Album Reviews

[binnie]

That's a very nice thing to say

There was a moment in teenage life where I thought about following a career in music journalism, but other passions won out (passions which at the time seemed to lead to more solvent careers).

I suppose now I'm more 'enthusiastic amateur' - my all round music knowledge probably isn't strong enough (outside of hard rock/ metal).

[TFM_Dale]

I take it Bin, that you do this stuff for a living? If not, you ought to.

No kidding, I have even picked up albums of artists I have never bothered with after reading these reviews. Major props to Binnie, these reviews are far better then the sponsor driven shit in magazines and on other websites.

[knuckleboner]

GREAT thread, binnie.

so, volbeat's latest. would you hit it?

[ELVIS]

GREAT thread, binnie.

This is where I come to cool off...

[binnie]

It's normally women who say that to me....................

[binnie]

GREAT thread, binnie.

so, volbeat's latest. would you hit it?

Damn straight.

It's on my 'to do' list of reviews, so keep posted......

[binnie]

From the vaults: Exciter – Violence & Force (1984)

Canada’s Exciter rose to (semi) prominence at around the same time as the ‘Big 4’ of Thrash Metal. It is a testament to how golden those years were that there is a cluster of new bands in 2013 trying to make records that sound like ‘Violence & Force’ – you’ve heard better sounding demos – despite all of the studio technology available to them. That rawness – the sound might best be called ‘corrosive’ – was part of the music’s charm and, moreover, its power. The drums (double bass, naturally) are fast, the riffs are fast, the solos (you guessed it) are fast, the vocals pierce and soar and everything is on 10. Sophisticated this is not. But it is an awful lot of fun, and a glorious encapsulation of a time when traditional metal was giving way to something heavier.

Thus ‘Delivering To The Master’ sounds like an amped-up version of D’ianno-era Maiden; whilst ‘Scream In The Night’ sounds like ‘Sin After Sin’ era Priest embracing a faster pace. Elsewhere, ‘Violence & Force’ pointed to the future. The title track captures the searing thrash of early Anthrax. Were Exciter ‘thrash’ proper? The genre had yet to get to the point of political/social commentary, or set its sights on dazzling the world with ultra-technical wizardry and rubiks cube time-changes, and in truth Exciter had an awful lot in common with Motorhead and Venom in channelling the raucous energy and un-tempered fury of punk. It’s certainly not all A-rate (see ‘Destructor’ and ‘Saxons Of The Fire’), but the infectious of its delivery makes the whole record feel vital despite being almost 3 decades old. Harking back to a time when metal was (to quote Exodus) ‘Good, Friendly Violent Fun’ and didn’t take itself as seriously as it does today. Who couldn’t fall in love with ‘Pounding Metal’, the band’s Anvil-esque classic?

In many ways ‘Violence & Fun’ was not that far from the rest of the thrash pack in 1984. What separated the ‘Big Four’ (and those chasing their tails, like Exodus and Testament) from the rest was their capacity to evolve with every record. Exciter didn’t have that capacity, but that should not blind us to the merits of a band who served up some killer slices of denim and leather at one of the richest times of metal’s history.

[philouze]

Met the Exciter guys in Germany back in 1998. Wacken Open Air festival. Real nice guys.

[big fatty]

2914.jpg

Long Live The Loud was a pretty good one too. They have one hell of a deadly badass drummer. He used to also do the vocals. I saw them live back then at the York Theatre with Raven opening up.

[binnie]

Wow, who would have thought the world's 3 Exciter fans would all be members of this site?

Cool ass band.

Raven ruled, too. In fact, I don't Raven have ever been given their due.......

[big fatty]

Wow, who would have thought the world's 3 Exciter fans would all be members of this site?

Cool ass band.

Raven ruled, too. In fact, I don't Raven have ever been given their due.......

Ha, ha. No shit huh. I was surprised to see them mentioned here today.

I may of been wrong about Raven opening up though. I recall it being some sort of two night Metal thing at the same venue. I saw Exodus there too, around their Bonded By Blood period.

Raven were intense. The guitarist was a madman that jumped off the stage into the crowd and ran up & down the isles. They put on a spectacular show.

I used to buy all the heavy metal stuff back then. If it had an evil looking album cover and was on Megaforce records, I would get it.

[binnie]

I really wish someone would write a book about Megaforce - it would be a great read, I'm sure. So many bands - legendary and forgotten - passed through there....

[philouze]

Raven ruled, too. In fact, I don't Raven have ever been given their due.......

I first heard Raven in 1985, I was seven. Live At The Inferno. What a FUCKING SHOCK.

