Unknown Soldier

Just a made-up word by me, I do that from time to time. It does seem to be a word though and something to do with gnats. Punkies come from punky, a word me and a couple of friends many eons ago, used to refer to a punk we always used to see in the same pub. As we didn't know his name or ever spoke to him, we just used to call him punky.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Janszoon

Was he really adorable?

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A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

The Batlord

Are you making the same Punky Brewster joke I was about to?

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Unknown Soldier

No, he was dirty and scrawny looking, looked like he could do with a good wash and used to get lewd as well after a few beers. He was also the only punk in this pub as well, they normally travel around in small packs.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

We was out in the sticks down highway six.

The Album
ZZ Top were one of the great touring bands of their era, with their characteristic blend of boogie blues, hard rock and southern rock, which were all presented by this lush Texan trio. Their live shows were certainly incendiary and even the late Jimi Hendrix had been a fan of the guitar playing of Billy Gibbons! But on the basis of their first two albums, they had failed to put out a studio release to match their live prowess as a band, a characteristic that certainly afflicted a number of great live blues rock acts at the time! Their second album Rio Grande Mud had pointed them in the right direction, but it was still a loose assemblage of ideas and it would take their third release Tres Hombres to finally announce the arrival of this boogie trio on the big stage. They handed producer Bill Ham their best collection of songs to date and what made these songs different from their previous two releases, was the more cohesive feel of these songs against a much heavier and potent backdrop, than heard on the previous two recordings. It seemed that the band had finally got their act together and gave us an album’s worth of great tunes.

Most of the tracks on Tres Hombres are infused with a sleazy-sounding boogie blues, which is propelled along by Billy Gibbons infectious guitar and his cool strangled-sounding vocal delivery, which is all ably backed up by the rhythm section of Dusty Hill and Frank Beard. This is most evident on some of the slower and heavier trudging tracks like the groovy “Jesus Just Left Chicago” and the superb harangue of “Master of Sparks” possibly the best on the album and then there is “Hot, Blue and Righteous” which sounds like a song that Prince could’ve chopped bits from to record the future “Purple Rain”. The slower tracks give way to some equally up-tempo ones like “Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers” and “Move Me on Down the Line” or just mixing it up on “Precious and Grace” and the groovy sounding “Sheik” and finally there is the best known track from the album, the slushy and infectious sounding “la Grange”. What made this album great, was its simplicity of sound and the feel of its songs, which today sound as fresh as when they first came out. Tres Hombres laid down a blueprint for the future ZZ Top discography, but Gibbons and company never quite sounded this tight again and Tres Hombres probably stands as their peak achievement. It has to be said though, that I’m a big fan of the synth driven Eliminator album recorded a decade later.

Billy Gibbons- Guitar/Vocals
Dusty Hill- Bass
Frank Beard- Drums

Production- Bill Ham

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

An ammunition dump on the verge of explosion!

The Album
With a gap of three years from the proceeding classic Funhouse set, Raw Power was something like a reunion set from these Detroit based schizos! The band hadn’t split up as such, but they were on the verge of doing so. It took a certain David Bowie to change their minds and at least perform on one more album as a band. In fact David Bowie had of course given a lifeline a few years earlier, to a down on their luck Mott the Hoople (see those cool reviews on the 1972 section) So the Bowie management team did some tinkering with the line-up and bassist Dave Alexander left the band, with guitarist James Williamson coming in on lead guitar and forcing Ron Asheton to now play bass. Now this shuffle certainly caused a lot of inner-group tension and this tension certainly carried across to the recording of the album. Raw Power is probably the most unique sounding album that the Stooges and Iggy put out. The album has all the tailor-made sounds associated with the Stooges, the energy and the aggression are there, but there is also a sound of a band at breaking point, at times it all sounds slightly subdued, at times like a wild dog being kept on his leash…….but that dog’s raring to go and both he and the listener are constantly on edge about the whole scenario and that is the beauty of Raw Power! Now what I’ve written here is certainly contentious, as Iggy Pop and the band often complained that in the final mix of the album, David Bowie had subdued the album somewhat and it wasn’t until many years later that Iggy himself remixed the album, as how he believed it should’ve been done originally.

The addition of James Williamson gave the music a greater technical feel and he also co-wrote most of the material with Iggy Pop as well. His technical edge though, certainly wasn’t needed on the album opener “Search and Destroy” which sounds like a typical Stooges track. The brooding “Gimme Danger” sounds like a Raw Power track in every aspect. The raunchy revved up rock ‘n’ roll of “Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell” sounds like something Alice Cooper or a manic Jim Morrison could’ve put out! The sleazy sounding ”Penetration” was surely a lesson to all the glam rock bands of the era, on how to sound authentically sleazy. The jangly rhythms of “I Need Somebody” ranks as one of the best on the album and the six minutes of “Death Trip” rolls up the album. At times listening to Raw Power is like listening to an exotic cocktail of the Rolling Stones, the New York Dolls, Jim Morrison and a boatload of other artists, spewing out their angst using Iggy’s vocal chords! All three Stooges albums offer something very different. The debut is a howling garage set, Funhouse their definitive album and Raw Power the edgy bastard of the pack. Fans of the band have their favourites, but quite often Raw Power comes out as a favourite.

