Our Recap Of Episode #12 Of Metal Morpheus On The Borderline!!

After a bit too long of a delay, let's try and get caught up on some more recent episodes of Metal Morpheus, the weekly metal-centric series on local internet radio station The Borderline! After the punk installment last month, host Josh Amendola took a break from subgenre-centric episodes for a few weeks, but he returned to metal as a result, starting with episode #12 on Sunday, September 19th where he looked at (mostly) solo guitarists known for shredding. In other words, expect lots of technical and complex guitar skill here, especially as the usual theme song was severely abbreviated, and the episode proper runs for over 70 minutes! After outlining what shred guitar is all about, Josh first sets up pioneering rock guitarist Jeff Beck's 1975 song "Scatterbrain" (0:05), before truly getting into shredders with a look at Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force's "Marching Out" (7:15), which is not on Spotify, but I think it was slightly abbreviated on The Borderline.

Next, Josh looks at Joe Satriani via his classic instrumental "The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing" (11:40), followed by one of his proteges, Steve Vai with his song "Natural Born Boy" (17:40), and then with Tony MacAlpine's "Edge of Insanity" (22:10). Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman follows with his song "Dragon Mistress" (26:50) though Josh did stumble his words a bit in setting up this track. Of course, you have to follow Marty with his Cacophony bandmate, the highly inspirational Jason Becker, with his song "Eleven Blue Egyptians" (32:25), which Marty guests on. The second half of the episode begins with one of Josh's favourite virtuosos, namely the late jazz fusion guitarist Shawn Lane, via his 1992 song "Illusions", which is not on Spotify (39:05). Josh speaks over the intro of this song, and is barely audible as a result, which has occurred in some prior episodes.

Staying in a jazz fusion vein, Josh next plays late British guitar legend Allan Holdsworth's song "Above & Below" (45:50), followed by the prolific & eccentric Buckethead's ambient rock song "Beyond The Knowing" (51:45), which is also not on Spotify. We steer back into metal territory next with Rob Zombie/ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5's solo song "Damaged" (56:45), before finally hitting this week's local musician at the latest point they've ever been introduced in a Metal Morpheus episode. On this week, Josh shone a spotlight on prolific local musician Tym Morrison via his instrumental song "Souls of Serenity" (1:00:20), which you can find on his 2006 "Solo Project" CD. This extended episode ends with it's only band (second if you count Yngwie's Rising Force), namely the instrumental progressive metal supergroup Blotted Science (1:05:45) with their more recent song "A Sting Operation IV: Omitting Eyes".

Entertaining episode once again, and I like how Josh gave every musician here some sort of biographical segment, possibly aided by all but one or two of the songs being from solo acts. You can tell that he was a genuine fan of many of these shred guitarists already, especially when he touched on jazz fusion late, but if he has to introduce certain songs over-top of their beginnings, I wish he'd fix the audio levels so we could hear him easier. Josh has settled into a good groove though, so click here or above to hear this and more episodes of Metal Morpheus, stay tuned for our recaps of episodes #13 and beyond soon, and listen to episode #16 live tonight on The Borderline at 9:00 PM, or on-demand after the fact! That's all for today, but stay tuned for our previews of two big concerts on the site next! Thanks everyone!