The Guitar Player's Resource
Mining the territory staked out by bands such as Planet X, Dream Theater and Queensryche is the Brazilian group Khallice, with their new CD The Journey. Led by guitarist Marcelo Barbosa, the material is sufficiently keyboard-heavy as well, courtesy of Bruno Wambier. The band mixes longer compositions ("Loneliness" and "Turn The Page" clock in at more than eight minutes) with quick hitters such as "Wrong Words" and "Vampire". Barbosa is an engaging soloist, who easily blazes within the context of each song, never overplaying, preferring to stun the listener with alternating flurries and flavorings. Bottom line: fans of progressive metal and hard rock music have another quality international band to check out.
Marcelo has played guitar since he was 12 years old (over 16 years). He is the owner of a large guitar institute in Brasilia called GTR, which has 18 teachers instructing 300 students. Marcelo writes a monthly column for the Brazilian guitar magazine Guitar Class, and he has appeared in other publications such as Guitar Player and Cover Guitarra. He also currently writes for the Chops From Hell web site. Marcelo has an endorsement with Tagima guitars.
Barbosa is also recording instrumental guitar demos, but is currently focused on promoting Khallice and their new CD.
Marcelo Barbosa
Brazil
Web site: www.khallice.com.br