08. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God [Roope Latvala]Amon Amarth have some pretty amazing solos, but their best solo is, ironically, a guest solo by Roope Latvala of Stone/Children of Bodom fame. This song is the perfect combination of memorable melodies and shredding, creating something special while retaining the intensity throughout. In live versions, Johan changes this solo around a bit, but no-one plays it as amazingly as Latvala did on the studio recording, and it's a large part of why this track is one of my favourites by Amon Amarth, who have, despite their cheesy lyrics, quickly become one of my favourite melodeath bands ever. Especially amazing, in my opinion, on this track is the way that the solo ends and leads again into the final chorus, that's some awesome lead work right there.
07. Wintersun - Winter Madness [Jari Mäenpää]Wintersun's debut sits comfortably amongst my Top 10 albums of all time, and this song is my favourite from it. Many songs on this album are amazing without any guitar solos at all - "Sleeping Stars" and "Starchild", just to name two, but here, the guitar solo is, without a doubt, the central focus of the song. It's melodic, it's shreddy, it's intense... everything that a guitar solo needs in such an aggressive and speedy song. And even though he has played some truly fantastic leads, on both the first two Ensiferum albums and the first two Wintersun albums, this is a guitar solo and a song that I cannot see Jari ever topping.
06. Judas Priest - Beyond the Realms of Death [Glenn Tipton]Judas Priest have never really been one for ballads, and for a long time, this song was the closest that they had ever come to a ballad. It's a slow and moving song with an astounding vocal performance by Halford, but even that is overshadowed by the brilliance of Glenn Tipton's guitar solo. While Glenn is a player of astounding technique, the pacing and the note choices on this one are what make it stand high above his extensive catalogue of guitar solos. It's constructed perfectly, and similarly to Friedman's "Tornado of Souls" solo, with both starting slow and simple but building up and building up throughout all the solo, and while I like both songs a lot, this one is definitely the better song for me, as well as the better guitar solo. While Glenn Tipton later played such masterpiece solos like "Painkiller", "Prisoner of Your Eyes" or "Lochness", nothing compares to the brilliance of this solo that he wrote so early on in his career and performed impeccably. This is my favourite solo in all of classic heavy metal.
Topic: Top 20 Guitar Solos - now up: ReaperKK (starting page 5) (Read 14610 times)
