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Thread: Album Reviews

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    Sixto Rodriguez: Cold Fact:

    Would like a Review of this album:



    Crooked Children Yellow Writing....



    Inner City Blues. This Album reminds me of one of my favorite Bands.....give 'em a listen and a review we can collaborate on...
    Last edited by SunisinuS; 08-16-2012 at 11:49 PM. Reason: Serious. Sorry to break a rule of all prose here...but..I am serious.
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    Never heard of that.

    I'll have to check 'em out....
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    Upon A Burning Body – Red. White. Green.

    You sense that Upon A Burning Body don’t do irony. At one point in ‘Desperado’, a defiant chant of ‘TO CONFORM IS TO BE DESTROYED’ booms out of the speakers. You see, in their minds they badasses: they dress up like gangsters, they’re proud Texans, and they’re resisting the world because nothing – absolutely nothing – could make them conform. It is deliciously funny, then, to listen an album so ball-achingly similar to a slew of deathcore bands – conforming to a musical genre, it seems, is not really conforming at all.

    So, it is clear from a fairly early stage of that UABB do not really have an awful lot to say. And, listening to their music – breakdown heavy, growl filled, hardcore infused death metal – it’s soon apparent that they’re never going to push the envelope sonically, either. It’s a surprise, then, that ‘Red. White. Green’ (it’s a tribute to the Mexican flag) is so compelling. Clocking in at just 34 minutes, this is a cluster of slick, punchy bursts of brutality sugar-coated to give you a fix of heavy without overwhelming your senses. And the choruses stick like shit to a blanket. It’s easy to be cynical – you know that the record label went gaga when they found a well-styled band that could make a buoyant sub-genre more palletable – but UABB really just want to have fun. ‘Sin City’, for instance, is a bit like early Slipknot, a relentless melee of riffs which spams from bar to bar in the name of hellraising: ‘LIFE SUCKS, AND THEN YOU DIE!/ SO LIVE IT UP! WHO GIVES A FUCK?/ TEAR IT UP TONIGHT’. The party hard vibe is refreshing in a genre of music which idolizes melancholy. And you sense that they really don’t give a fuck – ‘Texas Blood Money’ is such a moronic display of power in celebration of their home state that it could only be delivered with a complete absence of a self-awareness.

    UABB are not profound, they’re not original but they are a hell of a lot of fun. And, most vitally of all, they do what heavy metal should do: make you believe that you’re part of something bigger than yourself.

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    Lynyrd Skynyrd- Last Of A Dyin' Breed. I thought I would put it here rather than start a new thread. I always cringe when someone in that band seems to leave us to early and Gary & Johnnie keep going on the road. The original band is in my top 5 of all time. I might be sick of alot of that stuff but I still love & respect it. Anyway's the bottom line for me is all the newer albums they have put out are all strong for the most part. Except maybe the first one. 1991. That was a little to modern sounding at the time for them. The last one, God & Guns was really strong I.M.O. This one is right up there with it. I bought the deluxe one at Best Buy with four more songs on it. It was worth it. Lots of great guitar playing and the songwriting is very strong. The title track & Start Livin' Life Again are really good. So if you are a sucker for the poor man's version of Skynyrd you will like this. I havent seen the band live since Leon died, and don't really care too at all since Billy died but this is a good lineup. I'll wait for the live dvd. I do wonder if he word LAST in the title has meaning ? Enough said.
    Last edited by 78/84 guy; 08-22-2012 at 06:22 PM.
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    From the vaults: Iron Maiden – Fear of The Dark (1992)

    If an award existed for ‘the most uneven album ever released’ this would be in with a fighting chance of winning it. There are some glorious moments here, but they are balanced, perplexingly, by bursts of stunning mediocrity and, worse still, examples of a band who no longer knew who or what they wanted to be. ‘Fear…’ essentially had exactly the opposite problem of its predecessor, 1990’s career low ‘No Prayer For the Dying’: if the earlier album presented the world with a Maiden that was out of ideas, ‘Fear….’ was in part a Maiden with too many ideas, often pulling in different directions. Marking the end of the band’s decade long dominance of the genre and the beginning of 8 years in commercial wilderness, it would also prove to be the band’s last record with Bruce Dickinson who, in truth, often sounds bored here, over singing and over selling the songs as though he’s trying to convince himself – as well as the fans – that he’s still interested in heavy metal. He often sounds so melodramatic it is comical rather than powerful.

    It all starts off promising enough. ‘Be Quick Or Be Dead’ has the rapid fire punky bite of the D’ianno era, booming things into life with more power than anything on ‘No Prayer….’. Elsewhere Maiden were keen to explore their heaviest side, with ‘Chain Of Misery’ delivering a polished slice of metal, and ‘From Here To Eternity’ doing its best to be a rabble rouser and coming up somewhat short. ‘Fear Is The Key’ is much more powerful, the simplest of metallic bravura spun through Zeppelin grandeur. This is an album which also features a stone cold lost classic in ‘Afraid To Shoot Strangers’. Beginning with the sort of eerie folk the band would later explore on ‘Dance Of Death’, it erupts into the sort of grandiose prog at which they excel, a mark of the quirkiness which separates them from the genre they were once supposed to represent. The title track is also a stalwart. Epic, anthemic and full of the drama you’d expect from a Maiden composition, it has become a highlight of the band’s live show – on record, however, it feels like Maiden by numbers, a Hollywood version of a much darker graphic novel.

    There are some gargantuan missteps here, however. Much of this comes from the band’s decision to move away from their traditional good-verus-evil themes. ‘Childhood Ends’ – which is about world hunger – is, frankly, anodyne. Epic vocal aside, ‘Wasted Love’ – a smaltzy power ballad – straddles terrain that you just cannot wander into if your name is Iron Maiden. Worst of all, however, is ‘The Apparition’, which feels like a jam room outtake that someone wondered onto the record. Elsewhere, it’s a case of perspiration rather than inspiration: ‘Weekend Warriors’ and ‘The Fugitive’ are perfectly decent heavy metal tunes which would be passable on almost any other band’s output. When you’ve earned the status of demi-Gods, however, expectations stretch far beyond ‘solid’.

