Another Metal Morpheus Episode Recap From The Borderline!!

With news slowing down for obvious reasons (both holiday related and otherwise), let's dive into another recent episodes of Metal Morpheus on local internet radio station The Borderline! Just a heads up though for listeners who have caught up to the current episodes, as there was not an episode on Sunday, December 12th for unannounced reasons (unless it was quietly taken down after its live airing), while this past Sunday's episode was just a re-posting of the "Amazing Solos" episode from September 26th, with the original aired version being taken down in place of the rerun airing, again for unannounced reasons. Hopefully this is just a holiday break and it isn't a sign of waning interest in recording new installments, especially given Josh's ambitious plans to go through lesser known countries in spotlight episodes! Now, let's start with the Metal Morpheus episode from November 14th, which is a sequel to the guitar heroes episode from October 3rd!

This extra-long 72 minute installment covers some similar ground to host Josh Amendola's other two guitarist-showcase episodes from the fall, but none of the guitarists/acts from October 3rd were repeated six weeks later. The first band spotlighted is jazz fusion group The Mahavishnu Orchestra and their lead guitarist John McLaughlin via their song "Birds of Fire" (0:35), though Josh gets increasingly hard to hear over the song's introduction. Irish blues rock guitarist Rory Gallagher is next with "A Million Miles Away" (6:40), followed by American rock virtuoso Eric Johnson's signature song "Cliffs of Dover" (14:10). We next hear late guitar icon Shawn Lane's "Epilogue For Lisa" (19:30), followed by Hee-Haw host and country music legend Roy Clark's "Roy's Guitar Boogie" (23:00), and for the record, neither of the last two songs are on Spotify. Legendary Australian acoustic guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is next with his cover of Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" (26:55).

The first half of the episode concludes with "redneck jazz" stalwart Danny Gatton's lengthy "Song of India" (32:35), which isn't on Spotify either. Highly regarded jazz guitarist & instructor Ted Greene is next with his song "They Can't Take That Away From Me" (43:00), followed by 1970s jazz fusion band The Tony Williams Lifetime with their song "Red Alert" (48:40), also featuring the late Allan Holdsworth. If you have patiently been waiting for metal, the last three songs will have you covered, albeit starting with softer material than you may expect. We next come to instrumental progressive metal trio Animals As Leaders & their guitarist Tosin Abasi, who are featured here with their song "The Future That Awaited Me" (55:05), though this is a softer song than normal for them. Led Zeppelin and their guitarist Jimmy Page follow with their underrated song "Ten Years After" (1:01:15).

The episode closes with that week's local selection, namely 2008-2011 death metal quintet Bring The Fallen, who featured Andrew Chiarello on lead guitar & Dan Souliere on rhythm guitar, and their song played here is "Defiling Despondence" from their posthumous 2013 EP "Stand Before". I believe Bring The Fallen were also in the deleted all-local October episode of Metal Morpheus, for what that's worth. Another entertaining and informative episode here, with Josh shining a deserved light on more virtuoso guitarists that may not have had mainstream stardom, but still had all the skills in the world! Again, this isn't the heaviest episode of Metal Morpheus ever, but guitarists like these influenced a lot of shredders to come. Give this episode a listen on-demand at the above links (assuming it doesn't get taken down for a rerun), and unless I missed something, another new episode will air on The Borderline this Sunday at 9:00 PM!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for a new post of some kind by Christmas Eve! Thanks everyone!