Utopia banished --- Napalm Death --- 1992 (Realtivity)
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Okay well I've survived Death Metal, Black Metal and Pagan Metal but now I'm scared. Grindcore is a term that freezes me to the bone, but somehow I've added Napalm Death to my list of bands I need to cover for Metal Month (damn you, "Metal Hammer"!) and I'm committed now. But I fear this is going to be the biggest noise assault on my poor ears since I listened to Carcass, what seems weeks ago now. And may be, depending on when this is getting posted. To add to that, there are a total of fifteen tracks on this, though mercifully most are quite short, some less than two minutes long. I looked for other Napalm Death albums that had less tracks but they all seem to have about the same, so I decided to go with this one.

The title of the first track doesn't provide any hope for me, though "Discordance" opens with what appears to be a radio broadcast of some sort, then a snarling guitar, sounding like a raging beast waiting to be let loose, growls in the distance threateningly. It's one of those short tracks, about a minute and a half, then "I abstain" opens with decent enough metal guitar, and when the vocal comes in it's --- surprise, surprise! --- a growler, but considering what I've suffered though, sorry, listened to in the last few months it's not the shock it would have been before I started this. It's certainly not melodic, but then I wasn't expecting that. To be honest, I was expecting just noise really, and this is at least music of a sort.

Good guitar solo with the drums pounding at a hundred miles an hour, and it's one of the longer tracks at over three minutes, but Napalm Death play so fast that it's over fairly quickly and we're into "Dementia access". Another good hard guitar opening then a scream from Mark "Barney" Greenway, before he's off growling and roaring again. I don't know: Batlord I'm sure still thinks I'm a girl in disguise and listens to this with his amp at ten and his windows wide open, but I think I'm getting a little used to this, perhaps inured to the sort of Metal I would prior to this never have dreamed of listening to. Not that I'd listen to Napalm Death again --- I'd rather have my head removed with a blunt spoon --- but I reckon I can make it through this.

"Christening of the blind" is another longer track, and bit more of a boogie-along rhythm to it, but I honestly don't see me reporting too much in the way of difference in the tracks here; they all already sound fairly similar. Drummer goes a bit mad(der) near the end of this. "Idiosyncratic" kicks the tempo up --- yes, it's possible --- while "Aryanisms" has some pretty energetic guitar (look, I'm tring to find good things to say about this album, or at least not be too critical of it ok?) and there's a good solo at the end of "Judicial slime", but yeah it's all sounding pretty much the same to me.

I should point out that growly as he is, I can at least understand what Greenway is singing, which is not always the case with this sort of vocal style, so points for that. I guess Napalm Death only have one speed though, and you wouldn't want to get in their way! "Exile" gets a tiny bit slower, but that's still faster than most bands, possibly even punk ones. My old friend melody of course doesn't even get a look in: it's all about power, aggression and speed with little thought for song structure, or indeed, songs. Rather surprisingly, the closer, "Contemptuous", sounds like it might actually slow to human levels! The drums are discernible now, single beats as opposed to a wall of noise, the guitar is playing heavy but normally, as opposed to, well, a wall of noise. Greenway's still growling, sort of chanting really, and damned if something resembling a melody of sorts isn't creeping into the song, which turns out to be the longest on the album at just shy of four and a half minutes. An unexpected end, without a doubt.

TRACKLISTING

1. Discordance
2. I abstain
3. Dementia access
4. Christening of the blind
5. The world keeps turning
6. Idiosyncratic
7. Aryanisms
8. Cause and effect (Part II)
9. Judicial slime
10. Distorting the medium
11. Got time to kill
12. Upward and uninterested
13. Exile
14. Awake (To a life of misery)
15. Contemptuous

Hands up all those who thought I'd like this music? Hmm. Not a one. Well, no surprise. You all know my limits by now, and Grindcore was always going to push those. But in fairness it's not as messy or noisy as I thought it would be. I honestly expected almost discordant fuzz with nothing I could even latch onto as a tune, but though this music certainly doesn't appeal to me, it's not the worst. Given that, it would be a very cold day in Hell before I'd listen to it again, but it's interesting that it didn't break the sort of boundaries I had expected it to. I thought it would be totally alien, and, well, it's not.

Just not something I ever intend listening to again, if the Metal Gods are kind.
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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm_Death

Master of puppets --- Metallica --- 1983 (Elektra)
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Sure it's a bit obvious to those of you who know the album, but I'm not a huge fan of Metallica and have not heard as much of their catalogue as many of you may have done, so this is a first listen for me. Someone help the Batlord up: I think he fainted there! ;) Anyhoo, it's supposed to be one of their masterpieces, so I thought I'd give it an airing and see if it deserves that title.

I see two, no, three eight-minute tracks. Hmm. Opens on soft acoustic or maybe Spanish guitar, slow and relaxed but hell I'm not fooled. With a title like "Battery" it's bound to ... ah, there it goes. Hard electric cuts in and the drums pound their way into the tune, it kicks up in tempo and rhythm and we're away. Rapid-fire delivery on the vocals from James Hetfield, with more than a hint of the punk in the chorus --- well, one line: the title of the song. Great screaming solo --- oh no wait, it's not: cut off a few seconds later. Sort of slows down in the midsection with some nice guitarwork and a sort of instrumental break rather than a solo, which follows it as Kirk Hammet gives it all he's got. Must be honest, I'm not that gone on this as an opener. Bit basic really, but we'll see how the album develops.

The title track is up next, and it's one of those eight-minuters I mentioned. Big hard guitar intro with both Hetfield and Hammet working overtime, Lars Ulrich bashing out an energetic rhythm on the drumkit, a lot of energy and anger in the vocal when Hetfield comes in. Reminds me of a cross between Tank and Iron Maiden, then about halfway in with get a lovely laidback guitar piece that's classic Lizzy or Maiden, slowing everything down but still keeping the heavy aspect of the song. A very politically-charged lyric of course, and ties in nicely with the album artwork. A storming solo from, I assume, Kirk Hammet, and a big evil laugh at the end to bring it all to a close. Impressive.

I think it may be slide guitar that opens "The thing that should not be", then it marches along on the back of solid guitar and percussion and takes as its lyrical inspiration "The Lord of the Rings", instantly making Metallica a favourite with nerds, and also making being a nerd cool. Great grinding rhythm to this and it really suits the subject matter. Everything slows down then for "Welcome home (Sanitarium)" with some rising guitar work at the opening and a less frenzied vocal from Hetfield, though of course it does speed up and Hammet goes a little wild on the frets, which is all good. Great powerful dramatic ending too. On we go, into "Disposable heroes", another eight-minute epic. Again opening with a huge guitar fest, and it rattles along nicely with another heavy political lyric as you would expect.

With a "One! Two! One-two-three-four!" we're off into "Leper messiah", kind of a fast grinder which actually puts me in mind of one of the few Metallica songs I know well, that everyone knows, and though it's not really "Enter Sandman" I hear some similarities in the melody. The final eight-minute track is an instrumental that goes under the title of "Orion", and gives Kirk Hammet a chance to show what he can really do when let loose. He doesn't disappoint, himself and bassist Cliff Burton giving a virtuoso show, sadly the last Burton would play on any Metallica album, as during the tour to support this one in Stockholm he was tragically killed in a road accident. Perhaps horribly ironic that the last album he worked on before passing away is one that features crosses and headstones on its cover?

Finishing up with some fine slide guitar before "Damage, Inc." brings down the curtain, it's a fine closer with hard, heavy guitar and thunderous drumming, a return to the faster Metallica of songs like "Disposable heroes" and the title track, and an angry vocal from Hetfield with some nice staccato guitar from Hammet, and a screeching, finger-burning solo just to add the icing on an already very tasty cake.

TRACKLISTING

1. Battery
2. Master of puppets
3. The thing that should not be
4. Welcome home (Sanitarium)
5. Disposable heroes
6. Leper messiah
7. Orion
8. Damage, Inc.

It's clear to see why this is so revered an album, showing a band who would go on to more or less dominate the thrash and speed metal scene for the next few years at the top of their game. There's very little bad you can say about it --- or would dare! --- other than as I mentioned the opener could be a bit more hard-hitting, but once the album gets into its stride there's no stopping it. With songs that have stood the test of time and still appear regularly on Metallica's setlist, and have been covered by more artists than I want to count, "Master of puppets" has to be one of not only the most seminal Metallica albums ever, but also one of the most important in the thrash subgenre overall.

If an album was meant to put down a marker and showcase a band who were in it for the long haul, not just fly-by-nighters who intended to make their money quickly and retire, Metallica's third album said it all. And could there be a better tribute, if unintentional, to the memory of their tragically departed bass player?

