The Meaning of Christmas, Mike Campese (self-issued)

Campese is an electric lead guitar shredder and this, his sixth solo album, is his holiday move for 2008. He has done time with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, where his talents were no doubt appreciated, but this album has only a little of that sort of big progressive sound; this is more of a hard rock/metal outing, mostly instrumental with Mike pushing the envelope on the melodies in that style. The 12 tunes are mostly classics, with two originals, "Christmas in Maui" and the title song, the latter the only vocal on the disc. "The Christmas Song," called "Chestnuts" on here, and "Silent Night" are led by acoustic rather than electric guitars, and "Carol of the Bells" is as close as he gets to TSO here. This will go over great with hard rock guitar fanatics.