Album Reviews

[Von Halen]

binnie’s Best of 2014

Machine Head – Bloodstone & Diamonds
Machine. Fucking. Head. Rule. The. Earth. Once. Again.

Triptykon – Melana Chasmata

Thomas Gabriel Fischer proves once again that he is one of the most inventive minds in metal. Harrowing, relentless dark, and powerful, this is a dense record which rewards multiple listens.

Opeth – Pale Communion
Opeth continue to blossom as a prog band. Beautiful music from a beautiful mind.

Behemoth – The Satanist

Black Metal of the most terrifying and thought-provoking variety. Where many bands blast away like this, few manage to do so with songs that have such a memorable impact.

Crowbar – Symmetry in Black
None fucking heavier. Kirk Windstein serves up what is perhaps the best album of Crowbar’s 20 year career. Riff after riff after gloriously heavy riff.

Orange Goblin – Back From the Abyss
Is it stoner? Is it doom? Does it matter: it rocks like a motherfucker from hell.

Shrapnel – The Virus Conspires
A thrash record for the 21st century, and the best debut of the year.

Mastodon – Once More Round The Sun
They may not be as truly awe-inspiring as they once were, but Mastodon still release near perfect albums with alarming regularity. They’re one of the best bands of the past 20 years.

Death Penalty – Death Penalty
Great British metal from the ashes of Cathedral. These songs NEED to be heard by all fans of metal.

Animals As Leaders – The Joy Of Motion
An instrumental album that will not bore your to tears. This is a stunningly beautiful and affecting record.

Vallenfyre – Splinters
Album no. 2 from Paradise Lost’s Gregor MacIntosh’s other band. Doom and death metal fighting over the bragging rights to the best riff.

Conan – Blood Eagle
Sloooooow and very, very heavy.

Overkill – White Devil Armoury
Another brilliant record from metal’s most overlooked band. Never less than riveting, and always delivering the goods.

King 810 – Memoirs of a Murderer
Believe the hype, King 810 are a very good band. The most impressive thing about this album is the amount of variety on display.

Down – IV part 2
Perhaps overlooked now, Phil Anselmo, Pepper Keenan and co. served up another riff-fest this year and had a better collection of songs than ‘IV part 1’.

Slipknot – 5: the Gray Chapter
Did anyone expect Slipknot’s return to be this good? The songs on display here are stunning.

Feed The Rhino – The Sorrow & the Sound
Painting on a broader canvass than on their previous two outings, this British band do post-hardcore with boulder style bollocks. No-one sounds like this.

Skindred – Kill The Power
The most fun you will have this year.

Black Label Society – Catacombs of the Black Vatican
The Bearded Squeak is now such a familiar presence that we overlook him. This was BLS’s most consistent record in years.

Architects – Lost Forever/Lost Together
Heavy, catchy, and as emotive as they come.

Binnie! No Avatar - Hail To The Apocalypse? WTF?

[binnie]

Nah, nowhere the top 20. I dig it, but I wouldn't write home about it.

[binnie]

From the Vaults: Black Sabbath – Born Again (1985)

Black Sabbath’s 11th album was a weird one. Dio had gone, but Bill Ward was back. And they’d brough in Deep Purple fog-horn Ian Gillan in what promised to be a meeting of the Gods. Thirty years later, the jury is still out on whether or not that meeting was profitable – few records in rock history have proven so divisive.

The feel is certainly different from the Ozzy and Dio eras. The darkness expected of Sabbath is wholly missing as Gillan essentially cocks about with the lyrics: ‘Trashed’ is about a boozy race and ‘Digital Bitch’ is pure Spinal Tap. When the band does try to go dark, Gillan sounds like a stage-show villain: more ‘Carry On’ that the shit-your-pants terror of Ozzy’s stint in Sabbath. But if we get past what is absent a look at what is actually there, we find some lost gems. ‘Zero The Hero’ is a heck of a lot of fun, and features a ‘Paradise City’ riff several years before Slash had made it more famous. The spacey title track is also very effective, and features a powerful vocal from Gillan. You can even revel in the Heavy Metal clichés: the grandiose melodrama of ‘Disturbing The Priest’ undoubtedly connected with hordes of thirteen year old boys in the mid-80s, and makes more than a nod to Maiden. No-one would be fooled into thinking that this was vintage Sabbath, but it’s not entirely without merit, either.

Indeed, ‘Born Again’ was ultimately a lot of fun. Listening to ‘Hot Line’ or ‘Keep It Warm’, you are more than aware that they are waaaaay beneath all of the men involved, but you can’t help enjoying them anyway. When something is this dinosaur heavy, it’s meant to numb brain cells, not engage them. And the riffs on this record could numb at 1,000 paces.

[Kristy]

A sense of trepidation surrounds album number five from Slipknot. Following the death of bassist Paul Gray – a founding member and principal songwriter – and the exit of Joey Jordison...

