The Anthill 2.0: Albums, Artists & The Chance To Win A Million Dollars!

Anteater · 03-12-2014, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Ant, your taste in music never fails to impress! I'm a huge APP fan as you know, and a total Fogelberg fanboy. Great to meet someone who actually knows who he is; totally underrated talent and a real loss to the music world.

Right on! I feel he's pretty underrated on the whole. My generation's missing out, lol! I still think he was a tad hit-or-miss on occasion (especially past Exiles), but when he was on the money he was unstoppable. Same with guys like Neil Young and Stephen Bishop.

Trollheart · 03-12-2014, 09:32 PM

Oh I'd agree with you there. "The wild places" was the last album I truly enjoyed by him, but really up to then, with the exception of the abysmal "Captured angel" he never put a foot wrong. It would probably be surprising to people who don't know him that they know at least one of his songs.

Also, what did you think of Alan Parsons' "The time machine"? I was hugely disappointed in it, and haven't yet listened to "A valid path", sort of dreading it might be as bad really...

Anteater · 03-12-2014, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

Oh I'd agree with you there. "The wild places" was the last album I truly enjoyed by him, but really up to then, with the exception of the abysmal "Captured angel" he never put a foot wrong. It would probably be surprising to people who don't know him that they know at least one of his songs.

Also, what did you think of Alan Parsons' "The time machine"? I was hugely disappointed in it, and haven't yet listened to "A valid path", sort of dreading it might be as bad really...

Dan peaked with 'The Innocent Age' and never did anything again to quite equal it. That being said, every album he's ever done has had at least a couple of winners on 'em.

Parsons-wise, 'A Valid Path' is pretty good for what it is. There's a heavy trip-hop/electronic rock aesthetic as opposed to the soft-progressive pop stuff he's known for, but it's not awful by any stretch of the imagination. I'd probably recommend it to someone who is a huge fan of The Crystal Method or something.

That being said, if you want to hear some music that's on par with some of the best APP stuff, check out those Chris Rainbow solo records and some of the music of Mandalaband (especially 1978's The Eye Of Wendor and 2009's B.C. Ancestors).

Anteater · 03-16-2014, 08:42 PM

Part 3: Hard Rock & Heavy Metal

So now that I've gotten the artsy prog and pop stuff out of the way, how about we get into some songs and artists that set me on the path of br00tality?

Scorpions
Alien Nation (1993)

A killer riff anchors this top-notch opening cut from one of this classic band's most underrated albums. My dad's "Best Of" Scorpions collection was my introduction to the fist-pumping world of melodic heavy metal & hard rock awesomeness, and I owe this particular tune quite a lot in that regard. It all started here!

Ra
Do You Call My Name (2002)

A song and band I think were pretty top notch for what they were in the whole post-grunge/alternative rock spectrum even today, this early single by Ra came out right around the time I was getting my first taste of progressive rock as well as more contemporary music, and it did a pretty thorough job at whetting my palette for more material like it. It's aggressive yet smarter and more melodic than some of the nu-metal that was getting big in the early 00's, so I could have done worse than start with this baby.

Deep Purple
Black Night (1970)

I don't even remember the exact circumstances that I ended up getting my first exposure to Deep Purple and their hard rock ilk, but 'Black Night' was the first song from that era outside of the prog I had just started dabbling in that left such a strong impression on me. Jon Lord's Hammonding and Blackmore's guitar work are strong with this one, yes.

Joe Satriani
Echo (1987)

The idea of guitar virtuosos going out and recording purely instrumental albums seemed pretty strange to me as a kid: why would I care about rock stuff if there wasn't a singer involved? Then I got to see a certain Satriani live with a freshman band friend and began to understand that a great song is a great song: a guitar can sing just fine on its own. 'Echo' stands out some from the rest of the songs on Surfing With The Alien due to its heavy and distinctive bassline, and its still my favorite song of his as well as an influence on me today.

Edge Of Sanity
Crimson (1996)

Probably the biggest game changer of these five songs for me as I was transitioning from middle to high school all those years ago. At that point, I was vaguely aware of what death and black metal and such were, but it was the sort of stuff my peers liked to make fun of or laugh at rather than listen to. During some random search online I ran across this album on accident while looking for King Crimson and found myself hooked within just a few minutes into this one-song record despite being such an initially alienating "out of my comfort zone" experience. What I figured out as a result was that I not only really liked the melodic aspects that sometimes emerge in more "extreme" music, but that those same abrasive elements that turned everybody else off were actually really interesting. I don't know if I could even appreciate any of the black, death, grind or thrash stuff I enjoy today if I hadn't heard Crimson as a 13 year old fuckscrub with no prior experience. I guess there's a "right place right time" album for everyone in any style, but I'm glad it happened to be this one for me.

