Trollheart

I've never been much of a fan of instrumental guitar albums. I find they get boring really quickly and much of what you get is the guitarist trying to show off how clever he is and how well he can play, which is all very fine but you know me: I like my melody. So if there's no real actual tune in the music, if it's just a guy shredding up and down scales or picking at strings in a way that would make other guitarists cream their pants but leave the rest of us bored, then I lose interest. However I do have a lot of respect for this guy, so we'll give his latest a go.

Shockwave Supernova --- Joe Satriani --- 2015 (Sony Music)

Introduction: I don't really have to explain who Joe Satriani is, do I? Played with everyone from Deep Purple to Malmsteen, Petrucci, May and Fripp, and teacher of greats like Steve Vai and Kirk Hammet. This is his fifteenth album, and yes, it's all instrumental and it's all guitar.

1. Shockwave supernova: Decent rocking start, uptempo track with of course some fine riffs. And melody, thank god.
2. Lost in a memory: More a sort of restrained piece, elements of jazz (just a little) and some pop here too. Nice keys.
3. Crazy Joey: Um, scratching? Or is that him doing something clever on the guitar? Slower song anyway, and this comes across to me as one of those I spoke of earlier, where the guitarist is just really showing off and there's no real song per se. Meh.
4. In my pocket: Kind of a funky feel to this one. Hah! Reminds me of Plankton! Ooh! Harmonica! Lovely!
5. On peregrine wings: Heavier vibe to this, like the percussion. Some great work on the guitar. Like this one a lot.
6. Cataclysmic: Another decent rock track with overtones of progressive rock in places. It's okay I guess, but that old bugbear, boredom with instrumental guitar music, is beginning to set up house in my head...
7. San Francisco blue: Boogie swing blues. It's pleasant but that's about it. The piano is nice. Thought this would actually be a slow blues tune. Disappointed.
8. Keep on movin': Nice fast piano driving this, sort of new wavey in its way. Guitar takes over of course and I must say it loses some of its charm.
9. All of my life: Nice tune, but boredom really is beginning to set in now...
10. A phase I'm going through: And there it goes. Unless something really different happens now I'm just on autopilot, waiting for the album to end.
11. Scarborough stomp: As the title indicates, it's a stomp. That is all.
12. Butterfly and zebra: Okay this is gorgeous. Soft laidback guitar, real balladic feel about it.
13. If there is no Heaven: This is totally bitchin' too. Much faster, great mood and rhythm to it and needless to say, the guitar work is flawless, but what really makes it is the drumming in this case. Oddly enough though, I would have linked the title of the previous song with the melody of this one, and the melody of this one with the next one. Never quite understand how instrumentals get titled.
4. Stars race across the sky: Quite nice, mid-paced sort of thing with a chingling guitar going in the background.
15. Goodbye supernova: Really like the orchestration in this, slower track somewhat in the vein of “Butterfly and zebra”.

Conclusion: It got much better towards the end, and there's no doubt Satriani is a great guitarist, but a lot of it was just too seemingly aimed at guitar players or enthusiasts to really interest me. Some great tracks, but some pretty boring ones too. Not something I'd ever tend to revisit I have to admit.

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Frownland

*uncritical enthusiasts. Satch can play those notes fast sometimes, but his stuff is largely bland as you mentioned. Also, did you decide to end metal month early with this review?

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

Trollheart

No. Two things: my sister was extremely sick last night and I was up all night with her, so I'm completely knackered, and also the site was going mega-slow so I couldn't update until now. I'll be putting more articles up shortly.

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Frownland

I was making a joke about Satch not being metal . Hopefully your sister feels better soon.

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

Trollheart

Sorry, I was too zonked to even realise...
Thanks for your wishes. Looks like a kidney infection, which she's prone to. Doctor has been so hopefully she'll start to make a recovery and we'll both get some much-needed sleep tonight.... zzzzzzzzzzz

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Trollheart

When I began writing this section I had, perhaps foolishly, explained that I wanted to look at bands from both Israel and Palestine, but as the latter has basically been annexed by the former, and is, in the words of Steve Hogarth of Marillion, "the world's largest open-air prison", I find this is impossible to do. I could find no Palestinian metal bands at all, though I did find this, a message of hope as music crosses political, ideological and even geographical borders.
Israeli Metal Band ORPHANED LAND Announces European Tour With Palestinian Rock Band - Metal Injection

But I guess either any bands who are living in Gaza or The West Bank are too busy trying to keep alive to come to anyone's notice, or perhaps they've moved out like so many refugees these troubled days, searching for a better life, or at least, a life.