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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica

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UFO: More hard rock than Heavy Metal, but there ain't much for this letter so... UFO (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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VAN HALEN: American Heavy Metal band famous for giving the world one of the most accomplished guitarists in the genre. Van Halen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

VARDIS: British metal band active during the NWOBHM Vardis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

VENOM: Seminal Black Metal band who coined the very phrase "black metal" Venom (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

VIRGIN STEELE: American power metal band Virgin Steele - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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WHITESNAKE: Again, you probably wouldn't really call them Heavy Metal, but we're into the letters that have less and less bands assigned to them, so the other spinoff band from Deep Purple, formed by David Coverdale, gets a slot here. Whitesnake - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WHITE SPIRIT: English Metal band who gave us guitarist Janick Gers, who now plays with Iron Maiden. White Spirit (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WITCHFINDER GENERAL: English Doom Metal band most famous for dodgy, almost porno album covers! Witchfinder General (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WITCHFYNDE: Another English metal band, active in the NWOBHM. Witchfynde - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WRATHCHILD: Not to be confused with an American band of the same name. Glam Metal band from the UK who took their name, obviously, from one of Iron Maiden's early songs. Wrathchild - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alter Bridge is considered Hard Rock. I think I got into them because one of their songs was used as the entrance theme for a wrestler. They also ended up popping up on the Elektra Soundtrack. I need to listen to their fourth album which was released recently called Fortress. I downloaded it but my albums to listen to list is pretty long at the moment. I would recommend One Day Remains next but if you want to hear what Alter Bridge sounds like when they go darker lyrically then go with ABIII instead.

Outshine the sun --- Neonfly --- 2011 (Rising Records)
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A silly name certainly but from what I heard before I bought the album this band's music is anything but silly. Hailing from London, they've only been together since 2007 and this is their first full album, but seems to be a pretty decent debut. "Broken wings" gets us started with a fast, powerful, uptempo rocker and one of the hallmarks of power metal, catchy hooks and melodies. Willy Norton is a good vocalist and both the guitarists earn their wages, as Frederick Thunder (his real name?) and Patrick Harrington (his too, golf fans!) put in a fine shift, sharing the plethora of solos between them.

Keeping things fast "The enemy" rocks along with a super guitar riff running through it, and a thick little bass opening to "Ship with no sails" which then takes off on what appears to be a piano melody, though no keyboard player is credited. Nice little eastern-tinged riff in it, and "The revenant" is a real rockalong track, with an anthemic chorus. Nice slide guitar to open "The ornament" before it fires off in high gear, and those have to be keyboards. Turns out to be a rather powerful instrumental, nice change of pace. Speaking of a change of pace, there's piano and violin as "Reality shift" gets going, with some fine guitar interplay between Thunder and Harrington and great vocal harmonies.

Really nice slow neoclassical instrumental in the middle with piano, cello and guitar then it ramps back up as it hammers towards the end of the song, ushering in "Spitting blood", which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say is not going to be a ballad with a title like that! There's actually an ominous, dark feel about it even when it hits into top speed, then we get sitar, piano and fiddle (!) in "Morning star" and it certainly sounds like female backing vocals in the chorus, though again not credited. Excellent acapella ending. Big dramatic sound to "The messenger", with lush, deep synth and piano, a passionate and strong vocal from Willy Norton and a sudden explosion of speed and guitar histrionics about halfway through, that takes the song almost into its last minute. Pealing bells and harpsichordal keyboard with violin finishes a near-perfect job.

And there's still one track to go. The rather silly title "I think I saw a UFO" is about --- anyone? Yeah. It's okay but frankly after the sublime "The messenger" it's a bit of a letdown and not what I would call a decent song to close the album on.

TRACKLISTING

1. Broken wings
2. The enemy
3. Ship with no sails
4. A gift to remember
5. The revenant
6. The ornament
7. Reality shift
8. Spitting blood
9. Morning star
10. The messenger
11. I think I saw a UFO

To be honest, I remember the sample impressing me more than the album now does. I mean, it's a good album but I feel a little disappointed considering how the samples struck me. Maybe I was expecting too much --- you can't get that much from a sixty-second example of a song after all --- but the end product, though not at all bad, seems to fall a little short of what I had expected. A little generic in some ways, a few good ideas not properly explored but a few really good tracks.

So in the end, I'd have to say a good, perhaps very good album, but not a great album, and certainly failing to live up to the expectations in its title.
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Read more here http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Neonfly/3540261191

As the palaces burn --- Lamb of God --- 2003 (Prosthetic)
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I think it's actually quite funny to have a metal band --- particularly one considered extreme --- with a name that comes not only out of the Bible, but also evokes one of the quietest, most innocent and submissive images you can think of. Lamb of God, the band, are the farthest thing from any of these three states you can get. Hard crashing guitars greet us as the appropriately-titled "Ruin" kicks in the door, and yes, vocalist Randy Blythe is another growler. Heavy, staccato guitar work from Mark Morton and Willie Adler and thunderous, crunching drumming from John Campbell. We crash into the title track as the tempo kicks up higher with some fine shredding and I can at least make out most of what Blythe is singing this time round. Just about.

Chris Poland straps on the guitar to take centre stage in "Purified", have to say I don't see the difference but I'm not that familiar with his work. Have only heard him on the one album from Damn the Machine and wasn't overly impressed with him then. "11th hour" trundles along nicely with a sort of heads-down, three-guitars-on-stage feel, while "For your malice" is a little more grindy but still fast as hell. Yeah, but I'm just not feeling it with these guys. All seems very similar. The guitar in "Boot scraper" is very annoying, if you can imagine such a thing, and Devin Townsend, who helped produce this album, makes an appearance on guitar in "A devil in God's country".

"In defence of our good name" is a chugging grinder with a snarly vocal, and some good effective feedback guitar, picking up near the end with a fast guitar solo, and it's more or less the same for the next two tracks, finishing up on "Vigil", rather surprisingly a laidback opening with some nice acoustic guitar, but am I fooled? It's kind of grunge meets Metallica, and Blythe proves, unlike other death growlers who are a little more versatile when needed, that he can only sing one way, which is to growl, so the nice atmosphere built up at the start is pretty much destroyed. Pointless.

TRACKLISTING

1. Ruin
2. As the palaces burn
3. Purified
4. 11th hour
5. For your malice
6. Boot scraper
7. A devil in God's country
8. In defence of our good name
9. Blood junkie
10. Vigil

Yeah, there's nothing good I can say here. Very run-of-the-mill, nothing special, no great songs, can't make out the vocals, and even when they try to diversify a little at the end the vocalist is not up to the change required, which renders the whole thing frankly laughable. Not a band I'll be returning to.
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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_of_God_%28band%29

It's about cocaine.


Actually it's from H.P. Lovecraft's "Call of Cthulhu".

Really? You're the expert but I thought it was, you know, generals sitting in their offices while ordering the troops to their deaths... :confused:

Then why do they keep talking about Mordor??

They never mention Mordor in that song. Perhaps you mistook their use of the word "immortal"?

Could very well be. Dammit! There goes a whole line of reasoning then. Like the time I mistook the line in Toto's "Africa" for "there's nothing that a hundred men on Mars could ever do..." !!!

Ah, nuts!
Thanks though Engine: suppose I should check the lyrics before commenting on them. :banghead:

In case anyone is searching through this special in disbelief asking themselves "What? No Dio?", be advised that I wrote a six-part special on him back in May of last year, to tie in with the anniversary of his passing. I believe I said all that can be said about this legend of Heavy Metal in that article, and you can find it here.

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And speaking of stuff I've already written...

One ... more ... time!
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Show no mercy --- Slayer --- 1983 (Metal Blade)
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I will never be a fan of Slayer, let's just get that out of the way right at the start. And this will be no surprise to anyone, I know. However, having read about their beginnings on Wiki I have suddenly gained a whole lot more respect for them. This is a band who, if the entry is to be believed, and why wouldn't it be, just decided one day "Fuck it! Let's do this thing!" dumped their jobs, collected their families and headed out across America to make it bend to Slayer's will. That's a hell of a thing. They played gigs they hardly got paid for, survived on the breadline and really typify the rock-and-roll lifestyle. They used their savings to start up the band and rose to become one of the loudest, nastiest, fastest and most popular and respected thrash metal bands in the world. I don't have to like their music --- I don't, I never will --- but that sort of dedication deserves to be applauded.

So we're going back to their debut album, because really I couldn't close up Metal Month without including these guys, could I? And I've already sort of reviewed their classic "Reign in blood" on another of my journals. Besides, it's always interesting to see where a band started from, that mad, optimistic energy that characterises so many debuts, the idea that the band are gonna conquer the world. Which, in Slayer's case, proved to be the truth. Although self-financed and against major resistance from the good ol' PMRC (where would we be without them, huh?) they managed to make people notice them, not least because of the Satanic imagery used all over the cover and in the song titles, and Slayer were well on their way to becoming a force --- the force --- in American thrash metal.

