Album Reviews

[Dave's Bitch]

I think they avoided a Sunset Strip singer because they wanted to move away from their own past. I respect that.

Weiland and STP are truly awesome, and he's one of rock's unique talents. But often with VR it didn't work. I think 'Libertad' was far closer to a synthesis of their talents - less 'metallic', but ultimately more rewarding.

I respect the decision to avoid a strip singer and the idea of wanting to show what they were about at that point,That takes balls and as artists it is only natural for wanting people to respect you for what you can do now and not just get lost on the nostalgia of the past.But I think i just miss the point with Weiland and as you have pointed out his range is very small.I have never really sat down to listen to STP,perhaps if i had been a fan i would have dug VR.Personally i would have preferred they went with Baz for entirely selfish reasons ,Imagine Slither with his trademark screams thrown in.Have to say although i am not big on VR I prefer prefer Libertad to Contraband.Contraband was always going to be compared to Guns 'N' Roses and was always going to fall short.I think with Libertad people were thinking this is not Guns with a new front man but a new band and that comes across more clearly in the album

[Seshmeister]

From the vaults: Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil (1982)

Is it called Speak of the Devil in the UK these days?

When it was released it was called Talk of the Devil here and Speak of the Devil in the US due to the saying being different in both countries.

It's a pretty stupid idea when you think about it, choose one or use a different name. I guess brains were particularly cloudy in the Ozzy camp at that point...

[binnie]

Yes, it's still called Speak of the Devil.

I thought it was out of print, but I actually saw it on sale last week.......pretty sure that 'The Ultimate Sin' is still deleted, however.

[binnie]

For me

OK.

You'll have to wait a while, however, as I have a huge pile of new(ish) releases to plow through

(plus, I'll actually have to re-listen to 'CD'...)

[fourthcoming]

Speak of the Devil is definitely a time piece record. I listen to that and I'm 9 years old again scaring the shit out of my mother because after all, Ozzy is a "devil worshipper" according to her. It's such an authentic sounding live album....so raw, so real.....never cared much for Night Ranger, but Gillis is phenomenal on Speak of the Devil. He definitely has a uniqueness to his playing.

[binnie]

Mortod – The Myth of Purity

Refreshing debut record, this one. Refreshing because if doesn’t sound over-cooked, over pro-tooled and so ‘perfect’ that it no longer resembles a bunch of angry metallers in a room. ‘The Myth of Purity’ is grittier, gnarlier and wholly more raucous than most metal bands in 2012. If there’s a problem, it’s that the band doesn’t quite yet know where they’d like to sit in the metallic garden: ‘All That’s Born Must Be Destroyed’ is a slice of deathcore, whilst ‘The Heights’ is a gothic pop song and ‘Mirage’ is a darkened slab of metal, Lacuna Coil cross-bred with At The Gates. The band sound convincing in all of these guises, and when they focus in on one album number 2 might be a belter. On the evidence of the quite frankly astonishing title track – a belting twist of evil metal which sounds like Bathory or early Celtic Frost – one hopes it’s the heavier side of their arsenal. With the vocal brilliance of Somi Arian, newfound focus could see this band launch into the big leagues in the future. Infectious – let’s hope they get serious.

[Dave's Bitch]

One final comment on Velvet Revolver,They should have got John Corabi to try out.He would have sounded awesome

[binnie]

Indeed he would (I reviewed the Crue album he was on somewhere in here....)

I imagine that they wouldn't want to be tarred with the Motley Crue brush, however.

[Dave's Bitch]

Probably yes.It is a shame things did not work out better with Corabi and Crue.I really liked the album and would have loved to hear at least one more.I could really see myself being in to VR's sound with Corabi's vocals

[binnie]

I also thought that John Bush's vocals would have worked well, too.

Or even - dare I say it - Myles Kennedy's (that would have given them more range).

Live, it worked with Weiland though. They were a monstrous band.

[binnie]

Probably yes.It is a shame things did not work out better with Corabi and Crue.I really liked the album and would have loved to hear at least one more.

Review on page 5, post 199 if you're interested.

[Dave's Bitch]

Christ i can just imagine them ripping it up with John Bush.That would have been fantastic.I love Armored Saint.Did VR not offer Myles Kennedy a shot and he turned it down?.Sure i read that somewhere

Great review of the Corabi album by the way.I also like the SFSGSW and The Inner Sanctum reviews

[fourthcoming]

I always thought Baz would have been good with VR,.....too bad he turned them down. They weren't bad with Weiland though.....I prefer Contraband to Libertad but that's just me. Too bad Izzy never joined the band.

[fourthcoming]

Binnie, has there been any Punk reviews in this thread? I'm not the biggest punk fan in the world but I do like some of it. A friend of mine turned me on to Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers a few years back. Yes, he/they were a bunch of underachieving junkies....but for some reason I kinda dig his guitar sound.