Which leaves me with our final country in this year's Metal Month to be explored as Israel alone. Mind you, I picked up Metal Hammer magazine today and what did I see on the cover? An article on "Metal in the Middle East"! Where were you two months ago, guys, when I was struggling to put this article together? Timing, as they say, is everything. Cool title too; wish I'd thought of it.


I have of course sampled the wonderful Orphaned Land (they spoken of in the link above) from this country, but it would be too easy to include them, and you all know, Trollheart don't do easy! So instead let's look into a subgenre I have hardly even attempted to listen to before.

Metalcore is something I'm very unfamiliar with and have hardly touched on in this section, so let's check out a band who fall into that category; at least, they're described as “Melodic Death Metal/Metalcore”.

Illusion of silence --- Blank Divinity --- 2010 (Independent)

With just the one album, released five years ago, and a single the following year, it doesn't really look as if Blank Divinity are up for world domination any time soon, in fact they may already have split, though at the time of writing they're still described as “active”. This is just an EP, and to track it down on YouTube, though not particularly difficult, meant I had to go with single tracks, the last of which I couldn't find, so out of the six tracks on this EP we can listen to and review five.

The opener is called “Blank lament (intro)” and features a rather lovely acoustic guitar with birdsong, not at all what I had expected though I imagine it will all beef up soon and suddenly. For now though this is really quite pleasant, and I would venture to suggest an instrumental. It runs for just under three minutes, and features some really expressive guitar work, electric joining the acoustic; Blank Divinity have two guitarists, who appear to be brothers: Roma and Dima Pindrick. As expected, at the end there's a snarly intake of breath and we barrel into “Night of the rising death”, where things take a real upsurge and the guitars are set most definitely on kill. Vocalist Max Soulfly has a scratchy voice but it's not too deep to be understood. It's a good pumping, rocking track and it certainly blows away any ideas that these guys were going to be ambient or anything of that nature.

“In another life” starts off momentarily like the opener but soon toughens up as the guitars snarl in and Andrey Skibenko pounds away on the drumkit. Marches along nicely, bassist Itay Niv Milenbach keeping the beat steady, and there's a great punch to the song. The longest track, “Bleeding sky”, just one second shy of six minutes, opens quite atmospherically with a nice sort of muted guitar and what sounds like sound effects maybe on synth, then breaks into a hard, striding rock number with some very dramatic overtones. Quite progressive in its way. “Psychopath” is a big powerful song too, with racing, battling guitars and galloping drums, another long one at just under five and a half minutes. Good, sort of howling delivery from Soulfly, kind of sounds a little Slayer in ways, though probably not as fast.

It turns out I'm wrong: there are six tracks on YouTube after all, as I just caught sight of the closer further on down the list. So, what is “Outro” like? Well, as you mgiht expect, a sort of reprise of the intro, with nice relaxed guitar and those birds singing again, even what sounds like it could be violin. They do play around with the tracks though, warping them a little, as if maybe that's meant to impart some sort of message? All is not as it seems?

TRACKLISTING

1. Blank lament (intro)
2. Night of the rising death
3. In another life
4. Bleeding sky
5. Psychopath
6. Outro

Overall a decent album, or EP, but I guess you can see why the chances of them recording anything else are slim. There's some talent there certainly, but a lot of their music does sound quite similar, bar the intro and outro tracks. Surely not the best Israel has to offer, but it's a good start.

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Trollheart

I'm reliably informed by those in the know that this is one of the better Priest albums, and my lovely lady Vanilla likes it too, so there should be something there for me. Mind you, I had been told that I would not really dig any album after Defenders of the faith until this one, and I have already proven this prediction in error, as I loved Ram it down to death. Still, if those who advocate this next one see that previous album as lacking, I should really love their first album of the 1990s.

Painkiller (1990)
Being something of a newcomer to Priest, I'm saddened to read that this was Rob Halford's last album with the band for a long time, as he followed in the footsteps, as it were, of Bruce Dickinson and left them to pursue a solo career. Before he left though, perhaps unlike his Maiden counterpart, he left behind a superb album to mark his departure and maybe remind people what they were missing during Priest's “wilderness years”. The title track kicks it off and there's no mistaking the intention here: it's back to basics as Priest raise a studded fist and go to reclaim their metal throne from the new upstarts coming out of America. Laying down a marker from the beginning, this album goes for the throat and doesn't let go till the last beat of the closer.