    This was a band that was not writing as one – note the ‘Harris’ and ‘Dickinson/Gers’ credits – and clearly had conflicting ideas about where it was going. That they could still produce a compelling collection of songs is a testament to how talented its members are. But ‘Fear…’ is precisely that: a collection, rather than an album. Many of these songs stand on their own merits, but put together they pull themselves apart as an album. Dickinson leaving a year later left the door open for the band to explore a different route and in truth much of the celebrated ‘prog turn’ of the post reunion records had its roots in the Blaze-era. Looking back at the landscape in 1992 – Metallica, G’N’R, Faith No More, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Jane’s Addiction – Iron Maiden sounded – and felt – old and a little flat. That was something you could never have accused them of before. And after ‘Brave New World’, it was something we’ve yet to accuse them of again.

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    From the vaults: Supersuckers – The Evil Powers of Rock ‘N’ Roll (1999)

    You’ve gotta love The Supersuckers. Take the opening of ‘I Want The Drugs’ (a mock interview):

    Journalist: ‘Would you say that your songs are about liquor, women, drugs and killing for the most part?’

    Eddie Spaghetti: ‘Yep’.

    BOOM!!!! A wall of nitro-charged rock ‘n’ roll kicks in. It’s a helluva party: punk and hard rock delivered with one eye fixed on the fun-o-meter and the other on penning a damn good tune. Bar fights, slutty women and good time with bad intentions drive forward an album which strips rock ‘n’ roll down to its essentials and drenches it in bravura. ‘Santa Rita High’ should have been a classic, whilst ‘Stuff ‘N’ Nonsense’ is the sort of perfect punk love song that Prince might have written if he’d grown up obsessed with The Ramones.

    There are plenty of bands who take the best parts of your record collection and mix them into their own brew. Most fall short of the original source, and what separates the great from the good is really a matter of something intangible: charisma. And the Supersuckers have that in droves. ‘Cool Manchu’ grooves like every long hot summer you’ve ever had, whilst the title-track is more frantic, booming out of the speakers like some demented preacher hell bound on kickin’ your ass all the way to the party – feel the RAPTURE!!! In a 20 year career they’ve never really made a bad record, but this one is by far the most consistent and – without question – their most raucous.

    You feel like the mack daddy listening to this type of rock ‘n’ roll. I guess most of us discover music and masturbation at about the same age, and the immediate impression I had with both was ‘how can THIS much FUN be free?’ The Supersuckers are so joyous that they remind me of my first time, and for that I’ll always be grateful. ‘The Evil Powers of Rock ‘N’ Roll’ is an orgy of cool licks, broken dreams and the delusion of a perpetual youth.

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    From the vaults: Death – Scream Bloody Gore (1987)

    This is ground zero for Death Metal. And it is the product of one man: Chuck Schuldiner. In his own way, Chuck is as important to metal as Tony Iommi, Dave Mustaine or James Hetfield – pushing the boundaries waaaaay past where they were beforehand and essentially pioneering (if not solely ‘creating’) a genre of music. Pushing things further than Slayer, Possessed and Celtic Frost, the question seemed to be: ‘what would metal sound like if we drove it off a cliff………………..on fire?’ At a time when thrash metal had reached its zenith – all of the Big 4 had released classic albums – ‘Scream Bloody Gore’ was even more brutal, sonically, lyrically, aesthetically. The sheer aggression of the album is primitive – primal, even – a swirl of dissonant riffs, unholy drumming and gore infested lyrics which make it as far away from mainstream as you could have conceived in 1987 – a demonic howl which captivates the initiated and makes leaves incredulous horrified or perplexed. Death Metal would certainly get a lot more impenetrable – and a lot more technical – and Schuldiner was pivotal to that evolution, too. But it has rarely sounded of felt as horrifying as it does here.

    That, in part, has to be due to the age of those involved. Barely 18 for the most part, there was an exuberance here, a naivety even, to push the pedal to the middle and defecate on the rule book. Few things have ever sounded more brutal than ‘Baptized In Blood’ (which is about a child commanded of the undead), and the title track is an anthem for a doomed youth captivated by extremity for its own sake. Even by album number 2 – 1988’s ‘Leprosy’ – Schuldiner would have evolved past the crude simplicity of ‘Sacrifical’ or ‘Massacre’. But that’s not the point. ‘Scream….’ is a moment in time as much as a great record, a marker in the road where things changed. It may not be the ‘best’ Death Metal record ever released – in the same way that ‘Kill ‘Em All’ is not the best thrash record – but it possesses an energy, a presence, which only something that acts as a genesis can. 25 years later and it still stinks of the evil, the filth, the sheer bloody gore.

    Rest In Peace Chuck.

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    I love that album.Thanks for that one binnie
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    No probs, DB

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    Well deserved review of Maidens FOTD Binnie.Im a huge Maiden fan and could tell this was the beginning of the menopause period....it just feels like the band, and maybe steves writing didnt have any inspiration anymore.Plus the music world had moved on as the big bands from 91/92 onwards as you said GNR, Metallica, Nirvana , AIC (most UNDERRATED band of the Grunger era), megadeth released CTE (had to put that in for you db!) and also Pantera were getting a shitload of interest.Maiden were starting to look like a dinosaur band where other bands were getting more interest from fans and had breakthrough albmus at that stage and were touring alot.
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    Thanks rockhead

    I have been thinking about bumping an old Megadeth thread and just get it all out of my system

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    nothing wrong with that DB!!.Just reading the megadeth news page at the band are in preproduction to begin on a followup for thirteen....kind of spewing they have not toured down under with this release as since 2006-2007 they have toured down here with every release, last one was 2010 where they played RIP in its entirety.Do they tour in the UK at all?

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    Quote Originally Posted by rockhead View Post
    nothing wrong with that DB!!.Just reading the megadeth news page at the band are in preproduction to begin on a followup for thirteen....kind of spewing they have not toured down under with this release as since 2006-2007 they have toured down here with every release, last one was 2010 where they played RIP in its entirety.Do they tour in the UK at all?
    Not as often as I would like.I have only seen them once in 2004,It seems like yesterday but it was 8 years ago .I missed them the last few times they came around because of money.Typical now when i could go and see them they are not over my way.I look forward to the next album (and the binnie review that will surely come with it).I have blasted my way through all 13 albums i don't know how many times

    Bet RIP was awesome live

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    They play festivals a lot in the UK. Seen 'em twice in the last 2 years (in fact, Megadeth are the band I've seen live most - 8 times and counting).

    They did a club show or 2 when they were over for Donington this summer, but I'm pretty sure that there hasn't been a full UK tour since United Abominations (although they did support Priest a couple of years back).

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    I nearly cried when I missed the united abominations tour.I have started a Donnington fund for next year or the year after so i got my fingers crossed,but damn festivals are expensive.in 2008 I must have spent close to a thousand all in all.It was worth it (The stories I could tell ) but still

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    The price does add up if you stay in a hotel. But I'm just too old for camping.....

