RANDY ELLEFSON has released his fifth instrumental album, Now Weaponized! An hour of original music, the twelve songs are a return to the hard rock and metal of his first two albums. He is the sole performer of all guitars, bass, and drums; he also engineered and produced.

While Ellefson has been playing guitar and bass for three decades, this marks his debut as a drummer. Performing the drums meant finding a way around a tendonitis injury that still affects him. Back in 1993, after majoring in classical composition for two years, he became a classical guitar major instead, but this meant he needed to gain four years of classical guitar skill in the remaining two years of school. By heavily practicing, he succeeded in earning the Bachelors of Music in guitar only to develop such severe tendonitis in both arms a year later that he lost the ability to play guitar – or do much of anything else.

Temporarily crippled, Ellefson couldn’t play guitar at all for a year, then spent another four years regaining his skills, but only on electric guitar, the easiest to play. When he recorded his debut album, The Firebard (2004), he couldn’t play some songs all the way through without hurting his arms, so he often recorded the music a few sections at a time. His arms have continued recovering so that he no longer does this and can even play drums now, but when he started performing drums for Now Weaponized!, he used the same technique of recording a few sections at a time, once again finding a way around the injury.

Now Weaponized! tracklisting is:

Serenade

Rapid Fire

The Thrill of it All

Mesmerize

Keeping Pace

Crunch Time

Promenade

Moshkill

Surreal

Ostinato

Bounce

Farewell

The first single 'Keeping Pace' is streaming below:

Randy Ellefson Single

For more details visit Randyellefson.com.