Guitars from Tipton and Downing scream their fury as Halford bellows at the top of his voice, making the most of his last chance to sing with the band and leave a legacy behind him. “Hell patrol” takes us into the fiery skies above Iraq with a heavy, pounding military beat that puts me partially in mind of “Where eagles dare” by Maiden, then we get a rare acapella from Rob before “All guns blazing” comes out with, well, all guns blazing. New drummer Scott Travis does himself proud on this one, while “Leather rebel” rattles along like a gatling gun with inexhaustible ammo, making me tired just listening to it! And so we head into a “Metal meltdown” with a fine piece of shredding to open it, some classical in there methinks, then it hits you like a hammer and just goes head-down out of the traps, and good luck to anyone who can catch it!

“Night crawler” has a great atmospheric, spooky intro (are they keys?) then ramps up into another fast hard speed rocker, though with a more chugging guitar presence than the rest of the tracks have had up to this. Oddly, I feel Halford sounds like Ozzy here! That spacey, progressive feel returns later in the song as Halford speaks a very chilling passage across the chiming guitar, someone else adding what sounds like a spoken death vocal but it could be effects. Everything keeps rockin' on ten for “Between the hammer and the anvil”, with some superb guitar work, while “A touch of evil” is the closest so far they've come to a ballad (though it's really nothing like one) and is the only track on the album that features songwriting credits from co-producer Chris Tsangarides. Rather a lot of keyboards on this, courtesy of ex-Rainbow man Don Airey. Good use of pealing bells too.

A short instrumental then we're into the closer, as “One shot at glory” takes us out as we came in, kicking, screaming, shredding and above all rocking! The guys just go for it, kicking out all the stays and virtually burning the place down into the bargain. Call 911!

TRACKLISTING

1. Painkiller
2. Hell patrol
3. All guns blazing
4. Leather rebel
5. Metal meltdown
6. Nightcrawler
7. Between the hammer and the anvil
8. A touch of evil
9. Battle hymn
10. One shot at glory

Well, if Judas Priest wanted to prove to the new guys that they were still in charge, that they were rockin' before Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer or any of them were even in short pants, this album certainly makes that point, loud (very loud) and clear. You would love to say that Judas Priest were back, and would stay at the top, but as I mentioned this was to be the last album for Rob Halford for another fifteen years, and indeed the last Priest output for another seven.

But if there was to be a swansong, even a temporary one, for the man who had pulled this band up by its throat at times and fought on when all seemed lost and the dream of attaining fame and glory was vanishing like mist, Painkiller would stand as a fitting testament to the powerhouse that was, and is, Rob Halford, and to the unstoppable rocking machine that is Judas Priest.

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Trollheart

Time to wrap up Wpnfire's Members' Top Ten list, and as mentioned at number three he places Metallica's Master of Puppets, which I've already reviewed, so at number two then, Anthrax!

Among the Living --- Anthrax --- 1987

I've heard one track from this, thanks to Batty, that being the Dredd ode “I am the Law”, but that's to come yet. We kick off with the title track which has something of an atmospheric start for a few seconds before the guitars pound in and it gets going. There's a nice kind of shouted, punchy vocal from Joey Belladonna, but overall I'd say it's not anything terribly great. Speeding things up seriously with “Caught in a mosh”, certainly energetic, nice guitar solo, then that song I already heard is next. Has a nice dark grinding guitar line and while some of the lines are a little silly, a Dredd aficionado like me can't help smiling at the refrain ”Drokk it!” From here on though it gets very thrashy and fast, almost punklike at times.

“Indians” is a good powerful song, and references the callous treatment meted out to the Natives by the white man. They seem to put their hearts and souls into the song, even if Maiden did it five years previous with “Run to the hills”. “One world” has a great biting anger in it, and it's refreshing to hear a metal band talking about war as a bad thing rather than something to be looked forward to or ushered in. Nice atmospheric guitar (almost sounds like a sitar) to open “Medey/ADI: the horror of it all” (what the hell does that mean?) then it rocks along nicely. Laugh all you want, but on several songs here I hear the guitar riff from Petty's “Runnin' down a dream”. No, I'm not high. “Imitation of life” has a nice kind of marching beat, that is, until it picks up speed and heads for the finish line at top speed.

There's nothing wrong with this album; it's a great example of old-school thrash metal, but I just don't see anything special about it and it would not make it into any top ten of mine. Speaking of which, I should start putting mine together for next year...

