Traveling_Alone

As a big fan of doom and gloom sounding stuff (and doom metal)-- Ozzy era Sabbath speaks to me more than the Dio-era stuff, but I don't dislike Dio, either.

Plus early Sabbath was the band that started my metal obsession when I was really into metal so I guess nostalgia comes into play too.

The Batlord

I don't know if you've already done Torsofuck for the Torture Chamber, or it you'd be willing to switch out their album for something else, but as they're a goregrind band like Exhumed, I'd like to replace their album with Absurd's Asgardsrei (the remastered and expanded version from 2012).

If so, then here's a Youtube link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yZuRPWBbe0

__________________

The Batlord

First of all, I don't think anyone has ever described Electric Wizard as "the slowest Doom Metal imaginable". I imagine you misread what was actually "the heaviest Doom Metal imaginable", which EW are regularly cited as, and especially Dopethrone.

And secondly, it's Michael Amott, not Michael Arnott.

Boom. Schooled.

__________________

Trollheart

So, if I get this right, you're saying since I found Exhumed hilarious that the other band would not be likely to trouble me, and now you want to change it? Well, I haven't done any Torture Chamber albums yet, as like I said I kind of wanted to do it live (is that still possible via Skype with you or is that out? I don't mind doing all four at once if you're squeezed for time) so you can change if you want, but "remastered and expanded"? Just how expanded? We're not talking Frownland length here, are we?
I'm pretty sure it was slowest, but I'll have to see if I can find the quote again. Also, as to Michael Amott, may I just say, within the spirit of Metal Month III, up yours.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I just don't want to be redundant. Exhumed are one of the few respected goregrind bands, but once you've heard one, you've heard them all. I picked Torsofuck for somewhat different reasons than I would have Exhumed, but two goregrind albums would be kind of boring.

And Absurd have some reasons all their own for being repellent to you, which, knowing your penchant for writing a band's biography in your reviews, will soon become apparent.

What exactly would be the benefit? Your reactions are what's important. Not mine.

It was originally a 27-minute EP, and now it's 46 minutes, so it's really just LP-length now.

__________________

Trollheart

I thought a) the immediacy of my reaction and b) no chance to duck out since you're there "listening" with me. If you don't want to do it, then fuck you. Just thought it might be an idea.
Okay well that's acceptable then.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I imagine the novelty of taking in your reactions in real time would get old after a little while. And I doubt I'd be able to contribute anything of interest.

So, meh.

__________________

Trollheart

For our next look at the metal available in this small troubled country we move up into the northeast, to a city called Tuzla, where one of, it would seem, the few bands who are not thrash or black or death metal ply their trade. They are, in fact, my kind of metal: progressive. I was rather surprised but quite happy to find that their one and only album is available in its entireity on YouTube.

Sevdah metal --- Emir Hot --- 2008 (Lion Music)
To be honest, from the only picture I have of them, Emir Hot look more like a viking or thrash metal band than a progressive one, so the tag may be awarded with a certain amount of generosity, but we shall see. This is, as I said, their only album and given that it was released seven years ago now it might not be too premature to believe it is also their last. Furthermore, as they only formed in the previous year and yet managed to get an album out within twelve months, they don't sound like the sort of people who would hang around waiting for another seven before issuing their second.

Whatever the fact of the matter, the album has English song titles so we may assume that Emir Hot sing (or sang) in English. The opener however is an instrumental, one of two on the album, the only two in fact that possess what I assume to be Bosnian language titles. It's an ... interesting tune, almost some sort of national anthem style, but very short before “Devils in disguise” punches its way through and the vocalist, John West (?) has a clear but powerful tone that can drop to a low growl or rise to a scream of Dickinsonian proportions. Good vocal harmonies too and shattering guitar from Emir Hot, for whom presumably the band is named.

Strange little xylophone-like percussion from Mike Terrana lays a somewhat surreal veneer over proceedings before Hot shreds away like a good thing. Now no keyboards are mentioned but there are definitely keys; I can hear them. They're doing a solo right now. The music certainly deserves the term progressive metal anyway. “World set on fire” has a more grindy, chugging feel to it, with a very decent hook in the song. Almost sounds familiar. “Skies and oceans” is faster, rocking along with the percussion of Terrana pounding along, a sense of Scorpions in the song, also reminds me of a far heavier Millenium (the US rockers, not the Polish proggers) and again there's a clever hook there in the chorus.

