Album Reviews

[binnie]

"Better Man" was actually a song Vedder wrote and performed with his old band Bad Radio in the 80's.

Cheers, I didn't know that. I often listen to the first three Pearl Jam records to remind myself that, before they crawled up their own asses, they were a damn fine band.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Motley Crue - Motley Crue (1994)

Singers are the hardest band members to replace. The voice is not only the most identifiable element of a band's sound, it is also often the one that carries their attitude. Consequently, when John Corrobi replaced Vince Neil in Motley Crue during the mid-90s, they sounded like another band. With added rhythm guitar they were heavier, darker and, as a result of Corrobi's smokey, raspy voice, blusier. The bleached blonde party hard sensibilities left with Vince, and this record was a long way from the arena straddling, face fucking pomp of the band's '80s bombast. From the moment that the gargantuan drums and boulder size riff of 'Power To The music' kicks in, you know this is an altogether different Crue: greasier, more metallic, and striving to be more mature. Is it a good Crue record? No. Is it a good stand alone record? Absolutely.

Sure the odd choice of imagery and artwork felt like a contrived attempt at re-invention; sure, it was too damn long; and, sure, on balance it was probably more Corrabi's record than it was Crue's. But songs like 'Hooligan's Holiday' - which slithers from the gutter like broken ambition - are how rock 'n' roll should have sounded in the '90s. 'til Death Do us Part' is a monster of a power-ballad which sounds something like Zeppelin humping Stone Temple Pilots, whilst, converesely, 'Loveshine' is a restrained and beautiful piece of americana. You can't deny that the band were striving for something new here. Sure, 'Smoke The Sky' was meat and potatoes rock; and the faux Alice In Chains melodies of 'Uncle Jack' didn't come off. But there is a lot to like here, even if you do have to forgo your assumptions of what Motley Crue 'should' sound like in order to do so. Certainly the last interesting record they made and - I would suggest - the one which contains the least amount of filler.

[binnie]

Children of Bodom - Relentless Reckless Forever

Album no. 7 from Finland's metal masters will have you grinning like a cat that not only got the cream, but some tasty feline pussy too! Sampling every aspect of metal's illustrious and varied history from death to glam, COB have always been an entry level band for those looking to delve into a more extreme form of music: welding heaviness with pop sensibilities, they ride the listener through their particular brand of hyperactive madness with a sense of pure joy. This is metal which is aggressive, but not oppressive; heavy, but not harrowing. With Matt Hyde's crisp and crunchy production and that fact that - in contrast to their previous two studio outings - there's not much fat or filler here, we have a very good piece of modern metal.

'Not My Funeral' is pure power metal. Think Helloween for the 21st century. Hyperactive riffs switch and twist the song around in a sound which dabbles in keyboards and melodic vocal lines. The band have always been at their best when playing fast and things are no different this time out: 'Ugly' is a ghoolish tune which arrives with neck-snapping pace and dazzling energy, and 'Northpole Throwdown' is music to crash your car too. The standout feature of the band has always been the epic guitar work of Alex Laiho and Roope Latvala (check out 'Pussy Fott Miss Suicide' and 'Shovel Knockout'.) They cement their status here as the Downing and Tipton of modern metal.

Are there many classic songs here? Probably not. But 'Relentless Reckless Forever' works as an album and - like COB's earliest work - we might still be talking about it a decade down the line. Bang thy head.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Garbage - Version 2.0

Garbage were one those bands who never really fitted in: not Brit Pop, not post-grunge, and not out and out rock, their heady brew of scuzzy guitars, samples and the saccarine-menace of Shirley Manson's vocals made for a danceable but oddly dark slice of industrial pop. Despite the unique nature of the music, it was really Manson's voice that sold it: sexy, menacing, vulnerable and honest, for all the production sheen, her emotion shone through. Whether its the fractured beauty and glistening saddness of 'Medication', the lush siren-call of alt.rock perfection of 'Push It', the stomp of 'Wicked Ways' or the twisted, nasty slab of a love song which is 'I think I'm Paranoid', her uncluttered and under-cooked vocal sticks it to ya. Sure, not everything here has aged well - the clunky electronica of 'Harmony In My Head' and 'Dumb' sound their age, for example - but this is still the sound of a band skewing the left-of-field into the centre ground. Pop darkness from Butch Vig anyone?

