Don't worry, Trollheart, they're just pissed off because the debut lost. ;)

In what way?
Even the non classic songs are some of the best songs Sabbath wrote.

Uh, I was just confused about the inconsistency I saw which you then clarified. No need to get defensive. If it's worth anything I'm glad the better album won out.

Because I think the debut, the follow-up, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are all better.

Like I said I prefer Vol 4, that doesn't make Paranoid overrated though.

WHAT! Paranoid is probably the single greatest metal album of the 1970s and probably the reason why most metal guitarists decided to pick up a guitar in the first place.

Most people don't appreciate your way of doing things. ;)

http://www.trollheart.com/listen1.png
We're finishing up this section with two final choices from the one guy. Why? Well they're the last two left, and though I still have several of Batty's suggestions to listen to, I've been rather busy being turned into a girl and held captive in his Torture Chamber (last installment tomorrow), so haven't been able to lend an ear to his other less, shall we say, ear-destroying choices?

So these are the last two, for this year.

http://www.metal-archives.com/images...86015.jpg?2535
Steadfast --- Forefather --- 2008 (Seven Kingdoms)
Suggested by mythsofmetal
I’m sure it’s mere coincidence that the album sleeve looks somewhat similar to recently-reviewed ReinXeed and indeed to Fireforce, recently posted in the new “It’s a new day, and a new Metal band!” thread, but it seems this music has little if anything to do with either. Both of the aforementioned are Power Metal bands, while these guys are Viking Metal, born on the shores of that most Norse of settlements, er, Leatherhead in Surrey. :rolleyes:That’s down by the coast, isn’t it? Chances are these guys’ ancestors were busy repelling the Vikings as they tried to take their women and land! Oh well. We've certainly had our share of Viking Metal this month, but these guys I have not come across up to now.

Another two-piece, they go by the suitably Norse pseudonyms of Wulfstan (Guitar, bass and vocals) and Atheistan (Guitar, Bass and, er, vocals?) The lyrics seem to include some words in another language, I would guess Norwegian or Swedish. No wait I’m wrong: it’s Old English apparently. And it may only be on this one song. Yeah, it’s just this one. Sorry to say, we’re back to growly vocals but the guitars are very heroic and hard as “Brunanburh” starts the album off, certainly fighting music, that’s for sure. Slows down then in the middle, kind of maintaining the same basic riff though which reminds me in part of Urfuast, recently reviewed.

“Cween of the Mark” (I assume that’s an old spelling of queen, as the song appears to have a female protagonist) is faster, with the vocals a little more to the forefront; whereas in the previous song they sort of chanted along to a degree, here they’re spat with venom. Good guitar work from the two guys, but as to who’s drumming (someone must be, and I’d be willing to bet it’s not a Linn) I can’t tell you as they’re not credited. Kind of Maidenesque guitar sound to “Theodish belief”, a song about honour and loyalty, and belief in the ancient ways. It has all the swagger and strut of a good Manowar track, though Eric Adams never sung this way. “Hallowed halls” goes for broke, bringing in speed metal influences for the first time, and it’s interesting that this is the first song written solo by Atheistan, so he must prefer the faster songs.

It slows down then for a beer-hall chant as Atheistan relates the joys of Valhalla: ”Oh, they feast in their hallowed halls/ Ghostly warriors ashen and pale/ Shadows dance in the light of the flame/ Gold and majesty, glory and fame.” Yeah, those Vikings sure did know how to have a good time, even after death! The title track is up next, and it’s another Atheistan number, another fast rocker, the thrust of which is not hard to guess from the title. Vikings were all about truth, glory and honour, and so this song celebrates those virtues, pledging to take on all comers and not to flinch. When Atheistan takes the songwriting reins it seems that Forefather’s music falls more on the thrash/speed side of the divide, whereas from what I’ve seen so far at any rate, Wulfstan is more a pagan/Viking man.

Ah, but then the next song is a Wulfstan one, but sounds like an Atheistan composition, hammering along on rails of fire and steel. So what do I know? Lyric’s a bit odd though: ”With gathering strength and growing will/ They turned to bite the hand that feeds” --- what hand that feeds? If he’s talking about the Vikings it was never a case of turning against their masters, as they had none. Strange. Good guitar passage here near the end, and it takes us into the only instrumental on the album, “Eostre”. I have no idea how that is pronounced, or what it means, but it’s a somewhat laidback opening which then smashes into a full-on crunching guitar assault, music that would not be out of place accompanying a victorious march from battle.

The appearance of a comet, or meteor, confuses the Vikings in “Fire in the sky”, as they wait for their seers and witches to divine what the omen means. Are the gods angry? Do they demand battle? Is it a warning? Natural phenomena such as these coloured the beliefs and decisions of people all through the ancient world, as they had no way to explain them and so took them as signs from the gods. Whether they were good or bad signs was up to the holy men and women to work out. The suspicion, hope, fear and dread as well as a sense of uncertainty and not a little awe is evident in the trundling guitar work of the duo, as the vocal is growled, by Wulfstan I assume, as he’s shown as being on lead vocals, and then another voice picks it up, a clearer, cleaner vocal, which I have to take as being that of Atheistan. Pity he doesn’t sing more of the songs; I far prefer his voice. He does take a lot of this song though, so that’s certainly welcome.

With a soft acoustic guitar intro and a title like “Mellowing of the mains”, you might be fooled into thinking this was a ballad --- I was --- but it soon blows that notion to hell as the boys hit you full in the face with their guitar attack and the song belts along, seeming to refer to some rite or spell being cast, while “Wolfhead’s tree” relates the tale of a man dying, having been hanged from the branches of said tree as he contemplates the events that have brought him to this pass, and wonders what awaits him in the world beyond? Of course it’s a lament, but there’s also a great sense of defiance and fatalism about it: the kind of man hanging on this tree who says I made my bed and I’ll lie on it, and given the chance would do nothing differently.

There’s a surprise at the end, with a sort of minstrel-ish rondelay which seems to have much of the lyric in another language: that Old English again, or German maybe? Hard to say. Then it jumps into a Maidenesque groove as “Miri it is” (don’t ask me) closes the album in, shall we say, unexpected style. Oddly enough, while there were credits for each other song on the album this one is not noted, so I wonder if it is some traditional folk song arranged by the boys? It’s certainly different to the other material on the album, though not so much so that it’s out of place.

TRACKLISTING

1. Brunaburnh
2. Cween of the mark
3. Theodish belief
4. Hallowed halls
5. Steadfast
6. Three great ships
7. Eostre
8. Fire from the sky
9. Mellowing of the mains
10. Wolfhead’s tree
11. Miri it is

Not a bad album in the end. Could do without the gutteral vocals but I’’m beginning to get used to them at this stage. For an album with such high-minded expectation though it sort of didn’t really deliver for me. It wasn’t just the vocals; the tunes all sounded quite similar and I’d be hard pushed to pick one out that really stood out, or that I would remember. Steadfast perhaps, but that’s not always a good thing, at least, not on its own.

Yeah. Feel an apology may be due here.
Any time you like, guys! ;)
Nah seriously, it's me that needs to apologise. I think I came off a little short and snappy
http://thumb7.shutterstock.com/displ...-127663925.jpg
towards you two, but it's just when you've put your heart and soul into something, spent a long time trying to get it just right, and then the only comments turn out to be criticisms or complaints about a tiny portion of what you've been working on, well, it hurts, y'know?

But I realise nobody was trying to be nasty and I think my response was definitely a little heated, so sorry about that guys. Hope nobody took offence.

Man! This has been one long month! :shycouch:

http://www.trollheart.com/ilm2.png
Not wishing to push my luck any further, I've decided to continue on with another band I know a little about. Admittedly, they come from Northern Ireland, but then, I never said this would not be an examination of all the bands from the island of Ireland, as we're fond of saying here. For those who for some reason may not know, Northern Ireland and its six counties, including its capital city Belfast, are considered part of the United Kingdom and are under the control of the British Government. Simplistically: I don't have the time or desire to go into the ins and outs of Northern Irish politics here. But generally, Northern Ireland is treated as being separate from the rest of Ireland, or Southern Ireland. I'm happy to include them though. Tiocadh ar la!* ;)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...fernalLove.jpg
Infernal love --- Therapy? --- 1995 (A&M)
Together for over ten years now, Therapy? (the question mark is very important) have a total of thirteen albums to date, of which this is the fifth. They got harder and darker as time went on, and when I reviewed their latest, “A brief crack of light”, in 2012, I was not impressed. Let's see if their earlier albums were any better.

“Epilepsy” gets us going, with a strangely ambient opening on either feedback guitar or synth, then the guitar blasts right to the fore as the song gets going. Seems at this point Therapy? were a three-piece, and guitars and vocals are handled at this time by Andy Cairns, also founder of the band. Can't say I think too much of this to be honest: seems a little disjointed. The title of the album is repeated over and over again, so I guess in a way this is the title track. Nice bass run there from Michael McKeegan, then Fyfe Ewing punches the drums up again as the song pounds towards its conclusion.

With the sound of what seems to be a radio being tuned to different stations as a guitar riffs in between, “Stories” initially at least sounds like it's a bit more cohesive, with a sort of mixture of the Jam and the Clash in its rhythm. Therapy? reportedly have a lot of punk influences in their music, and this is certainly evident in the vocal delivery, though here it's a bit more together. More of a --- say it with me --- melody. Nice solo there from Cairns. “A moment of clarity” dials back the chaos for a moment with what certainly sounds like a keyboard, though none is shown. Nice slow simple guitar and Cairns's vocal is gentle and even.

The guitar then gets harder but the tempo remains mostly the same, so I'm not so sure I can write this off as not being the ballad I thought it might have been. Yeah, I think it can qualify. Very nice. Passionate vocal, sharp but somehow soft guitars. It's also one of the longer songs, just over six minutes. I must admit, I smiled at the title “Jude the obscene”: very clever. It of course kicks the tempo back up, but not all that much. Good vocal too, and after the discordance of the first track things seem to have settled down rather nicely. This has a good chugging guitar and some smooth riffing too. Like the hook in the song, but I must admit it has traces of U2 about it. There's a chance for McKeegan to swap his bass for a lead guitar in “Bowels of love”, the song an understated one, almost balladic and featuring the first appearance of cello, courtesy of Martin McCarrick. A contender for standout with “A moment of clarity”, this one easily takes top slot. Just wonderful.

With the sound of a helicopter swooping in and then gunfire, for a moment I think I'm listening to Def Leppard's “Die hard the hunter”, but then a big angry guitar and rattling drums carry us into “Misery”, with a sort of drawled vocal from Cairns, those punk tinges coming back in after a rather long break. Good rocking beat, again a decent hook. I very much like the guitar that gets “Bad mother” underway, sort of a Duane Eddy feel to it? Really rocks along with enthusiasm and energy, very enjoyable. Love the way it slows right down near the end allowing McKeegan to display his considerable prowess on the bass, and Ewing to create some pretty amazing sounds on his kit. This takes us into “Me vs You”, which is in fact the longest track, just under six and a half minutes.

A slow, kind of ominous start, with single drum beats behind a lonely guitar then an almost Peter Gabriel style vocal before the song explodes in anger and power, seeming to be an exchange between a couple, the girl presumably behind the door on which the man is banging, trying to get in, this being symbolised by the slow, pounding drum beats. Creates quite an uncomfortable atmosphere, as if some act of violence is about to be perpetrated. Great guitar work as well as a smouldering, almost evil vocal from Cairns. Another standout? You bet your ass. Some strange synthy-style effects then near the end and Ewing brings in a kind of conga drum routine and then we pile into “Loose”, a good uptempo and sort of happy rocker. Quite commercial, would have made a decent single. Really like this one too.

I definitely like this earlier incarnation of Therapy? After the first track I wasn't sure, but now I can see that they make, or made, really good music that fully deserves to be better known outside of Ireland, but isn't. Next up is the only cover on the album, with a dark piano note (come on, it has to be piano!) their version of Husker Du's “Diane” is cloying, claustrophobic and reintroduces Martin McCarrick on that beautiful cello. Either his work is multi-tracked or there are violins in there too, but it's pretty amazing. Chilling lyric though: ”We could cruise down Robert Street all night long/ But I think I'll just rape you/ And kill you instead.” Whoa! Nick Cave, eat your heart out, huh?

And that has to be another standout. Leaving us with just one track to close on, the frenetic and somewhat repetitive but great fun “30 seconds” which somehow is a fitting close to a really good album, with its punk/rockabilly hybrid brand of unrestrained energy and adventure. Class!

TRACKLISTING

1.Epilepsy
2. Stories
3. A moment of clarity
4. Jude the obscene
5. Bowels of love
6. Misery
7. Bad mother
8. Me vs you
9. Loose
10. Diane
11. 30 seconds

Just goes to show how a little experience can change your opinion of a band. When I listened to "A brief crack of light", back in 2012, I hated it. I hated the vocals. I hated the music. But now that I've been properly weaned on the likes of Slayer, Metallica, Viking and black metal, I think I could appreciate that album more now if I listened to it again. Mind you, the vocals here are totally different to what I remember on their latest album.

Even so, it's easy to see why Therapy? have lasted as long as they have in the Irish metal scene, and why they're still regarded as one of the premier metal bands to come out of the shores of my native land.

* "Tiocaidh ar la" (chucky or law) means literally "Our day will come" and is used, or was used, as a rallying cry by Irish nationalists, including the IRA, as a promise and a threat. It's still kind of used around here from time to time, mostly tongue-in-cheek.

Dude, no need to apologize. I should probably apologize instead, for providing petty criticism rather than praise for hard work. Sorry, man.

http://www.trollheart.com/lightside.png
Although the last few times we “looked beyond the darkside” of metal we were having a laugh, it's not only comedy that defines the lighter side of this music. In just the same way as the Hell's Angels are generally looked on as badass bikers you do NOT want to cross, but may take disadvantaged children for picnics (do they do that? They probably do), it's often not expected that heavy metal artistes will get involved in charity projects, but they have, at least once that I know of.
http://www.trollheart.com/charitymetal.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...VOjuRh-5su1k_H
Originally the brainchild of Dio men Jimmy Bain and Vivian Campbell, Hear'n'Aid (geddit?) was a response from the metal community to the likes of Band Aid and USA for Africa. Metallers are, after all, also people and deplore the injustices in the world, usually through their music, and like anyone else they want to do what they can to lessen the suffering on this planet, and one of the major treatable causes of most of the maladies afflicting our less well-off brothers and sisters is the spectre of hunger.

So, to try to raise money to combat famine in Africa, Bain and Campbell enlisted the aid of their boss, the late Ronnie James Dio, and soon bands like Iron Maiden, Accept, Y&T, Kiss, Motorhead, Rush and the Scorpions, to name but a small few, were getting involved. The result was an album of songs whose profits were to be split between famine relief for Africa and Dio's own project to help runaway children, Children of the night.

