The Batlord

The list never quite recovered from that.

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Trollheart

Let's head back down to Sarajevo now, where one of the oldest metal bands in the country has been plying their trade since 1986, which means of course that when they got together their country was still known as Yugoslavia. During the wars of the early 1990s both their original drummer and guitarist lost their lives as the country fragmented into smaller ones, but as of 2010 they were still going and have released six albums in that time, not a lot perhaps but given the backdrop against which they lived that's really not bad.


Ima li života prije smrti --- Bombarder --- 2010 (Metal Warning)
They sing in their native tongue --- or not in English anyway --- so don't expect any deep exploration or discussion of their lyrics. There's certainly a big, dark, dramatic opening to the album and I guess given their (almost) WWII name you could say it might be meant to represent a bomber over Berlin or whatever, but there's certainly a lot of moody synth and bouncy, echoey drums as the first track, “Uvod” gets going. There are no lyrics (whereas there are for all the rest) so I'm assuming it's an instrumental. Again, keyboards are not mentioned but come on: there must be a keysman in there! Choral vocals too (synthesised or not I don't know) and we're into “Gubavi kralj” which opens with a high, striding guitar before it picks up and rocks all over the place. Kind of speed metal really: galloping drums, racing guitars and a vocal which, while harsh, is not a death growl.

Nenad Kovačević has a good tone to his voice, not too screechy and not too growly, while on the axes Gvozden Racić ,Jakša Vlahović and Rastko Ličina present a triple attack that works pretty well. Into “Rane” and the pace doesn't slacken, with a big fast guitar intro that then gives way to vocals only supported by drums before the guitars crash back in again. “Sve lodosti ovoga svijeta” starts off a bit slower and more grindy but then quickly picks up, exhibiting some fine solos though with three guitarists I couldn't tell you who's playing them. “Armija mraka” does sort of the same thing, starting off crushing and slow but it doesn't stay that way for long, exploding into another fast rocker with a good vocal from Kovačević.

And so it goes. I mean, it's a decent, solid metal album but I'm not seeing anything terribly different in this that I haven't heard from a hundred metal bands all over the world. There's nothing to distinguish it from the herd, unlike Emir Hot. And before you say oh yeah that's because they're progressive metal: you love your progressive metal don't you, well yes it is but apart from that, they had the ethnic instrumentation, the keyboard soundscapes, the choral vocals and the vocal harmonies, all of which went to make their music a lot more memorable and left me with a better and more lasting impression of them. With Bombarder, all I'm getting is just another metal band who, if they were not from Bosnia and I not exploring that country's metal landscape, I would not be bothered with.

I'd like to hear something different, another side to this band. Sure, I don't know the language and so while their lyrics could be totally amazing and allow them to stand out, I don't have the luxury of concentrating on those, so can't critique them and have to go with the music and what I can hear. What I can hear is, overall, pretty generic. Even some sort of ballad, an acoustic number, anything would be a change. I know in metal you pretty much get what you get, but even so, many metal bands are able to be varied and interesting and this, well, isn't. Not so far anyway.

There's a nice kind of hard boogie to “Ka proposti”, and it has a truly excellent guitar solo in it, almost right at the end before it literally explodes and hits into “Tunel”, and with the final track being a cover of Niflheim's “Sodomizer” I'm assuming we're not slowing down until the end.

TRACKLISTING

1. Uvod
2. Gubavi kralj
3. Rane
4. Sve lodosti ovoga svijeta
5. Armija mraka
6. Ja hodam u svakoj sjeni
7. Duše miliona
8. Mržnja i patnja
9. Ka proposti
10. Tunel
11. Sodomizer

Yeah, to be honest, as the last track played out the doorbell went and I nipped down to answer it, not even bothering to stop the playback. I knew what to expect. It's all good, but just not great. You have to give Bombarder respect for being perhaps the oldest metal band in Bosnia (according to my very limited research anyway), but then bands can exist for decades and yet be as stale as anything. This band does not make me want to explore any of their other material, and to be honest, I'm a little disappointed as I had expected bigger things from the band who appear to be the virtual godfathers of Bosnian heavy metal.

Sorry guys: on that note, it's an offer I very much can refuse.

