Glen Drover is better known to the metal community as the former member of King Diamond and Megadeth, and to a lesser extent as a member of Canadian power thrash metal band Eidolon which he formed with brother Shawn. And this year with the help of some illustrious names in the industry, he unleashed his solo debut "Metalusion", and as the name suggests, it's a combination of metal and jazz fusion. Five original tunes and five covers make up the 10-track album. The first of the original compositions is the album opener "Ground Zero", featuring Chris Poland of Megadeth and OHM fame along with Vinnie Moore from UFO. It's an immensely delightful track that nicely sets the tone for the rest of the album. It has quite a strong progressive jazzy feel to it, and with the presence of three jazz connoisseurs in Drover, Poland and Moore, I expected nothing less. Even though it is largely a jazz-speed bonanza, this song has a sufficiently prominent thrash element that should please fans of Megadeth's Poland-era albums. It actually has something for metal fans of all kind, with the guitar harmonies giving it a traditional metal touch as well. "Frozen Dream" is next, and features Steve Smyth from Forbidden. Another excellently composed track, this is highly enjoyable from start to finish, and what stands out here as much as the guitars obviously is Jim Gilmour's contribution on the keyboards which creates a musical trinity that's similar to that of track 1. Paul Yee's bass and Chris Sutherand's drums also add a lot of punch to this tune, thus proving that Metalusion is after all a band effort and not merely a solo album. The next original track is "Colors Of Infinity" which does not feature any guests and is composed by the Glen Drover band on its own. This being the debut album, the jury would be very much out on Glen's abilities as a composer and band leader, and after listening to this song no one would be left disappointed or dissatisfied, as the incredibly pristine guitar sound that's the focal point of this beautifully powerful tune rings through the listener's grateful ears. "Illusions Of Starlight" comes across as a brilliant follow-up. It offers much of the same guitar goodness but in a slightly more upbeat and up-tempo manner as compared to its predecessor. The last of the original tracks "Ascension" comes in at number 8 in the track listing, another slow, mesmerizingly beautiful piece of music that highlights the genius of Glen Drover. Other than these, the album includes five cover tunes that pay tribute to Glen's jazz heroes, namely Frank Zappa, Jean-Luc Ponty and Al DiMeola. While doing justice to the original versions of these songs, Glen has certainly given a more 'metal' twist to them, making it more suitable for metal fans. One of the JL Ponty covers features Opeth's Frederik Akesson as guest guitarist while the other boasts of contribution by Nevermore's Jeff Loomis, both musicians giving a lot of oomph to the already powerful music. I'm sufficiently glad listening to how Glen combines with these amazing guest musicians, but given the style and magnitude of this stellar effort, I'm only surprised that it doesn't feature the likes of Alex Skolnick and Devin Townsend. Food for thought for the next album may be? Overall, this album is more of the kind that progressive rock fans and connoisseurs of virtuosic guitar would appreciate more than your average Megadeth fan would. The fact that it's an instrumental album gives complete opportunity for Glen Drover to present himself in a way he has never been able to do in any of his previous bands. If you previously didn't think much of Glen's abilities as a guitar player and composer, you're in for a pleasant shock. Featuring some of the most wonderful virtuosic guitar you would have heard in a long time, this is a blissful hour of music which everyone should treat themselves to. To sum it up in one word, I would just say, "Wow!!" - My Rating: 9.5/10 © Jazz Explorer THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2011 © http://jazzexplorer.blogspot.ie/2011/07/glen-drover-metalusion-album-review.html
This album has been described as "Technically excellent jazz-metal that sometimes suffers from a lack of memorable melodies". It can easily be argued "memorable melodies" do not necessarily make a great album. In fact, this album contains five covers including two Frank Zappa tunes, two "Jean-Luc Ponty" compositions, and an Al di Meola tune. These three composers did not achieve fame through melodic compositions so "a lack of memorable melodies" does not make a bad album. However, artists like Zappa did create often manic, avant garde, and tuneless music that was also memorable, technically excellent, and also highly inventive. It is true that on many shred, metal, and fusion albums, compositional originality is sacrificed often to merely display the technical mastery of an instrument. This is fundamentally the main critics’ point in some of the poorer reviews of this album. Glen Drover certainly creates a potent blend of classic power jazz metal backed by great musicians that include Chris Poland, Vinnie Moore, and Jeff Loomis. Great musicianship here and definitely "A decent effort worth checking out if the style fits your tastes". Read more about this album at http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/1139/glen-drovers-metalusion/13913 and check out Dave Martone & Glen Drover's "Live At Metalworks" album [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 115 Mb]
