front and worked for Kerrang!. He has also written the Rough Guide to Heavy Metal and contributed to the Rough Guide to Rock and Rough Guide Book of Playlists, and the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles (13th edition). Most fun interview? Tenacious D – Jack Black and Kyle Gass – for The Pick of Destiny movie book. An avid record/CD/tape collector, he’s amassed more music than he could ever possibly listen to, which annoys his wife no end.