Time to wrap up Wpnfire's Members' Top Ten list, and as mentioned at number three he places Metallica's
Master of Puppets, which I've already reviewed, so at number two then, Anthrax!
Among the Living --- Anthrax --- 1987
I've heard one track from this, thanks to Batty, that being the Dredd ode “I am the Law”, but that's to come yet. We kick off with the title track which has something of an atmospheric start for a few seconds before the guitars pound in and it gets going. There's a nice kind of shouted, punchy vocal from Joey Belladonna, but overall I'd say it's not anything terribly great. Speeding things up seriously with “Caught in a mosh”, certainly energetic, nice guitar solo, then that song I already heard is next. Has a nice dark grinding guitar line and while some of the lines are a little silly, a Dredd aficionado like me can't help smiling at the refrain
”Drokk it!” From here on though it gets very thrashy and fast, almost punklike at times.
“Indians” is a good powerful song, and references the callous treatment meted out to the Natives by the white man. They seem to put their hearts and souls into the song, even if Maiden did it five years previous with “Run to the hills”. “One world” has a great biting anger in it, and it's refreshing to hear a metal band talking about war as a bad thing rather than something to be looked forward to or ushered in. Nice atmospheric guitar (almost sounds like a sitar) to open “Medey/ADI: the horror of it all” (what the hell does that mean?) then it rocks along nicely. Laugh all you want, but on several songs here I hear the guitar riff from Petty's “Runnin' down a dream”. No, I'm not high. “Imitation of life” has a nice kind of marching beat, that is, until it picks up speed and heads for the finish line at top speed.
There's nothing wrong with this album; it's a great example of old-school thrash metal, but I just don't see anything special about it and it would not make it into any top ten of mine. Speaking of which, I should start putting mine together for next year...
But this is still this year, and we've reached the top of the tree as far as Wpnfire is concerned. If Om is anything to go by then the name of this band may be very appropriate, but let's hope the album doesn't send me to sleep...
Dopesmoker --- Sleep --- 2003/2012
I honestly have no idea how I'm supposed to review this. It comes as two albums (
Jerusalem being the one packaged with the original 2003 release) but I think in fairness I can only review the one album, so although it only has two tracks I'm going for the actual
Sleep. Never fear though: I'm not backing out, as even with only two tracks it's well over an hour. Hell, the first track is an hour on its own! Shades of Ninetales, huh? Anyway, the title would suggest that maybe you need to be on something to get it, but we'll see.
Keep thinking I'm hearing “Iron man”, but it's just the first three notes repeated. Still, it gets a little fuller as it goes and it's a lot better than Om. No vocals yet, but then we're only three or four minutes into a song that runs for a full hour, so plenty of time. Vocals come in about the tenth minute. This is that guy from Om, yeah? Well he still hasn't learned how to sing, but at least this time he's giving it a darker, more growling twist. Then I suppose nobody listens to this album for the singing, true? Just fill up your bong, light up and sit back. Except I don't smoke, so I don't have the luxury of just drifting away into an alternate world on the wings of this music, and I have to review this totally unstoned. Poor me, huh? Well it's not as bad as I kind of thought it would be; whether I'll last an hour of this or not though is another matter.
Hey, at least there's some variety. The addition of a guitar makes all the difference guys. But it's very difficult to review this as it's basically just a bunch of riffs (often the same one) with some occasional lyrics that really don't seem to make any sense to me. Surely an album more based around its atmosphere and feel than any actual songwriting or melodies as such. Close to a one-hour jam I suppose. I'm now nearly thirty minutes in, and while it has changed from the initial riff, I'd have to say not all that much. The obvious problem here is that this seems to appeal to those who are high, which you would have to think perhaps does not demand too much of the music when someone is in that state. Every comment I've read about it on YouTube is along the lines of “Oh man this is so good I'm so high” etc. But what about those of us who don't use drugs?
Surely a band should write their music for everyone, or as wide an audience as possible, and restricting the enjoyment of this to those who listen to it while high just I feel leaves the rest of us shrugging our shoulders and wondering what the fuss is about? And by the rest of us, I of course mean me. Okay, now about forty minutes in we're getting a change with a nice solo and some sort of reflective guitar, but it's been a long time coming. I'm sure this review will elicit plenty of replies along the lines of “man you don't know what you're talking about” and many entreaties that I get high, but I ain't doing that and if I can't enjoy music on its own merits, without the need to inhale, inject or otherwise introduce chemicals into my brain, then it's not worth it for me. I mean, Hawkwind's music is best appreciated, I'm told, when high, but I can still get something out if it without drugs. This, not so much. It just sounds like pretty much the same tune all the way through for over an hour, with a few small variations along the way. I certainly would not be listening to this again.
So that's another year of your top tens finished. Thanks to Frownland, Ninetales and Wpnfire for supplying theirs, even if some of them were written out last year. Hope I didn't trash too many of your favourites, but remember, it's only one old guy's opinion. It is of course though right.
If nothing else, it certainly shows the wide variety of metal that people here enjoy, the different ideas people have of metal, and how one album that blows one person away can be distinctly meh to another. That's the wonderful world of metal, and there's something for nearly everyone in it.