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1 week ago | 
musicradar.com | Amit Sharma
Given its connection to Edward Van Halen in the 1980s, Kramer is undoubtedly a guitar brand steeped in rich history, particularly for higher-gain players hoping to dazzle audiences with technical proficiency. The brand-new Volante series – named after the Italian word for flying – clearly follows that trend, with the manufacturer hoping to “transcend nostalgia and reposition Kramer as the progressive choice for high-performance guitarists”.
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1 week ago | 
guitarworld.com | Janelle Borg |Amit Sharma
It's been over four decades since Yngwie Malmsteen burst onto the scene with his signature neoclassical approach to the electric guitar. In fact, this year marks the 40th anniversary of his second album, Marching Out – which features one of his most beloved tracks, I’ll See the Light Tonight (who can forget the iconic diminished coda on the two lowest strings?). That longevity and milestone is no mean feat considering the transient nature of the industry.
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2 weeks ago | 
guitarworld.com | Phil Weller |Amit Sharma
Reflecting on the release of his career-defining album Marching Out 40 years on, Yngwie Malmsteen has looked back on one of his strangest music video experiences, which saw him shredding with a fire-breathing dragon… sort of.
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3 weeks ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
On their second full-length, Mourning You, Ontario post-punk quartet Bonnie Trash are purging the darkest depths of their souls and holding a mirror to the most unsettling aspects of the human condition. At the heart of the music is Emmalia Bortolon-Vettor’s heavily fuzzed and delayed guitars, a cavernous cauldron of washy noise and screaming feedback underneath twin sister Sarafina’s infectious, gothic serenades.
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3 weeks ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
Richard Z. Kruspe has a thirst for fire. You can see it coming from every corner of the stage when he’s performing in Rammstein, and depending on how close you are to the front, you can probably feel it, too. You can even hear it in his riffs, which often sound like they were born inside a blast furnace, where the rhythmic clangs of machinery orchestrate the production of the toughest metal on earth.
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4 weeks ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
Swedish guitarist Jonathan Hultén rose to prominence as the founding guitarist from gothic metallers Tribulation, though it’s his solo work since leaving the band in 2020 that’s given listeners a real taste of his mind. Debut album Chants from Another Place married his love of Nick Drake’s dark folk with the celestial sounds of church choirs, yielding some truly stunning results. The music was so compelling, it convinced him to leave the band he’d devoted 15 years of his life to.
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1 month ago | 
guitarworld.com | Phil Weller |Amit Sharma
Rammstein riff machine Richard ZK has offered a fascinating insight into the divided Germany he grew up in, revealing the lengths it took to get his hands on one of his first proper electric guitars – and it reads like something out of a spy film. Born in 1967, the guitarist – who was driven to design “the best guitar that ever happened in guitar history” with his brand-new LTD signature – grew up in East Germany in the wake of the Second World War, which resulted in the division of the country.
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1 month ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
Despite their connection to the Swedish melodic death metal scene, with members who also play in bands like Arch Enemy and Soilwork, the Night Flight Orchestra are wholeheartedly devoted to making music that’s feel-good and uplifting. This year’s seventh full-length, Give Us the Moon, continues to blur the lines between AOR, funk, and disco – cooking up an infectious brew of cinematic hooks, key changes, and triple harmonies.
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1 month ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
If you went back in time and told Bill Finnegan, the inventor of the Klon Centaur, that his pedals would be fetching up to $20,000 some three decades after he started making them, he probably wouldn’t believe you. The American engineer originally set out to design an overdrive that could realistically recreate the harmonic content and depth of a guitar amplifier being pushed at high volume.
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1 month ago | 
guitarworld.com | Amit Sharma
When it comes to heavy metal, horror films have a lot to answer for. Bands like Black Sabbath, Type O Negative, and White Zombie made a career out of capturing the macabre disturbances witnessed on screen through sound, and there’s no shortage of modern groups following suit, injecting that same sense of dread into their unholiest creations. You could say Joseph Michael Poole, better known as Wednesday 13, has dedicated his life to this particular art form.