Iggy Pop- Vocals
James Williamson- Guitar
Ron Asheton- Bass
Scott Asheton- Drums

Production- David Bowie/Iggy Pop

 

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

I'd probably go with Funhouse, but Raw Power definitely had Iggy's best vocal performance. He just sounded completely unhinged. Like he was high off cocaine, schizophrenia, and nihilism. I can almost see him with a smile like The Joker on his face while he sings.

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Unknown Soldier

The Album
After the impressive Neverneverland album, the Pink Fairies had a big dip in quality with the uninspired second set What a Bunch of Sweeties, which despite some great songs like “Marilyn” generally saw the band punching well below their weight in terms of what they were capable of, especially since the album had far too many basic rock jams for a band on their calibre. Their third album Kings of Oblivion redressed that dip and gave us in many ways their most concise album yet and imo their best! Canadian Paul Rudolph who had managed the vocals on What a Bunch of Sweeties, after taking over solely from Twink on their debut album, had now departed from the band for pastures new. His replacement on guitar and vocals was Larry Willis, who had previously had stints with both Blodwyn Pig and a space-rocky UFO. He would of course go on to be part of the early Motorhead set-up after his brief but memorable stint with the Pink Fairies. As said on an earlier entry, the Pink Fairies were essentially a psychedelic band centred around a stripped down rock ‘n’ roll sound. But the band’s pure guitar tones and riffing made the band a delight at times to any ‘heavy music fan’ out there and Kings of Oblivion doesn’t come up shy on that account.

As for the songs, it has probably the band’s most endearing songs to date and kicks-off with the staunch “City Kids” full of dynamic riffing and with an upbeat feel throughout. Then there are songs like “When’s the Fun Begin?” which sounds years ahead of its time and here even instrumentals like “Raceway” sound spot on without being overly long, and the impressive “Street Urchin” at seven minutes running time closes the album. But it’s the album’s classic cut the superbly titled “I Wish I Was a Girl” that sells the album, with its sublime guitar lines, riffing and gruffy rock vocals that cement this song as a classic of its era but it’s the later spiralling dynamics, that actually turn this song into something of a masterpiece, this is a song to be missed at the listener’s peril! The Pink Fairies in many ways, were one of those bands that really suffered from a chopping and changing line-up and overall direction, a factor that seemed to plague a lot of band’s that have been reviewed on these pages. Had the Pink Fairies got their act together, hell knows what more they could have achieved, but perhaps their true calling was to be a transitory band for its members and nothing more. As a footnote, the Youtube entrys for this album seem a bit thin on the ground and therefore some of the first choices are not represented here.

Larry Willis- Guitar/Vocals
Duncan Sanderson-Bass
Russell Hunter- Drums

Production- David Hitchcock

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

In the Shadow of Sabbath Pt.2

Probably the most influential band to have emerged out of the shadow of Black Sabbath and certainly the most relevant were Virginian based band Pentagram whose brand of bluesy proto-doom metal sealed them as eternal carriers of the flame, their early demos ranged right back to the early 1970s (they didn’t get an actual album release until 1987) this was largely due to frontman Bobby Liebling clashing with potential producers and record labels, but despite never having a record deal they had certainly impressed bands like the Blue Oyster Cult and built up a huge local following. This initial Pentagram line-up is actually considered their very best by long term fans of the band and it consisted of: Bobby Liebling-Vocals, Vincent McAllister-Guitar, Greg Mayne-Bass and Geoff O’Keefe-Drums, they also had the services of a rhythm guitarist in Randy Palmer for a while as well. These early demos of the band later featured on two compilation albums 1972-1979 and 1972-1979 (Vol.2) and some of these demos would later end up on their future studio albums and some of the best demos are featured below. On the subject of doom metal, British based band Necromandus an odd cross between Black Sabbath and Yes, were from Cumbria with a line-up consisting of Billy Branch-Vocals, Barry Dunnery-Guitar, Dennis McCarten-Bass and Frank Hall-Drums, and with the help of Tony Iommi as their producer, saw the band record their first album Orexis of Death in 1973, but this album was later shelved and didn’t get its official release until the 1990s, also an alternative version of that album was also released as well. Like Pentagram, Necromandus greatly suffered by not having a record deal in the early part of their career and in their case the label of ‘The second Black Sabbath’ didn’t do them any favours either. A couple of the videos have been posted below along with the Pentagram ones.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

1974

1974 was one of those years where there just seemed too many albums about, but luckily a huge amount of these albums were quality releases. I had real problems just trying to select ten albums from the provisional list that I selected and yet again I had to use my double-header idea (this is where an entry by a band goes in as normal and if that band also released another good album in the same year, that would also go into the same entry as well) and so 1974 would see a large amount of double-header entries. The charts saw nice safe acts like Elton John and Wings amongst the biggest sellers of the year and prog giants Yes and Genesis released probably their most ambitious projects yet. Bands like Supertramp and Steely Dan gave us a demonstration in accomplished and sophisticated music and Rush were finding their feet! As far as heavy music went, it was a real opportunity for a lot of bands to make their mark, due to the fact that both Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath didn’t release any studio stuff in 1974, but the third giant Deep Purple were back in action, with a duo of frontmen in David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes to replace Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. The year also saw a host of other reliable acts putting out some of their best stuff. There were also big entries by the likes of Aerosmith and Queen, and despite a popularity wane with glam-rock, the face-painted Kiss made one of the biggest splashes of the year! Overall it was a solid year and some of the very best albums came from the heavy category, in fact the album in the number one spot on my list, shares the pedestal with King Crimson’s Red as the very best album of the year!

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History