[binnie]

They turned Baz down (largely due to Slash, who said it sounded like 'Skid Roses'). It might have been cool, but I suspect they were wary of being a 'heritage' band. Fair play to 'em.

I don't think we'll ever see another VR record now that Slash is set on a solo career: he probably makes the same money with much less hassle....

[fourthcoming]

I can understand why they turned him down......I'll give them that. I agree with you too that VR may be permanently finished. I head something about Corey Taylor but I don't see how that would translate and I think that dude is already in a million different bands anyway. I thought the Buck Cherry guy would have been cool....but I guess they tried that too at one point. Then again, I always thought of that dude as a little bit of an Axl clone to some degree.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Soundgarden – Louder Than Love (1989)

Album number 2 from Seattle’s banshee-wailing riff behemoths was where it really all began. From the opening minutes of ‘Ugly Truth’ – awash with doom-y Sabbath riffs, Chris Cornell’s soaring vocals and Sonic Youth arrangements – it was clear that this was everything that Sunset Strip was not: raw, real and (crucially) vibrant. It’s disturbing, discordant, and devastatingly powerful:

You hide your eyes
But the ugly truth
Just loves to give it away
You gave yourself
If you were mine to give I might throw it away
You share but money can't give
What the truth takes away
Throw it away

‘Louder Than Love’ was the sort of hypnotic brew of menace and groove which Killing Joke evoked from a sparse sound. Indeed, this was metal smashing into the alternative soundscape. ‘Gun’ was Sabbath riffage melding into Rollins Band rage; ‘Full On Kevin’s Mom’ was pure punk debauchery leveled through an epic larynx; and ‘Get On The Snake’ – featuring one of the great unheralded rock riffs – sounds like a buzz-saw killing. Its a unique aesthetic, but one which can encapsulate variety. ‘No Wrong No Right’, for instance, is worlds away from the other tracks – creepy but perfect, it nonetheless fits with the whole. And on ‘Big Dumb Sex’, you sense a band almost tickling themselves to avoid becoming po-faced.

Drenched in epic riffs, sonorous, almost chanting guitar melodies and odd rhythms, almost 25 years later it still knocks you back. The rhythmic shuffle and crunch of ‘Hands All Over’ sees Cornell at his post-apocalyptic preacher best, screaming over a wave of Kim Thayil’s swirling melodies – where metal drives you to overkill, Thayil’s tortured lines were far more menacing. And the title track is a pure rock ‘n’ roll strut – not a preening, posing hair metal glam ‘n’ glitter strut, but a dark, nasty obsessive, draining fuck of a strut. It grips; and it kills.

Often overlooked by the more successful records that followed, ‘Louder Than Love’ may be the most important record Soundgarden ever released. Cobain’s Pixies worship and Pearl Jam’s Creedence emulation weren’t half as invigorating as this. Alongside Faith No More, Soundgarden reinvigorated heavy music in a way which perhaps only post-hardcore took to the next level, expressing adult emotions and an aesthetic which passed far beyond bravura. We’re yet to fully grasp their importance.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Earthrone 9 – Lo-Def(inition) Discord (1998)

British noise-mongers Earthrone 9 were doing ‘prog-metal’ long before the movement became prominent (it’s on the cusp of being passé right now). Before Dillinger Escape Plan’s fitfull riff switching; before Mastodon’s cavernous soundscapes; before Gojira’s tortured aural palette. What separates Earthrone 9 is that they did not – unlike Mastodon and their horde of copyists – follow the path of Neurosis. This was metal in alt.rock clothing, not hardcore’s – it was punchy, jarring and discordant where the latter bands are expansive, elemental and ethereal.

At times, Earthrone 9 sounded like Mike Patton’s wet-dream. The title-track is a groovy goliath, and more muscular Fugazi. ‘2:00:00’ – the most conventional song here – is macabre hardcore in the vein of Glassjaw or Refused; whilst ‘3rd ripple in (wove) stretches the soft/heavy dynamics of grunge to new distorted levels, walls of discordant guitars propelling the songs beyond the confines of usual structures. Even amidst the variety the aesthetic feels complete and unified. ‘ever you say’, for instance, is an ominous, drifting of lilting presence, a mantra laid over a pulsating bass line, world’s away from the Neanderthal pummel of ‘vitriolic hsf’. Few bands since Faith No More have been able to inhabit this many musical guises and yet remain so utterly and instantly distinct.

Back in the day, many thought this might be a ‘Faith No More’ moment – a band which turned heavy music on its heads. In truth, that was a much needed hope amidst the new metal hordes, and Earthrone 9 seemed to offer metal a way forward without needlessly looking back to the gallops and power chords of the ‘80s. But they were too ‘out there’ to steer the currents – a fact that they seemed to recognize on subsequent releases, which more palatable (and consequently duller). Metal’s current crop of disjointed chaos-welders owe their careers to this band, however. They were never an easy listen and it’s easy to become overwhelmed in the wash of reference points – but for all the ugliness, it’s truly inspiring and inspired stuff.