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Trollheart

Sin after sin (1977)

“You have to get on a major record label if you want to survive in this business. Gull ain't gonna do shit for you.” This is the kind of advice Priest were getting from family, friends and colleagues, and it makes sense, particularly in light of how badly their record label had promoted their first two albums and how, consequently, they had both bombed, leaving the boys' future very much in doubt. Thinking about giving up if they didn't hit it big soon, Priest came to the notice of record giant CBS. With the explosion of punk rock across England and stretching further, and the NWOBHM just about ready to break over an unsuspecting country, Judas Priest's brand of aggressive, hard and uncompromising hard rock/heavy metal sound, embryonic on this album but soon to become their signature sound and the template for dozens of bands who would follow them, told CBS that this was a band they should invest in. And they did. Signing a cheque for £65,000 --- surely more money than any of the band members had ever seen to date, or even dreamed of --- they sent Priest into the studio with Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover producing, to work on their third album overall, but in reality their rebirth and a new debut.

You can see a change from the very first notes: there's more purpose, more drive and more hope in Priest. They know they're with a major label and can look forward to supporting large acts such as Foreigner, Led Zeppelin and REO Speedwagon before getting to headline themselves, and it's like a huge weight has been lifted off their collective shoulders. “Sinner” kicks the album off, and it's like they've hit restart and begun again, with the first two albums bad memories they've left behind as they press forward and face a far brighter future. The vocal delivery of Halford is developing into its own sound as he leaves the Plant influence behind, mostly, and they've ditched the idea of keyboards and piano, as Glenn Tipton now concentrates on guitar only, supporting K.K. Downing to give Judas Priest their own identity as they follow Thin Lizzy in the idea of the twin guitar attack, a formula that would work most famously for Iron Maiden a year or two later.

Great solos here and the song seems better constructed all round, though again it's something of a gamble as it does clock up almost seven minutes for an opening track; seems a little overlong to me but they fill it up well. If going with an almost-seven-minute track as an opener was a gamble though, surely that pales compared to thier cover of a Joan Baez song! In truth, “Diamonds and rust” had been recorded by them before, but only appears as a bonus track on the debut. It did give them their first airplay though, and they do a very good version with it; I can hear a lot of what Gary Moore would later adopt as his guitar sound here. This song does sound a little more AOR to me though, but then “Starbreaker” is a down-and-dirty grinding rocker with a menacing vocal from Halford, the sort of thing he should have been doing, in my opinion, on “The Ripper”.

“Last rose of summer” has very much Country overtones, and it's I guess the first real Priest ballad, showing that Halford can tone it down when needed and also displaying the virtuosity of both the guitarists. Good percussion on it too. It does get terribly repetitive at the end, so again too long but a decent song. That Country feel persists a little into the next track, “Let us prey/Call for the priest” which opens on a ringing guitar line then a sort of chant from Halford as he sings ”Call for the priest/ I'm dying!” Guitar is very Brian May here, but then it kicks off and the tempo racks right up as the song jumps up a level. Some great riffing here and a screaming solo that, while relatively short, kicks you right in the teeth.

A bit slower but no less heavy, “Raw deal” is driven on a biting guitar riff from Downing, and uses what may be the first instance of a “downer” lyric in a metal song, when Halford yells ”I hate my life!”, (which at that point, prior to their coming success, perhaps he did) something a lot of the extreme metal bands who would follow in the coming decades would latch onto, to say nothing of punk rock. Good hook in the song, very catchy for a metal track, and showing us what Halford can really do when he cuts loose --- a style Bruce Dickinson would copy --- then we're back in ballad territory, with, I have to say, a guitar line that sounds like it was almost lifted note-for-note two years later by Maiden for “Strange world”. Hmm. “Here come the tears” again showcases the gentler, more controlled aspect of Rob's voice and the introspective side of Downing's fretwork, and I guess you'd have to expect that the idea of putting two ballads on what would have been seen as their relaunch album was a calculated ploy to pull in the more casual listener, not to mention the ladies.

The song ends however on a big booming roll of thunder and takes us into the album closer, which I know from my exploration of Slayer last year, as they covered “Dissident aggressor” on one of their albums. It's a chugalong boogie rocker, a stuttering, military beat driving the melody and Halford really lets loose on the vocals while Downing just goes wild on the guitar. It's a powerful closer and sets their stall out for what was to come in the next few years, as they went from strength to strength and began to tighten their grip on the emerging heavy metal market as the NWOBHM buffeted the shores of Britain.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

1. Sinner
2. Diamonds and rust
3. Starbreaker
4. Last rose of summer
5. Let us prey/Call the priest
6. Raw deal
7. Here come the tears
8. Dissident aggressor

You can certainly hear the winds of change blowing through this album, though at times the band seems unsure as to what direction to go, with some progressive rock influences still evident, trappings that would soon be dropped altogether, and two ballads, something Judas Priest, like Iron Maiden, would not become known for. The switch to a pure guitar/guitar/drums/bass/vocal approach seems to work here, though Tipton did to my mind some fine work on the piano and on the keyboards too. But all of this is in the past now; Judas Priest are looking towards the horizon and the previous two albums are far in the distance, something they no longer wish to be associated with, even today.

