I have a bit of a love/hate relationship to Metallica. On the one hand, I really like their albums from the 80s, on the other hand, I find they didn't really do anything relevant, or even noteworthy in the last 20-something years. But that's not our topic for today! Ride the Lightning is one of their records I really love. After a promising and already technically quite impressive, if a bit too simple debut-album, Kill 'Em All from 1983, Ride the Lighting is an enormous leap forward.
Before it came to that though, Metallica went through quite turbulent times. Namely rising tensions with their original vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine, over his violent behaviour and his drug and alcohol consume. This escalated in him being sacked from the band just before recording Kill 'Em All. As a consequence, Mustaine, while not actually playing on the album, got song writing credits on a number of tracks of their first and second album. including the eponymous Ride the Lightning and Call of Ktulu.
Mustaine went on and formed Megadeth, and Metallica found its identity in with Kirk Hammett as new lead guitarist, James Hetfield growing into his roles as vocalist and rhythm guitarist, Cliff Burton on bass and Lars Ulrich on drums. Together both bands became two of the most influential metal bands and biggest rivals of the 80s.
Were changes in tempo and dynamic not a completely new thing in rock/metal, when Ride the Lightning came out, (Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were doing that sort of thing more than a decade before), the way how consequentially Metallica was contrasting clean, almost folky passages with their speed and heavy, brutal riffing to build up a narrative within a song, proved to become highly influential for the genre. Technical excellence is one thing - and there is plenty of that on Ride the Lightning as well - but if you can tell a story with your music, and have some emotional impact, or at least give them time to breathe before the next full-on assault, you can catch your audiences attention on a completely new level.
And the album is bursting with great ideas and songs. May it be thrashers like Fight Fire with Fire or Creeping Death, epic narratives like For Whom The Bell Tolls orFade to Black, or the brilliant instrumentalThe Call of Ktulu or the breakneck-speed ride Trapped Under Ice - they all show a masterful level of catchy songwriting, variety and spot on instrumental performances. It is no surprise that this album is still some of their most known and liked ones and part of what defined metal in the 80s.
Doom'n'Roll! That was the spontaneous reaction of one of the guests, when I started playing Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) at a party once. I think, there is barely a better name for what the band was doing on this album.
If is doom-metal usually identified with slow, dragging rhythms and bleak expressions of desperation, Carnival Bizarre is - to me, and obviously to my guest as well - a lively and irresistibly good-mooded record, that just makes you want to move. Yeah, its party music, whether Cathedral intended that or not and lets be honest: song titles like Fangalacticus Supergoria really must been a hell lot of fun to make up!
The band itself was founded in 1989, by Lee Dorrian, after he left Napalm Death, where he wasn't happy with the direction the band took, namely death metal. Something I definitely can emphasize with. And thank the heavens (or hell) for his decision. It brought us a band that influenced and enriched the genre like not many before.
Stilistically, Carnival Bizarre features, as you would expect in doom, heavy riffs that rival the Himalayas (or HP Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness, your choice), combined with driving and varied rock-grooves and Dorrian's characteristic shouty, but clean voice. He might not have the range of a Ronnie James Dio, but he certainly knows how to transport excitement.
It is maybe a bit of an untypical doom-record, but certainly it is an excellent one regardless. Oh, and its hard to top the imagery of their video to Hopkins. What a hedonistic delight!
If you ever wondered, how it would have sounded, if Black Sabbath and the Beatles got merged together in some weird teleportation or cloning accident, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats' The Night Creeper might give you the answer: Imagine Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds played with heavy riffing guitars, eery, distorted vocals and repetitive, hypnotic grooves. A gloomy psychedelic nightmare you may find, you can't get enough from.
Thematically, the album revolves around the eponymous Night Creeper, a Jack-the-Ripper-style serial killer. And it does it brilliantly. The way it transports its distinctive 60s-psychedelica-atmosphere, like an expressionist horror film inside your head. The haunting vocals, the Sabbath-like chord progressions and the very retro production - everything just plays together just brilliantly, creating a truly unique experience.
This said, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is certainly not everyone's taste and if you are into more conventional, or simply more modern metal, you might not enjoy them too much - for all the reasons mentioned above!
To me, Uncle Acid are one of the most significant discoveries in the recent years. Retro-doom at its finest, with a lot of emotional impact and their own, unique character. Not an easy thing to achieve, but they delivered brilliantly.
Electric Wizard has seen quite a soar in popularity in recent time. Something I find pleasantly surprising, since their music isn't exactly the most mass-market compatible. Maybe though, that's exactly the reason why: there is a certain underground authenticity in music that consciously tries to be as far away as possible from the calculated, watered-down mainstream style that so many bands pursue. This doesn't means they aren't accessible, though. With the right ears, attuned to Black Sabbath's Master of Reality or some Cathedral, with the hypnotic repetition of Hawkwind's far-out space-trips, Electric Wizard quickly speaks to you.
To me, their greatest album remains Dopethrone from the year 2000. A raw, droning masterpiece, recorded, according to bandleader Jus Oborn, literally in a drug and alcohol-induced stupor - and it shows in the best sense possible. At its time, Dopethrone did expand the boundaries of metal into a weird, tribal ritual of excess.
While being genuinely dark and monstrous in its sound, with massive guitar-riffs and shouting, madman-vocals drenched with distortion, the album also has an undeniable, and actually quite irresistible, groove and playfulness to it. The album really rocks, which is quite an achievement in this context. It may be a ride through hell and purgatory, but it does it with style and grace, showcasing some musical talent and inspiration that really set Electric Wizard apart from most bands of the genre.
