It strikes me that 'Mnetal Agony' would be a great band name. There is a band called Anal Cunt, so your parody was very accurate.....Originally Posted by Seshmeister
It strikes me that 'Mnetal Agony' would be a great band name. There is a band called Anal Cunt, so your parody was very accurate.....
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For the record, 'Primal Fear' sound like a cross between Priest and Maiden.
My favourite real life one was underneath a picture in Kerrang of 4 very angry, unattractive, spotty, plump guys called Celibacy. Have you heard them, I think they were around in the 90s at least?
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Gay and repetitive?
They're a decent slab of European power metal. Faux operatic, mellodramatic and full of atmospherics (aswell as being a little bit silly without recognizing it.)
Not come across them.
My personal favourite is a band called Marduck, who had an album called 'Fuck Me Jesus'. Brilliant.
I'm not a big Priest fan , but anyway , not familiar with it so we have to give it a chance!!!
I'm not really into ANAL CUNT either, I like the BUTT HOLE SURFERS more, and ROCKBITCH ofcourse
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From the vaults: Slipknot – Slipknot (1999)
12 years! Has it really been 12 years? Jumping around on broken bottles of beer and whisky, moshing our asses off to this new, 18-legged monster of a band. How the time flies. And how intense this stills sounds. Opening with ‘742617000027’ – a squealing, throbbing pulse overlain with loops and samples and one voice repeating over and over ‘The whole thing, I think, is sick’ – the aim seemed to be to disorientate, overwhelm and disturb. Whilst most Nu Metal bands overlaid hip hop beats with sloppy, down-tuned guitars and staid anger, Slipknot were more neurotic: songs spasm between multiple parts as arrangements smash into one another. The result was something more expressive than crafted. Like a raw nerve.
‘Sic’ sums it all up. Tribal beats relentlessly assault the listener as an army of percussionists battle with samples and punchy, punky riffs. The music was ugly and twisted, and matched perfectly by Corey Taylor’s intense vocal bark – ‘You. Can’t. Kill. Me./ ‘Cos. I’m. Already. Inside you’. Scary stuff, and real, too. This was metal, Jim, but not as we’d know it. Gone were the guitar heroics, the preening technicality, and the epic soundscapes. In their place was an altogether grittier sound, eeked out from Ross Robinson’s ‘caught in the moment’ production. ‘Surfacing’ is a discordant funk; ‘Spit It Out’ is a demonic hip hop; ‘Prosthetics’ is a disturbing take on obsession built upon eerie atmospherics and hulking riffs; whilst ‘Wait & Bleed’ alternates between a melodic, almost prayer-like, chorus and riotous punk-rock verse. This music is tar black and tactile, music which refuses to be ignored – it’s so abrasive that it pulls emotions out of you which you didn’t even know were there. This is nowhere truer than in closer ‘Scissors’, 8 minutes of frankly chilling music in which Slipknot become an a metal version of Aphex Twin.
In truth, Slipknot have never topped this. Follow up ‘Iowa’ was heavier and more metallic; ‘Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses’ was more experimental and expansive; and ‘All Hope is Gone’ shows them at their most crafted and considered, and is arguably their best collection of songs. But for impact, ‘Slipknot’ was something else. You never forget the cry of a wounded animal.
From the vaults: L7 – Bricks are Heavy (1992)
L7 were all girls, but their gender was the least interesting thing about them. For all the simplicity of much of what was on offer here, L7 had a lot of power. The brooding presence of ‘Diet Pill’ evokes the ominous silence in the seconds before a kicking, and the scuzzy buzz-saw guitar of ‘Wargasm’ is pure Iggy Pop fuelled nonchalant obnoxiousness. Sure, you can hear the influences (The Ramones, Mudhoney, The Sex Pistols, early Soundgarden), and sure they didn’t have the song-writing talents of Paul Simon: but what these songs lack in finesse and subtlety they make up for with a sheer dirty presence. Riffs and melodies are driven to breaking-point with relentless fury, becoming hypnotic in the low end rumble so in evidence on ‘Scrap’ and ‘Pretend We’re Dead’. You can party to it, riot to it, groove to it, or just let it kick your ass: this was joyous, dangerous rock ‘n’ roll, grungy but effortlessly fun to. Indeed, when the snappy bounce of ‘Everglade’ and ‘Slide’ hit you, you realize that L7 evoked a time before punk rock got all pretentious – more head-butt than cleverly crafted diatribe.
Seasons After – Through Tomorrow
Blending grungy, tar-thick melodies with double-bass drum assault and vocals which switch from melodic croon to post-hardcore bark, Seasons After sample the rich pallet of modern metal. The result is a debut which points towards a genuine sound of their own but which is often marred by an attempt at ‘catch all’. ‘Marked’, for instance, is a straight up rocker of the sort that Black Stone Cherry pedal; but, ‘Hell Is’ is a much heavier, barking riff monster of a song. Sound out of kilter? Well, it certainly does when you throw in a cover ‘Cry Little Sister’ (the theme from The Lost Boys), which sound like it could be in a Jerry Bruckheimer film.
