Trollheart

There was the odd occasion when my brother would cotton on to an album I knew nothing about but grew to love. Sometimes said album would mysteriously disappear from his collection; speculation still rages today as to what exactly happened on those occasions. All I know is that I fell in love with a band from Canada, who had the bad luck to have chosen a name already used by a band in the NWOBHM, had to change it, did so, to something totally ridiculous, and who now end up as being one of the hardest bands to Google or find anywhere since I went looking for The Ghost You Gave Me by 3.

Thunder in Rock --- Myofist --- 1981 (A&M)

Thing is, there seems to be a lot of confusion about this album. It was called, as you can see above, Thunder in Rock, and yet when you go looking for Myofist (found, thankfully, on Metal Archives but nowhere else) you see that there was an album so named, but it's a double compilation album. Now I know the one my brother had was a single album with about eight tracks, so that's not it. Scroll back up a bit and you'll see one labelled FLeet Street/Thunder in Rock. This is very weird, because the album had a track on it called “Fleet Street”, but two covers are shown with just the one tracklisting. So, was it called two different names on each side of the Atlantic? I don't know, and information on Myofist (where did they come up with that name, really?) is notoriously sketchy.

Anyway, I assume this to be the one, as it has the correct tracklisting, however once again the curse of the obscure album rears its head, and neither Google Play Music nor Spotify have it, so it's back to YouTube, where I find again, single tracks, and not all of them either, so far as I can see. Let's have a look at what we can piece together though. The album began, and begins, on “Double or nothing”, with a snarly guitar leading us in, then heavy percussion as vocalist Ron Chenier demonstrates the kind of pipes that were born to sing metal, kind of a cross between Danny Joe Brown and James Hetfield. There are also keys, just sort of hovering out there on the edges, played by Ivan Tessier, but things are really run by Chenier on the guitar. The song is a pumping metal anthem, which slows to some almost progressive or at least AOR keys flourishes near the end. The title track is up next, with a slower, grindier, stomping sort of feel, again driven by Chenier's growling guitar, a real fist-pumper as the melody swaggers along.

Some great vocal harmonies coming in now, which I must assume are courtesy of bass player Jeff Nystrom, who is the only other one credited with vocals. He has a higher, almost feminine voice, so it's obvious why he doesn't sing lead, but the contrast really works, and the addition from somewhere of sax really takes you by surprise but again works to the band's advantage. It's a real anthem, and should have gone down really well on stage. Buzzy keyboard and thick bass leads in “Leather and lace” which has a real biker groove and sways along really nicely, Tessier's keys coming into their own here, while Chenier sets up a kind of reel with his guitar, growling the refrain that should really have been ringing out all over the world: ”Black leather! Black leather and lace!” His guitar playing comes close to Moore and Robertson at times, leading me to wonder if he plays more than one, multitracked? I don't know, but it certainly is a full sound and you wonder if one guy could make that on his own?

“On the radio” actually has a weird almost pop vibe to it, the synth very new wave. Whether they were trying to target airplay or not is something I don't know, but given the title of the song you would be forgiven for thinking this was the intention. It's certainly catchy if simple (aren't most of the catchiest tunes the simplest?) Sampled keyboards by Tessier don't help to dispel the feeling that they're trying to appeal to “the kids” here and actually write a single that might play, as they say themselves, on the radio; it's certainly the least rocky song on this album and the one that closest approaches what might be considered pop/rock. The metal aspect is quickly re-established with “It's late”, marching along with a confident stride, Chenier gritting out the vocal while Tessier sets up a really nice soundscape he can sing against. The song is as catchy as “On the radio”, but in a different way. You would not, though, have been too surprised to have heard this played over the airwaves.

Great solo from Chenier as we head into the last minute, a chanting sort of vocal that again would have really worked well onstage, with backing vocals from Nystrom, then “Better way to go” almost reminds me of “Spirit in the sky” for a few seconds, then rides along on Tessier's piping keyboard lines and Chenier's growling guitar. Again, it's a really really catchy song, and it's hard to believe these guys did not do better, though they do seem to have kept going in their native Canada, with their last recorded album in 2006, so maybe they just failed to get that big international break, but it is a pity, as a simple glance at YouTube will show you that there is very little of their material available, and while that's not of course a barometer of a band's popularity, it does say something when you can only find a few videos of them.