In a way it's a bit tragic that Electric Wizard had their peak so early on. It's not like the successor-albums were bad - to the contrary - but in Dopethrone the band achieved a perfect balance of chaotic, raw emotion and the discipline that allows them to actually take all their energy and turn it into a truly mastrful album.
His stints at Rainbow and Black Sabbath catapulted the unknown singer Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona), of the unknown rockband Elf up at the Mount Olympus of hardrock and heavy metal. After leaving Sabbath in 1982, he formed his own group the following year. Conveniently named Dio, after himself. And probably to ensure this time there are no doubts about who is its leader.
The new band basically picked up where he stopped. With straightforward fantasy-inspired heavy metal as it would become archetypical for the 1980s. Unlike the guitar-dominated sound of Sabbath or Rainbow though, with more emphasis on the vocals. And rightly so: Ronnie James Dio's voice is as distinctive as it is powerful. Together with Judas Priest's Rob Halford, he probably was the metal vocalist of the 80s. A singer you would recognize amongst thousands. So dynamic and yes, almost operatic in its range and power. Always giving that little extra emphasis, that is needed for proper heavy metal theatrics. He could sing your shopping list and make it sound like an tolkienesque-epic.
As brilliant as his voice was though, it would have been a waste if the other musicians weren't up to their task. And hell, they are. Guitarist Vivian Campbell's playing is in every sense a proper substitute for Ritchie Blackmore or Toni Iommi, without the danger of mimicry, and the rhythm-section, including Jimmy Bain on bass and drummer Vinnie Appice, who he snatched from Black Sabbath (where they recorded Mob Rules together), delivers a seemingly effortlessly brilliant performance. The whole album just marches ahead with straightforward classic heavy metal. Every fill, every riff and every solo spot on. Holy Diver feels like the band is playing together for a long time already. No surprise that quite a number of songs, like Holy Diver, Don't Talk to Strangers, Straight Through Your Heart and Rainbow in the Dark, became live-staples and are now regarded as heavy metal classics.
Musically, Holy Diver is of course not the most diverse of all records. It pretty much does what its cover-art promises. Well. not literally. Though, that would be quite something... Anyway. if you expect introvert subtlety, then you might have misunderstood the whole concept of heavy metal in the first place!
All in all, Holy Diver is epic 80's heavy metal at its finest and truly a must-know-album, that helped defining the genre. The band in this line-up would record two more albums, The Last in Line (1984) and Sacred Heart (1985), before descending into power struggles and instability. To me, these three albums mark the highlight of the band. Later albums still have their moments, but won't offer such an abundance of consistently strong material.
Devil Electric are a recent discovery of mine. As the name and the cover picture of their debut album suggest, they are another example of the ever-growing Black-Sabbath-inspired, female-fronted proto-doom-occult rock genre. Phew, what a word! And while they certainly don't reinvent the wheel (or their genre), the quartet from Australia knows how to make some excellent, gloomy music.
On the instrumental side, Devil Electric are indeed closely resembling early Black Sabbath. With a lot of heavy, fuzzy guitar, riffing on doomy intervals and accompanied by a rhythm section that stomps along like an iron behemoth with an impeccable sense of groove in its hulking limbs. So far, so good! Nothing revolutionary, but a very compelling performance. The really outstanding part however, that adds so much character to the band, is its vocalist.
With her bright, light-footed voice she often appears to dance above all the growling, heaviness the band unleashes. The result is - by all the contrast she adds to the sound - a nevertheless quite symbiotic feel, with interesting changes in rhythm and dynamics. It is this dance of contrasts that keeps Devil Electric, contrary to all the familiarity of their songs, varied and engaging - and a little bit unpredictable too. Very effective.
All in all, a strong debut with a lot of 60s- and 70s vibe. It could be the ideal soundtrack to a Hammer film. With misty graveyards, scantly clad witches and generous amounts of blood. Given the number of similar acts I sometimes wish they would stray away from the established, clichéd Black Sabbath-sound a bit more and experiment a bit more with their own style. The potential is certainly there.
For many Machine Head is the best album of the Mk2 era. An opinion I never really shared. Sure it has Highway Star, Space Trucking, Lazy and - of course - their biggest hit, Smoke on the Water. A strong line-up of songs. But is it really? Let's have a look.
The opener, Highway Star, features a perfectly executed build-up and a machine-precise, driving groove in perfect interplay with vocals, riffing and spot-on neoclassical* soloing. Its a showcase piece of what this band was able to. I think you can't handle the subject matter more elegantly than with with Highway Star. An outstanding piece of music. Pure genius.
Other songs, like Maybe I'm a Leo, Pictures of Home and Never Before tell a different story though. Not that they are bad. They are all very well executed, but they don't excite or offer much memorable. Highway Star is a song that evolved and got perfected on stage, resulting in such a well-composed and exciting piece of music. The trio above, on the contrary, simply feels generic.
Ironically, Never Before was actually the song the band gave the most chances of being a hit single. It consequently has been released as one (with a much more captivating When a Blind Man Cries as B-side) and peaked at - #35 of the UK charts. So much for good judgement. I wonder if that's a sign of the band getting tired already of their Sturm und Drang-sound of In Rock and Fireball.
Smoke on the Water though, I guess I don't have to say too much about that one. Maybe just so much: its a really good song, no doubt. With a very catchy riff obviously. Overplayed? Definitely, Overrated? Maybe a little! Being consistent with their former decision with Never Before, the song was not released as a single. At least not initially. Only after radio stations picked it up, it was eventually released. In May 1973.