[binnie]

Orange Goblin – A Eulogy For The Damned

Hordes of sub-standard Kyuss copyists have often rendered stoner rock more about the jams than the songs. Not so here. Album number 7 from British groove-mongers Orange Goblin is their most consistent and focussed yet, and whilst they may be damned never to capture their phenomenal live presence on record, AEFTD is nonetheless evidence of a damn fine band in very good form. You can hear the Kyuss and Monster Magnet influences, but there’s a distinctly British vibe here, too – an earthiness and booziness to their sound which adds balls to the stoner swagger. The Motorhead-slamming-into-Sabbath approach to riffing renders the likes of ‘The Filthy & The Few’ and ‘Red Tide Rising’ feel like bar-room brawls. Indeed, the band are much better when free ‘n’ easy than when they play by the rules (for the latter witness ‘Stand For Something’), and the bluesy shuffle of ‘Save me From Myself’ shows a more lamenting side of Orange Goblin which is an often overlooked facet of their sound. There’s nothing here you’ve never heard before, but Orange Goblin kick arse like it’s the 1st day of summer.

[binnie]

Red Fang – Murder the Mountains

Red Fang are heavy in the same way that Deep Purple were heavy – a sheer bass-heavy, booming riff shitting presence of a sound. Comparisons are often made to Mastodon, and you can see why: the time-changes, the burly riffs and wilful avoidance of the staccato guitar crunch which typifies most metal. But Red Fang are more doom-driven and less complex, displaying a sound more akin to Baroness or High On Fire – the vibe here is more ’67-72 than Mastodon, more sun-cracked desert than outer-space eeriness. The sound is primitive, earthy and jammed-out in a room, a wall of noise built up of epic riffs and piercing harmonies. It’s gloriously sloppy stuff. ‘Malverde’ is a bottom-heavy, sun-cracked croon, whilst ‘Wines’ is Sabbath channelled through early Queens of The Stone Age, the way Wolfmother could have sounded if they could pen a hook. The pop sensibilities of ‘Hank Is Dead’ or ‘Dirt Wizard’ eschews the tirade of noodling so typical of stoner/post-rock in favour of hooks which act as a rudder to the component parts. It’s impressive, but it doesn’t feel the need to announce it.

If there’s a problem (or, rather a niggle) it’s precisely that this multifacetedness borders on the schizophrenic, an issue compounded by the presence of two vocalists – Maurice Bryan and Aaron Beam – who provide the songs which they sing on with very different textures. If the band focusses, however, and decides which part of the metal spectrum they wish to dominate, they might one day enter the big league. Worship the riff!

[binnie]

From the vaults: Face Down – Mindfield (1995)

The debut album from Sweden’s Face Down is something of a forgotten ‘90s classic. Hailed at the time as something of Scandanavian Machine Head, there’s really not that much similarity. Sounding like Motorhead with a crack pit delivery, the band’s style is indebted to thrash, but also the audio warfare of ‘Chaos AD’-era Sepultura and the industrial grind of Fear Factory and Prong – there’s certainly little of the gothic darkness which would later become so synonymous of the ‘Gothenburg Sound’.

‘Kill the Pain’ is the way that thrash could have sounded in the ‘90s if metal had not endured its painful Nu speed-bump – a sparse blast of hardcore induced and industrial fuelled mayhem. ‘Holy Rage’ could have been a Testament classic, but what impresses you most here is this band’s ability to weld Godlike heaviness to melody. These tunes are catchy – ‘Demon Seed’ and ‘Save Me, Kill Me’ are anthems that circumstances never let allowed to mature. Face Down’s story really is one of ‘they shoulda been huge’. Now they’re merely forgotten. Propelled by Joachin Carlsson’s huge wall of crunch, Face Down were a huge behemoth of a band – Marco Aro’s Hetfield roar vocals and spoken interldudes provide the perfect foil for those guitars, the post-dystopian preacher to the apocalyptic backdrop. Like Kilgore, Face Down delivered one of the most accomplished – and confident – debut metal records of all time, and then passed into oblivion (3 unheralded records followed). Playing it now then is bittersweet – but you’ll get caught up in the mosh!