Of course, most prog metal bands will usually have an epic track, and Emir Hot are no exception. Theirs comes in the shape of “Sevdah metal rhapsody” and runs for just over eleven minutes. It kicks off with what sounds like bouzouki or oud, some sort of ethnic stringed instrument, before it strides purposely forward on a rollicking, rolling rhythm that takes the song with a guitar solo that to be fair squeals a little and sounds to me like it might be out of tune, not that I would know of course. Now we get some accordion, which adds to the ethnic feel of the song before it kicks off on another guitar solo, sort of pulling in a Russian folk dance idea; very interesting and entertaining.

I really like the ethnic touches here, raises the music above the normal level and changes this from being a run-of-the-mill metal album into something quite special. Drum solo now, which I can always do without, but it's handled well, even if it is obviously just padding out the track. There are those keyboards now, solo for a moment before Hot breaks in with a pretty evocative guitar solo with an acoustic going too, kind of puts me in mind of “Stairway to Heaven”. It seems about ten minutes since we heard from West, but now he comes in and to be fair takes total control of the track, but I can't shake those Zep comparisons, even the melody sounds like “Stairway”. A very good song though nonetheless.

I must admit, I would never have expected “Stand and fight” to be an acoustic ballad, but this is how it starts out, and even though it pumps up a little after the first minute or so, it's still pretty laidback and very enjoyable. Another vehicle for the vocal talents of John West allied to the fret mastery of Emir Hot himself. Things speed right back up then for “Endless pain”, with a strange little ending that throws you before the boys go for it with a big snarling, breakneck guitar finish. One more instrumental then in “Hora martisiorlui” before we get to the penultimate track, “Land of the dark.” Another thunderer which rocks along at speed, superb keyboard solo (wish I knew who was on the keys, but there's no mention) , and indeed it's atmospheric synth and sound effects that get the closer underway, with a nice acoustic guitar as the simply-titled “You” opens.

There's a female vocal from somewhere, no idea who she is but she really adds to the song. Hard guitar and drums cut in as the song ups a level, West's voice getting tougher and stronger, the unnamed lady adding her voice to the chorus. Really powerful guitar solo takes the midsection as Hot shows what he's capable of, then he breaks out the acoustic and those superb vocal harmonies send a chill down your spine as we head towards the end of the song, and the album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Forspil (Intro)
2. Devils in disguise
3. World set on fire
4. Skies and oceans
5. Sevdah metal rhapsody
6. Stand and fight
7. Endless pain
8. Horas martisorului
9. Land of the dark
10. You

This is what I always hope to come across during these all-too-brief explorations of the metal of foreign lands. This album deserves to be far better known, and the band should be filling out stadiums, but because they come from a small country with little or no real music press of note, and which is generally regarded as “second class”, nobody is likely ever to hear of them. But this album could stand with some of the best in the progressive metal arena that I've heard; it's really that good.

It's sad also to think that this is probably their only album, that maybe they are now broken up, having failed to make it. There's so much talent there that should be shared. I see Emir Hot himself is a guitar teacher, and has posted a video in 2011 on YT mentioning this as “my last album”; whether that just means most recent or final I don't know, but it's good to know that at least one of the band is continuing on and doing well. Or, of course, given that the band has his name, maybe Hot just got some musicians together to play his music, and maybe he is the star, and we may at some point here from him again.

I hope so, because this music deserves to be heard well beyond the borders of his native country.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Sad wings of destiny (1976)

Still not quite aware that their record label was piss-poor and also crap at marketing them, Priest returned with their second album. It also bombed, and left them ekeing out a living while surviving on a starvation diet, unsure as to whether they would ever make it or if they should just jack it all in and give it up as a bad job. No wonder this album is so dark, with titles like “Dreamer deceiver”, “Epitaph” and “Genocide”, with the album cover depicting a fallen angel and of course the word “sad” in the title of the album itself. It's really hardly surprising the album went nowhere; their entire budget from Gull Records was a mere £2000, which increased by a factor of thirty plus when they moved to CBS in 1977.

A grindy, Sabbathesque guitar opens “Victims of change”, with Halford still trying to imitate Plant and the production still terrible; I can hardly hear his vocals here. Well, they get a bit clearer in a moment or two but they start off virtually as a faint echo. There's definitely a dark, doomy feel to at least this track, and it's quite long, almost eight minutes, so really, given the poor performance of their debut, a song that long was going to have to be a real winner. And it's not. This could be Led Zep by any other name. There's even a stop-start midsection, and while Downing's guitar rules, it's not enough to save this song, and I doubt enough to save the album. Still, it's something to listen to at least. Nice bluesy section near the end and it starts to pick up until Halford gets possessed by the ghost of our Robert again.

