Review: Yngwie J. Malmsteen's "the Seventh Sign" With Michael Vescera

After two neoclassical rock style albums Eclipse and Fire and Ice, Swedish guitarist Yngwie J. Malmsteen would return in 1994 with the album called The Seventh Sign. Joining him for this album are American Michael Vescera and new drummer Mike Terrana. The Seventh Sign is obviously heavier and rougher than the previous two releases. It is much shorter being over 48 minutes in length. The listener is introduced right away to the heaviness of the album with the song called “Never Die.” Never Die is a song about a person that believes he has an immortal soul that will fly through a very long journey. His spirit is against those who wage perpetual war without end. The album also has a definite blues kind of feel to it in songs such as I Don’t Know and Meant to Be.

This heaviness is also present in the short song "Hairtrigger.” This song features some aggressive vocals by Vescera as he tries to make the point that he is fighting to survive in a world where there is competition between two people who want to prove that they are better than the other.

The album also has two instrumental tracks. They are called "Brothers" and "Sorrow." "Sorrow" is a nice and soft instrumental song that is a good treat for the listener after so many fast and heavy songs. This album is a big step up from the previous two releases and would get an 85 out of 100 for the mostly quality songwriting and great vocals along with the heavy guitar sound.

Another area that Yngwie covers a lot in his songwriting is the area of relationships and love. "Bad Blood" talks about a relationship in which there is lots of lying, deceiving, and making the other person feel like they have nowhere to go but to end the relationship. It is a great kind of blues and rock song and I love this one!

The song "Meant to Be" is about someone that has been through enough pain and lies. He is convinced that the person that he is with is the person that is meant to be with him for the rest of his life. The underlying message of the song is that there is no time to lose. Ditch the blues of depression and get married. The next song called "Forever One" is a song about someone that was afraid at first to walk down the aisle and get married. He was also afraid of being alone so he wants to get married. He feels that this is the time to make it happen. Each one of us knows when it is the time to make such a big decision.

"Prisoner of Your Love" is about someone who has been waiting his whole life to find the true love of his life. Feeling a sense of intense passion for his lover, he cannot stop thinking about her. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her in a state of deep passion and joy. The next song called "Pyramid of Cheops" features some Egyptian style influenced guitar work before getting into a really awesome heavy song. This one is another classic. Michael Vescera shows the range of his vocals which are pretty impressive. The song is about the things that Egyptians did throughout history when they were in control of Israel. I see that there is a reference to the Pharaoh of Egypt and the Israelites. "Crash and Burn" is another really fast song that talks about how the endless pursuit of money and cars and other material things can corrupt a person so much that they tend to try and bring others down and degrade them. This song is another reason to get this album. Yngwie’s guitar sound got heavier and the quality of his songs would once again rise to that elite level. For a five year period between 1994 and 1999, he would show that he was Europe’s best neoclassical guitarist.

The Seventh Sign may be one of those underrated releases by Yngwie Malmsteen but give this one a chance to for if you do, you just might like it. The guitar sound is heavier now than the earlier releases of this guitarist. And the song called “Meant to Be” has an interesting message in it. The message is that there is no time to lose and we must say goodbye to blues or depression. The production is better than the albums Eclipse and Fire & Ice but is this album better than those two? It is a tough call to state that with any certainty but The Seventh Sign was written in a time period where Yngwie was still dominant musically.