Angry Metal Guy

The Swedish blogger (and ridiculously fucking metal) Demonia has posted some pictures and videos (in Swedish—though, she’s got Google translator embedded for the foreigners) from Blaze Bayley‘s show in Stockholm. I, being Poor Metal Guy, managed to miss this one, but hopefully they’ll be back soon (though, what with shedding their manager and drummer in the last few days I’m not sure when that’ll actually be). Anyway, the turnout seems like it was actually pretty damn good and the band is on. I have to say that their bassist (David Bermudez) is one of the best heavy metal performers I’ve ever seen. I commented on it from the live DVD, the dude is just a fucking beast. Los hermanos Bermúdez are pretty awesome in general, I’d say. I’ll post four here, but she’s got others on her blog and some on YouTube as well.

Here’s one of my favorite songs off of the mighty Tenth Dimension record:

And here’s “Faceless” from 2010′s Promise and Terror:

And of course, “Futureal” from the much maligned Virtual XI record. But once again the band shows that had that record had some production and energy it would’ve been a much better album.

Here’s another one from the new record Promise and Terror. Why don’t you have it yet? What are you waiting for?

Blaze Bayley // Promise and Terror
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — 55 minutes of kick ass and darkness mixed
Label: Blaze Bayley Recordings
Websites: blazebayley.net | myspace.com/blazebayley
Release Date: February 1st, 2010

I must say that, if you don’t already know this, I have been anticipating this record since I heard of its release. Sure, things have been busy around here, but I even managed to slip in a few listens to the record in spite of the heavy schedule of listening that I’m forced to adhere.  Written and recorded in the aftermath of one of the most terrible tragedies in Blaze’s life, and really in the life of a neophyte band trying to break its way into the music scene on the strength of independent promotion and raw, hard work, and non-fashionable music, Promise and Terror has the chance to show the medal of this band and to testify to the absolute spine of one Blaze Bayley. While The Man Who Would Not Die was a record that was written in the face of the adversity from the outside world and sounded, frankly, like a big aural “fuck you” to all uninterested parties, Promise and Terror has a different role to fill.

Let’s think about the title and I think it really gives a sense of what one should be expecting from this record. Every new thing that one encounters in the world can contain both terrifying and promising things. A new lover contains both of these things: the promise of things to come, but the terror of losing someone. This sense of terror compels people to act completely irrationally sometimes in order to try to maintain a relationship that they’re, in essence, pushing away by acting crazy. As a musician you are also facing the same kind of thing a situation that is risky. Do you lose relationships with those you’re close to? Do you spend loads of money and push yourself into debt for nothing in the end? Or do you live the life you want to live. And, I think the ultimate example of this is freedom. In some ways being independent from the group is a scary process. There is no one telling you where your limits are. But then you don’t have limits. Such promise can frighten people.

In losing his label and going through everything that he’s been through, Blaze has certainly experienced both the promise and the terror that are embodied in this well-written, well-produced and perfectly executed example of modern power metal. Promise and Terror is uncompromisingly heavy, pushing its way into melodic death metal territory if there wasn’t an English baritone singing over top of it. The riffs are melodic as hell, but definitely catchy and the guitar work is textured and very cool. The fast is dynamically offset by slow parts (and even a slow song, which is one of the strongest tracks on the album “Surrounded by Sadness”) which work functionally to remind you of the darkness and sadness contained within.

The production on this record is definitely a step up from the band’s previous effort, to my great pleasure, and the drums sound great (Hey Larry, damn straight triggers are for pansies! Well played!). The whole thing is thick as hell with great performances from everyone involved. Though, I must say that, oddly enough some of the only questionable performances are caused by Blaze himself seeming a bit lost on the melodic side with a few of the riffs (see the chorus in “1633″, an awesome song.. but Blaze just sounds kinda off). This, however, is few and far between. And while his voice isn’t as powerfully produced as it was when Andy Sneap was producing it, he does still sound very good.

Lyrically, Blaze borders on profundity throughout the whole album. Honestly, this guy may be at his best right now. Ironically, one of the complaints that his old band had about him, which resulted in some of the more questionable lyrical content from Blood & Belief, was that he wasn’t writing personal lyrics. This record shows that he certainly can write convincing, interesting lyrics which express his inner pain and the things that are going on for him. Sometimes these lyrical excursions almost seem at odds with the music, but for the most part the darkness of this record permeates everything culminating in probably one of the darkest tracks he has ever performed since he was on The X Factor, “Comfortable in Darkness”.

