Key

^im sure you'll find a way to inflict payback. I hope its painful.

Trollheart

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Trollheart

I'm certainly not the world's biggest fan of The Beatles, but I would never try to deny their incredible impact on music and the place they deservedly hold in its history. Bands from all genres have paid tribute to The Fab Four, and Metal is no different. Here then are some examples of how Metal has paid its dues to the four lads from Liverpool who changed the world, and the face of music as we know it today. After all, to paraphrase John, Paul, George and Ringo...


Naturally, some of the more famous songs have been covered by more than one Metal band, so I've had to choose which might have made the better job of it, depending on whether or not I know the band. In some cases, I've just gone in blind. Note: I know there is a band called Beatallica, who specialise in mashups of Beatles and Metallica songs. I'm not interested in that: these are actual, proper cover versions, one-off tributes or even perhaps in some cases parodies of Beatles songs.

“Come together” by Aerosmith, from the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1978.
Originally on Abbey Road, 1969.

I probably can't comment too much as, like I said, I'm not a fan of The Beatles, but I do know this song and it seems Steve and the boys rock it up nicely. It's taken from an ambitious attempt to pay homage to (read, rip off) the album that is said to have started the progressive rock movement, and features the music of the Beatles from the two albums mentioned. Not really sure what the point was, though surely cash came into it...


“I'm only sleeping” by Quorthon, from the album In Memory of Quorthon, 2006.
Originally on Revolver, 1966.

Bathory's Quorthon recorded this for a compilation called The Black Mark Tribute Vol 2 and it was later released on his own tribute album after his untimely death in 2004. This is one of the songs I don't know, so I can't tell you whether he plays a good version or not. I guess you can decide for yourselves by watching the video below. Doesn't sound like he metalled it up much though.


“I want you (She's so heavy)” by Coroner, from the album Mental Vortex, 1991.
Originally from Abbey Road, 1969.

Back to Abbey Road and no, though I of course know the album and recognise the sleeve, I have never heard it. So sue me. Anyway it would appear Coroner are a thrash metal band from Switzerland, and the track is over seven minutes long. Enjoy!


“Help!” by The Damned, from the B-side of the single “New Rose”, 1976.
Originally on the Help! OST, 1965.

This one, of course, I do know. I'm also a little familiar with The Damned, and I must say they do an anarchic version of it here, as you would probably expect. Little point of interest: though the song does not appear to have been on any of their albums it was the reverse of their first ever single.


“We can work it out” by Deep Purple, from the album The Book of Taliesyn, 1968
Originally on the double A-sided single “Day Tripper/We can work it out”, 1965

Odd, isn't it, that two pretty well-known and successful Beatles songs were not on any album of the time, but both released directly as a single --- the same single; the first time ever one was billed as “double A-sided”** --- and both became hits. Deep Purple covered this, but it was not in fairness the band we think of today as Purple, with this coming on their second album (from what I guess is referred to as “Deep Purple Mk I”) before Gillan or Coverdale ever got near the band, and they seem to have been more a progressive/psychedelic/hard rock band. It was also only three years after the single had been a hit, so not really that surprising that the Purples might consider cashing in on one of the bigger hits of the day. Is it any good? Take a listen and judge for yourself. Note: there's a classical piece they call “Exposition” for the first three minutes.


** For our younger readers, singles used always to have an A side, which would be the main, hit song, or the song hoped to be a hit anyway, and the reverse would be the B-side. Usually this turned out to be the case, though occasionally the B-side would become more popular. Such was the case with Thin Lizzy's “Black boys on the corner”, which had as its B-side .... “Whiskey in the jar”!

“Don't pass me by” by Georgia Satellites, from the album Open All Night, 1988
Originally on The White Album, 1968.

Okay, nobody's going to pretend Georgia Satellites are metal, but at least they're not synthpop or Italian disco! Southern Rock is not too far away, and I really enjoyed this track --- truth to tell, the only track I liked on the massively disappointing second album from the boys after the tremendous self-titled debut --- so I'm sneaking it in here, no questions asked. The first song written by, and with lead vocals by Richard Starkey AKA Ringo Starr, it's one of The Beatles' rockier songs, not as sort of bubblegum as the likes of “I want to hold your hand” and “She loves you”: just appeals to me more. Plus of course the Sats really rock it up.

