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Hard to believe, but this is Malmsteen's 16th studio album as a solo artist and with such a prolific career, he's got his own style patted down. That how I'd describe Relentless: "An Yngwie Malmsteen album", there isn't anything much else to say about this. The album offers nothing new and nothing you haven't heard from the Swedish guitar god before. But that is not my problem here, my biggest issue here is the excessiveness and self-serving ego that this album has.

Some would say those same aspects are things that Malmsteen has always done and that is true. Still, it doesn't excuse him for putting out the excessive amount of instrumentals displayed here. Never mind that the disc itself is almost 70 minutes long (if you include the bonus tracks), it is the order in which the tracks are arranged that upsets me the most. Literally every single odd number track is a fucking instrumental, some of them are good but mostly they are repetitive. That is a shame since the songs that have vocals are actually pretty good, though not as memorable as some of the stuff he released during the 80's and even the 90's.

Speaking of which, the only other thing worth mentioning is Ripper Owens's singing. It is more controlled than any of his previous works (whether it is with Priest or otherwise) and he sounds better because of that. Regardless, this is a Malmsteen album, and this is nothing but a platform for him to showcase his talent, just in case you forgot he is a great guitarist/shredder. I honestly don't know why he released this; if it were a double album or sold separately it would have done wonders for it. But as it stands, it is a tedious task to listen to this from start to finish in one sitting. Relentless is not the worst album that he has released in his career but it could easily been his most self-loathing one.