Released By : Fonomidia Records
Genre : Guitar Virtuoso, Instrumental
Links : http://www.myspace.com/carloslichman
Tracklist:
01. Hellish Priest
02. Blood Searcher
03. The Symbolic Philosopher
04. Dark Wishes
05. Ceifador
06. Speed Adagio
07. Judas Judgment
08. Frankenstein Baby
09. Ballet
10. Hell’s Gates
11. YM
12. Cold Nights
While a lot of the modern day guitar virtuoso guys follow the ways of guys like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, it’s nice every now and again to run into somebody that is unashamedly old-school in their guitar approach. Carlos Lichman from Brazil is a pure shredder taking his influence from guys like Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Stump and Jason Becker. Sure, this album is not the fastest shredding I’ve ever heard, and composition wise there is a lot better out there but from start to finish GENOCIDE is a mega fun album that will appeal to all prospective guitar shredders on a very primal level.
There is not a whole to talk about song wise on this album as each track is merely a vessel to display the talents Lichman and not much else. The tracks are all heavy metal based once again sounding a bit like a Yngwie Mamlsteen record without any vocals. He combines the backbone of thrash metal with the technical proficiency of progressive metal and adds some pure speed metal for good measure, which leads me to another comparison to the eighties band CACOPHONY, which was a collaboration between the two of the biggest name shred guitarist around at the time in Marty Friedman and Jason Becker. There are a few times where if you listen closely enough you can hear Lichman attempting to add his own unique feel, but it’s obviously quite hard to have a unique sound when you’re shredding as fast as lightning.
Of the compositions BLOOD SEARCHER, DARK WISHES and FRANKENSTEIN BABY are the three that offer up the best of Lichman but each song here does at least offer something to guitar fanatics. Interestingly enough, most of the songs feature some pretty strong keyboard work which actually adds to the overall sound and helps give some of the songs a bit of a break from the shred fest they can become. Sure Lichman shows some of his slower playing here and there throughout the album which is fine, but the base fact here is that GENOCIDE is a heavy metal, instrumental guitar shredding album that will please fans of the style but do nothing to convert people that are yet to dive into this type of music.
Written By ZeeZee
Rating : 7/10