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    Too old for camping ??

    No fucking such thing !!

    I'll be camping 'till the day I die !!
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    Not if you were surrounded by 80,000 drunk people!

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    Quote Originally Posted by binnie View Post
    From the vaults: Supersuckers – The Evil Powers of Rock ‘N’ Roll (1999)

    You’ve gotta love The Supersuckers. Take the opening of ‘I Want The Drugs’ (a mock interview):

    Journalist: ‘Would you say that your songs are about liquor, women, drugs and killing for the most part?’

    Eddie Spaghetti: ‘Yep’.

    BOOM!!!! A wall of nitro-charged rock ‘n’ roll kicks in. It’s a helluva party: punk and hard rock delivered with one eye fixed on the fun-o-meter and the other on penning a damn good tune. Bar fights, slutty women and good time with bad intentions drive forward an album which strips rock ‘n’ roll down to its essentials and drenches it in bravura. ‘Santa Rita High’ should have been a classic, whilst ‘Stuff ‘N’ Nonsense’ is the sort of perfect punk love song that Prince might have written if he’d grown up obsessed with The Ramones.

    There are plenty of bands who take the best parts of your record collection and mix them into their own brew. Most fall short of the original source, and what separates the great from the good is really a matter of something intangible: charisma. And the Supersuckers have that in droves. ‘Cool Manchu’ grooves like every long hot summer you’ve ever had, whilst the title-track is more frantic, booming out of the speakers like some demented preacher hell bound on kickin’ your ass all the way to the party – feel the RAPTURE!!! In a 20 year career they’ve never really made a bad record, but this one is by far the most consistent and – without question – their most raucous.

    You feel like the mack daddy listening to this type of rock ‘n’ roll. I guess most of us discover music and masturbation at about the same age, and the immediate impression I had with both was ‘how can THIS much FUN be free?’ The Supersuckers are so joyous that they remind me of my first time, and for that I’ll always be grateful. ‘The Evil Powers of Rock ‘N’ Roll’ is an orgy of cool licks, broken dreams and the delusion of a perpetual youth.
    I never heard Supersuckers before your rewiew Binnie, and you are so damn right, listening to them sent me back to my teenage years....at that time I witnessed and was very close to the origins of the punk rock here.
    Can you believe Eddie Spaghetti played on August 6th. 2009 in Buenos Aires, and with Supersuckers on November 21st. 2009, less than 15 blocks from my house !!!!
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    Testament – Dark Roots Of The Earth

    25 years since their debut record, Testament still sound like a sonic death gorilla. The aural equivalent of being pressed to death, ‘Dark….’ begins where 2008’s ridiculously brilliant ‘Formation Of Damnation’ left off: reminding the world that it really should have been ‘The Big 5’. It is easy to run out of superlatives for Testament, who were superb and boat-pushing as out and out thrashers, and equally impressive in their more expansive, melodic and extreme guises – ‘Souls of Black’, ‘The Gathering’ and ‘Practice What You Preach’ are albums which deserve – no DEMAND – to be in all metalhead’s collections. And ‘Dark Roots Of The Earth’ should be there, too. Opener ‘Rise Up’ is an anthemic thrasher which hurtles along with crunch-fuelled riffage and Gene Hoglan thunderous drums. Any band can do heavy. But heavy and memorable is more difficult. With Testament, the rhythmic nuances and intonations make the songs as charismatic as they are seething, spitting venom in a way which is real. ‘True American Hate’ is an uppercut to any younger band who thinks that they can come close.

    The POWER of this band has always been remarkable, but as they’ve gotten older they’ve coupled that power to variety – and there’s plenty of that here. The title-track is a slow, brooding and eerie monster of a song which is boulder-shitting heavy in both sonic and emotional terms; whilst ‘Native Blood’ couples the melodic heaviness of the band’s ‘Practice What You Preach’ era with death metal aesthetics, Chuck Billy’s raucous melodies soaring over a soundtrack of brutal blast beats; and ‘Cold Embrace’ is a chilling power ballad, beautiful acoustic passage ultimately giving way to a surge of operatic riffs which make the song swell, and swell and swell in size. It’s the finesse of it all that kills: even something as relentlessly aggressive as ‘Man Kills Mankind’ will stick in your head like the memory of a beating, propelled as it is by such effortlessly brilliant dynamics. Production-wizard Andy Sneap has served up a sound that is simultaneously huge and raw, and the performance of guitarists and Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick is exemplary through: balancing unity with a sense of style which is both distinctive and complementary, this display of ridiculous riffery and axe wielding pryotechnics is straight out of the book of Priest-like metal goddery. If Glen Tipton is metal’s most overlooked guitar player; Alex Skolnick is easily number 2.

    Overall ‘Formation Of Damnation’ is probably the superior – and certainly more intense – record. But it’s a close run race. ‘Dark….’ is an album of more moods and colours than its predecessor, and one which pays tribute to the various facets of Testament’s past. Is it the thrash record of the year? Kreator have undoubtedly stolen that crown. But Testament are no longer just a great thrash band. Like any of the ‘Big 4’, they transcend the genre, are a great metal band. Period. You sense they might be peeved that people do not refer to a ‘Big 5’, but the last laugh is with them – even with the superb records put out by Anthrax and Megadeth in recent years, Testament are making music more vital and powerful than there more ‘legendary’ peers.

    Riff, riff, riff, riff, riff, riff – fuck my neck hurts – riff, riff, riff, riff……….

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    Hey bin, one of my students learned a 'bury tomorrow' song today. Honourable reign or something? Sounded a lot like parkway drive's 'carrion'. What do you think?
    Hey Jackass! You need to [Register] or log in to view signatures on ROTHARMY.COM!

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    The new 'Bury Tomorrow' record is on my 'to review' list

    They are very good. Predicatable, certainly (what metalcore isn't?) but full of piss 'n' vinegar (and songs, which is the most important thing...)

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    I should've made 'a lot'


    A LOT.

