After looking at Compare the Mosh Pit.com, a site that puts up pairs of photos of pits and asks you to pick the winners - think hotornot.com with wild flailing arms - it strikes me that what really defines a good pit (or at least a good pit photo) is when you have to look twice to tell if you're looking at a mosh pit or a riot. Limbs should be flailing, people should be packed like sardines and clinging to the edge of balance from the constant movement, and - of course - everyone should be having a pretty good time. In fact, we at Baroque Bleak Brutal celebrate the mosh pit in all of its majesty: that's why the photo of a pit - taken at this show - adorns the background of our blog's banner.
The same prospecting expedition to Wikipedia that produced this post led my discovering Dark Fortress, a German melodic black metal outfit that put out their fifth studio album, Ylem at the end of last month. Ylem is a deeply flawed album in many ways - most notably that it's really too damn long - and Dark Fortress has been around long enough that I suspect that the decision to write twelve songs with an average length of six minutes isn't something they're going to grow out of. However, I find them intriguing for the same reason I like Keep of Kalessin: with their melodic flavor, they've broke out of the stereotypical black metal mold, but they've got enough of a black edge to still sound pretty evil. "Hirudinieans," named after the scientific classification for leeches, is standard for the album: it's got some doomy material, some headbanging material, some melodic riffing and soloing, and the reasonably intelligible comparison between sycophants and parasites.
But Ylem's most interesting track is "Sycamore Trees," the album's final song. It starts out slow and soon plods forward with the speed and potential menace of an Ent, crushed by an ancient sorrow - a sonic representation of this picture. I'm not sure why, but after twelve songs of tonic madness, this one soul-dampening slog is enough of a taste of sweet sorrow to make me want to come back for more.
We all know about Gaahl: channeler of the darkness, flirter with white supremacy, Homosexual of the Year in Bergen, Norway. However, we might be able to add a new descriptor: redeemer of white wine as the choice alcohol of the black metal set. You see, as Gaahl told a newspaper interviewing him about his award, wine helps you make important decisions:
"It was after closing time. I was at Fincken (gay bar in Bergen). Robin came to the club to look for his former boyfriend. I was buzzed on white wine, and suddenly I saw a glowing figure in the door. That was Robin. I thought to myself that he must be mine."
I'll admit it: despite its color, which does seem like it would have a certain appeal to those obsessed with the world's bleakness, I wouldn't have picked white wine as the choice of anyone who fronted a band that recorded a song called "Procreating Satan." I guess it's the more sophisticated side of the corpse-painted auto mechanic revolution Seth highlighted on Tuesday.
On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we've launched As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday covers metal albums of note released between 1991 and 2000.
I’m going to be in a lot of trouble this week. I have selected Bruce Dickinson’s Chemical Wedding as my choice. Not Accident of Birth but Chemical Wedding.
I like AoB. It is fine. It has some great songs like “Darkside of Aquarius” and “Taking the Queen.” But like Halford’s Resurrection album it is a safety record. A lot of the riffs are derivative and he tried too hard to sound like Maiden (although it could be argued that he was making better Maiden records than Maiden were without him during this period).
But Chemical Wedding was a risky record and an even riskier proposition since he still hadn’t regained his audience yet. Even before you open the jewel case you are greeted by one of William Blake’s paintings, “the Flea.” In fact I bought this in 1998 as an impulse purchase because of the cover alone. The William Blake art and song titles alluding to his body of work (“Book of Thel,” “Gates of Urizen,” etc.) were enough to get me to spend $15 while hanging out at the Borders by SUNY Albany.
Most of this record sounds like an alternate universe version of Iron Maiden where Dickinson, not Steve Harris, calls the shots. No version of “The Trooper” here for the punters. This is Dickinson being handed the keys to the kingdom and letting all of his eccentricity flow. Starting off with “King in Crimson” the down-tuned guitar riff shows off a much darker side to Bruce Dickinson’s sound than we had previously heard. Songs like “The Tower” are “Revelations” on steroids. The lyrics are cryptic blends of bible stories, the writings of Blake, vague allusions to Alastair Crowley, and generalized insanity.
From “Book of Thel”: The burning sweat of poison tears/The river flowing red with blood The cradle-robbing hand of death/Caresses every dreaming head
Waiting for the marriage hearse/To take you to the funeral pyre So you burn the family tree /The generations burning higher
This is not “Run to the Hills” for sure. But the songs do have strong hooks and a lot of the great shout-along moments which make the Brazilians go nuts, as evidenced by the live record Scream for me Brazil.
