My one sentence review of Marty Friedman's "Tokyo Jukebox, Vols 1 and 2": Marty Friedman moved to Japan after leaving Megadeth and has really, really, really, really, really embraced the local culture.

My longer review: This is actually a one-package compilation of Vol. 1, released in 2009, and Vol. 2, released in 2011, so there's no brand new material for those who love the first two. It is a helluva a trip, if you've never heard the material.

To get bring you up to speed, if you're unaware:Marty Friedman is a noted guitar hypertalent who achieved his first modest 80s fame with legendary prog-classical-virtuoso-metal act, Cacophany. He then shot to Metal superstardom as Dave Mustaine's six-string-mate in Megadeth during their most successful and popular era, spanning from albums "Rust in Peace" to "Risk". He left the band in 2000, then moved full-time to Japan somewhere in the early 2000s, where he's become a television fixture, appearing on numerous shows, in addition to continuing his musical career. Which leads us to the two Tokyo Jukebox albums, released in 2009 and 2011, featuring instrumental covers and reinterpretations of J-pop (Japanese pop) songs. No Japanese metal, no Japanese jazz - - just J-pop.

While I feel like you have to really know the original material to truly "get" this stuff, it's still an enjoyably strange listen. I'd say I only have otaku tendencies, but I can certainly appreciate Friedman's mix of blistering prog-metal and J-pop, kinda like Dream Theater doing the closing music for a Studio Ghibli film. I can almost picture the anime characters dancing around the kanji character credits while listening to this. It's catchy, poppy, aggressive, and - - above all - - very Japanese. I suspect that this would be very un enjoyable, unacceptable?, to mainstream metal crowds - - or even strict metal traditionalists - - but I don't think Marty crafted it with them in mind. In fact, I don't know who he had in mind when putting this collection together. That's ok. It still works. Friedman has the chops to pull this off, and “Tokyo Jukebox” could prove a welcome change-up for those who immerse their ears in 1000-note-per-second prog metal. My favorite of the tracks, ‘Romance No Kamisama’, is a beautiful ballad kind of thing, but overall, the two albums' best moments are Friedman's fascinatingly complex soloing runs - - which may have been cribbed from the source material, sprouted from his own brain and fingers, or some combination of both. The worst moments are tooth-rotting sweetness that sends visions of Pikachu through my Western brain. Luckily, the former outweigh the latter.

Worth a listen for anyone who appreciates skilled guitarwork. Absolutely worth the attention of any Metal enthusiast otaku out there.