Mario Parga - The Magician (1991)President Records

Mr. Parga is UK born guitarist (1969) who raised in Spain indeed. Mario started playing the guitar at the age of four, and his learning consisted in copying violin and piano lines. In the eighties, he was present in many widely read and specialist magazines and even played a live guitar solos on MTV's "Metal Hammer" show. I wonder if you remember a band Forcefield? Mario appeared on its two albums - "Let the Wild Run Free" (1990) and "Instrumentals" (1992). There were many well-earned artists: Mick Moody, Graham Bonnet (Rainbow, Alcatrazz, Malmsteen, Vai, Impellitteri), Jan Akkerman (Focus), Ray Fenwick, Cozy Powell, Bernie Marsden, Don Airey and others. His cooperation with Mr. Bonnet wasn't finished then, but continued on Graham's "The Day I Went Mad" (1998). There were also gathered a great deal of well-deserved musicians: John Thomas (Firefly), Vivian Campbell (Dio, Whitesnake, Def Leppard), Bruce Kulick (Kiss), Danny Johnson, Tony Franklin and Slash (Guns'n'Roses). Mario's talent was appreciated by Lasse Mattsson and Matt Williams who run his tracks adequately on Lion Music's "Warmth in the Wilderness II (A Tribute to Jason Becker)" and Liquid Note Records' first volume of "The Alchemists".

Mario's debut solo album was unearthed in the year 1991. Mario handled all guitars, and was supported by Marty Siggery (bass guitar) and Ray Fenwick (keys, drum programming). Please, be prepared for something absolutely unorthodox and special. The first track "Heatwave" brings to my mind many memories connected with other albums - Greg Howe's "Parallax", Joey Tafolla's "Infra-Blue" and "Plastic", and even Igor Belsky's releases. It is best proposal for those who want to encounter hundreds of melodic tones and are affected by Becker-esque distortions and Satrianish guitar touches. If you like bluesy feeling connected with heavy riffs, feel free to familiarize with a bit sluggish "Electric Blue". Mario produced excellent imitations of neoclassical polyphony in "Guitarmageddon". His guitar sound reminds me of George Lynch's. Mario in Johann Sebastian Bach's shoes managed to create a magnificent melodic meltdown. Our life becomes increasingly hectic, so if you try to step off the treadmill, you have a chance to calm down and relax by "Winds of Limbo" and "Raining Again". On "Sweat it Out", Mario plays in-depth and memorable melodies in the style of Marty Friedman's "Dragon's Kiss". If someone wrote a shredding music textbook, I am totally sure that "Intensities" should be the leading example of this subgenre! With this composition Mario presents neoclassical shredding mastery against heavy lead guitar's background. I must admit that shredding intensity coefficient is really high, haha. Melodious tones and complex structure juxtaposed make the composition perfect! Golden score are turned into piercing music by The Magician like Mario is! As far as the title track is concerned, I have to praise Mario for a gradual dosage of tension and attack us with wonderful melody. It shows that Mr. Parga can both interact with precious tones and sample new musical visions as well. The last composition - "Psychotic Strings" is a meeting of shredding tornado and neoclassical typhoon. Upon listening to Mario's music, I feel as if the spirits of great classical composers hover, but you can't be astonished, since Mr. Parga is also a great composer!

Oh, Mummy, here are so much technical tricks and ingenious licks off-the-beaten-track that they are hard to be embraced by limited human's abilities, haha. Mario is adept at alternate picking and sweep picking techniques and make the most of them in order to create innumerable ideas on guitar. Mr. Parga's guitar style is very individual, but I think that his phrasing and expression are similar to a mavin - Jason Becker's. I do hear that emotions uttering out of his axe are as expressive as Jason's.

I must confess that I have always a desire not to overlook what's on my doorstep in music world. You know that pop stars and trends come and go, and geniuses are often forgotten by their contemporaries. Fortunately, Mario belongs to the latter group, so such geniuses like Mr. Parga will stay in our hearts forever! I have no doubt that "The Magician" is one of the best releases with neoclassical guitar proficiency ever recorded! From among thousand CDs I have listened so far, this item is numbered among my Top 10! Mario has accomplished the noble league of virtuosity with the debut, so it will be a real feast for the chosen ones and a loss for those who are narrow-minded towards adepts. Mario would surely form a brilliant duo with Marty Friedman and Tony Fredianelli thanks to his penetrating solos and over-the-top chops. Finally, to sum up, I'd like to stress that Mario Parga is one of the best wizards in the neoclassical history of music, but also one of the most underrated. I don't know why, the more so because he does keep on Virtuosing!