Album Reviews

[binnie]

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.

[binnie]

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.

[Dave's Bitch]

I love that album.Thanks for that one binnie

[binnie]

No probs, DB

[rockhead]

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.

[Dave's Bitch]

Thanks rockhead

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

[rockhead]

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?

[Dave's Bitch]

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

[binnie]

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).

[Dave's Bitch]

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

[binnie]

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

[ELVIS]

Too old for camping ??

No fucking such thing !!

I'll be camping 'till the day I die !!

[binnie]

Not if you were surrounded by 80,000 drunk people!

[katina]

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 !!!!

[binnie]

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……….