The Guitar Player's Resource
Rapid-fire picking. Machine-gun axework. Brutal jackhammer guitar lines. Pick one superlative, or select all three, since they pretty much all apply here. Guitarist Pete Wilkinson, out of Burbank, California, submitted his 10 track instrumental CD-R release, entitled Unleashed Fury! No other CD submitted for review here has been done in quite this style - a trademark of the Wilkinson sound is furiously picked shred runs, that if you heard them out of context, you'd duck for cover to avoid the machine gun spray and ricochets. Even the ballad "From Me To You With All My Love" is fully armed with 128th notes! Songs such as "Fever Pitched Velocity" and "Ram It, Jam It" are metal raves that take full advantage of Wilkinson's 'fury'. The production on the CD-R could be upgraded somewhat by the use of a cabinet simulator, or by miking the amp to avoid the 'hollow' sound you sometimes get with a guitar processor direct to the board. Where the picking technique really shines is on an acoustic guitar, believe it or not. The song "For Mom" will stand as testament to that - it sounds brilliant. Wilkinson flies the shred banner high with his latest chops-heavy release.
Pete has been playing guitar for over 38 years (wow!), is self-taught, and strives to take the guitar to it's physical limit. During the '70s he met up with an old friend Randy Rhoads, and started down the path of guitar insanity. The pair jammed hundreds of times until Randy was asked to join Ozzy Osborne's band in 1979. Pete was even the singer in an early version of Quiet Riot, but later decided to focus on guitar - soaking up influences such as Carlos Montoya, John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Paco De Lucia and Allan Holdsworth. In the '80s, Pete played in bands from speed to glam metal, then, in the '90s, hooked up with the speed metal band Destroyer. A second, short-lived run with the band Vindicator led to a self-titled CD release in 1999, but Pete decided to go it alone in 2000.
Wilkinson recently agreed to become a feature writer for The Shreddzone E-zine. He will be giving lessons on how to (you guessed it!) build up your speed picking.
Unleashed Fury!
United States
Web site: shredmoe.iscool.net