Angry Metal Guy

Manilla Road // Playground of the Damned
Rating: 2.5/5.0 — A rocky road
Label: Shadow Kingdom Records
Website: truemetal.org/manillaroad | myspace.com/manillaroadofficial
Release Dates: EU: 12.08.2011 | US: 08.12.2011

Manilla Road, thy name is cult! These aged metallers from Kansas have been keeping it ”true” since before the 80′s. Over their long existence they released no less than fourteen albums of old school, vintage metal to the acclaim of a small but loyal niche following. Led by guitarist/singer Mark “The Shark” Shelton, they’ve plumbed the depths of 70′s and early 80′s metal, some albums sounding like old Cirith Ungol, some moving closer to Manowar, Doomsword and Slough Feg. They’ve always lived in that realm between classic metal and doom and their discography has its great moments (and a few missteps as well). In some circles these guys have attained legendary status and while they clearly deserve it for dedication, I never thought their material was all that consistent. However, I always find myself rooting for them to succeed. I did so again with their fifteenth album Playground of the Damned, but I’m not too thrilled with the end product. Like some prior albums, there are great moments but some cringy ones as well. Definitely an acquired taste and not for everyone, this is one of those bands you really have to hear for yourself. However, I will endeavor to do my humble best to describe what lies within as only the Lord High Protector Steel Druhm can. Continue reading

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?

Barn Burner // Bangers
Rating: 1.5/5.0 — Pretty good album marred by very banal, lackluster vocals
Label: Metal Blade
Website: myspace.com/theinfamousbarnburner
Release Dates: EU: 15.02.2010 | US: 02.16.2010

I don’t know about you, but when I think about classic rock I think about vocalists. Guys like Steve Perry, Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, Geddy Lee.. you know, big voices, amazing melodies, and sure while you might not like every single person there, you appreciate what they offered in the sense of their huge influence and their technical skill. Hell, even look at early metal vocalists, guys like Paul Di’Anno, Rob Halford and Bruce Dickinson were all very different stylistically, but had gripping melodies, great presence and pushed forward with their sounds. So what fascinates me is that any band with sort of a classic rock influence and approach would ever select a vocalist with a 4 note range.. but I have now encountered it on Barn Burner‘s Bangers.

I do not begrudge a band its style. No, every band has its own style, for better or worse, and should be accepted for that style. And stylistically there are some very compelling things about the band Barn Burner, which is releasing their debut record on Metal Blade in about a week. The record is heavy and thick with a nice, old fashioned analogue sound that is pleasing to the ears and that is reminiscent of a time when men were men and bell bottoms were hip. The riffing is iron clad and enjoyable, pumping out excellent classic rock influenced licks that build tension and make you want to rock on tracks like “Medium Rare” and “Brohemoth”.  The foundation here is worth a listen to, really, ’cause this Canadian foursome has some pretty serious chops.

However, despite the record being rock solid and thick there’s this guy who drones over it. I’m actually not kidding about the vocalist’s 4 note range. I think it literally is like four notes. I didn’t count them to be sure, so I might be showing some kind of terrible bias here, but honestly it feels like ONE note the whole time, so I’m being generous by saying that he has a four note range. I could publish my notes for this review, but I think it would just add insult to injury because they all say things like “Monotone melody. Band has great chops. Four note chorus.” and “Vocalist sucks.” Or my personal favorite: “Band good. Vocalist bad.”

Honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out who this guy sounds like but I really can’t come up with it. So imagine a guy with the range of Blaze Bayley and the delivery of Bob Dylan. And actually, he kind of reminds me of the vocalist from that stupid band 3 Doors Down, except that (shock!) that guy has a better range. That probably explains it. Sure, one could say that this is sort of punky and raw, but I don’t think that’s really true. Guys in punk can sing like Bad Religion or NOFX or Propagandhi and the list goes on. Paul Di’Anno was a punky, raw metal vocalist and he has some serious fucking chops when he wanted them! No, this dude pretty much just drones at the listener for 40 minutes and at the end you’re left thinking, “Who let that guy out of the bar bathroom?”

Now, I know that this is stoner rock and I have never claimed to be a fan of stoner rock. With tracks like “Brohemoth” and “Beer Today, Bong Tomorrow” you know what we’re dealing with here. But I’m pretty sure that the dudes from Led Zeppelin were stoned like ALL THE TIME and somehow Robert Plant still manages to be a compelling vocalist. I’ve heard death metal growls with more diversity and range than this dude. I want to say for the record so that it doesn’t seem like I’m just taking cheap shots at the dirty hippies that musically, aside from the vocals this band has a ton of potential. I really enjoy the sound and the production, it’s beautiful, old school and meaty. Those are things that are missing in a ton of modern metal and rock and so I feel kinda bad for these guys that they’ve been saddled with such a vocalist. If they could get someone who has a little bit more range and personality, these guys would probably do well enough that they could buy some really good weed.

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).

More information on Blaze Bayley‘s 2010 release Promise and Terror were released today including some tour dates! The new album will be released on the first of February (01-Feb-2010) and will be available on the band’s website for presale as of the 1st of December! Each pre-ordered copy will be signed by the band.

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?