Wpnfire

So, this is my journal. I plan to talk about... well, whatever I feel like honestly.

Exhibit 1!

Jeff Beck - Who Else!

With Who Else! the guitar wizard starts a fling with electronica that would continue through his next two albums.

Of course there are still many non-electronica tracks such as the classic slow blues jam of "Brush With The Blues," the Eastern infusions on "Blast From The East, or the tearful "Declan," but it is the interweaving of electronica elements with Beck's playing on "Even Odds," the synthesized beat of "Thx138," and the fast techno components on "Psycho Sam" that really show the true finesse of Beck's craft, and make Who Else! one of the most considerably varied albums I've listened to.









Exhibit 2!

Jeff Beck - You Had It Coming

This is Jeff Beck's second album where he experiments (heavily) with electronica, and is my personal favorite of his entire discography (so far), in addition to it ranking high on my list of favorite albums.
The material on this album is considerably more intense and Beck's playing in particular is more aggressive than his prior album.

"Earthquake," "Roy's Toy," "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "Nadia," "Loose Cannon," "Rosebud," and "Left Hook" all utilize various forms of electronica and are all top-notch songs from this album, with "Roy's Toy" being my personal favorite.

"Left Hook" sounds like good fight music, maybe in a video game perhaps?

Aside from those, "Blackbird" is arguably one of the best examples of the utter mastery Jeff Beck displays playing the electric guitar, using extremely high notes to echo the chirping of a bird.

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Trollheart

Welcome to Journaltown! About time you started a journal too; you certainly seem to know your stuff. Looking forward to this one.

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Plankton

When my daughter was 5 or 6, her favorite song was "Space For The Papa". Wonder how that happened?

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Wpnfire

Haha, that's funny.

Some classic rock

Have to say I'm disappointed by this album as I can only get into "Maybe I'm a Leo," (by the way, WTF does that mean??) "Lazy," and of course that one other track that needs no introduction. "Leo," and "Smoke" are easily among the greatest songs I've ever heard though and I'm not exaggerating with that statement.

6/10 for me, and I'm being generous with that.

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Trollheart

I would assume he's talking about Zodiac signs? Maybe I'm a Leo, you're a Taurus or whatever?

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Wpnfire

Hmmmm, maybe, I still don't understand it fully. Anyway...

Wpnfire Presents
....Major Journal Review #1

It's 1994. In the United States, rock n' roll was a distant memory by this point, and thrash metal had seen its last days.
Overseas and elsewhere, EBM was a growing force, and the late 80s and 90s saw the birth of a melding of heavy metal of old with electronic music, leading to the inception of industrial music.

Nine Inch Nails of course is what everybody naturally thinks of with industrial, but Front Line Assembly did something truly unique with Millennium: sampling notable riffs from the likes of Metallica, Pantera, and others, and melding it with their own electronic constructions.


This album has everything. <- Read this first sentence again. I can not emphasize what this album has to offer any listener.

It's got sampling, heavy metal guitar riffs, distorted vocals, techno beats, drum beats, breakdowns, and tons and tons of experimentation.

The guitar riffs on "Millennium" are notable for their brutal intensity when combined with the screamed-yet-notably-mellow, ambient vocals. Aside from "Millennium" there is one song that clearly separates itself from the rest....
As if there was not enough variety in the music already, "Victim of a Criminal" adds rap to it's brutal and heavy formula, and hoh hoh my God, is it just.......awe inspiring.

overall rating: 9/10

As of right now it stands to be one of my favorite albums of all time, as well as being my favorite EBM album. "Victim of a Criminal" is easily my favorite rap song.


As an added bonus here's a music video for "Millennium". It's dated as all hell and extremely funny because of it, but it's still a great song if you look past the fact that you're watching an original MTV music video lol.

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Wpnfire

I've heard a lot of guitar solos over the years, and I thought that every Sunday I could share one of my favorites here.