So the first thing Slayer want to advise us is that "Evil has no boundaries", and they reinforce that by introducing the opener with screaming guitars, howling like malevolent demons (is there any other kind?) with a chorus of guys chanting "EVIL!" Yup: we get the idea guys. To be fair to Tom Araya, his voice is raw but hell, you can make out what he's singing, unlike yer man from Morbid Angel, though I know that's all in a style of singing. If Steve Tucker wanted to sing "properly", or let's say coherently, he could. Probably. Nevertheless, I'm glad I can at least make out what Araya is singing. Naturally, there are no long songs here, with the average being around three minutes and the longest just short of five, but they're fast, punchy, brutal and to the point.

What they aren't is different from one another, a failing I've noticed in the only other Slayer album I listened to. However, "The Antichrist" has some severely brilliant guitar, and as Kerry King has mentioned that this album has "some fuckin' Iron Maiden" on it, I would have to agree: there's a lot of the style of early Maiden here. It's all pretty breakneck but certainly enjoyable on one level. "Die by the sword" is a little more restrained --- just a little --- while "Fight till death" pulls no punches, Kerry King's guitars setting up an irresistable destructive barrage over which Araya snarls the lyric. Slower and grindier then is "Metal storm/Face the slayer", that longest track I spoke of. With a very Maiden intro on the guitar it builds up on heavy miltaristic drums from Dave Lombardo into something of an evil sister to "Genghis Khan" off Maiden's "Killers", both King and Jeff Hanneman outdoing themselves on the axework.

I guess the guitar instrumental stuff at the start is "Metal storm" and the rest of it is "Face the slayer", though there's not really any line of demarcation between them so I can't be sure. A fading in guitar like an approaching chainsaw takes us into "Black magic", the first of four songs on the album penned solely by Kerry King, and therefore not surprisingly featuring a shitload of guitar. It hammers along at serious speed, Araya's voice a deep-throated snarl and Lombardo just killing it on the drumkit. It's certainly a guitar-centric album, as the songwriting is controlled totally by the axemen, King writing four of the ten tracks, Hanneman four and the other two being collaborations between them. "Tormentor" hammers along nicely with some quite Dickinsonesque screaming from Araya, and some fretburning from King. Nice.

You know, it's as much as surprise to me as anyone, but this album isn't half as bad as I had expected it to be. I actually prefer it to "Reign in blood", which passed by in a blur of similar songs for me. This is not that much different in those terms, but I somehow feel I can relate to it better. I don't know why, but I'm actually enjoying it, after a fashion. Great guitar opening to "The final command", and as the shortest song on the album at just barely over two and a half minutes it rockets along at lightspeed, while "Crionics" (not sure if that's meant to be "cryonics"?) has a real Texas boogie feel to it, and then Slayer open the throttle full and charge to the end of the album with the title track, which just takes your ears, rips them off your head and shoves them up your ahhh you get my meaning!

TRACKLISTING

1. Evil has no boundaries
2. The Antichrist
3. Die by the sword
4. Fight till death
5. Metal storm/ Face the slayer
6. Black magic
7. Tormentor
8. The final command
9. Crionics
10. Show no mercy

That was certainly a surprise! I'd still never class myself as a fan of Slayer's music, but this was not half bad at all, and for a debut pretty damn, to quote The Batlord, bitchin'! Despite what I had read it was not the tangled, messy jumble of screaming guitars and growled vocals I had expected, and though it moved along at triphammer speed I could still understand it, come to grips with it, and even like some of it. Hey, wonders will never cease, huh?

But apart from my own personal feelings about the album, I can see why it was hailed as such a broadside across the metal world, can only imagine the effect listening to it for the first time back then could have had on the young headbangers and can believe the impact it had on the scene. Spawning of course a thousand copycat bands, seems like Slayer virtually invented the idea of thrash metal, which is I suppose why they're included as one of the Big Four.

I expect Tom Araya is glad he quit his job at the hospital and took Slayer on the road after the album's release. He surely hasn't looked back since.
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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slayer

Ashes of Ares --- Ashes of Ares --- 2013 (Nuclear Blast)
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Debut album from the former members of Iced Earth and Nevermore, Ashes of Ares have only been together less than a year but are poised to make a big noise across the metal scene. A sort of gothic, dramatic start to the album with "The messenger", nice chimy guitar and a deep vocal before the guitar kicks in properly and the percussion slams in too, the vocal higher now but still very clear. Moving along at a decent mid-pace, good opener then "Move the chains" pushes the envelope a little more, ramping up the tempo which comes right back then for "On warrior's wings".

A power ballad in traditional metal style, it has hard guitar mixed with soft acoustic, and a nice vocal performance from Matt Barlow. Also in traditional metal fashion it speeds up about halfway through, throwing off all pretensions at being a ballad as Freddie Vidales unleashes his talent on the frets. "Punishment" is a hard stomping grinder, with Barlow almost whispering the vocal in a menacing hiss and nice chugalong guitar. Speaking of guitar, some nice Spanish guitar in "This is my hell", which slows things down again with a sort of acoustic opening before breaking into a harder rock groove.

"The answer" is another partial ballad, with some nice vocal harmonies but I think some piano or keyboard would have gone well here, even an orchestra could they or had they wanted to spring for it. Decent track though. "What I am" then rocks things back up as we head towards the end of the album, which I'll be honest is okay but hasn't impressed me. The closer is "The one-eyed king", with a guitar riff opening right out of Maiden's "Flash of the blade" and a military drumbeat. It's all right but it's not a spectacular closer, though in fairness there's nothing spectacular about this album.

TRACKLISTING

1. The messenger
2. Move the chains
3. On warrior's wings
4. Punishment
5. This is my hell
6. Dead man's plight
7. Chalice of man
8. The answer
9. What I am
10. The one-eyed king
11. The answer (acoustic version)

Even the addition of an acoustic version of one of the better tracks on this debut doesn't really help lift it out of the realms of the mediocre in my mind. Perhaps not mediocre, but certainly not a revelation. And given the talent involved, well, you'd just expect better I think. But overall it's a pretty ordinary album that I'll be in no hurry to listen to again, nor will I be waiting breathlessly for their next release, should they have one.
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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashes_Of_Ares

There is a Hell, believe me I've seen it. There is a Heaven, let's keep it a secret --- Bring me the horizon --- 2010 (Visible Noise)
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Anybody want to guess why I chose this album? I have no idea about this band but I really like this superlong album title. Perhaps that will be the only thing that will give me pleasure on the album, who knows? Sure we'll give it a go. These guys tend to get a lot of stick from "true" metal fans, and I think they're on The Batlord's list of poseur bands, but I'm never one to take the opinion of others as proof without first giving the band a chance to impress my own ears, so here we go.

The opening track is entitled "Crucify me", and for the moment at least gives me hope. It's dark, atmospheric keys and then heavy percussion and guitar pounds through, and there goes my hope. What in the name of all things holy and unholy is this? Not only is the guy screaming the vocal but it doesn't seem to be in time with the music or following any melody! In fact, if I didn't know better I'd think this was someone who had just broken in on the recording session and started screeching at the band! Interesting sample-voices in a sort of choir format singing the title of the album, supposedly added by electronic pop star Lights. Hum. Well the guitars are certainly frenetic and I can hear some promise in the band, but the vocalist is way out there.

Ends on a nice bit of acoustic guitar with Lights singing the fadeout, and the vocalist, Oliver Sykes, seems to have calmed down now and found some sort of rhythm. Mind you, we're done with that track now and onto the next, "Anthem", which is quite honestly anything but. There's great energy in this band to my mind but little real structure: everyone seems to go their own way to a degree and there's no real sense of a band working together to create music. It's more like a collection of projects that just occasionally and coincidentally happen to merge and chime with each other from time to time.

Then there's more ambient synth to open "It never ends", with soft guitar before everything piles back in again, though this time it sounds like it might actually work. There's a good beat to this one, and perhaps --- shock! --- even some melody! Sykes even makes an effort to sing in a semi-coherent manner, and kind of choral vocals with what could be Spanish guitar but probably is a synth effect add a nice little layer to the music. Some nice arpeggiated keyboard running along here with some sweet guitar along for the ride, and it's probably the closest I'd say to an actual song I've heard on this album so far. Mind you, no matter what you think of them, you have to give credit to a band who title one of their songs "Fuck!