Come for the exotic take on Maiden-esque Metal. Stay for the odd pseudo-mythology lessons. Revel in the amazing artwork licensed from the Blake estate. This album isn’t for everyone, but like Halford’s Crucible it shows the power and creativity Roy Z can conjure out of a classic artist trying to get back on their feet.
The track listing for the new Darkthrone record has been released.
01. Those Treasures Will Never Befall You 02. Running For Borders 03. I Am The Graves Of The 80s 04. Stylized Corpse 05. Circle The Wagons 06. Black Mountain Totem 07. I Am The Working Class 08. Eyes Burst At Dawn 09. Bränn Inte Slottet
I AM THE GRAVES OF THE 80s???? They pioneered a lot of the iconography which has become synonymous with Black Metal, but they are the goofiest bunch of fucks ever. I wish they would start playing live again. I want to get drunk with Fenriz. The first time I heard them was absolutely not what I expected. They are such a bunch of doofs.
Here's another reason to hope the Tryptikon album doesn't suck: the album artwork is absolutely fierce - not surprising, since it's an H. R. Giger composition - and I want it in some sort of large format printed form. You can view a larger version of the CD version of the cover here and the cover for the double LP - for listening in the cold comfort of your achingly empty nerd palace - here.
On a related note: I get far more excited about album art releases than would seem to make sense for someone who listens to all of his music in digital (and generally portable) form.
Sometimes bands sound like other bands. Sometimes that resemblance is the result of our need to classify, sometimes it's a deliberate nod by the musicians to their inspirations, and sometimes it's a clear aping that makes the band's artistic viability highly suspect. Sometimes, though, the resemblance isn't just uncanny, but seems like the result of a absolutely messed up decision, leaving you to wonder why someone would try to co-opt such a unique sound as their own. Take the Sons of Azarael, a death metal act from Buffalo that I found looking through a list of 2010 album releases. Check out the first verse of vocals on "Scouting the Boneyard" on their MySpace page, then take a listen to the vocals on Immortal's "Norden on Fire," which start about two minutes into the track:
Now ask yourself: as appropriate as Abbath's voice is for Immortal's music, why would you ever want to try to reuse that sound for your own band?
On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we present As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that covers notable metal albums released between 1991 and 2000.
Today's entry is Resurrection by Halford
As we previously covered, I was the only person upset when Rob Halford rejoined Judas Priest. I was happy seeing Priest in clubs kicking ass with Ripper, while Halford was an amazing and viable band in its own right. I would love to cover their misunderstood and highly underrated second album Crucible, but its 2002 release date falls outside the window of this series.
So we will look at Resurrection, the comeback record. I really like this album, and when I put it on again to write this I was pleasantly surprised at how well it holds up. It was a safety album. After leaving Judas Priest and releasing a the mediocre industrial goth album 2wo Rob Halford needed to re-establish himself in the hearts and minds of the Metal community. So what would you have done in 1999-2000? I would have done what Rob Halford did. Get together with Roy Z who re-energized Bruce Dickinson's career (this will be covered in great detail in a later entry), put together a heavy as balls band, and write a record that sounds as close to classic Judas Priest as humanly possible.
After years of hearing nothing from Rob Halford this song was leaked by the label.
Wonderful, right? I still get chills when I hear him scream "resurrection" at the very top of his vocal register. The rest of the album is a decent meat and potatoes hard rocking affair. My favorite song is the obviously "Electric Eye" influenced "Cyberworld" which has a wonderful chorus hook. "The One You Love to Hate" is a duet with Bruce Dickinson which truly exemplifies the "less is more" attitude of the album. There is no experimentation present anywhere. They saved that for album number two. This album's only purpose was to be a completely kick ass Metal record which would re-establish Rob Halford's career, and it worked.
It was official that the Metal God was back when he played as the first of three act at the sold out August 20th, 2000 Iron Maiden MSG show which we here at Baroque Bleak Brutal consider the spiritual rebirth of Metal. He was still a bit of an unknown quantity, and even at the ludicrously early 7PM set time the Garden was already packed. When his band started the opening notes of "The Hellion," the world's most famous arena got up on their feet and gave the man a standing ovation. I'm tearing up right now remembering the feeling of watching 15,000 Metal fans collectively have their own spiritual resurrection.
Last night, Seth and I had the great pleasure of seeing Hail!, a metal cover band made up of Dave Ellefson (Megadeth) on bass, Andreas Kisser (Sepultura) on guitar, Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) on drums, and Tim "Ripper" Owens (Judas Priest, Iced Earth, Yngwie Malmsteen) on vocals at BB Kings. With the help of Chris Caffery (Savatage), Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth (Overkill), and Frank Bello (Anthrax), Hail! busted through a two-hour set of old school classics from bands like Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Motorhead, Pantera, Dio, AC/DC, Kiss, Metal Church, Sepultura, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. Quite frankly, it's a wonder I didn't wake up this morning with bleeding ears and a bad case of whiplash.
