Edge of Insanity

Tony MacAlpine | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Shrapnel
• ASIN: B000001068
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,981 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #20 in Music > Rock > Rock Guitarists > Shred
  • #45 in Music > Indie Music > Rock > Rock Guitarists

Track Listings

1. Wheel of Fortune

2. The Stranger

3. Quarter to Midnight [Live]

4. Agrionia

5. (Interlude)

6. Empire in the Sky

7. The Witch and the Priest

8. The Taker

9. Chopin Prelude 16, Opus 28

10. Edge of Insanity

11. The Raven

12. No Place in Time

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best album you've never heard, December 2, 2003

By 

Jonathan Jones "savagesimian" (Baltimore, Md) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Edge of Insanity (Audio CD)

Putting Tony Macalpine together with Billy Sheehan put this album over the top. While other bassists such as Tony Franklin serve well as a backdrop to Macalpine's virtuoso assault on guitar and keyboard, Sheehan takes it to the next level with acrobatic bass counters. How Macalpine has never gotten more press is one of the great mysteries.....

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the weak: Intense and frantic, November 15, 2003

By 

Ian J. Einman (Bellevue, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edge of Insanity (Audio CD)

Some people just don't "get" this CD. This is guitar playing compositional excellence. It is fast and furious, but unlike many other similar guitarits, it is NOT a "fast for fast's sake" endless repetition of scale after high-speed scale. The songs are very well written, complex, multilayered compositions.

The classical influence is obvious, and his skill is considerable. As someone that enjoys music from speed metal to pop to going to an orchestra now and then, I see this music for what it is, highly skilled songwriting played by an excellent performer. I was absorbed by this CD the moment I first heard it almost 20 years ago, it is like Beethoven on crack. The title of the CD is rather appropriate.

Especially if you've never heard Tony MacAlpine before at all, it is hard to really gauge him by short little sound samples. You won't "get" many of these songs until you listen to them a few times and let them sink in. I'll try to give you my sense of this CD: frantic, intense, cold, calculated, complex, and precise.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Metal/Classical Guitar work, October 7, 1998

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Edge of Insanity (Audio CD)

Mr. MacAlpine's flashy classical training and melancholy soul ride atop the heavy accompaniment of the virtuoso drumming of (believe it or not) Steve Smith (Journey) and Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, David Lee Roth Band) for a whirlwind tour of Malmsteen-ish instumental tunes.

There is a clever and suprising use of atypical cadences and melodies (like they're not all speed metal, or even rock, for that matter).

A word on the down side: Sheehan and Smith's excellent and thunderous accompaniment is sometimes just that: excellent and thunderous, when a moment of quiet restraint might have served well.