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    From the vaults: Thin Lizzy – Thunder & Lightning (1983)

    Conventional wisdom suggests that ’75-’79 was the golden period for Thin Lizzy. It is certainly true that the Downey-Gorham-Lynott-Robertson lineup made a cluster of monumental records in the mid-70s, and that the Gary Moore powered ‘Black Rose’ is a stone cold classic; and it is also true that although chronically overlooked, the albums produced in the early ‘80s were not quite as sizzling as their earlier material. But ‘Thunder & Lightning’ – Lizzy’s last and final record – was an absolute belter. In many ways a departure from the band’s traditional sound – more metallic than hard rock, and less dependent on the trademark duel guitar harmonies – this was a record filled with as much piss ‘n’ vinegar as any of the younger metal acts could offer. The title track says it all. The heaviest Lizzy ever got, its Motorhead-esque gusto is drenched in John Sykes’s guitar histronics and sounds like the bar-room brawl it narrates. It also announces that this was a different Lizzy. Where Gorham and Robertson had played off each other so well, Sykes seems to want to overpower his fellow axeman – this leads to some epic guitar duels, but Sykes is more bluster than blues, which creates a sound more pyrotechnic than had been typical of previous efforts. As much is gained as lost, however: less finely crafted and statuesque than of old, this was Lizzy raucous and energised.

    Of course, that this was yet another great Thin Lizzy record should hardly surprise us. Don’t over-complicate it, the key to their success was as simple as it is impossible to replicate: great songs. Where most ‘70s bands dalliances with ‘80s electronica produced results that were melodramatic and stale, Lynott’s incorporation of them into Gaellic ballad ‘The Sun Goes Down’ is complementary and atmospheric. The metallic thunder of ‘Cold Sweat’ taps us straight into Lynott’s genius – a rock god who never forgot what it was like to be an everyman, its tale of gambling it all on the gee-gees is scintillating, and crackles with tension and empathy. ‘Some Day She’s Going To Hit Back’ is an opera in 4 minutes, ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ is a lost classic effortless in its brilliance, and ‘This Is The One’ is propelled by a sensational hook which drips with Lynott’s ability to convey yearning like no one else. Swinging and swaying, breathing and pulsating, these are songs which drenched in the hard times and laughter which pepper the march of all of our lives. They deserve to be as much a part of hard rock’s canon as anything else credited to Lynott.

    Furious and fiery, this is the sound of a band who knew it was over and wanted to go out with a glorious bang. The great’s always have one last fight in ‘em……

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    Quote Originally Posted by binnie View Post
    Ministry – Relapse

    It’s always hard to hear once great bands getting old, those who were once innovators treading water. Ministry – alongside or (if we’re being honest) slightly before NIN – paved the way for industrial metal and, more importantly, delivered up some truly classic and EXCITING music in the late ‘80s and (most of) the ‘90s. ‘Relapse’ – the title is a beautifully sick joke on Al Jourgensen’s own past and recent promise that the band were no more – is the first Ministry record since 2007. It is, typically, a heavy record which paints anger in shades far more colourful than metal’s steel-grey: keyboards, samples, programming and other audio warfare complement the guitars, offsetting and unnerving throughout. But in many places it feel rushed and under-developed – strong riffs are not surrounded by the music to maximise their impact and, for all their anger, the lyrics don’t contain the wit, or the melodic prowess, to match Jourgensen’s best work. At their best Ministry were dark and poetic, harrowing but inspiring – ‘Relapse’ only shows us the tunnel, not the light.

    But it is no disaster. The presence of Prong’s Tommy Victor ensures that the guitars a furious throughout, and the title track is the aural equivalent of sticking your head in a giant food blender. Elsewhere ‘Blackout’ – an industrial take on country rock – is an evil-grinning genius of a song, and ‘Kleptocracy’ and ’99 Percenters’ serve up anthems of FTW proportions. A particularly frantic cover of S.O.D’s ‘United Forces’ also adds plenty of bite but it – alongside ‘Ghouldiggers’ rant at the music industry – serve to make odd additions to what is a political album at heart.

    Given Jourgensen’s near death experience in 2010 (due to a ruptured ulcer) any work we get from him is a bonus and should serve to remind fans of heavy music how damn lucky we have been to count him as one of us for 25 years – like Trent Reznor, like Motorhead, and like Killing Joke, Ministry will leave a void which no-one can fill when they finally are no more. ‘Relapse’ will not be a record for which they are remembered. But it contains moments of sonic terrorism which hint at former glories and remind us why this band ripped the world a new one in the first place.
    Great words about Ministry and Al Jourgensen . My favourite Ministry album is Twiched from 1986.
    Talking about the origins of industrial metal music, I would like to mention Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson R.I.P.
    He was a commercial designer, photographer, former member of the influential British design agency Hipgnosis, a director of hundreds of television commercials and videos for artists like Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, he directed the video Over the Shoulder from Twiched. Peter Christopherson was and original and influential musician who delighted in subversion.

    He was the founding member of Throbbing Gristle band back in the ī70, a English industrial, avant-gard music and visual arts group.
    Throbbing Gristle created the label Industrial Records in 1976 for self-releases and signed other groups and artists giving the name to the industrial music genre.
    Before the first sampler was available in U.K. he played a custom-made for him keyboard-triggered sampler.
    He had a huge career, many musicals proyects always pushing at taboos.

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    I do love Throbbing Gristle.

    I think you've just sorted out my playlist for tomorrow Katina

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    Quote Originally Posted by binnie View Post
    I do love Throbbing Gristle.

    I think you've just sorted out my playlist for tomorrow Katina
    Iīm glad Throbbing Gristle were ahead of their time, true industrial pioneers.

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    Feed The Rhino – The Burning Sons

    Boystrous British heavyweights Feed The Rhino up their game considerably on album number 2. Delivering punchy, concise burst of post-hardcore with eyes firmly fixed on the incendiary rather than the introspective, this is a raucous affair which steers clear of the affectations which belie many bands in this sub-genre. Realizing that a clutch of killer riffs is enough to be captivating, FTR never drown their songs in a mosaic of time-changes and schizophrenic poly-rhythms – rather, the emphasis is on groove and melodies. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that they’re ‘lighter’ than most. ‘Flood The System’ injects Fugazi-esque atmospherics into its hulking grooves, and stoner elements into its angular post-hardcore; the title-track has the floating presence of a more muscular Thursday; ‘Tides’ features a hulking fuck of a riff; whilst ‘Nothing Lost’ pastes whoosing guitar melodies over a captivating wall of sound and tops it all off with an anthemic hook. It’s impressive, crisply delivered stuff, and sees the band deliver a series of songs more distinctive than their debut. Indeed, when they expand outside the confines of metal – witness ‘Razor’, an eerie lament which is both tender and haunting – they soar into realms of the genuinely unique. Taking the confidence to expand their sound in similar ways could see them move into the leading pack of British metal (quite an accolade amidst the current generation).