The two remaining songs on the original release, Lazy and Space Trucking are a cut above the trio Maybe, Leo and Never, but again not as inspired and captivating as you would expect from such a highly rated album. Lazy is, after a very tasteful keyboard-intro, basically a refined jam-session based a catchy guitar riff. Its really nice to hear the band grooving along. No doubt about that. They are so organic and precise - but that's just not enough to make a great song out of it.
And Space Trucking is in its studio-version maybe a bit too restrained to really take off, which is a pity, since everything seems to be in place: a really catchy riff (played with an Hammond organ via Marshall guitar-amps, actually), silly, catchy vocals and once again their superb rhythm-section. Blackmore has some good moments as well. Now, if that song would been a couple minutes longer, with a bit more experimentation...
So much for the original release on LP. Later versions of the album include When a Blind Man Cries. A song so touching and fragile that it makes me really wonder why it didn't make it on the album initially. Especially, since Machine Head stays well under the 40-minute mark without it. Maybe it didn't fit to their image to have a ballad, who knows. Then again, Fireball had Anyone's Daughter, and having one ballad as a little breather doesn't sounds like such a bad idea to me, if there is so much space for off-the-shelf rock songs on this record.
In the end, Machine Head lives from a couple outstanding songs, with some generous padding by mediocrity. In terms of creativity and excitement it can't reach Fireball, or In Rock, which were daring and have their sparks flying so much more than this record. On the other hand, Machine Head is more focussed and compact and maybe a bit more radio-friendly this way. The sound has also improved quite notably compared to its predecessors, being nicely crisp and transparent.
Overall its still a good album. Maybe not as inspired as it could be, but listening to a band that plays so well together like Deep Purple makes it still a quite enjoyable thing.
When the film Hellraiser came out in 1987 (based on the book The Hellbound Heart, released in the previous year), it was a game-changer of the horror genre comparable in its vision to The Exorcist or Alien. Like these films before, it offered us a new take on familiar elements of the genre: Barkers unique take of hell and its demons, the grotesque disfigurements, the mixture of sex and gory violence - Hellraiser was a film that hinted at a richer, deeper world beyond what you saw on screen. Perfectly embodied by the iconic Pinhead. Unfortunately, it was followed by a number of sequels that never could live up to the original and rapidly deteriorated in quality.
In the late 90s, when the damage to what has become the Hellraiser-franchise was already mostly done, writer and director Clive Barker, who wasn't involved in any of the sequels, eventually decided to pick up what he started more than ten years ago, give it a decent conclusion as he envisions it. The result is The Scarlet Gospels, has 368 pages, which is maybe a bit surprising if you know what his books from the late 80s and 90s, but more on that later, and has been released in 2015.
The Scarlet Gospels start with a series of gruesome murders amongst the world's leading magicians, which turns out to be part of Pinhead's plan, who is actually named Hell Priest in the book, to amass enough magical power to take over hell itself. Another character from Barker's books, the supernatural detective Harry D'Amour, with a couple of friends, gets on the Hell Priest's tail and the story unfolds...
According to what I have gathered from interviews, the book was originally going to be significantly longer and has been cut down on demand of the publisher. Something that - for an author of Barker's calibre, who certainly isn't a beginner - appears quite unusual and I wonder if this may be the reason, together with its unusually long digestion period for some of the fundamental flaws of this book.
It is certainly ambitious. In a way Imajica and The Great And Secret Show are - the two favourite books by Barker. Both books get time to breathe and let their rich and imaginative worlds and its characters unfold. The Scarlet Gospels though race through their story like a hollywood screenplay. Unsophisticated and quickly paced, it doesn't really leaves much time to introduce its characters and let them interact with each other beyond some superficial bantering and wisecracking.
This makes most of the characters, save for the very central ones, not much more than one-dimensional dialogue-givers and the whole book uncanningly distant and unemotional. It could have been a enchanting, mysterious and multi-layered experience, like his best works are. Tragically, it throws away all the promising elements it has.
After finishing The Scarlet Gospels, I started reading Sacrament (1996) again. A book I have fond memories of. And after 30, 35 pages it is already deep in the characterization of its protagonist and his friends, while at the same time, baits us elegantly with the central mystery of the story.
The difference couldn't be greater: subtlety and skilful pacing vs. quick action. well-rounded, realistic protagonists (even the side-characters) vs. placeholders and snarky one-liners. The Scarlet Gospels' weak writing makes it appear like its been trimmed-down and dumbed-down beyond recognition in contrast. And I really, really hope it's the publisher to blame for this.
I would gladly say I enjoyed The Scarlet Gospels more than I did. It is better than all the uninventive sequels, but I argue this isn't such great an achievement. I would love to praise the sheer scope and wealth of Barker's storytelling and the intensity of its characters. And its not like there aren't glimpses of its potential. But it falls short to really pick them up and fly with them. Instead, it plays safe and leaves us a quick and easy to digest, but fundamentally insubstantial product. What a pity.
Not many bands can still surprise, or even excite you after they have been around for almost 50 years. When listening to Infinite, Deep Purple's most recent album, I knew for sure: they can.
The album kicks off with Time For Bedlam. Such a dark and irresistibly pressing song, that's on a level with some of their best and most intense material, like Perfect Strangers, Child in Time, or Rapture of the Deep. A vision of brutal suppression and resistance, perfectly crafted, like a Hieronnymus Bosch painting of hell. Ian Gillan's clerical chanting in the beginning, declaring that he is "descending the cold steps of the institution for the political insane - never to be seen again", building up tension, then the rest of the band kicks in and sending the song off with claustrophobic intensity - a textbook example of how to throw its listener right into the action.
May the rest of Infinite be not quite as gloomy and dramatic, it stays quite heavy, with the relaxed and confident playfulness of a band that feels free and fully in its equilibrium. The result are songs which are fresh, witty and flow so naturally and groovy that its simply a pure joy to listen to.