The finished project was the album “Stars”, with the title track written and performed by the Dio team, who also contributed a live version of “Hungry for Heaven” to the album. I'm not going to be reviewing the album, mostly because it's primarily comprised of live versions of songs you probably already know backwards, like “Heaven's on fire” by Kiss, “The zoo” by the Scorps and “Up to the limit” by Accept. But the project raised a cool million for famine relief, with the proceeds divided as I mentioned, and remains one of the only times, to date, that metal artistes have come together in the name of a good cause that wasn't a tribute to a fallen comrade.

Who says headbangers have no hearts?

http://www.metalkingdom.net/album/co...hear_n_aid.jpg
Stars --- Hear'n'Aid --- 1985

TRACKLISTING

1. Stars (Hear'n'Aid)
2. Up to the limit* (Accept)
3. On the road* (Motorhead)
4. Distant early warning* (Rush)
5. Heaven's on fire* (Kiss)
6. Can you see me (Jimi Hendrix Experience)
7. Hungry for Heaven* (Dio)
8. Go for the throat* (Y&T)
9. The zoo* (Scorpions)
(* = indicates a live version)

:)

You always have to go that extra mile to prove me wrong, Urb, dont'cha? ;)
:clap:
Ah well, as I said: the only time that I know of. Or knew of, I guess...

I think of it as an extra couple of metres rather than miles.

http://www.trollheart.com/ilm2.png

Time for not only our final look at Irish metal, but also our last stop on our short voyage through the metal that the four countries featured in this section have to offer. After hitting two for two with the last offerings, I'm sticking with reasonably well-known bands from Ireland, and who could be better known than
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ical_Cover.jpg
Songs of innocence --- U2 --- 2014 (Island)
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2uoOVzZ_uoM/hqdefault.jpg

HA HA HA HA HAAAAA! Oh GOD! Your FACES!!! Oh stop it, my poor sides! Oh that's just too much! Really? U2? Metal? Oh dear god no! Oh hell no! Even I wouldn't try to pass that one off! Oh it's just too funny. I think I'm gonna be ---

Seriously though, all joking aside, for the last Irish band I've managed, quite to my surprise and delight, to track down a band who sing in my native tongue. Not that I could understand a word of Irish --- well, a few --- but it is nice that, as we had bands singing in Portuguese, Spanish and German, we can actually find an Irish heavy metal band who sing in Irish, and more, that we can actually find an album from them we can feature. This is it.

http://www.metal-archives.com/images...62286.jpg?1136
Dair --- Corr Mhona --- 2014 (Independent)

Fronted by two brothers, Stephen and Paul Quinn, on bass and guitar/vocals respectively, and two other brothers, Robert and Martin Farrow, on drums and guitar, Corr Mhona (pronounced “cor voh-na” is Irish for heron, and this is their debut album. You might imagine that as an Irish native I would be able to translate the lyrics, but I somehow doubt my language skills will be up to the task. It's a long time since I was forced to learn “gaeilge” as we call it (pron. “gail-ga” or “gwail-ga”) in school, and little if any of it stuck. My teachers would not be impressed. Nevertheless, it's a refreshing change of pace and a great opportunity to sample the true flavour of indigenous Irish metal.

Sounds like some sort of synth but could be a drum effect I guess as strong chanting voices declaim what I assume to be an Irish call and then sounds like violin which becomes hard guitar, with bass coming in as thunder rolls and we open on “Toirneach” (tor-knock) which marches slowly along on the guitar line in a nearly-but-not-quite doom metal rhythm. In the third minute it stops for a second then picks up again in a much faster tempo, almost running into a reel on the guitar. Halfway through the song now and the vocals come in, clear and understandable but with someone doing a death growl behind the singer. I'm not sure who does the vocals as three of the four are shown as doing “vocals”, with no lead in sight.

Now that it's got going it's a brisk rocker with darker doom-tinged edges and a sense of restrained thrash about it too, a good start to be sure (to be sure!) and the guitars of Paul Quinn and Martin Farrow certainly drive the song along. Perhaps oddly, perhaps not, for an album with only seven tracks three of them are instrumental, and Dearcán (Djar-kawn; seems to translate as “thorn”) opens on thick bass then joined by the two guitars wailing in harmony but with no percussion as yet, or none I can hear. It's a slowish piece, almost anthemish in its way, and quite short, just over two minutes, but brings us into one of the longer ones. “Dealg” (jalg) has a frenetic opening that barrels along on guitar and with Robert Farrow on the drumseat getting back involved again. It slows then on dark bass and reflective guitar before a mad scream cuts in and the vocal has now become very much a black metal one, or a death metal one. Not sure if these guys switch vocals, or if the guy who sang on the opener is the same and just versatile here, but I'd suspect the former.

That would seem to be the case, as the other vocalist can now be heard singing sort of backup vocals as the two guitarists harry the song along until it breaks down into a slow rhythm with low chanting and a nice introspective piece. You might be tempted to think that at just over eight minutes long this is the longest song on the short album, but you wouldn't even be close, as the final track is twice as long. Yeah, I said twice as long. Very passionate singing now from let's say the non-screamer with good backing vocals from someone else who either isn't the screamer, or who again can control and regulate his voice well. I love the dark, chimy bass and guitars here. Very effective. With a lot of anger and resentment the tempo builds until the screamer is yelling out against hammering guitars and trundling drums, and taking us into the second instrumental.

“... Na lamha-sa” (na law-va-sa) rides on a soft gentle acoustic guitar, slightly over the three minute mark, very redolent of a lament with what almost sounds at times like Spanish or classical guitar coming into the tune. The three dots in front of the title show this to be an extract, possibly from a poem or quote, but don't ask me from what. I know “lamha” is hands, but other than that ... it's “the something hands”, and that's as far as I can translate it. Lovely little piece though, never really rises above a murmur from the guitars, and another springy bass launches us into “Dall” (doll) which I think means blind. Punchy guitar kicks its way in and the drums batter their entrance also, the vocal a shared one as two of the guys sing the opening, then the dark screamer roars his bit as the guitars grind a little more. The song's lyric seems to pursue the idea of blind hatred, the unquestioning following of orders that lead to despair and destruction.

Heavy doom metal riff there later --- can't exactly pin down where in the song, as the only place I could find this album was on YouTube, and of course it's all one track --- with a really nice solo coming through, the first I think I've heard either of the guitarists really let themselves go in any sort of show of individual expertise. A big heavy finish takes us to the third, and last instrumental, Dreolín (drow-leen), which seems to have piano but I don't see any mentioned. Hmm. Slow and gentle, with a reflective air about it, bass and guitar combining perfectly and another three minute deal. That takes us to the epic closer, and title track.

With a big romping guitar opening, “Dair” runs for a total of sixteen minutes and thirteen seconds, and seems to celebrate the rebirth of the world as winter comes, goes and spring arrives. Possibly a pagan ritual thing, maybe it's just a metaphor, I don't know. The initial vocal is clean and very uplifting somehow, the guitar complementing it superbly. Now it turns a little darker, slowing down as perhaps winter reaches out with cold dead fingers for the world, turning everything white and trying to squeeze the blood from every living thing. Another chant, a slow lament, suffuses the song with fine vocal harmonies. As expected, the dark screamer makes his entrance as the drama in the song builds, though it fairly quickly slips into a nice, smooth groove as the double-vocal chanting returns.

In about the sixth minute, near as I can figure, the music fades out completely and the boys set up a truly beautiful and heartbreaking acapella chorus which carries us into the eighth, before the carefully constructed atmosphere is blasted aside as the guitars wind up, drums punch in and the screamer returns. But the mood previously established stays with you, like the faint sound of a dying echo as it ripples away over the mountain, and it's pretty profound. The boys now strive to outdo each other on the guitar as they head into the tenth minute of the song. It's quite power or even progressive metal for a time, until everything is dialled back and with the sound of tolling bells one of the guitars smashes out, the tempo dropping then slowly building back up again on a shimmering guitar line as we cross over into the twelfth minute of this epic song.

Then that Spanish or acoustic guitar makes a welcome return, taking the song solo other than the rumbling, bodhran-like drums from Robert Farrow, electric guitar then joining in as we reach the final three minutes of “Dair”. A soft vocal comes in then, speaking of things reborn and rising, of hope and renewal and resurrection. The guitar perfectly counterpoints this, and we come to an extremely satisfying conclusion to a very special album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Toirneach
2. Dearcán
3. Dealg
4. ...Na Lámha-sa
5. Dall
6. Dreolín
7. Dair

First of all, I have to extend my congratulations to Corr Mhora, for attempting such a daunting prospect as writing a whole album in Irish. I'm not sure whether or not it will be a stumbling block for them --- most people within Ireland can't speak or understand the language, other than those in the more isolated west, and as for outside the island? --- but it certainly shows some courage that they attempted it. They also manage not to just sing heavy metal lyrics in Irish: they've imbued their music here with just the right amount of celtic flavour to enable them to draw us into the traditions of old Ireland, and rather surprisingly, have done so without the use of Irish instruments to help them. Not a fiddle, accordion, uileann pipe or whistle to be found here. It's quite a feat.

I do think however that they're limiting themselves by singing entirely in Irish. Their music is certainly strong enough to overcome any initial reticence you might have to listening to songs sung in gaelic, but at the heart of it is the possibility of success, and while Irish speakers and institutions will no doubt laud them for their efforts, it's hard to see them gaining any mainstream success with this album. Of course, bands have sung in their native tongue before --- we encountered Baron Rojo at the very beginning of this section --- but as a rule, these kinds of bands do not do well outside of their native country. Which is why if they continue to sing in Irish I fear the Farrow and Quinn brothers are destined to remain forever locked to these shores.

Which is a pity, as they really deserve to be heard far beyond them.

And so we finish our short jaunt across the world, having sampled metal from Brazil, then Germany, then Spain and finally ending up back where we started, Ireland. Some of the music we have heard has been good, some very good, some not so good and some bloody awful. But one thing has been evident throughout this series, that no matter where you go, whatever country you visit, however remote or small it may be, there are always guys or girls prepared to strap on guitars, sit behind drumkits or fire up keyboards and form a heavy metal band.

Music is indeed the universal language, understood by all and without any need to study to gain comprehension of it, and anyone can speak it if they want to. But Heavy Metal, as we have seen, and will see further over the coming years, is without question the international language, a medium through which we can all talk, all say what we want to say and all hear and understand the message being sent.

Viva la metallique! Or something.
Slan agus beannacht.*

* “Slan agus beannacht” (Slawn oggus bann-uckt) : old Irish blessing, literally “Health and blessings”, but generally translated as “Goodbye and God bless”.

http://www.trollheart.com/listen1.png
http://www.metal-archives.com/images/2/8/4/9/284970.jpg
Ashen Eidolon --- Gallowbraid --- 2010 (Northern Silence Productions)
Recommended by mythsofmetal
Now this is an interesting one. First, it's an EP not an album, so only four tracks, although with two of them coming in at fourteen and eleven minutes each, it could almost be as long as an album. Secondly, it's by a band from Salt Lake City, and who knew they rocked, never mind played metal, in the City of Mormons (yeah, ignorant Irishman displays his total lack of understanding about a US city: sure, you can see leprechauns walking down any street in Dublin! Touche!) and thirdly, it's the first time I've listened to three choices fom a member. We've already heard mythsofmetal's Mondstille, but he also suggested yesterday's penultimate album from Forefather, and now he has the dubious honour of being the last album listened to in this section, and the only member to have all three of his suggestions reviewed.

I feel it's hardly likely that the band's record label will turn out to be symbolic of their music though, given that they're shown as playing melodic black metal! As I say, this is their debut, not even an album, but given the lengths of two of the four tracks it looks like they've put a lot of work into it. They've only been around since 2006, so are fairly new but given that this EP was released four years ago you would wonder if they plan to ever get an actual album out? Oh and no, I have no idea what the album title means, nor indeed the band name, unless it's something to do with the hangman's knot? None of which is really that important, as it's the music that will determine whether or not I like this band, and what future, if any, I see for them.

Well, there's certainly no easing into this as we start with a drum crash then a heavy guitar, and I must admit that despite what I expected I absolutely love the melody in the guitar. Even when the annoying scratchy vocal comes in --- as I expected it would --- it doesn't spoil my enjoyment of the music, which I am totally getting into and which sounds nothing like black metal. If anything it's more melodic or even AOR with a harder edge. I'm thinking the likes of Ten, Shadow Gallery, maybe Kamelot, but with dark vocals which are almost incongruous with the music. Oh yeah, this is the title track, and also the longest, that fourteen-minuter I spoke of. Must say, if it keeps like this I could certainly live through a quarter-hour of this! Interestingly, Gallowbraid are again a two-piece, with one guy doing everything except drums and the other, well, drumming. That angry, nasty vocal comes from Jake Rogers (not Dark Master Deathblood, then? No?) who rather amazingly is also responsible for that wonderful guitar melody I'm listening to. He also plays bass, um, flute and keyboards. Wow. Alex Rogers --- surely his brother?--- plays the drumkit and he doesn't just hammer on it like some drummers but actually makes his own kind of melody on the skins.

We're nearly halfway through the track now and I've nothing bad to say about it, other than the vocals but I'm sort of ignoring them and concentrating on that sweet guitar melody. Now, just as I say that, Alex comes in with his own vocal, much cleaner as a backup, and Jake slides into a rather beautiful and laidback acoustic line. These guys do surprise at every turn! Keyboards now, and they really fit in to the tune, a high, rippling, lilting sound to them that softens the track even more and yet at the same time gives it a sense of drama. This is just great, and much better than I had expected. Guitar goes more in the line of black metal now, hammering out the riffs and speeding up, but even at that I'm still digging it. Man.

Some superb Spanish guitar from Jake now, completely unaccompanied and without any vocals until its' taken over by electric and then Alex crashes in with the drums as the song romps towards the finish line with a guitar riff that's somewhere in the Maiden playbook but does not come across as any sort of a ripoff. Slowing down now in a doom metal sort of vibe, the vocal almost hissed and Jake adds in some mournful flute as an uncredited female voice comes out of nowhere, making the song almost ethereal and gentle. Maybe she is credited: let me look. Yeah, there she is: Alison Vance. Big fast finish that returns to the original melody and I'm already a serious fan.

“Autumn I”, by comparison, is tiny, just over four minutes short, and is driven on a beautiful solo acoustic guitar from Jake, a soft, gentle, pastoral tune, choral vocals coming in after the first minute giving it kind of the feeling of a Viking chant or something. Very folk, very traditional. Flute now makes its entrance as the guitar stops, and dark, lush synth is the backdrop, no percussion whatever and so far, other than the choral ones noted, no vocals. Back to the acoustic guitar as the song heads into its final minute, framed by an acapella chorus, almost a lament. Just superb.

