Earlier this month, Gus G announced the title of his forthcoming solo LP, Quantum Leap. Prior to the announcement, the guitarist had already released three tracks from the album: Force Majeure (with Vinnie Moore), Exosphere and the hard-riffing, solo-loaded Fierce.
Now, the former Ozzy Osbourne/current Firewind shredder has offered up another musical morsel, releasing the LP's fourth single, Enigma of Life, and its accompanying music video.
The clip sees the guitarist standing gracefully in a rather quiet-looking spot by a lake, throwing down a cornucopia of blissful melodies and rapid-fire lead runs, in what's a somewhat stylistic departure from the album's previously released material. Check it out below.
Gus G says the album's title is a reference to the fact that it's his first all-instrumental outing.
“‘Quantum leap’ means when you're taking a big step, so for me, making an instrumental album and letting my guitar do the talking was a big step for me, for once,” he explains. “I've always worked with singers and collaborated with many people, but this time, I decided to just let the guitar be a voice. So this was my quantum leap.”
He continues: “Instrumental music might not be a big seller, but everybody can listen to anything, and there are no limits to what I can do. There's a track on the record that's a little bit synth-wave [Night Driver], there's a bluesy ballad thing [Enigma of Life], there's a track that has more prog elements [Into the Unknown], there's some power metal [Demon Stomp, Judgement Day], so it's all under the hard rock/heavy metal umbrella, but I wanted it to have some variety.
“It doesn't sound like I wrote 10 different riffs on the low E string and put a bunch of solos over it. And there's no excuse for anybody to say, ‘I like the music but I hate that type of vocals...’ because there are no vocals!”
He also says a lot of the music written for the album materialized during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Music was my only gateway, basically, so that's what I did; I just made songs,” he says. “I couldn't fly to another country and meet with other musicians and do pre-production or anything like that, so I just decided to write stuff on my own and just make a guitar album.”
Quantum Leap is set to arrive October 8 via AFM Records. Check out its tracklisting below.
- Into the Unknown
- Exosphere
- Quantum Leap
- Chronesthesia
- Enigma of Life
- Judgement Day
- Fierce
- Demon Stomp
- Night Driver
- Not Forgotten
- Force Majeure (feat. Vinnie Moore)