Honestly, I view this record as a triumph for The Little Band That Could. Hopefully more people will pick it up and get into it, because this is easily the best thing that Blaze Bayley has sung on since Tenth Dimension. It has all the balls of Silicon Messiah and all the darkness of The X Factor and all the honesty that was missing from Blood & Belief. Even if you’re not a Blaze fan, you should at least head on over to their MySpace and give the tracks a spin. You might just be impressed.

Blaze Bayley: At the End of the Day by Lawrence Paterson
Available via BlazeBayley.net
ISBN: 978-184426-687-6

A few of you might have noticed that I have taken to reporting a lot on Blaze Bayley (the man and the band), and this is partially due to the fact that I have long been a fan of his solo stuff (and his tenure in Iron Maiden). As I’ve stated before, I think that X Factor is a classic album and I will continue to defend that to this day (though, I will definitely also point out that it is poorly produced—as was Virtual XI, which in my book was also poorly conceived). In any case, I, like others who gravitated to the Blaze-era Iron Maiden, continued to follow him afterwords and were happily surprised by the quality of the material that his newly formed band BLAZE had produced. Since then, I have paid attention, with a heavy heart often times, to an ongoing saga of an excellent underground band getting ignored, fucked repeatedly by labels, management and finally crumbling under the weight of outside and inside pressures. For me, the collapse of BLAZE and the rise of Blaze’s current self-titled incarnation was shrouded in mystery as I was just a fan witnessing it from the outside, but much of what I did not know is now available in a book written by current Blaze Bayley drummer Lawrence Paterson entitled At the End of the Day (and conveniently available for Christmas!).

And a fascinating read this is. At the End of the Day follows the career of one Bayley Cooke from his early days in the band Wolfsbane—which incidentally got screwed over by Rick Rubin of all people!—follows the man through Iron Maiden, including new interviews with Steve Harris and Janick Gers and covers the heart-breaking story of his unceremonious boot from the band. While the Iron Maiden guys are still pretty tight-lipped about the whole affair (which from the outside seems like it was messier than the band will ever let on—something hinted at by Paterson), I think that there are enough interesting details to make the long-time fan feel a little more informed about the goings-on at the time.

The part which was of more interest to me than the Maiden stuff, which admittedly now is going on “ancient history,” was the rise and fall of BLAZE. For those who were privileged enough to actually get to experience this band in its prime (at least on record if nothing else), it is hard to explain the emotional attachment that the was garnered from the fanbase.  I met a guy who was roadying for Porcupine Tree the year that BLAZE finally crumbled and his assessment of the band was that it was a real shame and that they were “good honest heavy metal.” That almost best explains it—BLAZE was good, honest heavy metal. But not only that, it was uniquely modern in a genre that is incessantly stuck in the 1980s because of Blaze’s own insistence on getting guys who were unknown English players—Steve Wray, John Slater, Rob Naylor and finally drummer Jeff Singer.

The three chapters that deal with BLAZE, for me, are the most important in the book. Paterson does an excellent job of getting information about the band by interviewing the older members as well as balancing Slater, Wray and Naylor’s opinions with Blaze’s own recollections. These help build a fantastic insight into the workings of the band and gave me, at least, a little closure about the way the whole thing ended. Unfortunately, in retrospect, it seems like the whole project was doomed to failure from the beginning. There are some small admissions in there that I think point to something the fans could never have seen coming but sort of spelled destruction even if the band had become more successful—such as Steve Wray’s dislike for Blaze’s style and lyrics. Basically thinking the entire concept of the first two albums was cheesy: how long did anyone think that was going to hold out? But all-in-all, one sees that there was a lot more going on than musical disagreements, the world was almost literally, collapsing around the band and Blaze himself.

