Last month, Icelandic prog-rock exports The Vintage Caravan dropped Crystallized, a near-six-minute epic that traverses Sabbathian riffage, Rush breakdowns and an succulently phrased solo.
As Ágústsson reveals, the Allman Brothers and Santana were his touchstones for the lead, which – aside from the initial theme – was entirely improvised.
In a situation familiar to just about every guitarist, the solo went on longer than intended, but with a little help from the ‘if you make a mistake, play it twice’ school of performance, those final licks ended up upping the ante of the lead as its simmering fusion bubbles over into hard-rock thunder.
Ágústsson finishes the clip with a fresh performance of the solo, employing a stunning 2003 Gibson Firebird VII running into a Brainworx Rockergain plugin, based on the Orange Rockerverb 100.
If you like what you hear, Crystallized appears on the Vintage Caravan’s new album, Monuments, which is out on April 16 via Napalm Records.
