Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Claudio CORDERO: "Quasar"

Label: Own Release
Rating: RRRR
Review by Martien Koolen

I have always loved instrumental guitar albums and hence my record collection contains a lot of albums from super guitar players like Vinnie Moore, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Now I can add a "new" marvellous guitar picker to my collection, namely Claudio Cordero. CC is a Chilean guitar player with an extensive musical career, in which he shines in bands like the for most people unknown Matraz, Cast and Oxygene8. Now he releases a new album, his second with his Claudio Cordero Trio, named Quasar. On this marvellous album Cordero is accompanied by Felipe Cortes on drums and Maurico Nader on bass guitar. All the 9 songs on the CD are composed by Cordero himself and show and prove what a miracoulous guitar player this man is. Quasar kicks off with a short sound intro before the first track Outatime hits you like a hammer! This song is an up tempo guitar monster filled with fast amazing solos and lots of arpeggios which will make the heart of any guitar lover beat faster and faster. In fact most of the songs on Quasar are rather heavy and fast remind me of old albums from Marty Friedman and jason Becker; take e.g. R'Lyeh or Zenith and you will certainly catch my drift!

The absolute highlight for me is the guitar ballad Ocaso, a very melodic track full of breathtaking solos and filled with influences from Vinnie Moore and David T. Chastain. In fact I would call this a guitar ballad that can match superb ballads of Vai (For the love of God) or Joe Satriani (On peregrine wings)! The title track, clocking just over 8 minutes, is also a milestone of this album being a mid tempo song with Eastern influences, heavy staccatto riffs and some really mean fast high solos; love it!! The only rather weird track on the album is the last song called Etheral, which is a kind of electronic, experimental song with almost no real guitar solos. But for lovers of heavy,,melodic, instrumental guitar music, this album is a MUST. Play it loud and terrorise the neighbours with Quasar as it is a guitar master piece; man this guy can play a mean guitar!!

https://claudiocordero.bandcamp.com

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