[binnie]

Annihilator - Annilhator

Album number 246 from Jeff Waters and his revolving crew of metal junkies builds on the momentum of decent records they've put out inthe past decade or so, but its heavier and more aggressive. In fact, if truth be told this is one hell of a metal record that should have been hyped to hell but runs the risk of falling by the wayside. In many respects, the same could be said of Annihilator's entire career: they say Megadeth 's 'Rust In Peace' was ground zero for speed metal, but Annihilators 'Alice In Hell' might be a better place to start. Like Overkill, it seems that Jeff Waters might never get the respect he deserves.

Opener 'The trend' allows 2 minutes of riffage before we even hear a vocal and is essentially a thrash-tastic piece of speed metal with a bitchin' hook. It sets the scene for the rest of the disc: the playing here is exceptional, huliking Hetfield riffs and technically dazzling - but eviscerating - solos boom out of the speakers. 'Ther Other Side'; is anthemic, and deserves to be a live stalwart; 'Payback' is crushing; and on '25 Seconds' the band give us a slab of 21st century metal in all of its disjointed, screamy, atmospheric glory. With all this on show, we can almost forgive the rather clunky version of Van Halen's 'Romeo's Delight'.

In the past, Waters has often been guilty of over-thinking songs and records rather than just playing 'em. This is none stop balls out metal. Forget Forbidden, Forget Death Angel, forget Kreator and forgewhat's left of Exodus: the thrash revival starts here mothertruckers!

[binnie]

Sylosis - Edge of the Earth

This is something special. Really, really special. It may be as good a slab of 21st century metal as you're likely to hear: aggressive, passionate, technically flabbergasting, progressive and yet flat our rocking, these guys have really cooked up something.............special. In Josh Middleton we may have the next metal guitar hero (the new Mustaine?): smokingly fast, precise riffage, dazzling solos and thoughtful, stirring tonal work allow this record to soar well above the oh-so-angry run of the mill metal. There is a maelstrom of stlyes here. The bedrock is progressive thrash for sure, but we also get hardcore vocals, medolic interludes, complex arrangements and emotive, thoughtful lyrics. Whether its the slow burn of the seething and symphonic opener 'Procession', the 'fuck me!' riffage of 'Kingdom of Solitude', the sheer biblical fury of 'Dystopia' or the masterful, elegant and sinewey birth of 'Empyreal', the quality here is staggering. It's the songs the sparkle - just when you thought extreme metal was getting cluttered, stale and cliched, Sylosis point the way forward, combining the progression of Mastodon and Gojira with the immediate face-melting power of old school metal.

What stops this record short of being a classic, however, is its length: 72 minutes makes for a punishing listen with music of this intensity, and you can't help thinking that editing a few of the tunes would have made the whole more impactful ('Sands of Time', for example, is much closer to peers like Chimera than anything else here). You can forgive them wanting to show off, though. When you can write something as bollock-achingly brilliant as 'A Serpent's Tongue' - perhaps the most conventional, and concise, tune here - then you would wail about it too. Not an easy listen, but an important one. All hail the new kings!!!!

[binnie]

Trap Them - Darker Handicraft

A black cover. 11 mat black pages. A single phrase in white letters - 'where there is no light, there is chaos'. Rarely has artwork summarized an aesthetic so clinically. Trap Them deliver 31 punishing minutes of sheer damage. Part of you will be tucked into a corner of the room, knees up to your chest, willing it to stop; the rest will be yearning for more; and ALL of you will react, because music can rarely make you feel so alive and so desperate.

Hardcore with no pretense, no scense and no gimmicky chain-gang choruses and breakdowns, this is epic. Bass-heavy and driven by tort guitar riffage, this is a more muscular sound than you might expect from something so immersed in punk. Brian Izzi is something of a genius on guitar - the sheer pressence of his pneumatic playing and dark, burnt tones is frankly staggering and makes Trap Them sound evil. Check out 'Evictionaries' is you don't believe me. 'The Facts' and 'Slumcult and Gather' sound like Entombed on speed; and there simply are no superlatives to describe how downright nasty 'Damage Prose' is. Even when they slow the pace they stagger - 'Drag the Wounds Eternal' is a disjointed, pulsating harpy hovering over the room in which you listen to it.

This is the best record I've heard in 2011 so far.

[binnie]

The King Blues - Punk & Poetry

This is a remarkable piece of work for 2 reasons. Firstly, it features songs written with charisma, bite and irony about subjects that matter: the recession, broken Britain, pornography, feminism and fatherhood. It does so in an intelligent and frank manner, in a manner we haven't really seen since Ian Dury. Secondly, this is a British punk album through and through - gritty, grimey, blunt, uncomfortable and hostile - but one which eschews the trappings of nostaliga and limitations of emulation in favour of a unique sound spiced with the ethos of The Clash, The Sex Pistols, and Sham 69, if not their methods. Take 'Shooting Fascists': a typical subject for classic punk fodder, played on........................................a ukuele. Talk about over-turning expectations! And so it is with the rest of this record. There are loud guitars, but they are mixed with reggae, dub, trip hop and pure pop. The references range from The Prodigy at their most nihilistic to Prince to Rage Against The Machine. This really is 'urban' music in an its grit and drizzle. It is also dazzlingly ambitious.