With all of those known names on stage playing such a wide variety of material, there were plenty of historical connections to be mined from the ores of metal lore. Here are a few of the more interesting ones we noticed:
There were a few different songs where one of the band members had been in the band that recorded the original: Ripper was in Priest, Bello is in Anthrax, Kisser wrote the lyrics for "Territory" and co-wrote the music for "Refuse/Resist."
Three of the covers were really covers of covers, done in the style of the band that did the first cover: "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)," originally by Fleetwood Mac but played in the style of the Judas Priest cover; "Symptom of the Universe," originally by Black Sabbath but played in the style of Sepultura; and "Got the Time," originally by Joe Jackson but played in the style of Anthrax. The later two songs get even more meta: each had a member of band who played on the original cover on stage to play the cover.
Hail! did not play anything by Megadeth at this show, but they did play Metallica's "The Four Horsemen," which is based on "The Mechanix," a song written by Dave Mustaine and included on Megadeth's first album - which featured Dave Ellefson on bass.
The microphone on the camera used to record this clip can't even hope to capture the magnificence of the sound coming from that stage, but you do get a sense of intensity. Arch Enemy has never been one of my favorites in recordings (maybe something about stuff all of that sound into one package is always a risk, whether it's a video camera or a recording studio?) but I've had the pleasure of seeing them live twice now - including the show on Friday that this clip came from - and both times their energy has blown me away.
We're playing this track because it features hard rock roots, electronica influences, punk influences, a subtle uses of vocal harmony, varying tempo and time signatures, repetitive melodic phrasing, demanding instrumental part writing, a vocal-centric aesthetic, a clear focus on recording studio production, heavy syncopation, minor key tonality, a dirty electric guitar solo, a gravelly male vocalist, an aggressive male vocalist, an unintelligible vocal delivery, intricate arranging and many other similiarities identified in the Music Genome Project.
For those of you unfamiliar with Pandora, the above is taken from one of the justification descriptions the software offers you when it plays a track. Writing about the odd things kicked up by an algorithm is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I can't really resist: based on that description, you'd think I'm listening to some sort of jazz fusion piece with a hypersexualized guitarist ("dirty electric guitar solo"? Really?), or maybe something really, really post-punk. The real answer: Zyklon's "Transcendental War - Battle Between Gods." Then it played a cover of "Dead Skin Mask" while showing me an ad for a dentist who I will never, ever want to visit.
...I'll find myself a journalist and tell them that I don't understand, don't care about, or laugh at the jealousy of the Blabbermouth haters. Because seriously, it doesn't seem to matter who you are or how famous you've been over the last 30 or 40 years: if you so much as mention the Blabbermouth commenters, you'll get yourself a nice headline mention in the Blabbermouth feed. Here's a sample from the most recent example, from the front man of a band called Cold, which I'd never heard of before today:
"It seems like these people, you know, they make their life on Blabbermouth. They make a name for themselves by bashing someone. It's really funny. It's like they are rock stars in their own little world, and it's just funny that someone would want to get on there and bash a band ... they don't really know. Maybe they were a fan of the band, and they just don't like them anymore. I don't know."
I'm starting to wonder if they teach the Blabbermouth hater mention technique in schools for publicists.
In 1996, a company called Neat Records jumped on the post-Load Metallica furor with a clever idea for a release: they licensed a bunch of the original versions of the songs Metallica had covered in the early 1980s, got a guy from a German metal magazine to write liner notes about each band, and put the whole thing out as The Metallic-Era. The implication was obvious: your metal heroes may have betrayed you twice over for the huge paydays, but here's music from back when they refused to compromise their ideals. In fact, we'll do you one even better and give you the original versions of the songs, so we can trade on the Metallica name while you revisit your lost youth without actually feeling guilty for listening to a band you've suddenly come to despise. As an added bonus, Neat Records was ahead of curve, putting out this release two years before Metallica jumped on their own nostalgia bandwagon and recompiled all of their cover recordings into one package.
I don't know how well the scheme worked from a sales perspective, but it got me while shopping in a now-defunct Circuit City in a Massachusetts suburb. Well, I say 'got me,' but the truth is that I was a teenager with an extremely limited music horizon who picked the album up because it had an association with a band I knew and loved, not because I had any of the history of the target audience. Besides, it had some funky cover art that mystifies me to this day: why would you take a money scale (a nice visual dig at Metallica) and stick a skull on it? Now how it will ever work? Besides, if you're going to attack the band's credibility, wouldn't you want to put the money on one side and some representation of integrity on the other?