From the light-hearted, and slightly self-deprecating hymn Johnny's Band about the rise and fall and eventual muddling on of a rockband (with a hilarious promo video), to the tender and melancholic The Surprising and stomper like Hip Boots or Get Me Outta Here - Infinite is overboarding with strong performances. There isn't really a song you could call a filler... except the last one: The Doors cover Roadhouse Blues, which is just unnecessary and misses the feel of the original, without adding anything new and relevant to it.
Even with that little lapse, Infinite is one of the band's strongest albums. Like the last couple of releases, it shows that even a band that has been around for so long, still can be inventive and wild and write songs where you keep on discovering something new. Brilliant stuff!
Who knows for how much longer Deep Purple will still be around, but at least, If Infinite is really going to be their last record, then they end their long and spectacular career on a high note.
Some bands I like live much more than on their studio records. Rammstein is one of those bands. I guess its the dirtier, rawer sound and the stripped down electronic-elements. Its just more rock'n'roll going on and their Live aus Berlin album from 1999 captures that side of the band perfectly.
To me, this also marks a turning point in the band's career. The first two albums, Herzeleid and Sehnsucht, were much more edgier than their later releases, dealing with topics like incest, necrophilia, murder - and surely a number of other perversities I have missed out. Not to be taken terribly serious of course. Back in the day, Rammstein were fun! In their own, wicked way, but nevertheless fun.
There has been quite a substantial hiatus between Sehnsucht (1997) and the follow-up album Mutter (2001). Live aus Berlin as the only release in that time and I had no idea the new millennium would bring back such a watered-down band. It has been one of the great disappointments in listening "career" to buy their single Sonne and just being completely underwhelmed by what I heard.
Luckily, we are not delving too much into that today. Live aus Berlin shows us the band at their rawest and most daring.
The songs are intense, tight and still fresh after all those years. And quite overwhelming in the sheer brutality of their sound. There wasn't much like Rammstein around in the mainstream music of the 90s. Maybe Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, but neither of them had quite this menacing aura, Rammstein had. Maybe they should have sung in German too...
Given Live aus Berlin's runtime of 1 hour and 15 minutes, there isn't a relevant song from their first two albums missing. Well, ok. Except Klavier, but that's nitpicking now. Live aus Berlin an excellent album. Spectacular, dramatic and overwhelming. A perfect document for the early, wild phase of the band's career.
This one might just be another case of "brilliant albums you may have never heard of". Released in 1997, so just over 20 years ago, Komödia was the first full length album of the Dreams of Sanity, after having recorded a couple of demos before, and you wouldn't know it from just listening to it.
Komödia is a beautiful and complex album, with a refinement that is just remarkable. Especially for a debut. And on top of it all it's subject matter is nothing less than one of the greatest works of world literature: Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedia from 1320. An epic poem describing the journey of a wanderer, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, through hell, purgatory and eventually heaven on the search for his lost love, Beatrice.
Clearly, you can't blame Dreams of Sanity for a lack of ambition and, of course, when you aim that high, the chances of failure are quite substantial too. The band however masters their set task brilliantly, with confidence and excellent ideas. A really classy performance, especially by the vocalists, who contribute a lot with their expressive, nuanced performances.
To me Komödia has as much in common with a classical symphony, or opera as it is a metal album. And quite extraordinary in how it brings both together. It is rich and complex, without being too academic, features nuanced and stunningly beautiful songs without drifting off into kitsch-regions, is technically impressive, but never forgets to play for the song, not over the song - its no coincidence really that I still find this album so appealing and interesting after all those years.
Dreams of Sanity would release two more albums, Masquerade and The Game, before they split in 2002 after several line-up changes. A pity they never got the recognition they deserved.
When I showed the record a friend once, who had no idea about the band, he remarked that "this looks like classical music", I think this spontaneous, and not really qualified, assessment is actually quite suiting. This is miles away from mainstream rock and metal. In fact, it is not a trivial question where to put The Gathering really. A fact, which I find actually quite delightful. Is it gothic? symphonic? prog? All of the above? Does it matter?
Anyway, I discovered the band while everyone else was into stuff like Nightwish (once again I dutifully did exactly what everyone else wasn't doing). Goes without saying that I was appealed by the more edgy and experimental sound of The Gathering, despite being quite "symphonic" in their own way. They music is without a doubt quite heavy and dark, almost wagnerian at times, while it also shows some (for the genre) unusual instrumentation and airy colourfulness, creating an interesting and appealing mix.
I find it always fascinating to see the development some bands go through and The Gathering are a good example for a band that changed quite a lot over the years. They started in the late 80's as a doom and death metal band, yet as of Anneke van Giersbergen's arrival in the band for Mandylion, their sound has distinctively and lastingly changed and dramatically expanded its scope.
And certainly, her expressive voice fits ideally to their music. Not as sweet and angelic as so many other female symphonic metal singers, but with an edginess that happily deviates from the norm and works well with the band's overall experimental-attitude.
Still, certain elements still hint to their past. Especially the guitar work: heavy riffing with long held power chords and melodylines is certainly doom-influenced. Interestingly the result is actually quite Pink Floydian as well. Just think Dogs of War and Sorrow.
In later albums, starting with How to Measure A Planet, they began to abandon their metal roots more and more and moved towards a experimental, sometimes ambient-like direction. Something the band itself described as trip-rock - undeniably a quite suiting term.
Mandylion is a colourful, highly enjoyable album. Beautifully composed and executed. It shows a band able of writing songs that are complex and varied on the one hand, but at the same time catchy and beautiful.