Unfortunately, the next part of the story gets pretty sloppy and, at times, very sad. Paterson goes onto detail Blaze going through band members, meeting his wife and future manager Debbie and getting totally taken for a ride by some jackass wannabe manager (the man who released the infamous, foul-mouthed management releases to Blabbermouth). He details the entrance of Dave and Nico Bermudez into the band, Jay Walsh and finally himself at which point he switches to first person narration and the book, unfortunately, took a major downturn for me. Instead of being a narrative of the ongoing history of the band (which probably would’ve taken up about 50 fewer pages), Mr. Paterson launches into extended tour blog form. The outcome of this is not-so-good. While there are some really funny ongoing jokes (particularly the Ryan Air flying experience), the book is no longer a biography. Instead, it becomes far more stream of consciousness, introduces a huge number of people that are hard to keep track of, the details of about 45 venues and how their toilet services are and inside jokes that aren’t funny to anyone who wasn’t actually involved.

The sad part about this for me, is the story about the band getting back on its feet because of the hard-nosed and heroic Debbie and Blaze personally getting his life back on track after a major personal collapse gets lost in the shuffle. That, unfortunately, includes the very sad and dramatic part about Debbie’s unfortunate passing. It is, of course, fascinating to know how a band operates on the road and to understand how that all works, but the change in style really didn’t work for me and the band probably could’ve used an outside voice to tell them that.

However, for any fan of the band, this book is a must have. It exonerates my opinion that X Factor is an amazing record, by once again quoting both Steve and Janick as saying its one of their favorite albums (and Dave Murray has said the same thing in the past as well) and it covers things that have never really seeped out before. It includes great pictures, lots of laughs and things that you’ll never get a chance to read elsewhere. Despite being a little bit clunky style-wise, I still think that At the End of the Day is a well-done testament to Blaze, his career and his band(s, current and former).

Blaze Bayley // The Night That Wouldn’t Die
Rating: CD: 4.0/5.0 – DVD: 3.0/5.0 — A great live record, but a DVD that leaves some things to be desired
Label: Blaze Bayley Productions
Website: blazebayley.net | myspace.com/blazebayley

Blaze Bayley, for those who don’t know (where the hell have you been??) is the solo project of former Wolfsbane and Iron Maiden frontman of the same name. Honestly, this guy’s story is a true underdog story. To hear it told, he was the singer that no one wanted until he got picked up by Wolfsbane and then he was chosen to fill Bruce Dickinson’s shoes in Iron Maiden after Bruce decided he was too cool for the band. There was absolutely no way for him to win in that situation. A man with a baritone register filling Dickinson’s shoes is just ridiculous and everyone should’ve known better: but this reviewer humbly submits that X Factor is a classic record and that Virtual XI, while definitely weaker, was not weak because of Blaze, but instead because of Steve Harris’ writing and the very poor production. In fact, I’m still waiting for those two albums to be remastered.

“But how is this relevant” you may be asking yourself. Well, The Night That Will Not Die is a live record and, as such, knocks out the greatest hits from Blaze‘s underrated career. Opening with a shot, the band knocks out three great shots from from the self-released The Man Who Would Not Die and it pretty much sets the stage for the album to come. The songs on here are the songs that fans of the band have come to expect that they would get. The best of from Bayley’s BLAZE incarnation: “Stare at the Sun,” “Born as a Stranger,” “The Launch,” “Leap of Faith,” in short, pretty much all of the songs that I want to hear live. Mixed in, of course, are the Iron Maiden tracks, much-maligned by the average fan, but songs that are close to my heart. It was especially exciting to hear “Edge of Darkness” live, as that’s one of my favorite tracks from X Factor.

Finally, the band litters the album with tracks from the new album, including a track dedicated to Blaze’s late manager and significant other Debbie (“While You Were Gone”—a great track), who tragically died earlier in the year. As a fan, this was emotional for me as well, a dimension that suits the record well. While it’s not visible on the album, of course, you can see on the DVD that the show jumps up a notch when you get to the new material and the dedication. It heightens the feel of the record and, frankly, you can’t help a bit of sympathy for this man who has had some pretty hard knocks, out on the road trying to live up to her memory and the help that she gave him, when there are times when he probably wants nothing more than to sit in a dark room and mourn.

From a visual perspective, this DVD needs a lot of work. Shot with only two cameras, I just wonder if it really was best for the band to release this instead of just doing the live record. Live DVDs are tough to make interesting. Even highly funded DVDs, like the Amon Amarth 5-disc monstrosity, are boring in my opinion. To be totally honest, the only concert DVD I’ve ever seen that was really good is Iron Maiden‘s Rock in Rio. The comparison to Rock in Rio is absolutely impossible and totally unfair. Iron Maiden has the kind of money that Blaze Bayley, self-funding and pulling themselves up by their very metal bootstraps, simply could never have. But on that note, it might have been better to to avoid releasing a DVD and save that money for something else.

