Trollheart

Taking your point about the year (though it could be argued, if you want to, that he followed the Nazis from Berlin to France, but let's let that go) the other point I was making is that he says Hitler's army marched ACROSS the ML. They didn't; they circumvented it, proving De Gaulle correct when he warned it wasn't long enough and could be got around. That's what I was saying. If he had sung "marched right AROUND the Maginot Line", then we're golden. But he didn't.

Oh I do love to nitpick don't I?

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Unknown Soldier

The Maginot Line failed thanks to the Belgians.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Trollheart

Geist ist teufel --- Urfaust --- 2004 (GoatowRex)
Recommended by Ninetales

I find myself getting less and less sure of myself. I’ve heard bands described as “ambient black metal” who didn’t sound in the least ambient to me, "melodic death metal" in which I can discern no melody, and "Viking metal" that often sounds very close to Power Metal. and here we have another, the debut album from Urfaust who, despite their German sounding name, are actually Dutch. The album only has six tracks, though one is ten minutes long and the closer is fifteen, so I hope I end up liking this!

We open with the appropriately-titled “Intro”, which has deep booming synth I think, a witchy-sounding dark voice which appears to be chanting rather than singing, and no percussion yet. Sounds like the sort of thing you would fear coming across if you wandered into a creepy abandoned church after dark. Brr! Can just see the high priest raising the knife above the female sacrificial victim as he prepares to plunge it into her heart. Melody, such as it is, maintains the same eerie, pulsing beat as the chanting goes on. Ok, well EM says they only have guitar, drums and vocals, so I guess that was guitar echo or feedback or something. As the first “real” track gets going the vocal changes to a high-pitched, almost desperate shriek, and you can clearly hear the guitar now as “Die kalte Teufelsfaust” takes us into almost seven minutes of creepy, weird music.

The vocal does descend from that unnerving shriek through to a lower, more gutteral and yet more discernible sound, but then climbs back up. As with the opener, the guitar seems to maintain the same riff throughout, and again the vocal is almost more chanting than singing. Oddly enough, I kind of detect tinges of Spanish vocalists here. I’m not saying you’re listening to Julio Iglesias, but the inflections seem very peculiarly Spanish. The drums get a bit more manic now, as does the vocal, as we come to the end of the track, and “Drudenfuß” is almost exactly the same length. Coincidence? Whatever, this one is far more upbeat and has a harder, more prominent guitar, much further up and cleaner in the mix. Seems like some sort of jig or traditional song. Mucho weird. As if this album could get any weirder.

At least the guitar begins to break out of its rut here; up to now, it’s been basically holding the one pattern of chords, now there’s a solo and a bit of a different riff. Though it returns to it fairly quickly, it’s good to see that IX, one half of the duo that make up this band, can flex his (assume he’s male) musical muscles a little. IX also provides the vocals, so perhaps we shouldn’t judge his guitar playing too harshly. I have of course no idea what the song titles mean, but this definitely sounds like some sort of folk song, probably best indulged in after several pints of the local ale. Sounds like a flute there, but none is credited and with no synth either I’ll just have to put it down to an effect on the guitar.

That ten-minuter is up next, and “Auszug aller tödlich seinen Krafte” (if anyone who can speak Dutch and/or German would like to translate these titles for me, please help yourself) starts off slow and moody, with a heavy distorted guitar backdrop and sparse drumming from the weirdly-named (is everything about this album weird?) VRDRBR --- I don’t even know how you pronounce that, so if I have cause to refer to him, or it, again, I’ll call him Vader. Why? Why not? I wouldn’t presume to label this a ballad --- after all, it’s ten minutes long and we’re only into the second of those; there’s plenty of time for it to kick up and change tempo, possibly more than once --- but so far it’s a slow, doomy, almost bluesy piece with what must be credited as a half-decent vocal. No demonic screams at any rate. Well, not yet.