“Oak and aspen” is the other long track, just over eleven minutes long, and it opens on again acoustic guitar, though a little more uptempo this time. Percussion cuts in early though, and some bright piano, as the tune sways along in a sort of balladesque way. This of course doesn't last (though with this band it seems you can never be sure) as the guitar kicks up into a harder vibe and Jake lets go with one of his screamy vocals. Though the tempo has quickened, the song still retains some of its pastoral feel, and the guitars are now more majestic than snarling. Now there's a faster group chant going on as the guitars batter away, though never losing the “m” word. We're now in the fifth minute, almost halfway through. Sort of a Dio-style marching thing coming through in the seventh minute, ramping up the tension a little, then what sounds like violin but is probably on the synth.

Another big male chorus takes the song as the guitars pound away, and we're heading into the final minutes with a really nice repeating riff on the guitar, some hard piano joining in as the song comes to an end, leaving us with only the one minute plus of “Autumn II” before the album is over. Another acoustic instrumental, it's really minimalistic and the more beautiful for it, but if I can make a small suggestion to an album that is almost perfect: had it been me I would have bookended the album with the two “Autumn” tracks, opening and closing with them. That said, this has been one hell of a ride and an unexpected pleasure.

TRACKLISTING

1. Ashen eidolon
2. Autumn I
3. Oak and aspen
4. Autumn II

A short word before I write the closing statement here. I'm intrigued but glad that Gallowbraid chose to use the word autumn, even though they're American. I have always found fall, however more descriptive of the season, to lack the lyrical beauty that autumn does. Fall does not for me conjure up the images that autumn does --- even its spelling is a little enigmatic --- and I think when fall is used in a song it makes much less of an impression. I mean, can you imagine “Forever fall”? To say nothing of Mostly Fall? No, I think autumn is the word that should be used in music, regardless of your geographical location, and it would seem these guys agree.

Having heard, and been really impressed by Gallowbraid, I can only hope they do eventually release an album, because I would definitely like to hear more from them. Other than the scratchy vocals, I saw nothing black metal about this music, but the melodic part was right on the money. This will either be the precursor to a glittering career for this band from Utah, or a forgotten gem, a footnote in the history of metal.

I earnestly hope that it turns out to be the former.

http://www.teezeria.com/images/designs/562img_29.png

So this is the big one, eh? The worst album you could find? The one that's gonna make previous torture feel like friendly banter? This is the one that's going to reduce me to a catatonic wreck, leaving me dependent on others and needing special care 24/7 for the rest of my life? The one that's going to have me wetting my knickers in terror and drooling like an idiot. The very worst thing you could possibly hit me with?

This is, in effect, my Room 101, here in
http://www.trollheart.com/battychamber.jpg

Well you know maybe it is. I've avoided reading up on these guys, and though I haven't had the courage to listen to any of their alleged music, I see words like “noise” and “experimental” that do send little trickles of hot fluid rolling down from the legs of my panties. From what I can gather from the song titles, these guys make Fleshgrind look like kindly grandparents, and Cannibal Corpse the sort of people you would leave in charge of your children or your pets without a moment's hesitation.

Of all the dark, nasty, scummy metal bands I've heard, read about or hastily avoided this month, I think these guys come closest to fulfilling the criteria for evil.

And maybe this album will kill me. It probably will. But if so, before I go, I have one last thing to say to you, my quirky little captor, my dungeon master, my nerdish little tormentor. You might call it a final, perhaps futile act of defiance.
http://www.trollheart.com/kissmyassbatty1a.png
So, time to put on my big girl panties eh? Okay then: do your worst. See ya in Hell! Perhaps from Heaven. (Who am I kidding? Good girls go to Heaven, bad girls go everywhere!)
http://www.metal-archives.com/images/1/7/9/9/179995.jpg
An epiphanic vomiting of blood --- Gnaw Their Tongues --- 2008 (Crucial Blast Records)

Would you believe it? This album was not available on Spotify or Grooveshark, but I eventually found it on YouTube. Lucky me. Well let's see: I don't see any Neil Diamond covers, no twelve-inch megamixes and I doubt there are any ballads on this album, though “Sawn asunder and left for beasts” does have a certain romantic feel to it... :shycouch:
Yeah, this is going to be Hell on Earth isn't it? I don't think I've seen Batty so happy since he dragged me down here unconscious. No, I was! Really! Seriously? You think I would come down here of my own free will? What sort of a sick bitch do you...?

Ah, he's going to enjoy this. So long, beautiful and perfect body. See you in the next life maybe, if I'm lucky. Well, can't put it off any longer: he's starting the CD and I am apparently going in.... Jesus, take my soul!
http://cdn8.staztic.com/app/a/396/39...-s-307x512.jpg
So there's a screechy slow guitar and what may be chanting to open (deep breath; stop looking at my tits Batty!) “My body is not a vessel, nor a temple, it is a repulsive pill of sickness”, which may qualify for the prize of longest song title ever, some screams, growls, like a deadly storm moving closer, inevitable, unstoppable, invincible. It's like waiting for the axe to fall, y'know? It's a reasonably restrained opening but you just know it's going to explode into madness and chaos any minute. And the song is over seven minutes long, so there's plenty of time. We're two minutes in though and so far it's still building I guess, sort of like an orchestra of the damned tuning up before the symphony of death and butchery begins.

Four minutes in and it's still a very atmospheric black metal introduction, but I'm not fooled. Albums like this have got me before, so I'm waiting with bated breath and clenched buttocks to see where this goes. Wow! Just checking on the lineup and I see it's one guy, who goes by the name of Mories but whose actual name is Maurice de Jong, and he's from Surinam. Interesting. I think thre are synths making most of those effects but I don't know as he's just credited with “everything”. So could be. How odd! First track is over and there's been no sign of the aural assault I expected.

HEALTH: 100%

The second track has what sounds like the confessions of a serial killer talking to the police I guess, with more atmospheric synth and maybe guitar as “Teeth that leer like open graves” rises on a very dramatic keyboard line, someone screaming in the background, though really low in the mix. I must assume that's Mories. I've certainly heard worse. Goes from high-pitched maniacal screams to low, throaty growls. The music here, I'm amazed to admit, is quite captivating. Almost cinematic. Everything has a sort of echo like quality, as if the music were being played in a vast cavern or empty ampitheatre. That's over now too.

HEALTH: 100%

That charming ballad is up next, and though it's slow --- as indeed all of this so far has been --- it's again dark and cloying, claustrophobic and scary. “Sawn asunder and left for beasts” is not a ballad though (I didn't expect it to be of course, nor for there to be any such thing on this album, however I didn't expect it either to be this ... bearable?) and if that isn't synth then this guy is either a genius on guitar or has a whole array of sound effects at his disposal. The vocal, such as it is, is offputting but compared to a lot of the black metal I've listened to this month it's not so bad. There are a lot of weird sounds and effects going on, some discordant, but I've heard much, much worse.

I have to be honest, this is something I would consider music far more than I would grindcore. I can hear melody, I can understand that the guy is making some very freaky sounds but they all seem to come together to form .... something, and the vocals as I say no longer bother me since I learned to sort of tune them out or relegate them to a side-listen. If I get through the next track you owe me your computer, Batty!

HEALTH: 100%

So now we're into the title track. There's a heavy guitar note and maybe piano, lots of screaming and screeching and the music has a very sort of horror-movie feel to it, but so far my knickers are completely dry, to my surprise. It's atmospheric, it's dark, it's disturbing on one level but quite impressive on another, especially given that it's one guy doing everything. It's not something I'd necessarily listen to for fun, but I'd rather this than Cryptopsy. At least, so far. Some sort of Latin prayer being recited? Devilish ritual? Kind of bells pealing sound and maybe a choir there in the background somewhere? Think it's moved on into the next track, kind of hard to keep count when you're hearing the whole thing as one piece on YouTube, but it looks as if we're now listening to “The sewer rats of Calcutta”, which I think is my favourite track (who ever thought I'd say that?) so far, with its really evocative underground feel and the taped voices running under it.

I'll email you an address you can send that computer of yours to, Batty! ;)

HEALTH: 100%

So now we're on “And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow”, which has a really nice scary feel to it, a dark, oppressive atmosphere kind of offset by something like a violin or maybe just a guitar note rising? Heavy, dramatic percussion adds to the crushing feel of the piece, and I don't hear too much in the way of vocals, if they're there. I think it's more taped voices --- no wait, there's the growl. Yawn. I thought this was supposed to batter me into submission? Not this girl, Batty! Some voice is now talking about all the children who have been killed. Looks like Mories has an unhealthy interest in serial killers and murders. That's either bells or a piano, not too sure, and now a choir making a sort of angelic sound --- children being taken up to Heaven? Now that big growl-scream is back, and the music is heavy and dramatic again, taking us close to the end of this track. And here I stand.

HEALTH: 100%

The closer then is the longest track, eight and a half minutes, and “The urge to participate in butchery” has an almost ambient opening, with soft keys which then changes to dark piano and juddering guitar, but it's nothing I can't handle. Screeching again but, you know, she's used to it by now. I feel about as scared as when I listened to Thorr's Hammer, which is to say, not at all. I'm actually quite impressed with how this guy is forming his soundscapes, kind of like Austin from Panopticon, though with a much darker tilt on it of course. Bit like NSK from The Ruins of Beverast maybe. Pretty accomplished, really. Kudos to the guy, certainly knows his stuff.

HEALTH: 100%

You know, I think I get it. I think Batty and the others were just pullin' my chain. They were bigging this album up, trying to scare me, trying to make it seem worse, much worse than it turned out to be. That has to be it. All a big joke. That's the only explanation for how I've managed not only to come through this intact, but to actually almost enjoy this album I've been dreading and fearing for weeks now. Either that, or I have balls of steel. Oh no wait: I'm a girl aren't I? Well, I certainly have buns of steel, and Batty, after this, you can kiss them again!
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/23...4990a6e2bd.jpg
Cos this girl has survived the worst you could throw at her, and now she's a-walkin' out of here with her head held ...
http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73...85b9bc0640.jpg
HEY! What's this? What happened to my boobs? Why are my legs not so slim --- oh. I see. Now that I've beaten his Torture Chamber, The Batlord's spell is wearing off and I'm returning to male form. Oh-kayyyy. Well, you know, it doesn't have to happen right away ... aw. Oh well.

Hey! What about my male clothes? Where are they? What? You can't leave me here dressed like this! A sexy, voluptuous woman in tight-fitting leather, that's fine. But a guy wearing a leather miniskirt? And stiletto boots? That's just weird man! How am I gonna explain --- where are you going? Come back! You can't just leave me here! Batty! Bat-tyyyyyyyyyy!

What do you mean, you'll leave me here as I left your hopes to destroy me, on a dead world, buried alive ... buried alive ... buried alive.....

You unmitigated bastard! I'll get you! You just wait!
BAAAAAATTTTTTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/...400px-khan.jpg

http://lettersfromtheclouds.files.wo...ther_time3.gif
All good things must eventually come to an end....

And so we come, finally, to the end of Metal Month II. After thirty-one days, one hundred and three (!) albums, twenty-four separate sections, 266,521 words and over seventy days' research and writing, the second annual expedition into the world of heavy metal has come to a close. I hope you all enjoyed it, and thanks to those who contributed, whether by writing something, commenting or just reading. I aimed to give the month more focus this year, bringing in a lot more structure, and I hope that came across. Thanks to all of you who turned me on to new bands with your suggestions, or turned me inside out in some cases! I hope I did all your favourites proud, or at least didn't take them apart too much.

Over the course of this month I've learned a lot about myself and come to appreciate certain subgenres a lot more than I did, though grindcore remains and probably always will beyond my comprehension. I like to think I've grown musically, though I'm sure many of you will shake your heads and try to suppress laughter at that. In the end, it doesn't really matter though. What does matter is that, whether you passed through here occasionally over the past four weeks or stayed glued to my journal 24/7, eagerly awaiting the next upda--- sorrry, even I can't keep a straight face about that! --- you enjoyed yourself, that something here got your attention, tickled your fancy (I said FANCY! Someone give Batty a glass of water please), educated you or opened your mind up to new concepts in metal, or just induced neckache from too much headbanging. In short, that you had a bitchin' good time.

Immediately this ends I'm launching into research for next year, so if you thought Metal Month II was good, wait till you clap your eyes on Metal Month III! Yeah, we'll be back in 2015 to do it all over again, and hopefully better. But for now it's time for me to hang up my mouse, kick off my shoes and relax as winged maidens (not Iron ones!) bear me upwards on their gossamer wings and take me to my Fortress of Progitude, where they will see to my every whim --- yea, even unto the entire boxed set of Marillion rarities! --- and help me to relax for a while, free of the pressures of writing articles for Metal Month II. Not that I haven't enjoyed it, cause I have, immensely. But this sort of trojan work really takes it out of you. Worth it though. At least, I think so.

So again, thanks for staying with me, or dropping by, and we'll look forward to Metal Month III, in exactly ... three hundred and thirty-four days! And counting...

Peace out, and keep the faith!
http://www.rockworldeast.com/dimage/zoom/8652.jpg

Trollheart.

Trollheart would like to thank the following people, in alphabetical order, who helped make Metal Month II the success it was:

The Batlord, for trying to destroy me (and mostly failing) in his Torture Chamber. Also for his assistance on the Viking Metal segment. And for suggesting Primordial.

Briks, for his “What metal means to me” piece, and also his review of “Blood fire death”

Carpe Mortem, for introducing me to the wonders of Draconian's music

Janszoon, for supplying his top ten, and also for a lively and sometimes heated discussion on grindcore

Loathsome Pete, for introducing me to Sigh

Mondo Bungle, for his top ten.

Plankton, for his top ten. Sorry about Michael Schenker!

And thanks to all who suggested albums for me to listen to. Thanks also to anyone I may have inadvertently left out. Here's to next year! :beer:

Well... that was unexpected. I figured it would either freak you out, or at the very least there'd be so little to latch onto that you'd be bored into a coma. Well, if there's a next time around I now know that slow and atmospheric isn't the way to go. Now I wish I'd gone with Gorgoroth and Marduk like I was thinking of at first.

I would have recommended "For All Slaves...A Song of False Hope" but holy **** how is this possible? I think maybe it's you who's pulling our chain.

Man, Batlord if you really wanted to leave Trollheart catatonic you should've went with this album.


Demilich - Nespithe - YouTube

Awesome month.

^^^generic response^^^

Fucking rock on Trollheart!

I'd already given him Cryptopsy, and I didn't just want to give him a bunch of death metal albums. Would've been boring. If I were going for that I wouldn't have change Pig Destroyer to Limp Bizkit.

I'm quite serious guys. I was as surprised as anyone to find that I didn't hate this. I kept waiting, waiting for the thing that was gonna reach out and rip my throat out and, you know, it never came. I was just awestruck, so much so that I wondered was I listening to the right album, but yeah, it seems to have been. This is the link I used by the way...