But this is still this year, and we've reached the top of the tree as far as Wpnfire is concerned. If Om is anything to go by then the name of this band may be very appropriate, but let's hope the album doesn't send me to sleep...

Dopesmoker --- Sleep --- 2003/2012

I honestly have no idea how I'm supposed to review this. It comes as two albums (Jerusalem being the one packaged with the original 2003 release) but I think in fairness I can only review the one album, so although it only has two tracks I'm going for the actual Sleep. Never fear though: I'm not backing out, as even with only two tracks it's well over an hour. Hell, the first track is an hour on its own! Shades of Ninetales, huh? Anyway, the title would suggest that maybe you need to be on something to get it, but we'll see.

Keep thinking I'm hearing “Iron man”, but it's just the first three notes repeated. Still, it gets a little fuller as it goes and it's a lot better than Om. No vocals yet, but then we're only three or four minutes into a song that runs for a full hour, so plenty of time. Vocals come in about the tenth minute. This is that guy from Om, yeah? Well he still hasn't learned how to sing, but at least this time he's giving it a darker, more growling twist. Then I suppose nobody listens to this album for the singing, true? Just fill up your bong, light up and sit back. Except I don't smoke, so I don't have the luxury of just drifting away into an alternate world on the wings of this music, and I have to review this totally unstoned. Poor me, huh? Well it's not as bad as I kind of thought it would be; whether I'll last an hour of this or not though is another matter.

Hey, at least there's some variety. The addition of a guitar makes all the difference guys. But it's very difficult to review this as it's basically just a bunch of riffs (often the same one) with some occasional lyrics that really don't seem to make any sense to me. Surely an album more based around its atmosphere and feel than any actual songwriting or melodies as such. Close to a one-hour jam I suppose. I'm now nearly thirty minutes in, and while it has changed from the initial riff, I'd have to say not all that much. The obvious problem here is that this seems to appeal to those who are high, which you would have to think perhaps does not demand too much of the music when someone is in that state. Every comment I've read about it on YouTube is along the lines of “Oh man this is so good I'm so high” etc. But what about those of us who don't use drugs?

Surely a band should write their music for everyone, or as wide an audience as possible, and restricting the enjoyment of this to those who listen to it while high just I feel leaves the rest of us shrugging our shoulders and wondering what the fuss is about? And by the rest of us, I of course mean me. Okay, now about forty minutes in we're getting a change with a nice solo and some sort of reflective guitar, but it's been a long time coming. I'm sure this review will elicit plenty of replies along the lines of “man you don't know what you're talking about” and many entreaties that I get high, but I ain't doing that and if I can't enjoy music on its own merits, without the need to inhale, inject or otherwise introduce chemicals into my brain, then it's not worth it for me. I mean, Hawkwind's music is best appreciated, I'm told, when high, but I can still get something out if it without drugs. This, not so much. It just sounds like pretty much the same tune all the way through for over an hour, with a few small variations along the way. I certainly would not be listening to this again.

So that's another year of your top tens finished. Thanks to Frownland, Ninetales and Wpnfire for supplying theirs, even if some of them were written out last year. Hope I didn't trash too many of your favourites, but remember, it's only one old guy's opinion. It is of course though right. If nothing else, it certainly shows the wide variety of metal that people here enjoy, the different ideas people have of metal, and how one album that blows one person away can be distinctly meh to another. That's the wonderful world of metal, and there's something for nearly everyone in it.

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The Batlord

You should get high and watch Office Space.

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Wpnfire

One of Joey Belladonna's parents is Native American/Indian, and I think he came up with the idea for the song. So 'Maiden ain't got nothing on a song about Native Americans sung by someone with Iroquois heritage.

"A.D.I." stands for "Arabic douchebag intro", as in, that melodic sitar (I'm pretty sure it's a sitar, but it's not credited anywhere) bridge that plays at the beginning of that track... And if you want to know why they called it that, well, this is the same band from which members (guitarist Scott Ian, and drummer Charlie Benante) would go on to form S.O.D., who made this song:



Even though you didn't like Dopesmoker, it pleases me that you recognize this because a lot of people do not, and it's one of the reasons it's bashed quite heavily. The lyrics aren't meant to impress, but merely serve as the description of the journey for which the music is the backdrop. It's like a soundtrack/concept album hybrid with heavy-as-**** atmosphere that reeks of epic grandeur and weird, rhythmic lyrics. It still sounds like no other album on this planet.

And if you want to get into the lyrics, it's a highly romanticized song about weed and stoners, that the band created their own subject matter specifically for. The ultimate song about weed and stoners basically.

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