Something of Nick Cave in this, specially in the vocal, but the guitar seems again content to play the same riff into at least the fifth minute. Well those screams are back in the sixth minute, but thankfully they don’t last long at all. Everything stops now as the guitar descends like a falling banshee or a diving Stuka, then a sound like a buzzsaw or drill followed by sirens and weird scary screechy noises reminds me in part of Vangelis’s “Beauborg”. Man, that scared me when I were younger. Probably still would. Sounds like backward masking now, some bell sounds and then a horror-film soundtrack which really sounds like it’s on violin, and if this IX guy is producing all these sounds on the frets then all I can say is that he is actually one hell of a guitarist, even given the limited playing he has produced up to now.

With some more mad screams, a kind of low male vocal chorus and some more heavy guitar we’re out and into the title track. A moaning chant with a big spacey sound that fills the room gives us a slow start, very doom meets drone; you could certainly see this on the soundtrack to some bad horror movie or documentary. There’s a vaguely arabic lilt to the chant, though that could just be me. I would definitely have thought cellos or violins though, but none are mentioned. I would have accepted a synth, but again, no go. The voice fades out and the guitar takes over, weaving a very effective and at times almost deafening soundscape which swirls and eddies and draws you in, like a planet in the grip of a Black Hole. I check and we’re halfway through the track: that was quick.

Oddly, the closer is called “Outro”. Not that that’s a strange name for a final track, especially as the album opened with “Intro”. But I know of few if any outros that are over fifteen minutes long! This seems to continue the basic theme and idea expressed in the last track, with what sounds like an organ or synth booming out the main phrase, the guitar looping in and out of the musicscape -- I just can’t believe this is all done on guitar, though no doubt Ninetales will confirm or disprove that for me --- and so far no vocal, leading me to wonder if we are in for a quarter-hour instrumental? Well we’re three minutes in now, but after all that’s less than twenty percent of the way through the track. Plenty of time for it to change.

I must say, once you get over the jarring vocal and the album gets going, the music on it is quite stunningly beautiful. It certainly deserves, for once, the prefix of “atmospheric”, though whether I’d call it Black Metal or not is a question I would have to explore another time. This particular piece could grace any documentary about space or under the sea; it has that real flowing, ethereal, otherworldly aspect to it, almost like celestial music (which given its possible connections to Black Metal is quite ironic). Sort of reminds me in ways of Carbon Based Lifeforms and some of the more esoteric work of a certain Greek composer.

We’re now halfway through and I think it may be safe to say that there will be no vocals. I can’t see where any would fit in, but then, this duo do seem to come up with surprises and curve balls all over the place. I find myself wondering if Vader is a drum machine, not a human at all? No, he’s real all right; just saw a picture of him on his drumkit. Pretty amazing stuff this, although I must admit I don’t see where percussion comes in here at all. It’s completely ambient, atmospheric and almost abstract expressionism in music. And now we’re ten minutes in, and again the one basic musical phrase has been running through this gargantuan composition, yet somehow it doesn’t seem to matter, as you kind of find yourself floating away, drifting on the melody, being carried along towards the end of the piece, and the end of the album.

TRACKLISTING

1. Intro
2. Die kalte Teufelsfaust
3. Drudenfuß
4. Auszug aller tödlich seinen Krafte
5. Geist ist Teufel
6. Outro

When this album started I anticipated a real ordeal: the screeching, scratchy vocals, the scary effects, the seemingly-one-phrase guitar. I was ready to turn down the volume and just pay passing attention to it. But as it went on I found I was really getting into it, and now that it’s over I wish there was more. I still have no idea if all of that amazing music was indeed made only on a guitar, but if so I’m doubly impressed. Either way, this is some of the best instrumental and ambient music I’ve heard in a long time. Whether I’d class it as Metal of any sort, never mind Black Metal, is debatable, but whatever it is, I like it.

Ninetales expected me to possibly trash this album, and said he usually let people hear it just to gauge their reactions. Well, completely against my own expectations, this one has come up trumps and I am seriously glad I listened to it.

One of the best so far.

