Luca Selitto
The Voice Within

Neoclassical rock/metal is a hard thing to do well, it often become a self-obsessed thing where technical skill becomes more important than the songs. Stamina guitarist Luca Selitto have gone for that particular genre when he makes his first solo album, an album where we visit land of Vikings as you can see on the artwork – but also many other things. Selitto have many skilled musicians helping him with this album, like singers Göran Edman, Henrik Brockman and Rob Lundgren. And the album contains eight tracks where three are instrumental and Rob Lundgren sings on three songs, Edman and Brockman on one each where the Swedish Viking Edman sings about Land of the Vikings.

So, as I alluded to before it is neoclassical with skilled guitar playing, melodies inspired by the classical and a strong production. With different singers and the additional instrumental tracks it is fairly varied as well and the eight tracks have a playing time of just 35 minutes, that is very sensible I think. Selitto knows how to play the guitar and you can compare with the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen’s stuff and so on, not really coming up with anything that reinvents the genre. It seems a bit like Selitto is impressed with himself rather than focused on writing catchy and memorable songs.

With so good singers it should have been better but none of the tracks really catches the attention of me as the listener and I tone out from the album quite soon after starting to listen. The first track isn’t really second to none, it is second to most and Edman’s vocal prowess feels a bit wasted on the uninteresting track that is Land of the Vikings. The instrumentals are probably the best ones but none of the tracks are anywhere close to outstanding – if you don’t consider outstandingly uninteresting of course.

In the end I think that Selitto should have done much better than this, there are some interesting aspects to this album and Selitto is an excellent as well as skilled guitarist but he isn’t a great song-writer and therefore the album falls flatly. The most positive thing I can say about it is that it isn’t a bad album, but it sure isn’t good. I can safely say that we can do well without this one.

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