Anteater · 03-29-2014, 09:08 PM

Part 4: Electronic Music - Five Albums

I'm one of those guys who would scare away people at an actual discotheque because I am your lord and savior when it comes to bad dancing, but I still found plenty of stuff to jam to as a younger feller that not only resonate with me today, but hooked me on beats, textures and bass drops alike. To be extra ultra specific: I DO listen to stuff from a huge variety of electronic subgenres today, but these are the albums that served as the starting line.

Thievery Corporation
The Richest Man In Babylon (2002)

Not necessarily the best album from the Corporation, but when your on a road trip with a friend in middle school and his weird hippie-rave dad decides to play this album from start to finish for the ensuing couple of hours...yeah, one helluva impression gets left. The title track is particularly dope, but you can't really go wrong with anything here. It's not too bad as a downtempo late-night selection for clubs or parties either: at least your neighbors wouldn't call the cops over it.

Daisuke Kashiwa
Program Music I (2007)

Something I picked up on recommendation as I was getting into high school from an electronic savvy friend, which technically makes it my introduction into "serious" post-rock as well. While only two tracks long, its a whole hour's worth of beautiful, fractured chord progressions, motifs and sheer mindfuckery. That moment of transition around 4-ish minutes into 'Stella' is one of the best things I've heard in any instrumental release ever, and that holds true seven years later for me.

Enigma
The Cross Of Changes (1994)

World music/New Age/Electronic crossover stuff was all the rage back in the 90's, and most of that can be attributed to guitarist/producer Michael Cretu and his Enigma project. Say what you want about the major cheese of 'Return To Innocence', but he sampled friggin' Led Zeppelin (the drums from 'When The Levee Breaks'), Genesis and Lord knows what else to make that song. That takes some serious creativity and balls to pull off, and this album was a real ear opener as a kid at how versatile electronic-oriented stuff could be.

BT
ESCM (1997)

My door to trance and techno, and boy does this sucker pop even now. Brian Transeau at one point was an absolute genius at blending club-like anthems with more organic instrumentation and Berlin School ambiances. Easy to do on paper, harder in practice. Whilst I learned quickly that beautiful European and South American women (yumm!) go crazy for Armin van Buuren for some reason, I'll take this dude over most trance any day of the week, so I'm glad I found it as a youngin'.

And speaking of Tangerine Dream...

Tangerine Dream
Phaedra (1974)

My first "go to sleep to" electronic ambient album. Once upon a time, even mainstream establishments like Barnes & Noble used to have Tangerine Dream albums in stock. I had seen their stamp on all kinds of soundtracks plus their name sounded cool, so I bought Phaedra on a whim and quickly realized why they've persisted for DECADES and remain one of the most influential groups of all time. If sound were able to exist in the great ethereal ether...well, it would probably be quite Phaedric indeed. There's no rhyme or reason to the album, but neither Pink Floyd nor Hawkwind got quite as close to the heart of the chaotic cosmos as these fellas did, and I'm all the better for it.

Anteater · 04-11-2014, 09:29 PM

Part 5 (End): Jazz

The thing about jazz that's always interested me since I was a kid is it's capacity for endless permutation: it could literally fit itself into any context and compel you to listen no matter what you normally dig. Are you into punk or hard rock or metal? There are plenty of bands and artists who bring jazz into the mix. Like electronic, folk, even dance pop? Jazz has inserted itself into all of those worlds as well. It's not just the instrumentation that's distinctive: anything remotely improvisational or constructed outside of the typical "pop" formula has a touch of the jazz spirit somewhere in its DNA. And yes, this includes a lot of the contemporary smoother stuff I was reviewing over in my other journal for awhile.

So for this last look at my coming of age genre introductions, here's a couple of key songs and how they shaped me.

