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GUS G. “Steelburner”
GUS G. “Steelburner”
By Iron Sheik
Caution! Contents hot, heavy and infectious! A Burner this Steel certainly is!
FIREWIND firebrand GUS G returns with his new solo outing “Steel Burner”. Prepare yourself for a fast scorching piece of metal that shreds as much as it smoulders, very emotively. His fifth solo release sees him playing with four singers guesting on five tracks while the remaining five tracks are instrumentals. GUS plays all the instruments on the album. For the uninitiated GUS played guitar on OZZY's 2010 album “Scream”. As much as I love Zakk, it would have been cool to hear from a further GUS/OZZY pairing. We all know now that after that tour The Prince Of Darkness put his solo career tour on hold for the mighty BLACK SABBATH. What could have been, sigh! Back to the business at hand in 2026 and GUS's offering.
GUS G is from Thessaloniki, Greece. Here he works with four of metal's finest vocalists: DORO Pesch, Matt Barlow, Dino Jelusick, and Ronnie Romero. Ronnie guests on two tracks. Steel in its heaviness. Intense in its burning. (I think I said something similar above.) Together with the five instrumentals interspersed amongst the guest vocalists, “Steel Burner” is grand in its 38 minutes! It is short in comparison to most of his FIREWIND outings which is his long running powerhouse of metal. It is an endeavour of a quarter century that began in 2002 after playing on “Vengeance” by MYSTIC PROPHECY in 2001.
I decided I would listen to “Steel Burner” without knowing which singers he chose, and to see if I were able to identify them on their respective songs, in a different setting. I recognized “Conqueress” from the queen of metal, DORO, right away. An arresting yet uncuffed performance by Matt Barlow is in the offering. A double turn by stone cold singer, Ronnie Romero of LORDS OF BLACK is on tap. Exceptional Dino Jelusick surely snakes his way around one track. I recognized Doro, Matt, and Ronnie. Dino was the one I could not place because I mistook him for Ronnie. Ronnie and Dino sound similar, at least to me, and both are great singers. All four turned in great turns at the mic.
“Steel Burner”'s other five tracks are instrumentals that just like above I will generalize by saying GUS's multi-instrumental ability is phenomenal. His guitar mastery is evident on all tracks, but it gets a real sorrowful emotive tone to it throughout the instrumentals. 38 minutes flew by in a second! Repeat was necessary! This is an album of greatness on all fronts.
“Steel Burner” is a metal album that scorches. GUS shows he is capable of constructing an album from the ground up playing either to his own abilities, or the singers he chose for the album. This album is the real deal. And that deal? Fretwork from a master. When the question of who is the most underrated guitarist in metal in 2026 the answer is GUS G! A man this talented deserves the recognition of being mentioned in the ranks of Randy Rhoads,Tony Iommi, Joe Stump, Dimebag Darrell, Roy Z, Eddie Van Halen, and Lukas Axx. That's just to name a few. GUS G throws caution to the wind with Steel Burner and blazes an aural trail of excellent metal.
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