Sobygge, Michael - Melodic Meltdown

‘Melodic Meltdown’ was Michael’s first album, released in 1997. Rather confusingly he later formed a band called Melodic Meltdown, which was more of a traditional hard rock band, but when he first started it was all about him and his guitar. On some of the songs he is joined by Lasse Wintehr Wehner on bass and Joe Clancy on drums, but there are also plenty of imtes when it is just him and his guitar. What is somewhat surprising when playing this is the amount of different styles at play here. Michael is comfortable playing classical acoustic (indeed, one of the songs is called “Andante Op. 1 No. 1”) whereas on others he is full on shred. Listening to this on my iPod I had to do a double take when “Stonehenge” started as it really is full on, and although it does temper back a bit, there is no doubt that here is a guitarist more influenced by Vai than Bach. Although some of the production and arrangements do leave something to be desired, this is a solid album that fans of the guitar would certainly enjoy.