[binnie]

Kylesa – Static Tensions

Album number 4 from Georgia titans Kylesa puts 4 decades of metal through a blender to deliver a sonic juice which is far more than the sum of its parts. One part Mastodon at a more elemental level, and two parts Kyuss on a much more aggressive plain, Klyesa tap into some form of primeval heaviness and cram it, kicking and screaming, into perfectly formed songs. Never letting complexity overwhelm hooks or melodies, their impact can only be described as colossal. ‘Scapegoat’ is a headbutt of a song which combines the Melvins’s crungy rumble with Sonic Youth’s alt.rock soundscapes; whilst ‘insomnia for months’ places fat, juicy stoner riffs over a rhythmic assault. Indeed, the rhythm section of Eric Hernandez and Javier Villagez shines throughout – never showy, their instinctual pummel and ability to turn on a dime turns the component parts of these songs into something special. Witness the eerie delicacy of ‘unknown awareness’, in which the contrast of light and shade pushes the sonic boundaries of this band into new territories and proves that they could be just as powerful in the realm of Neurosis-esque soundscapes as they can Blue Cheer driven full tilt rawk. The duel vocals of Philip Cope and Laura Pleasants only adds further textures to what is an important and invigorating record – heavy in a way that the proto metal of the late ‘60s was, this sounds timeless and limitless.

[binnie]

Revoker – Chaos of Forms

Holy shit! What a record! This is modern metal with a classic ethos, the best of both worlds if you will – you get all the technicality and downright aggression of 2011 played through the sheer fun and care-free abandon of 1985. There are no po-faces of staid angst here. You get blast beats and odd time signatures; but you also get a swirl of epic guitar solos – David Davison is metal’s best kept secret, an axe-wielding demon on a killing spree. Most importantly of all, you get songs. Great songs, delivered concisely and with focus. Where so much modern metal confuses length with grandeur, Revoker pen epics in 5 minutes. That’s talent.

The sheer muscularity of this record kills. ‘Harlot’ is pure crunch of riffage, whilst ‘Beloved Horrifier’ has a punky spark. Revoker are very much their own band – the groove of ‘Dissolution Ritual’ gives way to a demented intensity which owes little to the death metal or metalcore which rules today’s roost. Witness also the ‘Conjuring the Cataclysm’, which is the first death metal power ballad! The title track is a collection of riffs to take souls, a heavy body blow of a song with solos to stupefy, and – crucially – welding the beauty and the beast which lies at the heart of all great metal.

Purists will wish that they’d topped it all off with a ‘propper’ singer – the growls of Davidson and Anthony Buda are fine at delivering the aggro, but they seem curiously undynamic in the presence of such a rich musical backdrop. That being said, Revoker here deliver a steaming beast of a record which shows that metal in 2012 doesn’t have to be a race to indolent complexity – it can still take souls, too.

[binnie]

Screaming Trees – Last Words: Final Recordings

So here it is: the fruits of Seattle’s country-rockers’ ‘lost’ sessions of the winter of 1998-99. There’s something sombre about this process, and about its subsequent discovery, a sense that the rock world had realised that the Trees – their best kept secret – should have been bigger and better respected. Alongside Josh Homme, REM’s Peter Buck jams with them here, and uber-producer Jack Endino provides a crisp and understated mix which only enhances their drawl.

The sound has as much to do with Gram Parsons as it does Jimmy Page. Channelling the Flying Burito Brothers and the Byrds into some harder edges, this was rock ‘n’ roll from the world weary and grizzled rather than the strutting and pigeon-chested. Everything comes off Mark Lanegan cracked baritone, the sonic equivalent of a mangy puppy you can’t help but love. ‘Ash Gray Sunday’ is propelled by a floating shimmer of a guitar melody and a chorus hook which teases the song into life. Yet it’s followed by something altogether different and more challenging. ‘Door Into Summer’ is eerie, featuring almost Gregorian melodies and echoing a darker Afghan Wings. By the time you’ve encountered the outlaw blues of ‘Crawlspace’ and ‘Revelator’ you think ‘fuck Pearl Jam. Here’s the Crazy Horses on meth’. Even throwaway songs like ‘Anita Grey’ have a certain fizz to them.

More quiescent than the band’s earlier work – its not as rawking as ‘Uncle Anastesia’ or exemplas of the perfect harrowing of ‘Dusk’ or ‘Sweet Oblivion’ – but the same intense and cosy warmth seeps from these tunes. This is the sound of a gang of outlaws swapping stories and sipping whiskey – and these bad men will be missed.

[FORD]

I always have to laugh when I hear Screaming Trees called a "Seattle band". Those guys are from Ellensburg, for fucks sake. Two hours away.... and that's during the summer when you can drive over the mountains at a normal rate of speed.

The Conner brothers owned this great little record store in Ellensburg. Don't know if it's still there, as I haven't been over that way lately. Discovered it by accident, because my friend threw one of his shoes out a car window going over the mountain pass (he had a bad foot odor problem) and we get into Ellensburg searching for a shoe store. Or a Goodwill, where he always liked to shop anyway. And the Conners' record store just happened to be in the same strip mall.

[binnie]

Cheers, Ford.

My knowledge of American geography is nicht so gut

The Trees were certainly not a grunge band - aside from not sounding like a Sunset Strip band, they had very little in common with the grunge sound.

