Heavy Reign
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Powerful, Progressive Instrumental Metal Music
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Ram's Rock, the new CD release by the New York progressive metal band, Heavy Reign, is a stellar guitar and keyboard effort with clear neo-classical overtones. Keyboardist Ram writes the music, Dan Shimmyo provides the rapid yet melodic guitar work, and bassist Larry Calcagno contributes low-end muscle to this cohesive instrumental album. Shimmyo and Ram trade off solos on a number of cuts, evoking Malmsteen and Johansson in early Rising Force. Heavy Reign avoids overwhelming the listener with technique and repetitive scales on Ram's Rock, instead focusing their efforts on quality songwriting with precise execution.
Dan Shimmyo is a completely self-taught guitarist, learning guitar by wearing out his VCR watching Paul Gilbert instructional videos. He also spent a lot of time playing bass in college bands, while also honing his recording skills, first with a 4-track recorder, and most recently with a Mac computer system running Deck II software.
The music on Ram's Rock was entirely produced and engineered by Shimmyo. Dan is currently running his own record label, Cutting Edge Records, which is marketing Ram's Rock as well as Shimmyo's solo record Metamorphosis. While another neo-classical metal work might seem to be the next logical step, don't be surprised if the multi-talented Shimmyo has other plans.
Contact Information
Heavy Reign
4129 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11229
United States
E-mail:
Heavy Reign
Web site:
www.heavyreign.com
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Mathias Holm
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Swedish Instrumentalist Does It On His Own
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Sweden has produced another guitarist/composer of note, 26-year-old Mathias Holm. On his completely self-made CD, Pictures Of A Dream, Holm plays guitar, bass, keyboards, contributes drum programming, wrote, produced and arranged all sixteen tracks and even designed the cover art. Holm rates Al Di Meola, Vinnie Moore and Mike Oldfield as his biggest influences, and his compositional style definitely favors Moore. Holm possesses prodigious technique, which he uses to his advantage through dizzying solos on the atmospheric "Pictures Of A Dream" and via Pentium-speed acoustic guitar mutes and electric guitar fretwork on "Day Of Silence".
Mathias first picked up the guitar at the age of 13, and with great self-determination and ambition, developed his well-crafted guitar style and highly developed command of the fretboard. Interest in writing instrumental guitar pieces like Moore and Yngwie Malmsteen sparked a desire in Holm to release his own record. However, sensing the difficulty for unknown guitar instrumentalists to obtain record deals, Mathias decided to record the album himself, beginning in 1995. With the assistance of drummer Mats Eriksson-Wigg, he recorded and released the hard-rocking Pictures Of A Dream.
The all-instrumental Pictures Of A Dream is being released in Japan on the Shinseido/Sound Treasures label, and will be distributed in Europe by Border Music. Holm would now like to find U.S. distribution or label representation for his album
Contact Information
Mathias Holm
Arnon 86
824 93 HUDIKSVALL
Sweden
Web site:
www.algonet.se/~m-marnon/mathiasholm
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