Right, it's a crap song, but you have to admire the cheek and the couldn't-care-less attitude. No radio airplay for this methinks! Actually, as I listen to it there's a nice ambient/acoustic piece in the middle, and --- another shock! --- proper vocals, though I don't think they're those of Sykes. Kind of becomes a different song after the third minute, and I could almost like this. Almost. Sounds like violin at the end too! Those violins carry on into "Don't go", which would be almost a ballad if it wasn't for the fact that Oliver Sykes can't sing. Shouting and roaring a lyric is not singing, man. What a pity. Rather like himself from Lamb of God, he's unable to change his vocal style even for a slower song. Maybe he doesn't want to. It would be interesting though. Oh yeah: Lights returns to reprise her vocal role on this too. What a difference.

We're back rocking and screaming then for "Home sweet hole" (see what they did there?) with a sort of punk feel to "Alligator blood" and the pace doesn't slacken for "Visions", but I can't think of anything interesting to say about any of these tracks. Oh wait: there's a completely unnecessary false ending on the last track there, followed by some gutteral growls. Sigh. "Blacklist" has something of electronic or industrial in it, which is weird, but "Memorial", an instrumental, is really nice, with soft lush keys and gentle plucked guitar, and segues directly into "Blessed with a curse" which begins in the same vein. Slow plucked acoustic guitar, soft keyboard, gentle percussion, and even Sykes tries to tone it down a little. It gets heavier a little in but it's not that bad.

Unfortunately then it all goes to hell with a complete mess as "The fox and the wolf" closes the album in frenetic style, as if the dogs, settling down for the night, have suddenly leapt up and started savaging each other. Very jarring, and in my opinion an awful way to close an album that, while I never liked it, I was coming to tolerate and even understand a little. This final track just put me back at square one.

TRACKLISTING

1. Crucify me
2. Anthem
3. It never ends
4. Fuck
5. Don't go
6. Home sweet hole
7. Alligator blood
8. Blacklist
9. Memorial
10. Blessed with a curse
11. The fox and the wolf

Again, a band with decent ideas, good musicianship but it's all very much haphazard and all over the place. The vocalist ruins it for me; Jesus, even a growler can do better than this. It's like listening to someone having a fit. But that's as ever just me. Not a band I could ever see myself liking, though I know they have their following. I don't know if their other albums are like this, but after basically suffering through this, I'm willing to take the chance that they are and just leave it at that.
http://www.trollheart.com/cleaver2.jpg
Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_Me_the_Horizon

@ Trollheart

If you kind of dig Show No Mercy then South of Heaven may be your back door to Slayer. It's not a million miles from their other stuff, but they toned down the brutality, and brought in more melody than they ever had before.

Years of decay --- Overkill --- 1989 *Year corrected as per The Batlord below * (Atlantic)
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Well we've made it, and we're in the final day of Metal Month. So let's deviate off from the more extreme metal we've been listening to up to now and have some thrash metal, shall we? Overkill are acknowledged as one of the biggest of the East Coast thrash bands and have been going since the mid-eighties, making them among the oldest US thrash bands still on the scene. They boast an ex-member of thrash giants Anthrax, and released their last album in 2012, with their new one, which will be their seventeenth overall, due next year.

A nice little ditty called "Time to kill" opens the album with a dark, grindy guitar rising to meet thumping, punching drums and there's a scream from vocalist Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth before it all kicks off with the kind of raucous abandon and energy you expect from your favourite thrash bands. There's always been a bit of the punk in thrash metal and you can hear it come through here from time to time, but first and foremost this is metal, and it's heavy! "Elimination" is faster with some fine shredding from Bobby Gustafson and Blitz's voice reminding me of Brian Johnson, quite high-pitched but not a scream.

"I hate" is pretty cool fun, but looking down the tracklist I'm quite surprised to see a song that is over ten minutes long. Could be very interesting, could fall flat on its face. We'll know in another two tracks. Very punky chants in this as Blitz snarls "I hate you!" and Gustafson goes wild on the axe. Lot of unrestrained anger in "Nothing to die for" with a great guitar solo that almost treads at times on progressive metal's toes but quickly returns to its thrash roots. After that we're into that ten-minuter I mentioned, and "Playing with spiders/Skullkrusher" opens on a sort of feedback guitar then a big heavy Sabbathesque riff takes the song, and for a while you wonder if you're listening to doom metal rather than thrash? It's very slow, very grindy, very dark and very heavy. Even Blitz's voice is lower than it has been up to now.

Then about halfway through Gustafson winds up his guitar and the tempo picks up, Blitz's voice rising to meet the change, then Gustafson takes over for the next two minutes or so, ripping off a blazing solo. I'm not sure where "Spiders" ends and "Skullkrusher" begins, but it may be around the eighth minute, when the tempo slows right back down again to the doomy feel of the opening section. The lyric seems to support this theory. "The birth of tension" gets things moving again but it also has that slower feel to parts of it then a nice acoustic introduction to "Who tends the fire" almost fools me into thinking this may be a ballad, but ... no. It builds up nicely on the guitar though until it reveals itself to be a heavy cruncher with some very prog metal guitar and Blitz doing a decent Dickinson impression.

It's one of two long songs, each around the eight-minute mark, that follow each other, the other being the title track. This also begins with an acoustic guitar passage, though the vocal which comes in quite quickly does seem to indicate we could be heading into ballad territory. Well, for the first three minutes we are, anyway, then it ramps up on heavier percussion and stronger guitar, the tempo increasing though still moderately sedate. Much more energy coming through from Blitz and a nice solo from Gustafson, before it drops back to the slower, acoustic guitar and returns to the style of the opening section. It finishes on a powerful, downbeat outro and takes us to the final track.

"Evil never dies" starts with what sounds like cello or violin, a slow, dirgy atmosphere that's really only lacking a big church organ to complete it, then guitar burns into it and thundering drums attack, a rapid-fire delivery from Blitz with some serious shredding from Gustafson. Like, it's okay but a bit raw and basic considering what I've heard from them on this album. Almost sounds more like a tacked-on bonus track, but it appears to be a legitimate one.

TRACKLISTING

1. Time to kill
2. Elimination
3. I hate
4. Nothing to die for
5. Playing with spiders/Skullkrusher
6. Birth of tension
7. Who tends the fire
8. Years of decay
9. Evil never dies

Good solid fun from these guys and I can see why they're so respected in the thrash metal hierarchy. You can also see the influence former guitarist Dan Spitz had later on Anthrax, having begun his career with Overkill just prior to joining the then-fledgling New York thrash giants. I don't feel, on the strength of this album at least, that Overkill are as good as Annihilator, Anthrax or Kreator, though as Grampa Simpson would say, they're not without their charm. Just a little too basic for my tastes. But then, basic can be good, and they've obviously amassed a huge following, having been together now over thirty years. And like I've said before, what do I know anyway?
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Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overkill_%28band%29

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XERO: About the only X I could find, Xero were an old NWOBHM British metal band. Xero - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (Bah! Not even a Wiki entry!)

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Y&T: American Metal band who were most active around the eighties. Y&T - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I couldn't find anything for
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other than ZZ Top, and I ain't calling THEM Heavy Metal! ;)

I hate to keep being that guy, but The Years of Decay was released in '89, not '93.

For Z, try these guys out for size:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoetrope_(band)


zoetrope - Detention - YouTube

They have some full albums on youtube too.

Killers --- Iron Maiden --- 1981 (EMI)
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Now this was an album sleeve that scared me when I was younger. Well it would, wouldn't it? Look at the snarly face of Eddie on the cover, bloody axe in his hand, no sign of remorse, pity or even motive on his skeletal face, the despairing hands of his victim gripping his shirt as their owner slides to the ground in a pool of blood. If you want a nightmare that evokes the worst fears of walking home alone through a bad neighbourhood at night, this comes pretty darn close. But looking at the sleeve, I'd always imagined the music within to be equally scary, raw, evil even. I had at the time no idea who or what Iron Maiden were, to the extent (don't laugh) that I thought Eddie was called "the iron maiden" --- yeah, I thought he was a bird. Well, he has long hair hasn't he, and I'm sure we've all dated worse. No? Just me then.

Anyhow, after the revelation that was "The number of the Beast" I immediately began to backtrack and of course this being the album prior to that chartbusting success it was the first one I lighted on. Truth to tell, there were only two, as I bought NOTB when it came out, so had only the two prior albums to sink my suddenly hungry teeth into. I did of course buy the debut, and as mentioned elsewhere I have already reviewed that, but compared to "Killers" it's a big disappointment. "Killers" was I think where Maiden began to grow up and mature as a band, the first signs of what they could be evident in some of the songs here, and whereas "Iron Maiden" had been a raw, primordial but somewhat confused debut, their second outing showed them coming out of the traps guns blazing, with much tighter songwriting, a clear image and of course, far better production, this being the first album that the legendary Martin Birch worked on with them.

