I might be fan-boying a bit for this review.

I first heard Aeon Bridge via some Internet metal nerds on Reddit. As a shred-loving guitarist myself I have spent hours and hours watching insane compilations and clips from all of the classics. Satch, Vai, Malmsteen, and, of course, the greatest, most tasteful 80’s axe-wielding hero: Michael Angelo Batio. To be quite honest, shred guitar is a style with which I experienced a fair amount of burnout. In the height of the “Betcha Can’t Play This” YouTube videos I watched Rusty Cooley make inhuman noises on his instrument, and I thought to myself “okay, I guess I have reached the end of the road.” I had heard the most insane guitar sounds that could possibly exist.

So here’s the deal: shred guitar can still be cool if it is remotely musical. We typically do not remember the fastest guitar solos, we remember the ones that we can hum after the show and sing along with in the car. Aeon Bridge is a perfect example of making absolutely insane shred guitar music that is also an absolute joy to listen to for 40 minutes. The key here is that Aeon Bridge’s music does not start and end with exercises in “here’s how fast I can play the harmonic minor scale.” This artist (for the uninitiated: Aeon Bridge is Jackie Regz) has a seemingly endless supply of high-octane hooks and melodies to throw at your ears. Do the crazy guitar leads make the music even cooler? Sure! But they are the glazing on a donut that has been baked to perfection with the finest doughy ingredients imaginable. Wait, I think my metaphor has ended; now I’m just talking about pastries….

Seriously though, if you like a non-stop assault of catchy yet brutally heavy riffs, then you need to listen to “Defile to Desolate”. Everything about Aeon Bridge’s music has been upgraded: the production, the shreddery, the arrangements, and, of course, the massive riffs. “Self-Drowned Dead” is a great example of the unrelenting, brutal excellence of this album. Insane harmonics meet wild flurries of notes in a song that can only be described as “if Mick Gordon and Jason Becker teamed up to make the ultimate DOOM album.” The following track “Champions of Rajaat” opens with haunting clean guitar work and morphs into a thrashy, groovy riff-fest that is more or less absent of guitar solos until the 4 minute mark. The anticipation, knowing that Jackie’s fingers are ready to fly, is nothing less than brilliant. When the levees finally burst the solo is an absolute masterclass, weaving together the aforementioned lightning-fast groupings of notes with wah and pitch-shifting effects, dazzling your ears but leaving just as quickly as it came. “Champions of Rajaat” is 8 minutes long and will leave you feeling like you just outran a pack of wolves.

While Aeon Bridge has been fairly consistent with their releases (and I have been a HUGE fan of all of them), something about “Defile to Desolate” is uniquely satisfying in their catalog. I enjoyed a lot of the less-conventional instrumentation in earlier releases, at times the ideas were stronger than the actual sounds produced. Don’t get me wrong: I would MUCH rather hear great ideas with imperfect production than the opposite. Yet I can recognize when the two meet in the perfect center, when the ideas are able to fully come to life and find their true final form. “Defile to Desolate” is a tangible representation of the end to the artist’s infinite search for the product that truly embodies what they are hearing in their head. Just listen to those epic synths in “Mindlords of the Last Sea”; perfection incarnate indeed. And good god, the guitar work. I talked about being burnt out on shred guitar, but albums like this one remind me that I still LOVE insane guitarists, I just do not love when they appear as nothing more than clones of the greats from 40+ years ago. Jackie’s style, while tipping the hat to the greats of decades past, is fresh, unique, and evocative. To this day I have not heard anyone else use the whammy bar in such an insane manner.

I could write 1000 words about any of the songs on this album. With that said, I find it more interesting to discuss the work as a whole, since it flows so smoothly and effortlessly throughout its 48 minute runtime. From those opening ominous effects on the title track I was completely hooked. When the syncopated guitar / double kick riff blasted off I was in a state of euphoria, and that state lasted for 48 minutes. Wow, what an album.

https://aeonbridge.bandcamp.com/album/defile-to-desolate

Joe H