Customer Reviews

Trilogy

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After this, it was all downhill. His albums began to get a bit "samey", containing songs of dubiously similar, commercial style, with the occasional left-field entry of a real metal epic. This album shows him wanting to try the radio-friendly thing with "You Don't Remember", which is probably his least bubble-gum flavored pop song, but overall it isn't very commercial. And it was the last one to be without one of his ultra-cheesey ballads, which gains MAJOR points for TRILOGY.
Nope, there are definitely NO songs on TRILOGY that your girlfriend would like, which is how it should be. Well, the aforementioned "You Don't Remember" might actually be a chick song, but besides that one it's all dungeons and dragons and shreddery.
Yngwie will never be called a poet, but he at least covers some fairly interesting topics with "Queen in Love" and "Dark Ages". "Liar" sees him seething at someone who backstabbed him, whilst "Crying" is a nice little acoustic solo vehicle.
Undoubtedly the final tune is the piece-de-resistance. "Trilogy Suite" is in my useless opinion his best, most interesting instrumental. It wears many more faces than the throw-away 3 minute shred-fests he tacked onto his subsequent albums, and never loses your attention. The blistering acoustic break towards the end is To DIE FOR.
Yngwie also plays bass on the album and does an amazing job at that, especially in the Trilogy Suite where he routinely does his Bach schtick on the four-string.
Apparently the singer Mark Boals has found some disfavor amongst Yngwie fans, which I can't really relate to. I find him much more interesting than any of the other singers Yngwie's had, especially the "middle-namers": Jeff Scott Soto and Joe Lynn Tuneless, rock star extraordinaire.
Yngwie's first 3 albums show him doing it his way. After that, it was Yngwie doing it the financial way. Turns out it never really paid off--he was never a radio staple--and part of me is glad that it backfired on him. Serves him right for abandoning his integrity to greed.

Everyone else has addressed the marvellous instrumental aspect of this album, so I'm not even going to bother with that. But here's my assessment of the rest - this album is full of cheese!
Of course, with song titles like "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget" and "Queen In Love", how could it not be? You have to love it, though. This much cheese cannot be ignored.
Once you hear this album, you will not be able to take it out of your CD player for approximately 3.72 weeks. Make sure you have a nearby supply of food and water before listening. And don't worry; if your friends ask why you like it so much, you can always point to Yngwie's always superlative guitar work and the other excellent instrumentation, but you'll know the truth: it's the cheese.

I have to agree with a previous reviewer in that this album is what all other Yngwie releases are compared against. This CD unofficially introduced the world of lightning fast, neoclassical guitar playing even though Rising Force and Marching Out were released earlier. The reason is the songs. "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget", "Queen In Love", "Fire", and "Magic Mirror" boast the best metal guitar solos in recorded music history. Yngwie has never matched the emotion and creativity of the instrumentals "Crying" and "Trilogy Suite". There is one major clunker in "Fury" and to me, "Liar" is Yngwie's most overrated song. Mark Boals is an average singer - high, shrill voice, very little range of emotions. However, these do not take away from what is one of the defining CD's in metal history. CLASSIC.

Again, Yngwie continues his tradition of working with very talented singers. I always found it to be ironic for a guy who was once quoted as saying, "singers are a pain in the a**", that he is always working with such great ones!

Another album with a great, talented singer. Admittedly, Yngwie's chops are genius level too, but it can get old after a while.

Thank god his singers are always so damn good, to carry his projects through to the finish line......If you like good singers, Mark Boals does a fine job carrying the flag for Yngwie on this one.

This is probably the best album Yngwie ever put out.Great songs and his playing is top notch. When I first heard it I could not believe how good he was. His guitar solos show what a musical genius he is!!! This album was released in 1986. I got a copy in 1987. I can listen back to it today. It still sounds fresh and new. Even if you dont like Yngwies attitude or his music you can`t dispute how good a musician he is. BUY THIS CD!!! Check out his guitar solo on FIRE. He burns it up. LISTEN TO A MUSICAL GENIUS.

This is perhaps, depending on your point of view, the last worthwhile Malmsteen album. After this release, Malmsteen was plagued by personal problems, worst of them his terrible car crash who almost claimed his life. After TRILOGY, Malmsteen hired pop singer Joe Lynn Turner and released the pop ODYSSEY, with totally AOR lyrical themes. Malmsteen went on to concentrate apparently only in his mind-numbing "shredding" technique, when vibe and emotion never more returned to his music. TRILOGY is already more pop oriented than his two previous releases, but still manages to have something special surrounding its songs.

I think that this was the first album I bought from Yngwie. I used to play it all the time. There's some inpressive guitar playing on this, especially "Crying." I also think that this was the first album where the vocal songs were more of a standout. I don't care much for the vocal songs on the previous two albums. "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget," is really good, and one of my favorite guitar solos of all time is on "Fire." That solo blows me away. Good album, and one of Yngwie's best offerings. Mark Boals was his best vocalist up to this point.