It's also the first time we hear Adrian Smith , as he had not been there for the debut, and the album is written almost exclusively solo by Steve Harris, Paul Di'Anno only contributing to the writing of the title track. And of course, as all Maiden fans know, speaking of Di'Anno, this would be the last album to feature him as vocalist. After "Killers", arguments over substance abuse would lead to his being asked to leave the band, to be replaced by Bruce Dickinson, who would take the band to the top of the world, where they remain to this day, one of the most loved and respected, and successful, Heavy Metal bands on the planet.

Maiden have never been ones for instrumentals, so it's perhaps odd that this album features not one but two, the opener being the first, as "The ides of March" sets the scene for the first real track, "Wrathchild", which had appeared on various EPs and demos as well as metal compilation albums such as "Metal for muthas". Steve Harris's iconic basswork opens the track then the twin guitar attack that was to go on to become the trademark of this band changes the whole shape of the songs, and though I was never a fan of his, I will admit Di'Anno does a great job throughout this album. His growling, snarling vocal is just the right side of menace that a song like this, and indeed those that follow, requires. It trundles along nicely, not breakneck speed or anything like it, but then Maiden would never really go down the speed metal route, and while they undeniably wrote fast songs, it was never the most important thing to them.

Dipping into Harris's love of literature and horror, "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, and starts off with a deceptively gentle guitar intro, that slowly turns up to become something of an introductory solo before the whole thing takes off, and this time speed is the thing. The closest to the punk immediacy of the debut, it's a machine-gun fast vocal delivery from Di'Anno, with to his credit completely understandable lyric, while Clive Burr bashes out the drums with manic fury. The partnership between Dave Murray and the new guy really starts to shine here, as they trade licks on the solo, a sound that would become ingrained in Iron Maiden lore and make of both of them legends on the scene.

For a four-minute song it goes by pretty quickly, possibly due to the punkish style of the vocal, and we're into a full-on fretfest to mark the opening of the considerably slower "Another life" with a kind of almost echoing vocal from Paul. This has never been one of my favourite tracks on the album, though I love "Killers" and there's really nothing on the album I don't like. There are no weak tracks, but if there are some less strong and powerful than others, I'd put "Another life" in that category. Great build-up guitar work halfway through as the song really speeds up and then kicking into a searing solo to take it to the final verse and a big screaming guitar ending into the second instrumental. "Genghis Khan" has a sense of, not really that surprisingly, military march in its beat, and of course it's a real chance for Adrian Smith and Dave Murray to show off their guitar chops and further cement the partnership between them that would only be to Maiden's advantage as they went on to take on the world a year later.

Of course, we should not forget Steve, who works his bass like it's an actual six-stringed guitar, and makes it do things perhaps only Phil Lynott or Gene Simmons could do. And the whole thing is as ever driven by the steady, no-nonsense drumming of Clive Burr. Another big guitar opening with Harris massaging his bass like a lover to kick off "Innocent exile", which runs along with a kind of strut/boogie sound, but again it's one of those tracks I'm not overly fond of. With a title like "Killers" it'll come as no surprise that many of the songs concern murder and killing, and this is no exception, with a great Texas boogie style guitar break and some fine riffing from the boys. Di'Anno gets to do his thing too, with a big, tonsil-searing scream to end the song.

The title track is up next, and it's certainly one of my favourite tracks on the album, and in my top ten favourite Maiden songs. The ony one co-written with anyone, Harris is helped out by Di'Anno on this. His urgent bass accompanies shouting and yelling from his co-writer, who then drops about an octave to a menacing, gutteral snarl as the vocal proper begins. With screeching, scratching guitar painting the backdrop, Di'Anno warns of a madman on the loose who will kill without mercy --- "A footstep behind you/ He lunges, prepared for attack!" The drumbeat from Burr helps make this song into a classic, trundling along at just the right speed, like a frightened heartbeat, but to be fair it's really Di'Anno who takes the prize, his persona of the mad killer --- of course it turns out he's talking about himself in the song: "He walks in the subway/ My eyes burn a hole in your back" --- perhaps meant to be schizophrenic or maybe a Jeckyll and Hyde deal, I don't know. It's a powerful song, and certainly deserves to be the title track.

"Killers" is a relatively fast song, thundering along like the retreating, desperate footsteps of the quarry who tries to get away, and in some ways can be seen as a sequel to the title of the debut, but what follows is pure ballad, and a rarity at that. There aren't many Iron Maiden ballads, and after "Strange world" on the debut and this, there won't be another really until "Journeyman", over twenty years later. It's always nice to see how a metal band cope with a ballad, and I'm glad to see they didn't go down the acoustic route, with Smith and Murray showing they can tone it back as easily as they rock it out, and providing a very calming but still heavy backdrop to a really superb vocal from Di'Anno, who really shines on this song.

Fantastic laidback solo on the halfway point, and I think both of the guys take half of it, and really, from the title track to the end there isn't anything to complain about. Like many albums, this has its cutoff point but perhaps uniquely or certainly unusually, it's only in the second half that the album, for me, really gets going and the boys show what they're capable of. "Purgatory" is another rip-roaring rocker, kicking everything back up to ten as the guys head towards the big finish, Clive Burr putting in a fine performance that must have wrecked his arms, and another rapid-fire vocal from Di'Anno with I guess an unintentional message in the lyric as he sings "Please take me away/ So far away!"

And that would have been a decent closer, but Maiden aren't happy with that, so they pull out all the stops and bring the curtain down with a roar of flame and a cloud of smoke as "Drifter" punches its way in, rolling, whining guitars setting up the soundscape as Paul yells "Rock and roll! Yeah!" and the album finishes on a high, the energy practically leaking out of the grooves (you'll forgive an old guy: I bought this on vinyl, remember) and a super hook --- "Gonna sing my song/ And it can't go wrong!" It certainly could not. Sweet little slick solo from one or other of the guys slows the song slightly down before on a mounting scale it rises back up to the speed of the opening, Burr helping usher back in the proper tempo as Di'Anno stands side by side with Harris, Smith and Murray as they go for it, squeezing out every inch of passion and fervour till the song finally end on a high, screeched vocal from Di'Anno, and you feel drained as the last notes fade away. Now that's how to end an album!

TRACKLISTING

1. The ides of March
2. Wrathchild
3. Murders in the Rue Morgue
4. Another life
5. Genghis Khan
6. Innocent exile
7. Killers
8. Prodigal son
9. Purgatory
10. Drifter

Now, before anyone cracks their fingers before the keyboard in preparation for the comment, let me just point out again that I bought this on vinyl and at the time that was the tracklisting. I know that "Twilight zone" was added to later releases, but to me it was and never will be part of the album. I heard it in a twelve-inch single B-side, and that's how I know it. How it fits into the flow of the album for other people I don't know, but I'm intimately acquainted with this album and I know how I expect it to go, and for me there's no room for "Twilight zone", so sue me.

You can see from the talent evident on this album that this was not a band who were going to fade away. Okay, there are no really commercial songs on "Killers", no hit singles and I suppose the mostly darker nature of much of the songwriting would have precluded it from doing well in the charts or on radio. But there was no doubt, I expect, listening to that album in 1981 --- unlike me, who heard it afterwards --- that something great, immense, powerful and altogether unstoppable was coming. This was a monster being born, a wonderful, terrifying, awe-inspiring monster, and to quote WB Yeats, it was beginning to slouch towards Bethlehem to be born.

A year later, its birth cries would ring out across the country, and then the world, and indeed, a terrible, incredible and legendary beauty would be born. And the world would never again be quite the same.
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All good things....
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And so we finally come to the end of Metal Month. I must say, I don't know about you but I'm drained, but happily so. This has been a gargantuan task involving a shitload of work, research, reviewing, listening, learning and in many cases cowering. I've learned there are bands I will never ever listen to again, but I've also been often surprised by how I've taken to others. If, as I said at the beginning of the month, I didn't feature your favourite album, band or both, forgive me, but there's only so much I can squeeze into thirty-one days.

A special note of thanks to the mods, who, despite my constant whinging in various threads, have overall done a stupendous job approving my many daily posts. Without your help, guys and girls, this would not have been possible, so I owe you all a debt of gratitude and I doff my cap towards you. Well, I would if I wore a cap. You get the idea. From here on in you can relax a little as regards my updates, as things begin to return a little to normal. Thanks again, and sorry if I was at times a little over-critical of your efforts.