Check out that record - it's well worth your time.

[binnie]

Heathen – Evolution of Chaos (2010)

A gentle, sitar led introduction and then BOOM. MOSH…MOSH…MOSH. BWAAAARGGGHHH……too….much….metal. When they take particles up to the speed of light in the Hadron Collider, it probably sounds a whole lot like this, the return of thrash pioneers Heathen. It’s an incredible – and incredibly heavy – record choked with neck wrenching anthems and prog-metal sags. But it’s the chops that kill. David White sings his ass off here, and is one of the best guys in metal at laying vocals and melodies over music this fast. Axemen Lee Altus and Kragon Lam are one of metal’s best partnerships – delivering a battalion of crunch here, they also serve up solo after dazzling solo which drive these songs into the metal heavens. Always at the more technical end of thrash, fans will be relieved to learn that Heathen have managed to maintain the balance which prevents them from slipping into indolent showmanship.

Indeed what you get here are not so much songs as beast, rampant and savage. ‘Control By Chaos’ is a serious of punchy almost Prong-like riffs at speed, 6 minutes of metallic heaven. ‘No Stone Unturned’ is a mid-paced battleaxe of a tune, an anthem which evolves into a progressive thrash-a-thon workout – shit, Metallica used to deliver stuff like this. ‘Arrows of Agony’ and ‘Fade Away’ are hook-heavy anthems, whilst the furious ‘Dying Season’ deserves to be hailed as a classic. If only more people could hear it. MOSH…..MOSH…BWWARRRRGHHHHHHH….FUCK…..MY…NECK…..HUR TS.

The flipside is that there’s almost too much metal here – these songs are very long, often overwhelming, and reward repeated and persistent listening. But it’s worth it. This record is better than some many other ‘reunion’ thrash albums. Better than anything which bigger hitters like Kreator, Forbidden or Exodus have produced, and in many ways its as good as some of Megadeth’s latter records (put a gun to my head and I might say better). Why? Because its not a throwback – Heathen have taken all the ingredients of the classic sound and updated them for the modern palate.

[binnie]

Hammers of Misfortune – 17th Street

This is something special. Channelling proto metal through the sphere of doom, Hammers of Misfortune sound a little like Down getting their prog on. It is 2 and a half minutes into opener ‘317’ before the vocals kick in – this is a band that exists purely for the music and purely for its own sake. Dinosaur metal riffs, duel melodies and organs and soooooo much bass. It’s quite a rumble. ‘17th Street’ has a guitar solo intro and gives way to sizzling riffage which is Deep Purple heavy: metal at its most classic, a behemoth face-fucking the world. It takes you back to the core, the reason why this music has been going for 4 decades and can still make you buzz – you need that inner 14 year old to still be alive and well to get tunes like ‘The Day the City Died’ or ‘Romance Fury’, which sounds like Rainbow jamming with Maiden. But what refreshes is the sheer honesty and lack of pretence – there’s next to no histrionics here. Leila Abdul Rauf’s vocals avoid the showy, and tunes like ‘Summer Tears’ evoke a Pink Floyd lament which most heavy music couldn’t come close to capturing. Colossal in every sense of the word.

Recent years have seen plenty of bands harking back to the ether. Most do so via slavish emulation or contrived pastiche. Like this band, however, the best avoid the dressing and channel the spirit.

[sadaist]

I wish I could write reviews like you guys. My depth is about as deep as I like it, it sucks, or it's kinda okay. I love reading these though! Appreciate them all. If you ever feel like a request, one of my favorite albums of all time is Death Angel - Act III. Fucking kick ass! Whenever I had to pull an all-nighter at my moms Hallmark store to steam clean the carpets, I'd play this cd over the sound system.

[binnie]

If you ever feel like a request, one of my favorite albums of all time is Death Angel - Act III. Fucking kick ass! Whenever I had to pull an all-nighter at my moms Hallmark store to steam clean the carpets, I'd play this cd over the sound system.

It's on the 'to do' list - I don't think that Death Angel have ever really received the props they deserve, and 'Act III' is argualby their finest album. I've yet to be blown away by their 'reunion' records, but those from back in the day are classics.

Oh, and thanks for the props.

[rockhead]

Binnie, have you reviewed Megadeths album "13" at all?.I bought it the other day and thought its a damn good album.Although with Junir back i think they are going back to CTE era again

[binnie]

Yes, page 9 post #357.

I also reviewed 'Endgame' (1st page, I think) and 'So Far, So Good, So What' in this thread.

I prefered United Abominations and Endgame to 13, but it's still a damn fine record.

[binnie]

Amebix – Sonic Mass (2011)

Returning from the wilderness after 25 years, Amebix (Stig, Rob and new sticksman Ray Mayorga) deliver not just an album which can rival their ‘80s works – the glorious welding together of the metallic thump of Sabbath with the anarcho punk of Crass which made up ‘Arise’ and ‘Monolith’ – but which can stand toe to toe with just about any heavy record ever released. Seriously, this is THAT good.