I'm sort of thinking maybe I've progressed to the point where I'm able to listen to, or at least endure, anything. Some stuff bores me of course, some stuff makes me laugh and some stuff grates on me, but I'm unsure that I've yet come across anything that can actually repulse me. That's NOT a challenge by the way: I'm sure there's plenty of death-jazz-punk-grindcore-hiphop albums out there that would send me screaming. But I listened to Marduk and thought that was ok, so whether I'm just getting more accepting in my old old age, or learning to appreciate different music (disclaimer: this does not include grindcore) I don't know. If it truly was supposed to blow me apart then I'm proud to say it didn't. I honestly thought you were all just making it seem more horrible than it was, just to scare me.

Anyway Batty, now that I've withstood the worst you can throw at me, how about YOU try a spell in MY dungeon huh? I can think of some prog albums that would have you crying for your momma! ;)

Prog makes me cry for nothing, it just puts me in a catatonic stupor of boredom. Do your worst.

If you can survive that, I don't think the Beach Boys will be much of a challenge.

After the rigours of Metal Month II, I need a rest. I need to sit back and take it easy, and what better place to do that than in
http://www.trollheart.com/throckingchair.png
Perhaps ironic that this was also the last section posted in this journal before Metal Month II opened, so basically I guess it’s a month of hard-hitting, loud and angry heavy metal bookended by music for old farts. But, you know, sometimes you just need to kick back with a nice warm cup of tea and just drift off. Having established, i hope, my metal credentials over the previous month, I am now free to turn down the volume and loosen my leather studded belt, open the windows and play some music that won’t have the neighbours dialling for the Guards.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lbum_cover.jpg
By the time I get to Phoenix --- Glen Campbell --- “By the time I get to Phoenix” ---1967

The first time I heard this song it was sung incorrectly, giving me a totally false impression of what the song is meant to convey.My boss of twenty-some years had a tendency to learn only the first two lines or so of a song, and often misinterpret it totally. He would sing “Give me the moonlight”, but instead of the correct lines to follow being “Give me the girl, and leave the rest to me” he would fill in “Give me the starshine, give me your love, I'll give you mine.” It was a sometimes annoying and sometimes endearing trait of his personality, and it led to as I say my complete misunderstanding of the song in question above, for he would sing, convinced he was right: “By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be waiting.” This of course completely changes the thrust of the song, as I'll explain below.

Anyway, the first time I encountered the song proper was as an instrumental, on one of those “Mantovani plays classics” albums, or maybe a love songs album that was played by an orchestra. It was a long, long time before I got to hear the song actually sung, and what I heard took me a little by surprise. Rather than being, as Gerry had convinced me it was, a song about a man driving to see his lover in Phoenix Arizona, it's something quite bleaker and sadder in its way. At its heart, the song is about a man who has, after years of trying to make it work, left his girlfriend, or possibly wife, and as he drives, eager to be as far away from her as possible, he thinks about what she'll be doing as he passes through various states and the day winds on.

It's written by Jimmy Webb, he of “MacArthur Park” and “Wichita lineman” fame, and though it's been covered many times, the definitive version is pretty much seen as that by Glen Campbell, a song which gave him a hit on the Billboard Charts, a number two single in the Country Charts, and which earned him two Grammy Awards. Webb has said that it's written as a fantasy; the man never actually leaves his woman, but dreams about what would happen if he did. Nevertheless, like many song lyrics, it's a little open to interpretation, and I see it in two ways.

First, you have the guy leaving his girl and exulting as he passes through cities and states that he is getting further and further away from her. He sings of what the unnamed woman will be doing as he disappears across America, how she will feel and how much she will disbelieve it, thinking he will just return soon. So in that version there's both a sense of freedom and relief, but also a certain tinge of dark satisfaction, the idea of twisting the knife: I've gone and she thinks I'll be back --- ”She'll laugh when she reads the part/ That says I'm leavin'/ 'Cause I've left that girl so many times before” --- but I really won't.

Then there's the other way you can look at it, that the guy has left but he has to admit to himself that he loves the girl, as she's still on his mind as he passes out of her life. Each state he gets to he imagines what she'll be doing --- ”By the time I make Albuquerque she'll be working” --- and you can almost hear the wish in his voice that he could just turn around and drive back before it's too late, but it is: he's come this far and there's really no going back at this point.

It's interesting too that though it's a song of either abandonment or freedom, whichever way you choose to look at it, it's not a “Hit the road Jack” or “50 ways to leave your lover” or even “Ruby's Arms” (if you know Waits) sort of song. There's a sadness about it, an inevitability and a definite sense of breaking the chains, also a feeling that the man has been pushed too far and has finally taken the initiative. Of course, there's also a somewhat immature idea of “Hah! You never thought I'd do it, did you? Well look at me now, leaving you!”

There's time for a little sympathy for the deserted girl though, in the final verse as he sings ”By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'/ She'll turn softly and call my name out loud/ And she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her.” But reality has asserted itself; in actuality the man is lying in bed with the woman, thinking about his flight but never really having the guts to leave her, or too in love despite himself to abandon her. But in his dreams, he's already headed for Oklahoma...

”By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising:
She'll find the note I left hangin' on her door.
She'll laugh when she reads the part that says I'm leavin'
'Cause I've left that girl so many times before.

By the time I make Albuquerque she'll be working:
She'll prob'ly stop at lunch and give me a call
But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringin';
Off the wall that's all.

By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'.
She'll turn softly and call my name out low.
And she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her
Though time and time I tried to tell her so:
She just didn't know I would really go.“

Loves me some Glen, and although I've never heard that particular song, it does hit close to home for me right now.

One of my favorites:

Another great way to relax is of course to lose yourself in the pages of a good book. I don't get to do this as often as I used to these days, but I've found recently that reading for my sister has reawakened my love for the printed word. So let's draw the curtains against the night's chill, build up the fire in the hearth and curl up in our favourite easy chair as the shadows jump and dart and cavort on the walls like crazy dark dancers, and select another volume from
http://www.trollheart.com/shelf2.png
The last time I did this --- and I don't do it enough, but there is a lot of work involved --- we looked at a very famous author, one whose name has gone down in history and become synonymous with the horror story and dark gothic fiction. The writer I want to feature this time is nowhere as famous as Poe, but well respected in her field and certainly a favourite of mine.
http://www.wfc2013.org/photos/img_1273-tanith-lee.jpg
Tanith Lee (1947 - )
Born in London just after World War II ended, the fact that both of Tanith Lee's parents were ballroom dancers comes through in many of her books, where dance and the fluid and graceful movements of characters both suffuse her characters and drift among the titles of her novels, such as “Dark dance”. Another writer snubbed by her homeland, her first novel, “The Birthgrave”, was rejected by many English publishers and looked unlikely to ever see the light of day till she turned to an American concern, DAW Publishing, who released it and who then went on to publish almost thirty of her books over a fourteen-year period.

Lee writes mostly what could be described as “adult fantasy”, though she has also written many children's stories, and dipped her toe into historical novel writing. Her fantasy novels range from light-hearted, Fritz Leiber-style magical tales with demons, princesses and dragons to darker, more gothic works. She strikes the kind of balance well that few other writers in her genre manage, having some of her stories set in totally fantasy, imagined worlds while others are deeply rooted in the mundane and the normal, to which she brings a strong sense of the old world intruding on the new, magic lurking and working in the background, the old ways still extant.

Although she is a favourite author of mine, I have not read a tenth of what she has written, and my experience of the wide variety of her work is quite minimal really. But almost everything of hers I have read I have enjoyed, and in the list below I'll annotate anything that impressed or disappointed me about the books. At the moment I've just finished reading “Dark dance” for my sister. I remember thinking when I bought it originally that it was very dark, depressing and bleak, and I don't believe I finished it at the time, passing it on to my sister. Now, re-reading it for the first time, and for someone else --- a situation which precludes throwing in the towel halfway --- I think I appreciate it much more, and indeed the ending was quite satisfactory if a little perhaps predictable. We're now waiting for the second and third books to arrive so we can continue the story.

Selected list of works:

The Dragon Hoard (1971)
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1224295332l/808704.jpg
Her first ever novel, published for children and with a suitably childish story featuring a spurned sorceress, a cursed king and of course a quest, it nevertheless must have given Lee great confidence to have had one of her works published, and would lead to greater things as the years wound on and her writing style developed.

Animal Castle (1972)

The unlikely story of a kingdom without animals, and how, with the arrival of a shaggy dog one day to his kingdom, the king suddenly decided he must have animals. And of course the story of what then happened. Another children's book, her second publication, this time a picture book.

The Birthgrave (1975)
First in the Birthgrave Trilogy
http://www.norilana.com/TheBirthgrave-TPB-ARC-Front.jpg
Her first proper fantasy novel for adults, this was the book that so many British publishers passed on, and that she eventually had to look to America to achieve its publication. It's part of a trilogy, as above, and though certainly not one of her best novels in my opinion, would go to solidify her place as one of the most exciting new emerging feminist writers in the genre.

It's a long time since I read any of her books, so rather than try to describe them from memory --- apart from one or two which really impressed me ---I'll leave it to reviewers who can talk about them better than I can. Here's what one has to say about this, her first real novel.

“The main character is a woman of the old race- humanlike creatures with apparent immortality and powers above and beyond that which we possess. She awakens in a volcano, and is told by the spirit in the fire that she is the last of her kind and will spreada curse of unhappiness*across the land, unless she can unlock the secrets to the power and knowledge hidden within herself. Thus she leaves the mountain on a series of adventures, trying to discover the lost truth of her own past.”

Marion Zimmer Bradley, already a big name in the fantasy genre and one of the doyennes of British fantasy fiction, wrote an introduction to the book --- so impressed was she by the newcomer --- that says it all really: "It's filled with adventure and beauty, rich alien names, half-sketched barbarian societies, ruined cities, decadence and wonder. “ Indeed.

Don't bite the sun (1976)
First of the Four-BEE sequence
Lee's first step away from fantasy and into the world of science-fiction, “Don't bite the sun” tells the tale of indolent humans who live on a doomed world, where they are required to do nothing but have endless sex, use drugs and even kill themselves, whereupon they are reborn into a body of their choosing. Suicide, in fact, becomes less a last desperate act and more a way of ending a boring existence and starting a new life. The main character tires of life in the city though and ends up joining an expedition to explore the blasted, desolate wilderness outside the city domes, realising that perhaps she belongs here rather than in the sterile cities.

The Storm Lord (1976)
First in the Wars of Vis trilogy
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1226804665l/1290241.jpg
Only a year after her first major novel was published, Lee was already hard at work on a second trilogy, this one concerning, according to the book's jacket: “an unknown planet and of the conflict of empires and peoples on that world. It is the story of a priestess raped and slain, of a baby born of a king and hidden among strangers, and of how that child, grown to manhood, sought his true heritage. It is a novel of alien gods and lost goddesses, of warriors and wanderers, and of vengeance long delayed. It is an epic in every sense of the word.”

To go further, in the words of one reviewer: “The Storm Lord follows the path of a young man, Raldnor, son of Ashne'e, a priestess of Anackire the Snake Goddess, and Rehdon, King of Vis. The Lowland people are nearly albinos, pale skinned, blond to white haired, golden eyed; the Vis are dark. Raldnor is born too early, as Rehdon's Queen, Val Mala, sends poisons to Ashne'e to make her abort the child and keep her standing, as well as her son's. She insists her woman, Lomandra, provide her with the dead child's finger. Ashne'e, in turn, cuts of Raldnor's pinky finger to send back to Val Mala, and the poisons take her. Lomandra, in turn, carries Raldnor out of the city, only to die in the Lowlands herself, trying to keep him safe. He is adopted into a Lowlands family, but when his adopted mother dies, he leaves to seek his way in the world.

As this is a Tanith Lee novel, nothing is ever easy, and Raldnor must go through a great many trials and tribulations to reach his goal - which turns out to be raising up the Lowlanders to shake off the yokes Vis put on them. His half brother, Amreck, the Storm Lord, threatens at every turn, as well as pirates and other dangers, including war. And above everything, Anackire watches, the great Snake Goddess of the Lowlanders, and Her presence is felt throughout the story.”


Drinking sapphire wine (1977)
Second in the Four-BEE sequence
The continuation, and conclusion of the story begun in “Don't bite the sun”, as the main character is exiled from the city and must learn to survive in the harsh, inhospitable wilderness that makes up most of the doomed planet.

Volkhavaar (1977)
http://www.daughterofthenight.com/tla11d.jpg
As far as I can see, apart from her early children's stories, the first novel Tanith Lee wrote that was not part of a trilogy or sequence, and to my mind suffers for it. The first of her novels I read that I remember being desperately disappointed in, having already read later books and loved them. Though it is over thirty years since I read it, and perhaps I might appreciate it more through the lens of age and experience, as they say, life's too short to listen to bad music or read bad novels.

Here's what the jacket has to say about it. “A novel of witchcraft and wonders on a world far removed from those we know. Here the gods contend for power - the Dark forces against the Light - and here an entire city and its land is plunged into the shadow of an evil beyond anything conceivable. It is the story of Shaina the slave girl and of Volk the outcast who enslaved himself to cosmic forces to gain total power - and of how they were finally to meet and clash - with an entire world as their prize. “Volkhavaar” is high fantasy comparable only to the best of Andre Norton and Michael Moorcock.”

High praise indeed, given that Moorcock was and is one of my alltime favourite fantasy writers (I'll certainly feature him at some point later), but the recommendation loses some of its impact when you realise it is not attributable to anyone, except the publisher, who would of course have wanted to put the most positive spin on the book that they could.

Night's Master (1978)
First in the Tales from the Flat Earth sequence
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1229915466l/1291937.jpg
Now we're cookin'! The first ever Tanith Lee novel I read and it just floored me with its tales of capricious but somehow lovable demons, enchanted gardens, doomed youths and weird creatures, and above all striding taller and more dangerous than any demon, the indomitable greed and folly of mankind. Or as the jacket would have it: “In those days the Earth was not a sphere and the demons dwelled in vast magical caverns beneath its surface. Wondrous cities dotted the land and strange peoples and fabulous beasts prowled the deserts and jungles of the world.

Supreme among those mighty demons was Azhrarn, Night's Master. He it was whose pranks made nightmares on Earth, who brought desire and danger to those it amused him to visit, and who could grant wonders and create horrors unspeakable.”

I can't praise this novel enough. It fed right into the kind of fantasy I had become entranced with via the likes of Michael Moorcock, Craig Shaw Gardner, Jack L. Chalker and Alan Dean Foster. Much less portentous and poe-faced than Tolkien, but taking itself more seriously than Pratchett, this was the apex, for me, of Tanith Lee's writing, when she got it spot on. The demon Azrhrarn likes to use humanity as his amusement, his plaything, but comes to realise that he needs them as much as they need him. Just superb, and led into a series of books that varied in quality but generally held up to, but never eclipsed, this opening volume.


