Well we clearly have a difference of opinion on what constitutes “aggressive” playing, but our differences are what make the world go ‘round, right?
I think Eddie Van Halen’s playing is unbelievably “aggressive” on the entire ‘Fair Warning’ LP and perhaps most “aggressive” of all is the album closer “One Foot Out The Door”…
Is this aggressive enough?
I’m not sure that anyone would disagree about EVH being one of the most aggressive rock players early in his career. Awesome stuff
Oh also this one
The licks around 2:52 have some pick attack in them.
Speedball… such a great tune!
The solos in “Soma”, “Geek USA”, and “United States” are nothing short of incredible. Crogan is a fan of shredders like Uli Jon Roth as well. The guy can play his ass off. Probably why a lot of his musical peers turned their noses up at him.
Always been a fan of Jerry Cantrell as well, lots of Iommi and EVH influence in his style. Great melodic lead player and great riff writer. But like Billy I feel these guys held back a lot to serve the song when guitar technics became looked down upon.
As for licks and solos the whole Judas Priest Painkiller album is full of them KK’s solo in the title track (the second solo) is killer with all those savage pinch harmonics. The guitar tone that Chris Tsangarides helped produce is biting. Metal Meltdown is a great contender that intro dual solo is just an all out attack.
Deep Purple Child in Time. The year is 1970 outside of jazz no one is playing guitar like this and Blackmore just unleashes an audial description of nuclear devastation on the solo. It’s a prefect build from such a subdued ballad type song. These may be some of the first triad style sweeps on a rock album as well at the end of the solo doubling the organ.
Ok thrash time
You can pretty much pick any Mustaine solo as his entire lead style is pure aggression.
My guitar buddy when I was learning in high school was the Metallica guy and I was the Megadeth guy. He used to joke that Dave’s solos sound like he channeled all his aggression and anger at having been fired from Metallica into his solos on the first batch of Megadeth albums because he just attacks the guitar. In My Darkest Hour (3:55) and Holy Wars (final solo at 5:00) are my picks. The Conjuring is a runner up as well as My Last Words.
Speaking of tech death “well we already ripped your head off so now we will interpolate Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights” Such a shame these dudes stopped making albums. Although Obscura fills the void a bit.
I’m the One, Hang Em High, Loss of Control, any of the real fast songs.
Gotta add Domination by Pantera. Dime does a similar thing that KK did Metal Meltdown with the one string tremolo picked wide interval apreggio lick during the breakdown except it’s harmonized. Absolutely vicious lick. around 4:15.