In any case, the compilation - which I was listening to earlier today - turned out to be a fantastic investment: originally, of course, it was an introduction to a lot of great music. As time passed, however, I found that the track listing combined with the promo ads at the back of the CD booklet gave me enough of an education for me to able to talk a bit of the talk until we reached that magical time when old albums started growing on digital trees.
I don't normally pay much attention to announcements about the auctions of memorabilia: either it's something I'd want to own but have no hope to afford, or the knowledge of its existence is so meaningless as to be wasting valuable brain space I'm hoping to reclaim, but either way it's not worth the time to blog about. But there's something different about the auction for the master tapes - or the transfer tapes, as the picture of the label to the left indicates - for Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, although for the life of me I can't figure out why I find the idea of owning a master tape so striking. Maybe it's because it's such a functionless piece of memorabilia: it doesn't make for an interesting display piece, like a guitar or an album cover would; you can't play it without access to a tape machine (and possibly a soulless lack of respect for perishable artifacts); and the copyright holders might object if you started pressing your own copies of the album for sale. I guess you could buy the tapes and deed them over to Tony Iommi, but I suspect that if he really cares about owning the transfers, he'd be in the bidding.
All of this discussion, of course, ignores the question of whether or not you'd want to buy an item from a company with no feedback score that can't tell the difference between masters and transfers.
On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played Madison Square Garden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we're launching As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that will cover metal albums of note released between 1991 and 2000.
Testament.......I labored over this band, and how to approach their AtPB entry. I mean where to begin? Skolnick's last album with the band, 1992's grungy The Ritual? Their experiments with Pantera-esque modernization on Low?
Well, Low is a great under-appreciated album, but I'm not going to go there. The Ritual has some very funny moments that need to be written about, but that will be in my upcoming series about Metal bands who released Grunge albums in the 90s.
No, we're going to cover Testament when they were in the same position Voivod was in my column last week. Having been dropped and relegated to the CMC International/Spitfire records purgatory, a brand new lineup of Testament decided the best approach would be to modernize and play more of that death metal the kids are always talking about. Now Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson were well set up for this, with the secret weapon Gene Hoglan on drums, and a great working knowledge of the underground. However despite some great moments 1997's Demonic is not a great album. The approach is a bit generic. Some songs are great are still played in concert, such as "The Burning Times". Here, have a quick listen. It's good!
But the whole record isn't great, and doesn't make the cut as a lost classic.
Plagued with yet more lineup changes, Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson "gathered" (get it?) all their friends together. Grabbing no less than two ex-members of Death (James Murphy and Steve DiGiorgio) plus Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Testament released one hell of a war cry with The Gathering in 1999. To me it is a unifying statement which best sums up everything the band had been trying to say since Low. The aggression level is even higher than Demonic without that album's generic riffing. The thrash is back in full force but with the added power of Billy's newfound growl. Topping the whole album off with a delicious satanic cherry was the production of Andy Sneap, now recognized as the gifted master of aggressive recording.
Anyone who returned to the band with The Formation of Damnation needs to go back and fall in love with The Gathering. Starting with "DNR", still a favorite in modern set lists, you are hearing a band at the height of their Metal powers. The way thrash and death metal are so seamlessly merged on this record may seem pretty textbook now, but this is the band and the album from which those textbooks were written. And not enough can be said about the subtle virtuosity, especially in DiGiorgio's smooth yet violent bass playing. If there was ever any recorded document that Testament never deserved their reputation as Metallica-lite this is the album.
But enough tell, here's some show:
Sewn Shut Eyes!
DNR (Do Not Resuscitate)
Eyes of Wrath
And the song which should have been the "hit," True Believer. I think this was on the soundtrack to one of the Saw movies.......
At least when it comes to movie titles. A friend of mine sent me a link to a quiz earlier this morning that challenges you to answer a seemingly simple question: Lifetime movie title, or Megadeth song title? The resemblance, as it turns out, is more than a little uncanny, but as the quiz's introduction points out, "given their shared preoccupation with kidnapping, family dysfunction and untimely death, it’s sort of surprising that Lifetime and Megadeth don’t share more fans." I scored a 90%, but if that's the cost of not knowing the titles of the tracks from The World Needs a Hero, I'm happy to pay.
