Named “Guitarist of The Year 2025” by Roadie Crew Magazine, Silas Fernandes is the embodiment of all of those fretboard shredders you loved in the early 90s. His current EP ‘Carbon Purge Acceleration’ presents a half dozen very heavy instrumental workouts, each of which help to showcase his explosive style.

Silas’s current single ‘Flight of The Navigator’ is arguably the most explosive of all. Opening with echoing synth sounds and sharp edged noise, the number begins in a manner that aims to intrigue. However, it’s barely seconds into the piece before Silas unleashes his first heavy riff. Instead of approaching things in a speed driven manner, much how you’d expect something that has an air of a Shrapnel Records throwback, the guitarist hits his audience with an intense groove, taking the guts of melodic metal and intensifying the sound with brutal bass drum work bringing a pneumatic edge. From there, the riffs blend a classic sounding metallic crunch with a melodic thrash backdrop, which although conveying a huge energy, still isn’t as fast as some of his forebears.

It isn’t actually until the midpoint that Fernandes launches into a lead break, and predictably, it’s here his playing takes on more of a shredder’s approach, sharing something that fuses the best elements of an old Glen Drover recording with the smartness of Mischa Calvin. Unbelievably, it isn’t this centrepiece that gives ‘Flight of The Navigator’ its most memorable moment. That’s left in the hands of the last few bars where Silas takes an opportunity to slow down, replace the classic metal elements with a much dirtier sounding metal/hardcore blend, to deliver a set of absolutely crushing guitar riffs augmented by a sci-fi infused synth.

With this track, Silas covers a lot of musical ground in under four minutes. It may not be as flashy as some guitar instrumentals, but it has a genuine presence from the first note through to the last. For fans of instrumental metal with an accessible approach, this is well worth checking out.

Take a listen to ‘Flight of The Navigator’ below.