That being said, when it’s good, it’s REALLY good. ‘Some Things Burn’ is that rarest of things in modern metal: melodic AND heavy. Blending Alter Bridge and Alice In Chains with Black Label Society riffage, its epic power and weird tempo changes are wrapped together with outstanding melodies. The title track similarly has a catchy riff and drum tattoo. Beginning by sounding like Disturbed at their most melodic, it erupts into something altogether heavier and is the chrysalis of rock in the 21st Century. ‘II-II’ is also a wonderful synthesis of heavier metal and melodic rock, the vocals switching from croon to bark with aplomb.
That synthesis doesn’t always work, however. On ‘The Knife’ and ‘Save You’ the cut and paste approach to blending rock and extreme metal lacks the finesse so often on display here. Like Bullet For My Valentine or Avenged Sevenfold (they wish!), Seasons After will undoubtedly come in for criticism from the metal snobs for their clear arena rock pretentions: sure, this is produced and polished with radio play in mind; and sure, the blend of hooky songs and more brutal heavier numbers feels like an attempt to tick as many boxes as possible. But the songs here are so strong, and so rich in their tones, that once you’re blasting this you really don’t care that they’re not as edgy or imaginative as the Norwegian folk-metal band you were listening to last week.
Anger Management – Beyond the Threshold of Pain
If a pack of Dobermans formed a band it would sound like this. A savage mauling of hardcore and metal, this 5 song EP is an 18 minute ass kicking. Riffs smash into grooves, time changes bleed into twisted lyrics. Sure, it’s nothing you’ve not heard before – think Hatebreed, Throwdown, Bloodsimple – but Anger Management inject enough twists and turns into each song to prevent it becoming generic. The drumming is not as frenetic as most extreme metal, and that allows the band to lay down some big grooves. Some of these guys are ex Medula Nocte (a band that sadly never got the credit they deserved) and you hope that they make it this time. Ernest, bollock-driven, hardcore tinged metal with enough bite to take yer arm off!
From the vaults: Tokyo Blade – Burning Down Paradise (1995)
NWOBHM also rans take one last stab at career momentum. Reuniting after some near farcical spells in parallel versions of the same band, Andy Boulton, John Wiggins and Alan Marsh put together an album which rivalled their glory days of 10 years earlier in the hope of pushing the momentum they’d gained from the likes of ‘Night of The Blade’ and ‘Blackhearts and Jaded Spades’ further. It didn’t work, either. But, as with most Tokyo Blade records, that’s not because it wasn’t a quality product. Displaying a triumphant metal sound of the mid-‘80s, big hooks and bigger choruses are the driving force here, and it is certainly the sort of album which Wayne and Garth would have loved. A bit like Dokken with prog-rock pretensions, the title track is anthemic, mid-paced and displays plenty of umph. ‘Flashpoint Serenade’ evokes Maiden-territory expansiveness, whilst ‘Friend in Need’ possesses a slippery riff with LA pretensions and ‘Hot Breath’ evokes their NWOBHM roots. There are certainly problems: ‘Papering the Cracks’ does exactly what it promises, and ‘Head Full of Wiring’ sounds like Extreme, but shit, whilst many of the songs here scream ‘edit’ as they plod towards the 5-minute-mark.
But you can’t over-think this type of melodic metal majesty. It’s too much fun, even when it’s undercooked and awkward. This was never going to sell in 1995, and Tokyo Dragon must have known that. That they stuck to their guns and made it this way anyway is a sign of the character in evidence here: with more poke than a politician in a brothel ‘Burning Down Paradise’ was a lot of fun, if nothing else.
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Blue October – Approaching Normal
‘Gothic grunge’ might be the best way to describe Blue October’s sound. Gloomy yet commercial, their songs are honed and trimmed to concise exercises in raw emotion. Featuring strings and intricate arrangements rather than raucous guitars, there is nonetheless a darkness which punctures the delicate surface of the songs’ skin and leaves them sore and oozing. The reference points are fairly wide: The Cure, Fairport Convention, Placebo, REM, A Perfect Circle……..basically any decent rock band that doesn’t charge in dick-first. But what strikes you most is the quality of the songs. Opener ‘Weight of The World’ makes it clear that there is no staid angst here: a song about a man whose anger gets the better of him, the strings tease out the bitterness of the unhinged lyrics. Closer ‘The End’ is equally powerful. A mini opera of a song which demonstrates that there is strength in fragility, this is the tale of a man tortured by infidelity to acts of extreme cruelty. And they say storytellers are dead……
‘Diet Room’ is a sort of folksey N.I.N, whilst ‘Been Down’ is a more whimsical U2 and ‘My Never’ is a tune which Rufus Wainwright could have penned. Featuring raw and honest vocals throughout, the lyrics are almost uncomfortably emotional at times. Yet despite the obvious talent on display here, this record does sink in the middle. The kitsch balladry of ‘Picking Up Pieces’ descends into The Script territory, and ‘Jump Rope’ teases the boundary between sincerity and sentimentality. It is this lack of consistency in quality which perhaps places the album a notch down from previous efforts ‘Foiled’ and ‘History For Sale’.