And so, as the last notes fade into the night, the crowd begin to shuffle home, realising there will be no fourth encore, as the last guitar is packed away and the big rigs rev up, and roadies swarm all over the stage area like busy, leather-jacketed ants, we bid you farewell from Metal Month. We hope you enjoyed it; if you are a Metalhead we hope you got a kick out of it, if you weren't then we hope you are now, or have at least gained some appreciation for this wonderful music. If you're someone who hates metal with every fibre of your being (boo!) then we apologise for leaving you waiting all through October, but the doors are open again and you can safely re-enter the premises.

Thanks to all who commented, to all who read. Thanks in particular to The Batlord for his contributions and to Unknown Soldier for trying to point out where I fell down, when I did. Your input has been invaluable guys!

And now, it's time for me to climb into that stretch limo --- okay okay! Head for the bus! --- and wend my weary way home. The Playlist of Life returns to normal from tomorrow, when we will be featuring something as far removed from Heavy Metal as it is possible to be.

Of course Heavy Metal will never die, but for now it's just been moved into a room a little further away, where it can shred and scream and thunder and rock happily away to itself, a room we will most assuredly be visiting again from time to time. But for now, let's just close the door gently and open another one...

See ya tomorrow!
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has concluded. Thank you for your custom.

"Metal Month" is a production of The Playlist of Life
Copyright (c) Trollheart MMIII. All rights reserved.
No Metalheads were harmed during the making of this feature (though my ears may very well have been on occasion!)

How about some stats like how many albums you actually reviewed and listing the best to the worst out of all the albums that you reviewed, which would make a good listening list to anybody glancing at the 'metal month' section.

Anyway 'metal month' needs a closing theme song and none come any better than this.

After a month of posting metal albums and videos, and two months prior to that researching, reviewing and listening for Metal Month, I’m about all metalled out, so am ready for something of a change. Bit of a rest, as they say, so I’d like to turn in a totally different direction. Of course, I do love heavy metal and it will always form a vital and important part of my journals, but right now I’m ready to listen to something other than screaming guitars, thumping drums and singers who growl howl or shriek. So, to borrow an image idea from The Batlord…
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...caVHGhN52JMAVR

I have never been a fan of electronic music, as most of you know, though I’m beginning to make small inroads into a genre I had never really thought I would be interested in. When I were a lad, bands like Human League, Heaven 17, Pet Shop Boys and Fiction Factory were all treated with equal disdain by me, who was a long-haired rocker and metaller, and as a workmate labelled these outfits, as “puff bands”. I had neither the desire nor the interest in exploring their music. I still don’t really, but when I heard about this album I thought I’d give it a go, for novelty value if nothing else.

All I know of Visage is encapsulated in one track --- well, two, but mostly “Fade to grey”. Everyone my age knows that, and it for me typified what these sort of new romantic/electronic/”puff bands” were all about: droning, soulless, lifeless drivel that made you want to slash your wrists and just depressed the hell out of you. It seems they have had something of an interesting career though.

Hearts and knives --- Visage --- 2013 (Blitz Ckub)
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Strictly speaking, we’re talking about Visage Mk II here. Seems the original band, of whom the mighty Midge Ure was once a member, split back in 1985, after their third album, released the previous year, bombed in every way. Steve Strange, founder of the band, hung around with various projects but eventually got the band back together, so to speak, in 2004 but no new material surfaced until 2007, and that only one track. So this is only their fourth album, with a gap of just short of thirty years between this and the last one. That has to be the longest any band has left their fans waiting. I mentioned the delay between Helloween’s “Keeper of the seven keys” parts two and three, as it were, but that was nothing compared to this.

And it’s not the same band. Strange is there, of course, but longtime founder members Rusty Egan and the man who later found fame with Ultravox and of course Live Aid is nowhere to be seen either. Essentially this is a new band, formed by Strange under the Visage name, so whether we can expect a radical departure from the downbeat electro of their eighties music or not I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Of course, the whole scene has changed now; electronic music is still popular certainly, in some ways even moreso than when Steve and the boys trod the boards. But it has undergone something of a revolution and is barely recognisable from the likes of Ultravox, Depeche Mode and Bronskibeat, who commanded the charts and ruled the radio airwaves back then.

It’s a boppy, uptempo beginning that puts me more in mind of Human League or Ultravox really to get us underway as “Never enough” announces the rebirth of Visage. And it’s not half bad. Definite shades of Phil Oakey here. Interesting that there’s quite a lot of guitar, though in fairness there are a total of five keyboard players used on the album, so it’s very much keys and synth-oriented, but then you’d expect that. It’s almost a return to the heyday of the New Romantic period in the 1980s; certainly a lot of restrained energy and while it’s hardly rock and roll, I could see people dancing to this. Good start.

Strange is in good voice for a man who hasn’t sung in a band since 2007, and yet I can’t shake the comparison to the Human League frontman. Maybe they just all sounded the same? This similarity in singing style continues into “Shameless fashion”, where the synths take control more, especially the synth bass so recognisable from the music of that period. It’s still relatively uptempo though, and there is a decent guitar solo in the song. Interesting to see Visage kind of mock themselves, or at least the clothing fad at the time. A little slower then is “She’s electric (Coming around) with some nice backing vocals, mostly courtesy of Lauren Duvall. Little keyboard riff there right out of Tubeway Army, and we’re into “Hidden sign” with a nice funky bassline and the tempo rising again. Very synth-centric again. A spoken vocal section brings to mind Neil Tennant’s work with the Pet Shop Boys and again there are nice backing vox from Duvall.

“On we go”. No, that’s not me saying on we go, though on we do go. It’s the title of the next track, and it has a nice sort of atmospheric, almost organ sound reminiscent of Kraftwerk and a big dark bassy synth carrying the tune in a somewhat ominous vein. Could very well be an instrumental, as we’re halfway through the song’s four minutes and so far no --- ah no wait. There’s the vocal now. Very slow and almost menacing as the deep bassy synth propels the track, with another, almost vocal synth adding its own flavour to the tune. Probably the bleakest track so far on an album I expected to be fairly downbeat, and which so far has not really been. Though again I admit I know little of Visage’s work; “Fade to grey” may not have been typical of them.

Something like cello or violin, probably synth-based, opens “Dreamer I know”, the dark mood dispelled as the pop sensibility returns to the album, and it could almost be Johnny Hates Jazz or Curiosity Killed the Cat, or any of another hundred eighties pop bands; bit bland really and probably my least favourite track so far. Yeah, but it does make my toes tap, have to admit. “Lost in static” has another nice atmospheric, almost ambient introduction, some soft piano ushering in the bass as the song gets going, tripping along nicely. Squelchy, bassy synth then takes control as the vocal comes in, and Strange is more subdued here, though truth to tell this is not the sort of music where you hear too much in the way of passion: a little mechanised, a little synthetic, a little --- well, let’s be honest: a little soulless.

“I am watching” is not a lot better: very generic by-the-numbers electropop I feel, sort of mid-paced but not a lot to make me remember it. The rhythm almost puts me in mind of the dreaded Stock, Aitken and Waterman, though I wouldn’t be that disrespectful to any band as to link them with the awful Hit Factory. Still, it’s close. “Diaries of a madman” is in fact the one track that presaged the return of Visage, the one Steve Strange recorded way back in 2007, and so is the oldest song on this album. Nice guitar intro, but then it descends into very much a Human League rip-off song; I could hear this on “Dare”. The album then ends on a low-key ballad, not at all bad, with a nice soft texture and a smooth line flowing through it.

TRACKLISTING

1. Never enough
2. Shameless fashion
3. She’s electric (Coming around)
4. Hidden sign
5. On we go
6. Dreamer I know
7. Lost in static
8. I am watching
9. Diaries of a madman
10. Breathe life

Yeah, definitely not for me. I’m sure Visage’s fans, waiting for three decades for a new album will be delighted with it, and it will probably do well overall. But it’s not my kind of music. Echoing the dislike I had for electronic pop music back when I was young, this comes across as sterile, dull and pretty lifeless. There’s no doubt they’re good at what they do, all accomplished musicians and Steve Strange is a good singer, but there’s nothing here that excites or even vaguely interests me. I may be looking somewhat guiltily in the direction of electronica, thinking I haven’t exactly given it a fair shake down the years, and be searching for bands I can enjoy, but Visage won’t be one of them.

Unfortunately, a review that has to consist more of knives than hearts, I’m sorry to say.

No. I've done enough work on this now, Stick a fork in it, it's done as they say. If people really want to see at a glance what I liked and didn't like they can run their eyes over the rating icons on each album.

Metal Month is over, Julian. It's over. Just accept it and let it go... :band:

Oh **** I never saw that you had added a ratings system, now I'm going to go through them all.

Wait a minute. Whatever happened to the Carcass review?

Hey Trollheart, you willing to look at The Killers? They're new wavy, '80s inspired rock. I reccomend Hot Fuss, their debut, which should be on Spotify if you're interested.

