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"Guitarchitecture" Review Featured In Guitar World, January, 1999
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Rob Johnson
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Review of "Guitarchitecture"
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ob Johnson can play faster than you. Count on it, unless your name is Steve or John, Eric or Yngwie. Johnson, a 27-year-old Ohio native and resident has released three solo albums filled with enough high-octane, high-speed jazz and classical-tinged heavy playing to gain him wide recognition in Japan as an up-and-coming guitar star. He even writes a monthly lesson column for Guitar magazine, one of the biggest music mags in Japan, and Johnson regularly performs at clinics and music fair trade shows there.
His renown in Japan is great enough that Chaos to Control, the debut album of his band Magnitude Nine, was released there on Zero Records, home to Judas Priest, Night Ranger and Uli Jon Roth. Back home, the album is only available through his management. His instrumental albums are available through his own Screemin' Geetar Records.
Johnson's playing, fast and well articulated with a love of legato, reflects the clear influences of Paul Gilbert, Yngwie, John Petrucci, Allan Holdsworth and Eddie Van Halen, all forged into his own style. Magnitude Nine is also, of course, filled with Johnson's screaming legato licks, but the music is quite different -- progressive melodic metal with Johnson's axe sharing the spotlight with Corey Brown's operatic vocals. "I'm focusing more on the band than my solo stuff right now," Johnson says. "I think I can reach more people that way but it has also changed my approach a bit; with Magnitude Nine, I've been doing more string-skipping as well as sweep picking."
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Guitar World
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