That being said, it’s not every rock band who can tackle fatherhood, love, revenge, politics and murder in one album without chasing around a myriad of musical styles. That Blue October manage to balance such a broad palette on a sound which is wholly their own is quite a testament to their prowess. Some will undoubtedly baulk at music which is this layered, and which strives to such pointed exploration of emotion – to do so would be to miss out, however, on a band which manages to be both dark and palatable, and emotive without being saccharine.
Overkill – Ironbound
Album number 15 from the world’s most metal band. You have to admire Bobby ‘Blitz’ and company, because they summarize precisely what this music is all about: love, passion, dogged-determination, a ‘fuck the world’ mentality, and a relentless drive to play just for the sake of playing. Sure, they’re never going to make a ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Crack the Skye’ or ‘Demanufacture’, but you don’t have to reach greatness to be loved: Overkill are lifers, they’re the people’s band, a band that keeps on going through every trend, every line-up change and every empty bank account.
And that passion drips from the pores of this record. Combined with the fact that Overkill have forgotten more about metal than most bands every learn, what they have delivered is an album as good as any they have made: no small feat 30 years into a career! Sounding – as ever – like a faster version of Accept kicking the living shit out of the pretenders, this record wraps up everything great about heavy fucking metal. Vitriolic speed-picked riffs sit over rumbling bass-lines and thunderous drums as Blitz’s raspy vocals mix acid and grit into torrent of controlled aggression. The songs are complex without being overwhelming, meandering through multiple sections and clusters of riffs, melodies and solos to deliver a symphony of metal which dances on the boundary of the raucous and the ridiculous without ever putting a toe over the edge. The title track is all double bass crunch and a grinding whirlwind of precise power, ‘Bring Me The Night’ recalls the glories of early thrash, that golden era before all heavy bands felt they had to be saving the world to make worthwhile music, and ‘Endless War’ is heavier than King Kong’s first dump of the day.
Put simply: if you don’t like this record, you don’t like metal. They were never the most important of the thrash bands, in a way that Saxon were not the most important of the NWOBHM bands. What groups like that share, however, is an ethos and an energy which comes from being perennial contenders – they’ve never had any respect, and they’ve long since ceased graving it. Right now, they exist as a band because they HAVE too. And they’ll compel you to feel it.
Cavalera Conspiracy – Blunt Force Trauma
Tribal-tinged, anarcho-fuelled metallic thunder from the Cavalera brothers which evokes the glory days of Sepultura without descending into nostalgia. Where so many bands in modern metal equate heaviness with the ability to mould dizzyingly frenetic time-changes to complexity for its own sake, Max Cavalera has always adopted the sledgehammer to the face approach to songwriting which privileges power over perfection: squat, powerful and defiant, these songs are pummellingly raw. The Discharge-led thrash of ‘Warlord’ proves that there is incredible power to be found in complexity, with Iggor sounding like a veritable army of percussionists and Max’s ever-distinctive bark in all its redolent glory. ‘Torture’ is a melee of fast, discordant riffage which evokes DRI; and ‘Lynch Mob’, with its epic chorus, is both grooving and heavy in a way which only a Max Cavalera song can be.
There is no let up and (as those fans who become frustrated with Max’s endless experimentation in Soulfly will be pleased to learn) little in the way of meandering here: from ‘Thrasher’ to ‘I Speak Hate’ and ‘Target’, this is foot to the flaw hard-core fuelled metal which could easily be the soundtrack to an urban riot. Although perhaps not as focussed or ferocious as their debut record – the likes of ‘Gengis Khan’ and ‘Rasputin’, guitar histrionics aside, are a little silly and veer on the side of comic book metal – this is still brutally brilliant and brimming with energy and the sense of oppressive chaos which screams ‘CAVALERA’. Max here has evoked the heights of ‘Chaos AD’ and ‘Nailbomb’ without ever becoming a prisoner to his own past.
From the vaults: Rocket from the Crypt – RFTC (1998)
A bunch of sing-along-anthems to make you dance like a drunken uncle at New Year’s whilst having more fun than a tickled toddler. Essentially ska-meets-rock ‘n’ roll, RFTC deliver punchy tunes built upon blues guitars, swinging rhythms, crooned vocals and a brass backing. ‘I Know’ is a bad-ass boogie with punk-rock insistence, ‘Panic Scam’ evokes Social Distortion, and ‘Break It Up’ channels 1950’s teen abandon through modern amplification – Green Day wish they could sound like this! Lyrically, very simple imagery is chosen to take you to the heart of universal experiences. ‘Lipstick’, for example, conjures up the initial tingling of lust, whilst the tender lament of ‘Your Touch’ proves that RFTC are much more than pop-rock frills.