Therefore, this DVD has some limitations. The show is great, as stated, and aside from losing “The Launch” due to a giant cardboard cutout that some jackass was holding up in front of the camera, this show is pretty good! Blaze’s personal joy at doing this show is definitely fun to watch. The grin that breaks out on his face at times when he’s trying to pull some kind of metal face just demonstrates to me how much he loves what he does. It shows the kind of passion he’s got for this and he’s fun to watch.

Larry Paterson, the drummer (and apparently author of a bunch of books on German U-boats), is also very fun to watch. He seems to really be enjoying himself and is only upstaged by David Bermudez who is a fucking beast onstage. That guy is a total pro and he almost upstages the man himself! He is about as metal as it gets and it is really, really great to see that kind of energy and enthusiasm on stage. However, both guitarists need to step it the hell up. A lot of their stagecraft looked really forced and, frankly, like they were bored out of their minds for a good portion of the material. They did peak up a bit when they were playing the new material, so I guess part of it is probably that they don’t like being a “cover band,” but c’mon guys! It’s a damn DVD! Spice it up a little bit!

The final question for long-time fans of the band will be, of course, “does it live up to As Live As it Gets?” In it’s own way, definitely. I think the live record is definitely in the running. This is not the same band, and sure, they don’t have Andy Sneap in their pocket (a damn shame), but with the addition of the new songs this record is quite good and cohesive. As a fan, you should definitely pick it up because you won’t be disappointed. It also is a great way to showcase the new material to old fans, which I think is important. I know of many old fans who were so disillusioned by the crumbling of the old band that they didn’t even bother to check out The Man Who Would Not Die. This record definitely shows that the new material stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the older material, even if it isn’t the same band.

Frankly, this record makes me excited for a future for Blaze Bayley, which after the dissolution of BLAZE, I wasn’t looking forward to new material. But once again, and apparently thanks to the woman who this CD & DVD are dedicated to, Mr. Bayley is back in the saddle and knocking out good material. I await the new album, 2010 and to know what’s happened since we last left our hero…

Blaze Bayley has a new record on the way and as of today the band has released more information about it. Here’s something from the official presser about it:

Former Iron Maiden/Wolfsbane frontman Blaze Bayley has set “Promise and Terror” as the title of his new album, tentatively due on February 1, 2010. The CD will be available to pre-order from Bayley‘s official web site starting on December 1, with every pre-order signed by the whole band.

The artwork is great and I’m looking forward to hearing a copy and letting you know how its gonna sound. That said, I should actually be posting a review of the DVD here pretty much today. Serendipity!

Blaze Bayley is quite possibly one of the more controversial figures in modern heavy metal history because of his stint in Iron Maiden as the, unfortunately unpopular, frontman who replaced Bruce Dickinson.  More recently he suffered some very personal tragedies, with the crumbling of his band (the excellent BLAZE) and the death of his wife.  I’ll be reviewing his DVD and live record coming up, but apparently there’s more news that I was unaware of.  A book, called At the End of the Day, will be released on the 25th of September and can be ordered via the band’s website.

Here’s the full press release:

After ten months of intensive touring, the band are back in the studio writing their new album.  Recording is due to begin at the end of September after their headline show at Metalfest, UK.

The double live album and live DVD ‘The Night That Will Not Die’, recorded at Z7 in Switzerland, have been released on Blaze Bayley Recordings; the concert filmed by director Kris McManus and all audio mixed and mastered by producer Jase Edwards.

On 25 September the book ‘At The End Of The Day’ will be released.  This follows the story of ‘Blaze’ Bayley Cooke from Wolfsbane to Iron Maiden to BLAZE and, ultimately, to the current self-titled Blaze Bayley band. However, this book is not solely about Blaze; rather it traces the history of all the band members, back to their roots in New Zealand, Colombia and…Bristol.  ‘At The End Of The Day’ is available to pre-order from the band’s website.

So there you have it, folks. I’m thinking about getting my hands on a copy of that book before the interview. That’d be pretty sweet, right?