Can you recommend some particular Cacophony recordings for me to try? I've never heard Jason becker and only know about him from tabs posted here but I gather he's an amazing sweep picker. i have Marti Friedman's True Obsessions, some of it sucks a bit but there's some brilliant and original stuff there too and I'm keen to buy some more of his stuff if it's as good, do you know if Dragon's kiss is any good? I dig eastern scales in a metal context, with the limitations in chordal complexity that serious distortion makes necesary I find that it's hard to make original metal otherwise.