    It’s not a flawless display by any means: ‘Left For Ruin’ is generic; ‘Fountain’ is a stab at political critique which Gallows do so much better; and, lyrically, the whole album is hyperbolic expressions of angst and anger which is hard to connect with because no human being outside of a Kafka novel exists perpetually on the tortured end of the emotive spectrum. Nevertheless, ‘The Burning Sons’ is a killer record which can trade punches with the best records in a year of almost weekly highlights – you fear that they may float under the radar, and it would be a real shame if they were to wimper rather than burn.

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    From the vaults: Sylosis – Conclusion Of An Age (2008)

    Britain’s Sylosis are – without question – one of modern metal’s most promising bands. Delivering classic thrash metal through contemporary stylings, theirs is a sound redolent with the gothic grandeur of the Gothenburg sound, instantaneous power of metalcore and the sheer electrifying wizardry of technical thrash. Grandiose, certainly; but the emphasis is certainly on form and songwriting craft. This – their debut – was the sound of a bunch of ultra-talented musicians finding their own style. ‘Reflection Through Fire’ sounds like ‘Rust In Piece’ era Megadeth’s more contempoary brother, whilst the title track is the heritage of thrash metal (making references to Nuclear Assault and Kreator) molded into a genuinely unique sound, and ‘Swallow The World’ and ‘The Blackest Skyline’ is as good as anything the US or Scandanavia can offer – that both are not genuine modern metal anthems is a travesty. ‘Teras’ and ‘Withered’ are precise displays of power, the old skool feel of Forbidden and Dark Angel in progressive and ultra-aggressive forms.

    Stand-out performances from vocalist Jamie Graham – who roars and sings as the music necessitates – and guitar God Josh Middleton – who can riff and shred with the best of them – ensure than ‘Conclusion Of An Age’ is a sheer sonic joy. Sylosis’s problem is an embarrassment of riches: both this and sophmore record ‘Edge Of The Earth’ featured too much music, losing the quality amidst of barrage of intricate, scabrous and battering ram metal. It’s a nice problem to have, and should Sylosis one day work with a world class producer you can bet your mother’s life on them delivering a bollock-crushing metal classic.

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    From the vaults: Saint Vitus – Saint Vitus (1984)

    Put simply, this is one of the most important heavy records ever made. Saint Vitus were so out of tune with their own time it borders on the comical: lo-fi in an age in which hyperbole was as necessary as a blond front-man; under-produced in an age of reverb over-indulgence; and dirty, foul, and stinkingly heavy Sabbath worshippers in an age in which peroxide and leopard print ruled the roost. More late ‘60s than mid-‘80s, Saint Vitus conjured up an era of Blue Cheer and MC5, a proto-metal maelstrom with more than a whiff of The Doors’s claustrophic melancholly – and the irony is, of course, that their music has stood the test of time where their peers now seem like a nasty smell from metal’s past. Listening to this record now, it is the complete absence of any sense of artifice or contrivance which strikes you most – that an album delivered with an almost ambivalent sense of ambition would go on to influence so many doom bands, stoner bands, and even post-punk bands is a staggering achievement. And it all comes from a sense of the elemental. What Dave Chandler and co. did was to take the blueprint of ‘Masters Of Reality’-era Sabbath back to its most basic components before re-forging it, crudely, into jet-black slabs of metal.

    The title-track is propelled by a riff which sounds like a hovercraft passing through the bowels of hell; whilst ‘White Magic/ Black Magic’ is so good it has the familiarity of an old friend even on the first listen. Its sparse and spartan stuff, and those who cannot lock into its lethargic groove will find themselves meandering in a swamp of riffs – but for those who can, the likes of ‘Burial At Sea’ – an odyessy in 8 minutes – are almost overwhelmingly powerful. Expansive, crude and often introspective, this was the sort of magic record which was perfect because of the imperfections and limitations of the musicians who made it. There is an eerie presence in the music which you cannot quite explain or quantify – existing outside the component parts, that presence can only come from a performance which is so gloriously uncomplicated and convincing precisely because it is not oversold.

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    From the vaults: Mercyful Fate – Don’t Break The Oath (1984)

    Mercyful Fate’s second album was a more slick affair than their debut: the production was sharper, tighter and more crisp, and the dynamics of the songs were simpler, the melodies were neater and more prominent, and the presence of Priest was more pronounced than before. But it’s still mental. Batshit, fruit-loop, talking to trees crazy. Even for the ‘80s this was OTT. Packing more killer riffs than Satan, with arrangements as big as Wagner, and a vision of cinematic scope here the bass gallops, riffs cut all asunder, guitars duel and vocal lines fall into one another – it’s as though the band members were competing with one another to see who could be the most outlandish.

    King Diamond’s vocals have always been an acquired taste – Halford-on-hellium meets vaudeville villain, his ‘distinctive’ approach is domineering throughout. But it is the guitars that own the show. Along with Glen Tipton and Wolf Hoffman, Michael Denner completes a triumvirate of chronically under-heralded metal axemen. Some of the riffs here deserve to be better known (the opening to ‘Desecration Of Souls’, ‘Dangerous Meeting’ and ‘Welcome Princess of Hell’ jump to mind) and the solos are ripping burst of dark energy. ‘Gypsy’ is pure Dio-esque brilliance, whilst ‘Night Of The Unborn’ perfectly balances Maiden grandeur with Priest’s nack for the anthem and ‘Nightmare’ twists and turns like a tortured soul trying to escape a rotting corpse. It’s epic, biblical and manichal stuff. You cannot underestimate how crucial Mercyful Fate’s first two records were for metal. The multi-tempo, multi-section, duel-guitar epics like ‘A Dangerous Meeting’ and the title-track are part of the root base for much of the Black Metal and progressive metal that followed, and in that sense this band are as important as the Big 4 or Celtic Frost in metal’s evolution. Had they held it together for longer, perhaps they would now be heralded as part of metal’s mainstream rather than viewed as a noble tributary.

    Since 1984 metal has certainly become more complex, more accomplished and much, much heavier – but I defy anyone to find an example of it which is more FUN!!

