By Martin Popoff

MEGADETH legend MARTY FRIEDMAN has cooked up a new shredding meta-metal album for Shrapnel Records called Loudspeaker, which will have you pumped for a quick revisit of his Rust In Peace and Countdown leads for the genius that is Marty in full, fluid flight.

Asked about some of the interesting titles on the new record, such as ‘Glycerine Flesh’, ‘Black Orchid’ and ‘Devil Take Tomorrow’, Friedman says, “I always have the hardest time picking titles for instrumental music. It's really the hardest thing, but I like cool sounding phrases, and if I hear one or think of one, I either jot it down and save it for when I'm doing a record, or try to match up with whichever tune has that image. I just like cool sounding words - there's definitely not any kind of deep meaning to it. But you've got to title it something, and I like words that sound bitchin’.”

“I live in downtown Tokyo, in a high-rise, and it's just insane, man,” says Marty of his lifestyle in Japan. “It's everything I wanted it to be and more, really. Just having all those kinds of outside life experiences really, first of all, confused me about what I wanted to do musically. Because everything was working out no matter what I did. Music-wise it goes all the way from full-on techno to ultra Idol teen pop to full-on death metal stuff, and everything in-between - and I was just loving all of it. And it's really, what do I do? What do I really want to do? So when I made a record, I didn't want to just put something out. So it took me 13 months to make Loudspeaker. I would basically go in for a day or two here and there, a week… every month I would get in for a couple of days, between my other schedule, which was mostly TV stuff. So it was really fresh to come into the studio and bash out some full-on metal after reading cue cards all week. And that kind of freaked me out, because it was so natural to make this record the most aggressive record I've ever made. When I started, I thought this was really easy; this is what I want to do. I think the whole thing with me is like, what comes most easily is probably playing full-on aggressive rock, or metal. And the fans that have supported me over the years, what do they want hear from me? It's probably the same answer. And it was an easy solution. And the reason I'm still happy to do that is because I took my time doing it. When I was in the studio doing it, it was a change of pace and it was very fresh and fun to do. I think I needed that outside stimulation to make the record as good as it was. If I was doing this kind of stuff 24-7, 365 days a year, I would probably go out of my mind, because there’s so much I want to do.”

For the full goods on Loudspeaker, check out BW&BK; #104, out in late April.