Sounding like something the metal gods have lovingly hewn from granite, Amebix deliver something which is classic, elemental, but devoid of cliché. 4 decades of heavy music are rolled together into one mosaic-riven soundscape which is masterfully paced and spiced with elements of drama, softness and restraint. Opening with a choral section and a Maiden-esque bassline, the world is soon ruptured by a doom passage, the crunching rumble of ‘Shield Wall’. There is something effortlessly grandiose here. Propelled by the baritone voice of The Baron – who seems to conjure the entrance of darkness into the world – Amebix deliver wave after wave of epic heaviness which washes over the listener in a manner both inspired and inspiring. ‘Here Comes the Wolf’ rips your head off, whilst ‘God The Grain’ is Sabbath arranged by Killing Joke and the title track is hushed into life as a form of My Dying Bride folk, before given way to a tribal beast of a riff tears through the ether. Indeed, Stig’s guitar is rampant. Where most metal guitar players are histrionic, his is a masterclass in restraint, and is more powerful for it, allowing his granite tone to realize its full impact.

This is the sort of album you wait for. The sort of album that you remember exactly where you were when you first heard it, and set aside special time to listen to it again – purely because it deserves your attention. Just as the ego of each player is subsumed into the band as a whole, so each song bleeds into the next in what amounts to more than an album – it’s a statement.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Crank County Daredevils – Livin’ In the Red (2006)

Opening with a bike engine is appropriate because ‘Livin’ In the Red’ offers 9 tunes of dirty, snarling, pill-popping rock ‘n’ roll with the production values of your average welder. To say this is raw or grimy would be an understatement – cheap whiskey vocals and broken glass geetar evoke a world which is twisted, debauched and soaked in sleeze, Sunset Strip at its nastiest, crack-riven best, devoid of glamour and riddled with danger. ‘That’s How We Roll’, ‘Fueled by a 5th’ and ‘Love Me Like a Suicide’ all grin like the eyes of a sex offender, and calling CCDD ‘Big’ or ‘clever’ would be an insult to the trade descriptions act – they certainly inject their songs with more dynamics and tricks than the average Johnny Thunders wannabe band, but those searching for finesse or song-craft will search in vein. They would also miss the point – it’s the vibe here that kills, and it reeks of a Saturday night which ends with a barstool in the kisser.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Dropkick Murphy’s – Blackout (2003)

The Dropkick Murphy’s formula is simple enough: marry punk rock’s grizzled assault to Irish folk’s melodic splendour. Cynics say it’s a gimmicky union, but it makes for one hell of a boozy wedding. Smashing powerchords and gang-vocals into gaelic orchestration makes for a fuck of a lot of fun. Songs about hard knocks, love, loss and mourning wedded to very, very black humour – in short, songs from the bar of life – makes for an authentic experience without being morbid, gritty without being needlessly angry.

‘Black Velvet Band’ is a bittersweet punk ditty; ‘Walk Away’ and ‘Outcast’ arrive at break-neck pace; whilst the brilliant buffoonery of ‘Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced’ encapsulates the whole spirit of DKM’s whole spirit in 5 gloriously drunken minutes of laughing and crying in the same song. But the twisted beauty of ‘The Dark Glass’ and ‘Bastards on Parade’ (the latter used in Scorsese’s ‘The Departed’) make you understand that when you judge them as a folk band, not a punk band, that you get their genius. They find beauty in the working class life of Brockton, MA, in a way which only a group immersed in that community could – in doing so, they’ve made something very particular universal. And that’s a joy to hear.

Are these the best songs ever written? No – but they’re hook-heavy and impactful. There’s certainly filler in between the gems, but this will make the mundane reality of your life seem a little more wonderful, and we need bands like that.

[binnie]

Steak Number Eight – All is Chaos

‘I say! Your head is somewhat shaped like a banana!’ It’s a novel way of opening an album, and it gets us straight to the point – Steak Number Eight are resolutely square pegs who resist classification. Firstly, they’re a heavy band from Belgium, not a country known for its metal heartland. Secondly, they defy their years. Formed at 11, touring and entering competitions by the age of 15, they won the ‘Humo Rock Rally’, Belgium’s premiere band competition. What this all means is that there have a lot of miles on the clock for a band in their early 20s. And it shows – in a good way. Where so many new bands try to fit a scene – emo, metalcore, deathcore – SN8 sound like they march to the beat of their own drum. There’s an honesty and integrity to their sound. Heavy in a post-metal kind of way which channels Isis and Sun O))), riffs and melodies and looped to the point of infinity, and expansiveness is an end in itself.