Yngwie's third album is just abysmal in comparison to what he had produced before and just isn't worth buying in my opinion.

The music just becomes more formulaic in terms of technique and the lyrics are just cheesy. 'Queen is in Love'? The song makes even Journey sound heavy. 'The Fury' is ok and so are the instrumentals but none measure up to what he had produced on his two previous albums. 'Magic Mirror' sounds like a song from a Disney cartoon. Malmsteen just leaves no space for talent other than his own and he doesn't show much of it on this album. DeSoto never wanted to be a metal singer and was looking for a gig as a power rock singer to the likes of Survivor: it sounds like it. I had the unique opportunity of seeing Malmsteen perform while touring for this album. Great soloist without question but having a band is just that: being a band and not just a soloist. That's why Satriani, McAlpine, etc., never made it anywhere either. I also saw Malmsteen perform as a stand in with Dio in Irvine and he sounded great. He would have been a perfect replacement for Vivian Campbell. It would have made for an interesting collaboration but I don't think the egos of either performer would have gotten along: too bad.

Ultimately, the main impediment to Yngwie's success was his overwhelming ego at wanting to be the whole band and trying to turn metal into classical. And so, true to his Swedish pseudonym of 'Yngwie', he ended up remaining just that: just a 'little viking.' In this album he's acutally a dwarf Viking.

By 1986, Yngwie had definently deserved the acclaim he was receiving from the guitar community. With 2 classics firmly under his belt and a growing reputation as the premier rock guitarist, Yngwie had truly re-invented the wheel! TRILOGY follows mostly the same pattern as the previous MARCHING OUT with the glaring exception being the overall "pop-ness" of the disc, possibly to widen his audience. And, to his benefit, he did with the now standard "You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget" featuring quite a fine solo and the great vocal stylings of Mr. Mark Boals. Quite befitting Yngwie's ever present Dungeons And Dragons vibe, Boals' thin, high, shrill seems right at home with the minor key madness of such uptempo shredders as "Liar", "Fury", and "Magic Mirror". Anders and Jens Johannson return while Yngwie grabs the bass on this one. We are treated to the emotionally charged instrumental "Crying" as well as the vocal tinged mid-tempo "Queen In Love" and "Fire". The trudging "Dark Ages" is also quite a gem on an album that really saw Yngwie lean with the glam moving times of the mid to late 1980's (possibly the only time Yngwie leaned with the times in his whole career! He truly stands by his invented neo-classical style, but it is obvious that this record was a slight departure from the raw satan-esque vintage metal of his earlier recordings). The true classic on this record, and what really sends it home with a four star rating instead of a 3 or 3 1/2 is the epic majesty of the title track, "Trilogy Suite Opus 5". A true high point in Yngwie's career, this instrumental reminds us of why we listen to this guy in the first place and totally is on par with "Black Star" or "Far Beyond The Sun" from his first record. Yngwie had truly solidified himself as the master of his art and with TRILOGY, he reached a broader audience while still staying true to his artistic muse. Quite a feat! A true guitar classic as well as being a metal masterpiece.

OK I admit it - I bought this album, my first Yngwie album, from a pawn broker for a couple of dollars because the cover looked cool. And all these years later I'm very happy I did. So thank you David Herrernan for the artwork that caught my eye.

As for the music we find Trilogy is a continuation of Marching Out in many ways, the defiant lyrics against supernatural foe etc but we also find something totally new in the mix. A certain connectivity in the music and lyrics that was steadfastly absent from most of Marching Out. Lead cut and single You Don't Remember, I'll Never Forget isn't too different from Don't Let it End but there is a feeling of this being more a song for the common man. Elsewhere we get Liar, again a straight down the line rocker about being hard done by.

Trilogy succeeds because amongst the slightly simplified, less 'metal' structures there is a strong melding of more mainstream lyrical concern and tender moments such as the semi acoustic instrumental Crying to the full on racket of Fury and Fire. The goth metal of magic Mirror and Dark Ages show off new throat Mark Boals' abilities - and seriously how many great musicians did Yngwie bring to our attentions? And there is also the defining instrumental of Trilogy Suite Op.5. This latter easily joins Black Star and Far Beyond the Sun from the debut as prime time slices of Malmsteens musical vision.

Malmsteen, on this better produced album, had the self confidence in the studio to come up with this amalgam of metal, hard rock and goth that has a number of very strong tunes on it. An example of how this album works is the aforementioned Liar which is at odds in many ways with the quasi romantic, quite gothic Queen In Love yet due to the full rock attack with which they are played they sit beside each other on this release happily.

Theis would be my pick to any friend who was interested in Yngwie, along with Marching Out. To me this is perhaps the last 100% satisfying Malmsteen release. Great guitar work, fiercely talented fret burning backed by great vox and the backing band, here comprising Jens Johansson (keys) Anders Johansson (D) and the crisp and bright production values add up to a fine package of hard rock/ heavy metal.