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Everybody who knows me knows that Iron Maiden are my number one metal band, the band who first introduced me to Heavy Metal, and in addition everyone knows that I prefer Bruce Dickinson-era Maiden over Di'Anno. But I'm not one of those people who refuse to listen to the older stuff. I don't say “Oh yeah I love Maiden but only from “Number of the Beast” on: the rest is crap.” I wouldn't do that, and I don't, because apart from the change in vocalist pretty much all of the main band are still there in the early days, and though the music style was a little rawer, with more of an edge to it --- punkier, if you prefer, and as has been said before, by me and by others --- it's still Iron Maiden. I also recognise that the first two albums, though not huge hits by any means, are where it all began and where Maiden began to build their massive fanbase. After all, even now they still perform tracks like their signature tune, “Wrathchild”, “Murders in the Rue Morgue” and of course “Phantom of the opera”, as well as others from that era. Maiden have not forgotten where they came from, nor should or do I.

And I don't. I featured thier debut album in my series “Maiden voyages” and I gushed over “Killers” (Sorry about that; I tried to clean it off later!) in last year's Metal Month. But I tend to steer a little away from the first two albums even when discussing Maiden. So I thought it might be fun to pick my top ten --- got other members to do their lists, why not mine? --- early Maiden tracks. So here they are.


Prowler (Iron Maiden)
This had to be in the countdown. Although the first actual Maiden song I heard ever was “Run to the hills” --- instilling in me an immediate desire to buy the album and play it to death --- this is essentially the very first Iron Maiden song ever played, if you discount The Soundhouse Tapes. It introduces an album that is flawed, yes, but still kicks ass with the best of them. Sure, Di'Anno sounds like he's been smoking fifty a day and has been awoken suddenly --- he's in a REAL bad mood! --- but it's got the raw power, energy and aggression that, although Maiden retained it, was slightly subsumed among clever lyrics, stupendous light shows and intricate songwriting as the years went on. Of course, that's normal in a band developing, especially a band developing into a world-conquering one.

But it's nice to hear the almost innocent (?) anger and fire that drove the first Maiden album. It suffers from the absence of Adrian Smith --- Dennis Stratton was not the guitarist he is --- and the production of course is, to be entirely fair and not nasty, shitty, leading to Steve Harris's famous comments that if he ever got Will Malone he'd punch him, or something. He was not happy, anyway. The song, though, will always for millions of kids be the first they experienced of Maiden, and led to greater things, so is deserving of a place here on my top ten, even if it is right at the bottom end. Elements of the main melody would later find their way into the title track of their second album, although the lyric leaves a lot to be desired --- ”Got me feelin' myself and reelin' around” --- um, yeah. It also has the first of what would become tradmark solos from Dave Murray, leading to the proper Iron Maiden sound once he found his axe partner in Smith the following year.


Iron Maiden (Iron Maiden)
It would be just as churlish to discount the signature tune of the band, even though I don't really consider it one of my favourites. It's certainly raw, but for me it's just a little too manic. Di'Anno's voice on it is certainly the archetypal unhinged serial killer, and I think not even Dickinson can sing this with the same maniacal passion as he does, but again it's almost a little too close to punk for my tastes. It does have that iconic opening salvo on the guitar, and the chorus would definitely go on to energise crowds right up to this day as Di'Anno, and later Dickinson (and probably even Bayley, during his time with the band) roared ”Come out! Come out! Wherever you are! Iron Maiden gonna get ya!”

Another great solo and perhaps one of the best endings to an early Maiden song ensure the title track to their debut must be included in my list, but it's low down because there are so many other tracks that are so much better than it, as we will see.


Purgatory (Killers)
There are a lot of things that distinguish this track from the two I've selected below it. First, Di'Anno at this point, with the release of their second album --- the last on which he would sing of course --- seems to finally be finding his voice. His raspy, almost screeching delivery on the debut can't in fairness all be put down to bad production, though some of it certainly can, and he's obviously honed it to a much better pitch here, as when he begins singing there's little trace of the raw, scratchy tone that characterised his singing on “Iron Maiden”. He still has that good scream that he lets go once in a while --- as he does here --- and which Dickinson would improve on a year later, but mostly his voice is much more controlled.