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    Baroness – Yellow & Green

    They should have called this album ‘Death Wish’: in a world as rigidly conservative as metal, making an album which veers away from the heavier end of the rock spectrum is a bold move bound to garner a backlash of ‘sell out’ chants. In the case of Georgia’s (former) sludge kings, that is a ludicrous accusation: not only is this a double album – hardly a by-word for chart infiltration – it is one made up of meandering spacey rock songs. This is the evolution of an incredibly talented band through a myriad of genres rather than a calculated attempt to flog records: whatever your view on their changing sound, don’t believe for one minute that it isn’t sincere. ‘Yellow & Green’ continues the band’s colour-coded aesthetic: where debut ‘Red’ was a slab of pummelling, sludgey doom metal; and sophmore release ‘Blue’ was a maelstrom of progressive metal extremity of dazzling and cascading brilliance, here we get warmer hues and softer tones as Baroness meanders beyond the grizzled world of devil horns into altogether warmer – if not necessarily happier – climes.

    That one of the songs here is called ‘Twinkler’ should indicate that the sound is not ‘metallic’. Nor is it, for much of the time, particularly ‘heavy’. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Much of the sound here takes Baroness’s Southern and stoner rock influences and injects them into a sonic template inhabited by bands like The Killers, Gaslight Anthem, Band of Skulls and a host of post-Strokes indie bands – but where those bands charm with bombast and fiery hooks, Baroness seduce with delicate melodies and intricate, layered guitar melodies which forge together to produce a sinewy backdrop of rock. And it still has enough clout to rattle your teeth. The songs veer from hard to soft, from soaring to soothing, in a way which only a three-piece as adept as this can, and drummer Allen Blickle’s brilliantly uncomplicated playing holds the wall of sound together. At its best, ‘Yellow & Green’ is captivating and haunting, a wash of lusty and luscious rock that is almost orchestral – it makes for an album which, whilst far from perfect, is certainly of one ‘metal’s’ most intriguing listens of 2012.

    ‘Yellow’ is the heavier of the two albums and features most of the highlights across the collection. And the highs are very high indeed. Opener ‘Take My Bones Away’ injects funky bass into the band’s typical stoner assault and veers between as heavy Arcade Fire and the lighter shades of Mastodon’s ‘The Hunter’; ‘Cocanium’ has a captivating spacey power; whilst ‘Little Things’ manages to balance Sonic Youth’s delicate menace with a funkadelic Thin Lizzy passage without sounding even close to confused. But perhaps best of all is ‘Eula’ – a cavenous blast of grungy Pink Floyd brilliance which most bands would kill to write. Less staccato and visceral than their previous records, these songs are cascades of intricate melodies, rhythms and glorious bottom-end.

    ‘Green’ is the less memorable of the two. Comprised of songs which are slower and less immediate, it is built around passages of music which are summery, breezy and shimmering, conjuring modern soft rockers like The Doves, or Elbow in places. All of this is as admirable as it is unexpected, but it often throws into relief that whilst Baroness’s previous booming sludge could be impactful through sheer force of the will of its sonorous dirge, atrock’s quieter end it is the hooks that kill – and often these songs, with their duel vocal attack, lacks them. ‘Mtns’ and ‘Fool Song’ for instance are quiescent rock veering into territory habited by REM at their most tepid. But there are, nevertheless, highlights: the beautifully trippy soundscapes of ‘Collapse’ evoke the chilly whimsical charm of Sigor Ros, whilst the thunderous burst of swampy rock which propels ‘The Line Between’ encapsulates what this record could have been – Georgian death sludge in classic rock templates. It’s the sort of song you wish mainstream radio would play, and if you cannot accuse Baroness of being consistent, you could not charge them with being complacent, either.

    ‘Yellow & Green’ is far from perfect – but the list of bands who have enough genuinely ‘A’ grade material to pull off a double record is (very) short. And in that sense perhaps it is best to see ‘Yellow & Green’ as a noble failure. Whilst it is certainly correct to chastise metalheads for being intolerant of soundscapes beyond the grizzled, it would be patronizing to applaud Baroness simply for having the stones to step outside of the genre in which they are so admired – many metal artists probably own albums by non-metallic artists, but they don’t want a fucking medal for it! ‘Yellow & Green’ is a good record by a great band, a band that will continue to surprise and frustrate in equal measure. But at its best, it is features moments of remarkable rock music.

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    From the vaults: Manowar – Gods Of War (2007)

    On their 10th studio record the scourge of false metal chose to do the unthinkable: make a record that didn’t really have that much ‘metal’ on it at all. At least, that is, in the traditional sense. This is a 73 minute – yes, 73 minute – ‘metal’ symphony based upon Norse mythology and with tongue absolutely nowhere near cheeks. Even by the standards of Manowar – the ‘Loudest Band in The World’, the band with the reinforced drum kit, the band who signed their record contracts in their own blood and whose skull crushing speakers create an ungodly ‘black wind’ – this is over the top. But you have to admire the gumption – and if this album was ultimately a failure, it must be deemed a noble one. Odin would not have it any other way.

    As befits Manowar, nothing is done in a half-assed manner. Let us be clear: the orchestration here is remarkable and beautifully recorded, rather than an add-on feature. The problem, however, is that there are too many of them. The opener – ‘Overture To The Hymn of the Immortal Warriors’ – is a six minute instrumentation piece. On its own it could have soundtracked a 1950s Holywood epic, but following it with another 2.5 minutes of orchestration on the ascension means that we are left to ensure a full 8 minutes of Manowar with no metal – that is surely enough to make any loin-cloth wearing Barbarian’s head hurt! Of course, when the metal does come, it comes in droves: ‘King Of Kings’ and ‘Loki God Of Fire’ are competent Manowar fodder, all choppy riff over a rockin’ beat, this is the vast orgy of heavy metal guitar they’ve forged a career on. Whilst the orchestration often relegates the band’s usual wall of steel guitars, the combination of band + orchestra on ‘Sons of Odin’ and the title-track yield such unspeakable acts of melodrama it really doesn’t matter. Given that much of the band’s output since 1992’s ‘Triumph Of Steel’ had been conservative and (a little) stale, you have to appreciate the sudden surge of energy.

    Whilst it’s certainly a powerful record, it is also a curiously ill-paced one: metal – orchestration – narration – metal makes for a cumbersome, jolted rhythm which kills the momentum which should carry an epic. In truth, there are many power metal bands who do this sort of grandiose symphonic better in a much more fully integrated manner – Bal-Sagoth, Rhapsody of Fire, Blind Guardian spring to mind. Yet whilst ‘Gods Of Metal’ is a cumbersome, over-long and under-paced record, it is so massive in scope that it cannot help to stir an impact. Put simply, if you are not stirred by ‘Blood Brothers’ the metal died in you a long, long time ago. Coldplay beckons, and Odin will not be pleased.