Startlingly direct and deliciously uncomplicated, RFTC rummage through the bounty of western music’s heritage and wrap up what they pilfer in an effortless cool. This is the perfect juke-box selection to summer nights and boozed-up reveries, and if ‘Dick On A Dog’ doesn’t make you smile then you’re dead inside.
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Kingdom of Sorrow – Behind the Blackest Tears
Kingdom of Sorrow’s second album continues to blend the punk leanings of Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta with Crowbar/Down guitar lord Kirk Windstein. Welding hardcore with the bowel-loosening heaviness of Crowbar’s demonic blues in a manner altogether more successful – and energetic – than on their debut, Jasta and Windstein have found considerable common ground between their styles.
This collection of mid-paced bruisers is propelled by Windstein’s twisted, colossal dinosaur metal riffs and kicked about by Jasta’s head-butting vocal delivery. It’s impressively heavy – both sonically and emotively. Opener ‘Enlightented To Extinction’ is drenched in rich hooks and is the sort of melodic heaviness which most metalcore bands would kill for; ‘God’s Law in the Devil’s Land’ possesses the melody of one who has kissed the darkness and come up smiling; and the nightmarish ‘Enlighten the Divide’ offsets its beautiful doom melodies with a crunching earthquake of a riff.
For all of that Sabbath-derived heaviness, it’s only on ‘From Heaven To Dirt’ that Kingdom of Sorrow become a band which can not only revival the day jobs of its members, but surpass it. With a vampiric hook and trippy, nightingale melodies, it really is unlikely anything either of them have penned before. As it stands, Kingdom of Sorrow are delivering quality metal records with purpose; but there are hints here that they might be able to deliver a truly staggering one.
By the way, Ralph Scheepers, vocalist for Primal Fear is a badass vocalist. He was asked to audition to replace Halford after he left Priest, though the cunt at Priest's management office Trinifold (Jayne Andrews) denies every talking with him. He would have been a good replacement. He certainly has the pipes.
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binnie (09-02-2011)
From the vaults: Life of Agony – Broken Valley (2005)
From hardcore bruisers to post-grunge songsmiths, the career of Life of Agony has twisted and turned with each successive record – comparing the crafted and polished writing of ‘Broken Valley’ to the aching rawness of their ‘River Runs Red’ debut evokes a chasm in terms of finesse, but in terms of aesthetic – the experience of catharsis and channelling of the human condition – they have more in common than their sonic palette might suggest.
Here, L.O.A sound like Velvet Revolver with better songs. The ultra-heavy hardcore-meets-metal, Helmet inspired riffage of their earlier work gives way to a sound which, although still drenched in punk, is filtered through Husker Du and Stone Temple Pilots. The result is a sound that is layered, delicate and desperate. They cooked up something truly special: this is music as catharsis which unglues the darkness of your soul, and soothes it.
‘Love To Let You Down’ booms out of the speakers with a rumbling, grubby riff and incessant vocal delivery from Keith Caputo. ‘Last Cigarette’ evokes a darkened New York Dolls punk and swirls around a hook which builds and builds to the point of ecstasy. At times, the guitar sound is poignantly painful: on ‘Wicked Ways’ it is dying, and on ‘Junk Sick’ the tone is tortured, wrestling with Caputo for control of the song, the sound of a band truly on fire. But for all the power of the performances, it’s the songs which truly sparkle. ‘The Calm That Disturbs You’ is a jittering, jilting piece of alt. rock distrubia wrapped up in luscious melodies; and ‘Strung Out’ is built upon a chorus of Old Testament proportions, the perfect vehicle for its baleful take on addiction – this is no staid angst, nor dourful lament for its own sake. Caputo’s broken caresses never over-sell the emotion of his subject, and on the title track and ‘Justified’ L.O.A deliver lullabies for the dispossessed – songs which capture those moments in our lives which no-one else should see. Few metal bands harness fragility to such powerful effect.
Anthrax – Worship Music
Worship music? They must do, given the clusterfuck of a way this album came into life. First Joey Belladonna re-joins the band and they announce they’ll make a new record with the classic line-up. Then they decide it’s not working, so out goes Joey and in comes Phil Anselmo wannabe Dan Nelson. He subsequently walks – more primadona than Belladonna – and is replaced by John Bush, who replaced Joey Belladonna in 1992. Bush subsequently decided he was no longer committed to music full time and was replaced by none other than………………………..Joey Belladonna. Confused? It’s exhausting keeping up (he’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out, we’re walking through the darkness……..)