Slipknot actually wrote songs? Really? Could be. I always thought of them as the less suburban version of Marylin Manson; a band that a fourteen year old listened to in order to "rebel" against their parents because Manson was too much of a sellout and Rammstein was no longer "kwel."

[binnie]

Black Star Riders – The Killer Instinct (2015)

The band that began as a revived Thin Lizzy return for album no. 2. Now featuring only Scott Gorham of Lizzy fame, the rest of the group is an all-star ensemble of nearly men: Ricky Warwick (The Almighty and solo), Jimmy Degrasso (Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lee Roth, Dokken), and Damon Johnson (Brother Cane, Alice Cooper, Santana). As with all supergroups, we have to ask two questions of this album: first, if a bunch of unknowns presented these tunes to a record company would they get a deal? No. Secondly, does that mean that ‘The Killer Instinct’ is a waste of your time? No again. This is a record a wonderful moments surrounded be mediocrity.

BSR’s first record was a clusterfuck – the sound of a band desperate to move on from Lizzy but incapable of doing so. Here, for the most part, the Lizzy-isms have gone (the odd Gaelic reference and twin-guitar harmony aside). Indeed, Gorham himself is almost a bit player, leaving most of the song-writing to Warwick and Johnson and playing only a handful of the album’s solos. The result is something which feels more like a band than a project, and in the hands of producer du jour Nick Raskulinecz the whole thing feels more focussed and meaty almost defied of a cheesy ‘retro’ vibe.

The title track is the best thing here. A belting rock ‘n’ roll tune drenched in urgency and hunger which Warwick’s gravely voice sells with conviction. ‘Bullet Blues’ is a raw, contemporary take on classic rock and comes across like a heavier Social Distortion; ‘Charlie Let Go’ is a great little rock song – muscular and punkish; and the Gaelic ‘Soliderstown’ – whilst the most obviously ‘Lizzy’ tune here – takes the folk-ballad tradition and spins it into something venomous. Ricky Warwick, we salute you.

But it’s not all great. ‘Finest Hour’ and ‘Through the Motions’ have ‘filler’ written all over them, and you sense that no-one involved is convinced by the cliché soup that is ‘Sex, Guns and Gasoline’. Moreover, surely a producer of Raskulinecz’s character should have recognized that allowing closer ‘You Little Liar’ to be fattened up to 7 minutes essentially ruins what could have been crunchy rock tune.

[binnie]

Slipknot actually wrote songs? Really? Could be. I always thought of them as the less suburban version of Marylin Manson; a band that a fourteen year old listened to in order to "rebel" against their parents because Manson was too much of a sellout and Rammstein was no longer "kwel."

I think many people assume they're clowns because of the masks. I'd recommend 'Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses' as guide to the range of songs they're capable of writing. It's much more metallic than Manson ever was......

[ELVIS]

More boring as well...

[binnie]

'Boring' is not an adjective that could appropriately be applied to Slipknot, even if you loathed them. 'Boring' implies that they're flat, which clearly isn't the case.

[Kristy]

Okay. How about "total shit"?

[Kristy]

I think many people assume they're clowns because of the masks. I'd recommend 'Vol 3: The Subliminal Verses' as guide to the range of songs they're capable of writing. It's much more metallic than Manson ever was......

Please. Slipknot is aurul crud for suburban teenage goth wannabes with rich parents. They're not clowns but rather corporate musicians with day jobs.

[binnie]

Okay. How about "total shit"?

Is that a fair criticism? I feel that so often people confuse 'I don't like that' with 'that's shit'. The two things are different.

Slipknot can certainly play. Joey Jordison, in particular, is a demon on his instrument (drums). Corey Taylor is also a hell of a singer (check out Stone Sour stuff for proof). When they started in 1999, they were also completely unique - no metal band had sounded like that. And they also had the intensity and conviction of a lot of punk - their early albums remind me of early 80s hardcore in the sheer demented weight of their anger.

All of that is artistically valid. You may not like it, but that's not the point.

[Kristy]

Slipknot can certainly play.

Sorry, we can't be friends.

[binnie]

Wovenwar – Wovenwar (2014)

A lot of metal bands play highly technical music that dazzles you into appreciation – but only a handful make music that is moving and memorable. Wovenwar achieve both on their debut album. Emerging from the ashes of metalcore stalwarts As I Lay Dying – whose singer Tim Lambesis was convicted for conspiring to murder his wife – Wovenwar have produced a record even more captivating than the story from which they were born. Where AILD were all about metallic bluster, Wovenwar add sonorous melodies, atmospherics and dynamics to their sound. Elements of Dream Theatre and Tool are present, as is the sheer hulking riffery of Meshuggah – but where those bands combine progressive music with expansive time frames, Wovenwar utilize in songs of conventional length. This is a debut record with song after brilliant song.