The song is also better constructed. I know people get sick of me using the “M” word, but neither of the two previous songs had a terrible amount of melody, whereas here the structure of the song is so much better, or at least I think so. The energy and passion that would be, and still is, forever associated with Iron Maiden is still there, but it's more controlled and less directionless than it was on the first album. There are the first real signs of discipline coming in to the music, and that may be in part due to the recruiting of Adrian Smith to replace Stratton, and also due to the first appearance of a man whose name would become synonymous with Iron Maiden, Martin Birch, taking the reins of production. The production on “Killers” bears no resemblance to “Iron Maiden”, which at times sounds like it's been recorded in someone's garage.


Transylvania (Iron Maiden)
I had to pick this because throughout their career Maiden have played few if any instrumentals, and this is the only one on the debut. From the start, the guitars kick your face in and they really don't stop till the final note. The signature sound that would become that of the band runs right through this piece, and I always like to see a band able to play without a singer. Also, it means we don't have to listen to Di'Anno's voice! In the middle it winds up into a real fretfest and just goes for it. You can almost feel the sweat dripping off the band as they fire this baby up. Also, it ends on a really eerie, moaning sound that almost presages “Powerslave”, four years later, and runs into “Strange world”, one of their few ballads. It's also quite long for an instrumental, clocking in at just over the four minute mark, yet every second is necessary and it never seems too long.

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Thankfully, with “Undisputed attitude” behind us, we can now return to proper Slayer fare, and their eighth album, which took for its title a Latin phrase supposedly meaning a forbidden chord or something, literally the devil's music. Jeff Hanneman pretty much wrote all of this album --- all the music bar two tracks, one of which he collaborated with his axe partner on, and much of the lyrics, and there are some surprises along the way, as Slayer once again break the mould and enter the murky world of nu-Metal and even Groove Metal. Yeah.


Diabolus in musica --- Slayer --- 1998 (American)

Meaning “the Devil in music” (as if you couldn't work that one out) the title of this album at least assured Slayer of the surely by now coveted Parental Advisory sticker, and zero airplay once again, but once again they didn't give a fuck. They had their fans, and those fans didn't listen to the charts, probably not even the radio, so what did they care? On “Seasons in the abyss” Slayer had been tasked by their label with producing a hit single. When they snarled “You write it, we'll play it” that put paid to any further discussions, so nobody was going to try to suggest they write anything commercial for this or any other album.

But it did turn out to be quite experimental, as we shall see. Slayer experimented with themes and ideas they had not previously, and brought in influences from subgenres previously considered unlikely ever to feature on one of their albums. It's also --- barring the previous album of Punk covers --- one of the longest Slayer albums to date, running for forty minutes and having thirteen tracks, a feat only surpassed by the next album, which also has thirteen tracks but a running time of forty-two minutes. “Seasons in the abyss” is the same length --- 42 mins --- but has only ten tracks.

But enough nerdism. To the album. We begin with “Bitter peace”, one of several songs on the album carrying on Slayer's tradition of speaking out --- well, screaming or growling out I guess --- against the futility and insanity of war. With a big grinding doom-like opening it's heavy as Hell and almost two minutes before the vocal comes in, on the back of some pretty sweet bass from Tom as the tempo kicks into the sort of thing we've become used to. Not as fast as the Punk on the previous album, true, but for my money that's too fast. This is a tempo I've all but become accustomed to, and it's somehow comforting to hear it again. Big, powerful guitars plus a blistering solo from Kerry: what more could you ask for in an opener?

“Death's head” opens with a very groove metal bass and guitar, and romps along nicely with an almost diabolic (yeah) vocal from Tom and some great feedback guitar from Kerry before he launches into another solo. But Tom gets to display his prowess on the bass here too, with several extended passages peppering the song. “Stain of mind” is another heavy thunderer, though betraying a flirtation with nu-Metal in a semi-rap run off by Tom at the beginning. Not really sure that works: I never believed rap and Metal mixed, probably never will. Still, Araya doesn't make it too obvious that he's rapping --- after a fashion --- and the song is still very recognisable as a Slayer one.