I was going to laugh at you and say you really should stop masturbating, Batty but instead WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CARCASS REVIEW?? I put it up, I saw it be posted and now it's gone, so far as I can see!!! I now have to check if other albums have also disappeared!
:banghead:
Mods, can you please see if something weird has happened or if someone has deleted entries from my journal, deliberately or accidentally? Thanks! :mad:

Sorry for the late reply man, been trying to track down that disappeared post!
:banghead:

As it goes, I reviewed "Hot fuss" already. It was ok but I wasn't blown away by it and I doubt I would be in too much of a hurry to check out any other albums by them. I've a massive backlog which I'm adding to every day, and so much happening with specials, features, lists and ideas all over the place, I just don't have time for "meh" albums.

Thanks for the thought though!

Hai hai --- Roger Hodgson --- 1987 (A&M)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E47oXkL2-f...+Hai++1987.jpg

After his amazing debut solo album "In the eye of the storm", released three years prior, it looked like big things could happen for this man. After all, he was the voice of Supertramp: it's not like people didn't recognise him when he sang. All the boppy, uptempo hit singles Supertramp released had him on vocals --- "The logical song", "Breakfast in America", "Dreamer", even the later hit "It's raining again", just before his departure from the band he had spent over a decade with, had his dulcet tones on it --- but he sort of shot himself in the foot a little by releasing an album that, while truly excellent, had only six tracks and none of those anything under five minutes. Didn't quite make for singles material, did it? So no hit singles from the debut. Had he learned a lesson? Well, perhaps. 1987 and back he came with his second solo effort, this time a more balanced album in terms of tracks, with ten in all, and nothing much over five minutes. More commerically appealing stuff too, with the heavy progressive rock feel that characterised the debut largely jettisoned in favour or shorter, more accessible songs, something similar to what Marillion did on "Fugazi", though they didn't change their sound, just the length and number of tracks, which worked for them, gaining them a hit single.

There is however a problem with this album. Unlike Marillion, who stuck for four or five years at least to their core sound, Roger Hodgson decided the time had come to change things up, so he mostly abandoned the clearly Supertramp-lite sound that had run all the way through "In the eye of the storm" and seems to have actively tried to write hit singles. Bad idea, Rog! Nobody out there who wasn't a fan of Supertramp knew him, despite his being gone solo in the game for three years at this stage, and those that did know him wanted --- demanded --- the Supertramp sound. He basically seems to have ignored this, and went his own way, resulting in an album that's not at all bad, but quite hit and miss, and not what you'd call a worthy successor to his first.

It starts off well, with the characterisic sound of Supertramp, the harmonica, and a bouncy beat as "Right place" gets us started, little tinkly synthesisers and a soaring guitar, but it's lighter than anything on the previous album. The lyric is a little lightweight and over-clever --- "Put it in the right place/ Get into the right space/ Don't turn into a headcase/ Move it at your own pace" and lots of other words rhyming with "ace". Thick growling snappy synth peppers the song but it's a good opener. Not so much so for "My magazine", where Rog tries to go all hard rock, with a snarling guitar (what? Supertamp never had snarling guitars!) and a sort of bluesy feel, and not a harmonica in sight. On this one I feel Roger tries to be Robert Plant, but fails utterly. Mind you, it's nowhere near as bad as the godawful "London", where he tries his hand at (oh no!) reggae! Now I don't like reggae as a genre, but even I know when it's done well it can sound really effective and this, well, just doesn't. It's almost like he said to himself, "we should have a reggae song on the album". Why? There's no justification for it, but that doesn't stop him, and he proceeds to perform one of the worst hatchet jobs on the music of the islands I have ever had the misfortune to hear.

Thankfully, things pick up after that, with the sublime semi-ballad "You make me love you", which has all the characteristics of the classic Supertramp melded with the best of the Cars. His mellifluous voice really comes through on this song, and the backing vocals (mostly his own) give a nice solid flavour to the track. The title is the close this album comes to progressive rock, with a big roaring vocal opening which recalls the opening of his debut album, then the welcome return of harmonica and some great Fairlight programming that sounds like fast, laboured breathing with bouncing synth bass hopping all over the place. Somewhat unfortunately though, after the promising opening the song breaks down into a fairly basic pop song, with all the prog rock --- or indeed, any rock --- removed from it. Well, that's not fair: the guitar is pretty rockin', but the synth really takes over the tune. It does however bop along nicely, even if the chorus is a little lacking, just the title repeated. There's some nice brass-like synthwork and the vocal is good, and there does at least seem like there's some real emotion in it.

The same can't sadly be said of "Who's afraid?", which is really quite weak, a soft pop ditty with an almost nursery-rhyme shape to it. Listening to this album, it's almost, though not quite, like witnessing Genesis slide ever deeper into pop as they abandoned their rock roots. Even the rhythm here is kind of a cross of Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" and Chris Rea's "I can hear your heartbeat". Again I stress, it's not a bad song, not at all. It's just a little fluffy and lightweight compared to what I had come to expect from this powerhouse of progressive rock. Mind you, one place where Hodgson will always excel is in writing beautiful ballads. The previous album had the lovely "Lovers in the wind" and the spectacular epic "Only because of you", and this time out we get two more, perhaps not of the calibre of the latter, but certainly superb songs. The first is "Desert love", which opens on a nice strummed guitar with a satisfied exhalation like "Ahh!" then brings in soft, silvery synth and trilling guitar as Roger launches into another great solo love song. The chorus, set against a grinding guitar and high-pitched synth, reeks of desperation and yearning.

"Land ho!" sounds just like a Supertramp song, and indeed it is. Written in 1974 with his then-songwriting partner Rick Davies, it's a boppy, happy, upbeat song that really lifts the mood after "Desert love" and even the lacklustre "Who's afraid?", but you have to ask yourself the question: if he's trying to make it on his own, put to some extent his Supertramp past behind him, why use an old song he wrote over fifteen years ago? Is he just playing to the Supertramp crowd here, or paying respect back to his origins? Either way, it's a great little track, replete with the hallmarks of his erstwhile band --- jumping, jangling piano, saxophone and killer hooks --- you can almost hear Davies singing it with him, and the quality just gets better with the standout of the album, in "House on the corner". Utilising a basic melody or rhythm I've heard somewhere before, but still haven't been able to identify to this day, it's a powerful, radio-friendly song that really should have been a single, and has a great chorus, with the verses almost elongated as Hodgson sings them. It just makes you want to move your feet, and the whistling keyboard running through it just adds the final touch. It could however finish much better.

After all that, the album winds down in somewhat of a low-key fashion with the second ballad, the morose and I would have to say bitter "Puppet dance", driven on piano and synthesiser which certainly recalls the Supertramp sound, though this is more a song I would expect to hear Davies sing, were it a Supertramp one. For an album that is generally more full of upbeat songs, it's something of a shock to hear this as the thing comes to a close, leaving you with something of a conflict in your emotions; the last few songs have put you in a good mood and you're ready to go out on a high, then the big comedown arrives in the form of this sad little ballad. Odd choice.

TRACKLISTING

1. Right place
2. My magazine
3. London
4. You make me love you
5. Hai hai
6. Who's afraid?
7. Desert love
8. Land ho!
9. House on the corner
10. Puppet dance

I wouldn't say I was disappointed with this album, but it does confuse. The debut was pure prog rock and hung together really well, whereas this jumps from pop to rock to pop and back, making it hard to get a real handle on it. I suppose in some ways it must have been an attempt to really get his career off the ground, after three years of nothing much happening, but if so then Roger Hodgson went the wrong way, in my opinion. His fanbase had come from Supertramp and they did not want to hear pop songs and love songs; he abandoned the basis Supertramp sound and tried to spread his wings, perhaps too far too soon, and sort of came crashing down. He didn't release another album until 2001, which surely tells its own story.

These days it seems he makes his money by returning to playing to the gallery, covering his own songs and other Supertramp ones in his concerts, and has issued albums of such material. Maybe it's best he stay doing that. For me, when I want to hear the Roger Hodgson who was at the time in my opinion on the cusp of greatness, with the world at his feet, I'll put on the debut album, and though I'll listen to this on and off, it will always be "In the eye of the storm" I return to.

So, no Zoetrope then ey? Tis a shame. They were a well revered metal band, and I would've liked to have seen your thoughts on them. Oh well. Life does go on.

Sorry Plankton, you hit me with that just as I was winding up Metal Month, and to be honest I'm pulling back a little from metal for the time being, as you can see from the recent entries. I may indeed give them a go some time later, but for now I'm on a mostly non-metal diet... ;)

No problemo.

