Artist – VALENTINO FRANCAVILLA
Album(EP) – HEAVY CHAINS
Release Date – September 20, 2018
Facebook – Official Facebook page
Instagram –   Official Instagram account
Spotify – Valentino Francavilla on SPOTIFY
Review by – John Erigo

Thanks to the artist, Valentino Francavilla, for sending me his EP recently. I gotta be honest, when I saw the pic of him holding a bright green guitar I was curious – is this guy a shredder or is he into 80’s hair metal? LOL! I found out quickly that this Italian born musician is anything but a hack, but instead an extremely talented musician!!!! I also learned that on his EP HEAVY CHAINS that he plays and sings every part himself. That’s quite impressive. His shred style guitar playing is quite serious, and so is his song writing.

HEAVY CHAINS contains 7 songs, 2 are instrumentals. There is NO MORE TEARS, which has a ballady feel but also has Yngwie-type of quick runs in it. The melody kind of reminded me of a DOKKEN sounding song, very cool. Valentino shows off his guitar pyrotechnics over a really nice melody. Some really fast but tasty playing, well done! The other instrumental is SHRED TILL DEATH and oh yeah, he does!!!! This one has a slight neo-classical metal feel to it. Cool double bass patterns with just blazing notes over it. I do have to point out that Valentino plays with speed but also clarity, you hear every note as he blazes around the fret board.

The EP opens with THUNDERSTRIKE which sets the tone for what your ears are in for. Valentino shows right off the bat he has a really good singing voice and he is not just a shredding guitar player because like I said he plays all the instruments, and handles all the vocals, on this EP too. The opening riff to the song HEAVY CHAINS reminds me of George Lynch(Dokken) and Akira Takasaki (Loudness) – 2 monster guitar players – then the song takes a short break into a Hot For Teacher kind of riff, EVH!!! So this guy is well versed in the better guitar players of our genre and he can pull it off flawlessly.

I think this EP is a great starting point for this guy and I can’t wait to hear what’s next! Please check out his work on bandcamp below and enjoy!!!!