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    Dew Scented – Icarus

    ‘Dew Scented’ are – no arguments please – the most inaccurately named band ever: given the sheer unbridled ferocity of their brand of thrash, ‘Crack Pitbull’ would be far, far more appropriate! Scrabbling around to conjure suitable adjectives to describe the intensity of this metal, terms like ‘brutal’, ‘savage’, ‘rampant’ or ‘furious’ seem woefully inadequate. ‘Maniacal’ is how this sounds. That is not to say that the music is particularly extreme – this is post-Haunted thrash metal which steers well clear of death, black or more angular aspects of the genre. What we get, then, is ultra-aggression in palatable forms and, crucially, delivered in some of the best songs your ears will have heard for years. Up to this point Dew Scented have been competent and commendable rather than classic – with ‘Icarus’, they just stepped into the big leagues. Just when you thought that a genre of music was becoming over-saturated, someone delivers an album as special as this.

    Fucking hell it’s good. ‘Sworn To Obey’ is a bristling burst of warp-factor fury; ‘Thrown To The Lions’ is built from a series of tasty riffs, tempo-changes and licks good enough to leap into the ‘A’ league; ‘Storm Within’ sounds like modern-day Slayer, a skull-fucker riff and demonic melody working in sync to inject a double-dose of heaviness; whilst ‘A Final Procession’ features a riff that could slip discs – Marvin Vriesde is a Heavy Metal beast. Lyrically, it all sticks to the ‘3 Ds of Thrash’: Death, Destruction and Defiance – sure, you’ve heard it all before, but it fits the bill perfectly and often comes in the form of some interesting and thoughtful wording. When you have artwork as cool as this – a sort of post-apocalyptic take on the ‘Icarus’ story – that has to be the case.

    But what really makes this album work is the emphasis on the whole over the individual parts. The songs are all – refreshingly – under 5 minutes. There is little in the way of flash, no self-indulgence or anything to lessen the whole. Delivered in a production which is very ‘live’ in its feel, Dew Scented neatly side-step the trend of most newer thrash bands to pursue the ‘technical’ route, which is often a short-route to sterility. Not so here: the sound is raw, buoyant, bottom-heavy and bristling with energy. The Haunted should take note, because these Germans have taken their template far beyond the level that they have reached in recent years. Put simply, ‘Icarus’ deserves to become a familiar part of metal’s landscape – if you were to compile a list of ‘The Best Thrash Records since “The Haunted Made Me Do It”’ this would be right near the top.

    Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to do something exciting with it.

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    Cobalt – Gin (2009)

    The linear notes are prescient: ‘This record is a springboard to fuck the universe’. It certainly fucks your head – this harks back to the ideals of the late ‘60s, where many bands just did whatever the hell they liked and made music which was genuinely experimental. Some of that experimentation was fruitful, some of it proved nigh-on unlistenable. And such is the case here. In the days when music – even heavy music – comes pre-packaged in restrictive ‘sub-genre’ templates, that is very refreshing. Not that Cobalt sound anything like the late ‘60s, ideals aside. The title-track is crackling with energy, a free-form, spasming melee of music which alternates every 4 to 8 bars into another scratchy rock ‘n’ roll riff and mosaic of speed metal, hardcore-punk and Neurosis like post-rock arrangements. Despite the absence of hooks, it is oddly captivating stuff made infectious by the fact that what we have here are not so much songs but soundscapes, waves of music to submerge yourself in. That much of this seems to be improvised automatically makes it feel different to modern metal even if the component parts are pretty much identical – ‘Gin’ is a downright quirky way of re-crafting a common language.

    Some of its so downright ugly it is impenetrable – witness ‘Stomach’ – whilst elsewhere there’s a tar-thick groove that sucks you in a shakes you – ‘A Clean, Well-lighted Place’. None of this is for the feint-hearted, or those who like to know where they are in a song, but it is impactful – whether that impact is compulsion or repulsion will demand on your aural palette. ‘Pregnant Insect’ is utterly remarkable, music which instantly conjures an image of its subject – eastern melodies sit under cascading guitar chords in what is essentially punk-infused Black Metal at its most gnarly and evil best. In stark contrast, ‘Dry Body’ is half Nick Cave melancholic eeriness – a clean guitar and soft vocal – and half Faith No More schizophrenia, and other songs loop and loop and loop in an almost mantra-like meditation on grade-A riff after grade-A riff.

    This is Cobalt’s third album. They have been labeled ‘American Black Metal’, but ‘Gin’ is really unclassifiable (and all the better for it). It’s too loose, hardly symphonic, and garage-riven to fit the ‘Black Metal’ mantle, a product of the fact that the band is only a 2-piece (Erik Wunder and Paul McShorely). There is certainly a choking darkness in this music (with many of the references indebted to Hemingway) and if you want to listen to it every day I suspect therapy is in order – but some records you just know will be cited 15, 20 years later as incendiary and inspiring. This is one of them.

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    Thanks for your review on Cobalt- Gin, I listened it in Youtube yesterday night...WOW!!!

    Now that I have recovered......I canīt believe that Cobalt are just two people:
    Erik Wunder a multi-instrumentalist and Phil McSorley the singer, also soldier in the US Army, who has done numerous tours in Irak. That is amazing.
    Cobalt-Gin really transcends the genre of Black Metal.

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    It's certainly intense, isn't it!

    Glad you checked it out - definitely not for the feint hearted, but it is a remarkable record (although an ugly one) - some of those riffs are remarkable.

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    Meshuggah – Koloss

    To describe Meshuggah as ‘heavy’ is a bit like describing Paris Hilton as ‘stupid’ – it doesn’t really begin to scratch the surface of the depths that lie beneath (or don’t, in the case of the latter). The Swedes brand of heaviness is extreme even for extreme metal, the musical equivalent of being crushed. Frenetic polyrhythms, 8 string guitars which deliver barrages of polymetered riffs, and frankly insane time-signatures combine to deliver a wall of sound so abrasive even Gengis Khan would wince. It’s inspired stuff, and always impactful. But Meshuggah have been delivering this kind of sonic mastery for 2 decades: is there a sense that the law of diminishing marginal returns is beginning to set in?