In addition to being one of my favorite Beatles songs, this song also contains one of my top 10 guitar solos. I'm sure most people have heard this song so I don't think I need to give a description of it. There's nothing fancy about this solo, just a fuzzbox turned up to the max, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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> > > Modern Music Monday < < <

Track List:

1. Half-Truism - 4
2. Trust In You - 5
3. You're Gonna Go Far Kid - 4
4. Hammerhead - 5
5. A Lot Like Me - 4
6. Takes Me Nowhere - 4
7. Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? - 4
8. Nothingtown - 4
9. Stuff Is Messed Up - 5
10. Fix You - 2
11. Let's Hear It For Rock Bottom - 3
12. Rise And Fall - 3

Overall Rating: 7/10

Modern punk rock (or whatever it's called, I call it punk rock) I think is under appreciated; well, I guess it's more politically correct to call it over hated.

Rise and Fall has a lot of variety like the alternative rock songs of "A Lot Like Me," "Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?," and the ballad "Fix You," but, I want to focus on the more punk rock songs like "Trust In You," "Stuff Is Messed Up," and "Hammerhead."

"Trust In You" has a fascinating downtempo section that reminds me somewhat of Metallica; the rapid fire vocal delivery on "Stuff Is Messed Up" is a social critique of modern society and popular culture. The lyrics for "Stuff" are exquisite, and one verse in particular caught my attention:

The chorus is also notable

But the real gem of the album is truly the monstrous "Hammerhead," which features one of my favorite guitar solos ever. The music video is one of the strangest music videos I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot of strange music videos.

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Continuing my discussion with Unknown Soldier from my "Rocka Rolla" review...


Alright so I've listened to Sin After Sin, Hell Bent for Leather (Killing Machine), Stained Class, and British Steel.

I agree that Sin After Sin is more refined than Sad Wings while not really sacrificing too much heaviness on many of the songs. I enjoy "Sinner" (like, a lot), "Diamonds and Rust" is of course, fantastic, "Raw Deal" is great as well, and "Dissident Agressor" reminds me of something from Sad Wings, but I would still prefer Sad Wings to this album. Some of the songs I think are far too long and that hurts my interest in the album as a whole. Overall, I would rank this the best of the four albums. Probably a 7/10 for me.

For Stained Class, I agree that it is one of their most accomplished and well-produced albums, although I disagree that it is their most accomplished album, but the music is simply not for me. Yes the material is innovative, but songs like "Exciter" and "Invader" are just not nearly as harsh as their previous albums, and I don't like it.

Hell Bent for Leather or whatever it is called, is just awful. Absolutely awful. "Burnin' Up" is.............disgraceful. My biggest complaint with this album is easily the vocals. It barely sounds like the same singer from the previous four albums. The lyrics are also very inauthentic/not creative at all.

British Steel I have a love/loathe relationship with. Ignoring it's obvious pop influences and the fact that the guitar is barely audible on many of the songs ("United"), "Rapid Fire" is-
Wait a second why the hell is "Rapid Fire" not track 1 for the U.S.? That destroys the flow to "Metal Gods." That would sound horrid to listen to in that order.

Anyway, "Rapid Fire," "Metal Gods," "Breaking the Law," and "Living After Midnight" are songs I could play over and over and never get tired of. Halford's vocals on "You Don't Have To Be Old To Be Wise" remind me of their earlier material and I quite like that song as well. Also it has a great solo.

"Grinder" is the part of the album I can not stand. The lyrics for "Grinder" sound like they were created maybe about 5 seconds before they recorded the song-and that's shocking considering that the lyrics for "Rapid Fire" were basically awe inspiring. It reminds me of Killing Machine, and I do not like that direction at all.

I'll give British Steel a 7/10 as well.


I may give a more detailed and thorough review for Stained Class and Killing Machine in the future, but that would require me to listen to the albums again and I do not know if I can/want to do that.

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Unknown Soldier

As I've probably already said I think that Sin After Sin is one of the very best albums in the JP discography. It's certainly the most varied and most daring that the band ever put out and fully encompasses everything that the band were capable of. Also I think the longer song lengths to be one of the album's strengths as well.

Stained Class is a special album and one of the all-time great metal albums, for the simple reason that the band pushed their brutal power to its ultimate conclusion and they played with greater complexity than before, the album is without doubt their purest HM statement. The album basically serves as a blueprint for the technical extreme metal craze of the 1980's.

It's the band's big push in a commercial direction, a very good album that serves as a prelude to British Steel.

British Steel is British Steel really, such a famous album and the perfect example of pop metal if you like that kind of thing. Even though a newbie would expect something heavier based on its album name.

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