Instrumental guitar album recommendations

[HungryGuitarStudent]

I'm going to enter a writing phase soon and I want to expand my horizons a bit by listening to instrumental guitar albums that I don't already know. I'll also try listening to styles of music out of my comfort zone, but that's another topic altogether.


I mostly listen to instrumental music these days. In my early days of playing I listened a lot to Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen, Metheny, Di Meola. Now it's mostly Paul Wardingham, Per Nilsson, Syndrone, Plini and more recently Nick Johnston, Jason Richardson, McRocklin, Widek, Alluvial, Pietronik. I also have explored a bit of Loomis, Andy James and Angel Vivaldi.

One guy I may need to explore is Marco Sfogli. If so, which album is your favorite ? Thanks in advance for all your suggestions

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Ryan Knight's recently released album is killer.

 

[budda]

Verlorener, cloudkicker, guthrie govan, does mattias ia eklund do instrumental?

It sounds to me like moving away from "shred" style music would be more a step in the right direction.

Also dig up some blues.

 

[prlgmnr]

 

[AkiraSpectrum]

Mamoru Goriku - Gray Days album

 

[Strobe]

I really like Ignazio Di Salvo. He has the best vibrato. It's an emotional experience to listen to him. Here is an example of him being awesome.

 

[stevexc]

You really want to step out of your comfort zone? Play, by Brad Paisley. It's not 100% instrumental but it's close.

 

[Siggevaio]

Shawn Lane - Powers of Ten
Owane - yeah whatever
Sean Ashe - Flux

 

[vilk]

My favorite instrumental band is Save Us From the Archon

It is very guitar oriented, but it does NOT sound like any of the music you listed in your OP lol

 

[Metropolis]

 

[Drew]

It sounds to me like moving away from "shred" style music would be more a step in the right direction.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!!!

You've hit a lot of my favorites.

• For Marco, "There's Hope" is awesome.
• Andy Timmons is amazing, too - "Revolution" is my favorite of his. If you like Nick Johnston, both of those would be worth a listen
• ...and I'd add to that Bret Garsed's "Big Sky," which is a pretty amazing disc, too, full of technical but bluesier and more melodic playing.
• I like some of Gilbert's more recent playing - his Racer X and Mr. Big stuff is great (and "Technical Difficulties" is such a badass tune), but I thought "Silence Followed By a Deafening Roar" was awesome, but some of his vocal stuff is fun, too - "Everybody Use Your Goddamn Turn Signal" is one of the coolest tunes I've heard this fall.
• And, in a totally different direction, Buckethead's "Colma" is an awesome album - sort of acoustic ambient hip hop, maybe. Gorgeous album with some occasional crazy chops sections that'll influence you in very different ways.
• Finally, it's not really instrumental "shred," but Gordian Knot's "Emergent" is a stellar disc - Sean Malone's project post-Cynic project, with Jim Matheos on guitar. It's instrumental prog... but it's very groove-oriented, more in the Tool sense than the sense it gets tossed around in djent. Really beautiful, at times heavy, at times haunting. Desert island list album for me. I actually haven't thought about that disc in ages, I should toss it on this afternoon.

 

[Surveyor 777]

There's also the instrumental album by a guy named Drew Peterson - you may have heard of him.

 

[Drew]

Thanks man! Not sure I really belong in this company though!

 

[gunch]

The easiest way to describe the champs is like classical + nwobhm with linear song structure

If you want heavier instrumentals

Blotted Science
Electro Quarterstaff
Dark Matter Secret (instrumental cynic/necro worship)

Scale the Summit was cool before Letchford became a huge dickhead

Beyond Creation has some killer instrumental tracks

 

[mastapimp]

Michael Hedges - Breakfast in the Field, Aerial Boundaries, Oracle

Kevin Hufnagel - Messages to the Past

Marty Friedman - Inferno, Wall of Sound, Loudspeaker

Chimp Spanner - Imperium Vorago, At Dream's End

Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects - Sol Niger Within

Andy Timmons Band - Sgt. Pepper

Gary Hoey - Animal Instinct, Bug Alley, Hocus Pocus Live

The Aristocrats - All their albums

Jerry Reed - various tracks

Eric Johnson - Ah Via Musicom, Tones, Venus Isle

Tony MacAlpine - Concrete Gardens

 

[HungryGuitarStudent]

Thanks a lot guys !! I have a lot of listening to do

Verlorener, cloudkicker, guthrie govan, does mattias ia eklund do instrumental?

It sounds to me like moving away from "shred" style music would be more a step in the right direction.

Also dig up some blues.

Oh, I forgot about Govan, he's definitely on my playlist. But yeah, one of my goals is to complement shred with other styles.

For blues, I mostly listen to SRV albums but I'm open to suggestions

I also listen to a bit of jazz/fusion, mostly Metheny, McLaughlin, a bit of Scofield and Holdsworth.

 

[budda]

Thanks a lot guys !! I have a lot of listening to do



Oh, I forgot about Govan, he's definitely on my playlist. But yeah, one of my goals is to complement shred with other styles.

For blues, I mostly listen to SRV albums but I'm open to suggestions

I also listen to a bit of jazz/fusion, mostly Metheny, McLaughlin, a bit of Scofield and Holdsworth.

Good stuff!

I dont even know where to start with blues. Muddy waters, robert cray, bb king are some big names but theres so many.

 

[Randy]

Ton of recommendations, super diverse.

Only thing I'd add I guess is "The Shape of Colours" by Intervals. Lots of bouncy riffs in there which is just straight up good guitar/riff based songwriting (not note salad, all hum-able) and the lead areas are clearly defined so its not unreasonable to be able to pickup a track and learn it start to finish.

Oh, I guess David Maxim Micic too? Bilo 1 and 2 are good, some tasty lead playing on both though theyre both more elaborate song writing based than they are shreddy guitar, but there's some of that in there too. I haven't listened to anything after those so no clue.

 

[JD27]

That new Ryan Knight album was cool, different from what you would expect after Arsis and TBDM. I don't listen to alot of instrumental albums, but i did enjoy the Josh Middleton Project -Hollowed- Out Planitoid.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Check out the G5 Project and G.O.D Guitarists on Demand albums. Basically 2 groups of various guitarists of diverse styles lead by Masahiro Aoki (Godspeed0080). There's quite a few of them from each camp.





Come to think of it Godspeed himself also has a solo album released this year. Need to grab that myself.