    Not in the slightest. For Meshuggah have always evolved their sound. Where last record – the equally maniacal ‘Obzen’ – was an air-tight, meticulous display of power which killed through a mechanical precision, ‘Koloss’ sees Meshauggah at their most streamlined. The tempos are – for the most part – slower, there is groove aplenty, and no-one is getting out alive. At these tempos Meshuggah will choke you until you submit to the sheer blackness of its heaviness. The jarring rhythms of the drums, guitars and Jens Kidman’s vocals a syncopated into one gigantic, industrial-strength rhythmic killing machine which is coloured in darkened hues through Frederik Thordenal’s ambient leads, dark melodies and terrifying mechanical atmospherics. Opener ‘I Am Colossus’ is sloooow, a sledgehammer thunder of a riff which your ancestors will be able to feel. Heavier than anything and featuring a malign menace and Wagnerian grandeur, this song is as monstrous as the angry deity it describes. ‘Marrow’ is the sound of tectonic plates grinding against one another and features and riff that should not be, whilst ‘Demiurge’ is almost tribal, balancing the primitive and the mechanical in its anaconda like grip of a riff and ‘Do Not Look Down’ combines a bouncy riff, ethereal melodies and sonic thud into a giant crunch of metal. By the time you get to ‘Behind the Sun’ you wonder why most other metal bands don’t just give up – this is a vision of divine power which renders awe. If these tunes owe much to more recent outings like ‘Catch 33’ and ‘I’, ‘The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance’ hearks back to the band’s thrash heritage, pulling apart extreme metal’s heritage and re-making into something more clinical and deadly.

    Alongside At The Gates, Neurosis and Fear Factory, Meshuggah are probably the most influential metal band of the last 20 years. ‘Koloss’ reminds us why. Asking whether it is there best album is purely a matter of ascetic preference, but what is clear is that this band shows no sign of resting on its laurels or of heading the ‘djent’ scene which their music so clearly inspired. Easily one of 2012’s best – and most important – albums, this is metal at its most complex, deadly and awe-inspiringly heavy. Trying to capture their impact in words is as futile as trying to resist their brilliance.

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    Down – IV Part 1: The Purple EP

    Down is perhaps the only ‘supergroup’ in the history of rock ‘n’ roll to make music which is greater than the sum of its parts, and can rival the glories of its member’s day jobs. Ever since ‘NOLA’ dropped in 1995, we’ve always known that this beefed up, crunchier version of Sabbath were something truly special. Heavy, emotive and – most crucially of all – honest in their approach to their craft, between them Phil Anselmo (Pantera), Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity), Kirk Windstein (Crowbar) and Jim Bowers (Eyehategod) consistently brewed the raw essentials of heavy metal to deliver superb song after superb song across the band’s first three records, culminating in the darker, less aggressive and more doom-laden approach of ‘III: Over the Under’ in 2005. Seven years on, and the band have decided to release 4 EPs instead of an album proper.

    ‘Purple’ is the first installment. At 6 songs and 33 minutes, it is a teasing affair which leaves you yearning for more. Fans will be pleased to know that there is no radical departure in sound – it’s still the Sabbath-inspired doom metal of ‘III’ – but there are some noticeable changes in the nuances of the approach. The production is raw and lo-fi, a shade down from the metallic bluster of the first three albums, and a mix that pushes to vocals up front robs the guitars of some their bite. The performance is also looser, more jammed in places, and onus is more on feel rather than craft than at any point in Down’s history, with the band’s Southern Rock influences a little more pronounced than in the past – this is still boulder-crushingly heavy, but heavy is clearly not the be-all-end-all this time round. The artwork is spectral and eerie – the dark side of the trip, if you will – and the lyrics are darker, less aggressive, and (even) more world weary than usual. This is a natural evolution for Down, who now sound a lot more like Cathedral than was imaginable on their first two crunch-filled albums.

    These changes will please and disappoint fans in equal measure – it’s all a matter of subjective preference. What is indisputable, however, is the sheer quality of the songs on this EP. Briefly put, they fall into two camps of 3: strong; and stronger. The real gems are ‘Witchtripper’ – which could have been on ‘Paranoid’, propelled as it is by a choppy riff and a melody so joyous in its celebration of metal it comes straight out of Ozzy’s heyday – ‘The Curse Is A Lie’ – a monster of a tune possessed of a truly evil thud and boulder-splitting riffs – and, best of all, ‘The Misfortune Teller’, which features a serious of riffs that could blow the balls off a buffalo at 100 yards and a hook which makes you ready to squeeze the world’s juice down your throat – epic and anthemic in equal measure. ‘Levitation’, ‘Open Coffins’ (which sound like Saint Vitus with their eye of concision), and ‘This Work Is Timeless’ are all good songs, but perhaps in places fall short of the band’s A game.

    Put simply, if you don’t find yourself headbanging to this then the metalhead in you is long, long dead. Down wear their ‘metal legends’ tag lightly – but with their seeming effortless ability to make songs that are crushingly heavy and instantly singable, it is a tag to which they are more than worthy. ‘Purple’ may only polish – rather than expand – their halos, but few records released in 2012 will give you more pleasure.

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    From the vaults: The Dillinger Escape Plan – Ireworks (2007)

    Few bands can claim to be as influential as The Dillenger Escape Plan have been in the past 10 years. Of the hordes of groups who have copied their approach – short, sharp shocks of intensity delivered through a hidden hand of virtuosity which thrusts together a relentless barrage of riffs, melodies and time-changes – few have been able to do so in such an infectious and compelling manner. The Dillinger Escape Plan are certainly as experimental as they are baffling, but they have always had the capacity to key things on the side of palatable by writing hooks strong enough to pull listeners through the musical torrents.

    The songs here are all very different but could only have been made by one band: ‘Fix Your Fix’ is an incendiary mix of Fugazi and Faith No More at their most demented; ‘Lurch’ combines the intensity of early Rollins Band with dizzying, epileptic time-changes; ‘Sick On Sunday’ is kaledoscopic jazz metal; whilst ‘82588’ is most like the band’s early work, a demented whoosh of bludgeoning riffs, warp-like time-signatures in which the entire band combines into one iron first of rage. But it’s not all about the crazy. ‘Milk Lizard’ grooves through the complexity, channeling Glassjaw and At The Drive In to blossom into a cornucopia of melodies which find beauty in a very ugly tale; ‘Mouth of Ghost’ has a free-form, floating presence; and ‘Black Bubblegum’ sounds like a broken Mo-town song – beautfiul and chilling. Vocalist Greg Puciato is the Mike Patton of his generation, crooning, scatting of screaming as the mood requires, and keeping the sound human amidst the tidal wave of polyrhythmic complexity.

    ‘Ireworks’ is not The Dillenger Escape Plan’s best record (check out ‘Calculating Infinity’), but it is probably their most accessible. One of the best – and most innovative – bands in the world in all of their insane glory.

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