Album is great, actually one of Yngwie's best, but the mix a
Justinian | NYC | 04/23/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"I love the songs on this. Yngwie's playing is great as well. However, the mix and production are the worst of any CD I've ever heard. What the heck is wrong with Yngwie on this?"
Buy it if you're already into Yngwie
J. Shenk | Wisconsin | 08/04/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This album received a lot of negative reviews, but most of the criticism can be applied to any Yngwie album: ridiculous cover art, contrived Latin-sounding song titles, and a lot of "dark ages of Europe"-lyrics. Honestly, though, those aspects are par for the course for Yngwie and I wouldn't buy an album by him expecting anything else.
The real problem plaguing "Wars" is the production. The album suffers from And Justice For All-syndrome with its buried vocals, bass drum reduced to a click, and general muddiness. If you can get past the fact that it sounds like a demo tape, though, the performances are actually really good and Yngwie tries a couple new concepts like drop D tuning and whole-tone riffing (on Catch 22).
This would be one of my favorites because of its darker, heavier sound, but agreeably, it's tough to see past the crappy mix. I'd strongly recommend it, but only if you already own half a dozen of Malmsteen's more popular works and want to see what else he's done."
Its not THAT bad
Bryan Wolf Duke | 02/17/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"As a bassist I'm appreciating Yngwie's low end work...beautiful classical lines delivered with speed and accuracy. Leaves Billy Sheehans unmelodic messes in the dirt (I still like Billy on other levels though). Apart from that reggae tune I think its cool he keeps doing his stuff despite the seeming frustration at him doing the "same thing". Do AC/DC cop this ? Even Vai, for all his prettyness hasnt evolved to far from his debut. Appreciate the man for his focus on the genr as no one else is doing this kinda work."
The low point...........
CJ | Georgia, USA | 07/08/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"I can name Yngwie's studio low point---this is it. His blistering playing was still there, although it has the most horrific production I have heard from a professionally recorded metal album. Not sure if Yngwie produced this one (he has produced or co-produced many of his albums with great results), but someone needs to bring in a true authority in and just TAKE OVER the remaster of this album. A skillful remaster would probably bring it to life and justify another star, although there is no new ground covered here, it sounds like he was bored/restless in the studio and wanted to kick out an album merely because a certain amount of time had passed.
To make matters worse, this is also a rather loud, angry album without much contrast. It has several more songs than it needs and some editing of the remaining songs would have helped.
It's still clear this is a legendary guitarist with an impressive arsenal at his disposal, but without any direction and with flat out lousy production (Yngwie with mud tone??!!). You can make up for some of this if you have a nice graphic EQ, but that will only fix so much and won't do anything about the lack of focus.
I am a long time fan, but this one is only for completists, casual fans should skip it!"
CONFUSED
Howard Tate | St. Louis | 10/15/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I get the impression from the preceding reviews and my own experience with this album that there must have been a boatload of defective copies of this CD.
There is nothing wrong with the production on my copy. "War" is one of my top favorite Yngwie albums, and I have them all. The album is very exciting and I actually feel like my brain is tired after I listen to it.