Herbie Hancock
Maiden Voyage (1965)

The best musical equivalent to a morning cup of coffee in our multiverse by a country mile, and the song that got me into jazz. Funny how stumbling on the "wrong" radio station as a 15 year old test driving your dad's old car can open your soul up to a brand new musical course you'd never have appreciated otherwise, but this song really is perfect for getting anyone into jazz: it's not too crazy, its laidback like a bawss and has a beautiful melody underpinning it to boot. The album this came from became the soundtrack to my morning drives to high school for a long time after this.

Sun Ra
Space Is The Place [the album] (1973)

Back in the early 2000's, ITunes would recommend you all kinds of crazy stuff based on whatever albums or songs you had bought in the past before they and other services ended up perfecting whatever algorithms they use. Sun Ra popped up one day while looking through a few Hancock and Bill Evans albums, and you can imagine how much of an ear opener Space Is The Place was for me if you have any idea how bizarre Sun Ra is. Kind of like getting tossed into a cold lake after a hot shower actually, but any album that can convert a complete ignoramus into a free jazz lover is something special.

Pat Metheny Group
Proof (2002)

Funnily enough, my first exposure to Pat Metheny was through a random episode of Two And A Half Men, where show creator Chuck Lorre mentioned that seeing Metheny perform on guitar back when he was younger convinced him to quit being a guitarist and go into television because he'd never measure up. 'Proof' turned up during a random search, and it led me to re-evaluate (at the time) my attitude that "smooth jazz" couldn't be challenging or stimulating. Guy's a friggin' genius, and this song is a perfect example of why.

Jun Senoue
Fly In The Freedom [from the Sonic Adventure 2 OST] (2001)

When your a kid, video game soundtracks can be excellent entry points to music you'd never normally find on your own. Some people get into jazzier soul/pop and its ilk through exposure to Motown, Stax..or, I dunno, Sinatra maybe. Me? It was the port of Sonic Adventure 2 to the then brand-new Gamecube system from Nintendo. The game was pretty decent, but it was the eclectic soundtrack that really opened my ears and whet my palette. This song also arguably made me aware of bossa nova as well. Hell, I actually owe more to Sonic the Hedgehog than I thought. Screw you SEGA!

Anteater · 04-17-2014, 09:43 PM

While not directly related to my childhood musings, I thought I'd hand the spotlight over to a long forgotten PC gaming masterpiece I used to obsess over in a more primordial era...an obscure yet amazing outing from Shiny Entertainment known as Sacrifice. It's a completely unique title even fourteen years after its release, and in all honesty I keep hoping one of these days some studio will revisit this game's universe and expand upon it, but I think I'd have a better chance at winning the lottery at this point.

Everything about this game is unusual: the development team behind it was only a couple of guys and it featured some absolutely stellar voice work from giants like Tim Curry and Tony Jay...but perhaps most importantly, although the game is Real Time Strategy, the whole thing is played from a tight 3rd person perspective at ground level. For a better idea at how this works gameplay wise, here's a blurry teaser:

Despite being as old as it is, there's a deftly told and excellently paced story to aid the immersion experience that holds up well today. You play as Eldred, a dimension hopping wizard who ends up in a strange world ruled by five gods of various element and alignment. Each god implores you to do work for them rather than the others, and which god you decide to serve (or if you decide to jump between different gods) determines the course of the main single player campaign. This gives the game a lot of re-playability since there's at least eight different endings depending on your choices.

Each "mission" a god sends you on is different (and the objectives for each level will vary as well), but you are always initially transported down into a battlefield. You are given an Altar which is like your base, and you can cast spells and summon various creatures to build an army. Your enemies are often wizards like yourself who also summon creatures, cast spells and serve other gods. Your two main "resources" (because what RTS game would be complete without 'em, lol!) are mana and souls respectively. You can't summon creatures without souls, and you can't cast spells without mana.

It should be noted that the game does a helluva job at making it a real challenge to win and complete your various missions while still defending your Altar from desecration by enemy wizards. Resources, as you might guess, are going to be scarce at times, especially the further into the game you go. But hey, that's just part of why Sacrifice is such a blast.

I'm not going to spoil anything else here, but for anyone looking for a real gem from the past to throw yourself into on today's hardware, pick up this Hieronymus Bosch-inspired nightmare of a PC delight and enjoy an experience unlike anything else before or since. Toodles!

Anteater · 04-23-2014, 12:05 AM

How is it that one of the best glam metal albums of all time (if not the best ever?) has yet to get a review 'round these parts? A crying shame I say, but all the more reason to give it a proper spotlight here.

