Album Reviews

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[Seshmeister]

From the vaults: L7 – Bricks are Heavy (1992)

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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[Seshmeister]

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.

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...

[Seshmeister]

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.

Anything to match my fave backing vocal of all time by him, 'and pins' from 'Poison'?

[Seshmeister]

Alice with his producer Bob Ezrin.

Alice is older.

[Seshmeister]

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.

[jero]

Sesh, did you hear the new Steel Panther?

[jero]

see you in Glasgow!