The Gathering might not be everyone's taste, but in a genre like metal, with so many conventions and stylistic uniformity, an album like Mandylion is a more than welcome departure from the norm. It's actually quite needed.
Regular readers might have noticed that, besides metal and hard/heavy rock, I also have a soft spot for music from the 70s, psychedelic in particular. And it seems like Jess and the Ancient Ones did their best to push my buttons in that regard.
The album is quite a remarkable experience. Stylisticly somewhere between The Doors and retro-occult-rock like Blood Ceremony, The Horse and Other Weird Tales is colourful, organic and beautifully arranged, with some truly captivating songwriting.
On top of it all vocalist Jess, who is transporting so much pure energy with her dynamic and engaging singing without sacrificing melody. Was her performance on their first record often quite shouty, on The Horse and Other Weird Tales she sounds so much more refined and in command and in the best sense of the word haunting. Dramatic changes in mood, tempo and rhythms - her performance is really outstanding.
If there is one thing to complain about, and I am happy to say there is only one thing actually, then that it just feels too short. The overall runtime is only 34 minutes and most of the songs are just between two and three and a half minutes long, leaving you craving for more. I certainly would not blame a lack of ideas here. To the contrary. The songs are so rich that most of them could easily be twice as long and still entertain me splendidly.
But maybe its better this way. Maybe they want their listeners to stay hungry for more than having a profound lack of ideas dragged out over 20 tracks and 70 minutes, as it happens too often.
All in all a brilliant piece of psychedelic rock with an outstanding singer. A bit too short, but then again - that doesn't takes anything away from all the goodness that's there!
Some albums, I admit, didn't quite got my approval on first listening. Live in Midgard is probably the best example for this. I bought it around its release back in 2002 or '03, put it into my CD player, and didn't touch it again for years.
I can't tell for sure why, maybe I was just looking for something else around that time, or the music did simply overwhelm me (more about that later). Fact is that I discovered the song Wine of Aluqah on a gothic metal compilation, instantly liked it, recognized the name of the band, got the album - and wasn't impressed.
Anyway, what ever led to my initial rejection, I can't relate to it anymore and today Live in Midgard is amongst my favourites of the genre.
The album was recorded in 2001 during their Secret of the Runes-Tour and features a variety of different concert venues in Colombia, Germany and Hungary. While this could have resulted in a bit of a disjointed experience, the opposite is the case really. The whole album is a coherent and organic thunderstorm of sound that is just spectacular. Such power and dynamic! It combines the rawness of metal perfectly with the sensibility of classical instruments and vocals. I can't really name any other recording that deserves the term symphonic metal more than this.
Ironically though, compared to other bands of the genre, Therion remains at the same time probably the least accessible. Their songs are not really written for the charts, like say Nightwish does and therefore usually don't have singles-quality. And maybe that's just the reason why I value them so highly. Its so easy in the genre to fall into the trap of kitsch, Isn't it?
As much as I like their songwriting, I find Therion's studio-albums often a bit sterile and overproduced. Everything sounds pitch perfect and tidy, but the spirit of the moment just refuses to show itself. Not this record though. It is very well produced, but also keeps the dirt and the immediate dynamic of a live performance alive and definitely kicking.
Despite the norse-mythology-related title (and the title of the tour), Live in Midgard doesn't features overwhelmingly many songs from their 2001 album Secret of the Runes, but a healthy mixture of tracks from their past as well. The setlist reaches as back as their earliest, death/doom metal material, like A Black Rose, Beauty in Black, Wings of the Hydra and ("the fucking") Riders of Theli and includes the song Seawinds, a relatively obscure title from Accept. There is even some ABBA thrown in with the song Summer Night City. Believe it or not!
This said, the album isn't the most diverse, Therion stays Therion - and that means epic, relatively complex metal. And plenty of that. It is very much an all-out attack on the senses, with just a few breathers in between. Maybe it was this intensity, that kept me away from it initially. You certainly have to be in the right mood to enjoy this album in its entirety.
All in all, Live in Midgard is truly an experience. A dense and compelling tour de force. A operatic thunderstorm that leaves the listener saturated with sound. Not an easy listen for sure and probably not really recommendable for newbies, but highly enjoyable if you like epic symphonic metal that is maybe a bit edgier than what you usually get.
Deep Purple was never free of conflicts. At least not for long. Strong egos, touring stress, diverging creative ideas and their rocketing success in the early 70s with all its consequences (as in drugs, more touring stress and ever bigger egos) - that's all not really de-escalating factors. Ironically, their most creative (and successful) line-up is at the same time the one which probably was the most tense. Of course we are talking about what is known as Deep Purple Mk.II. Originators of masterful albums like In Rock (1970), Fireball (1971) and Machine Head (1972).
With the (involuntarily) departure of Ian Gillan and Roger Glover on the peak of the band's success in 1973 and Blackmore leaving two years later (frustrated, but voluntarily), Deep Purple went into a steady decline and eventually - in 1976 hit rock bottom and fell apart unceremoniously.
In the years afterwards, each member went on to boldly pursue his own projects he never had time for while being in Deep Purple. Well... not really. Jon Lord and Ian Paice found themselves playing several years together in Whitesnake, the band of Gillan's replacement, David Coverdale, which - at least in Lord's case - was more a vacational arrangement than anything else. Roger Glover eventually joined Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow in its commercial successful radio-rock, post-Dio-phase. Only Ian Gillan was really doing solo-projects (amongst with losing a lot of money in bad investments).
Anyway, at least in retrospect it seems they couldn't really stay away from each other for too long, doesn't it? So in 1984 their reunion eventually happened. Having big cheques waved at them by their record company certainly helped a bit as well.