After, the ultimate release in the trilogy of Ihsahn recordings that started four years ago, isn't nearly as accessible as its predecessors; the inclusion of a Coltrane-style jazz saxophone over-top many of the album's black metal stylings ensures it'll take more than a few listens to pry apart the shell and gain access to the sweet juices within. There is one thing about the album that's odd enough for both Seth and myself to note it immediately: in a game of one of these things is not like the other, After cover artwork seems like it would be the odd art out (in order of release):
Notice in particular the large pink stain on the cover of After, which is the biggest indicator that the art direction seems to have gone awry: the covers of The Adversary and angL are so dark; why the pink and white that suggests some sort of black metal princess cake? In addition, the photo seems a little incongruous: as Seth pointed out, using a cross makes the album seem like it's crossing in Black Sabbath territory. On closer inspection, I think there's a bit more linking the three, like the transition of living angel to angel statue to cross, the inclusion of color on the cover of The Adversary, the different mediums of the artwork (chalk drawing, sculpture, and photograph) and the bleakness of the photo on the cover of After, which I suspect is a reference - along with those dirgy saxophones - to the album's title. Still haven't figured out what that pink stain is supposed to mean, though.
Was indulging my baroque side that extends a bit past metal's boundaries by rocking out to Queen's News of the World earlier today when it occurred to me how many of the tracks had been covered by at least one other artist:
"Sheer Heart Attack:" Helloween recorded a version, but the band that crept out of a dark recess of my mind when I thought about covers of this song was Sam Black Church, who released a live recording of the song as a bonus track on Superchrist in 1995.
"Spread Your Wings:" Germans who love ostentatious metal seem to love Queen, too: Blind Guardian took the far more genre-appropriate "Spread Your Wings" and recorded a pretty kickin' version for Somewhere Far Beyond.
"Get Down, Make Love:" much like The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," Queen's psychedelic celebration of free love was begging to be re-recorded in a more twisted form by an artist with the right chops. Nine Inch Nails did so in 1990, releasing the cover as a b-side on the single for the equally bondage-heavy "Sin."
On September 24, 1991 Nirvana released Nevermind. Nine years later, a reunited Iron Maiden played MadisonSquareGarden. The time in between was one of metal's bleaker periods, where the genre's mainstream face all but disappeared and it retreated not just underground, but underwater. To celebrate the rare gems of this dark time - and remember our fortune now that metal has ceased to be such a dirty word - we're launching As the Palaces Burned, a weekly series published every Wednesday that will cover metal albums of note released between 1991 and 2000.
Today’s entry is Voivod’s brilliant 1997 album Phobos.
In 1994, after Snake and Blacky had both left Voivod, they were both replaced by one man, Eric Forrest.By playing bass and singing, he briefly led Voivod into the storied pantheon of Canadian power trios.Their first album with this lineup, 1995’s Negatron, was a complete bust.The band opted for a traditional death metal sound which probably seemed like a solid commercial decision at the time, but fell completely flat, alienating those fans who chose to stick with this lineup.
Here is an example of the blah that was Negatron:
But after a few years off, Voivod came back with a vengeance, and in 1997 this lineup released Phobos.Not only did they get their groove back, it is one of the consistently strongest albums in their catalog.And it came in completely under the radar.Negatron built up so much bad will among the remaining Voivod loyalists that no one bothered to listen to this album the first time around.I bought it for the King Crimson cover when it came out (“21st Century Schizoid Man,” it was hard to hear music in 1997 you didn’t pay for)and wound up owning a masterpiece.
Everything about this album showcases what made Voivod great.The abstract sci-fi lyrics, snarling punk vocals updated with a bit of a death metal grunt, progressive time signatures, and that unmistakably Piggy riffing.Oh the riffs, they are killer on this album.Think Killing Technology, but updated for the death metal kids.
Although that first reunion record with Snake, 2003’s self titled Voivod was great, I don’t think that album touched the creative energy or tripped out intensity of Phobos.What a shame it went completely under the radar.
I was on Wikipedia looking to see whether or not a band from Savannah, Georgia called Black Tusk that's recording in the same studio used by Baroness and Kylesa might, as I suspected, be Mastodon-influenced (survey says yes). I didn't find any information on the band, but I did learn that Black Tusk is also the name of a volcanic rock projection (pictured to the left) in a state park in British Columbia. That's already pretty metal, but then I learned the native name for the place is "Landing Place of the Thunderbird" (even more metal) and that the native people in question call themselves the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, which is a name so metal that it says "fuck you" to pretty much any vowel and has a goddamn 7 in it instead of a letter, presumably because whoever composed the name in the Roman alphabet couldn't find a letter that was awesome enough. So yeah: Black Tusk, landing place of a beast also known as the spirit lord, named by a group of people with a 7 in their name. I'd name a band after it, too.
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