The first time, I believe, that Slayer used sound effects other than the likes of thunder and rain, “Overt enemy” starts with a voice intoning things like “God's war/ Against Man/ Holocaust/ Man's war against himself” and pulls in Slayer's continuing protestations against the Church and against organised religion. It's slower, a cruncher rather than a screamer, with low, dirty guitar and some thick bass from Tom again.

And returning lyrically to the themes explored in “Sex, murder, art” on the “Divine intervention” album, “Perversions of pain” doesn't need too much explanations, another hard-hitting rocker though without the megaspeed again this time. Until Kerry cuts loose in about the second minute, then it all takes off into the stratosphere. “Love to hate” is thicker, sludgier and with an angry vocal from Tom, seeming to tread the old inside-the-mind-of-the-serial-killer ground again. One criticism I would have to level at Slayer --- and one which may not be unexpected --- is that they tend to rehash the same ideas over and over again. War. Death. Pain. Serial killers. Religion. We have heard all of these before, but in general I don't see any new ideas, no new themes, no new subjects, which is a pity but as I say not unexpected.

On any other album by any other band (well, most) you might think “Desire” could be a ballad, but haven't you been listening? Slayer don't do ballads! As it happens, this appears to be a song about necrophilia, revealed in the lines ”Forbidden fantasies/ Uncontrollable heat/ Find yourself all alone and dead” and while “In the name of God” is certainly not a title you would expect to find on a Slayer album, throw the word lies in before it and you have the true picture. No, they haven't gone all Christian Thrash --- is there such a thing? --- they still hate Jesus, and he probably hates them. Bet he doesn't have one single Slayer album in his collection.

Plenty of anger of course in this song, a hard heavy beat and steamhammer guitars, though the refrain at the end reminds me of something. Can't think what. Come to think of it, what I was saying just a short time ago about Slayer having no new ideas? Scratch that, as “Scrum” has to --- has to --- be a song about ... rugby! Yeah I know, but listen to the lyric: ”Full contact/ Why I live and breathe/ Sidestepping all the human debris” and ”base line goal line/ Overtime killing time”. Sure it could be about American Football (No I will not...) but ”Living on adrendaline/ Your try is crushed” I think settles the question. No touchdown guys. No touchdown. Of course, why a bunch of Americans would write about rugby is another thing, but there it is.

“Screaming from the sky” seems to put us in the head of a German Stuka divebomber pilot (more allegations of Nazi glorification no doubt) and marches along on a great military beat and a hammered out vocal, while “Point”, for some reason, is the last track Spotify have on this album, but there are two more, so a-YouTubing I must go. For the record, “Point” reminds me a little of Sabbath's “Into the void”, though much more aggressive of course. So then, the first of the two tracks Spotify doesn't give me is “Wicked”, and it's a whole six minutes long, making it easily the longest track on the album and one of the three longest Slayer tracks up to this point. It starts with a nice downtuned guitar then bursts into life on the twin axe attack of Hanneman and King. The song may be about Armageddon, always a little hard to be sure. It's a real cruncher, stomping along and massacring everything in its path.

Finally, “Unguarded instinct” (seems these two may be bonus tracks, though it's not mentioned on Wiki, but would explain why Spotify doesn't have them; that means I've been tricked into covering bonus tracks, something you know I don't usually do) is another heavy cruncher, and sad to say, seems to go down the tired old well-trodden serial killer road. Oh well: guess you can't expect too much in the way of originality. Decent song though; think it should have been part of the original album, but sure, what do I know?

TRACKLISTING

1. Bitter peace
2. Death's head
3. Stain of mind
4. Overt enemy
5. Perversions of pain
6. Love to hate
7. Desire
8. In the name of God
9. Scrum
10. Screaming from the sky
11. Point
12. Wicked
13. Unguarded instinct

It's a heavy album, of that there's no doubt, but as I said earlier the lack of variety, the refusal to change much and, though this is seen as something of an experimental album, the sameness of Slayer's music is, I have to admit, boring me. Nobody would ever accuse them of being progressive, but hey, you may hate Genesis or Marillion or even ELO, but at least they tried to do something new on successive albums, even if it was only new lyrical themes or song structures. To a great extent, I sort of feel that (the covers album aside) the last three albums have all sounded pretty similar to me, and while I don't expect to see Slayer bring in keyboards or orchestras or even a double bass, I would like them to do something a little different.

