Odyssey

Yngwie Malmsteen

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: January 1988
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Fontana Polydor
• ASIN: B000001FOS
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #74,807 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Japanese only remastered SHM-CD (Super High Material CD - playable on all CD players) pressing packaged in a paper sleeve. Universal. 2008. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yngwie's most diverse album is his best album ever!, December 1, 2005

By	Stargazer "Stargazer" (New York) - See all my reviews

This is Yngwie's best album and it features his best vocalist ever Joe Lynn Turner. Yngwie combines Neo Classical Metal, Hair Metal and Power Metal to make his best album ever!

1.Rising Force- 10/10 Maybe Yngwie's best song ever! This song starts off with a great intro that leads into an amazing fast track with brilliant lyrics from Joe Lynn Turner and an awesome riff from Yngwie. Yngwie's solo is amazing as it's different from any solo he's ever done and one of his best. Yngwie trades off with keyboard virtuoso Jens Johhansen. Yngwie's fills in are amazing and and the ending line he does at the end of the song seems impossible. A true classic as Joe Lynn Turners vocals are very powerful.

2.Hold On- 10/10 A great commercial track with some very good vocals from Joe Lynn Turner who hits some very high notes. Yngwie's riffs in this song are excellent and fit this melodic song perfect. Yngwie's solos are amazing in this song as he shreds with emotion.

3.Heaven Tonight- 10/10 A very good commercial song. A very poppy hair metal song with a good riff. Yngwie's tone is perfect and Joe Lynn Turner's vocals are great too. Cheesy lyrics but Yngwie's awesome solo makes up for that.

4.Dreaming (Tell Me)- 10/10 An amazing acoustic solo intro which rivals Spanish Fly. This is a great "Power Ballad" with some amazing vocals from Joe Lynn Turner. A great soulful solo from Yngwie with some shredding thrown in.

5.Bite the Bullet- 10/10 An amazing instrumental that is pretty much like an introduction to Riot In The Dungeons execpt most of it is Yngwie going crazy shredding.

6.Riot in the Dungeons- 10/10 A great song with an awesome riff. The lyrics are excellent and Yngwie's fill ins are amazing. Yngwie's solo sounds different from all of his others and is filled with lightspeed shredding aswell as another keyboard solo! Turner's vocals are powerful and he shows a HUGE range once again.

7.Deja Vu- 10/10 Another great song with some more great riffs. Turner's vocals are excellent again and the chorus is great too. More good lyrics from Joe Lynn Turner and an awesome guitar tone from Yngwie. Yngwie's wacked out solo is amazing too even some use of the wah wah pedal.

8.Crystal Ball- 10/10 A great soft intro which bursts right into a great Dokken type riff. Turner's lyrics and vocals are very strong once again. As always Yngwie's fills are amazing. Turner hits some very high notes and Yngwie's solo is great aswell.

9.Now Is the Time- 10/10 A very poppy song. This is like 80's Rainbow with Yngwie on guitar but it's a very good song. This is a bluesier song with another great solo from Yngwie.

10.Faster Than the Speed of Light- 10/10 This is song is a great mix of Yngwie with classic Dokken. Joe Lynn Turner launchs notes into the stratosphere. Yngwie's solo is amazing and once again different from the other solos. The chorus is excellent too!

11.Krakatau- 10/10 A great instrumental with a fast melodic section which leads into a slow heavy section. Than comes another heavy section which goes into an AMAZING solo by Yngwie which lasts for a long time. A great instrumental which contains some great shredding and an actual song.

12.Memories- 10/10 A short beautiful acoustic instrumental. It's great but WAY too short.

This is Yngwie's best album it has something for everyone...power metal songs, neo classical shredding in the solos, instrumentals, catchy hair metal tunes. This is also Yngwie's best performance on a studio album..every solo sounds different and everyone has feeling and technical difficulty. Joe Lynn Turner's vocals are amazing as well and the rythym section is great. The writing is the best ever on an Yngwie album too. If you like power metal, neo classical metal, hair metal or virtuoso shredding rock than get this album. The band is

Yngwie Malmsteen- Guitar, Bass
Joe Lynn Turner- Vocals
Anders Johansson- Drums
Bob Daisley- Bass
Jens Johansson- Keyboards

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yngwie's Best Commercial Release!, November 4, 1999

By	Andrew Hilton (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews

The collaboration of Joe Lynn Turner and Yngwie Malmsteen make this album a classic in my book. The songs are perfectly crafted, which says a lot for an artist who is known as a guitar virtuoso, but a mediocre songwriter. In fact, this is the only album by Yngwie Malmsteen where the songs are equal in appeal to his guitar mastery.

From the opening cut to the final note, this album is a winner. The prerequisite themes of dragons, fire and medieval times are touched on, but not with the frequency of Yngwie's other albums such as Marching Out and Trilogy. Instead, Joe Lynn Turner tempers Yngwie's "mystical" view with a little romanticism that plays very well on this release. "Dreaming" and "Now is the Time" are probably the best examples of this blend, while "Heaven Tonight" is possibly the most overproduced and dated of all of the tracks. "Heaven Tonight" screams "...made for radio."

The vocal performance is outstanding, the musicianship is top notch, and the work as a whole definitely deserves five stars. Bravo! Encore!

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neo-Classical Shred meets 80's Glam Rock, August 18, 2005

By	Christopher Calabrese (Watertown, CT, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is far and away the best Yngwie Malmsteen album after his original RISING FORCE lp. Yngwie goes through lead vocalists like I go through pairs of shoes, but I always felt that Joe Lynn Turner was the best singer to complement Malmsteen on a studio recording.

This was a great album because Yngwie got a chance to fully develop his sound by melding it with an 80's hair band (ala Poison or Cinderella), but at the same time he freely expressed himself by way of mind-boggling solos, sweep-picked arpeggios and some of the fastest playing I have ever heard. Examples of this can be found in the three 'hits' from this album, 'Deja Vu,' 'Hold On,' and 'Heaven Tonight.' The last of the three starts with a fantastic vocal harmony and is probably the 'catchiest' Malmsteen song ever.

On the other side of the coin, I felt Malmsteen missed the boat on albums like TRILOGY and MARCHING OUT, where we had great hits like 'Queen in Love' and 'Liar,' whereas the remaining songs were never really that great. On ODYSSEY, however, I find myself enjoying other less known tracks like 'Crystal Ball,' 'Rising Force,' and 'Now is the Time.' All of Yngwie's solos on studio recordings are improvised and you will never hear the same solo twice. I always liked his live solos much better, but if I had to pick one studio release where I truly enjoyed his soloing over the live performance, it would be ODYSSEY. Notable solos occur on 'Deja Vu' and the instrumental 'Krakatu'.

Listeners not familiar with Malmsteen will inevitably be turned off by the corniness of songs like 'Crystal Ball,' and will dismiss it as unoriginal 80's hair band 'glam rock,' but those of us who can appreciate this style of guitar playing know how important and revolutionary Malmsteen's style was, and continues to be today.