Since the mid-90s, Anthrax have become something of a soap opera. Failing to replace Dan Spitz for many years meant that the records they made in that period – ‘Stomp 442’ and ‘Volume 8: the Threat Is Real’ – felt more like clubhouse projects than the workings of a band. Add into that the fact that they were royally fucked by their record company on promotion, and were consequently playing to smaller and smaller audiences, it’s a miracle they’re still here in 2011 at all. For all the quality of 2003’s ‘We Have Come For You All’, the real reason for that longevity – dogged determination aside – is surely the sheer quality of the music they made between 1985 and 1993. In that period they were – no arguments please – one of the best heavy metal bands on the planet. A riff-shitting, anthem spewing, mosh-pit inducing band of punk/metal upstarts that could hang with any of the ‘Big Four’ live (or anyone else for that matter). And when ‘Earth On Hell’ – the opening cut on ‘Worship Music’ – kicks into life with blast beats and series of frankly juggernaut sized riffs, you’re taken right back to the epicentre of thrash. Your ears can almost taste ‘Caught In A Mosh’, ‘Gung Ho’, and ‘Medussa’. From the get go, ‘Worship Music’ has the whiff of a classic about it.
Not that is sounds particularly retro. ‘Crawl’ is as much Seattle as it is Bay Area, and the ball-swinging groove of ‘The Constant’ is as relevant to 2011 as it is to 1988. But it has a retro vibe, a retro attitude. This is heavy and aggressive music, but it’s not oppressive, drenched in ennui or thick in catharsis like so much modern metal – it’s metal which is invigorating, which jolts you into the best soul you can be. ‘The Devil You Know’ is what thrash would have sounded like if Ronnie James Dio had penned the tunes, it’s epic chorus recalling the best of the ‘thrax’s ‘90s work and sitting over some classic metal thunder led by a teasing riff. The mid-range crunch of ‘In The End’ is like Maiden on crack and would have been a classic in ANY era; the relentless riffology of ‘Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t’ embodies the deafening defiance that this music stands for; and on ‘I’m Alive’ Joey Belladonna announces that he was born to sing for this band, and Charlie Bennante proves that he was born to pen heavy-ass riffs for it. By the time the visceral heaviness and adrenalin hooks of ‘Revolution Screams’ claw their way into you at the record’s close, you share the emotion that the band so clearly feel here in realizing that they’ve just made the record that’s been throbbing in the veins of Scott Ian’s skull for the past 30 years.
In truth, ‘Worship Music’ can enter the ring with Anthrax’s classic and not come out too bruised. It is easily the match of any of the ‘thrash revival’ records of recent years: more focussed than ‘Death Magnetic’, more adventurous than the by-the-numbers ‘World Painted Blood’ and more complete and consistently brilliant than ‘United Abominations’ or ‘Endgame’. Along with Testament, Kreator and Exodus, Anthrax are reminding us what thrash was all about in the first place: aggressive yielding positivity. It’s great to have you back fellas.
Chimaira – The Age of Hell
Few bands have endured more setbacks and hard luck than Chimaira, and ‘Age of Hell’ continues the bands revolving-door policy of previous years, with half of the group leaving during its recording. If anything, however, difficulty has served to galvanize, rather than disparage, Chimaira’s spirit: this is an absolute monster of a modern metal record. Chimaira are this generation’s Overkill – they’re never going to give us a truly classic record, but they’ve made their mark through a dogged determinism to fly the flag of metal, and their music resonates with that irresistible honesty.
Less dark than their previous three records, the band has taken some chances here and they have paid off. The result is an album with considerable variety in tone and texture. The title track is thrashier than they’ve ever sounded: taut and lean guitars sit over double-bass drums, and if you took away Mark Thomas’s growl it could be Forbidden. In contrast, ‘Clockwise’ evokes the industrial pretentions of Fear Factory, and injects melodic vocals to remarkable effect, and feat taken further on ‘Beyond The Grave’, which sees Mark Thomas eschew the naked aggression he’s known for in favour of some rich vocal crooning – the result is one of the most memorable and groove-laden tunes Chimaira have ever penned. Indeed, despite the difficult circumstances of this record’s creation, the band seems to have lightened up considerably from previous albums. This is heavy for sure, but even at their most brutal, they inject the songs with catchy guitar hooks and incessant rhythms. ‘Losing My Mind’ uses ½ time tension to great effect, and its shuffling, mid-paced bruiser of a riff deserves an award of its own; and ‘Time is Running Out’ – with its chanted chorus – is utterly compelling, and screams ‘SINGLE’. By the time the Metallica-esque instrumental closer ‘Samsara’ fades in your speakers, you’ve completed quite a journey. This is band which deserves to be respected: ‘Age of Hell’ might not be as jaw-droppingly majestic as 2009’s ‘Infectious’, but it is more enjoyable and palatable. You’ll hear better albums this year – more adventurous, more complex, more heavy – but I doubt you’ll hear any that come close to evoking the sheer joy of heavy metal in a way that evokes Pantera in full flow.