Vocalist Johnny 'Itch' Fox - with London working class swagger - could surely be the voice of a disenfranchised generation. You'd much rather your 15 year old kid was listening to something as expressive and provacative as this rather than that chap called Kanye. 3 albums in prove that this young guy is no one-trick poney. Angry, but not despondant, the songs always come first here. 'We Are Fucking Angry', 'The Future's Not What It Used To Be' and 'Shampoo' are remarkable achivements - concise, curiously understated, and containing their anger within a sense of melody and bounce. It's a little over-polished in places, which robs some of the songs of their bite, but The King Blues really do deserve to be a phenomenon.

[binnie]

From the vaults: Hatebreed - The Rise of Brutality (2003)

'Every drop of blood
Every bitter tear
Every bead of sweat
I Live for this.'

Pretty much sums it up. You'll hear bands with better songs, better playing, and with a damn sight more to say. But rarely will you hear one with more passion. Hatebreed's brand of metal and hardcore is based around 2 minute songs ripped to their fighting weight and void of flab. Unlike the wealth of 'metalcore' which followed, there are no preening melodic verses and oh-so-wearisome breakdowns here. This is music devoid of affectation: gang vocals, simple riffs, simple beats and simple ideas stripped back to their essence and played with balls. Finese? Forget about it - these are guys who live for the music and rarely get paid, guys who are fans first and rock stars second.

If you had to distill Hatebreed to their essence, you'd find that they were about overcoming, about the positive application of aggression, not whiny angst. With the rumble of 'Doomsayer', the vitriol of 'Facing What Consumes You' and brutality of 'Confide in No One', what we have here is something which is crushing but ultimately uplifiting. Equally enjoyable for fans of Devildriver as well as the Cro Mags, this is the sound of a band on fire: it's just a shame that so many bands ripped the balls out of the welding of metal and hardcore.

[binnie]

From the vaults: The Cult - Love (1985)

Listening to 'Brother Wolf, Sister Moon' you have to wonder why anyone bothered to get into hair metal in the '80s. That tune is more moving in its subtelty that 1000 power ballads. Where most '80s bands were staccato, the Cult swayed and floated freely, assaulting the listener with a rich texture of glorious chords, riffs and dark, pulsating melodies. It's unapologetically flamboyant stuff, and a soaring middle finger to the post-punk snobbery rife in the UK at the time. Take the delicate power of 'Nirvana', a tune which welds the sexual urges of late '60s blues rock with the esotericness of The Cure and spices it with eastern influences; the timeless 'She Sells Sanctuary', a glorious, howling lament of entrapment and temptation; or the acid-fuelled pulse of 'Love', which is the aural equivalent of being engulfed by a bursting sun. It's welding of Doors-esque psychedelia and Zeppelin-fuelled riffery with the post-punk and new wave arrangements of the early '80s is almost symphonic in places, most noticeably on the efforvescent ballad 'Revolution' or the beautiful closer 'Black Angel'. What The Cult achieved here is substance without pretense, depth without being over-bearing.

It's a long way from the albums for which The Cult are best known: the pure, stripped down abandon of 'Electric' and the pomp rock grandiose of 'Sonic Temple'. In my opinion, however, The Cult were always at their most powerful when at their most ethereal. Beautiful, dark, shimmering and sonorous - and in the age of Bon Jovi, too.

[sadaist]

From the vaults: The Cult - Love (1985)

Excellent.

The Cult was that one band that metal heads & new wavers both were listening to. They were above being put in any specific category or genre. So fucking talented. It's not something I can listen to every day for a year like a VH album, but it's definitely time to dust those cd's off. Thanks Binn!

[binnie]

From the vaults: Exhorder - The Law (1992)

Popular wisdom suggests that the first wave of a musical genre is generally substantially better than those that follow. Exhorder offer one of history's exceptions. This 3rd wave thrash band released two classic - and I mean CLASSIC - albums: 'Slaughter In The Vatican' and 'The Law'. They stand up there with the likes of Testament, Death Angel, Exodus or Forbidden. What Exhorder added was a burst of new ideas, and a variety on the classic sound. The guitar sound here is rich and muscular, with plenty of bottom end to beef-up the sound; and Kyle Thomas's groove-ridden, soulful vocals have since been hugely influential - you can tell Phil Anselmo was listening.