But I guess this is how their fans like them, so they're unlikely to change. Still, for an album touted as being so “different” to anything else they had done, I don't see it. More of the same. Kind of yawn, y'know? Hey! Put down that burning cross! If I don't turn up for the next review people will come looking for me, you know...

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Children of Bodom covering Journey? Welllllll.... last Metal Month we did feature them covering Britney's “Oops ... I did it again” (that was hi-larious!) but this time they needn't quite hang their collective heads in shame, as this task was undertaken by their keyboard player Janne Warmin under his own solo project Warmen. On the fifth Warmen album they undertook to cover “Separate ways”, from the Journey album “Frontiers.” To be entirely fair, though Journey are known as wimp-rock and either praised or reviled for ballads such as “Open arms”, “Who's crying now” and “Don't stop believing”, this is one of their rockier tracks, and I could certainly see a metal band taking it on. As Warmen did, in 2009, on the album “Japanese hospitality”. Am I missing a joke here? Anyway they did a pretty damn good job on it, and you can check the two versions side by side here.

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Back when I was getting into bands I tended to buy the greatest hits packages, reasoning that this was the best way to hear a band's repertoire. And so it was with Rainbow. Having heard the debut and “Rising” I went out and bought this first ever Rainbow compilation. And is it a revelation!

The best of Rainbow --- Rainbow --- 1981

Not only do you get half of “Rising” on this double album, you also have all the hits --- “Since you been gone”, “All night long”, “I surrender” etc --- as well as one of Rainbow's most heartbreaking ballads, “Catch the rainbow”. Factor in “Long live rock'n'roll”, “Kill the king” and the amazing “Gates of Babylon”, to say nothing of “Eyes of the world”, and you have a compilation that really is hard to beat. Some of the tracks on it I could do without --- “Man on the silver mountain”, “Jealous lover” etc, but overall it's one of the best collections I've ever bought.

Showcasing the best from the Dio era, as well as Joe Lynn Turner and Graham Bonnet, it's a true representation of what Rainbow were all about at the height of their popularity and their creative apex. A true time capsule. Excellent stuff.

TRACKLISTING

1. All night long
2. Man on the silver mountain
3. Jealous lover
4. Lost in Hollywood
5. Long live rock'n'roll
6. Stargazer
7. Kill the king
8. A light in the black
9. Since you been gone
10. Sixteenth century Greensleeves
11. Catch the rainbow
12. Eyes of the world
13. I surrender
14. Gates of Babylon
15. Can't happen here
16. Starstruck

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Wrathchild (Killers)
I'm not quite sure what it is about “Wrathchild” that I like. It's not, to be fair, the greatest of tracks and there are surely songs I could have chosen in its place that didn't make the list. But there's something about it that draws me. Maybe it's the fact that it would later spawn a glam metal band by the same name, or that it was included on some metal compilation I heard as a kid but never really paid much attention to. Maybe it's the “I'm coming to get you!” which would be repeated later in the title track. Maybe it's that big meaty bassline that gets it going, or the soaraway guitar. I really don't know. But somehow it's found its way into a higher spot on my top ten than I would have expected it would have occupied, if at all.


Drifter (Killers)
This, on the other hand, has always been one of my favourite Maiden tracks. I particularly love the big rocking ending, the “Gonna sing my song, and it won't take long” and the powerful, screaming ending. But the opening is great too: that double guitar attack building up to Di'Anno yelling “Rock and ro-oh-oh-ohlllllll!” It's a track that always makes me want to move. The middle section is inspired too, the slowing down as the guitar solos so beautifully and restrained, the sort of stuttering re-build up to the main melody, the big drum semi-solo from Clive Burr as the whole thing takes off for the big finish. Superb.


