I don't always like his more recent output, and I'm not the biggest Black Label Society fan, but the solo at 2:35 is quite simply staggering.
I adore it - comes out of nowhere, and the noise is just fabulous. Such a beautiful use of feedback - it sounds almost out of control at first, and the high notes later on sing in a way I've rarely, if ever heard from a guitar. For all his technique, it has soul - he plays it as though any of the notes could be his last.
No idea how he did it either - a Sustainer pickup maybe? Or just standing right next to a cranked Marshall?
Anyway. Hope you enjoy.
- "I'm going to write a very stiff letter. A VERY stiff letter. On cardboard."
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He was so good around this time. Pride and Glory, early Black Label. Superb. Unmistakeable tone.
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I don't even like BLS but you cannot deny the guy has a style and tone all of his own. There is a musicality to his soloing that no one else in that genre has. Maybe he is just apeing Randy Rhodes but I never tire of listening to his live work with Ozzy - especially his version of the bark at the moon solo
Like @Travisthedog says, he's got his own sound and tons of personality.
Yup, that's what I'd like
Hard not to be impressed by his picking - he consciously doesn't go in for legato, if that is the right word, which means picking every single note....Very precise playing. Personally, I think he is losing a huge chunk of expressiveness by not allowing legato into his toolkit, although of course his playing is in all other ways "everything including the kitchen sink".
I don't love the modulation FX he has on everything - whether it be chorus or flange or phaser, I can never tell - and his playing has long since sunk into self-parody, but....ya know....this is like your local under 11's school football reserves team calling out Pele on a scuffed shot.
From the 80's onwards it all sounds like noodling to me with very little regard for any melody. RATM where the first band I heard that I thought used the solo right.
Saw Pride and Glory live several times in the day and really liked them, didn't rate BLS as much.
That all being said his tone and the self indulgent playing puts me off these days (along with rapidly approaching middle age).
This solo, the start is brilliant but the end is virtually the same as all his solos.
No more tears - That's the definitive ZW isn't it?