“Evil cold” is another stomping, swaggering anthem on which Ivan Tessier really gets to flex his keyboard muscles, as Chenier's guitar punches through the melody and it marches along on steel legs. My favourite on the album is the hilarious “Fleet Street” wherein, before the song gets going, two actors portraying Sherlock Holmes and Watson discuss the nature of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street (from which of course the song's title comes), or someone very closely based on him. It's quite odd, because they play the parts so well and the sound effects are such that I assumed this was a clip from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, of which tons were made in the sixties and seventies. But as the actor, one David Gardner, explain about the pie shop in which apparently this barber --- who must have had two jobs, as he apparently ran a pie shop too --- would cut up and sell the bodies of his victims in what he says were called “people pies”, the absurdity of it seems to get to him and he starts to fumble his lines and laugh, just regaining enough composure to finish his part before the music fades in.

No film actor would have been so unprofessional, so we can assume that these two guys were either friends of the band or were hired specifically to act those roles, and though I see Gardner's name on IMDB, it's a common enough name and I couldn't be sure if I was looking at the resume of the same man. Anyway, enough about the actors, though to be honest it was the thing that made this my favourite track on the album, we head into the song with a punchy guitar line and hilariously tongue-in-cheek lyrics --- ”Making people pies/ Evil in his eyes” --- to say nothing of a crazy organ solo from Tessier which really makes the song. It ends suddenly and it's a thicker, spacier keyboard line that runs it into the closer, “Open the gates”, with a very progressive feel to it, almost Genesisesque really. This is the longest song on the album at six and a half minutes and it really allows Tessier to play around with his soundscapes. It's a great closer to a great album that deserves far better treatment than it ended up receiving.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Double or nothing
2. Thunder in rock
3. Leather and lace
4. On the radio
5. It's late
6. Better way to go
7. Evil cold
8. Fleet Street
9. Open the gates

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I guess that was short by your standards, but still kind of an arbitrary idea for an entry.

__________________

Frownland

Mr. Bungle has an overarching metal theme, although there are a lot of other genres squeezed in there, which is why I chose it. Boo for your skippage though (Phlegmatics in particular is heavy as ****), I consider it an avant-garde metal record precisely because its loose with the genre definition. I also picked it to get you to listen to it, which I've obviously failed at.

Black One is actually on Spotify, but you probably didn't find it because Spotify can't decide if the band is called Sunn O))) or Sunn 0))).

With Fantomas, the 13th track doesn't have any music on it because of bad luck.

I think there might have been more for you to "latch onto" and understand with the Naked City album if you listened to it track by track. Not that you would like it in that context, but it would give you the idea that it's a back and forth battle between genres seen in a grindcore context. If you listen to it all straight through with no prior knowledge, it would be a lot harder to discern the change ups from the start of the next one.

At least you had the balls to stick it out on the list and go out of your comfort zone (well, at least until you man up and finish that Mr. Bungle record).

Long story short, I think you need to start doing drugs my friend.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

First of all, don't take offence as I don't mean any but ... I'm not into listening to albums to get into the weirdness of them. I'm a simple guy: if I don't get any enjoyment out of an album, I move on. I don't think "what was it the artiste was trying to do?" or anything like that. Life's too short to bother with music I can't stand, specially at my time of life. You young 'uns might have the time and the mindset to do that, but not me. I've stretched my genre definitions quite a lot over the last four years, and I'm pretty damn proud of what I've achieved, but there is still music I will not listen to.

I don't particularly care what Zorn was trying to do, the statement he was making or if it was a clever commentary on why music sucks or whatever the fuck he was trying to get across. I didn't enjoy it, I move on. That's how I am. That album was just a total mess to me. As I said, Batty would have scored 100 percent success if he'd unleashed that on me in the Torture Chamber. Bear in mind too, just because music is out-there or avant-garde or different doesn't always mean it's good. I'm not saying Zorn adherents or critics wouldn't get anything out of it, but I'm not one of them: I'm just a poor schmuck trying to sample the world of others through music and I fail as often as I succeed, and this is a fail. I don't see it as my failure, I see it as yours really. You should know by now the limits of what I can stand, and yet you seem determined to push and push me further over the edge, as if somehow I will miraculously learn to fly. Well I won't: I'll just plummet to my death.