Strange world (Iron Maiden)
As I mentioned, the first ballad from the boys, which would be thin on the ground throughout their (so far) forty-four year career (going in terms of album releases; I know they've been together since 1975), it was at the time a startling departure from the hard-edged metal/punk that I had been experiencing on the debut, and segueing as it does directly from the first instrumental, it was something of a double whammy. And it's a beautiful song. Di'Anno proves he can really sing, and Murray shows that he isn't just a fretburner, that he knows how to dial it back several notches when required.

Some bands would have used piano or keyboards, maybe violin to supplement the guitar sound here, but Maiden had no truck with keys up until Bruce left. I remember on the back of “Piece of mind” the promise: “No synthesisers or ulterior motives!” Maiden at that time, the height of their burgeoning popularity and the apex of their commerciality, wanted to buck the trend and stay far away from keytars, synths and keyboards, trusting to the inestimable talents of their two guitarists to make all the music that was required. And they did. The otherworldly sound Murray puts on his guitar (probably phased, what do I know?) allied to Steve Harris's gently thrumming bass and Burr's perfectly placed percussion jsut creates exactly the kind of atmosphere you imagine they were going for.

And Di'Anno? My god he can sing here! Devoid of the snarl, the rawness, his voice is almost gentle and while you wouldn't expect him to release any pop records, he shows he can do other than just growl metal anthems. With no title to suggest it would be a ballad, and as I say the slow fade-in from “Transylvania”, this track virtually transformed side two of the album for me, before kicking it back up with “Charlotte the harlot” and going for the throat, but it was one hell of a surprise, and a very pleasant one.

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Members' Top Ten Lists
And so we come to Mondo's top three, and at number
3

Souls at zero --- Neurosis --- 1992

I've heard quite a bit about these guys, so I'm interested to see what they're like, especially given the “post-rock” tag Wiki has ascribed to them. Nice kind of ambient opening to the first track, “To crawl under one's skin”, then a voice speaks with some weird sound effects in the background. Okay, thought that was building to a big heavy guitar there, but it's quite melodic even though it is guitar. Heavy enough, but not the assault I had expected. The vocal takes me by surprise, and is something of a disappointment, being a yelled, screamed one as the music gets much more chaotic. Not a fan of this method of jumping from one style to another, as I mentioned with Maudln of the Well.

Second track starts off well, but now I'm wary of those crazy vocals, just waiting for them to jump out at me like some madman wielding a knife in the darkened alleys. Where is he? Where is he?He's there isn't he? I know he is. Why doesn't he just get it over with? It's the waiting that ... oh, there he is. And the vocal is not anywhere near as bad as on the first track. Shouted yes but intelligible. Listenable. Much better. Like the use of flutes in the quieter section of “Flight” but “The web” (not the Marillion song, I hasten to add!) does nothing for me. Too loud, abrasive and loose. Some nice strings there at the end section of “Chronology of survival”, but this album is boring me now. I get the impression this is another album where the band try to do too much, be too clever and miss the mark more often than they hit it. Not for me sorry. The closing short instrumental gives a tantalising glimpse of what this album could have been, but it's already over.

At number
2
Mondo originally had Powerslave, but changed it to

Piece of mind --- Iron Maiden --- 1983

Probably my third favourite Maiden album after the two obvious, "Piece of mind" is not gold all the way through but it's very close to it. Opening with the powerful "Where eagles dare", the album tends to go through a series of "Boy's Own" adventures, as we scale forbidding cliffs with the SAS and take on the Nazis, fight and die as an ordinary soldier, and wreak our revenge, Conan-style, or perhaps not quite. That's it though: the stories are flavoured with realism and are not just gung-ho tales of bravery. In "The Trooper" the eponymous soldier dies, not particularly bravely, in fact possibly futilely, and though such a death is lauded in "Die with your boots on", the revenge of the unnamed (but surely based on Conan the Barbarian) man in "Sun and steel" is not realised, as his enemy "Take you and your blade/ Break you both in two." Not to mention the story of Daedalus's overconfident and arrogant son coming a cropper in "Flight of Icarus".

