Wpnfire

Taking a break from my metal expedition for a bit and doing something different.




Unpopular opinion: either 2010 did not have many good albums, or the people who voted for The Suburbs as album of the year were all high, but this is pretty far from a perfect album. It has way too much filler, and the pacing/track order is just terrible. The first four tracks, "The Suburbs," "Ready To Start," "Modern Man," and "Rococo," are all superb, but after that, none of the songs even come close to matching any of those. The songs after those just really get all mellow and I cannot stand most of them. It is just a very oddly sorted album and the track order needed a serious revamp before the album was made in my opinion. "The Suburbs" is probably the high point of this album for me, along with "Modern Man." The closing track is also fantastic.
Overall, not really impressed with this album. A measly 2/5 from me.

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I keep putting this review off because I want it to be highly detailed, specific, and well thought out. The thing is, I am not really quite like that—but I do like writing, so write I shall. A lot.

First, momentary flashbacks to RTL start as "Battery” opens with an acoustic guitar intro. It sounds vastly superior to the acoustic intro from “Fight Fire With Fire,” and while I have never cared how a band progresses from their previous album, I must say, I am impressed already. I still do not understand why Metallica can not just start the album with a bang instead of…an acoustic intro. Regardless, “Battery” is one hellofa an opening track. Easily the best thrash song Metallica has made so far. The riffs, drumming, bass, speed, beat, tempo, lyrics, vocals, it is all there, in perfect clarity. This song alone toasts most tracks from RTL.

Next, the title track. Remember when I said that Ride the Lightning has the best riffs of any album? Well, "Master of Puppets” easily has the best riffs of any song I have heard. It is not just one riff either, there are multiple riffs and a variation. The thing with the riffs is while they are certainly monstrous on their own, they never disappear from the song, that is, they are played constantly; and are precisely the kind of riffs I want to hear in a song. The extended introductory section of this song could very easily be my favorite moment in all of heavy metal, possibly even in all of rock music. When Hetfield comes in with the vocals, he is clear, he is loud, and best of all, shouts instead of sings. His entry into the song is virtually without flaw, coming in right as the song really “starts” with the 2nd riff variation. While I do not care about the lyrics, the ones in this song are simple, easy to understand, and most importantly, they are singable. How many times have you seen or heard “Master of puppets I’m pulling your strings!” referenced on the internet?

Again, same as with Ride the Lightning, I have not a word, let alone a full sentence to describe the guitar playing in this song. Around the four minute mark is the classic breakdown section that breaks up the monotony of the track. Like the rest of this song, I could not bash any part of this song even if I wanted to, but I think the weakest link in this song is perhaps this long instrumental section. Even then, it is really not that weak. Then the song speeds up again with a short bridge, followed by a fiery solo from Hammett. Hetfield kicks the riffing into high gear adding some freestyle-ish riffing before we get the last verse. This song could have ended any number of minutes ago, and it still probably would be one of my favorite songs, but the fact that it keeps going without getting monotonous is very impressive. Hetfield picks up right where he left off with the vocals, and the rest of the instrumentation follows suit–it is as if that instrumental section never happened.

I have played “Master of Puppets” wow, precisely 200 times according to my Last.FM profile.

...so that should tell you all you need to know about what this song means to me. Easily one of the most well written, arranged, and well produced songs, probably the most of what I have heard so far in my metal journey.


Alright, enough about that track. “The Thing That Should Not Be” is next, a much derided track from this album that starts with a very unique, watery-sounding guitar riff with Ulrich lightly tapping his cymbals to provide a de facto beat. Easily the best of the short intros in Metallica’s discography certainly. It really does a fine job setting the atmosphere for the song. The riff progresses then finally explodes into a chugging, heavy riff. When Hetfield comes in with the vocals, he is surprisingly (and oddly) unintelligible. Then the first of the song's many crescendos plays as James finishes the first line of the verse. This track gets a lot of flak for simply repeating the same parts over and over, but I thoroughly enjoy every second of it. The solo is crazy and the song is brutally heavy, and doom-y--slow. Just all around a great song. “The Thing That Should Not Be” is one of the first Metallica songs I heard and liked.

Now, the album takes a dip in quality for a bit. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” is a tad on the slow side, but ramps up, albeit slowly, to a great riff and a space-y guitar solo. I like that part of the song, but I cannot stand the watery-guitar riff. It is nowhere near the heaviness of the similar-sounding riff from the previous track, and just plods along. The song ramps up again to the same riff, then goes off-tracks for a bit and I just am NOT a fan of that part. I do not like sporadic playing that goes nowhere, and that is exactly what this song is: it goes nowhere. Not the most well-written song, but it does manage to kick some ass with the riffing and solos, just with a lot of random crap thrown in that tests my patience.

The dip in quality is short-lived though as Metallica does a full 180 spin and goes from walking, to flat-out sprinting on “Disposable Heroes.” Surely this has to be one of the heaviest, yet fastest riffs in all of thrash metal. Wow! “Disposable” is also singable, air-guitar-able, and brilliantly written. Just fantastic.

"Leper Messiah” has (surprised?) another great, heavy riff. It is impressive to make a song played at half the tempo of “Disposable Heroes,” but not sacrifice any of the heaviness.

The instrumental “Orion” opens with an over thirty second long fade-in to a few sustained guitar chords after which Ulrich brings in the beat and the song begins. A downpicking barrage plays for a bit before Hammett takes the reigns and plays, perhaps, one of the first solos I like in Metallica’s discography. It is not anything fancy, but it sounds very cool! A very hard, mean riff variation plays before Hetfield takes us out of this part of the song and into some fantastic bass work by Cliff, and then a very long bridge begins. God, I cannot stand this bridge. This is one of my favorite Metallica songs for sure, but this bridge bores me to tears. After the bridge ends, Hammett takes us home with one of my favorite solos of all-time, and the riffs fade-out, played at their meanest yet.

"Orion" is the first Metallica song I ever heard. I remember sitting on my roommate’s couch in our dorm room, almost exactly one year ago, and I was listening to “South of Heaven” by Slayer, and I just got this urge to look up Metallica. I went straight to Master of Puppets as that is their most well known album by far, and I read a short review for it. The review mentioned something about an instrumental track called “Orion,” and I downloaded the track immediately. I have always loved instrumental tracks, and “Orion” did not disappoint. I hated the solos and the bridge section, but I just loved those "heavy guitars" as I called them when I first listened to it, so I just played the first part of this song over and over and over. Months later I finally bought this actual album, but “Orion” was how my Metallica journey began.

Anywho, “Damage, Inc.” (or is it “Damage Inc.”?) is the final track and is very similar to the opening track “Battery,” only with far better, heavier, and faster riffing good Lord! This could very easily be the heaviest song from this album as Hetfield is practically spitting these lyrics and the guitars are very scratchy and harsh sounding. Have I mentioned the riffs?? They just destroy; all of them. Destroy. DESTROY. The riffs that play after the solo, (or time index 4:39) is one of my favorite Metallica moments.

And it is over? Not fair! I really go back and forth on my opinions on Metallica's best album (really it is just either this, or Kill Em), and while Master does have a few weaker tracks, I sill find "The Thing" or the title track far superior to any track from Kill Em. It took a while for me to full appreciate this album when I first heard it a year ago in late January. I noticed after a while that I kept playing "Master of Puppets" and very quickly that started to grow on me, then I played some of the other tracks and those grew on me too. Once I began to hold this album in high regard I found myself comparing other metal albums to it. I still do actually. The guitar tone especially I compare other metal albums to.

Alright, those are my thoughts on Metallica. One way or another I have reviewed all the Metallica albums worth listening to (I am NOT doing the black album, so forget it!).

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Technically, Haunting the Chapel and Show No Mercy are the first Slayer releases I listened to, but both are nowhere near as significant as Reign to me.

So much has already been said about this album, but I wanted to take a moment to discuss a few of my favorites. Once “Angel of Death” begins, Slayer crushes, no, eviscerates, most thrash bands’ contribution to the genre with a few seconds of rapid-fire guitars, and a piercing scream from Tom Araya. The guitars alone are enough to take the virginity from most listeners, but the scream from Araya seals the deal. Truly, I could talk all day about the guitar tone, but just listen to D.R.I. (a crossover thrash band from three years prior)















and then listen to "Angel of Death."




The guitars are heavier, and the instrumentation is far more technical, by like several orders of magnitude. Truly, this is where Slayer left punk rock in the dust, and journeyed to the depths of thrash metal, paving the way for extreme metal.

"Angel of Death" also shows off the exquisite production. Dave Lombardo is crystal clear, and the vibrato-filled solos from King and Hanneman are what evil sounds like. The first minute is heavy, but when the song slows down and the guitars brings just a tinge of melody, the gang sends the song into another level of heaviness, spearheaded by Araya as he shouts out a list of atrocities. Powerful, but incredibly hypnotic. Pure ****ing genius.

The assault does not end there, for "Piece by Piece," fueled by a few motoring riffs, continues Slayer's journey into gore and chaos. As far as the instrumentation, the song is simplistic in nature, notably lacking guitar solos, and the riffs are almost an afterthought next to Araya's singing.
Skipping ahead a bit, "Jesus Saves" begins with a technically progressive intro that lasts for close to a minute. Next to "Angel of Death," this is my favorite track from this album, and contains one of my favorite moments in thrash when Araya shouts, "You will be an accessory irreverence and blashpemy!!" followed by a guitar solo from King; then Araya continues with "Jesus Saves No need to pray the gates of pearl have turned to gold it seems you've lost your way!!" followed by a solo from Hanneman. Again, it's brilliant.

And that's all I want to talk about...for now. Reign in Blood took a while for me to get into, and I could barely tell any of the tracks apart when I first listened to it. A few months ago, around mid-July, is when I really started to respect the album. Since then, it's totally eclipsed Show No Mercy as my favorite Slayer album and is now one of my favorite albums. I may come back and give it a full review like it deserves, but for now, these are my thoughts with it.





And that's the last album I wanted to review for my metal expedition. I may sometime down the road review Deathcrush, but I want to mull that album over some more, as well as the rest of Bathory's first five albums.

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The Batlord

Cause if there's one album that needs to be contemplated over many listens, it's Deathcrush.

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Just downloaded a ton of albums that people say have some of the best riffs in existence, so I thought I'd do some mini reviews here of the albums I downloaded. This is the first one.

Demigod - Slumber of Sullen Eyes

Yes, the riffs are good. Man, this is a walk in the park compared to Suffocation. Meh, the riffs are average. Yea, I don't really care for this. The riffs sound good, but I'd prefer them to be played slower.

Riff-o-meter: Too fast. Death speed weak.

Devestation - Idolatry

! Alright, now it sounds like I'm playing Dark Forces or, hell, this sounds like DOOM with these echoey atmospheric piano and ****. Ahh...this is much better. These vocals.. I don't think I've ever heard a thrash singer shout like this. He sounds damn good. A solo? This early?
Oh no. Looking ahead, I see that these songs are all over 5 minutes. Ugh, I hate that. Yeah this is better than the last album, but I'm still not getting much from this.

Riff-o-meter: Still too fast. Weak.

Sleep - Dopesmoker

We appear to be improving as we go along. Man, I NEED to check out more modern doom metal. I've heard enough. 4 minutes in, and I have not lost interest in any way. This is without a doubt the best I've heard so far in this list. Death and speed metal albums may have some good riffs, but they just pale in comparison to slower stuff. I should do a proper album review for this later.

Riff-o-meter: Spectacular.

Sleep - Holy Mountain

Oh, well what a pleasant surprise, we are right back to Sleep again. Yeah, this is incredibly addicting. These vocals are so good, they are giving EW a run for their money. This first song is called "Dragonaut." Man, that's pretty fing cool. These solos are quite sickly as well.

Riff-o-meter: Approaching excellence.

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It took some time, but I somehow like "Black Sabbath" considerably more now. I have no idea why, but I appear to be immune to Ozzy now. Tons of things to talk about with this. The atmosphere is great, with the minimalist beat, and Iommi is all over the place: riffs, power chords… The whole song is undeniably heavy as well. I do not actually like when it speeds up towards the end, and it...kind of ruins the first part. The second part could have been a different song, but either way, I like this song much more than the first few times I listened to it.

"The Wizard" opens with a mighty swing as Iommi cranks out pure magic (pun unintended) from his guitar. To be fair, I still hate Ozzy's voice, but one, he's not wailing, and two, there's Iommi playing that fantastic riff. The difference in how much I like this song compared to the prior track I CANNOT overstate: this is so SOOO much better. It's hard to come up with legitimate complaints for this song, and it might actually be my favorite Sabbath song.

And we've descended back into boring territory once more with "Behind The Wall of Sleep." Not even Iommi can save this, and he does try I'll give him that. The song is just too slow. I don't like how Osbourne's voice alternates between left and right. The album wallows in mediocrity until "Sleeping Village," which is an instrumental, and a good one too. "The Warning" continues immediately following "Sleeping Village" and thought it is a bit long at over ten minutes, the bassline is solid, and it reamins interesting for most of its duration.