But enough of the foreplay. How well does the record actually hold up, I hear you ask? Ok, since you ask me so directly: Its amazing!
The album starts off subtly with a sneaky keyboard-intro before building up to the groovy and relaxed rocker Knocking at Your Back Door. Already at this point you know, this is going to be good. All the ingredients which make Deep Purple what it is are back together in perfect harmony. Those typical Blackmore guitar-riffs and melodies, the unmistakable and elegant keyboard by Jon Lord, always there when you need it, but never pushing itself into the spotlight for the sake of it, the powerful Glover/Paice rhythm engine and those sleazy Gillan vocals (really, listen to those lyrics!) that fit to the sound of the rest of the ensemble so brilliantly that it's hard to imagine anybody else doing the job (well, certainly not Coverdale/Hughes).
For the second track, Under the Gun, the band is shifting up a couple gears. A tense and energetic song that wipes away all remaining doubts whether they still had their fire. With its simple, but superbly effective intro riff (in great symbiosis once again with the keys-section) it storms over you and takes you with it before you figured out what happened. Great song. One of my all-time favourites.
Nobody's Home and Mean Streak are similarly energetic and fast rockers and certainly excellent songs in their own right, but the monumental Perfect Strangers following them just steals the show here. What a song! Heavy and almost gothic in its dark and cold mood. Probably the archetypical Deep Purple song of the 80s and always a highlight played live.
After the moderately-paced epic named Perfect Strangers, A Gypsy's Kiss is picking up the tempo again and rushes through its classical-inspired melodies with breakneck-speed. I always associate it with rushing along a nightly road or through a tunnel. It just has this rushing, tunnel-vision-feel to it. Really captivating.
Wasted Sunsets, on the other hand, is musically the complete opposite. Slow-paced and melancholicly meandering, with some of the most beautiful guitar soloing you might encounter in a long while. So lyrical, so intense and heartbreakingly played. An absolutely brilliant song.
The album finishes (in the LP version) on a bit of a sentimental note with Hungry Daze. A restless rushing through scenes of their busy tour life - the aforementioned hungry days, when they were almost constantly either on the road or recording a new album. A good song with some blistering guitar-work once again.
The final final track is Not Responsible, which stomps along quite nicely but doesn't really goes anywhere. Not a bad song. Certainly not, but in company with all the greats on this record, it falls off a bit. At least it give you some additional four minutes to enjoy this brilliant, perfectly attuned band, before it fades out.
Sound-wise Perfect Strangers picks up on their album Machine Head and does a modernised interpretation on the crisp, cold and almost biting feel it had. This modernisation works really well and at no time like an artificial ahem... "enhancement", of albums like Yes' 90125 with its silly, seemingly randomly thrown in samples. Blackmore allegedly told his band mates to listen to it carefully for inspiration. Good job they paid attention to the right parts. Because you can doesn't means you should do certain things!
The production by Roger Glover on the other hand, who did a lot of Deep Purple-albums over time, is solid, but a bit too muddy. Other albums from around this time are clearer, punchier, so no chance of blaming 80s studio-technology there.
So despite the slight niggle here and there, which is like complaining that in the Himalaya not all mountains are the same, height, my verdict remains. Perfect Strangers is amazing. A spectacular reunion-album with sparks flying left and right and the good old Deep Purple motor firing happily from all its cylinders. As usual with this line-up, the peace didn't last forever (or longer than a couple of months!), but at least we got this wonderful album out of it.
My first contact with Black Sabbath was through a German TV ad in the 90s, which used the song Paranoid for a quite silly recreation of that famous scene in Wayne's World. It wasn't even the original song but a pretty close cover version, which - in retrospect - seems quite fitting: play the pastiche of a cult song in a pastiche of a scene from a cult movie.
Anyway, I started my enquiries (luckily rock and metal is strong in my family) and after I learned song title and artists name, I went to a local record store, bravely ignored the rather stupid cover motive, bought the CD and well, music wasn't the same again after listening through this album for the first time.
While their first album is generally seen as the birth of heavy metal, thanks to their trademark sound* and gloomy subject matter, things really took off with their second album, Paranoid.
Released just months after their debut, you would maybe expect this record being an afterthought, but to the contrary: the amount of power and doom the band unleashes here is just spectacular and literally unheard of. With Paranoid the band definitely found their groove and cranked up the dials to elven!
Lyrically the album moved away from the supernatural/satanic imagery of songs like Black Sabbath or NIB towards a more gritty, real-life perspective, with the danger of the nuclear apocalypse (War Pigs, Electric Funeral), insanity (Paranoid, obviously) and drug addiction (Hand of Doom) being the overarching themes. And the album clearly benefits from this shift. It's songs still speak to us and possess a timeless, intimate quality.
The atmosphere of its lyrics resonates in the music itself: The bluesy-jazzy vibe of its predecessor is almost gone; exposing the bare bones of the bands heavy riffing and drumming. In fact, only the screaming, psycho-esque (you know, that shower scene) high notes in Iommi's soloing are a descendant of his jazz-influences. The result is a more condensed and focused record with no frills. And a pretty bleak one. The perfect soundtrack for the apocalypse and a how-to-guide for generations of upcoming doom bands.
*And lets be fair: neither of the other two big heavy rock bands of the early 70s, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, had that an uncompromising sound. So kudos to Sabbath for changing the game.
Ok, this one didn't made it easy for me, but in the end it was quite enjoyable to write this review.
Uli Jon Roth, former lead guitarist with the Scorpions (long ago, back in the day when they were quite progressive and actually cool) has quite the reputation as guitar virtuoso and eccentric (which is quite an achievement for itself in the rock/metal genre), so its wise to expect the unexpected.
