![Blaze Bayley – Endure and Survive [Things You Might Have Missed 2017]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Blaze-Bayley-Endure-and-Survive-768x768.jpg)
“The true wisdom of age is learning when not to give a fuck anymore and just doing what works. Endure and Survive—which marks Bayley’s 8th solo album since 2000 and is a description of what he’s been doing all this time—is one more piece of Bayley’s gritty dedication to just playing heavy fucking metal.” He has the SPACE…madness!
“Tenth Dimension got name-dropped in my “Top 15(ish) of the 2000s” from 2010 and I have mentioned it from time to time on the blog. Every time a few readers show up and say stuff like “Oh man, yeah! Such a sadly overlooked record!” And while it is sad that it’s been overlooked, Tenth Dimension was released in a pretty difficult context. Blaze Bayley was basically a musical leper who got signed to SPV because of his name and connections to Iron Maiden. The story of his first post-Maiden band is one where everything was stacked against them, including signing with a label that obviously didn’t expect the band to amount to anything. BLAZE’s debut album, Silicon Messiah, got released on the same day as Brave New World, and (shock) no one heard it. Yet it was hard hitting, modern and conveniently in a key that worked for Bayley’s voice. It was also produced by Andy Sneap and was thick and heavy. Two years later, the band turned around and dropped a concept album called Tenth Dimension, which not only features some of my favorite artwork ever, but ranks among my favorite heavy metal records of all time. With a review of Blaze Bayley’s Infinite Entanglement in the pipeline, it got me thinking about this amazing album again.” And rather than wax 800 words about it as an ‘intro’ to my review of the new record, I thought I’d give it its own post.
For every Velvet Darkness They Fear or Something Wicked This Way Comes or Blackwater Park or Nightfall in Middle-Earth there is a Theatre of Tragedy or Iced Earth or Orchid or Blind Guardian – records mediocre compared to the things that would come (or even just straight up mediocre). I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I wanted to put together some of my personal favorite debut albums. Records that kicked ass out of the gates, and in some cases were really the best material that the band ever even produced. So here, filling up the July lull in releases, is another Top 5 list. Now it’s true that I’ve left off some records that I thought of adding (it would probably be a Top 10[ish] list that’s needed), so don’t get your panties in a bunch when you don’t see Cynic or Entombed on here. ‘Cause those are great records, but they’re not my favorites.
Well, here it is folks. The final 10 [Here’s the first 40: 50-41, 40-31, 31-20, 20-11 and Steel Druhm’s: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11, 10-1]. And this is going to ruffle a bunch of feathers, I guarantee it. These are, for the most part, not widely considered “favorites” and would never make fan-voted lists, but these tracks all got onto this list pretty easily. I’m not as angry about the whole Gibson list anymore, and I’ve lost a bit of steam because of that, but these tracks are all fucking fantastic, top-o’-the-line kind of shit. I hope you enjoy the list and I look forward trolling you soon. U MAD BRO!?
It’s hard to make this kind of broad list, I just want to say that from the get-go. How do you do this? Do you choose your favorites, or do you choose the genre defining records? Because saying, for example, that some of the following records are really genre defining wouldn’t be true. On the […]
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.
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.
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. […]