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The Batlord

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

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TechnicLePanther

I recognized the first bit of classical music they covered, so I had to look it up. It's Beethoven's 7th Symphony Mvt. 2:

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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.

Trollheart

Not really sure what you're saying here, Batmeister? Are you saying it was too short, that I should have had more in it, or that there weren't many items in it? If the former, then I told you I know very little about The Beatles, so, you know. If the latter, well it's only part one. If neither, please clarify as I can't figure out quite what you're bitching about.
Thanks man. I've been wondering about that piece of music myself. Gorgeous, isn't it?

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Trollheart

Let's go for something a bit more, um, generic? Well, mainstream maybe. In a career spanning an impressive half a century, Scorpions have become one of Germany's most famous and successful Heavy Metal bands. Their latest release, their eighteenth, is their first in five years and contains music that was composed but never completed or used, from around the early eighties to last year, and this album showcases them in their finished format. So although it's not entirely a new album, it's not quite a rehash or re-release of older stuff. I guess to some extent it's their version of The Endless River, only with vocals. And good.

Return to Forever --- Scorpions --- 2015 (Sony Music Germany)
(I'm not bothering with an introduction: who after all doesn't know the Scorpions?)
Track by track

1. Going out with a bang: Sounds like a farewell sort of title, but I don't think the Scorps have any intention of throwing in the towel just yet. In fact, it's said to be about the friendship between the guys. Got a real blues feel to the guitar that opens it, then it rocks nicely, Klaus Meine sounding as good as ever, fifty-some years later. Pretty anthemic, with a nice grinding guitar riff underpinning the song.
2. We built this house: Has a vaguely AOR feel to it, mostly in the way Schenker plays his guitar, not quite as hard as he usually does, and the chorus is very catchy; could see this as a single. Oh look! It was! I feel some keys would work very well here, but seems they're not using any. Can definitely hear this playing on the radio.
3. Rock my car: A more straightforward rock song. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, and it's okay. It's good fun and it doesn't overtax the brain.
4. House of cards: Sounds like we have our first ballad. Scorpions of course do some great ballads, as do most metal bands. This is nice. Restrained guitar, soft vocal, decent lyric. I really like the chorus. Backing vocals are great.
5. All for one: Not too hard to guess what this one is about. Curiously, opens on a very Bostonesque guitar, and not surprisingly is another anthemic song. Good advice from Klaus: “Don't mess with rattlesnakes.” Indeed. Kind of a Queen idea to the melody in places.
6. Rock'n'Roll Band: Faster, pumping rhythm here, rocking along nicely with a faster delivery on the vocal from Klaus, almost a metal rap (!) and great work from Rudy and Matthias Jabs. Good vocal harmonies; decent guitar solo but it could have been better.
7. Catch your luck and play: Ah those crazy Germans! Odd title, with a big guitar intro perhaps very slightly reminiscent of “Sweet child o' mine” then it settles down into a sort of boogie groove, more mid-paced than anything really. Great hook in the chorus with lots of shouts of “Hey! Yo!” and so forth.
8. Rollin' home: Sort of “We will rock you” opening with heavy drums then guitars joining in, good melody with another great anthemic chorus. This could easily be another single. Anohter standout.
9. Hard rockin' the place: Another good rocker, though in fairness there's nothing terribly different about it and it's more than a little generic. Not quite filler, but, you know...
10. Eye of the storm: Another ballad? Certainly starts on slow, soft guitar, and I'd be surprised if it changed into anything heavier. That Boston guitar sound is back. But yeah, it's a ballad. Very nice.
11. The scratch: Good bouncy rocker, suggestion of rockabilly in the rhythm. Again though, not really up to that much and a bit of a filler track.
12. Gypsy life: One more ballad to end, though this is really more a power ballad and is certainly the hardest of the three. Good closer, very emotional.