Shadowfire (1978)
Second in the Birthgrave trilogy

For some reason retitled “Vazkor, son of Vazkor” for the American market (surely a more confusing title than “Shadowfire”?) this “tells the story of Tuvek, a warrior in a barbarian tribe, his alienation from his people, and is discovery of his family history and the Power that he has inherited. Alienated from his tribe and following a raid by survivors from the fallen cities, Tuvek is captured and taken to the city of Eshkorek, where he comes into his own Power Tanith Lee did a great job of sketching out the history of the tribes and the ruins of the fallen civilisation close by them. She also deftly described the world through Tuvek's eyes, exploring his own growth and the cultures and people he discovers.” Artwork on this looks very Boris Vallejo or Frank Frazetta, I must say!

Quest for the White Witch (1978)
Third in the Birthgrave trilogy

The final book of three, this concentrates on Vazkor, eponymous (in the American version anyway) hero of the previous one, as “he retraces her (his mother) steps, like her tells the story in his own voice, and if the fascination of the first book lies in the mystery of her identity, the fascination of this middle lies a great deal in his so very different perspective. Vazkor is very hard to like in that book--a raping sword-swinging barbarian. But there is more to him here, as in his quest--for revenge against his mother--he increasingly comes into his powers and sees the value in others. Lee's style and her world could both be described as lush. Though along with Tanith Lee's poetic prose you're going to get a psychological complexity you're not going to find in Conan the Barbarian.”

Electric Forest (1978)
Another excursion into pure science-fiction, as Lee tells the story of an outcast who becomes the only one who can save her planet. “The world called Indigo turned upside down for Magdala Cled one unexpected morning. From being that world's only genetic misfit, the shunned outcast of an otherwise ideal society, she became the focus of attention for mighty forces. Once they had installed her in the midst of the Electric Forest, with its weird trees and its super-luxurious private home, Magdala awoke to the potentials which were opening up all about her. And to realize also the peril that now seemed poised above Indigo ... which only she, the hated one, could possibly circumvent.”

Death's Master (1979)
Second in the Tales from the Flat Earth sequence
https://p.gr-assets.com/200x200/scal...50/1061576.jpg
Again I remember this carrying on the grand fantasy tradition of “Night's Master”, and it was a series I really could not get enough of. Concentrating this time on Uhlume rather than Azhrarn, as the jacket explains: “In those days the world was flat and demons dwelled beneath who walked among the cities and kingdoms of the surface with powers and mischiefs to please themselves.
Among those demons there were two who were mighty above all others. One was Azhrarn, Night's Master, and the other was the lord of darkness whose name was Uhlume, Death's Master.

This is Tanith Lee's epic fantasy novel of the strangest exploit of these two demon-lords among the men and women of Earth. It is a novel of odd erotic desires, of twisted ambitions, and superhuman feats. It is the story of two boys who became men under the stresses of witcheries and wonders that surpass even the fabled lore of the Arabian Nights ... and the story also of queens and witches, of kings and commoners - and of the two terrible lords of darkness.”

The book was nominated for the 1980 Balrog Award and actually won the August Derleth Award that year, two very highly coveted recognitions of a writer's talent in, and contribution to the genre.

Delusion's Master (1980)
Third in the Tales from the Flat Earth sequence
http://www.daughterofthenight.com/tla28e.jpg
Once again Lee takes us to the realm of one of the dread lords of the Underearth, this time it is Chuz, lord of madness. “When the world was flat and the gods had not yet restructured the universe, the cities and hopes of mankind hung upon the whims of the immortal lords of all diabolical powers.
For these, such as Azhrarn, Night's Master, and Uhlume, Death's Master, the world was a flesh-and-blood playground for all their strangest desires. But among those demonic lords, the strangest was the master of madness, Chuz.
The game that Chuz played with a beautiful woman, with an ambitious king, with an ancient imperial city, was a webwork of good and evil, of hope and horror. But there was always Azhrarn to interfere - to bend delusion to a different outcome - and it was a century-long conflict between two vain immortals with women and men as their terrified pawns.”

Delirium's Mistress (1981)
Fourth in the Tales from the Flat Earth sequence
http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4145.jpg
The point at where I recall the quality beginning to slide just a little. I remember being slightly disappointed with “Delerium's mistress”, feeling that it somehow didn't hold up to the high standard of the last three novels. But then, that bar had been set very high by the author, so I suppose you can't expect perfection every time. But given that it was the last full novel in the series, you can't help but wonder was she growing bored of it, or running out of ideas? I seem to remember some of the ideas from the previous books being rehashed, changed slightly, though again as I say it was thirty-some years ago. But the memory of disappointment definitely remains to this day.

“In the age of demons, when the Earth was still flat, a daughter was born to a mortal beauty and Azhrarn, Demon Lord of Night. This Daughter of the Night was called Azhriaz, and she was hidden away on a mist-shrouded isle, spirit-guarded, to spend her life in dreams. But Azhriaz was destined for more than dark dreaming. For if her father was the Lord of Night, her mother was descended from the Sun itself.

And her beauty and power soon called to another mighty demon lord, Azhrarn's enemy, Prince Chuz, Delusion's Master, who worked a magnificent illusion to free Azhriaz from her prison and transform her into Delirium's Mistress.
As Mistress of Madness and Delirium would she become known in realms of both demon and humankind. And her destiny would make her goddess, queen, fugitive, champion, seeress - and her to whom even the very Lord of Darkness would one day bow down....”

The Silver Metal Lover (1981)
First in the S.I.L.V.E.R series
https://p.gr-assets.com/200x200/scal...94/1041631.jpg
1981, and Lee returns with another stunning novel of romance in the far future, a science-fiction love story between a woman and a robot. SILVER stands for Silver Ionised Locomotive Verisimulated Electronic Robot, and Lee’s heroine falls in love with one.

“It is a world of the future, where beauty is available to all, given the sophistication of technology and medicine. Yet Jane is - well, surely pleasant-enough-looking, with her soft brown hair and slightly plump body. Years back, when Jane was tiny, her beautiful, wealthy mother had her analyzed for perfect body type, and now cosmetic medications keep her true to form. And she questions little. After all, her mother has so much authority, so many opinions, that there's nothing for Jane to say.
And Jane's lovers are largely in her mind - men from films she's seen, from books she's read. The thought of confronting a flesh-and-blood lover makes Jane grow cold. What would she say to him? What would he think of plain Jane?
Until she meets Silver, a singer and guitarist. And a robot - with all the adoration and compassion that in-the-flesh lovers lack.
But, unlike human lovers, Silver is for sale, and Jane - desperate for his love - risks estrangement from her mother and friends to possess him. With Silver as her partner, she tastes the first happiness and independence she has ever known. She even grows pretty, as she stops taking the pills and treatments her mother had ordered for her.
Yet - what would you do if the manufacturer decided to recall the particular model of lover you'd bought?”

Lycanthia, or Children of Wolves (1981)
http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4138.jpg
And that same year, not happy with producing one of the most innovative and clever science-fiction stories of the year, she tries her hand at folklore, with the tale of werewolves who come to claim a castle which has been taken by a lord as his inheritance.

“Even in today's world there are corners where past evils still cast their terror-haunted shadows. When the young man, Christian, came to his inheritance - a once grand mansion in just such a remote corner of France, he knew only that there was some sort of alternate claim to that ancient building and it lands. Even as the villagers acknowledged him as lord of the manor, there came two from the forest to stake out their interest. And with them came fear and desire, terror and love ... a combination which could be irresistible-and also fatal. “

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer (1983)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...4,203,200_.jpg
And here, in a collection of short stories and reimagined tales, Lee takes on the fairytales of our childhood, seeking deeper truth under the rainbows and unicorns and rewriting the old stories with a view to a much more adult way of looking at these fables. Or, to quote the jacket:

“How would it be if Snow White were the real villain and the "wicked queen" just a sadly maligned innocent? What if awakening the Sleeping Beauty should be the mistake of a lifetime - of several lifetimes? What if the famous folk tales were retold with an eye to more horrific possibilities?
Only Tanith Lee could do justice to it, and in “Red as Blood”, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing was the author of “The Birthgrave and “The Storm Lord” called by New York's Village Voice, "Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read."
Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer! Fairy tales for children? Not on your life!"

Sung in shadow (1983)
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1230178590l/808693.jpg
Here, she reinterprets the story of Romeo and Juliet, in the first of what would become several varied novels set in alternate versions of cities around the world. In this, obviously, we're in another Venice.

Anickire (1983)
Second volume in The Wars of Vis series
http://i.ebayimg.com/19/!B-0KinQEGk~...qslD!~~_35.JPG
“The lowland girl seemed to contain fire. Her hair stirred, flickered, gushed upward, blowing flame in a wind that did not blow.
A tower of light shot up the sky, beginning where the girl stood. For half a second there was only light, then it took form.
The form it took was*Anackire.
She towered, she soared. Her flesh was a white mountain. Her snake's tail a river of fire in spate. Her golden head touched the apex of the sky, and there the serpents of her hair snapped like lightnings. Her eyes were twin suns. The eight arms, outheld as the two arms of the girl had been, rested weightlessly on the air, the long fingers subtly moving
The girl standing before the well, unblasted by the entity she had released, seemed only quiescent. At last one could see that her face, as it had always been, was the face of Anackire.”

Tamastra, or The Indian Nights (1984)
http://booklikes.com/photo/max/220/3...55249e5a48.jpg
And here, she tackles the mythology and culture of India. “All the magic and mystery of fabled India is woven into these marvel tales of seven strange nights. For that vast land which many have conquered and none have subdued is the home of ten thousand gods and a hundred thousand demons - and the teeming races that dwell on its shrouded plains and marbled cities have kept their mystic secrets.
Only the vivid imagination of Tanith Lee, who has been rightly called "Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy," could penetrate the nighted veils of India's lore. In*Tamastara*she does so to delight the mind and season with scented curry the imagination of the West.
Here are hidden gods and demonic possession, here are were-beasts and subterranean terrors, here are beings transformed and souls reborn, here is Terror and Wonder. Winner of the World Fantasy Award and the August Derleth Award, Tanith Lee is at her best in this new book.”

Night's sorceries (1986)
Fifth and final volume in the Tales of the Flat Earth sequence
https://p.gr-assets.com/200x200/scal...02/1128697.jpg
Five years after what I took to be the final book in the series, Lee came up with a collection of stories based on the events in the last four books. Although I had been, as I said, somewhat disappointed in “Delirium’s Mistress”, I still hungered for more Flat Earth tales, and these did not disappoint. From the tale of the girl said to be the daughter of night itself to the priest who rides to the sun, and from the updated story of the prodigal son to the return of Azhrarn himself, this collection of novelettes, novellas and short stories reaffirmed my faith in Lee and her Flat Earth tales. Sadly, it remains the final volume.

“In the age of demons, when the Earth was still flat, Prince Chuz, Delusion's Master, stole Azhriaz, daughter of the Demon Lord of Night, from the underworld citadel meant to be her eternal prison. Pursued by the vengeful Lord of Night, Chuz and Azhriaz fled to the world above, to the lands of mortal men, seeking a haven for their love.
Yet when demons dwelt in the realm of men, terror and wonders were bound to result. And so it was for all who came in contact with Chuz, Azhriaz, and their dread pursuer. As all three worked their powerful sorceries, men and women, from the highest lords to the lowest peasants, were led into new kingdoms of enchantment where a man could learn to commune with beasts, where magicians found their spells recast, where a woman's kindness could turn back time, and where a mortal might fulfill a prophecy that would place the very sun and moon within his grasp …”


The Book of the Damned (1988)
First in the Secret Books of Paradys series
http://theblackletters.net/wp-conten...k-paradys1.jpg
This time we're in an alternate version of Paris, where strange people carry out stranger deeds of vengeance, reprisal and betrayal. “Jehanine: demon or saint? Her days she spent at the Nunnery of the Angel; her nights in the vicious back-streets of Paradys, wreaking revenge on men for the wrongs she had suffered at their hands.
'How fast does a man run when the Devil is after him?' Andre St Jean is about to find out, as a young man collapses at his feet and presses into his hand a strange scarab ring, containing the secret of life...
The stranger pushed a note across the table:*'In a week or less I shall be dead.'*In a week, he was, and most unnaturally. She found herself drawn to the house where he died, to unravel the web of mystery and horror that had been spun about him...”

The Book of the Beast (1988)
Second in the Secret Books of Paradys series
“It*was created on the fifth day of the Earth; scaled not feathered- the Beast.
From the most ancient of days, passed through the seed of generations, still it preys on the unlucky, the unwary and the unchaste. Its appetite is ravenous and eternal.
Tanith Lee weaves a chilling tale of horror through the streets of Paradys: from the times when the Legions ruled the Empire, and Centurion Retullus Vusca hoped to change his luck... to the wedding of an innocent maid who hoped to win the affection of a cold, but handsome lord, unaware of the consequences of her seduction... to a scholar, wise in the ways of magic, who was determined to end the terror... And all the while there were cries in the night, and blood on the stones in the morning.”

The White Serpent (1988)
Third in the Wars of Vis series
“THE WHITE WITCH -
She is Aztira, one of the magical Amanackire race, a pure white albino with powers both mysterious and terrifying. She can grant life and defy death, enchant men - or destroy them!
AND THE WARRIOR -
He is Rehger. Sold into slavery at the age of four, he will become one of the finest warriors and charioteers in the land. Yet all his prowess with arms will not save him from the spell of the White Witch, a dangerous bewitchment that will lead him to challenge the mightiest of mortals and immortals ... and to embark on a fearsome quest in search of the legendary city that is home to the Amanackire.”

The blood of roses (1990)
https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1229981162l/2094378.jpg
One of the first books I read that dared to equate Christianity with vamipirism, but if you look closely and with unblinkered eyes, the similarities are there: people who dress in black, profess to drink blood, and who can only be killed by ramming a stake through ... nah, just kidding about that last part. But this amazing novel really set me to thinking about the links between the two, and it makes for some disturbing and at the same time illuminating reading.

“LOVE, HISTORY OR BLOOD: WHICH IS THE STRONGEST?
Mechail Korhlen, deformed son of a forest lord and a woman rumoured to be a witch, is an enigma. In his childhood something black settled on him and drank from his throat. Perhaps it marked him out as forever belonging to the dark...
At twenty-one Mechail, a victim of intrigue, is murdered. But astonishingly, he rises from the dead and takes a terrible revenge before fleeing his home. And the fulfilment of his destiny begins.
The fate of all who live in this magically forested world is subject to the seductive will of Anjelen, a priest possessed of enormous powers. He is a terrifying and dynamic force- but for good, or for evil?
And what is the mystery at the heart of the seemingly Christian monastery Anjelen rules?
Is it that he - and his followers - drink blood?”