The atmospheric ‘Forward’ gives way to the sheer controlled assault of ‘All Rise’: massive riffs smash into killer hooks in what is both ultra heavy and instantly accessible. ‘Death To Rights’ manages to combine thrash with elements of post-hardcore, welding alt.rock atmospherics to heavy thud. This is progressive metal you can sing. Shane Bay’s vocals switch from soaring to crooning and sells these songs by injecting a highly human connection to complex music. On ‘Moving Up’ the band shows us its fire-power, on ‘Profane’ the sheer thump of the riffs bellies the fact that there are some serious melodies holding it all together.

The musicianship is inspired without ever being showy. Drummer Jordan Mancino clearly has some octopus DNA, and guitarists Phil Syrosso and Nick Hipa pen riffs that kill, switching from bludgeon to laser precision as the song dictates. The album is a little over-earnest in places (‘Father and Son’ is a prayer for humanity) and this is certainly not a party band. But, like Alter Bridge, there has to be a wider market for rock music of this calibre and sophistication. It is very rare to hear a debut record this complete: Wovenwar made me run laps around the room in sheer glee.

[78/84 guy]

Black Star Riders – The Killer Instinct (2015)

The band that began as a revived Thin Lizzy return for album no. 2. Now featuring only Scott Gorham of Lizzy fame, the rest of the group is an all-star ensemble of nearly men: Ricky Warwick (The Almighty and solo), Jimmy Degrasso (Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne, David Lee Roth, Dokken), and Damon Johnson (Brother Cane, Alice Cooper, Santana). As with all supergroups, we have to ask two questions of this album: first, if a bunch of unknowns presented these tunes to a record company would they get a deal? No. Secondly, does that mean that ‘The Killer Instinct’ is a waste of your time? No again. This is a record a wonderful moments surrounded be mediocrity.

BSR’s first record was a clusterfuck – the sound of a band desperate to move on from Lizzy but incapable of doing so. Here, for the most part, the Lizzy-isms have gone (the odd Gaelic reference and twin-guitar harmony aside). Indeed, Gorham himself is almost a bit player, leaving most of the song-writing to Warwick and Johnson and playing only a handful of the album’s solos. The result is something which feels more like a band than a project, and in the hands of producer du jour Nick Raskulinecz the whole thing feels more focussed and meaty almost defied of a cheesy ‘retro’ vibe.

The title track is the best thing here. A belting rock ‘n’ roll tune drenched in urgency and hunger which Warwick’s gravely voice sells with conviction. ‘Bullet Blues’ is a raw, contemporary take on classic rock and comes across like a heavier Social Distortion; ‘Charlie Let Go’ is a great little rock song – muscular and punkish; and the Gaelic ‘Soliderstown’ – whilst the most obviously ‘Lizzy’ tune here – takes the folk-ballad tradition and spins it into something venomous. Ricky Warwick, we salute you.

But it’s not all great. ‘Finest Hour’ and ‘Through the Motions’ have ‘filler’ written all over them, and you sense that no-one involved is convinced by the cliché soup that is ‘Sex, Guns and Gasoline’. Moreover, surely a producer of Raskulinecz’s character should have recognized that allowing closer ‘You Little Liar’ to be fattened up to 7 minutes essentially ruins what could have been crunchy rock tune.

I thought this album was very strong overall. Sure it has the Lizzy vibe and why wouldn't it ? Only tune I thought was mediocre was the last one. Solid lyrics and guitar parts.

[binnie]

Crobot – Something Supernatural (2014)

Hype is often highly contrived, the product of record company PR departments rather than something genuinely deserved. Not so here. Pennslyvania’s Crobot have produced an assured debut record made up of tune after tune of sizzling, contemporary heavy music with one foot in grunge and the other firmly planted in classic rock. Riffs that could shatter boulders sit on top of a rhythm setion which make the universe shake and the whole thing is topped off with irresistible rock ‘n’ roll swagger that makes your dick hard and your day better. ‘Legend of the Spaceborne Killer’ sees you do yourself an injury by trying to headbang and air-drum at the same time and introduces us to Crobot’s goofy sense of fun; ‘Skull of Geronimo’ is the way Audioslave might have sounded if they weren’t so contrived; and ‘La Mano de Lucifer’ is a ballad based on Lucifer’s fall from heaven which is incredibly powerful and features an almighty stomp of a riff. Perhaps best of all is closer ‘Queen Of The Light’, a slow burn which reimagines classic rock for a modern audience. Sure, there are clichés abounding – the devil, wizards, going down to a river and no-one getting out alive – but the band embraces them with tongue-in-cheek abandon and in the hands of singer Brandon Yeagley they feel alive. Somewhere between Andrew Stockdale and Chris Cornell, Yeagley wraps his mighty pipes around hooks which make you want to hit ‘repeat’ again and again.

Vibrant and visceral heavy music.