I like the basic idea of Under A Dark Sky: A concept album as a commentary on mankind's self-destructive ways, which eventually could lead into a catastrophe. That's always a winner for me.
The result though is a mixed bag. Between the highs of real greatness and the lows of utter kitsch.
To give you an impression: The album begins quite strongly with the track S.O.S., and - true to its subject matter - the sound of air sirens, morse-code and several voices declaring red alert building up a dramatic, film-score-like atmosphere. The voices are getting answered by a choir demanding "save our souls", underlined by a dramatically ascending electric guitar solo, before it falls into a shy, bittersweet melody.
All in all a very captivating start, but sadly a lot of the following material can't keep up and meanders somewhere in the acoustic no-man's land between operatic/musical orchestration and kitschy new-age tunes. With a good measure of virtuoso electric guitar solos thrown into the mix.
The tragedy is that there is certainly no doubt about Roth's skills as a musician. It is all wonderfully arranged and played, with some blisteringly beautiful solos. Same applies to his guest musicians.
It's more that, with all his theatrics, his taste fails him. His musical language is quite specific and the line between effective theatrics and simply kitsch is very thin - too thin for him. It's something I noticed in his other solo-works before: They are always displays of blistering playing technique, but when it comes to making use of it in a dramatic sense, it too often becomes comical instead of captivating.
Lyrically its a similar picture: The mix of English lyrics with German bits and pieces thrown in just feels quite artificial and over the top. It could have worked better if he had used them in more moderate doses. Which brings us back to the main problem of him as a musician: Uli Jon Roth wants too much. He is releasing all stops, puts everything into his music, shoots the moon and - misses.
I think its fair to say that Uli Jon Roth isn't quite on the same page as most of the rock and metal world. That's in theory not a bad thing at all, since most is pretty formulaic and uninspired, but sadly the alternative he brings up can't fully convince either.
This doesn't means the album doesn't has its good sides. It certainly has. In parts it is truly outstanding. It's absolute peak is the last track, Tanz in die Dämmerung (dance into the dusk), a monumental, almost 20 minutes long, epic. Dark and tense, starting slowly with some uneasy intervals played on Spanish guitar, and escalating into a wild frenzy. Mankind's dance into the catastrophe.
It end in sudden silence just when you would expect a resolution. Like a plug being pulled. In fact the songs ends so abruptly that some people thought their CD was damaged. A perfect metaphor of Roth's songwriting: instead of serving the expectations of his listeners, he surprises you with something unexpected. And here, instead of ending in a typical thunderstorm of noise, as so many bands would have done - there is nothing. Just as nothing would be left from us, if the big nuclear catastrophe strikes. A dance on the volcano - and then dead silence.
So despite its obvious weaknesses, I can't really condemn the album. It certainly has its highlights and grows on you with repeated listening. Keep in mind though that, if you expect anything like the Scorpions, get ready for a disappointment. Roth left the band in the late 70's and the music he made since certainly doesn't sounds like them at all. So better go into listening this record without any expectations or preconceptions. Its not going to be an easy, straightforward experience.
This one is in a way special to me. I even had a poster of this cover around the year 2000 - and a T-Shirt as well. And it still remains one of the most beautiful, touching - and sensual - record covers I know.
Fortunately the music itself fits just perfectly. Its a dark and sensual record. With its heavy, abrasive (yet in the context of the songs very fitting) guitar, the slow and atmospheric songs and Peter Steele's deep and tender voice whispering in your ear.
Despite its overarching doomy nature, Bloody Kisses is quite diverse actually. The album takes you on a journey of different moods, yet the individual tracks seem very coherent with each other. A bit like in a dream, where one scene transmutes into another, keeping the listener moving in a flow of different feelings and stories to tell.
The album achieves this with absolute spot-on tempo changes and instrumentation. Everything just fits seamlessly into each other. Purely masterful.
Its hard to point out certain songs. Despite its runtime of about 73 minutes there aren't really any filler on this record. The songs all have depth and their very own unique character.
There is the obvious Black No. 1 of course with its sarcastic look on one of Peter Steele's ex-girlfriends and the goth-scene in general.
Or the Seals & Crofts cover Summer Breeze, which got a completely new and different life in this incarnation. I was actually quite shocked to hear the original for the first time. The Type O Negative-version just feels so natural - and right - to me.
Naming some of the other highlights of the record, like Set Me On Fire, Kill All The White People, Christian Woman, Bloody Kisses, and we are already almost through the whole tracklist. It's indeed hard to find a weak song on Bloody Kisses.
To make a long story short: Bloody Kisses is a masterpiece of a record and (at least to me) one of the definite albums of the 90s. A brilliant, intimate soundtrack for your own private melancholia. Light some candles, open a bottle of red wine and press play. To paraphrase the band itself: This album will hit you slow, deep and hard.
It is possible to look at an album like Innuendo without the context of their singer, Freddie Mercury's illness and approaching death? Not for me. It is just shimmering through every song and note.
Queen's last record published in his lifetime is a foreshadowing, moving, theatric in the best sense, and graceful piece of music. Upbeat at time, almost defiantly so, especially in its faster songs, it however can't hide its sadness: the very human struggle with one's own mortality. Here is a singer who, facing the inevitable, literally sings for his life.
Framed by the majestic album-opener Innuendo and concluding with the emotional tour de force The Show Must Go On, the album is a kaleidoscope of tunes, themes and moods - each single one of them is strong, even captivating. There isn't any filler. From straightforward rockers like Headlong and Ride The Wild Wind, to the playful and carnivalesque I'm Going Slightly Mad, to fragile gems like Don't Try So Hard and Bijou - Queen covers such a wide variety with such masterful musicanship.