Wolves Like Us – Late Love
When you think of Norway’s heavy bands, you think black metal. Scary, dark, satanic black metal – not the cartoon Satanism of Venom, but the genuinely unnerving sort. It’s a surprise, then, to learn that Wolves Like Us are not yet another band of corpse-paint wearing copyists: featuring former members of post hardcore bands JR Ewing and Amulet, they play bass driven hardcore-meets-alt-rock with gorilla sized balls. This is a more static Mastodon stripped of their grandeur to something more skeletal, and channelled through an aesthetic which is heavily indebted to Fugazi and Quicksand. The result is something sparse yet beefy. Opener ‘Burns Like a Paper Rose’ evokes Killing Joke in a seductive mode; ‘Deathless’ is a punch-drunk prayer on broken knees with a clout that leaves you reeling; and ‘Sin After Sin’ is a throbbing, aching song which reeks of claustrophobic longing. WLU recognize that being heavy and brutal for the sake of it ultimately produces a sound which is one-dimensional, and they pepper their heaviness with intricate leads, melodic sections and a rhythm section which really swings. The result is an odd – indeed unnerving – poppiness amidst the anger, and it works to startling effect.
Not everything on this debut is stellar. ‘Old Dirty Paranoia’ and ‘Secret Handshakes’ feel aimless and unfocussed, and the album could do with an injection of pace. But there is an incredible amount of promise here - both ‘We Speak in Tongues’ and ‘Shiver In the Heat’ drip with maturity, and ‘My Enemy’ is a precocious and ferocious slice of alt.rock genius. One of 2011’s pleasant surprises.
From the vaults: A – Hi Fi Serious (2003)
Unashamedly pop drive party-time rock music from a British band not afraid to douse its listeners in melodies. Let us be clear: the list of British rock bands in 2003 who were better than A was a long one – Therapy?, The Wildhearts, Three Colours Red, Feeder, Hundred Reasons, Muse, Funeral For A Friend, Lostprophets… - but this was nonetheless an album brimming over with fun. Opener ‘Nothing’ is propelled by a vast and vicious slab of guitar which owns the airwave:
‘Gimmie some love/ Gimmie some skin/
If we ain’t got that then we ain’t got much and we ain’t got nothing’
Hard to disagree, or not punch the air. And the out and out rockers keep coming: ‘Shut Yer Face’, Pacific Ocean Blue’ and ‘The Distance’ see the band at full tilt, where they feel most natural. It’s all terribly nice, of course, but enjoyable nonetheless. ‘Something Going On’ is a bit Offspringy, and ‘Going Down’ sounds like Weezer – both are decent enough tunes in themselves, but they feel a little out of place on the disc as a whole. Sure, A are not the band with legions of bands screaming for the vaults to be opened and the B sides thrust into the world, but that’s not say they’re not worth your time. When the title track rounds things off with a series of punk chords slamming into a sort of boogie rock disco, you can’t help but smile.
Alice Cooper – Welcome 2 My Nightmare
Re-capturing the essence of a classic record is impossible and anyone expecting ‘2’ to emulate its namesake will be sorely, sorely disappointed. That’s not to say that it’s a bad album – far from it – or that it’s not worth your time. Indeed, like just about every Coop album, it’ll entertain you – even the clunkers in his back catalogue manage to raise a smile.
Indeed, there are some bloody good rock ‘n’ roll songs here. ‘The Congregation’ has a whiff of the Oasis version of The Beatles about it, and is built around a filthy riff; the ballad ‘Something To Remember Me By’ – which features a beautiful, floating solo – sees Alice showing restraint where you’d expect overkill; and ‘Last Man On Earth’, featuring a tuba and violin no less, is a very Cooperian take on Americana. So far, so weird and wonderful. The best moments, however, are undoubtedly when Alice plays the garage rock on which he built his name and to which his voice is best suited. For example ‘Caffeine’, with its juicy riff and a teasing, pantomime vocal, would not be out of place in the Rocky Horror Show. Best of all are the three tunes on which Alice is joined by his Billion Dollar Babies bandmates Denis Dunway, Michael Bruce, and Neil Smith: ‘A Runaway Train’ is a shuffling blues, ‘When Hell Comes Home’ evokes the brooding, schizophrenic rock of their heyday, and ‘I’ll Bite Your Face Off’ is menacing and macabre, and features a damn fine set of lyrics. It’s everything you want from Alice Cooper – and you can’t help but get wrapped up in his world for 4 minutes.
And yet, ‘2’ leaves you feeling a little cold. The problem is not that the songs aren’t good, but rather that – despite the nominal presence of a ‘story’ – they don’t gell sonically into a unified album. Part of the problem is surely the rather revolving cast of songwriters. Alice and producer Bob Ezrin have assembled something of a ‘hit team’ in Keith Nelson (Buckcherry), Desmond Childs (arrrrrggh!) and Kei$ha, who appears in all of her auto-tuned glory. The result is something of a clutter, albeit an enjoyable one. You do wish, however, that someone had pressed ‘delete’ on ‘Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever’ – a song as clumbsy as its title suggests – which sees Alice rap (yes, ‘rap’) some funky-uncle lyrics which sound as edgy as Neil Sedaka; and the woeful ‘What Baby Wants’, in which he duets with the aforementioned Kei$ha, a girl young enough to be his granddaughter, in a song which at least fulfils the nightmare’s role of being creepy.