What Exhorder realized is that speed doesn't necessarily equal power. Mixing extremes of tempos (death-defyingly fast with skull-numbingly slow) added dexterity and crunch to the songs and is a pattern which so many bands have emulated in subsequent years (most noticeably Machine Head, who have perfected it). With so much groove, power and crunch, comparrisons with Pantera are obvious. Exhorder certainly didn't have the songs to punch with that band; nor did they have the guitar pyrotechnics; but - as the likes of '(Cadence of) The Dirge' demonstrated - they did have the power. The heaviness here is oppressive. Opener 'Soul Searching' is bestial and savage, and could trade blows with anything any heavy band have put out in the last 20 years; and the leaden cover of Sabbath's 'Into The Void' is the sound of heavy being re-defined. In 1992 this was the sound of a game being upped. Metallica had taken metal into the mainstream; Megadeth were intent on making it more technical; and Anthrax were evolving away from their thrash roots. With Exodus, Forbidden, Death Angel and Possessed all having produced their best work, the unbriddled fury which had characterized thrash metal was in danger of passing. Exhorder played a significant role in keeping metal uncomplicated and powerful, and as a watershed album this remains pivotal.

Perhaps 'The Law' was not as complete a record as 'Slaughter....' In truth, their are too many ideas - both musically and lyrically - in some of these songs, a fact which prevents them gelling as compositions. But when it all comes together, like on the title cut or 'Unforgiven', it is quite special. Meat and potatoes metal subject matter such as anti-religion and corrupt society are considered in the lyrics, but they sit alongside other subjects - namely morality and mortality - which show a band striving to push boundaries. Sometimes Thomas reaches for profound and grabs purple, but the ambition is admirable. Kyle Thomas might be metal's forgotten man. Alongside Exhorder, he handled vocals in another chronically underrated band: Floodgate. Both deserve your attention.

[binnie]

Sodom - War and Pieces.

The latest album from Germany's other great metal band proves two things: firstly, that some old bands really can recapture former glories; and, secondly, that Germans do have a sense of humour - the band's website is www.sodomized.info!

What makes Sodom great is that they don't overcomplicate anything. They don't make music to dazzle technicians. They make it to kick your head in! This arises from a 3 piece sound, with power coming in slabs of thick, chunky riffage, power chords, and bass driven rumble. The opening title cut is classic thrash spiced with melody and a subtle sense of groove. 'Hellfire' and 'Storm Raging On' hammer along with a furious intensity, whilst 'Through Toxic Veins' alternates from the melodic and intricate to flat out slamming metal and 'God Bless You' is part power-ballad, and part anthem. The vocals here work well - not growled or grunted - but not sung either, they fit in perfectly with Sodom's empowering and grizzly aesthetic. They serve to add a sense of continuity to the compositions.

What surprises most is the quantity of the quality. There are no duds here - 'Nothing Counts More Than Blood', 'Styptic Parasite', 'Feigned Death Throes' - this album just does not let up. A second disc of a live performance from the Wacken festival in 2007 serves to show that this new record stands up to Sodom's classic record. In this sense 'War and Pieces' goes some way to diminish the sense of disappointment which has greated the 'thrash revival' of recent years. These old dogs still have plenty of bite.

[rocking ron]

Does anyone hear the new SAXON cd named CALL TO ARMS ????

This British NWOBHM-band with frontman Biff Byford came up this month with their 20st?? studio album.

They also have a lot of live and best of.. albums in their catalogue.

Call to Arms do have that 80's vibe, when you listen to this it reminds you a little to some albums they've made in the 80's like Denim & Leather, Crusader and Destiny!!

Including this cd you get a 2nd disc (cd) with live stuff from their first show ever at Donington 1980!!!!

As good as begin 80's with the albums "Wheels of Steel" and their best one ever "Strong Arm of the Law" it will never gets again but "Call to Arms" is a fair Saxon album

and will not disapoint the die hard Saxon fan!!

Saxon is a real live band, I saw them in 1981 for the first time and totally I think 5 or 6 times. Also met the band after a show during a 'meet and greet'!!

Best songs on CALL TO ARMS : Hammer of the Gods - Back in '79 - Call to Arms.

Note : the song 'Back in '79' do have background-vocals from 60 or 70 Saxon fans!!!!

[binnie]

That's good to know Ron, as I've just bought 'Call To Arms'. I've not listened to it yet, but I'm looking forward to it now!