With this track, I went for a more fast and aggressive solo. I really enjoy bringing a more rockcentric approach to metal playing, using a lot of double stops and bends, ala Nuno Bettencourt. Palm muted down strokes are a great way to power through pentatonic runs, especially on lower notes. You can always include accents to contrast the palm mutes as well. Similarly, percussive ghost notes tend to add a lot of aggression to your playing, in the form of slides or rakes preceding a note.

The track starts with a huge double-stop bend and some fierce palm-muted lead licks. The hard accents really add to the aggression of the track, and I chose a tone that really helped the notes pop out. This style of powerful playing is very similar to a lot of rock guitarists – Doug Aldrich for example – who are masters of punchy, slightly less pristine playing styles than in metal. I also find a slightly warmer, less harsh tone suits this style better, with perhaps subtly more gain to really make the guitar scream.

The long run beginning from Bar 17 starts with a string-skipped arpeggio in C#m, before moving into a C#m descending sweep, using hammer-ons and pull-offs throughout to create a much more fluid and easily playable passage. From Bar 19, I used some extended descending arpeggios followed by a rapid ascending sweep shape. The lick in Bar 21-22 utilizes a chromatically descending line reminiscent of a lot of pentatonic blues and rock licks, before a linear descending speed-picked lick into the Chorus.