OK I finally watched the video, and that is pretty kickass. Yes, it wasn't good at 170bpm, he was too impatient. Understandable; this piece is supposed to be prestissimo. At 260bpm it was really good. Dropped off a bit in terms of the melody at 300bpm, but actually the 320bpm version was good again.
One thing that sets this apart is the piece is a great melody at high speed; it's what's missing in a lot of shred. So when you trot out this or Paganini, it adds quite a lot to the genre. The reality of most shred is that most guitarists don't have time to learn how to shred and learn how to write a great melody at the same time, especially a melody that really works played at speed.
When shredders lean towards swept arpeggios, that usually doesn't help the matter, since it makes for a poor high-speed melody. This guy doesn't rely on the easier speed of the sweep, and it shows.
I would like the guy to really put in more expression (a bit less palm muting here and there, for example) at 260bpm, and this would be a really killer track (minus the canned backing).
Did anybody else notice the background shred while the annoying MC was doing the intro? That was pretty good, nice and melodic.