“The Ripper” has much more teeth, possibly one of the first metal songs about a killer? Maybe not, but this was well before Maiden and Slayer, so who knows? Again I'm not mad about Rob's voice here: this song needs a snarl, a growl, and a sense of menace. I don't get that from him at this point. Things slow down for “Dreamer deceiver”, with an acoustic guitar from Downing, a gentle vocal from Halford, which actually works quite well. Some superb guitar work as the song actually intensifies and becomes more than a ballad, and is in fact so far the only track I've liked on the album. “Deceiver” then (drop the “dreamer”) rocks along in a chugalong way, then there's an unexpected classical piece in “Prelude”, where Glenn Tipton excels himself on the piano, before we head into “Tyrant”, which though fast is absolutely devoid of energy, especially in the chorus, when the guys just sound bored.

That's the problem: there's just a lack of energy or commitment on this album. It's as if they've given up before they've even started. It's hard to pick out any track that would show them the way to the path to glory they would eventually tread. There a re good bits, yes, but not enough to string together to make a good album. Lot of UFO in “Genocide” with some Gary Moore tinges too, and it's interesting that they use in the lyric what would become the title of their next album, which would finally break them commercially and set them on their way. This track actually has some punch, I must admit, but is it too little too late? We're near the end now, only two tracks left to go.

Some more nice piano in “Epitaph” and a very decent vocal from Halford; song sounds almost like some sort of lounge music, touches of later Beatles, maybe Bread, that sort of thing. Certainly not metal or anything close to it. Nice though. “Island of domination” tries to finish the album on a strong note, and kind of does really, but the damage has been done, and you can see why this was the second album not to do it for Priest.

TRACKLISTING

1. Victim of changes
2. The Ripper
3. Dreamer deceiver
4. Deceiver
5. Prelude
6. Tyrant
7. Genocide
8. Epitaph
9. Island of domination

I guess it's to CBS we owe the biggest debt that Judas Priest didn't sink without a trace, because after two substandard albums which had been received with colossal yawns, and money getting tighter, you wouldn't have blamed them for throwing in the towel. Certainly, on the basis of this album I can see no reason why this band should have risen to the heights and attained the fame that they did. But then, salvation was waiting in the (sad) wings...

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

As an eighteen-year old just very --- and I mean very; my first album, as I've pointed out before, was Maiden's The Number of the Beast --- recently into heavy metal, I tended to choose the albums the same way then, to an extent, as I do now, by the name or the cover. Oh yes, while the rest of you were getting into Scorpions, Alice Cooper, BOC, Accept and Aerosmith, I was checking out bands based on how cool their name or album cover was, which explained why so much of the really good metal in the early eighties passed me by. Back then, of course, lurid, explicit and downright stupid album covers were de rigeur, and band names followed suit. So, to an impressionable teenager out to explore heavy metal, and with some disposable income to, well, dispose of, this naturally caught my eye in the pages of Kerrang!

I may end up being embarrassed to admit that this became part of


When Hell Won't Have You --- Split Beaver --- 1982 (Heavy Metal Records)

Oh yes, laugh now, but at the time I had no idea of the sexual innuendo inherent in the name of the band, and when you look at the label they were on, why it was a match made in Heaven, was it not? Thing is, I bought the album but to this day I could not tell you if I played it, or if I did, what I thought of it. My feelings, writing this now, is that it was --- how can I say this without giving offence? --- crap. It seems to me, now a lot older and perhaps a little wiser, that any band who goes to that much trouble thinking up a cool band name, getting some sexy cover art done and signs with the label who seem like they should have been signing all the local metal bands (surely either a coincidence or massive naivete on their part?) are unlikely to have bothered with such trifling details as song structure, lyrics or melodies. Hell, I'll be lucky if they can play! And yet, they were signed by a label, so they can't be totally terrible, can they? Can they?

This, you'll be totally unsurprised to hear I'm sure, was their first and only album. Though in fairness, it would seem, according to the very limited information I can get on them (the term is also an urban slang one, as I'm sure you know, and my search results have been, to say the least, interesting, none moreso than when I clicked on the link “images of split beaver”...) that this was mostly due to a traffic accident, and they reformed and toured for six years, even winning some Battle of the Bands competition in darkest Birmingham at one point, but they eventually called it quits as the nineties dawned. Mind you, with track titles like “Get out stay out”, “Savage” and “Gimme head”, I doubt we're going to be hearing any treatises on ultra-left neo-Marxist politics here, or ruminations on whether there is anything at the heart of a black hole... other than the remains of their career, that is.

Not too great a shock to find that neither of my music colossi have even heard of the band, so back to YouTube I go. It is something of a jolt however to find that even the mighty Y has nothing on their one and only album, and I have to go for single tracks. This does not sound encouraging. Be that as it may, the album opens on the aforementioned “Savage”, and ... they don't have it. You know what? Fuck it: it's only thirty cents to buy the album from my vendor, so let me just click that and add it and .... there we go. We can now listen to this forgotten classic in all its ironic glory. Maybe.

