Angry Metal Guy

Damn the Machine // Damn the Machine
Websites: Nope!
Released : 1993 via A&M Records

Here’s another overlooked and underrated gem for those of you searching for new (but old) listening material of high quality. Damn the Machine was the creation of original Megadeth guitar-wiz Chris Poland following his dismissal from Camp Mustaine. Though they only managed to release this self-titled opus, the quality is such that most listeners will ardently wish they’d been more prolific. Forsaking his Megadeth-era roots, Poland steered DTM into thoughtful, progressive metal waters with hints of jazz-fusion sprinkled (sparingly) throughout. He was also wise enough to surround himself with some seriously talented musicians (including his brother Mark on drums) and the result is nothing short of phenomenal. Not overly fast nor crushingly heavy, it successfully walks a fine line between balls and brains and echoes such better known acts as Queensryche, latter day Fates Warning, Black Album-era Metallica and even Kings X. Continue reading

Camel // Music Inspired by The Snow Goose
Released: 1975

So, during this time of burnout, one thing doesn’t seem to be changing: the will to critique things and to tell people how important my opinion is how cool some music just really is. One of the things that happens to me when I get burned out on metal is that I go back and start researching other shit like, for example, the guy who wrote Meat Loaf‘s music (Jim Steinman) or in this case, 70s prog. The ’70s were an era when music was musical and the production didn’t suck fucking ass and there was no douchebag screaming about how tough he was into a microphone to try to make you realize just how extreme his music is (unless of course you count KISS, but I don’t, ’cause they suck and they weren’t screaming, they were just douching it up).  Continue reading

Holy Terror // Terror & Submission/Mind Wars
Websites: holyterrorspeedmetal.com/  myspace.com
Released: 87′ and 88′ via Under One Flag Records

Its time to defile the crypt of metal once again and Steel Druhm is the best defiler ever! Today, I present not one, but TWO classic releases from a time long ago that deserve a second look. I speak of Holy Terror, the Los Angeles based progressive thrash unit that featured former members of Agent Steel. During their all too brief existence, they released two excellent and unique thrash platters that received a fair amount of critical acclaim. While clearly a part of the 80′s thrash wave, they definately stood out due to their unique and compelling approach. Sure, they played fast but they had an intrinsic intelligence about them and veneer of class that most of their contemporaries entirely lacked. They didn’t really sound like anyone else so comparisons are pretty useless here. While both albums delivered excellently written songs with ample aggression, they also had that certain something that makes a band special. It can’t really be quantified, they just had “it.” Continue reading

It’s been a while since I’ve updated a “classic record”, hasn’t it? But I think I’ve hit another one that is a must have for anyone who likes good metal. I mean, any kind of good metal at all. When I was just an Angry Metal Teenager I first was introduced to a bunch of stuff that I just couldn’t get into because it was too much for me. But there was one band that really pumped out a kind of music that I latched onto that was both heavy and melodic, but also extreme and cool. That band was Norway’s Theatre of Tragedy and that record which really turned me onto the band and later the “beauty and the beast style” (often imitated, but never improved upon) was the record Velvet Darkness They Fear.

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“Seven deadly sins, seven ways to win, seven holy paths to hell and your trip begins.  Seven downward slopes, seven bloodied hopes, seven are your burning fires.  Seven your desires…” Cue the keyboards and the power chords.  Anyone who knows this album and loves it knows exactly what I’m talking about.  Possibly the coolest album intro of all time, to the best heavy metal record ever written: Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

Of course, Maiden makes it onto everyone’s lists when you do those all encompassing lists that metalheads and music geeks are obsessed with.  But it’s always Number of the Beast or Powerslave and everyone seems so content to just let that go.  I guess if you were 16 or 17 at the time and these were your first Maiden records, that probably explains it.  But as a huge Maiden fan who has extensively listened to every single one of their records hundreds of times (including the Blaze Bayley records), I have to report to you: Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is easily the best Iron Maiden album and, in this Angry Metal Guy’s angry, and not-even-remotely-humble opinion, the best heavy metal record ever written.

I’m actually not exaggerating.  I really do believe that Seventh Son is the best album ever.  And let me tell you why: first, these guys hit their musical peak with this album.  Every Maiden album has filler, tracks which didn’t live up to the standard of the album they were on.  The song “Quest for Fire” mars an otherwise amazing album in Piece of Mind.  I find “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” to be absolutely tedious, and “22 Acacia Avenue” makes baby Jesus cry.  And let’s not even talk about after Adrian left the band.  But not on Seventh Son.  Every single track on this album is amazing, and the one song I don’t think is just totally stellar was actually a hit single throughout the world (“Can I Play with Madness”)!

