It’s been a long time since I dug into a shred album, having had my fill of them back in the ‘80s. So, when Andrew Lee (co-owner of Nameless Grave Records and multi-instrumentalist and a bunch of bands) and his Heavy Metal Shrapnel album hit my review queue, I thought, "why not?" Lee, with a host of guests, heads back to the classic shred era on the album, which features plenty of dazzling solos and technically challenging playing, but also remembers that people who aren’t guitarists listen to this stuff and never forgets the melody. It is obvious Lee has listened to a lot of Tony MacAlpine as you can clearly hear during solos such as the one on "Teela’s Luck" and absorbed some of the accessible jazz/blues influences of Joe Satriani which comes through on the ballad "Maybe." Heavy Metal Shrapnel doesn’t feature anything even a casual shred fan hasn’t heard before, but Lee plays with a lot of energy and affection for the giants on whose shoulders he stands. If you like shred, Heavy Metal Shrapnel is really quite enjoyable.