Mentioned him on the HS guitars thread but I felt he should have his own thread - Syu from the Japanese metal band Galneryus.
He's one of the best shred guitarists I've ever heard, sounding almost like a supercharged version of Michael Schenker here:
His big thing, though, is neoclassical shred and I think he's one of the best guys ever to do it. His chops are Malmsteen-level or beyond, but he actually plays with something approaching taste as well.
And his band are gloriously mad - just epic. The studio version of this track has these kind of rinky-dink sounding synthesised orchestral parts, it's amazing hearing it with a real orchestra. Amazing solo at 8:00...
- "I'm going to write a very stiff letter. A VERY stiff letter. On cardboard."
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I realised a long time ago that I would never play like that!
It was like an ice-pick through my brain and absolutely exhausting.
Otherwise, I liked it.
I remember seeing this video:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qqNKEnj2saw
That melodic part at 1:06!!
You may have heard of this already but around the same time I discovered a band called Pergamum who have a song called Classical Metal X, which is half their work mixed with half classical tunes but done in a metal format.
Heres that vid: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b6iRe1HFp-g
Also, the first thing that came to mind, given his accuracy and how clean his playing is, was "Skill level: Asian". Most impressive
Finally, talking about that...
As the American dude says - "I can't even comprehend what's going on on that screen".
EDIT: Before the inevitable flag reports for racism, that's purely a reference to the fact that Asian folk seem to have a far higher ceiling for hand-eye coordination than us European-types.
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It sounds even better than the studio version. The strings sound great, the singer absolutely belts it, Syu is note-perfect and the crowd going wild just makes it even more fun to watch.
I watched a few of those clips yesterday, following on from the other thread. And things like "Syu vs. Hizaki".
It's cool and the playing is amazing, but the music is a bit too power metal for my liking.
You have a point. I don't listen to much power metal... probably because I don't like it.
They're nowhere near as ridiculous as DragonForce, but maybe DragonForce go beyond power metal into... farcical metal?
It's hilarious, yeah, but it would be a lot more hilarious if they weren't so fucking amazing as well.
Can't watch too much of this stuff though, it starts to feel like sensory overload!
There isn't so much of it in the song I posted just above, but his sweep picking is a sight to behold - the speed is so enormous you'd think it was studio magic, if you weren't watching him do it with your own eyes...
I like quite a few Japanese bands (particularly big fan of X-Japan & Loudness) and i think reason they so good is that it's an asian take on western music? Not really sure where i'm going with this, but it's a genre that i like but slightly different to make it really interesting.
Akira Takasaki (loudness) was one of my first guitar loves... If you fancy check out the song S.D.I skip to the chorus at around the 1min mark... it's just a melodic tapping run which works really nicely with the vocals, but again not something that is "normal" to do in a song.