But whether or not these songs were hits or not, the composition on this album is perfect.  Dickinson’s vocal performance is unparalleled (a rare feat in the early days), the writing was unique and amazingly layered and in-depth, and the concept seems to hold the album together thematically.  Even the artwork is a step above the other stuff: grotesque, but not cheesy. That’s without having mentioned that this is the last album that Harris plays his unique lead-style of bass and shortly hereafter Adrian left, depriving the following albums of his textured, beautiful leads.  But herein, everything came together  into the perfect blend of musical virtuosity, pop sensibility and heavy, intelligent music.

Of course, everyone has different tracks that they think really embody the band, but I think for me that it’s “The Prophecy” that embodies what I love about Iron Maiden.  It starts slowly, delicate and beautiful, and then builds.  The guitar tone is very 80s, but very excellent before pounding into a fantastic syncopated riff, which may be one of the most powerful that was ever written for the band.  Dickinson nails the vocals, which are layered and have amazing lyrics.. and the leads are tremendous.  But what seals the deal for me is the final moments—the fading guitars and the beautiful acoustics that blended over top to the end.  This kind of musical diversity and intelligence just doesn’t exist on Maiden’s other albums.  This kind of perfection just doesn’t exist on any other record that I’ve ever listened to.

Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is truly a classic and if you don’t own it you are depriving yourself of the best heavy metal album ever written.

Amon Amarth – The Crusher (Reissue)
Rating: 4.0/5.0 (Record) – 3.0/5.0 (Reissue) 4.5/5.0 (Live Record)
Label: Metal Blade (EU | USA)
Website(s): myspace.com/amonamarth | amonamarth.com
Release Date(s): USA: 09.01.2009 | EU: 28.08.2009

Amon Amarth is on top of the fucking world right now.  The Thor’s Hammer is the new pentagram and every kid is hailing Odin because they think that’s way cooler than Satan now, plus Satan is so shocking and evil.  Odin was just bad ass.. but I digress.  On the heels of Twilight of the Thunder God selling like mythical “hot cakes” Metal Blade has decided that maybe, just maybe, kids should be buying Amon Amarth‘s older, less well-funded albums.  Hence, a reissue of The Crusher.

The Crusher holds a very special place in my heart.  While not the first Amon Amarth I ever heard, it was the first tour I ever saw them on.  On the mythical tour where Marduk wasn’t able to make it into the country, so Amon Amarth who didn’t have nearly the draw power of Marduk at the time was forced to headline their very first tour in the US.  Wow, poor guys.  Anyway, this album is a powerhouse of a record.  Starting from the amazing “Bastards of a Lying Breed” this signature Amon Amarth pounds its way out the door and it really never ceases to kick ass.  “Masters of War,” “Sounds of Eight Hooves,” “The Fall through Ginnungigap,” all of these songs totally rock.

Well, to use a phrase that was probably overused at the time, The Crusher crushes.  It’s a really solid album, and while it doesn’t have the same kind of production that the later albums have, it has an energy and novelty that Twilight of the Thunder God lacks.  While not my favorite of the Amon Amarth records, it still is a very, very good album and if you don’t own it, I strongly suggest getting it.

However, whether or not you should buy the reissue is up in the air.  It does, in fact, include a cover of the track “The Eyes of Horror” by Possessed and it has a live album of the band performing the whole album live (called Live in Bochum 30/12/08). Also, apparently this record was re-mastered.  I cannot tell.  The only thing that I can hear in sound quality difference is that Johan’s vocals seem more forward in the mix.  Other than that it sounds almost exactly the same.  The issue with the recording here was not that it wasn’t as good as it got at the time, it’s that you can’t polish up something that was as good as was coming out of that studio with that equipment and that amount of time.  Really, it’s tough to tell the difference.  However, the sad thing here, is that the production on the live record is better than the original production!  Johan sounds way better and I think it just shows how far recording has come since these guys went into the studio and what a great live band these guys are.

A final word, apparently this record comes with a huge booklet and a digipack version.  Cool.  But I sometimes feel like these things are a bit of a rip off.  If you already own the album, you probably should save your money for the new Månegarm record that’s coming out or something.  Buying a hardly re-mastered version of a record you already own just for a live disc of all the exact same tracks is probably not worth your time and money.  However, if you do not own this album, then I suggest you run out and buy it!  Treat yourself, get a cool cover and a live record and bask in what everyone knew was cool before you did.

OK, so the first album that I did in my “classic albums” section was Type O Negative, which of course, was one of my favorite bands at the time. But they also turned me onto Roadrunner Records, which for those of you too young to remember, was kind of one of the few places even putting out metal in the US during the 1990s. Sure, in retrospect, a lot of that stuff wasn’t that great. But there were a few bands on that label that put out some good records. Sepultura had Chaos AD which I loved, and one band that stands out for me to this day, and that I really loved as an angsty teenager, was Life of Agony.