The story of sleazemeisters Heavy Bones is an interesting one, if not all that surprising: Warner Bros wanted to form a "supergroup" around guitar prodigy Gary Hoey (a studio favorite of some random guy named Ozzy Osbourne. Maybe you've heard of him, lol) and ended up surrounding him with a surprising cast of faces, including W.A.S.P and Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and an obscure but extremely talented singer named Joel Ellis, who kind of sounds like Axl Rose but with a lot more range and versatility. Dude had one helluva snarl to go with his unconventionally diverse range, but that's just more to the listener's benefit.

Still, 1992 was far too late in the game for a major play at the radio. No matter how great the songs might be, something this consummately 80's was bound to hit a wall in light of all the "hair" metal backlash. After lead single (and what an awesome single it was I might add) '4:AM T.M.' flopped commercially despite a brief rotation on the Headbanger's Ball, Warner dropped Heavy Bones like a sack of manure and everyone involved went their separate ways. The hard truth that stellar music doesn't always lead to success is a difficult pill to swallow, but take these guys as a prime real world example even before the advent of the digital age in the grunge era.

These facts aside, this is splendid music by any measure, a cool 40+ minutes of explosive fun with a tantalizing hint of "something more" that distinguishes this production's methodology from others in the same territory. Listen to the opening Crue-esqe 'Hand That Feeds', that breakdown in the second half of the previously mentioned 4:AM T.M. or the off-the-wall slammin' on 'Where The Livin' Is Easy'....this is an album that knows exactly what it wants to do and manages to outclass most of its more commercially successful brethren with frightening ease.

The real kicker is just how much diversity is packed in here amidst the obvious headbangers though, with the obvious elephant-in-the-room being the epic Led Zeppelin/Aerosmith throwback 'Where Eagles Fly'. For those of you familiar with the big epic sound of John Sykes' Blue Murder album from 1990 or his work with Whitesnake, this song is throttling around in that arena. Songs starts off in an acoustic frame of mind before erupting like a volcano about midway through into something compellingly fierce and awe inspiring. Probably Ellis's best performance on the whole recording too, and that's quite a feat considering how on dead-on he is on all the other songs too. Dude's a freak in the best way a frontman can be.

From my perspective, heavy metal is general is more interesting when the songs display a spark of dynamism that doesn't get them all caught in the same time signature or a uniform pacing that dominates the entire running time. We can pick and choose our favorite numbers for our streaming playlists, personal collections, IPod playlists, etc...but the album experience when it comes to metal almost always benefits when there's the perfect blend of consistency, energy and variety, with all the peaks and valleys that come with it. Heavy Bones not only has a lot of great songs, but as an album it flows better and hits harder than most could hope to, and even when they slow down they're still top notch.

If you enjoy heavy metal with some sleaze, some polish and a whole lot of personality...well, that's between you and the Gods Of Metal. I say just get it and enjoy.

Anteater · 05-04-2014, 12:05 AM

Anyone even vaguely familiar with 70's jazz-fusion is probably familiar with guitarist John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Along with Miles Davis and groups like Return To Forever, these were the guys who first fused hard rock and jazz together into something extraordinary to behear.

As far as that level of regard goes though, people tend to overlook 1974's Apocalypse, the album I'm reviewing here. Its not their fault really: most who jump into this group regardless of how much or little they know tend to go straight for the obvious milestones like 1971's The Inner Mounting Flame or 1973's equally lauded Birds Of Fire. And there's nothing wrong with that. Both of them are very important albums, and they did come before this one.

Still, neither of those records quite measure up to Apocalypse in all its majestic classical music-meets-hard fusion glory. Firstly, its easily the most progressive Third Stream album of all time, with Michael Tilson Thomas of the London Symphony Orchestra conducting. Furthermore, Jean-Luc Ponty has joined on violin, Narada Michael Walden has edged out Billy Cobham at the kit and you have George Martin (yes, the 5th Beatle) producing. That's a lot of crazy talent all in one place...and the results were, of course, momentous as fuck.

Ephemeral doesn't even begin to describe the music here. The expected instrumental dueling, where John and his cosmic axe of jazz-rawk reckoning collides with Ponty's manic violins and the rest is juxtaposed against these titanic, romantic orchestral sweeps that take your breath away. It's one of the best uses of contrast I've had the pleasure of hearing in recorded form, a thing particularly evident on the 18-minute 'Hymn To Him', the highlight of the set and the tune that edges this entire record over anything Mahavishnu Mach I put out. If this doesn't give you a spiritual experience, then you have no soul I'm afraid.