The Book of the Dead (1991)
Third in the Secret Books of Paradys series
“Paradys too has its cemeteries...."; The search for dark secrets deepens in Book III of the Paradys tetralogy, a powerful collection of short stories peopled with the tortured souls that lie buried here as in a fragile prison.
A handsome youth shocks his family by marrying a white weasel. On their bridal bed a beautiful maiden emerges from the weasel’s discarded pelt, but it's not just her previous form that holds the bride captive. For her to be released she must be loved, but her beloved must die at her hands as he bestows the kiss that releases her.
Two childhood lovers wed. Their union seems to be blessed. Little does Roland know that Marie-Mai's pure body is host to the pointed fangs of Evil. Finding this on their wedding night, he kills her and chooses to take the truth to the gallows with him-not for him the responsibility of unmasking the naked face of the Devil.
Children and weak things wither after coming in contact with Julie d'Is. What ancient curse was bestowed upon this infant poisoner in the womb of her foolish mother? Only her death will reveal the truth, for no one can approach her in life.
With her finely crafted and masterful prose, Tanith Lee brings to life these agonized souls and twisted half-creatures, wreaking havoc in their twilight world, where death is only the beginning.”

Dark Dance (1992)
First in the Blood Opera sequence
http://www.daughterofthenight.com/tla59a.jpg
The book I mentioned I was just up until today reading for my sister. Dark, bleak and gothic with some very morose reflections on human life, it's nevertheless a gripping tale that drags us into the quiet, still, ancient and macabre world of the Scarabae, a family so old that they can remember the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, perhaps even the Great Fire of London, which may have been linked to them. Rachaela is drawn almost unwillingly but by persistent fate into the world of these people, whom she does not know and yet somehow feels she does; knows and fears, for it is here, in the dark dank claustrophobic house with so many stained-glass windows that occlude the light, that she will finally meet her destiny.

The Book of the Mad (1993)
Fourth in the Secret Books of Paradys series
“In her darkly dazzling finish to The Secret Books of Paradys, Tanith Lee tempts the reader with a tale of horror, lust and madness that leaves no perversity untouched, no taboo unbroken.
This time, the seductive nightmare unfolds in three parallel versions of the City-Paradis, Paradys and Paradise. Connected by a labyrinth of ice whose dangers are amplified by the will and emotion of its lunatic travelers, these cities and their mad and near-mad denizens provide the stage for a drama of mythical proportions that none of the players can fully comprehend. Among the mad and the doomed are the murderous, remorseless siblings Felion and Smara; the violated woman-child Hilde; and Leocadia, the artist and visionary. Combining horror and hedonism, art and eroticism, Lee offers an aesthete's amoral view of beauty, pleasure and pain in her inimitable high style.
This fourth book in the Paradys series is linked brilliantly to the previous three -*The Book of the Damned,*The Book of the Beast, and*The Book of the Dead*- not by plot but by its shared venue: the fantastic, Gothic, atmospheric and changeable city of Paradys.”

Personal darkness (1993)
Second in the Blood Opera sequence
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/...20darkness.jpg
Continuing the dread story of the ageless, timeless Scarabae, as they reach out to reclaim what was theirs and set in motion a series of events that will have far-reaching consequences.

“The House is destroyed, the Scarabae dead or scattered. And the youngest and most dangerous of them, voracious for destruction, is free. As Ruth, a mind as old as evil in the body of a teenage girl, unleashes blood and fire across southern England, the other survivors regroup their formidable resources. Scarabae wealth and power can replicate The House and even withstand the sun, while help is summoned from others of their kind.
But when Malach and Althene arrive, ageless and exotic, nothing transpires as Rachaela had supposed. For she and Ruth, the demon bred on her by Adamus - father and lover, now dead - are also Scarabae, and Scarabae cleave to their own. Rachaela, irresistibly drawn to Althene's mysterious web, must accept that her daughter belongs to dark, tormented Malach, and find new reasons for hope ...
Yet it is Camillo - malign, geriatric biker with the strength and soul of a child - and the women unwittingly entangled in his mischief, who will finally dispose Ruth's fate, and play the wild card in the Scarabae's endless game.
Subtly blending the human menaces of London's contemporary underworld with a dark vampiric seduction, “Personal Darkness” enmeshes the reader further in the insidious enchantment of the Scarabae."

Darkness, I (1994)
The third and final in the Blood Opera sequence
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...4,203,200_.gif
As the story reaches its shattering conclusion, Rachaela's second daughter is born, but there is something very odd about her rate of maturity. Stolen by Cain, an outcast from the Scarabae, Rachaela finds she must ally with her hated enemies in order to try to save her child.

“'And how old, Doctor, Would you say she was?' 'She appears to be about sixteen ... perhaps a well-developed fifteen.' 'My daughter, Doctor, is three years of age.'
Lapped in the luxury of Scarabae wealth, lulled by her relationship with Althene, Rachaela has carried and given birth to her second child. A girl. Beautiful, white-haired, green-eyed. But children do not grow and mature as fast as this one.
Her name is Anna, to honour the dead. On her breast is a small blue mark ... Who is she? What is She?
Before Rachaela can decide, or Malach, self-exiled to his Dutch castle, can make up his mind, in sudden violence, Anna is abducted.
And all around the world, someone is stealing the children. From Tesco's ... from the banks of the Nile ... Taking them to a place at the end of the earth, the white pyramid hidden in the ice.
A shadow - darker than all the darkness of this dark family. Monster, master, blood-lusting genius: Cain, the outcast of the Scarabae.
He has Anna now. Means to keep her. Will Malach be able to claim her back?”

These are, believe it or not, just a tiny sample of the volume of work put out by Tanith Lee over a career spanning more than forty years. To date, she has over eighty novels, various collections and books written under other names. Her most recent was published in 2012, and true to her incredibly prolific style she published another book that same year, with two the previous year, and the one before that, and again in 2009. She lives with her husband --- also a writer --- in the south of England and has, to my knowledge, no children.

If fantasy, mythology, science-fiction or a peculiar slant on historical fiction is your thing, then you should really pick up one of her books. Just don't be too scandalised: she doesn't pull any punches when it comes to sex! JK Rowling she is not! But if you want to escape the humdrum for a few hours, then Tanith Lee could very well be the enchantress to weave a spell that will carry you far from the mundane cares of the workaday world and into her dark, often dangerous, but always entertaining world.

After all the fun and excitement (and earache) of Metal Month II it's time to return to my first love, and a project I was running before my sabbatical. It certainly won't be finished this year at this point, but I'd like to try to get to the end of it, even if it takes longer than I had anticipated.
http://www.trollheart.com/progarchheader.png
Yes, it's time to return to that music Batlord hates, and continue our interrupted countdown of the 100 best prog rock albums of 2013, as compiled by Prog Archives.com.

Before my self-exile and before Metal Month II began, I reviewed “Limnal” by Exivious, and while unimpressed with this instrumental album I mentioned that there was another one coming up that was similar, another fully instrumental album that was supposed to be great but basically bored me to tears. This is it, at number
http://ugseminars.ucsd.edu/_images/logo_fsp.gif
http://static.wixstatic.com/media/ca...0_0.00_png_srz

LMR --- Levin, Minneman, Rudess --- 2013 (Lazy Bones Recordings)

The problem with so-called supergroups is the superegos that go with them. Think ELP. Think GTR. Think Asia. When you go to LMR’s official website there’s no tracklisting for this album. They’re more concerned with reviews, press, purchase links and videos showing them either making the album, talking about making the album, or playing the songs. That’s all very fine guys but where is the bloody tracklisting? Also, who is Marco Minnemann? I mean, everyone knows bass supremo Tony Levin, and of course Dream Theater owe a whole lot to the keyboard talents of Jordan Rudess, but who is the guy in the middle, the “M” in LMR? Okay well Wiki tells me he’s a “drummer, composer and multi-instrumentalist” who apparently lost out on the chance to replace Mike Portnoy in Dream Theater. So there’s the DT link again. And he’s German. Okay.

That’s all well and good, and he has an impressive discography but he’s hardly an icon of progressive rock is he? This is a claim made on the LMR website, and while I would certainly consider Levin and Rudess icons, I don’t see Minneman as one. So that’s the first thing wrong with this album, and group, from my perspective: this supergroup is made up of two icons and one guy I know nothing about. And he’s a drummer. And plays guitar too here apparently. The other problem is that my dislike for Dream Theater has been well documented here, so to have essentially two guys from that sphere --- even if Minneman didn’t make it as replacement for the departed Portnoy he was on the shortlist so will be linked with them --- is not good news for me.

But I like to give everyone a fair shot and I stuck the album on the playlist, but found every time one of the tracks came around I just hated it. This is my first time to listen to it all the way through so perhaps my view of it will change, perhaps not. If not, then it’s likely to be a short review as I have no intention of cataloguing every keypress and drum roll in the way I often do on albums; if this is as boring as I remember it then I’ll just be doing a cursory writeup on it. It’s all instrumental, as I may have mentioned, and for my money, and as far as memory serves, it’s all pretty much the same throughout its fourteen-track and sixty-two minute run. This is not one I’m looking forward to.

There’s a big heavy guitar break to start us off, something like a faster version of “Smoke on the water” then Rudess blasts in with uptempo keys which then slow down on what sounds like mandolin but I guess isn’t as “Marcopolis” (wonder who wrote that?) is the opener and it’s full of power and energy, plus the drum solo that comes as obligatory when one of the “supergroup” is a drummer. I must say, I hear a certain Yes sound in the melody. Next up is “Twitch”, with a dramatic, proggy feel to it, rumbling keys and high-octave synth and some stabbing choral vocals. A heavier guitar-oriented tune on the weirdly-named “Frumious banderfunk”, though it gets quite Caribbean at times. Odd little flute sounds too; sort of all over the place really though the guitar when it breaks back in is powerful and angry, so props to Minnemann for that I guess.

“The blizzard” is much nicer, Rudess showing his undoubted talent at the piano, with Levin supplying some truly superb bass lines. Much easier on my ear than that squawking synth, and even when he switches to the synth it’s relaxing and peaceful rather than harsh and abrasive. Definite standout so far. “Mew” then is almost eight minutes long, and jazzy in a breezy sort of way with nice piano, keys and guitar but it loses its way early on and never really recovers, and I just fail to notice as it plays out and onto the next track, which is called “Afa vulu” (where are they getting these track titles??) and is at least a much shorter track, short of three minutes. It’s a bit like listening to the theme to “Hawaii 5-0” for the most part, but it is very upbeat and fast. Levin then has his chance to shine with a bass-led track in “Descent”, which is to be fair not too bad but it’s a bit dull. It’s short too and leads into “Scrod” (which is almost “dorks” spelled backwards!) and this runs for six minutes. Is it six minutes too long? Well, I wouldn’t quite go that far but…

… the problem with this album that I see is that old bugbear of ego over talent. I’m not saying these guys can’t play, cos they sure can. But rather than, for the most part, compose some decent songs they seem to have decided just to each display their own talent in another Dream Theateresque show of “Look at me!” This makes many of the songs nothing more than extended workouts on their instrument of choice, and this makes for, dare I say it, boring music. There are exceptions. “Orbiter” has a really nice and cohesive melody, quite a spacey (unsurprisingly) feel to it, and its followup, “Enter the core” is good too, sort of cinema music. This is when LMR don't annoy me, when they make good music together and give you something you can hum, or at least remember. I don't want an album of jams thanks. I'm no fan of any of these three, though I do recognise the massive contribution Tony Levin has made, to this genre and others. But even with my favourite bands, an album of improvisational music does not interest me, and for the most part this is how this comes across to me.

“Ignorant elephant”, on the other hand, is another of those let's-see-what-we-can-come-up-with-if-we-all-just-play sort of deals, and it bugs the hell out of me. It's fast and vibrant but generally speaking it's totally directionless and very frustrating. “Lakeshore lights”, on the other hand, is a jaunty, upbeat tune with a real radio airplay appeal, if the radio played instrumental music. Some great guitar work from Minnemann as he more or less takes the tune, but “Dancing feet” is a little too loose and experimental for my tastes. Sort of a new-wave/krautrock thing going there. The closer is an eight-minute effort which goes by the title of “Service engine” Driven on heavy bass and guitar it's okay and has the most proggy feel of any of the tracks here but for some insane reason, after playing sixty minutes of instrumental music, they suddenly decide to start singing in the last two! Why? What's the point? I also don't know who's handling the minimal vocals, but I have to admit, I don't care.

TRACKLISTING

1. Marcopolis
2. Twitch
3. Frumious banderfunk
4. The blizzard
5. Mew
6. Afa vulu
7. Descent
8. Scrod
9. Orbiter
10. Enter the core
11. Ignorant elephant
12. Lakeshore lights
13. Dancing feet
14. Service engine

If there's one thing this album proves to me it's that it can be dangerous, even counterproductive to get too many massive egos in the one recording studio. Little of this sounds like a collaborative effort to me at all --- most of the time it's like each is trying to outdo the other a la ELP --- and the end result is a pretty boring, fragmented and ultimately pointless album.

I expected to give this a low rating, and indeed I find that all I can find it in my heart to award this useless exercise in ego-stroking is a very low 2/10.

And I honestly don't think it even deserves that.

Ooh! It's good to be back! ;)

Just got my hands on this, and want to give it some decent listens before I review it. Stand by for a full report very shortly. Is it worth it? Well I'm getting it off Spotify so, you know, yeah: it's worth paying nothing! But there are like three versions of it. If you're going to buy, is it worth shelling out for the extras? Is it even worth paying for the standard album? And is it really a total ripoff or are we being too harsh on the remaining Floyds?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Artwork%29.jpg
All these questions, and many more you didn't ask, will be answered soon, in my full and frank review of the final ever Pink Floyd album.

Good lord, you're at the bottom end of this? Sounds like about where Urban is with his Doctor Who thread.

You mean the top 100? Yeah I know. I could have been further along if I'd only concentrated on those albums and not done Metal Month II, but I didn't want to alienate anyone from my journal who wasn't into prog, so I had to do other stuff too. Just think of me as this guy
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ksnyusILTe...se_cartoon.jpg
though older, of course! :laughing:
I may take my time getting there, but I always get there and the journey is usually worth it.

Speaking of slow progress, ahem, Voyager? Tappity-tappity-tap....

Actually I meant that you must be in the sewage of prog rock.

http://www.trollheart.com/soul7b.png
It’s certainly been a while since I shook ma groove thang or got down with myself in a funkadelic situation (stop it, Trollheart: you’re embarrassing yourself and others!) but now it’s time to try to get two more soul albums in before the yuelide festivities crash down upon us like, well, a big crashing thing. The last time --- which was the first time --- I looked into this genre, a minefield for me and very much a strange and alien world, I played it safe and picked two icons, Benson and Vandross. This time out, though I know no more now than I did then about soul, I'd like to try stretching a little and feature two artistes who, while well known to soul fans may not be all that famous outside of their own genre. Both had hits, certainly, but in the case of one it was a long time ago and in the case of the other, well, let's just say a certain bald drummer kind of stole the limelight on his hit single...
http://www.bigmpromotions.com/wp-con...8/Tavares1.jpg
I always wondered what Tavares meant. Now I know. It's actually the surname of all the bandmembers, brothers all, in a move that was quite popular back in the seventies, as bands like The Jackson Five, The Osmonds and the Pointer Sisters all used their family name. Although they had a string of hit singles Tavares peaked and then sort of fell away, and while most of them still play today, I'd venture to suggest they're more popular as a nostalgia act than anything else. A place on the soundtrack and an actual performance in the movie “Saturday Night Fever” in 1977 raised their profile considerably, but in 1982, after their ninth and tenth albums failed to chart, their record company, Capitol, dumped them and their last two albums were recorded on the RCA label.