But it's an album full of catchy songs, killer riffs and of course Dickinson's trademark "air-raid siren" scream. There are surely bad tracks. I was not impressed with "Revelations", the aforementioned singer's only solo effort on the album, and the less said about "Quest for fire" the better, proving that even godlike Steve Harris can occasionally write a duff tune! And boo to Frank Herbert, whose intransigence over allowing the band to use the name "Dune" led to the closer being titled "To tame a land", the second epic track to close a Maiden album.

Basically, "Piece of mind" built on the phenomenal success of "Number of the Beast", solidfied the band's lineup and paved the way for one of their greatest albums a year later, leading to this period, 1982-1988, being seen as Maiden's golden era, when they could barely put a foot wrong.

And so we come to his number
1
which is from these guys

When the kite string pops --- Acid Bath – 1994

Says they're a sludge metal band, and as of now I think my only real experience with that subgenre is Conan, who did not impress me. Oh, and it has fourteen tracks! Thanks man! Well it starts off at a snail's pace and I wonder if it will remain like this? Then there's a rough but not indecipherable vocal with Sabbathy guitars --- and now it's kicking up in speed a little as “The blue” gets goi --- no, now it's gone back slow again. This could be a long --- what? Seventy minutes, almost? Lord preserve me! With titles like “Finger paintings of the insane”, “What colour is death”, “The bones of baby dolls” and (ugh!) “Cassie eats cockroaches”, I'm not exactly looking forward to this. Could Mondo's top album be worse (to me) than Janszoon's?

Well a measure of how bored I am with this album is that it's now five tracks in and I haven't noticed. I can't pick out anything interesting about any of the songs. I know it's seen as an underground classic and I'm sure it's well played and written; I just really don't care. It's doing nothing for me. The tempo comes and goes but the songs just blur by. Alright, “Jezebel” has a nice sort of spoken vocal against a cool bass line, and ... yeah, I like the bassy opening and sweet guitar on “Scream of the butterfly”. A lot better; restrained vocal, no mad hammering drums and I could really get into this. Don't expect it to last of course...

Well it did, and I must say that's the first track on the album I've a) noticed and b) enjoyed. Could this be a turning point? Um. no. The next track goes back to the slow, grindy, sludgy feel of the opening few songs, and it's just terribly plodding and boring to me. And we're back to me not caring. Honestly. I'm reading the paper as this continues. That's how interested I am. Oh wait: the last two tracks were good. “The colour of death” and “The bones of baby dolls” especially. Lovely acoustic piece with what sounds to be maybe mandolin?

Okay, so the last track was horrible and now it's over. Sorry Mondo, but this album just did absolutely nothing for me. A few good tracks but most of it passed me by, the ones I didn't actually hate. Not going to be a fan of these boys any time soon!



So that's it for your top ten lists. Thanks to all who submitted theirs, and sorry I couldn't choose them all, but I do have to eat from time to time! Maybe next year. I may --- I haven't decided yet, lots yet to do --- throw my own list in at some point before the end of Metal Month II. Hope nobody took offence if I didn't like their selections; I realise you all put a lot of work into your lists and that these albums mean a lot to each of you, so please don't take my criticisms as putting forward a view that there is nothing good about these albums. Where I was not impressed, it was and is purely a personal opinion, and not to be taken as anything else. Thanks again and see you next year I hope!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

As metal Month II continues and seems to be receiving a better-than-expected reception, with rather a lot of participation and a good deal of debate, seems some members have decided to mark this month in their own journals.

Here are a shortlist of members who have used Metal Month II as an opportunity to explore the world of Heavy Metal in journals in which they might normally not otherwise cover such a genre.

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ime-place.html

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...n-dollars.html

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...s-journal.html

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...-endeavor.html



There's still time if you want to write an article on metal, either in your own journal to tie in with Metal Month II, or even here as a guest reviewer or contributor. Just PM me if the latter and if the former, well, you know where your journal is!

Glad you're all enjoying it so far, and it's far from over yet! Lots more to come before we close on Halloween!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018