In truth, then, ‘2’ is not much different from most records by ageing rock stars: it features moments which remind you of former heights, moments which surprise you in their quality; and moments which are downright embarrassing. What it does have, however, is Alice Cooper, who oozes charm throughout. ‘2’ is a lot of fun, but it’s far from being the best of even his latter day albums.
katina (08-06-2012)
Sebastian Bach – Kicking & Screaming
The third solo record from the former Skid Row belter sees Bach injecting his future with a sense of his past. Nostalgia is avoided, as is the potential banana skin of embracing current trends for the sake of it. Hooking up with young guitar-slinger and songwriter Nick Sterling has proven an astute move. Where previous effort ‘Angel Down’ (2007) saw Bach approaching a Pantera-induced blend of pseudo thrash to which his pipes were not best suited, Sterling’s collection of hard rock tunes are a much more natural home. What we get is a poppier metal laced with piss ‘n’ vinegar. On the brooding anthem ‘Tunnel Vision’ John 5 makes his thunderous presence known, whilst the metallic majesty and defiant pomp of ‘Dirty Power’ and rumbling menace of ‘Lost In The Light’ are the crystallisation of Bach’s past, present and future.
The title-track – an anthem to moving on and squeezing the juice out of life – deserves to be a hit and is delivered on a gargantuan hook. Bach sounds in fine form here, toning down the histrionics of yore to explore the melodic capabilities of his voice. The result of this ‘less is more’ approach to singing is that when the screams kick they kick! Producer Bob Marlette surely deserves the credit for both this and the added focus in evidence on ‘Kicking..’. Presenting a sound which is both huge and raw, he has also ensured that the ballads are light and shimmering as opposed to rigid and stale: ‘I’m Alive’ and ‘Wishing’ both see Baz in fine form, although this record does not possess a tune to match ‘Angel Down’s’ ‘By Your Side’.
Is it all world class modern metal? Of course not. ‘Dance On Your Grave’ smacks of filler, and ‘Dream Forever’ veers towards tepid. But compared to most of the rotting nostalgia which his peers are peddling, or the kitsch driven sunset strip wannabe bands which pass as ‘hard rock’ to modern record executives, ‘Kicking and Screaming’ is a revelation: a good time rock album which makes the world feel a little better for 50 minutes and gives your day a giant kick in the ass.
Seshmeister (09-30-2011)
Pain of Salvation – Road Salt
Jamming out smooth and warm blues/funk from Sweden, P.O.S are heavily influenced by Humble Pie, Blind Faith and The Small Faces, and deliver a heady brew of hard rock laden with piano and organ. Opener ‘No Way’ is a bluesy refrain of desperation, telling the tale of a cuckolded man in denial about his lover moving on; and the gospel folk of ‘She Likes To Hide’ exists amidst the sinewy whisper of the vocals. Elsewhere, there is evidence of a broad musical palette. ‘Sister’ evokes Proccul Harum gothic and Nick Cave melancholy; and ‘Darkness of Mine’ feels like a grungier Jeff Buckley. It’s extraordinarily sincere – but not sentimental – in its delivery, and features an unapologetically late ‘60s ethos in which music exists without the constraints of labels and pigeonholing. Sonically it’s a very broad church, but one kept unified by a powerful emotive core. In the hands of an uber-producer, added focus might deliver something truly astonishing – as it stands, ‘Road Salt’ is a rock record which dazzles, drifts and spits into life.
I was watching their infamous minge out for the lads appearance on The Word today.
http://youtu.be/GypkmEUhHvQ
Around the same time as the infamous tampon incident.
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Just listening to it at the moment after the heads up.
Is this what counts as 'poppier' these days? Does it become pop if you can make out most of the words?
I shudder to think what you're going to call my new bands stuff...
Anything to match my fave backing vocal of all time by him, 'and pins' from 'Poison'?
Alice with his producer Bob Ezrin.
Alice is older.
Hey Binnie have you heard the new Queensryche album yet?
I just saw this review which isn't entirely positive...
Dedicated To Chaos
With American Soldier, Queensryche killed their career. With this album, they've dimmed the lights, drawn back the blinds, put on some romantic music, and have begun sexually molesting their career's corpse.
You can almost admire the audacity with which they've sold out now. No more maddening half-and-half albums. No more compromising with their old style. No more "write a token metal song here and there to keep stringing our fans along". They've thrown out all pretenses of being a metal band, and if you buy a Queensryche album now you deserve exactly what you get.
