Fire & Ice

Fire & Ice is the sixth album on which Yngwie Malmsteen gathers fast phrasing, Baroque melody and heavy riffs on a large scale. Göran Edman’s soaring voice gives a clear melodic outline to the guitar’s overwhelming motion — a fulfilling record where technique and songcraft stay in balance. From the dramatic introduction of the opener “Perpetual” to the speed of “Dragonfly” and “Teaser,” the lyricism of “Cry No More” and the drama of the title track “Fire and Ice,” the songs carry wide-ranging faces, and in the long “Leviathan” classical development and heavy-metal drive cross vividly. The dazzling technique works purely as a force lifting the drama of the songs, never falling into a string of solos. Its greatest appeal is that you can savor the flair of a guitar hero and the construction of a composer at once. A major commercial success including in Japan, it is a strongly realized melodic-metal record that shows Yngwie’s fullness in the early 1990s.