And who can blame them, with albums of this quality to demonstrate their prowess?

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Trollheart

Two words leapt out at me when I checked out the only album Ki has recommended to me for this year, and those were the dreaded grindcore, and then their lyrics described as “gibberish”. This is not a good start. I have a feeling this may be nothing more than percussion, probably played at an unfeasibly fast tempo, hence the title, but we'll see. I kind of feel like I'm reviewing this for “Love or Hate?” now, and expecting to come down firmly on the side of the latter...

4247 Snare Drums --- Whourkr --- 2012 (Ade Noiseam)
Suggested by Ki
I suppose I should be grateful that it only runs for a total of thirty-five minutes! Okay, well it started deceptively well, with a nice little guitar intro, then some noise blasted over it and now we have a mess of sound with a cookie monster vocal. That cutting in and out that I hate so much, no melody whatever, just a bunch of formless noise. Thanks Ki; I bet you picked this on purpose, knowing my aversion to grindcore and this kind of noise metal. Frownland probably listens to this to relax. I'm going to be writing very little about this, as there is nothing to write about. In fact it sounds mostly like someone being sick over a very chaotic soundtrack with various noises.

Well, there was an interesting thing: a sort of snippet of classical music right at the end of the second track. You know what? I'm done with this. Let's find something more intersting. This is directly from Wikipedia:

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota Sioux name: Six Grandfathers) near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson(1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865).[2]The entire memorial covers 1,278.45 acres (2.00 sq mi; 5.17 km2) [3] and is 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.[4]

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region. Robinson's initial idea was to sculpt the Needles; however, Gutzon Borglum rejected the Needles site because of the poor quality of the granite and strong opposition from Native American groups. They settled on the Mount Rushmore location, which also has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure. Robinson wanted it to feature western heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud,[5] and Buffalo Bill Cody,[6] but Borglum decided the sculpture should have a more national focus and chose the four presidents whose likenesses would be carved into the mountain. After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of "Mount Rushmore's great political patron", U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck,[7] construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over construction. Although the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.[8]
Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the United States, and has appeared in works of fiction, and has been discussed or depicted in other popular works. It attracts over two million people annually.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore


Boring, yes, but more interesting than listening to and trying to write about this mess. I'll get you for this Ki. I'm not even going to bother rating this shit. You do however win this award, for possibly the worst album ever suggested on Metal Month. Yeah, even worse than Naked City! And this is in fact where this album should go, and probably where it was composed.

Incidentally, that would have worked really well for Batty in the Torture Chamber. On we go.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

The Batlord

I know you don't like Sad Wings of Destiny, but considering that it's considered one of Priest's most revered albums, and their best by more than a few, I have a hard time believing that the band considers it a bad memory.

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Key

Happy to see you enjoyed my album rec, TH And yes, it was meant to torture you.

Trollheart

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Trollheart

Well I'm talking more about how they were made. Sad Wings isn't terrible (though in my exploration of Priest's material I'd have to say I'd put it far from their best, but what do I know? I'm just a Johnny-come-lately to the band) but I imagine the conditions under which it was recorded, the feeling they might never make it and the total lack of support from Gull all contribute to make the band have some sour memories of that album. Sure, in retrospect, they're gonna look back at it fondly, but I would imagine it reminds them of how bad things were, and those sort of memories tend to stick.

Also, remember I know little of Priest and am only formulating my opinion and view of them as I go along, and as ever, without any backup from other sources, any comments I make here are my own determinations, which may well turn out to be wide of the mark.

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Key

I moreso just wanted to rec something different mostly because last year I recommended something that wasdown your alley. This year, different story.

Also, if you're curious, I was going to rec Myrath - Tales of the Sands instead of Whourkr but evidently I decided against it.

Trollheart

I already heard Myrath --- you recommended that to me a year or two ago. Wasn't impressed with it, as I recall. However, be assured

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018