Innuendo is really Queen at their peak. And when the last note is ringing out and silence creeps upon you, you might feel a little lump in your throat. What a record!
It's probably fair to say that this album started the 80s. At least when it comes to hard rock/heavy metal. Such energetic songs, the top-of-the-line production and, most critically, Eddie van Halen's groundbreaking guitar.
He is often described as the one who brought tapping to the electric guitar, but while its certainly a spectacular technique, I actually rate his characteristic sound (the so-called "brown tone", the blueprint for the 80s-typical high gain) and his masterful use of the instrument in the context of the songs actually as his bigger achievement.
Like Jimi Hendrix ten years before him, van Halen's playing blends rhythm and melody together so naturally, so skilfully that its just sheer exciting joy to hear these songs. So much talent, yet so much tasteful playing for the songs and not for the sake of virtuosity (well, most of the time).
Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love is a perfect example for that. It kicks off with this brilliant riff (its a bit overused maybe, but that's not the riff's fault!), which still sounds modern despite being recorded 40 years ago. Same applies for the Kinks-cover You Really Got Me, which feels like a natural evolution of the original song. After all, the Kinks where amongst the first who experimented with distorted sounds. Namely on this very song, so there is that.
Eruption, on the other hand, is a different animal altogether. I remember when I listened to it for the first time and it sounded so futuristic. Like the guitar turned into a synthesizer in some parts - brilliant!
Of course its pure technique-wanking, lets be straight about that. A highly skilfully played tapping demo and it can't hide its nature, despite being played with a lot of melody and taste. It therefore sounds a little dated today. Tapping is not as revolutionary anymore and shredding became commonplace really. Or - even worse - something like a sport.
Therefore, Eruption feels to me now like a magician's trick when you find out how he did it: the sense of wonder simply has worn off a bit.
This doesn't stops being Van Halen's first from being a outstanding, game changing record and really fun to listen. The duo Eddie Van Halen (guitar, of course) and David Lee Roth (vocals) works together so congenially and turns the album into a damn good party.
Lyrically the album ticks all the boxes of sleazy cock-rock. But you don't listen to Van Halen because you expect something meaningful or even poetic, so don't expect to get it.
All in all, its a spectacular record. Probably one of the best debut albums of all time. Technically and musically it is still brilliant and quite timeless. The only weak spots are the shallow and sleazy lyrics really, but with that Van Halen are in excellent company.
At the end of the 90s, when my music-horizon expanded into the dark side (because of the cookies), Lacrimosa was one of my favourite "newish" bands I was listening to. I loved their particular blend of slow, doom-influenced gothic metal with complex arrangements and the bits of classical music thrown into here and there.
Sadly, around the year 2000, with their album Elodia, the classical bits took over and pushed the metal aspect into the background. It was for me all just too polished and - tame. So began to lose interest into the band until a couple years ago, when I started to rediscover some of the old stuff, I used to listening to. I guess for some people such rediscoveries can be quite a shock ("I was listening to THAT???"), but for me it was quite a pleasant experience so I began to delve into their more recent material.
Which brings me to their 2012 album Revolution. Its a much rougher record than what they did when I left them, and I am quite happy about this. Sound wise it is closer to albums like Satura and Inferno, but with a level of angst and aggression in its lyrics I did not expect to hear from this band. It is a bitter reckoning with our modern society. A society that is heading to self-destruction by vain ignorance and pure greed.
And it is brilliantly written. Take the song Feuerzug(Part 2), for example: The singer describes a burning train (a Feuerzug) that is jumping out of its tracks. First he appears to be a distant observer. Full of disbelieve about what he is witnessing, until he realizes the train is unstoppable; destroying everything on its path - and is heading towards him and everyone he loves.
Eventually he understands that he himself - and actually every single one of us - is sitting in the train and steers it into its doom.
Today, six years after the album's release, with all the recent political developments, his words ring more true than ever.
Revolution is probably Lacrimosa's bleakest album. It sounds so pressing and dark. Vicious at times. A more than welcome change in direction, if you ask me. It might not debate the nicest things in life and certainly is far away from any dark romantic sentimentalities of their past - but that's exactly what makes it so interesting and compelling.
There are barely more genres a single album is said to have originated than Black Sabbath's debut. I'm not going to list them all, but rock music definitely hasn't been the same since. Other bands might have experimented with heaviness in their sound as well, but the sheer amount of rawness and doom the first couple of minutes on this album evoke - for a big part thanks to Ozzy's haunted madman voice that brilliantly complements the instrumental part - were something new and literally unheard of. The band later said that their inspiration for their name and sound were horror films and well, it shows!
Beside all its heaviness - and there is plenty - Black Sabbath eponymous first album album also shows that they didn't fell from the sky as the band they are known as, but evolved into it. There are still some strong bluesy, even distinctively jazzy elements in their playing that were pretty quickly phased out in later songs. Especially in the second, more improvised half with Sleeping Village and The Warning have the feel of a heavy-rock-meets-jazz jam really, which actually works really well.
Another quite distinctive attribute this album has is its raw, unpolished sound, which has almost live-qualities. If we can believe guitarist Toni Iommi, and I do, the album has been recorded on a single day, with very few overdubs. Quite the opposite of what they would do just in a couple years time, where the studio sessions dragged on for weeks, even months.
Like many debut albums, Black Sabbath isn't as perfect and polished as their later work, but shows a band that has opened the gate to a new world. In the coming years they, and after them many other bands would step through this gate and continue upon what this album started.
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