There's plenty of other cool things beyond that tour-de-force though. Check out 'Wings Of Karma', which starts of like some sort of Stravinsky piece before it pulls a bait-and-switch on your ears and turns into a full on jazz-rock extravaganza. Or that nebulous minute and a half or so where the serene opener 'Power Of Love' shifts sinisterly into the eruptive 'Vision Is A Naked Sword'. It's like that first time you watched Disney's 'Night On Bald Mountain' segment on Fantasia, only without the demonic imagery and with lots more guitar jammage.

No words can do justice to an album like this one. Even ol' George here considers it one of the best albums he ever worked on outside of tenure with the Fab Four, and there hasn't been another album, jazz-fusion or otherwise, that quite sounds like it either.

Jazz-fusion and classical music was not that common a hybrid even at the 70's most creative junctures, which is partly why its taken decades for this album to sink in to the lucky minority that managed to get exposed to it while it was relatively available. Weirdly enough, the truth is that its only now in the digital age that people can genuinely look back on Apocalypse for the incredible album that it was, because it is only within the last few years that we're lucky enough to have an opportunity to experience these songs on their own merits without availability limitations or being clouded by unnecessary bias of what jazz can or cannot be.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go reblow my mind by sitting through this again. Cheers!

Anteater · 05-10-2014, 10:38 PM

So lets start off by stating the obvious: yes, 1990's No Prayer For The Dying wasn't within spitting distance of Seventh Son.. quality-wise, and the relatively lukewarm reception this album received from the hardcore Maiden fans upon release wasn't completely undeserved either. Whilst the musical landscape was beginning to change as the rumblings of "alternative" and "grunge" music echoed in the distance, the synth-laden approach Maiden had adopted on their two previous outings was still in vogue for most of the fans. Nobody went up to Dickinson, Harris or Smith and asked them to "strip down" their sound, but strip it down they did after their massive world tour wrapped up in '89. It didn't help that Adrian Smith decided to vacate about halfway into pre-production either, forcing Dickinson to recruit his buddy Janick Gers on axework to pick up the slack. No wonder people were pissed: the album hadn't even been recorded and many people had already convinced themselves it wasn't going to be any good! And as the saying goes...most prophecies are self-fulfilling ones for those that have already made up their minds beforehand.

In retrospect though, the truth is that No Prayer For The Dying is far from a bad album. It is definitely weaker than anything they band had done from '81 onwards up until that point...but this is Iron Maiden we are talking about. Even a 'by the numbers' release from them is going to be better than what others of their ilk might have cooked up as long as their classic lineup was mostly intact...and intact it was in 1990.

So instead of writing up a long review of why you should give this underrated record another shot if you had dismissed it previously based on a collective rep, I'll sum it up in five quick points-

1. It's an interesting album sonically. Bruce Dickinson not only snarls and curses a fair amount throughout (which is unusual for a Maiden album), but it seems like he and the band actually developed a sense of humor as well. ('Public Enema Number One', 'Bring Your Daughter...To The Slaughter', etc. etc.)

2. 'The Assassin', 'Run Silent Run Deep', 'Fates Warning' and 'Hooks In You' are all here, and those songs are prime goodies that would have fit well on any of the past classics.

3. It's one of the shortest albums in the IM's discography, with no cuts running longer than 5 minutes, which actually makes the experience fairly breezy regardless of how much you enjoy (or despise) the music contained therein.

4. Great album cover, and the last one where we'd see "classic" Eddie for awhile.

5. It's better than 'Fear Of The Dark' or anything recorded with Blaze Bayley...a LOT better! *shudder*

So that's my take folks. Anyone got a second opinion?

03-12-2014, 09:32 PM	#42 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,994	Oh I'd agree with you there. "The wild places" was the last album I truly enjoyed by him, but really up to then, with the exception of the abysmal "Captured angel" he never put a foot wrong. It would probably be surprising to people who don't know him that they know at least one of his songs. Also, what did you think of Alan Parsons' "The time machine"? I was hugely disappointed in it, and haven't yet listened to "A valid path", sort of dreading it might be as bad really... __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018