In truth, they don’t always have the chops to pull it off. Often you wish that someone had screamed ‘EDIT’. But it’s remarkably ambitious for a debut, and I’d kill for more bands with this kind of vision. There are some gems here, however. ‘Trackintothesky’ as an aching beauty and sleeping heaviness, whilst ‘Blackfall’ and ‘Trapped’ evoke some classic ‘80s goth in their sombre power. What it all lacks, however, is charisma – perhaps that’ll come in time, for SN8 are certainly ones to watch.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Danko Jones – We Sweat Blood (2003)

Danko Jones make songs from the simplest of ingredients - 4/4 rhythms, punky riffs, powerchords, and kooky choruses. It’s all wonderfully undercooked, and there are enough holes in the song-craft to drive a truck through. But, darn it if it’s not all a lot of FUN!! These odes to rock ‘n’ roll are hard pop-rock spiced with the nuttier end of punk and driven by lust-worship of the female anatomy. ‘Baby – I wanna put some mileage on your love bike’ Mr Jones sings on ‘Love Travel’: who doesn’t love that? Put simply, if ‘Dance’, ‘Lovercall’ and ‘Forget My Name’ don’t make you bop like a pre-teen at a Justin Bieber concert then you are a little dead inside. There’s just too much charisma to stop you from smiling.

Too half-arsed to approach classic, with too many songs and too many renditions of the same joke to be anything above a novelty, Danko Jones are nonetheless the best soundtrack to a party which you can find in 21st century rock ‘n’ roll. In a world where hard rock seems to have lost its sense of abandon, it’s good to have some professional dufusses in our lives.

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Lamb of God – Resolution

After over a decade of delivering maximum metallic mayhem, Lamb Of God have slowly and relentlessly become one of the genre’s flagship bands. Channelling elements from across the metal spectrum – a little Slayer here, some Meshuggah there, a dab of Fear Factory, and a slice of Pantera – LOG have, nonetheless, delivered a synthesis which is far, far more than the sum of its parts. Like so many ‘big’ metal bands, their talent is to take elements of innovation on the underground and make them more palletable through juicy hooks and rhythms (read: writing fucking good songs) – its extreme, for sure, but the songs never dive off the cliff because the song structures are fairly conventional.

There are a few surprises this time, too. Opener ‘Straight For The Sun’ eschews the warp-factor pace which is the band’s modus operandi in favour of a doom-laden sonic battery with maximum groove. It’s unlike anything they’ve done before, and screams ‘single’. Closer ‘King Me’ is equally a curve-ball – with clean vocals and tripped-out groove, it’s orchestrations makes for something more grandiose than we might have expected and make for an album which pushes the LOG formula into fresh territories. Elsewhere, it’s business as usual. We get the anthemic ‘Ghost Walking’ – which is this record’s ‘Redneck’ – and necksnappers like ‘Cheated’ or ‘The Undertow’, both of which make you proud to be a metalhead. Propelled as usual by Chris Adler’s frantic double-bass drum patterns, LOG deliver blast after blast of southern-tinged thrash for the new millennium. It takes real talent to be able to knock out anthems like ‘The Number Six’, and it’s the nuances of the timing and the vocal delivery – Randy Blythe is exceptional throughout – that separate LOG from the American metal pack.

You can, of course, have too much of a good thing. 14 songs make this a little over-egged, and the likes of ‘Guilty’ and ‘Inviticus’ – by no means LOG by numbers, but a notch below the rest of the offerings here – slow the album down as a whole. But it is clear that LOG have settled comfortably into the latter stage of their career – the ultra-raw frenzy of ‘New American Gospel’ feels a long way away when listening to ‘Resolution’, but the band has not simply replicated the slicker production of ‘Sacrament’ or the extremity of ‘Wrath’ either. There is a new focus, and concision, at work here which indicates a band at ease with their place in the world.

Like Pantera – whose thrown they’ve surely succeeded – LOG deliver groove, riffs a plenty, and anthems in abundance. Unlike Pantera, they’ve never quite managed to become a classic band – good, surely, brilliant in places, but great? Not yet. They’re still too derivative, too close to their own influences to cause the shift that a truly great band manages. Nevertheless, a LOG record is a big, big deal. And ‘Resolution’ once again delivers the goods to assuage the hordes. In a sense Lamb of God are the victims of their own success – they’ve been delivering albums of such high quality for such a long time now that it’s difficult for them to generate the kind of excitement they once did through surprise. ‘Resolution’ straddles the divide between giving the fans what they want and growing as a band with aplomb – with a band like this at the helm, metal is in a healthy place indeed.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Def Leppard – On Through The Night (1980)

Often hailed as one of a clutch of records which marked the inception of NWOBHM (The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) Def Leppard’s debut was really nothing of the sort. Aside from the fact that the band was a) ‘New’ and b) didn’t sound like older metal, they had little in common with Maiden, Saxon, Sweet Savage, Diamond Head et al except a low production budget. And that was a good thing because – ladies and gentlemen – even 32 years later this album ROCKS! Def Leppard are – and always have been – a hard rock band with pop sensibilities, and you can hear it hear right from the get-go: opener ‘Rock Brigade’ is dirty rock ‘n’ roll with a glam sheen, polished harmonies and eye-on-the-prize dynamics.