Like many soul bands of their time, Tavares straddled the worlds of pop music, disco and even r&B but to me, from what little I heard of them, ended up sounding like anyone from The Real Thing to The Drifters; to me, most if not all soul bands sounded very much the same, and while that's I'm sure a terrible and unfair generalisation, in the seventies and eighties I shrank from the disco/funk/soul explosion in the charts and bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, Shakatak and later the likes of M People just left me pretty much cold. Probably still do and will, but I said I'd give soul a chance here, so here's its chance.

To be as fair as I can to Tavares, I'm not taking any of their albums that have the well-known singles, which all came out in the early to mid seventies, and am instead looking at one which comes at the kind of tail-end of their success, which carried them through four albums up to almost the end of the 1970s. This was said to have been their least successful album, their first without some sort of hit single. In fact, contrary to every album prior, it made no impact on any chart at all. So at least I can't be accused of grabbing their most successful or well known album!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...esuprising.jpg
Love uprising --- Tavares --- 1980 (Capitol)
One thing that interests --- well, disappoints me is that I see there are no writing credits here for any of the five Tavares brothers. However, looking back (and indeed forward) this appears to have always been the case. Tavares don't seem to have been a band who wrote their own material, which I'm afraid is always a big black mark against any artiste in my book. Sure, you can be a good singer or guitar player or keyboardist, but if you're singing or playing someone else's music I never feel the real heart is there, the passion and the sincerity. Of course, what do I know? I couldn't write a song to save my life. But it always seems to me that those who write and sing their own music have more of a feel for it, give you the impression they believe what they're singing, and not just parrotting someone else's words.

Oh wait, I'm wrong. I see two of the songs were co-written by Feliciano and one also had Perry helping out. Nevertheless, out of a total of eleven tracks that's not much, and as I say their previous albums don't seem to have had any input from any of the Tavareses at all. And speaking of nothing at all, would you believe neither Spotify nor Groovyshark have this album? I can't find it on YouTube either, so in desperation (what? No I didn't buy it! You think I'm made of airports?) I've looked for each track singly on YouTube and I think I've found most if not all of them.

So then, were these guys all about the singles or was there more depth to their music? How did an album without any hit singles, and failing to chart, measure up against the more successful fare from their heyday? Only one way to find out...

Flute seems to feature a lot in seventies/eighties soul, horns too and “Only one I need to love” is I guess a mid-paced funk tune, with female backing vocals that work well, and a jazzy, sort of congo beat. I think, though I may of course not be right, that EWF popularised those peppy horns in soul tunes, at least that's where I first heard them. Guitars for me always seem to be underused in soul, though again as I say I haven't listened to enough of the genre to make that claim, but it does seem that they tend to operate more as a backup or rhythm instrument than lead, allowing keys and horns to take precedence.

Percussion, too, is more involved it would seem in soul than many other genres, and by involved I mean intricate. Often a drummer just keeps, drives or creates the rhythm, against which the rest of the band play, and that's fine. But in soul it seems the patterns are more complicated, more diverse, more ... musical than in other genres. Anyway while I've been waffling on about things I know nothing about we've moved on to “Break down for love”, which is a slightly higher tempo song, with nice vocal harmonies, but I have to say nothing terribly special. It's one of the two songs Feliciano works on, but there's nothing there to demonstrate to me that he's a good songwriter.

I can see the truth in the perception of Tavares having been more a disco band than a true soul one; most of this would be very comfortable on the dancefloor, in the clubs, but I can't see or hear anything particularly memorable about it. I remember songs by The Stylistics, Supremes and Temptations, songs that made an impression. To me, these songs sort of just pass the time, musical wallpaper, nothing that sticks in the mind. Even the title track has a very Earth, Wind and Fire feel to it, boppy again yes but little in it is standing out to me. Could be any of the few soul bands I've heard in my life, including the aforementioned EWF. Well, let's see if I can say anything complimentary rather than just bitching and sniping all the time. The guitar is good, very funky and the horns are used well, and as ever the female backing vocals are effective. The song's very repetitive though. Very. To the point where it gets boring really.

It's also way too long: five and a half minutes for a song that changes little if at all over the course of its length? Just makes it worse. Definitely not impressed so far. Nice little organ run there, but I have to wonder now are those female vocals or are the guys just a bit falsetto? If there are backing vox then they're almost taking over this song. On we go anyway, to the first ballad, “Loneliness”, which does for the first time up the game considerably. Nice sweeping orchestral style synth, tinkling piano and a very powerful vocal from, well, I guess one of the Tavareses, not sure which one in a quartet who all sing. Kind of reminds me of the Chi-lites in places. Very smooth.

“Knock the wall down” is next. Does it? Well in a way yeah it does: very Crusaders vibe about it, both the guitar and the horns, sounds like something Phil Collins would rob and record as his own. It certainly qualifies as groovy, man. “Hot love” has that sort of Carribean style about it but keeps the tempo high, hopping along nicely, sounds like there may be violins in there, but maybe they're on the synth. Probably the most energetic of the songs on the album so far, and certainly my favourite, even given that there has been a ballad. I really like this. There's some very squibbly keyboards in “Don't wanna say goodnight”, which I had assumed would be another ballad but isn't. A funky dancy number, with squealing horns and congo-ish drums. Not bad, but after “Hot love” it's something of a let-down. Ditto for “Do you believe in love”, which again has ballad written all over it but is a mid-paced funkster. It's okay but I think we reached the tipping point of the album with “Hot love” and though it hasn't quite all been downhill since there, it's hard to see anything as good coming along.

Yeah. “She can wait forever” just continues the slide into basic mediocrity. Lovely bassline and some fine sprinkly piano, but it's definitely missing something. Just boring as hell. I had a really hard time tracking down the penultimate track, but it seems to have been worth it. “In this lovely world” has a sweet motown blues feel to it; not sure if it would qualify as a ballad, but it's close. Has the horns I remember from “What the world needs now” and a really nice melody to it. I couldn't find this on YouTube, or even Daily Motion, looked for the track on Grooveshark, no luck. Eventually found it squashed in on one of their many hits anthologies via Spotify. Definite competition for “Hot love” as standout, but it's a little late and it's a small comfort among the very ordinary and often tedious bland material I've had to listen to here.

The closer may also prove elusive. No, it doesn't. It proves untraceable. “A lifetime of love” can't be found anywhere, not even as a greatest hits track, so I can't tell you anything about it, but I hope it closed the album decently and helped “Love uprising” to rally right at the end. It's certainly an album that needed a good shot in the arm. Okay, I managed to catch the first sixty seconds of it as a sample and can confidently say it plunges the album back into the depths of so-so-ness. Very bad closer unless it drastically changes over the remaining two minutes. Should have finished up with the previous track.

TRACKLISTING
1. Only one I need to love
2. Break down for love
3. Love uprising
4. Loneliness
5. Knock the wall down
6. Hot love
7. Don't wanna say goodnight
8. Do you believe in love
9. She can wait forever
10. In this lonely world
11. Lifetime of love

Tavares have not impressed me. This album is very very ordinary and very generic, almost a how-to for someone attempting a soul/disco record. There's little that stands out about it and the few decent tracks are very few indeed. I'm not surprised there were no hits from this, and I'm not surprised that after giving them one more chance to improve, Capitol dumped them when sales of their next album mirrored the disappointing performance of this one.

They may have been big once, but what this album shows is a band who were very quickly losing it, and seemed really not all that bothered. Perhaps they knew the end was nigh, and it was: their last album was released in 1983, and though it did much better than this one, they called it a day and that was it for the Tavares brothers. An unfortunate example of the reasons why soul does not generally appeal to me, though of course I know there is much more to it. Speaking of which...

Our next artiste then comes from one of arguably the greatest and most successful soul bands ever, Earth, Wind and Fire. Not only that, but since going solo he has collaborated with George Duke, Kenny Loggins, Pat Metheny and of course Phil Collins. Say hi to
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...p_Bailey_1.jpg

As I said, a longstanding member of EWF, Philip Bailey was with them almost from the beginning, joining in 1972, two years after they had formed, and apart from a three-year absence from 1984-1987, has been with them ever since, and still is, having scaled the heights to the position of leader of the band. He is an accomplished singer as well as drummer, the congas being his weapon of choice, and is of course best known outside of the genre for his teamup with Genesis's Phil Collins, where the single “Easy lover” gave the duo a number one smash, and adding a Grammy nomination to the seven awards he already has.

His best known solo album is “Chinese wall”, but again that would be too easy, so instead I'm going beyond that, to take a look at this one. I wanted to do “Family affair”, released in 1989, but I see that it's described as a gospel album, and while I have nothing against gospel, this is called “Soul II Soul”, so instead we're leaping ten years ahead of that album, and fifteen years after “Chinese wall”, to a point where Bailey had at this point been singing and playing professionally for twenty-two years.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...y_-_Dreams.jpg
Dreams --- Philip Bailey --- 1999 (Heads Up International Records)
This is then Bailey's ninth solo album, not counting a gospel “best of”, and it opens on “Waiting for the rain”, with a suitably soft and sprinkly piano, some nice flute and a gentle, relaxing beat. Some nice classical guitar also supports Bailey's honeyed tones with some fine backing vocals too. There are a total of twenty musicians, including Bailey, performing on this album, few of which I know, other than the great jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. It's a nice start though, and leads into one of four covers, this one being Van Morrison's “Moondance”. He does a really good job with it, giving it a feel of the islands, a laidback but yet uptempo beat that just conjures up crystal blue oceans and stars in the sky as the palm trees sway gently in the moonlit breeze. Nice saxophone action on this, gives it a lazy and smoky feel. I've never been a fan of Morrison, but this version puts a nice new slant on one of the few songs of his that I do know.

One of three songs written solo by keyboard player and co-producer Eric Huber, --- he also wrote the opener ---“Dream like I do” is a nice ballad, with a sort of popping percussion that reminds me of Collins's “Through these walls” and some nice but very sugary digital piano allied to some low-down mournful sax. I can't say I love it, as it sounds like it was written to be a single, but it's all right. Kind of reminds me of the sort of thing boyband after boyband would write in the following century. Surely not good for you, all that saccharin! It's followed by another Huber composition, imaginatively titled “Something”, which immediately gets on my bad side by having a reggae rhythm. Sigh. It's not much to write home about, with a mid-paced funk feel to it and Bailey's distinctive falsetto, some interesting sort of talkbox guitar, but a bit lacking in ideas I feel.

Two cover versions follow, the first being Bread's smash hit “Make it with you”, given the full soul treatment, with opening on alto sax, then a nice jazzy piano (Fender Rhodes?) with a pulsing bassline. Of course, I don't think anyone can ever compare to the original, but it's a decent effort. Kind of lacks the heart and passion of David Gates, but then, what version doesn't? The falsetto gets a little wearing at times, if I'm honest. I'm not familiar with Earth Wind and Fire's catalogue outside the singles and the one album I listened to for my “Classic albums” journal, but this is their song and “Sailaway” is pretty damn righteous. Great rippling piano, perfect vocals and backing vocals, plus a sax solo to die for. Superb. Best yet on the album. And no Eric fucking Huber involved. Just as well too; I didn't like any of the songs he wrote for our man Philip.

Oh, my mistake: there are five cover versions on this album, as everyone knows “The masquerade is over”, showtune by Herb Magidson, and it's up next. Have to say, it stands head, shoulders and another full body above everything here, even the previous EWF cover. Sounds like something Waits would cover: just listen to that walking bass, the wailing sax, the bouncy piano. If “Sailaway” was superb then this is double superb. Love this, but I have a sneaking feeling it's going to be the last decent track on the album. Hope I'm wrong. Maybe I am. Good to see Philip break out of the falsetto for this song too, a welcome change. Rather appropriately, the next track is called “Are we doing better now” and reminds me of Al Jarreau, lot of funky organ and a sort of shuffle beat. It's not bad, but to answer the question in the song's title, no, not really. It's probably the jazziest of the songs on the album, but you know me, and I don't consider that a good thing. I should however mention that it's one of only two original tracks on which Bailey has songwriting input.

That leaves us with two tracks, the first a cover version, the final one on the album, and it's of Pat Metheny's “Something to remind you”, with the great man himself guesting on guitar. Again, it shines among the, not quite dross, but largely unappealing and quite bland fare on this album. I guess really it's more like just including a Metheny song on the album, but Bailey does a very good job on the vocals. It's a slow, smouldering number with a real laidback lounge feeling, and we close on “Strength to love you”, the other song he helped write, along with Sir Bailey (his brother?) and Robert Brookins --- the same team in fact that wrote “Are we doing better now”. It's a vast, vast improvement on that song, with a wailing sax intro that then falls into a sweet soft soul groove and ends up closing the album really well, giving it the strong finish I had hoped for, but not really expected, though to be totally fair that is also down to Mister Metheny.

TRACKLISTING
1. Waiting for the rain
2. Moondance
3. Dream like I do
4. Something
5. Make it with you
6. Sailaway
7. The masquerade is over
8. Are we doing better now
9. Something to remind you
10. Strength to love you

Although this is his ninth album so you can forgive I guess some indulgence, I'm disappointed that there were so many covers --- half the album in fact consists of non-original songs. Of those that are original, some are good, some are very good and some are ... not so good. I'm aware that I'm probably after hitting Bailey at a bad time, chose the wrong album, but that's the chance you take when you just jump right in. Also with all the gospel records he had my options were a little limited. But for what it is this is not a bad album, and I'd certainly rate it far above the effort from Tavares.

So how do I feel after my second foray into the world of soul? Well I always had a sneaking admiration for Earth, Wind and Fire, even as I denounced them as a “poxy disco band” in my youth. Tracks like “September”, “Fantasy” and “After the love has gone” certainly stuck in my head, and although their debut album failed to impress me, I knew enough about them to be able to make an educated guess at how I would receive Philip Bailey's solo material. Tavares the same: I knew them from their hit singles, but as I said in the review of their album, up to now I was unaware they were even related, never mind brothers. Of the two, I would definitely prefer Bailey and if his album had started on track five I would have liked it a lot better, but what does that say when, of those six closing tracks, four of them are cover versions, one of which is of his own band? How does that speak to his competence or success as a solo artist, if he has to rely on other people's music?

Of course, this is just one album, and it could be that Bailey writes all his own material for his other recordings, I don't know. This is just a quick glance at his music and I have no right to be labelling him as someone who survives on the talent of others, which I'm sure is not the case. But “Dreams” did not, sadly, afford me the opportunity I had hoped for, to judge Philip Bailey in his own right, and while perhaps a bad choice, it's done now and all I can say is that I can see definite flashes of brilliance, but they're too sporadic for me to say that yes, this is a soul artiste I could really get into. As for Tavares? Well having heard that album --- which again, I concede, is held to be one of their weaker efforts --- I have no real desire to listen to them again.

