Yngwie Malmsteen's most recent record, Blue Lightning, saw him tackle a host of classic- and blues-rock covers, among them Jimi Hendrix's Foxey Lady and Purple Haze, ZZ Top's Blue Jean Blues, the Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps. But now the Swedish electric guitar shredder has announced a more “extreme” follow up.
The new record, Malmsteen revealed on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, is titled Parabellum and will be released in July.
"I spent the whole year writing and recording [it]," Malmsteen said (via Blabbermouth). "I'm really excited about that. So that was what I concentrated on. Obviously, I wanted to play live, but we all know what happened there."
Regarding recording the new album during the pandemic, he said: "The thing is, the last few years – 10, 15 years or so, at least – I made records, but I made them, like, I go on the road and I go in the studio for maybe a week, and then I stop and I go on the road. Which is not a bad thing, mind you – that's actually a pretty good thing.
“But the last time I remember being this intense, I think, was Trilogy. It's not only recording – it's writing, too. It's the writing process, it's arrangement, it's everything.
“Everybody knows me for the classical thing, and it's very much that. We'll see how people react on it, but I listened to it just the other day after staying away from it a little bit. It's pretty extreme. I go faster than ever, there's more of everything.”
He continued, “I was extremely immersed in this as far as writing and recording and arranging for such a long time that I think it might be a little different end result. But everybody's gonna know who it is. There's not gonna be any weird left turns, like blues or stuff like that – which I love too, of course.
"But no, this is very much a Malmsteen-esque classical thing that people know but maybe a little extra – maybe a little more extreme than before."
While Parabellum is still a few months away, Malmsteen has a livestream event scheduled for March 20 that will see him and his full band perform a “best of” set from Las Vegas.
In-person tickets are also available – guests will be seated two per table, and tickets range between $249 and $499 depending on proximity to the stage.
For more info or to purchase tickets, head to yngwie.veeps.com.