Life of Agony was one of those precursors to nu-metal that should have implied the trend was on the move, but still were a lot heavier and better musicians than any of the bands that followed them. While they weren’t exactly the worlds best musicians, they were able to make a really groovy album that spoke to everything that pissed me off as a kid. Singing along to choruses like “You got time but you ain’t got time for me! Got time but you ain’t got time for me!” and empathizing with the main character in the whole story whose life just sucks.

The whole band was perfect for the moment, and really Life of Agony never put out a good record after River Runs Red. But this album is a classic, in my book. Sure, your average death metal guy probably wouldn’t be big into it, but if you like doom metal at all. Or groovy metal with clean vocals, this record is fantastic. The vocals are deep and powerful, the lyrics are dark and anguished and the groove is so thick you could cut it with a knife. In many ways, these guys had a similar sound to Type O, but they took themselves a lot more seriously and weren’t funny or tongue in cheek at all. On the contrary, they were serious dudes producing a serious album that seriously kicked ass.

Listening to the album again, the only thing on here that I don’t really like now are the story pieces with the bitchy lady screaming and the fighting. The dude killing himself at the end is a little bit more painful to listen to now then it was then. But, the music stands the test of time in my opinion. Its down-tuned hooks still grab me, and the lack of solos doesn’t bother me, and I still love the vocals and lyrics. Incidentally, I also have always been a huge fan of concept albums, and this one was no different. Apparently something about a story in the music just grabs me and pulls me in.

Of course, one man’s nostalgia is another man’s pain (See: Queensryche). There’s no guarantee that anyone who didn’t grow up on that record would really dig it. But if you want to get an idea of what metal was like in the US before nu-metal hit, before bands like At The Gates broke the ocean barrier and blew young death metal fans away and before a lot of the labels that are huge today started really setting down their roots (Century Media, for example), then take a listen to Life of Agony. Let the groove and teen angst wash over you.

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken time to go back and listen to classic albums that totally influenced me and lead me down The Path that Rocks! (As opposed to the Path of Righteousness.)  But it’s something that I should do more often, and it started today when a buddy of mine over at the WMA Forums posted his now playing: Type O Negative – Bloody Kisses.  I was suddenly overcome with a compulsion to go back and listen to this masterpiece of metal from when metal wasn’t even remotely cool, from a period where having long black hair and digging Iron Maiden meant sort of living in the closet–well, at least if you were a middle-school kid in the Midwest, anyway.

Despite that, however, Type O Negative managed to write one of the most compelling, irreverent and awesome records ever written.  I’ve never been a huge fan of doom metal, and yet somehow this album totally has managed to stick with me through everything.  Many of the bands that I really idolized from the time period are bands that I don’t listen to anymore at all (Biohazard, Agnostic Front, Sepultura, Korn [at least I'm a big enough man to admit it]) and even have a serious distaste for–yet somehow I go back and listen to Bloody Kisses and all I want to do is scream along with every note, bang my head and I have trouble not laughing my ass off thinking of the antics of these dudes.  I remember watching the After Dark DVD, for example and nearly laughing until I was crying through a lot of it (it got even better with the DVD commentary, some will remember–“jackass!”–including much discussion of Peter Steele’s “Ladder Rung o’ Love“).

Bloody Kisses, and even to some extent October Rust, were classic and influential albums in my life (I also was quite fond of Origin of the Feces).  For one, it made me think that low vocals were awesome, and it kind of taught me that bands can be awesome without guitar solos–something a lot of new bands could probably learn from, given this focus on the modern guitar hero, despite it being really just boring half the time now.  But not only that, these guys just didn’t ever really take themselves seriously.  They never got into the rockstar bullshit in the same way other bands did, and I think that shows through their diverse influences in their music, their ability to make jokes about themselves (“Do not mistake lack of talent for genius”) and the reason that this record feels so fresh all these years later.

I’m particularly fond of this record–but I’m especially fond of the second half of the record.  From “We Hate Everyone” onwards is still what does the most for me.  Going from the joking, impertinent nature of that song all the way to the very serious, doomy “Blood and Fire” and “Can’t Lose You,” the album had a feel that cannot be reproduced–and never has been.  And that in spite of the record being 73 minutes long!  How many bands can produce a 73 minute record these days that a person honestly wants to listen all the way through these days?

In sum, I’d say that this album, while not my favorite album ever, is definitely still deserving of the first spot in my Classics section because apparently 16 years later, I’m still not over it.