TRACKS / COMPOSERS
1. Ground Zero - Glen Drover & Jim Gilmour
2. Frozen Dream - Jim Gilmour
3. Egyptian Danza - Al di Meola
4. Colors Of Infinity - Glen Drover
5. Illusions Of Starlight - Glen Drover & Paul Yee
6. Don't Let The World Pass You By - Jean-Luc Ponty
7. Mirage - Jean-Luc Ponty
8. Ascension - Glen Drover
9. The Purple Lagoon - Frank Zappa
10. Filthy Habits - Frank Zappa
MUSICIANS
Glen Drover - Guitars, Vocals
Chris Poland, Vinnie Moore - Guitar on Track 1
Steve Smyth - Guitar on Track 2
Fredrik Akesson - Guitar on Track 6
Jeff Loomis - Guitar on Track 7
Paul Yee - Bass
Jim Gilmour - Keyboards
Chris Sutherland – Drums
BIO (WIKI)
Glen Drover (born May 25, 1969) is a heavy metal guitarist from Missisauga, Ontario, Canada, where he currently resides. Drover is best known as the former lead guitarist in Megadeth and King Diamond, as well as his own band Eidolon, along with his brother Shawn Drover. Glen Drover began playing guitar as a child, and was joined at age 10 by his brother Shawn on drums. Influenced by Tony MacAlpine, Al Di Meola, Randy Rhoads, Greg Howe, Michael Romeo, George Lynch, Warren DeMartini and David Gilmour, the Drover brothers formed the thrash/power metal band Eidolon in 1996, releasing seven albums to date. Glen is currently teaching guitar lessons at Musicians Choice. In 1998, Drover joined King Diamond, and appeared on the House of God album. In October 2004, Drover joined thrash metal band Megadeth, bringing along his brother Shawn. Following an extensive world tour, Drover contributed to Megadeth's 2007 release, United Abominations as the lead guitarist and with co-writing credits for one song. In January 2008 Glen Drover left Megadeth to focus on family life; the constant touring was starting to have a negative effect on him. His last show with Megadeth was on November 18, 2007 in Brisbane, Australia. Commenting on leaving the band, Drover said "I am aware of the rumors that I left Megadeth to focus on family life and my family life has always been my priority. In the end, I was unhappy with the situation, which magnified me wanting to spend more time with my family and realizing that it's time for me to move on to the next chapter in my musical career, I have a lot of great memories and met a ton of great people along the way, both fans and people in the industry." Glen collaborated with Stéphan Forté of the band Adagio on a 10 track instrumental CD.[citation needed] The album, titled Metalusion, was recorded sporadically over a 2-plus-year period. It was released on April 5, 2011. The group decided to call the band/project Metalusion, which is the name of the first album. The next studio album, Between Sea And Sky is scheduled to be released in the summer of 2014. On October 22, 2008, Testament announced that they had recruited guitarist Glen Drover to fill in on their upcoming Mexican tour dates with Judas Priest, due to Alex Skolnick's prior commitment to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Also in March 2010, during the time of him trying to finally finish his album, Glen Drover played with Testament on the Megadeth, Testament, Exodus tour in the US and Canada, due to Alex Skolnick being away again during this time. After lead singer Geoff Tate was fired from the band Queensrÿche in June 2012, Tate announced his own lineup on September 1, 2012, which included Drover, but on November 23, 2012, Drover left the band, stating: "I was very excited about doing this gig initially, but learned in the past week or so that it's in my best interest not to do this right now. (...) I sincerely wish the Geoff and the band all the luck on what they do in the future." Drover would later explain that: “[t]he musical direction of where Geoff wanted to go wasn’t what I wanted to go forward with. I’m more into the first five Queensrÿche albums, the original template of the band. For me, when I think of the band, I think of those records.”On March 5, 2013, Drover surprised many, when he tweeted: "Going up onstage with the REAL Queensryche and play "Take Hold Of The Flame" this thursday at the Phoenix in Toronto. going to be fun stuff!" By this, he meant the version of Queensrÿche that had expelled Tate and replaced him with Todd La Torre. This performance was held on March 7, 2013, in which "Take Hold of the Flame" from Queensrÿche's 1984 album The Warning was played as an encore. Drover later stated that calling this version of Queensrÿche "the real Queensrÿche", "was poor wording on my part. (...) It wasn’t a slap at anyone in any way, shape or form. I have no problems with anybody on either side. It was the wrong choice of wording.” In April 2014, a settlement granted the sole rights to the Queensrÿche name to the band fronted by La Torre.
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