This would be a remarkable debut by anyone’s standards, let alone a band with an average age of just 18. What surprises is the focus here – each song is controlled, there’s little in the way of egotistical musical showmanship, and it all feels boiled down to fighting weight. In part that may have been an unconscious channelling of the punk ethos, or a reaction against the over-wrought records that many of the early metal bands were knocking out in the late ‘70s. It seems more likely, however, to be a result of their influences. Although hard and gritty, the dynamics and sheen of The Sweet and T.Rex are all over this record – that sense of the good-time resonates through anthems like ‘Wasted’ and ‘Rocks Off’ and the often forgotten ‘It Don’t Matter’, ‘It Could Be You’ and ‘Answer to the Master’ (the latter featuring plenty of ‘fuck YEAH!’ guitar). Steve Clark and Pete Willis slip licks and delicate melodies into every tune; Rick Savage – whose bass is surprising high in the mix – gives these tunes real bite. But what really stands out is Joe Elliot’s ‘from the hip’ vocal delivery – it reminds us that before someone told him he was a ‘singer’, he really gave this band a sonic boost.

There are clunker’s a plenty, of course (what Def Leppard doesn’t have them?) The New Wave leanings of the – rather (unconvincingly) pretentious – ‘When The Walls Come Tumbling Down’ is a rare moment where the band don’t sound sincere; whilst the Rush-by-numbers of ‘Overture’ is clumsily out of place amidst all the youthful bravura. But those moments aside, what we have here is a band enjoying themselves, something which was often missing from the later-era records (which often felt over thought and over cooked). ‘Hysteria’ may have been the album for the moment, and ‘Pyromania’ may have seen the zenith of the pop-rock song-writing skills, but Leppard have never sounded more exciting than they did right at the beginning. They really didn’t need any of that sugar pouring over them to over-sweeten the taste……..

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From the vaults: Forbidden – Forbidden Evil (1987)

‘WEL-COME-TO-THE-CHURCH-OF-LIES’ blasts the chorus to ‘Chalice of Blood’, the opening cut from 2nd wave of Bay Area Thrash outfit forbidden. The booming staccato vocal in synch with the band was a clarion call to those who embraced of being heavy for its own sake and remind us – some 25 years later (!) – that metal in the mid-80s was (production values aside) as downright heavy as anything made today. It’s glorious, brazen and sonically battering stuff. NOISE, NOISE, NOISE for the sake of it!

Indeed, ‘Forbidden Evil’ marked something of a turning point for thrash which is often unheralded. Listening to this whilst keeping in mind that Megadeth had not yet recorded ‘Rust in Peace’ and Annihilator were yet to record ‘Alice In Hell’ and you begin to understand Forbidden’s importance. Here thrash was injected with some musical sophistication which saw it develop from its hardcore roots – in which each member of the band appeared to be raising each other to the end of the song – but had not yet culminated in extreme metal’s striving to make despair an art-form. As technically and sonically impressive as anything Megadeth, Anthrax or Testament had released by this point, Forbidden still evoked the nasty, gnarly and naïve aspect of metal – the raw power, if you will – which made it so much FUN. For all the benefits of the more technical end of extremity which Dave Mustaine, Jeff Waters and Chuck Schuldiner would push, that was an aspect lost in the arch of perfection.

With Forbidden, listeners were treated to the distinctive Halford-esque vocals of Russ Anderson, the demented drum onslaught of Paul Bostaph and the duel guitar onslaught of – Craig Locicero and Glen Alvelaid – which (like Testament) did much to push thrash forward. But step to the future had a foot in the past, too. The stomp of ‘Off The Edge’ evokes Maiden’s grandeur, whilst ‘Through The Eye of Glass’ – which should by all rights be a fuckin’ metal classic – is like Dio on crack, a beefed-up metallic template on full maniacal gallop. These songs really do deserve to be better known. ‘Feel No Pain’ is metal so heavy that your ancestors feel it when it hits you, and the 7 minute epic ‘Follow Me’ is a molten Priest-esque monster which delivers riff-after-riff-after-glorious-riff!

Is it perfect? Of course not – ‘As Good as Dead’ has a bumpy melody and there are vocal blow outs throughout – but ‘Forbidden Evil’ was important and impressive. It’s successor – ‘Twisted Into Form’ – may have been more accomplished musically, but it didn’t have the raw bludgeoning power in evidence here.

BANG YOUR HEAD LIKE YOU NEVER DID BEFORE!!!