Been a fan since then, never looked back.

[binnie]

Royal Thunder – CVI (2012)

This is Classic Rock. But it ain’t no nostalgia trip. Royal Thunder do not try to sound like it’s 1972. Rather, they’ve taken the vocabulary of the music that gave birth to hard rock and organised it into their own rules of syntax. And it is a wild, wild record. Authentic blues played with more than a little Sabbath darkness, early Rush bombast and song-structures that flip the finger to AOR ‘make the chorus really shinny’ formats, ‘CVI’ is an organic sort of rock record completely devoid of pretence or preening.

Opener ‘Parson’s Gate’ is a much heavier sort of the free-form blues that Cream used to serve up, and introduces Mlny Parsonz’s wailing Geddy Lee-like vocals to the world with aplomb. This is a girl with a voice that stays with you. And she MEANS it. There’s no clichéd lyrics here. ‘Shake and Shift’ spans from heavy doom to ethereal beauty in a manner that evokes Budgie, seven minutes of guitaraggeddon courtesy of John Weaver, whose bluesy chops have more than a little of J. Mascis about them: he does very little, but it sounds HUGE. ‘No Good’ would be pub rock in less competent hands, but here it is awash with the buzz-saw bravura of a gnarly blues. What sets Royal Thunder apart is the intuitive nature of their playing – nothing is overthought, and it feels more real, more human, as a result. Thus ‘Drown’ is a swirling morass of gorgeous rock aimed at the heavens; whilst ‘South Of Somewhere’ has the sort of space typical of Patti Smith records, in which quietness is used as a weapon before the whole thing explodes in the sort of orgy of tortured instruments MK II Deep Purple used to deliver.

This is a band that shimmies, shuffles and sho’ nuff. And even an era where there are many bands serving up truly excellent hard rock – Rival Sons, Witchcraft, Graveyard, Orange Goblin – this stands out as truly special. Royal Thunder have delivered an album where there is no genre-chasing, no pretence, just wild, organic hooks and lyrics thrown into the ether with abandon.

[binnie]

Sacred Mother Tongue – Out Of Darkness (2013)

Britain’s SMT have been threatening to be a truly stunning band for quite some time. Serving up anthemic, hulking slabs of metal with guitar histrionics (courtesy of uber-shredder Andy James) and melody aplenty, there’s was an updated spin on the genre’s classic ingredients. Debut record ‘The Ruin Of Man’ (2009) hinted that even in a British metal scene as deeply stacked with talent at any point since 1980, this was a band who could stand out. Critics (me included) noted that things sounded particularly promising when Darrin South explored the clean rather than growly parts of his voice and when they began to do so on the ‘A Light Shines’ EP last year there were bouts of collective gleeful cheers. Finally, we thought, a band who could weld the aggressive elements of 21st century metal together with the genre’s classic, euphoric melodies.

It is crushing, then, to learn that ‘Out Of Darkness’ is such a flat record. Perhaps it was expectations raising things too far; perhaps modern metal just doesn’t sound right without the full-force screams – but this is the sound of a band holding back. It’s not a shocker by any stretch of the imagination – everything is very well written, subject to slick production, and James’ guitar work is typically astounding (every solo is exquisite) – it all just feels restrained. A thrashy band at their core, the move to clean vocals has resulted in some subtle changes to the dynamics which leave SMT sounding like a heavier Alter Bridge. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. But Alter Bridge have melodies which could charm the knickers off a nun at 60 paces, and if ‘Out Of Darkness’ demonstrates anything it is that SMT do not. Some of the hooks here (‘Pawn’, ‘The City Is Crying’) are ponderous rather than sharp and leave otherwise crisp chunks of metallic power somewhat laboured. In the metalcore poise of ‘Bleeding Out’, this only serves to reveal the gulf separating SMT and the masters of melodic metal, Killswitch Engage, whose reformed record was released within a month of this.

They have their moments, however. When they stick to the up-tempo aspects of their sound we get a joyous combination of mosh ‘n’ holler: opener ‘Demons’ is incendiary; and ‘A Light Will Shine’ is destined to be a live favourite. Equally, the crushing power of ‘Seven’ – which has more than a dabble of Alice In Chains and latter-day Life Of Agony – is inspired, and features several top-notch riffs. Where the ‘norm’ of metal now seems to be turning the dial to ‘pummel’ and staying there for 50 minutes, SMT should be commended for the courage it takes to put the melody first. But whilst there’s still plenty here to bang your head to, the incendiary power of the band’s debut has been somewhat tempered here. The result is that SMT are not quite the band they could be. And that is a crying shame.