PRESS/SPECIALS/BOB VIGNA DECIBEL MAG. FEATURE #15 Robert Vigna (Immolation) Age he first started playing guitar: Around 14. “I did take lessons for a short time when I was younger,” says Immolation guitarist Robert Vigna. “I learned some basic scales and songs, but most of my training was in learning how to play rock and metal music. I would learn Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and a ton of other bands’ songs and solos as best I could. I found that playing by ear was a real challenge. You would pick up a lot by trying to dissect the songs and figure everything out.” As anyone putting an ear to speaker and a finger to fretboard could probably tell you, everything’s a challenge when it comes to seminal New York death metallers Immolation. From the group’s unsung debut Dawn of Possession to current long-player Shadows of the Light, Vigna, probably one of the genre’s least recognized technicians, sounds as if he first plunks down a Unicursal maze, invokes some nasty demons to populate it, from which a hellacious din is created that rivals Paganini jamming to a jackhammer metronome. It’s an unholy racket by infernal design. Vigna’s guitar playing, in many respects, represents two opposite ends of the spectrum: insanely fast repetitive themes, off-kilter pinch harmonics and wild, often unorthodox, solo choices clash like demigods with burly, deftly simple riffs, hidden counterpoint (“Mourning’s Twilight”) and slow, churning harmonic minors. A friend once said Immolation isn’t too far from Bolt Thrower trading licks with Gorguts during the apocalypse. Paints a pretty picture doesn’t it? |