No Parole From Rock & Roll [Import]

Alcatrazz | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 20, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Import [Generic]
• ASIN: B00000768Q
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444,013 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Island In The Sun

2. General Hospital

3. Jet To Jet

4. Hiroshima Mon Amour

5. Kree Nakoorie

6. Incubus

7. Too Young To Die, Too Dru

8. Big Foot

9. Starcarr Lane

10. Suffer Me

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A somewhat dated-sounding production but a lot of fun, July 27, 2000

By 

John DeWald "Jet pilot" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Parole From Rock & Roll (Audio CD)

This was the first album I owned that featured Yngwie Malmsteen. I was in high school at the time and had read about Yngwie in several magazines. A local radio station played "Island in the Sun" one evening and the song caught my ear - the next day I purchased it on vinyl.

I just recently received this album on CD and have finally been able to listen to the tunes again. To sum it up: it's a very fun record and for Yngwie fans, a must-own item. Compared to the Steeler disc, Yngwie sounds more at ease and his playing fits the songs much more, no doubt due to the fact that Yngwie had about zero writing input with Steeler.

With Alcatrazz, Yngwie wrote or co-wrote every tune and the difference is rather night-and-day because of it. Graham Bonnet does some good work, although his vocal style is a rather raspy half-shout at times. Still, if you like Graham's work with Rainbow or MSG, you'll do fine with this. You can even hear some progressive-sounding elements in some songs, too, which again is a step forward from Steeler. This band is definitely several notches up from Steeler.

To compare it to Yngwie's solo debut would be tough to do. Alcatrazz was more of a vocal-oriented/rock project and probably more accessible to the casual rock fan. Yngwie still gets plenty of spots to shine instrumentally, however, so don't get the feeling that Yngwie only gets little 8-bar solos. If you are an Yngwie fanatic, you'll want both this album and Alcatrazz's live disc, "Live Sentence".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding, December 30, 2003

By 

Peter (San Francisco, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: No Parole From Rock & Roll (Audio CD)

Like Martin Popoff, the witty and highly knowledgeable author of the informative Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal, I have to concede that this is one of my 25 all time favorite metal albums. Notwithstanding obvious similarities with Rainbow, Alcatrazz proved to be innovators in their own right by taking the strongest musical and lyrical elements of that band along with incorporating their own ambitious concepts with the result that Ritchie Blackmore's contemporary albums with Joe Lynn Turner appeared comparatively bland and unadventurous.
Popoff is exactly right in contending that Graham Bonnet exerted a strong influence on Yngwie on this masterful album as the latter's riffs and solos are more distinguished than those of the Rising Force era. For example, "General Hospital" features a haunting opening riff and an unusual chord progression which suggests that Graham influenced Yngwie to allocate more focus to the unpredictable tempo changes than would ordinarily be featured on Yngwie's subsequent catalogue. Whereas on future songs like "Dark Ages" where it is clear that Yngwie cannot wait to solo immediately following the second chorus, on "General Hospital" he exhibits unconventional patience and commences the solo at a junture elevating the track to a higher dramatic plane.
Along with a stronger sense of timing, Yngwie's solo for this mesmerizing song likewise exhibits superior composition, for instead of typically performing fretboard runs with wild abandon, he cleverly starts at a moderate speed reflecting the chuggish tempo of the track before escalating to a lyrical, plaintive string bending wail which brilliantly complements Graham's ominous tale of forced incarceration in an imprisoning hospital which easily could have been located in the historical Alcatraz.
Similarly distinctive melodic soloing is featured on "Jet to Jet," which, in addition to featuring obligatory shredding, also includes a discernible melody on the high E string reminiscent of the Scorpions' tracks "Virgin Killer" and "He's a Man/ She's a Woman." Indeed, of all Yngwie's albums, his solos on No Parole have the strongest Uli Roth influence in emphasizing musical correlation to the songs' structure while aptly displaying his mind-blowing technique which still remains astonishing despite the proliferation of subsequent neo-classical guitarists.
Naturally, "Kree Nakoorie" and "Bigfoot" are the album's high points in powerfully showcasing the equal songwriting contributions of Graham and Yngwie. While the exceptional solos undoubtedly represent Yngwie's individual output, the slow, majestic verses and sophisticated mythological lyrics unmistakably reflect Graham's influence which together produce an outstanding collaboration.
Although this partnership proved to be sadly ephemeral, the fact that Yngwie's ensuing albums never fully recaptured the unique atmosphere of No Parole invites speculation as to how much stronger his solo catalogue would have become had he been amenable towards working with a significant collaborator (and by that meaning more than periodically allowing a temporary vocalist to co-write lyrics.) In any event, No Parole stands as one of the landmark metal albums of the 80's, a true artistic product from an underappreciated supergroup.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars still a favorite a quarter century later, April 2, 2008

By 

Donald DiPaula (Falls Church, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Parole From Rock & Roll (Audio CD)

I bought this album in high school, when I was first learning to play guitar and read about 19-year-old sensation Yngwie in Guitar Player magazine. He had just left Steeler (in which setting he had no writing input, only laying down the lead guitar tracks on their record) and put together Alcatrazz with Graham Bonnet. (GB had previously been in Rainbow, with one of YM's two biggest rock heroes, Richie Blackmore [the other rock influence, of course, being Hendrix], so this was something of a personal coup for YM at the time.)

This record was probably the last time Yngwie worked in a true collaborative approach - his later stuff all closely tracks his personal vision for what the songs should sound like, but on the Alcatrazz record, he was mainly writing music for a rock band setting, GB wrote most of the lyrics, and Jimmy Waldo had some input as well. So in both writing and performance, he wasn't in complete control of what everyone was doing. He's happier now controlling everything himself, but this was still a great album.

In particular, he was restrained enough not to try to fill every bar with whatever random notes drifted through his mind. He was more economical about arranging, with clearly defined solos in the middle of songs, intros and outros, and some intricate musical passages that were carefully fit into the songs' overall structures. Check out "General Hospital", "Jet To Jet", and "Too Young To Die, Too Drunk To Live", for examples.

I'd say this record pretty much announced YM to the world, and YM almost single-handedly started the neoclassical metal guitar virtuoso wave that swept the 80s. He didn't just *add* classical elements to his playing, he had completely assimilated Bach, Beethoven, Paganini, Mussorgsky, Abinoni, etc. into his musical psyche, and their influence just comes through organically.

What Mozart might have written and recorded if he had been born in the 1960s.