"Dedicated to Chaos" is nearly the weakest, wussiest album you've ever heard, it's not heavy, it's not interesting, there are no hooks, you can see occasional references to bands like Coldplay and U2, but otherwise there's NOTHING. Listen to the opening track, "Get Started". It's a Foo Fighters riff followed by three minutes of the band chasing their tail. There is zero reason for this song to exist, and most of stuff on here is like that. You get the sense that the band would have released a CD containing 70 minutes of silence but the label put their foot down.
By track two it's obvious that the album is going nowhere fast. "Hot Spot Junkie" sees these four middle-aged shrubs trying their precious little hearts out to name-drop popular internet sites. "All the pictures on Youtube"...I quit. Your guys probably had to rewrite the lyrics already when someone told you that computers don't have gas tanks. "Got It Bad" is a really crappy and weak clone of Van Halen's "I'll Wait."
If you're looking for good music here, "At the Edge" is the closest place. The weak production and lifeless guitar tone hurts it badly, but there's an atmosphere, and that's something missing from the rest of this album. "Retail Therapy"...If you like this stuff, I hear Korn has a new album out. Nice lyrics too. I'm sure all Operation Mindcrime fans are just dying to hear a song about how people go shopping to help deal with the symptoms of mild depression. METUUUUHHHLLL.
"Wot We Do" is a hellish pukestorm of shit that I hate, hate, hate with every fibre of my body and soul. Guys, why do you hate your fans? Why do you write shit like this? This is good music like a bucket of elephant diarrhea is effective hospital sanitation. Between the anodyne R'n'B music and Tate's leering, obnoxious, "aren't I awful?" vocal delivery, this is easily the album's worst song. Three and a half minutes of poison.
Rounding out this incredibly gay album we have "Big Noize". From the title, I thought it was going to be a limp-wristed cock-rock song a'la Empire. In fact...it's something far weirder. There's ambience and keyboards and industrial noises vide Nine Inch Nails and...is the song starting yet? It goes nowhere. This is not a song. This is a six and a half minute failed studio experiment. Don't waste a single second of your life listening to this thing.
This is not an album you want to hear, look at, or even think about. Avoid, because if you even so much as read the tracklisting on the back of the CD it will have taken more out of your life than it can ever give back.
Sesh, did you hear the new Steel Panther?
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see you in Glasgow!
Just the single. Amazingly it's actually getting some airplay on BBC Radio 1 which is the biggest and usually very non rock station.
Yes. I thought about reviewing it, but realized I had very little positive to say. You'll notice that I generally only review things that I like, for two reasons: 1) it's very easy to slag things off, and 2) everyone who makes an album is more talented than me, so why should I slate it.
I will say this: like 'em or lump 'em, Queesryche refuse to do what is expected of them. I suppose that means that they are indeed 'artists'. The new record sounds like your dad trying to 'get down' with the kids, however.
A lot of the kids I spoke to at a festival this year struggled to call Priest 'metal' because it's too melodic! I guess what would have been 'extreme' in the '80s is now the mainstream as far as metal goes, and the scream/shout vocal style is the norm (although there are as many ways of doing that as there are singing).Just listening to it at the moment after the heads up.
Is this what counts as 'poppier' these days? Does it become pop if you can make out most of the words?
I shudder to think what you're going to call my new bands stuff...
In Baz's case, I guess I mean 'poppier' in the sense that it is very hooky. Which is good, as it suits him. 'Angel Down' was a lot more full tilt - he did a lot of screaming on it, which over-cooked some of the tunes.
Malefice – Awaken the Tides.
Listening to this disk conjures up a number of adjectives – ‘competent’, ‘solid’, ‘workmanlike’, ‘decent’ – which are both adequate, and in adequate. Adequate in the sense that they express the fact that Malefice do little more than express the current mould of post-metalcore heavy music; and inadequate in the sense that to note that they do so is not criticize them for it. Indeed, for all there are no surprises on ‘Awaken the Tides’ – the British metallers’ third album – it is a riot! The title track in a thrash-tastic pummel with hard-core aesthetics; ‘Delerious’ is darkened metalcore; and ‘Baying For Blood’ is an impassioned blast of Lamb Of God style brutality. So far, so good. But the band, whilst certainly absorbed in the modern metal scene, does not really have its own sound. Thus the thrash-with-pop-sensibilities of ‘Moments’ smacks of later-day In Flames; and ‘Flood of Red’ and ‘Dead in the Water’ are generic metal plodders. The best thing here comes when the band push themselves into experimentation. ‘The Day The Sky Fell’ is awash with soft/heavy dynamics, melodic and emotive vocals, and space between the players which make it sound huge – when they paint in shades other than aggression, Malefice are onto something. Not every band can be a paradigm shifter, and we should not dismiss Malefice for being part of the pack. This is a well produced, well played, and very heavy blend of modern metal.
I always picture Sebastian Bach at a crossroads with the devil trading his brain for an amazing voice.
I would totally understand the 'kids' being repelled by the image of Priest, I was cringing like fuck last time I saw them, spandex in your 50s FFS but I hope that they can still appreciate a melody.
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