This is why I wish you would take this into account when recommending albums to me. I realise this was YOUR top ten, and that's fine, but you should have expected me to hate most of it, rather than shake your head and wonder why I don't like the same music you do. I doubt I ever will. We may share certain common ground on occasion, but there are always going to be bands you're into that I would never be, or want to be, and vice versa. So this constant almost harrassment --- try it, try it! --- gets to be a little old and I would ask you maybe to try respecting that there are limits I will not, and do not want to cross. This seems to be something you are fundamentally unable or unwilling to accept: some of your music sucks, to me, and always will, so if you would stop trying to force me to like it that would be great.

I'm not sure what you mean about listening to the Naked City thing track by track; that IS how I listened to it, how else could I? Also, on the Bungle; well it was not metal to me and this is Metal Month and I had lots of other things I could do, and I know you: you'll crowbar in the weirdest albums that just have the slightest tinge of metal in them just so you can make me listen to them. So I decided enough was enough; I listened to about half the album and that was more than enough. You're lucky I even got through that much.

Why, seriously, do you do this? I don't try to force you to like Marillion or Genesis or any of my other bands. I accept you don't like them. I don't agree with your reasons but I respect your right to have them. Why can't you do the same for me?

As for drugs: maybe you need to stop doing them. I wonder do you listen to these albums without the aid of drugs? If I needed drugs to appreciate an album then it would be a pile of crap as far as I'm concerned. I know that was a joke from you but it's a little annoying, to say nothing of coming across as condescending. I choose to believe you didn't mean it that way, but that's how it sounds to me.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Frownland

1. You should take drugs. I take drugs, but this music is still brilliant to me when I'm sober. I just recommended that because you seemed especially close-minded on the Bungle review.

2. If you ask people to recommend things to you, try to be a little forgiving when they assume that you have some semblance of taste and end up recommending you an album that they really like. Especially given that you asked us what our favourites were, you shouldn't get all huffy and puffy about my selections.

3. Don't use weak excuses to avoid what you signed yourself up for.

4. I brought up the Naked City track bit because I thought that you had listened to the full album video on Youtube. I wasn't saying that you would like it, but that you would understand what the album is actually like if you did it track by track (which you did).

5. I never berated you for disliking these albums.

5. Go listen to Mr. Bungle, quitter.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

TechnicLePanther

Frown, he'll listen to California in Love or Hate? and hopefully he'll enjoy that better.

__________________
Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN

SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

Frownland

I'm sure he'll really like that one. Disco Volante is my favourite though, so I had to go with that even though I was sure of TH's opinion on it. Let's hope that someone didn't recommend an Iron Maiden album in the Love or Hate? thread, he might get overwhelmed with excitement and skip California.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Trollheart

It's not close-minded. Stop saying that, it's really insulting. I listened to half the damn thing, which is more than I should have. You're pretty closeminded about the music you say you hate too.
That's just a straight-up insult. Who the hell are you to tell me I have or have not taste, just because I don't like the weird music you do? You know you only recd that album to annoy me, so stop pretending there was any other reason.
That doesn't even deserve an answer.
Right, now I understand.
Oh, you did, in your sneaky "you-don't-get-my-music" way that you love to. Like the bolded quote in point 2...
Shan't. Can't make me.
What would be the point of that? "Love or Hate?" is for albums I have never heard before, and do you think there's even one Maiden album I have not heard?

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Frownland

Getting and liking are two very different things, Trollheart, at least for me. You can try to dance around my close minded bit by saying "oh, but it's not", but it won't actually make you seem any less close minded. You gave up on Mr. Bungle without trying to see the metal elements that I can pick up on because you think it's weird. The diversity within the songs themselves should have been enough to suggest that the first song wasn't identical to the last, but once the exit door read "this might not be a metal album, maybe", you quickly ran to it. Kind of a textbook example of close mindedness right there, and I'm sorry if my accurate use of language is insulting to you. The bit about taste was slightly humourous, btw, since taste is subjective (I know, strange innit?). I also do love Disco Volante to the highest degree, which is why it landed on my list after you asked me to change it because you were familiar with some of the albums on it. Getting you to listen to it was only a small element of me adding it to my list.

Look, I don't want to fight with you or dominate metal month with bickering. If you had leveled half of your rants against me in the love or hate thread I'd understand, but you're acting as if my taste is a personal affront to you. I'd like to let you know that it is not.

You should still do drugs though, they get a bad rep.

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Frownland

Should I just recommend three albums right now, then?

__________________

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.