It’s been a long wait for the sequel to Marty Friedman’s seminal instrumental opus Dragon’s Kiss. 26 years. It’s not like he hasn’t created some great music since then, but that record in particular was so ahead of its time and brilliant that some of Marty’s fans have been screaming “damnit, stop spending so much time on Japanese cooking shows and variety programs and start burning down the damn fretboard again!”
I guess Marty took things pretty literally because his new record is called Inferno. It’s an honest-to-god scorching metal freakout like you’ve been hoping for, released by Prosthethic Records for worldwide distro instead of the more obscure Japanese imprint Avex Trax that’s put out his last few LPs.
The lineup of guest musicians is pretty staggering too: Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom), Rodrigo y Gabriela, Jørgen Munkeby (Shinning), a writing credit from Jason Becker, and more, including Revocation’s David Davidson. Marty and his guests have been releasing commentary tracks, detailing the mentality behind and creation of these songs, and I enjoyed the story of the Marty/Dave song “Sociopaths” in particular. Seems that it was culled from the bones of two different tracks that the guys had created in their online riff trading, but like Kurt Vonnegut in Timequake they fileted the fish down to the essentials and when done only one song remained.
The track is also notable for being one of the few to contain vocals, in this case also performed by Davidson. Check out both Marty and Dave’s commentaries below, and then the final song. Inferno hits stores May 27th in the US, the 26th in the UK, the 23rd in the rest of Europe, and May 21st in Japan, because worldwide releases can never be easy. You can preorder it on Prosthetic’s website, or from Marty’s official site if you want the Japanese release.
Marty on working with Dave:
Dave on working with Marty:
Dave and Marty together, workin’ it:
