Saturday, April 30, 2011
It's incredible to think it's already been seven years since the Pixies' reunion tour, when they played their fourth show back together here in Saskatoon. Back then the vibe was very jubilant; the venue expanded to accommodate tousands, and so many people from all over North America converged here to witness history. The stage was tiny compared to the vastness of the warehouse-like venue and the sound wasn't big enough for the building either, but it was an unforgettable show (yielding a fantastic live CD), featuring too many classic songs to count and warmly received by everyone there, including yours truly.
Today the Pixies reunion is old news, and they've been accused of milking it a bit too much with the recent Doolittle retrospective tour as opposed to, say, putting out a new album, but personally, I don't mind the Pixiesand their cabaret act. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia...something I came to learn some 20-odd years after the Baby Boomers went through the same thing in the 1980s. And besides, if they're as into it now as they were in 2004, then why not enjoy it like they are?
It was a far different setting this time around, as they played to a sold-out crowd at the cozy TCU PLace, a 2000 seat theatre...which, interestingly, is where I saw my second ever rock/metal show in 1985 (Helix and Headpins!). The environment is a lot more sterile, but the sound in the place is always phenomenal. With the seats and general affability of the crowd (no obnoxiousness whatsoever), it made for a nice laid-back vibe. Winnipeg's Imaginary Cities opened, and I confess I didn't know much about them. Being a member of the Polaris Prize jury I'm privy to practically every eligible Canadian album (seriously, it's impossible to listen to everything), and I was quite charmed by its modern take on classic pop and soul. It goes a little dad rock at times, to the point where you expect to hear Nick Hornby and Jonathan Franzen to start gushing and name-dropping, but for middle of the road indie rock, it's very likeable. And indeed the band was tremendous, Marti Sarbit singing away in a strangely appealing nasal voice, the quintet playing nine songs off the album Temporary Resident, as well as a cover of Cake's "Mexico". Very nice stuff. And you know who would be a great producer for this band? Richard Hawley (they should go more classic soul like A Girl Called Eddy). Or even Scott Walker.
Interesting thing about yours truly and the Pixies' Doolittle, I never got into it fully until the mid-90s. The first time I'd heard of the Pixies was in 1988 when a music merch catalogue I sent for had loads of Pixies shirts for some reason. The first time I actually heard the Pixies was actually in the movie pump Up the Volume in 1990 (I remember the scene) and afterward when I bought the soundtrack. And I actually got into Trompe le Monde first a couple years later, then wound up backtracking a year or two after that. Weird, I know. My timing was strange, but I grew to love the Pixies as much as anyone, and Doolittle is indeed their masterpiece.
After a changeover featuring obnoxiously loud music pumped through the PA (seriously, give the audience's ears a chance to rest!) the screen at the rear of the stage showed a five-minute montage of clips from Un Chien Andalou, which, if you're a Pixies fan, you know has a strong connection to a certain song on Doolittle. As soon as it ended the foursome strode onstage and started to unassumingly plow though a series of Doolittle b-sides, the best of which (and the one I've known the longest) being "Manta Ray". After that song ended, the big snazzy screen introduced Doolittle, and the famous bassline intro of "Debaser" kicked in. Being such a kooky little album that packs a lot of variety into its 39 minutes, it made for a fun ride hearing the songs in sequence. The screen also provided tremendous visuals, so much so it resembled a Tool show at times, albeit with a lot more whimsy. It was really cool to hear deep cuts like "There Goes My Gun", "Tame", "Dead", and "Mr. Grieves", and "La La Love You" was goofy fun, but for me, my favourites remain "No. 13 Baby" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven", the latter of which probably my all-time fave Pixies song, still capable of giving me goosebumps. Typically, the band was pretty much all business, but cheerful bassist Kim Deal kept things loose enough. Frank Black was in fine vocal form as always, and despite reports that he never interacts with the rest of the band, that couldn't be further from the truth as he was often dryly joking around. Very dryly, mind you, but he was very gracious to the cheering crowd. After a bit of a break they returned to play a couple more b-sides, while the second encore was a real blast, the band pulling out some favourites, including "U-Mass", "Nimrod's Son", and the requisite closing one-two punch of "Where is My Mind?" and "Gigantic". The band was very tight, the show was flawless, the visuals great (the bobbing heads on "Here Comes Your Man" was cute), the sound terrific. After a six month dry spell, it was great to head out and see a concert as fun as this one was. If they come around one more time churning out the hits yet again, you can bet I'll be there. Here's the setlist:
Dance the Manta Ray
Weird at School
Bailey's Walk
Manta Ray
Debaser
Tame
Wave of Mutilation
I Bleed
Here Comes Your Man
Dead
Monkey Gone to Heaven
Mr. Grieves
Crackity Jones
La La Love You
No. 13 Baby
There Goes My Gun
Hey
Silver
Gouge Away
1st encore:
Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf)
Into the White
2nd encore:
U-Mass
Isla de Encanta
Nimrod's Son
Where is My Mind?
Gigantic
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Two years ago my friend and colleague Cosmo Lee had his apartment burglarized and lost his computers and hard drives, which contained all his digital music. At the time I read the account with horror, as would any music writer. After all, with fewer labels sending CDs than ever before and the increase of advance M3s and streams, we've been forced to make our computers pretty much our multimedia hubs when it comes to writing about new music. The thought of losing everything in an instant is terrifying, and that stroy was a reminder of how important it was to back up your MP3s, which I tend to do on a semiannual basis.
But I didn't back up my text often enough. And whaddya know, but Sunday night I found myself without everything I had written over the last few years. Just after I finished writing a Primordial review, I left the computer, Google Crome open to gmail, Explorer open to ilxor, and returned to find out that malware had suddenly wiped my computer clean. I tried doggedly for hours and hours with a tech dude to retrieve all the data, but all we could manage to do was simply restore Windows and start over from scratch. Needless to say I had a prety big nervous breakdown. My initial reaction was, that's it, I quit, but once I calmed down I slowly gained a little perspective. The good thing was that at least my PopMatters articles are all online, while print articles are still in my gmail account. And all my 2011 digital music is replaceable. But what stung was losing my interview transcriptions. Before moving to digital recordings last year I used a tape recorder for all interviews, but to save tape I basically re-used the same four tapes over and over. Not good. At least my white whale, my interviews with Iron Maiden, are still on my recorded and on my laptop, but you can bet I'll be copying those onto disc sooner than later.
At the very least, my computer isn't clogged with junk anymore and runs a lot faster. But I find myself without Word, Excel, CD and DVD burning software, and who knows what else. And writing on Microsoft Works is an awkward experience. It doesn't feel right. But at least everything works. Knock on wood.
While this isn't anywhere near the panic-inducing scenario as Cosmo's experience was, I certainly understand what he meant when he wrote about how losing everythnig can be somehow liberating. For me, there was no other option than to get right back on the horse, re-download the most important 2011 records I had before, and plow ahead with current projects. The first? Rewriting that darn Primordial review, which I did Monday, and which has been published today. Never mind the fact that I'm totally bugged how I couldn't quite match the original piece from memory (I was very happy with how the original turned out too), because the bottom line is Redemption at the Puritan's Hand might be my favourite metal album of 2011 so far. I've been big into the band since 2005 (yeah, late, I know), as their albums have steadily improved each time out and their live show is second to none. Structurally there's nothnig really different about the new record (over the last four albums they've found their niche and are plenty happy to stick to it), but it has been cleaned up sonically, the mix a lot more spacious and less dense, allowing singer Alan Averill to make himself heard better. His lyrics are typically thoughtful and eloquent, plus the songs are as bracing and powerful as ever. They can do no wrong in my books, but I've come to think that they've outdone themselves here. I also have an interview with Averill in the new issue of Terrorizer, which I'm really proud of, so be on the lookout for that. And if I can spare a few hours, maybe I'll transcribe the long overseas phonecalls once again!
Since my last post about my published writing, a fair bit has surfaced, they've been linked to on the right margin for quite a while, so I'll just stick to some current projects. Though you really should read my latest column, as I had a total blast revisiting Warlock's albums from the '80s. So here you go...
In the May issue of Decibel, the one with the amazing Pentagram cover story, I have a short piece on UK prog metal phenoms TesseracT. I've been big into them ever since hearing their EP last summer and had been pitching them a lot to my esteemed editors, and while I'd have preferred a longer article, I wouldn't say not o a 450 worder, so I did that. However, I did not expect my email interview with the band to turn out as great as it did, and not wanting it to go to waste, it's been published over at Hellbound. As I've mentioned before, their new album is excellent, and hopefully it's just the start of something special. Oh, and I was mightily ticked off that they didn't play in Saskatoon earlier this month when they were touring Canada with Protest the Hero. When Saskatoon starts losing shows to Yorkton, you know your local metal scene is dying.
At PopMatters, I have reviews of albums by Obscura (the best technical death metal album I have heard since Neuraxis's Trilateral Progression, Between the Buried and Me (a stopgap EP with one song that's a keeper), and the Haunted, who have come out with what will likely be the worst metal album of the year.
In the meantime, I'll be churning out the reviews at the usual crazy rate. On the imediate horizon: Pentagram (have to rewrite that sucker too, argh), Graveyard, Krallice, among many others. I actually have some very cool shows to see...finally! The Pixies on Friday, while shows by KEN Mode/Fuck the Facts and 3 Inches of Blood are next week. It'll be nice to get out for some live music again, and you can bet I'll have recaps of each show posted here promptly!
Monday, April 11, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 7
Last entry! This was a fun project, I never look back this thoroughly at how much and what music I listen to over the course of the week. No real surprises tough, my listening always ranges from "work" (metal) and "recreation" (anything but metal). Not that metal's not fun! But I always need variety, otherwise I'd lose my mind. Anyway, here's my Sunday's worth of tunes:
iPod on shuffle, played through big stereo. I had a free hour this afternoon, and I decided to forgo assigned music in favour of a little variety. This selection of songs is actually a good indication of what sort of music I listen to these days:
Halestorm, "I Get Off"
TesseracT, "Eden"
Can, "Dizzy Dizzy"
Those Dancing Days, "I'll Be Yours"
The Like, "I Can See it in Your Eyes"
Burzum, "Enhver Til Sitt"
Battles, "Inchworm"
Primordial, "God's Old Snake"
Nachtmystium, "Blood Trance Fusion"
Djerv, "Immortal"
Those Dancing Days, "I Know Where You live Pt. 2"
Michèle Torr, "Non, A Tous Les Garçons"
The Like, "Don't Make a Sound"/"Why When Love is Gone"
Zola Jesus, "I Can't Stand"
Pentagram, Last Rites, WinAmp. What an album this is! Everyone knows Bobby Liebling still has it, that charisma that's made Pentagram so great for nigh on 40 years, but whether he'd pull himself together long enough to make a new record work was anyone's guess. Thankfully his band (namely returning guitarist Victor Griffin) came up with great songs, and he stepped up with a powerhouse performance on their seventh album.
Between the Buried and Me, Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues, WinAmp. My fussing over this album continues.
HammerFall, Infected, WinAmp
HammerFall, various tracks, Spotify. Time to whip up a quick review of the new HammerFall record! The best thing about Spotify is that when reviewing albums you don't have to dig out the CDs or MP3s when you want to go back into the discography: all or most of it's Spotify. Very, very handy. Hopefully this comes to North America soon, because I'd pay for this service.
Amorphis, "You I Need", Facebook stream. The new single just debuted online. Not surprisingly, I like it (I'm a big fan of their last three albums). Time to call it a night!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 6
Bringers of Disease, Gospel of Pestilence, WinAmp. Continuing to prepare for next week's interview.
Between the Buried and Me, Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues, WinAmp. Continuing to figure out where I stand regarding the second and third tracks. The first tracks is a slam dunk, but the other two might bring this down from an 8 to a 7.
Battles, Gloss Drop. I'm not too sure what I think of Battles' long-awaited follow-up to the excellent Mirrored. It's good, but at times overplays the cartoony shtick.
Amon Amarth, Surtur Rising, CD, big stereo. I'd yet to break out the actual CD after three full months of listening to the album on MP3. My opinion hasn't wavered; an excellent album, perhaps not quite as good as Twilight of the Thunder God, but absolutely worth buying. I'll have to watch the bonus DVD someday too…
Chantal Goya, Masculin Féminin, WinAmp. I watched the Godard movie of the same name and found Chantal Goya's companion EP at What. Not the greatest singer, but typical of yé-yé girls, that was all part of the charm, and these six little songs are good fun. Plus "Si Tu Gagnes Au Flipper" is perfect for Godard, so many of his '60s films had pinball machines. The movie itself is fantastic, too, I had no idea I'd enjoy it as much as I did.
Vhäldemar, Metal of the World, WinAmp. This is some promising stuff. Very '80s proto-power metal with a Spanish-accented Udo Dirkschneider on vocals. Not too shabby.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 5
Between the Buried and Me, Parallax: The Hypersleep Dialogues, WinAmp. Preparing to review this album. Should be easy enough. "Specular Reflection" is the best BTBAM song since "Selkies". I returned to this album a couple more times throughout the day.
Jona Lewie, "You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties", YouTube. One of my favourite songs…I had to find a YouTube clip of a song that describes me, and I can think of no better choice than this.
Rusty Eye, Possessor, CD, shelf unit. What a peculiar band. Old school heavy metal, thrash, shock rock all merge, and not always very smoothly. This band seems to sound best when they're in full Goblin mode, as the trashier parts lack the power and immediacy the style relies so heavily on.
iPod on shuffle, car. Another quick, eight song round trip. iPod was in a Doro kind of mood. Warlock, "Speed of Sound"; Zola Jesus, "Sea Talk"; Warlock, "Earthshaker Rock"; Warlock, "Down and Out"; Cauldron, "Tears Have Come"; Amon Amarth, "Slaves of Fear"; Janelle Monae, "Come Alive".
Glasvegas, EUPHORIC ///HEARTBREAK\\\, Spotify. What a horrible title, I feel like an idiot writing it out. It's one of those typical second albums by a band that had a strong debut: it goes for broke, trying to make a Big Statement. Granted, Glasvegas has been trying to make Big Statements since the very start. But this one is less consistent than the first album, which I loved. Same bombastic production, same goofy lyrics, but the hooks aren't on the same level as something like "Geraldine". That said, "Shine Like Stars" is a great song.
Darkthrone, Panzerfaust, CD, shelf unit. It might not be universally regarded as a seminal record, but Darkthrone's fifth album is probably my favourite of theirs. Primarily because of Fenriz's shameless Celtic Frost worship, but partially because it was a total blind purchase years ago and I've just warmed up to it a lot over time. If you haven't heard his "commentary" on the 2010 reissue, I highly recommend it. The guy is always entertaining.
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 4
Deep Purple, Perfect Strangers, CD, car. Ever have one of those albums that stuck around and stuck around to the point where it wasn't until 20 years later that it had become one of your favourite albums of all time? That's the case with Perfect Strangers; I bought the cassette in 1984 based on the strength of the title track, and it never went away. I finally found it on CD about six years ago, and I still love to take it out every once in a while and blast it.
Kate Bush, The Kick Inside, LP, big stereo. Back in the '80s I used to find Kate Bush creepy and weird, especially her late-'70s stuff. But then I discovered how wonderful The Hounds of Love is, and then I became a huge fan of Goldfrapp, Bat For Lashes, etc., and now I'm delving back to stuff like "Wuthering Heights", and thoroughly loving it.
Coney Hatch, "Fantasy", YouTube. I got a copy of Coney Hatch's Friction today at the record sale, but as I was mentioning on Twitter how it still had its old A&A Records price tag on it, which brought back lots of memories, I had to add a link to the album's one single. And of course I had to listen to it. It's still a great little tune.
Septicflesh, The Great Mass, WinAmp. I don't know what reminded me to give this another listen, but I'm glad I did, I'd forgotten about it. It succeeds in every way that Dimmu Borgir's last album failed. First-rate symphonic metal.
3 Inches of Blood, "Lords of Change", Facebook stream. The Vancouver band just put out this new song this afternoon, and being a fan I naturally had to give it a couple listens. Not bad at all. I look forward to seeing them for a billionth time in May!
iPod on Shuffle, car. How fast do errands take here? Five songs' worth of driving, that's all this afternoon outing took! Austra – "Beat and the Pulse", PJ Harvey – "The Words That Maketh Murder", Can – "Animal Waves", Lush – "Nothing Natural", Ringo Deathstarr – "Kaleidoscope".
Rainbow, Rising (Deluxe Edition), WinAmp. A spectacular new reissue of one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. The six-song album is presented in three different mixes, along with one bonus rehearsal track. Some are groaning that there aren't any different bonus tracks, but with an album as timeless as this, I certainly don't mind hearing it three times in a row.
The Melvins, Sugar Daddy Live, CD, shelf unit. A lot of the live albums we get these days aren't very good at all, but this one is phenomenal. Seemingly recorded during the tour for 2008's Nude With Boots, it focuses heavily on that album and (A) Senile Animal, playing to the strengths of their new-ish two drummer set-up. Some old stuff tossed in for good measure, too.
Jacqueline Taïeb, The Complete Masterworks of the French Mademoiselle, WinAmp. I've only just gotten into 60s singer Jacqueline Taïeb's music, but it's terrific stuff. She was one of the best of the yé-yé girls, her music not only poppy, playful, and sassy (the clever, McCartney-obsessed "7 Heure de Matin"), but quite rich and varied. Classy, classic pop with actual depth.
Katatonia, Last Fair deal Gone Down, big stereo. Some beautiful, low-key metal to wind down to. An end to a very long day.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 3
This is shaping up to be a crummy week to do this project, as I've been really busy in the afternoons, but I still plug along as best as I can. Tomorrow won't get much better, as I'm up early to head to a huge annual charity book & record sale, always a highlight of my spring, then off again in the afternoon running errands. But I'll try to keep up! Here's what I was up to on Wednesday:
Twisted Sister, Love is For Suckers bonus tracks, CD, shelf unit. Hadn't heard them yet…they do nothing to convince me the reissue is worth anyone's money, save for completists.
Vendela, "Punk Rock Song", YouTube. Seriously, I love the pure innocent/calculated vapidity of this song.
Van Canto, "Kings of Metal", YouTube. I had to name a true guilty pleasure, and this immediately came to mind. And of course, I had to listen to it a few times. "Noomy noom noo noo, Manowaaaaar…"
Wolf, Legions of Bastards, WinAmp. I've been a big fan of Wolf for a long time now, seven or eight years, and they never disappoint. One of the best traditional heavy metal bands out there, and this new album is a good one. Interestingly enough, the cover art was done by Thomas Holm, who did the art for Mercyful Fate's landmark albums Melissa and Don't Break the Oath.
Kelly Clarkson, medley, Popdust. I love the new Popdust website. They have a terrific stable of pop writers, and Andrew Unterberger's piece on how great Kelly Clarkson's performance on Ellen today compelled me to pause all the Swedish metal and see what the fuss was about. And yeah, it was really good.
Portrait, Crimen Laesae Majestatis Divinae, WinAmp. I've been very anxious to hear the new Portrait album, and a day after hearing the preview tracks, I got it in its entirety from Metal Blade. And it doesn't disappoint. If you love Mercyful Fate, you'll go nuts over this.
HammerFall, Infected, WinAmp. I always flip-flop when it comes to this band. A lot of their songs I thoroughly enjoy, but their last four albums have been pretty darn inconsistent. This new one is pretty good throughout. It presses all the right buttons, offering no real deviation from the formula, but it also starts to feel awfully repetitive early on. Decent, but not great. Story of HammerFall's career.
The Gates of Slumber, The Wretch, WinAmp. It was a big day for big new albums. Four, in all. The new Gates of Slumber album is given a cursory listen in early preparation for my interview/feature on the band, which I'll be doing in the next couple weeks. Unlike their last two albums, this one reverts to the classic, slow, monumental doom of the band's early material. Massive, grandiose, classy as always.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 2
Some days are a lot harder to get some real work done than others. Today was a tough one. A few albums in the afternoon, but the bulk of stuff was heard late at night...
Izegrim, Code of Consequences, press stream. Very good thrash/melodic death metal in the vein of Arch Enemy, with more of an edge to it. Highly enjoyable.
Warpaint, The Fool, car CD player. Running errands, nice day, everything called for a good CD, and Warpaint was an easy choice. Its appeal hasn't waned one bit over the last six months or so. Car trips offer valuable listening time for a music writer, but now that I don't get as many CDs as I did two years ago, it's harder to do. I bring the iPod along from time to time, but for car travel I greatly prefer the CD format. Also, living in a place as compact as Saskatoon (population 250,000), you're never more than 15 minutes away from anything in the city, so listening experiences in the car are interrupted by frequent stops. A far cry from a two hour Vancouver commute!
American Heritage, Sedentary, CD, shelf unit. Gradually getting into this so I can get a review together soon. Maybe tonight? I hear Torche in this band from time to time, then the next minute they're a total Melvins rip-off.
Portrait, MySpace/Soundcloud streams. I've been a big fan of these Swedish dudes for a few years now, and their new album is set to come out via Metal Blade next month. I hope to hear it soon (it's got year-end list written all over it), but for now am plenty satisfied hearing "Beast of Fire", "Bloodbath", and "Darkness Forever".
Bringers of Disease, Gospel of Pestilence, WinAmp. A four song CD by a new band featuring members of Mouth of the Architect and Acheron. Pretty solid after a first listen.
Twisted Sister, Love is For Suckers, CD, shelf unit. I got the recent reissues of three Twisted Sister albums a short while back with the intention of reviewing them. This was the classic case of a hard working band finally getting its due, only to have fame totally mess everything up. This 1987 album was the nadir. I still remember my reaction when I got it at a Musicland in Denver in the summer of 1987. It started off well with "Wake Up (The Sleeping Giant)", but once "Hot Love" kicked in, it was all downhill from there. It has not aged well, either.
Vendela, "Punk Rock Song", YouTube, about ten times in a row. Stumbled across this over at PopJustice.A high-gloss Swedish pop tribute to punk rock? Why not? There's some truly great songwriting going on here: "You make me scream like a front row girl…I wanna sing like Patti Smith for you, cos I love you like a punk rock song." Brilliant! I scoured the internet for an MP3, but to no avail. Looks like it's YouTube only right now. Listen here.
Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg, CD, big stereo. I've fallen hard for this album. I'd been obsessing over Gainsbourg in recent years, from Histoire de Melody Nelson to his yé-yé pop songwriting in the '60s, and I finally picked up the reissue of this 1969 album during Boxing Week. It's grown on me something fierce…it's a lot more than "Je T'Aime…Moi Non Plus", it's so varied, playful, and sultry. Birkin's demure, English-accented French offset by Gainsbourg's lecherous persona. What a couple.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Music Diary Project, Day 1
Earlier today I learned, via music writer extraordinaire Phil Freeman, about a music blog project thought up by another talented music writer, Nick Southall, where for one week anyone, music writer, musician, or any music fan documents everything they've listened to, when they've listened to it, where they've listened to it, and how they've listened to it. "Obviously the act of listing everything you listen to will, by the simple act of doing it, change the way you listen," Southall admits, "Don’t ignore this fact, but equally, try and keep to as usual a pattern of listening as you would normally have. This experiment isn’t about seeing who listens to the most music or the coolest music or the most diverse selection of music; it’s just about understanding all the different ways we listen to music."
It sounds fun enough for yours truly to give it a shot, so here's the first of what will be seven daily posts. It'll be interesting to gauge what and hoe much music I listen to over the course of the week. Today, for example, I basically did all my listening at home...In fact I do the huge majority of my listening while at the computer. And when I'm hard at work reviewing an album or researching an interview, that's all I'll listen to for two to three hours. Not very exciting, but as you'll see, I have a big variety in ways I listen. There's the big, circa-1986 JVC component stereo I've inherited with CD player and turntable. Then there's the smaller but powerful LG shelf unit that serves as my main music hub; not only does it play CDs but I have it hooked up to the computer so it serves as the speakers for that (an idea I swear by, I get maximum sound quality from the computer). On the computer I listen via numerous ways: MP3s via WinAmp, streamed audio via Spotify, and every so often I'll stream an advance promo via Haulix, ipool, DMDS, or, heaven forbid, MPE player. Then there's my iPod Touch loaded with my favourite new releases, as well as my indestructible circa-2005 iRiver H10, which is crammed with all-time faves and has MUCH better sound quality than any iPod can ever hope to have. Anyway, with that spiel out of the way, here's today's entry! Today wasn't very busy, so there's a pretty huge variety, pretty typical I think.
Krallice's Diotima, which just arrived in the mail, gets a first play on the big stereo. Straight through, uninterrupted.
Babylon AD, "Bang Go the Bells". I had a weird jones to hear this song again and my cassette is long gone…it's not on Spotify, no one's seeding the What torrent as of yet, so YouTube has to suffice.
Celtic Frost, Cold Lake, WinAmp through LG shelf unit. I wanted to hear "Cherry Orchards". Really, I did. I've always kind of liked that song.
American Heritage, Sedentary, CD on LG shelf unit. I want to review this soon…I like it but I find Decibel's 9/10 rating a little over the top. I think it's more of a seven.
Kathryn Calder, Are You My Mother?, on Spotify because my MP3s from last year are on the portable hard drive and Spotify's so much more convenient. What a pretty album this is.
Kate Bush, "Deeper Understanding". I had to hear the new re-recording on YouTube. I was not impressed.
Joshua Novak, Dead Letters, CD. I was highly recommended this singer-songwriter by a friend, and it doesn't disappoint. Concise, hooky, jangly indie pop with strong mainstream appeal. Very impressive. Plus I love the packaging…and so does my three and a half year-old niece.
Assorted Manowar songs, Spotify. The shocking news that drummer Scott Columbus had passed away compelled me to play some favourite Manowar tunes: "Blood of My Enemies", "Each Dawn I Die", "All Men Play on Ten", "Kings of Metal", "Call to Arms".
Halestorm, ReAnimate EP, WinAmp. A quick flip-through of their new covers EP…I like Lzzy Hale's voice, but yikes, these covers are tepid, especially "Bad Romance" and Heart's "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You". This should have been a lot better.
Deadlock, selections from Bizarro World, Spotify. My review went up at PopMatters, which made me want to play "Virus Jones", "State of Decay", and "Brutal Romance" one more time. Imagine that, listening to Deadlock for pleasure! I never thought that would ever happen.
Liturgy, Aesthetica, WinAmp. This album continues to astonish. I don't know if it'll be my album of the year, but I already do know there'll be nothing else that sounds like it coming out.
Julianna Barwick, The Magic Place, CD, big stereo. I've been habitually playing French pop late at night, but it's been a while since I listened to this gorgeous, otherworldly album, and it's a perfect way to call it a night.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Over the past few weeks I dug in my heels and proceeded to bury myself in writing projects (this happens when you live in a city that hasn't had a decent metal show in nearly six months!), and over the last fortnight the results have started to pour in. First and foremost I should mention the fourth cover story I've written to date, and my second for France's Metallian magazine, that being an interview with Amon Amarth. As you probably know, I've been big on that band in recent years, and Surtur Rising is a splendid follow-up to 2008's masterpiece Twilight of the Thunder God (which you should definitely buy next week!). I talked to singer Johan Hegg way back in January, right before I (and he and his band for that matter) left for the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, and it resulted in a cool feature. In addition, the nice guys at Metallian gave me permission to reprint the interview in expanded form at Hellbound. Anything to help expand Hellbound's readership!
Also, anyone who attended the 70,000 Tons cruise will definitely be interested in the same issue of Metallian as well...not only does it have a thorough recap (in French, natch), but it comes with a CD-ROM featuring an hour-long documentary on the whole event. I haven't had a chance to watch it all yet, but what I've seen looks terrific, far and away the best video recap of the cruise to come out. So order here!
I recently got the April issue of Decibel, and my contributions are up considerably compared to the last one. I have a feature on The Fucking Wrath, a terrific California sludge band that used to be on the cool Goodfellow label, disappeared for a while, and returned last year with the very fun Terra Fire EP. Craig Kasamis is a super-nice fellow, and we had an enjoyable conversation. They'll be putting out a proper full-length later this year, which I know will be worth hearing. As for reviews, I have pieces on Amon Amarth (big thumbs-up...huge surprise!), Children of Bodom (their best since Follow the Reaper...really!), the solo album by Between the Buried and Me's Thomas Giles (not bad, but a lot better than his last one), and the latest by Finnish power metal mainstays Stratovarius, which I found surprisingly good.
Then there's PopMatters, where I've had an absolute pile of reviews published. The new album by German thrash legends Destruction is their best in ages...they should have made somethnig like this years ago, but it never happened. But they killed on the cruise in January, and Day of Reckoning feels just as impassioned and energetic. I haven't dug a thrash album this much since Sacrifice's The Ones I Condemn a while back.
It might have come out nearly a year ago, but Kvelertak's blistering debut album finally hit North American shores last week. Granted, with leaked versions so easy to acquire (which is how all of us over here wound up hearing it), it had caught on with metal fans over here just as quickly as it did in Europe, but it's nice to have the actual thing finally available at a non-import price. It was one of the best metal albums of 2010, but I hadn't reviewed it in full. Until now!
Mastodon't first ever live album should have been great. Here's a band at their peak, a phenomenal live act with four brilliant albums behind them...their first live album should have been an epic extravaganza along the lines of No Sleep Till Hammersmith and Live After Death, and seeing how they were playing a stupendously good setlist during their headlining tour of 2009, the timing was perfect. Right? Well, Live at the Aragon falls flat for a bunch of dumb reasons. First, the set was recorded when they were opening for Dethklok, not headlining, so instead of getting two hours of live Mastodon we only get just over an hour. Secondly, the vocals are very weak. crack the Skye saw them tinering with clean singing for the first time, but while it worked on record (a testament to producer Brendan O'Brien's skill), they're nearly always off, the worst offender being guitarist Brent Hinds, who sounds atrocious. lastly, the DVD stinks, the band poorly lit...they rely on rear projections so that means no spotlights, and consequently they're always backlit. On the positive side the musicianship is incredible as always, and we get a cool DVD feature where we can watch the full concert projections for Crack the Skye with the album playing in the background, which is a heckuvalot better than the live portion! So consider this a huge missed opportunity by the best metal band in America. My full review is here.
I also review the new CD by Trap Them, a band I've been thoroughly enjoying for years, and who just keep getting better with each new release. Darker Handcraft starts to tone down the hardcore in favour of a more streamlined death metal direction, and while it's a little similar to what Black Breath and the Secret did last year, what elevates this record is the fact that these dudes sound positively explosive. The energy on this album is palpable and contagious, and if you haven't heard them yet, you definitely have to check them out.
In direct contrast to all that metal stuff I normally cover is Austin band Ringo Deathstarr. I'm just as big a sucker for 1990s shoegaze and indie pop as I am for metal bombast, and Colour Trip is the best such album I've heard since the first Pains of Being Pure at Heart album. It starts off as a shameless, spot-on My Bloody Valentine imitation, but after that it takes off in various directions...you can hear the Primitives, Jesus & Mary Chain, Ride, Black Tambourine, and on and on. It's surprisingly eclectic but not out of control, and the hooks are so incessant, every song catchy. In fact I've heard the brand new album by the Pains of being Pure at Heart, and for all the slick, high-budget production, it simply doesn't have the kind of songs that Ringo Deathstarr brings on this album. I highly, highly, highly recommend it...read my review, sample the tracks, and go buy it. If you like this stuff as much as I do, you'll go nuts over it.
Lastly, there's the newest album by Germany's great Sodom, which I find to be their best work in a long time. This is one band that never changes, so you know exactly what they're going to sound like (in their case, workmanlike thrash metal), but Tom Angelripper sounds particularly inspired this time around. I'll always have fond memories of this, from when I heard them play "In War and Pieces" on the cruise. It was at three in the morning, I was wiped but waiting for Raven, the last show of the day, so I watched Sodom from the deck outside. There I was in the middle of the ocean, crashed in a deck chair, under the stars and wafted by a shockingly warm wind, Sodom tearing it up by the pool down below to my left, and the lights of Cancun on the horizon to my right. There's a mental picture I'll never forget. Perfect.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
My story of seeing Metallica in 1986, written by yours truly and drawn by Joel Orff, from his book Strum and Drang: Great Moments in Rock 'n' Roll.
As huge a fan of music as I am, in my opinion, or in my own experience anyway, you only get four, maybe five albums in a lifetime that make you see things in a brand new way. And the first time that happens is the most important. I'd been listening to music with a perpetually growing obsession since late 1983, just after I turned 13; with no older siblings to help guide my way, it was a series of trial and error, dipping my feet into anything and everything. The mid-80s were a glorious time to discover new music. The mainstream was loaded with the most ridiculously diverse array of pop stars: Prince, the Police, U2, Michael Jackson, ZZ Top, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy Osbourne, just to name a few. College rock, led by REM, was in full force. The UK was exporting exciting new bands (I was huge into Bauhaus and Love & Rockets in 1985). But it was metal where the most exciting music for me could be found, and what a bevy of bands there were to pick and choose from. Over the course of two and a half years I'd gotten into everything from Twisted Sister, to Ratt, to Slayer, to Iron Maiden, to W.A.S.P., to KISS, to Motley Crue, and (to quoth the Raven) on and on and on. By the beginning of 1986 some bands had seriously clicked with me: Iron Maiden the most profoundly, followed by W.A.S.P., Raven, Slayer (though Hell Awaits stuck in my craw), Ozzy.
Everything changed on March 3rd, 1986. Before then I'd been lukewarm to Metallica because a) they were on the same Canadian label as Venom, who I though were incredibly dumb (naive, I know...hey, I was 14!) and b) nobody really sat me down and forced me to listen to Ride the Lightning. Although I know if I did hear it as a 14 year-old, I wouldn't have reacted to something like "Fade to Black" as strongly as I did when I was 16. But I knew Metallica, I knew their story, how Ride the Lightning was the biggest selling independent release of all time, or something to that effect, reading articles and reviews in Canada's Metallion magazine, the only North American glossy metal mag at the time to give the band any serious ink. They were emerging as a force, and by 1986 the buzz among metal fans was huge.
The first big Metallica article I'd read, Metallion magazine, Autumn 1985.
I first heard Master of Puppets a few weeks after it came out, I wandered into an empty classroom in the basement of my high school during a spare period (by then us metal kids had gotten pretty adept at the art of loitering), where some eleventh grade dudes were blasting the cassette. I literally walked in as the title track came on: that wicked, sick riff, that weirdly groovy 7/8 beat, those vocals that sounded simultaneously badass, menacing, and catchy at the same time. That was it. Days later there was a coupon in the paper, where the local A&A Records had the cassette on sale for $7.97. I remember everything about that day: I had a morning dentist appointment, so I got to miss the first couple hours of school, which was always great. It was literally a five minute checkup, and I was out, with some rare school day time to kill on my own. I went and bought the tape, took my time getting back to school, and got back in time for English where we were reading Julius Caesar (Shakespeare being one of the only things I liked in high school). My first partial listen to it was in the first afternoon class actually, where some buds and I found a dumpy tape player in a room (we really did as little work as possible at school back then) and listened to "Battery": that classical guitar intro, the grandiose overture that followed, which led into the fast, bruising song that would go on to become a metal standard.
Metallica's first North American cover, Metallion magazine, Spring 1986.
That was just a teaser, though, as I had to wait the rest of the afternoon at school and on the bus home before I could give it a proper spin, which I did as soon as I arrived home. Book bag tossed aside (I hated school so much, had such a miserable time there that I never thought about school as soon as I got home, only doing homework when I absolutely had to), I went to my room, closed the door, popped the tape into my cheap walkman, put the headphones on, and sat there, unfolded liner notes in one hand, a gigantic wad of puffed wheat cake to munch on in the other. That fold-out card still has a spot of chocolatey stuff from my messy fingers. The volume was cranked, that unmistakable WEA cassette sync tone played (boooooooooweep!), and "Battery" kicked in, for real this time.
The old cassette, which still plays great. Best eight bucks I ever spent.
54 minutes and 45 seconds later, that was it. Everything I thought about music's potential, both artistic and visceral, heavy, pop, or what have you, was changed forever. Listening to this new album you felt like you were part of something monumental. And we were. Never, before or since, had a band made this big a commercial and artistic impact on music with so little promotion. Zero promotion. No radio, no TV. In the mid-'80s you found out about Metallica via word of mouth, that's it. A sibling introducing it to you. Making a blind purchase in a record store because the cover and band logo looked cool. Or in my case, managing to hear it by pure coincidence. And unlike today, there was no backlash a couple months later. By then Metallica was undisputedly the most cutting-edge band in heavy metal, we all knew it, and even though ere were hundreds of thousands of us who owned the album that year, Metallica was still far from mainstream, and the music was our little secret.
Of course, I continued to devour new music voraciously for the rest of the year, and years to follow. My 1986 was also dominated by such albums as Queensryche's Rage For Order in the summer, as well as Megadeth's Peace Sells…But Who's Buying? and Iron Maiden's Somewhere in Time in the fall, while high-profile releases by Ozzy, Raven, and Judas Priest left me disappointed. And hilariously, when I made my first ever year-end albums list that December, I went with Iron Maiden, which was still very fresh in my head, putting Puppets at number two. But in my heart of hearts I knew full well that Master of Puppets was clearly the better of those two very different albums. Of course, we were all bummed when Cliff Burton died that September, compelling us to blast Puppets even more, in tribute. And what better way to bookend a pivotal year by seeing Metallica play for the first time on an absolutely freezing night in Saskatoon on December 15th, a show that I consider the best I have ever seen in my life, and which the exceptionally talented artist Joel Orff was so kind to help immortalize back in 2001.
The '86 tour book came with a tribute to Cliff inside.
Master of Puppets, my favourite album of all time and in my opinion the most important heavy metal album of all time, turns 25 today. And at the age of 40 I can say without hyperbole that the day I first heard that album was the single most important day of my high school years. Not a single day in my miserable six years at junior high and high school had anywhere near as profound an impact on my life.
I would not be here as a metal writer today had that album not opened my eyes the way it did. Master of Puppets didn't change my life immediately back then, no record ever does that quickly, but it pointed me in a direction that no teacher or institution ever bothered to do. Thinking about it now, it's kind of mind-blowing. I got nothing out of high school. Okay, maybe an appreciation of Shakespeare, but nothing from school set me in any direction for later in life. Metal did. Wow.
Over the years I've written at length about Master of Puppets and that whole era…
Here's a dissection of the album that I wrote in 2002.
And here's a fun feature where I reminisce about being a hopelessly obsessed metalhead in the 1980s.
I sort of feel bad for today's kids. The way technology has changed music, they will never, ever experience an album as galvanizing as Master of Puppets was in 1986. My good bud Cosmo Lee wrote about this last year. Great, daring, groundbreaking metal music still surfaces from time to time of course, but never will we see that combination of capturing the zeitgeist, fully realized creativity, accessibility, innovation, instant, irrevocable influence on an entire genre, and most crucially, a total grassroots fanbase, again. And that's pretty sad, because it sure was a cool thing to be a part of 25 years ago.
From the tour book. If there was a photo that perfectly encapsulated being a Metallica fan at the time, it's this one.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
First of all, I've finally fixed my RSS feed. The free provider became pay-only last summer, but I never got around to finding a new one. But now I did! So if you want to subscribe, click on the orangey link to the left, or copy this.
Last week, on a bit of a whim, I agreed to interview Alexi Laiho from Children of Bodom for Hellbound. Why not, I thought, the new album is their best work in, well, about eleven years, and I've been listening to it for quite a while (my review should be appearing in Decibel very soon). And much to my surprise, it turned out to be quite an enjoyable little conversation. The guy sounds like he learned his English watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but he's an honest, sometimes funny fella who's not afraid to laugh at himself. This was part of a gigantic press day where all he was doing was fielding questions from dummies like me all over the world, and if you're doing a straight-ahead Q&A article like I was (somethnig I rarely do!), the real challenge is to come up with questions that pique his interest or at the very least don't compel him to recite the usual cliches. And I think overall it worked, my questions were decent enough, his responses were good, and lo and behold, we got a really good feature out of it. What was unusual about this piece was that it was published about 16 hours after the interview, the fastest turnover I've ever done. I usually like to let somethnig like that sit a day or two so I could proofread it with a fresh pair of eyes, but we figured it would be good to put the thing up late Thursday night so it could stay up there over the weekend. It seemed to work, Blabbermouth linked to the piece and we got a good number of hits. You're visiting Hellbound on a daily basis, right? If not, be sure to bookmark it, we've got the best crew of metal writers in Canada.
At PopMatters my 55th (or is it 56th?) installment of Blood & Thunder was published on Monday. This was a fun one, as I grilled Graf Orlock's Jason Schmidt about the band's astounding new Doombox EP. If you haven't heard of Doombox yet, not only is it a ten-inch record of some of the best grindcore you'll hear all year (Graf Orlock remains one of the few grind bands I get excited about these days), loaded with clever movie samples and very catchy riffs, but the packaging is spectacular, folding out into a full-scale cardboard boom box, complete with a top CD tray containing a CD of all the band's recorded output thus far. It must be seen to be believed. It's huge! Anyway, it was a very fun interview, Jason's a nice dude. Read the article here, and I highly suggest you order the album here. Or at the very least go hear the album at their Bandcamp page. No one gives people more bang for their buck than Graf Orlock.
I get a lot of promos from the Swedish label Sound Pollution, but they put out so much stuff, often of very highly varying quality, that it's impossible to hear it all. So it's easy for great new albums to slip between the cracks. When I got a press release saying that their band Bullet had just cracked the top three on the Swedish charts, however, I had to give the record a listen. And whaddyaknow, if it wasn't the best retro hard rock album I've heard in ages. Bullet's formula is simple: rip off 1970s, George Young-produced AC/DC, as well as the first two albums by Accept. And this isn't like Airbourne where it's a fun little exercise in classic rawk shtick; these guys absolutely NAIL it. Sure, you could read my review (and I highly recommend you do!), but if there was one way to convince you how awesome this band is, it's by pointing you in the direction of the song "Heavy Metal Dynamite". It's perfect. The riffs, the vocals, the drums (the handclaps on the snare beat is the clincher), the cornball lyrics...it's all there. You can't say you like classic hard rock and not go nuts over this track, end of story.
Meanwhile, back at Hellbound, I reviewed the new album by Sirenia. Now I'm a guy who's known to be a bit on the sympathetic side when it comes to glitzy "prom dress" metal, and I really enjoyed Sirenia's last album, but despite a few good moments, The Enigma of Life just didn't stick as well. Too much reliance on formula and not enough pure inspiration, which is a shame, because Ailyn is a tremendous singer when given good material.
Tomorrow's an interesting anniversary, one that makes me feel really old, and I have a fun idea for a post to commemorate it. Stay tuned!
