Great Kat’s brand of lightning fast shredding on classical pieces is back, this time with the “Beethoven’s guitar shred” DVD. So let’s see what’s on offer here:

Flight of the Bumble-Bee: Joey DeMaio played it on the bass. Then John Petrucci played it on guitar. And now Kat shreds the piece at a blistering 300bpm, and it’s like watching the aforementioned in fast forward! Insane!
Torture Techniques: A thrash metal interlude of sorts, that provides s&m torturing instructions with a musical background that resembles “Rhapsody in Blue”. Pretty f*cked up!
Paganini’s Caprice #24: Not much to say here, an incredible, blistering rendition of the classic.
Blood: Another interlude, the bloody defacing of an altar with a grind musical background (loved the high pitched screams!).
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony: An even speedier sounding version of what she did on the now classic “Beethoven on Speed” album. Babababaaaam!
Islamofascists: A shred grind video, where Kat eloquently expresses her patriotic feelings: “YOU DIE, YOU DIE”!
Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3: The most melodic of pieces presented here, once again the result has to be heard to be believed!

Apart from the guitars, Kat can also be seen playing the violin on this release (she’s a decorated classical violinist), and the performance on both instruments is simply flawless. It’s also interesting to see how her hand/finger placement and picking on the guitar are influenced by her violin experience (for instance on the angle of the fret hand or the wide finger reach).

The background images and scenery used on the clips are very well produced and the vivid fetish/unholy imagery comes in full contrast with the “intellectual” profile many neoclassical guitarists try to convey, something that contributes greatly to the cult factor.

There’s also a few bonus clips, and the cartoon version (?!?) of “Flight of the Bumblebee”, where an animated Kat beats a bumblebee to a pulp using her guitar! This may seem like a lot of material, but the total running time of it put together is somewhere around 15 minutes! Here lies my only objection, because though impressive, it’s hardly enough. However, the DVD is sold around $8 if I’m not mistaken, so you still get your money’s worth.

That being said, you can’t help but wonder who the target audience for this release is. Considering shreds at this speed will probably drive most metalheads and classical music fans to a headlong rush against the nearest wall, I guess the answer would be any of the following categories: Fans of Kat’s previous work, aspiring guitarists who want to study her technique, neoclassical metal fans that can’t get enough speedy arpeggios, or anyone that wants to show his irritating jazz buddies, just how much more technical metal can be!

As far as I’m concerned, it rocks but I want more! SHRRRRRRRED ON!!!

P.S.: In retrospect, this must be the only music video that includes alluring cleavage and thigh displays, and yet you keep looking at the hands… well at least the first couple of times, then you start looking at the cleavage!


http://www.greatkat.com

Review by: Asgardlord

Read the The Great Kat interview.