"Wicked World" brings the album to a close on a positive note. Ozzy's vocals are very lo-fi and surf rock-y, and Iommi's riffing is on par with "The Wizard," and just as addicting. As if he is unsatisfied with his somewhat restrained playing on previous tracks, Iommi goes all out on this song. The bassline is mighty fine as well. To close, the second half of this album is a far cry from the disappointment a lot of people label it as.

4/5 for Sabbath's debut.

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Isbjørn

Screw your opinion. "Black Sabbath" is the greatest metal opening track ever.

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Possible truth. That riff is the sound of menace of evil. It's slowness allows moments of silence that your imagination fills in with dread.

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This album...




It is like it was made for me to listen to...




It's progressive, it's epic, it's all riffs... I mean this is just ridiculous.

5/5
That's all that needs to be said.

Yet, I feel compelled to explain what this album is to me, and I will try to be objective. First of all, yes, it is the same thing, over and over and over at times for minutes without any changes, so if you are not someone that likes that... well, I really do not know why you are listening to a doom/stoner album in the first place if you do not like that.

It starts with a very, very, elementary doom riff that plays for a few minutes, then the song winds down for a few minutes, and the minimalist beat disappears entirely, then the tune ramps up and the riff returns, only its...different. The difference is barely noticeable-part of the reason the song never gets tiring-but there is a small section added to the riff. It is as if during the breakdown section, the riff journeyed off into the beyond, and came back more...mature, seasoned.

Eventually, a booming voice shatters the stagnation ("stagnation" in word only). The voice is monotone, never changing in pitch or tone as it bellows a tale that can only be heard if you play the entire song--I mean album. I find myself always caught off guard by the vocals, as the rest of the instrumentation is incredibly addicting and pulls you in. On multiple listens, it always seems like the vocals are in a different place...

This pattern continues for most of the song, but it somehow never even approaches boring or redundant. Hypnotic comes to mind. Occasionally, the pattern breaks and the song diverges into...gosh this song, er..album is so long, it is hard to recall everything about it. Anyway, there are a few solos, of which I believe there are three spaced throughout, and they also seem at first to be randomly placed though they are usually interspersed similarly to the vocals to break up the song.

The last thing I want to talk about with this, this is stoner doom, but it is almost...uplifting in a way. About a third of the way through the song, the riff really starts to sound good, and all I can think of is heading off on a grand journey through the desert. I have to say, the whole thing is inspiring.

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Drummer Charlie Benante SLAYS, the riffs KILL, and singer (really, singer applies to this man) Joey Belladonna pierces through the carnage of both while also maintaing a surprising amount of melody.

From the riffs to the lyrics, all the songs are insanely catchy, and the high-energy backing vocals provided by Scott Ian [rhythm] and Frank Bello [bass] complement the buzz saw riffs while contrasting sharply with the melodic tendencies of Belladonna. This is no better illustrated than on "Caught in a Mosh," when Belladonna sings:



Followed immediately by the Ian and Bello shouting


... as the riffs play behind them.

With regards to the riffs, they vary between a Venom album played at 2x speed, to straight up, downpicked, downtuned, extreme metal riffs at other times. "One World"'s riffs give King and Hanneman a run for their money. My favorite parts on the album are the rare points when Benante comes in with the double bass while the riffs play--forming a totally overwhelming wall of sound ("Among the Living").

I can see the album appealing to a wide variety of thrash listeners, as the band brings the melody, and the heavy, in mostly equally measures on most songs. The songwriting in general is fantastic, slowing down at times, and opening up full up for thrash speed at other times. There's not many guitar solos--this is a Belladonna show through and through. There is one exception, which is the medley "A.D.I./Horror of it All" with an extensive section of instrumental thrash goodness playing for the first part.

Not many complaints with this, though, the mixing could use some work, as the bass needs to be much louder on a few tracks. It's very noticeable when you go from listening to "Caught in a Most" to "Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)" or "Skeletons in the Closet" with the latter two sounding comparatively hollow. Also, as much as I like how sings Joey over how he sung on the last album, he could tone down the operatic voice a little bit on some tracks.



Favorite Tracks:

• “A.D.I.”
• "Caught in a Mosh"
• "Imitation of Life" <<<< stone-cold thrash classic.

Overall: 5/5

Final Thoughts: The middle part of the CD is a tad weak, but that's not saying much, because there's not a single bad or skippable song on this album. Among the Living is far, far, superior to Spreading the Disease and Fistful of Metal. One the top thrash albums in existence for sure.

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