For now, the search goes on.

Earth, Wind & Fire are pretty righteous. Not to mention that they wrote some absolutely killer songs (including 'After The Love Is Gone') in collaboration with Westcoast-AOR gods David Foster and Jay Graydon, all of whom will be getting a spotlight in my upcoming Yacht Rock-oriented journal.

As far as Phillip Bailey goes, I think a lot of people mostly know him from the song 'Easy Lover' that he cooked up with Phil Collins and the ever-prolific bassist Nathan East. Good tune. :wave:

http://www.trollheart.com/Swansong.jpg
It's tough when a band breaks up. Tough on their fans, and tough on them. Whether it's an enforced end, such as with Ronnie James Dio dying, an unforeseen end as in Genesis, or indeed a planned lowering of the curtain like REM decided to do, it's the end of a era and quite possibly signals the end, to many people, of an association they have had for most of their lives. In some ways, it's probably like a death (sometimes, of course, it is exactly that), or the worst break-up you've ever had, and there's no going back, usually. It's not you, it's them.

Then there are the albums that get released after the band or artiste has finished recording forever. Unreleased material. Newly discovered tracks, unfinished songs. Enough to squeeze out a whole new album after the artiste has died, or retired. Posthumous albums --- whether released after an actual death or just the end of the artiste's career --- are always a little hard to take. They can have a certain creepy quality, as you realise you're listening to the words and/or music of a man, woman or band who in many cases is no longer alive.

Although still with us, the corpse of Pink Floyd has been floating down the (endless) river for some time now, just waiting for someone to fish it out and give it the decent burial it deserves. There are those (and they are many and vociferous) who will tell you that Floyd died when founder and creative light Roger Waters left them in the acrimonious split to end all acrimonious splits in 1985, and indeed even before that, “The Wall” was 99% his vision and his project and the last album to feature him, “The final cut”, featured so little input from the other two members (and none at all from Richard Wright) that it may as well have been his solo album in all but name. Shortly after that he left the band to pursue that solo career, and Pink Floyd were considered all but dead.

But I'm one of the few (hah) that enjoyed the two non-Waters Floyd albums that followed his departure, and while 1987's “A momentary lapse of reason” and 1994's “The division bell” can't in fairness hold a candle to albums like “Wish you were here”, “Animals” or “Dark side of the moon”, I thought they were pretty cool. I've always been one of those who refuse to cry “Band X is no use without singer Y!” I went through the trauma of Fish parting ways with Marillion, got used to Genesis without Gabriel and enjoyed an Ozzy-less Sabbath. To me, a band is more than just a singer or a frontman, and those who whine that the band will never be the same without the main vocalist and/or creator/founder are I think doing that band a great disservice. And so it was that I was prepared to accept Floyd after Waters, and though it was odd to hear the songs without his distinctive, tortured voice, I thought Gilmour did a decent job. But when the final notes faded away on “High hopes” as “The division bell” came to an end, I, like probably everybody else, believed we were hearing the very last music ever to be released by this band which was now a shadow of its former self. With the death of Richard Wright in 2008, I mourned and thought well that is definitely it: they can't come back now. It's over.

But it isn't over.

Or is it? When news broke of a “new” Pink Floyd album there was of course a flurry of expectations and my own emotions went from disbelief to joy to finally settle on suspicion as the details began to filter through. Not so much a new album then as a collection of studio outtakes and cutting-room floor debris from the sessions for the last “proper” Floyd album. But the obvious question came up: if this material was not deemed good enough to find its way onto “The division bell”, why was it now thought suitable for release? What had changed? All right, the story goes that much of the music that appears on “The endless river” was composed by Wright, and Gilmour and Mason wanted to create a sort of tribute to him, and that's all right as far as it goes. But to announce it as a new album? Was that not pushing it ever so slightly?

I'm reminded uncomfortably (numb) of a comment Gilmour made in the book “Comfortably numb: the inside story of Pink Floyd” when speaking of the making of “The final cut”. He asked, “If these songs (the ones being considered for “The final cut” which had been part of the sessions for “The Wall” but had not made it) were not good enough for “The Wall”, why are they good enough now?” Indeed, David. Indeed. A question we must all have been asking ourselves about this new project.

So are they? Good I mean. It's a perfectly valid question: if, when making what should have been their final album, Gilmour, Wright and Mason discarded these pieces of music (can't really call them songs) then why should they be considered acceptable not only to be released now, twenty years later, but to form the basis of a so-called “new” Pink Floyd album? Have the guys suddenly realised they were after all better than they believed they were in 1994, or is it really just that they want to honour their fallen bandmate by presenting to the world music he wrote but which never saw the light of day, until now?

Or, indeed, as many have hinted and I have to also ask, is this new album, the last ever from Pink Floyd --- and we have that officially: no Eagles “Hell freezes over” ambiguity here! --- nothing more than an exercise in cynicism and money-grabbing, a last chance to make some cash off the hard-pressed fans in this troubled economy? And if so, shouldn't the remaining members of Pink Floyd hang their heads in shame, having already broken records by releasing arguably the biggest attempt to rip fans off with their “Immersion” boxsets, each of which contained approximately SIX discs PER ALBUM and cost in the region of 100 EURO EACH! Sure, nobody put a gun to anyone's head and forced them to buy the sets, but if, as a diehard Floyd fan, you had to have these, then even for the main albums you're looking at shelling out over a THOUSAND Euro! That's bigtime rip-off in my book, I don't care what anyone says.

So if, as one of these diehard fans, you outlaid the money on these sets in 2011, what would you expect from a new Pink Floyd album? I'd venture to say it would not be rehashed, re-recorded half songs that were not deemed good enough for the recording of “The division bell”. But that's what you get, and as this is your final ever chance to hear new (!) Pink Floyd music, do you buy the album and take a chance, or refuse to be the instrument by which Dave Gilmour buys a new house or Nick Mason adds to his classic car collection? This is Pink Floyd's final ever album, their swan song, as I note above, but is it one worth hearing? Or to put it another way, in the words of the ever-witty and acerbic humoured Urban, is this “The endless river” or “The endless pension”? After all this waffle --- over a thousand words before we even get to the review, but that's me for you --- and two decades, it's time to find out.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Artwork%29.jpg
The Endless River --- Pink Floyd --- 2014 (Parlophone)

The first thing I'm struck by, despite the album's filching of the last few words of “High hopes”, is the echoes (hah, again!) of 1987's “A momentary lapse of reason”. That album began with the sound of a man rowing, and here on the cover of this album we see ... a man rowing. Well, punting, but it's very close. So the themes of rivers has been something flowing (sorry, sorry) through the post-Waters Floyd, has it? Well, no not really. Other than those two songs, which reference waters (ah, I know: sorry, I couldn't resist!) there's no real connection, but when you look incidentally at the tracklisting for both albums there are song titles there, many of which could refer to this album and its release: “What do you want from me?” might be an idea of Gilmour's frustration at some of the reviews of the album, though if he's surprised at its reception then he should not be. “Poles apart”? Sure. “High hopes”, certainly, though probably in vain. Not to mention “Coming back to life” and, er, “Lost for words”. As for “A momentary lapse”? Well “A new machine” is a possible link, as is “Yet another movie”, but in reality I think the closing track from that album sums up a lot of feelings about the direction this has gone. Yeah, “Sorrow” more or less covers it.

But in all this analysis and all these clever, self-congratulatory comments, has the music itself become lost, relegated to the sidelines, a bit player destined to be overlooked as critics argue back and forth about the merits of releasing an album of basically extra tracks from a twenty-year-old recording session? Well not here anyway. Grab a set of oars, make sure your lifejacket is inflated, and take your seasick pills if you need them, cos we're climbing on board and we're going in.

Well, ambient they say it would be and ambient is definitely the feeling as “Things left unsaid” opens with a spacey keyboard and spoken words, sort of putting me in mind of the start of “Dark side of the moon”, then one big bouncy echoey drumbeat before the keys go into a melody that this time reminds me of “Signs of life” from “A Momentary lapse of reason”. Gilmour's guitar comes in then, moaning and crying like a violin as the spacey atmospheric soundscape continues to pulse behind him, but it's now clear that, as ever, Gilmour is in charge and standing in the spotlight. In much the same way as, in the beginning, “Shine on you crazy diamond” rode on Wright's keyboard, but once Gilmour broke in he took the tune over, so too here he stands astride the piece like an undeniable colossus. Some really nice organ from the ghostly fingers of Wright before we're pulled into “It's what we do”. Gilmour has said that this album is not for “the itunes, download-a-song generation” and needs to be listened to in one sitting, and you can see the intention there as the music all drifts together, one piece flowing seamlessly into the next, so that it's almost like one long symphony. However, it's hard to forgive the second track being basically the closing section of “Shine on” polished (sorry) up and extended. I do love the classic song --- who doesn't? --- but this is something of a cop-out. If these are unused tunes from the “Division Bell” sessions, why is such old material here? There are echoes of “Welcome to the machine” too, particularly in Gilmour's chords. It drifts right back to the “Shine on” theme though, and as the piece comes to an end you're really waiting for Gilmour to sing “Remember when you were young”...

It's great music, there's no doubt about that. It's just that it is, generally, music we've heard before, and many years ago in most cases. “Ebb and flow” sounds very close to the last few moments of “Shine on, you crazy diamond, Part IX” stretched out to an unnecessary and in some cases unsustainable two minutes almost, and while there are lovely organ and synth touches from Wright, as well as of course superb piano, it's a bit of a non-event. More looking back to “Signs of life” then for “Sums”, throwing in some effects used in “Welcome to the machine” with some shimmery keyboard before finally we get a proper attack from Gilmour as his guitar screams in fury at having been held back so long, but again it's “Welcome to the machine” all over again. It's a great guitar piece, sure, and it reminds us what a god Gilmour is, but have the idol's feet turned to clay? There's nothing very new or innovative here. In fact, I'm surprised to say that we're now four tracks in and I don't hear anything resembling any track from “The division bell”, nothing that could have been considered for that album, as this is supposed to be.

Oddly, though this is all on one disc, Floyd (one assume Gilmour) seem to have published it almost as a double LP, with track sets broken up into "sides", like they used to be. Nostalgia rearing its head perhaps, or another attempt to make people feel they're purchasing an original Pink Floyd record? Hmm. At any rate, quickly then we pass into “Skins”, where Mason gets to unleash his expertise on the sticks, almost a drum solo with Gilmour adding little flourishes here and there. Only just over two and a half minutes but my lest favourite on the album so far. As Vim Fuego said in “Bad News”, can't stand drum solos. Then with more “Shine on” descending keys we're into “Unsung”, a mere minute of almost trancey keyboard with guitar screeching over it, reminiscent of “The Wall” I feel, as “Anisina” closes out "side two", sounding to me unaccountably like The Alan Parsons Project's “Time”. Weird. Very piano driven, nice tune, and at least it doesn't sound like any previous Floyd recording. The first one I've actually enjoyed on the album. Sounds like it has sax on it too: yeah, definitely sax, courtesy of Israeli jazz hornman Gilad Atzmon. Very stirring and dramatic.

Of the seven tracks that follow ("side three"), six are less than two minutes and three, weirdly, are exactly 1:43. Not only that, but they're the first three. “The lost art of conversation” has a deep, luscious synth and Gilmour's high-pitched guitar, but then settles down to allow Wright's sumptuous piano to drive it. It is however only getting going when it's over, and “On Noodle Street” carries the tune into a sort of Knopfleresque slow boogie, with Gilmour coming much more to the fore and Guy Pratt filling in really well for Waters, as he has done for some time now. Electric piano from Wright comes in before “Night light” returns the spotlight to the man on the frets, and again we're back shining on, you crazy diamond, with a slight, almost Genesisesque twist in the melody.

“Allons-y (1) gives us “Run like Hell” revisited, with Gilmour cranking up the guitar and the tempo, Mason's drumming much more animated and the organ from Wright pretty much pushed into the background. It's derivative, incredibly and annoyingly so, but at least it kicks the album up the arse and gives you something to tap your fingers to, if not shake your head. In other words, it lifts the album out of the quiet, soporific torpor it has been sliding into and delivers something of a punch from an album that seemed to be falling asleep. An almost Bach-like organ takes “Autumn '68”, slowing things back down with a feeling of Pink Floyd meets Vangelis before we move into “Allons-y (2)”, which builds a lush soundscape on the synth, then kicks up into another memorable Floyd piece, kind of more “Run like Hell” really. Then we have the pretty godawful (and terribly titled) “Talkin' Hawkin'”, which is essentially the spoken parts from “Keep talking” extended, backed with a slow organ melody, the first appearance of those iconic Pink Floyd female backing vocals so associated with Waters and never, to my recollection, used after he departed. Nice guitar work certainly, but I could do without the Professor droning on. I didn't like it on “Keep talking” and I certainly don't like the extended version. It's also very badly mixed, (the only one that is, and it's so odd it stands out) as Glimour's guitar and indeed Mason's drumming often overpower the spoken parts, making it hard to make out what is being said, which is pretty ironic for a song so titled.

And so we move into the final part of the album, or “side four”, with a strange little ambient beginning to “Calling”, then some moaning guitar and thick bass before the keys rise into the mix and an almost arabic passage takes the tune. More nice understated piano, then guitar surfaces like some beast out of the depths. As the piece nears its end it drops back to soft piano, choral vocals and slow, echoey drumming and takes us into “Eyes to pearls”, a definite vehicle for the strumming guitar work of Gilmour, but very –-and I mean very --- close in melody to Marillion's “Berlin”. Spooky. Rushing, crashing percussion washes over the tune and carries us away, and we find ourselves “Surfacing”, with acoustic guitar and more “Shine on” closing parts, with echoes of “Your possible pasts” there if you listen for them closely enough, or are as anal as I am.

There is some lovely interplay between Gilmour and Wright here though, and I'd probably class this as my second favourite, one of the longer tracks at just shy of three minutes. Personally, I think both in title, mood and music this would have been the perfect track to end the album on, but this is seen as a new Pink Floyd album after all, the last one ever, and the record companies will have their pound of flesh (“We're just knocked out/ We heard about the sellout”) meaning that the instrumental nature of the album has to be destroyed by a vocal song. Now while I really like “Louder than words”, it comes as something of a jarring experience after nearly forty minutes of pure music. Gilmour still has it as a vocalist though, and it's a good song, it's just it's a pity it's so transparently written as an attempt to hit the singles charts. One final sellout before you go, lads?

TRACKLISTING

1. Things left unsaid
2. It's what we do
3. Ebb and flow
4. Sums
5. Skins
6. Unsung
7. Anisina
8. The lost art of conversation
9. On Noodle Street
10. Night light
11. Allons-y (1)
12. Autumn '68
13. Allons-y (2)
14. Talkin' Hawkin'
15. Calling
16. Eyes to pearls
17. Surfacing
18. Louder than words