null1024 wrote:So, listening to Rob Halford's solo album
Made of Metal again, it's largely a miss with a few high points here and there -- he sings well enough, but the songwriting is... weird. I want to like it a lot more than I actually do.
Fire and Ice is a nice enough song, for example, easily one of the better ones.
HOWEVER
The Mower is like a 11/10 hard and heavy song out of just absolutely nowhere and I absolutely love it to death.
NO AIR, NO LIGHT, NO EXIT!
NO AIR, NO LIGHT, NO EXIIIIIIIIT!
It's just way too cool and it comes clean out of left field. I cannot get over how much I like this song.
Gotta check that out, cheers for the heads-up!
Deep Cut Recon is a sacred practice.
TBH I'm happy just knowing he's got a song called "The Mower," now that's an authentic vision of metal power.
Smell of gasoline and fresh-cut grass, risk of missing digits!
Air Master Burst wrote:Hell Bent For Leather did bring us the rough trade leather daddy look, but also had a fucking Fleetwood Mac cover, so like two steps forward one step back.
To be fair, Green Manalishi is a
Peter Green tune and pretty fuckin hardcore, rather like the troubled soul himself. Bleak stuff. Priest's cover is flamingly flamboyant and basically a different song altogether.
I love both, but then I consider
Disco Rob the man's gayest incarnation ever (yes, even moreso than Lenny From The Village People Rob, Elder Leather Daddy Rob, and fruity Hippy Longhair Rob!). No surprise he knocked it out of the park with Joan Baez's "Diamonds And Rust!"
null1024 wrote:I am eternally thinking about
Anthem's
Domestic Booty, which I'm 90% is called that just because they took a thesaurus to the phrase "national treasure" lol.
That makes way too much sense.
Venom Strike is such a good opening song. Something about that opening riff just feels unreasonably nostalgic too, and I can't put my finger on why. The rest of the album is great too, and I have yelled my throat hoarse singing along with RENEGAAAAAADE in the car while blasting down the highway.
The inescapable SNK/KOF name association helps too
One of metal's finest engineerings, that riff... simultaneously catchy and savage, efficient above all else - like call/response chainsaws over hammering pistons.
Chris Tsangarides was a treasure ;-;7 Man was a crossover hard rock/metal alchemist, with that unmistakable balance of mirror sheen and monster heft. The cheekily "Into The Void"-swiping opening riff on
"Silent Cross" (
Booty closer) is staggeringly heavy, even moreso in this contrapuntal power ballad context. Or really, more of a power elegy - genuinely heavy lyrics and imagery, the titular headstone most of all. Works especially well with its enchanting prelude
"Willesden High Road" - whose title reminds me that Don Airey played on DB, too. Guy's CV is like a Cozy Powell (RIP) for keys.
Yo, and George Martin worked with blokey outta X-Japan too.
Yoshi something-or-other? Only a distant admirer of a few X tracks, particularly the splendidly Motorheadesque
STANDINGU SEX - GB/JP metal connection produced some decent slabs! Anger your WW2 generation relatives while blowing their windows out.
(not Hide, I always remember his name - poor bugger died fappin!
)
I honestly have nearly nothing particularly bad to say about Anthem from what I've listened to of them, with the worst being that
Gypsy Ways' second half of the album, starting with
Silent Child is a definite drop -- maybe a deliberate reduction in intensity, but it definitely ends up being what gets me to change albums when I'm driving.
Still, Anthem is just a stellar band.
"Silent Child" occupies the same unfortunate space as Motorhead's "Live To Win" off
Ace of Spades, imo - on a lesser album it'd be mere filler, but here it's like a boxcutter through the Mona Lisa.
Other than some memorable Engrish (RIVE BY THE SWORD/DIE BY THE BRADE), it's a trudge. Needed a catchier chorus to offset those verses, ala "Midnight Sun."
Got massive metal boner for the rest of the LP though. Admittedly, Side B could consist entirely of "Silent Child" and
"Night Stalker" and I'd be fine with it, the latter being another preposterously massive closer beast. Fucking hell, opening riff sounds like an industrial car shredder. And come to think of it, also pretty sharp lyrically too, with its
Taxi Driver-esque portrait of simmering concrete-bound menace. Exceedingly fond of Morikawa and Shibata's EN/JP interplays, pristine syllables alongside bellowing hooks. I KNOW / I'VE BEEN WASTED / HAI-RO no KA-BE STAND IN MY WAY..." The "wall of grey" is a particularly keen image.
vol.2 wrote:BIL wrote:A fine record overall, but you'll feel the dip. Some of life's best experiences are like this.
They'd truly catch fire with their next LP, the indispensable, Chris Tsangarides-produced masterpiece that cemented their "Japanese Judas Priest" stature,
BOUND TO BREAK.
Tightrope is the only one I've listened to, and I could swear it was one of your recs from some time ago. Now listening to Bound to Break, and it's certainly got more guts to it. I'm getting very strong early Crüe vibes which is more than a compliment from me, but vocals more along the lines of Halford. Second song on the album,
Empty Eyes, absolutely shreds; it's full-on British Steel energy. Thanks for the heads up.
"Empty Eyes" is killer, indeed! Right from the start (
"WARNING ACTION!"), they've had a Priestly knack for the blisteringly aerodynamic right alongside the heftier stuff. As null says, they're an exceptionally high-quality outfit - easy rec for any fan of high-performance balls/wall heavy metal ala
Vengeance/Defenders/Painkiller Priest.
EDIT: Oh, hey. Speaking of Priest, seems they finally made the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. IDGAF about any of that stuff, but I know they've always been hot about it, so good for 'em. It's like when Lemmy finally got his Grammy, y'know. Although he was pissed off about it, understandably. For a fuckin Metallica cover? The cheeky cunts! Still, the heart wants what it wants.
However, I was mostly interested in who was present... they got KK and Glenn back together, despite politics and Parkinsons bringing an end to their ongoing partnership - but most surprisingly, Les Binks was there too. Not taking anything away from Scott Travis, a big part of
Painkiller's immaculate sound, but Binks' jazz-inflected drumming on
Stained Class is such a treat. Lends the
title track a raucously strutting disco verve I can't get enough of, particularly opposite those dispassonately brutal lyrics. He also contributed the acoustic riff on
Beyond The Realms Of Death, a handsome bit of songwriting. Made me happy to see him pop around again.