Review Summary: Colossal Myopia is an album full of Aggression and Calm using a combination of Metal and Flamenco
The best way to describe Colossal Myopia, Marc Rizzo’s first solo effort is Yin & Yang as this album has straight up instrumental metal songs that Marc Rizzo is associated with being an ex member of Ill Nino and a current member of Soulfly. However on this album are a good number of songs are classical, flamenco guitar pieces, which to me shows versatility as a musician and on the basis of this album alone Marc Rizzo could be on the way to great things.
Kilocycle Interval and Introspection of an Introvert kick off the album with all the subtlety of a Tornado showing off Marc’s ability to solo and create complex song structures, the accompanying instruments add an extra bite to what Marc is playing such as moments in Kilocycle Interval when the tempo briefly slows down the drums can be heard complimenting Marc as he uses his fret board extensively. However the drumming skill of Teddy Gibbon’s is shown in the opening seconds of Introspection of an Introvert as he basically solos along with Marc, this song has basically the same theme and tempo although it has a returning riffs that are used instead of Kilocycle’s lunatic soloing
Now onto a complete reverse of what the previous songs consisted of as Marc returns to his roots on Remember the Future and gives us a chilled out flamenco piece accompanied with natural sounds of birds and waves crashing on beeches . To describe my feeling when this song appeared, imagine being in a war zone, such chaos and anger to instantly be transported to a land of calm and stress free after the anger expressed in the opening songs. It was an odd feeling to say the least; anyway the skill does not dip on this song as the guitar is very intricate but also calming to the ears and provides you with a “rest” in between songs.
Now the title track Colossal Myopia is a very odd thing to describe, as shown in Kilocycle Introvert and Remember the Future Marc can clearly play both styles very well, now on Colossal Myopia both of Marc’s styles and interests are combined with Metal riffs being connected with Flamenco fills, although the majority of this song is in the metal genre the inclusion of the flamenco adds a deeper feeling to the song, cleverly showing Marc’s interests in both styles of music.
In Conclusion Colossal Myopia is very complex and highly skilled package of music for fans of both metal and flamenco, this album is a combination of styles that will only be suited as an all in one package, the metal songs would be at a loss with out the Flamenco songs as it would become very repetitive very quickly so the change in style, if abrupt is needed to keep the attention of the listener. I would defiantly advise this as a worthy purchase to guitar players, as it is a very complex piece of work that any player, regardless of favoured genre can appreciate.
