Guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen has announced a new album, Parrabelum. It's due to land amongst us mere mortals here on planet Earth on July 23 via Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group, and is preceded by a video for the finger-blistering, Paganini-referencing fret monster Wolves At The Door
“It's the sort of thing I love to do," says Malmsteen. "It's my way of paying homage to him. And here it works very well within the flow of the track."
Unable to tour, Malmsteen took longer than usual to record the album – the follow-up to 2019's Blue Lightning – and he's clearly delighted with the results.
"What has helped this time is that I wasn't able to go on the road because of the pandemic," he says. "It meant I could take much longer in the studio, both to write and record. Because I am usually always on tour, which is great, I haven't had the luxury of spending a lot of time working on new music for more than 20 years. But I suddenly had no pressure at all on that front. And I feel the album has benefited enormously as a result."
“I am the sort of person who doesn't like to do take after take after take of any track," he adds. "If something isn't to my satisfaction, I'll move on. But there were occasions with this album when I dismissed something because I thought it was a stinker. I went back a couple of days later, listened to it and wondered why I thought it stank in the first place!
"That's the beauty of having everything available you've done through Pro Tools. Nothing is lost. Things were changing all the time. Song titles, tempos. Everything was fluid. I would listen to a part I had done for one specific song, and realise it worked better if I transposed it into another track."
Malmsteen ends by saying, "I recorded this as a singular piece of art. Not as a collection of 10 tracks you can hear in any order you want. I view this album as having a natural flow from start to finish. It's not to be cut up into little pieces. I want fans to experience the delight I had in making it."
Parabellum will be available on CD, red transparent vinyl and via digital platforms, and is available to pre-order now.
Yngwie Malmsteen - Parabellum tracklist
1. Wolves At The Door
2. Presto Vivace in C# Minor
3. Relentless Fury
4. (Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum
5. Eternal Bliss
6. Toccata
7. God Particle
8. Magic Bullet
9. (Fight) The Good Fight
10. Sea Of Tranquility