So, that opening track. “Savage”, we said, didn't we? Well it has energy certainly, kind of a Ravenesque thing with some early Diamond Head in there, vocalist is not bad (guy called Darrel “Savage” Whitehouse apparently) and the bassist Alan “Hunk” Reese (I'm assuming they gave themselves these nicknames. Bless!) reels off a nice line there, while the frets are under the control of Mike “The Bike” Hoppett. Oh god! Please stop! You're killing me here! Oh yeah, the song. Meh, nothing terribly special. It's ok I suppose. They start rock-and-rollin' with a “Johnny B. Goode” riff as “Going straight” gets going. Again it has great energy and really wants to be a great song, but it just, well, isn't. It's not bad, but again nothing to write home about. Hoppett unleashes a pretty sweet solo I must say but the rest of the song does not match it.

There's a lot of the “One, two, three, four!” to introduce songs. This may work great onstage but on an album you get mighty tired of it. The backing vocals are mostly just shouted, and I don't honestly think I could review a song like “Gimme head” with a straight face. Subtle was obviously not in the playbook these guys used. Again, the only really shining light here is the guitar solos ripped off by Hoppett; the vocalist is really not up to it and the songwriting is pretty woeful so far. Mind you, they don't just want head, they want good head! You'd think at this stage in their careers they would be happy to just get head, but no, it has to be good. Picky bastards. Oh dear god no! Sexually tittilating breathing at the end! Save me!

I wonder if “Cruisin'” might change things here? It's a six-minute monster and kicks off on a slow little blues line, with harmonica, and as I always say, you can't really go wrong with harmonica. Double vocal, so yeah, this could be good. I do like a slow blues tune, and whiel the lyric is nothing revolutionary, well the blues ain't about that. It's about simple, catchy and often very repetitive melodies, and this has all of that. A country mile ahead of the rest so far. And now here comes the blues guitar solo: lovely, with added harmonica. You know, I wonder if they switched to another vocalist for the previous track, cos once they get to “Levington Gardens” you can really hear how badly Whitehouse sucks. I would say it's the production, but the last track sounded great so it can't be that. Maybe he needs another singer to fill out the sound? Either way, this track is back to the basic banality of the album minus “Cruisin'”, which is a disappointment but not unexpected.

“Hounds of Hell” has a nice powerful guitar intro and then rocks along at speed, but again you can hear how bad Whitehouse is; it's almost as if the rest of the band are compensating for him. Not that this is such a great song, but everyone else seems to be competent whereas “Savage” is certainly failing to live up to his nickname. Hoppett sounds like he's wasted here; not in the drug or drink sense, but I just feel he should have been destined for better things. He certainly has the talent. “Like wise” starts out with a rip-off of the bassline from “Dancing in the moonlight”, but soon settles into its own groove, a real boogie-along but with really terrible lyric (”Likewise baby/ You drive me crazy” --- see what I mean?), the song saved once again by a fine solo from Mike Hoppett.

Sounds like “Living in and out” might be the ballad on the album (eighties metal albums always had at least one ballad) and starts with a nice introspective guitar, though it does power up a little for the chorus before falling back again, and there's an emotional solo from Hoppett that turns into a real monster as the song heads towards its conclusion. Bit of an abrupt ending, sort of ruined it really. There's a nice groove underpinning “Get out stay out” but it's totally ruined by Whitehouse's below-par vocal, and even when he sings the title there's not the slightest hint of venom or recrimination in it. Reminds me of the way John Wetton sings “Judas” on Asia's XXX. Once again Mike Hoppett comes to the rescue with a blistering solo that totally changes the song, but it's a weak track and I won't remember it, like the majority of this album, which is almost over now. One more track to go.

It may seem an odd title, but “The bailiff” turns out to be a lacklustre closer, with a very basic rock motif and another really terrible vocal. Even Hoppett can't save this one sadly.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Savage
2. Going straight
3. Gimme head
4. Cruisin'
5. Levington Gardens
6. Hounds of Hell
7. Likewise
8. Living in living out
9. Get out stay out
10. The bailiff

Yeah, well I suppose that just shows that you can't judge a book, or an album, by its cover. Poor in the worst sense, it's no surprise they didn't last. If they really did win a Battle of the Bands then all I can say is the competition must have been very weak. I feel like I begrudge even the thirty cents I paid for this album now, although in fairness “Cruisin'” makes up for it very slightly. And then there's the cover: guess that's worth thirty cents of anyone's money. Nothing else is though.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018