Conclusion: I was never the greatest fan of Scorpions, and am not that familiar with their work, but like Accept last year, this could change my mind. Pretty fine album, and for a band who have been making music for more than half a century you'd definitely have to say this is a great effort. Interesting to see that, though these songs were originally written over thirty years apart in some cases, the basic idea is more or less the same, and the quality, generally, does not vary too much. Even so, perhaps a brand new album might have been better for the fans after five years? Still, I guess it's enough to be going on with for now.

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Trollheart

We've come to the end of our short sojourn through the Metal available in Bosnia, but as we prepare to move on, there's one more band to check out, and well lucky old me! Another progressive AND symphonic metal artiste (shut up!) and they have a sexy female singer too! Not only that, but they're well-known enough to be locatable on Spotify, which is just as well as YouTube doesn't seem to have much on them! Heaven Rain have two albums, one released 2008 and one in 2012. I don't know which to go for (both are on Spotify) but purely due to the fact that I like the cover of the 2012 one better, I'm going to check that one out. Oh, and they sing in English!

Second sun --- Heaven Rain --- 2012 (Music By Mail)

We get going with quite an electronic synthy sound which develops into a dramatic backdrop with what sounds like samples and loops going, as “Close to dawn” takes us towards the title track (well, more the signature track I guess, as it's the band's name), where the guitars of Igor Dragelj take over, then the vocal to be fair does not sound very female, though I can hear a lady singing in the background; perhaps, like many symphonic metal bands, Heaven Rain switch vocal duties around? Very nice orchestral style keyboards from Goran Baštinac and the song rocks along with great enthusiasm and purpose. “Dreamless” has a dark, hollow synth sound before it takes shape as another fast rocker driven on the keys of Baštinac, but I still can't make out if that vocal is Miona Graorac. I guess it must be, but the backing one sounds more feminine. Odd.

“My only one” canters along on a rolling drumbeat before changing to a striding guitar and keyboard line as it slows down, and in the end it has a really nice hook to it, as has the actual title track, quite a commercial feel, lot of energy and some very good percussion thanks to Nebojša Lakić. Fine keyboard solo too. There's a great sense of ethnic identity to “Face of misery” with some eastern European sounding keyboard riffing through it. Not to be outdone, Dragelj fires off a salvo on the guitar. The vocal I have to say is nothing short of adequate. Really, Graorac is a good singer but just that: she's nothing special. Mind you, she does shine on “Nowhere”, the obligatory ballad which is piano-driven but also seems to include violin and cello.

“Raven in heart” is full of bombast and drama, pounding along on Dragelj's snarling guitar lines and a driving beat provided by Lakić. As the album begins to wind down “When day fades to dark” has all the epicity and power you would expect, some expert keyboard histrionics and we head out as we began, on an instrumental they call “At the end of time”. Driven on a low militaristic drumbeat and a chiming piano melody, it's quite the outro to bookend the album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Close to dawn (intro)
2. Heaven rain
3. Dreamless
4. My only one
5. Second sun
6. Face of misery
7. Nowhere
8. Raven in heart
9. When day fades to dark
10. At the end of time

A very good effort but again other than the fact that perhaps you wouldn't expect to hear music of this calibre coming out of Bosnia, there's nothing inherently remarkable about it. Heaven Rain have obviously listened to a lot of Nightwish, Epica and Within Temptation, but the problem there is that they are in danger of just being a carbon copy of one, or all three or more, of these bands, something that is considerably less than the sum of its parts.

I wouldn't go so far as to level that accusation at this band, however I again don't see the spark, the difference, the, to use a sales and marketing term, USP of Heaven Rain. There's nothing really special that marks them out from the field. Released into the general populace, as it were, this album would perhaps raise the odd eyebrow but I doubt it would open too many cheque books or rack up listings on Amazon or itunes. It's just a little too generic. In a good way, but still generic.

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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

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Frownland

That album cover is so incredibly awful it's a ****ing work of art.

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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.