Dario Lorina – Dario Lorina (2013)

American guitar virtuoso Dario Lorina delivers to us one of the best shred instrumental releases we have heard in quite a with his debut self-titled release. Feature 13 tracks of expertly crafted music, we are given a unique opportunity to hear Dario’s expert guitar skills surrounded by very well constructed and catchy melodies. Avoiding many pitfalls of guitarists, like trying to sing, this release has everything a fan of Hard Rock/Metal could wish for, plus extremely awesome guitar solos.

Making an immediate impact with the playful “Demon Rum”, we instantly hear the quality behind Dario’s music. The drums and bass guitar are very well executed by Dan Conway and Marten Andersson, allowing this release to sound 100% professional by avoiding dull programmed drums and linear bass guitar lines. With shredding being the main attractive, we found that tracks like “Pipe Dreams”, “My Heroine”, “Villains”, and “Silhouettes” offer a lot more than insane guitar work. The melodic and catchy songwriting makes them more appealing than your average one-man shows we have these days.

One of our favorites is the slowly progressing “House of the Rising Sun” and its very mellow and epic vibe, a perfect song to enjoy after a long day of work with a few cold ones. The tempo changes through the album’s tracks set Dario apart from the competition than only focus on faster and more complex music and lose the overall big picture of truly enjoyable music. “Words Unspoken” nicely changes the mood of things with a ballad-esque vibe adding to an already impressive repertoire of different styles Dario can deliver.

Closing the album we have two of our favorite tracks: “Revolutions” and “Amor Odium”. We have to saw that we love how the last track really brings everything together with a slow pace and very mellow guitar solos. Dario Lorina at his young age has done more than many professional musicians have done in their whole careers touring with great bands like Lizzy Borden, and Jani Lane. With a very promising future, we can only hope to hear more and more solo albums from him. If you like the greatest guitarists in the scene like Randy Rhoads, John Petrucci, Eddie Van Halen, and such, you should not miss this album.

Label: Shrapnel Records

Release: September 10th, 2013

Genre: Instrumental / Shred

Country: USA