When/if you ever do a review on em, I'll forward it to Pete (singer on Mind Over Splatter) who is a good friend of mine. We did an album together back in the early 00's. He's still trying to stoke the old fire.

Ah okay. Sorry.

I'll be tracking that review down. ;)

Read that Hot Fuss review. Glad to hear you enjoy some tracks, but yeah, if you weren't blown away with that one, don't bother with the rest. Sam's Town is good, some prefer it, but I'm a Hot Fuss kinda guy. Their latest album failed to impress me at all. Some say they get worse with every album, but hey, maybe the next one will be better.

What? Sam's Town and Hot Fuss aren't comparable though. They went for a different sound from Hot Fuss on it.

I'm more of a fan of Sam's Town.

Thanks for reminding me that I need to listen to their latest album.

Yeah, you're right, they ARE totally different. Battle Born's all well and good, but really forgettable imo. I recommend the B-Sides compilation, Sawdust.

http://www.trollheart.com/pethates.jpg
http://www.trollheart.com/picturepaints.jpg

… then why make it so hard to link to?

Goddamn it, in the past I’ve just found the image I wanted via Google and selected “Copy image location”, pasted that into my WP and away I go. Now it seems that two things are happening more and more frequently with images posted online. The first thing that bugs the living crap out of me is GI-NORMOUS images! I mean, who in the name of all things holy needs a picture to be more than 2000 DPI?? But more and more now when I go looking for a picture I’m coming across resolutions that are just ridiculous. Not only can most monitors not display such an image without resizing it --- in which case you’re not going to get the detail you would have wanted when you created/scanned it originally, so why bother? --- the files themselves are huge, so if you download one or try to paste it into a forum, like here, it annoys everyone because it slows down the less speedy computers and also takes up way too much space. There’s no need to make an image that big. The human eye can only cope with so much detail, and although YOU might want to see the sweat on every pore on Springsteen’s nose, or every individual blade of grass on a field, I don’t, and I suspect most of us are the same. As long as you can see the image in reasonable clarity, I’m happy with a smaller size. It’s almost like a pissing contest now though: I can make my image bigger than yours! Who the **** cares? Other people may want to use these images you’re uploading, and while yes, many people don’t like or agree with hotlinking (the practice of linking to an image on the site on which it’s hosted rather than downloading it and reuploading it to where you want it and then linking to there), you know, it’s a fact of life here on the internet. Most of us ain’t got the time or patience to redistribute your pictures, and anyway it’s only one picture so what are you bitching about? Not to mention that it could end up getting you visitors to your site, if you want them, as people may follow the link if they really want to. So what’s the deal?

Well, that’s bad enough. But then you have the real problem, the “invisible problem”, the one that only shows up AFTER you’ve tried to paste in the link on an increasingly large number of images. Most times you’ll get something like this

“https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/i...a46-VeCghD8”
which is fine, but then a lot of the time you’ll get this

“data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAkGBhQSEBQUExQVFRQWGBoaGBgVGBcXFxsVFBgVGhgYGR oaHCYfGxkjGhgUHy8gIycpLCwtGh8xNTAqNSYrLCkBCQoKDgwO Gg8PGiokHyQsLCwtLzApLC00NCwsKSwpKSosLS8sLCwsLCwsKS wsLCwsLCopNCwsLCwqLCwsLCwsLP/AABEIALQBGAMBIgACEQEDEQH/xAAbAAABBQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgMEBQYBB//EAEMQAAIBAgMFBQUECAQGAwAAAAECEQADEiExBAVBUWETIjJxg QZCUpGhB2JysRQjgpKiwdHwM7LC4RUkQ2OT8RZU0v/EABsBAAIDAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEAgMFAQYH/8QANBEAAQQABAQDBgYCAwAAAAAAAQACAxEEEiExBRNBUTJx8CJ hgZGhwRQVQlKx4TPxBiTR/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwDw2iiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiihCKKKKEIoo ooQiiiihCKKKKEIorqrNXO7tzKwDM2QzIGkdTNcJpVySNjFuVO qE6ClnZ2+E/KtnuTdpvsy2EGFILuQcIJmNJJbX5Hzqfs3s7tD3r9pcGK1ZN0E AwwkYRme6zAtEjUR1rlnsk/wAbbywDXfUrzrszyrhFaLbt0XBbs3WM9vjwc/1bBT/Ecqib13M9i4UuphYeRBHMEZEa5g1200JRsVT0U9cs8qZrqtBtF FFFC6iiiihCKKKKEIorpNcoQiiiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiihCKKK KEIooooQiiiihCKKKKEIooooQiiiuqsmhCmbq3e166ltBLMQB5 n+5rQ7V7Lut+1ZtuLhuZDIouMEgiSSCBkcQOhGhypv2HfBtQjx G3dCH (And it goes on for about five pages, but you get the idea I'm sure).

Yeah. Annoying isn’t it? Imagine trying to paste THAT into your document, or worse, into a forum. I’ve had image links like this that have, on their own, exceeded the maximum character count, and that’s twenty thousand characters! Twenty flaming thousand! In one image!

The question I pose is: why? What’s the point? Is it to stop hotlinking? If so, then it works perfectly. Nobody in their right mind would paste this into anything. But if not, then what is the reason for the ridiculously long text string? What does it represent, and how come other images, often from the same site, have something more manageable, as in the first example, as their code?

I truly don’t get it.

And, with images using codes like this, I truly don’t get it. The image, that is. It is unusable. But even if it IS unusable, why is there no way (that I know of) to ascertain this BEFORE copying the damn link and trying to paste it? Why is there no way to read the code or see it beforehand, to know if it’s worth even trying? So far as I can see, it’s just pot luck. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve looked for a certain image, then groaned, raged and fumed, getting angrier all the time as each successive link turns out to be one of the “long” ones. Sometimes I’ve run out of examples: every single image of the type I need has come up unusable. Sometimes that means I have to go to the trouble of saving, downloading, reupping and relinking to my own site. I mean, I can do this, sure, but it’s a pain and why should I have to? Most people using these images didn’t create them; they don’t hold the copyright on them. So what gives them the right --- if it is them doing it, and I assume it must be --- to prevent others from using these images?

A picture may paint a thousand words, but if it has more than a thousand characters in its link, you’re not going to be creating any masterpieces with it any time soon.


“Adapt and survive?”
http://www.strategyplanet.com/sfc/im...rg_picture.gif
This had been meant to focus, as it almost always does, on one thing that really bugged me, but hell, it’s called “Pet hates” and this week has seen the emergence of another thing that has really driven me mad. So welcome to part two!

If you buy something in a certain territory, I think it’s not expecting too much that you should be able to use the damn thing! I mean, if you bought an iphone in the US you’d think it would be taken as read that you could connect to US networks with it, if you buy a ticket for Wembley Stadium you don’t expect the concert to be held in Dubai, and if you invest in a diesel powered car then you shouldn’t expect it to run on petrol, now should you?

All, I would think, reasonable and not unattainable goals. So why is it that when I opened my new (although I had had it for over a year I had never opened it) Western Digital external hard drive this week I should find that, despite the fact it was bought in Ireland (well, on an Irish website) the mains plug on it should be a two-pin, “battery shaver” style?http://i8.ebayimg.com/05/s/08/ce/e1/2f_2.JPG I can’t use that. Over here in Ireland we use the three-pin plug, and have since we got electricity I think. So where’s the adapter I ask? Every electrical product sold these days seems to come with a plastic connector you can snap on to the plug to make it the one you want to use, and I think it’s this way in the US too: if you get a three-pin and need a two, there’s the option of changing it with just a few clicks.
https://ryness.blob.core.windows.net...-/0005463.jpeg
But no adapter could I see, as I searched through the box. Even though --- and this was the bit that really bugged me --- the bloody quickstart guide SHOWS you one being fitted! How is it that Western Digital, famed for totally overpricing their hard drives --- how they haven’t priced themselves out of the oversaturated market yet I don’t know --- could not be bothered to include a small piece of plastic and metal that would have made my life easier? They’re selling the damn thing to the Irish market: why not make sure it can be bloody well used when it’s been bought? But no. I had to go and buy one (only cost three euro but that’s beside the point; I had to go into the city and it added an extra day on to my project) before I could use their wonderful drive!

No point in me writing to them of course --- they couldn’t care less I’m sure --- but it really turned me off buying their products --- which I had always had an aversion to: this one was just too reasonably priced to pass up at the time --- and more to the point, has made me think twice before I buy another drive, or anything with an electrical lead. From now on, I’m not handing over my money until I know there’s a plug on the thing I can use! Thanks Western Digital: you’ve made me become a picky shopper, all because you’re too tight to include an adapter that would make your product work in the country in which it’s sold.