52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #4

Neurosis – Times of Grace

(Relapse Records/Music for Nations, 1999)

Picture this: a young man wearing oversized baggy combat trousers, Airwalk skate shoes, and a dope Korn T-shirt has just listened to a free Kerrang! CD highlighting releases of 1999. This kid was blown away by a weird, angry lot hammering on about not being able to “see California without Marlon Brando’s eyes” or some such nonsense, but he couldn’t recall the band’s name. While wandering around HMV in Aberdeen going through a “Swimmy, Swammy, Swanson… Samsonite!” process in his mind, a bolt of recognition struck mid-perusal of the metal section. Neurosis – Times of Grace! This had to be it. Why else would the recognition feel so strong? Plus the artwork was incredible, so the young man tripped over his own trouser legs in his hurry to the till. A few hours later at home with his trusty Aiwa CD player, confusion and fear washed over him. The dark and obscure sounds weren’t what he expected at all, more Wicker Man soundtrack than Blade, and on inspecting the aforementioned Kerrang! CD it became apparent that he had intended to be a Slipknot boy rather than a Neurosis man.

Nearly 20 years later this Neurosis man is thinking back to one of the best mistakes he ever made. Times of Grace is a majestic, frightening, and bewitching album. It’s pure, heavy, and regularly surprising. It might not have converted that youngster instantly, but the quality of those dark sounds was intriguing enough to bring him back again and again. On seeing Neurosis, sandwiched by Today is the Day and Voivod (still one of the best line-ups I’ve seen?), at The Cathouse in Glasgow during freshers’ week at university, my bleeding ears told me that I was a complete convert. The bleak yet warm heaviness, the visual show that was so carefully curated to complement the music, the brilliance of both vocalists, and the dedication to music that ignored genre boundaries was inspirational and perspective-altering. Even if all Neurosis ever did was make me a fan of their music then Times of Grace would still occupy this position on the list, but without them it would have been a much longer route to Isis, Mogwai, Aereogramme, Swans, OHHMS, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sleep, and so many other bands that have enriched my life. Other than doing an Arts degree, that HMV purchase in 1999 might be the most influential mistake I’ve made in life.

“Suspended in Light” begins as something from 2001: A Space Odyssey, those sci-fi-like beeps still send shivers along my spine, but by its end the earthy tones and grounded focus of this album have begun to shine through. The listener may want to hold on to the light that exists in that most atmospheric of opening tracks, as the first 90 seconds of “The Doorway” is bleak and bruising stuff. It’s not quite the near death of listening to Through Silver in Blood but it is an oppressive and heavy sound that will have you clinging to any metaphorical security blankets you have stowed away. Steve Albini has used his apparent genius to draw out a more natural sound from Neurosis. The guitars are gritty and crunchy but retain a hint of warmth that brings the music that bit closer to your heart than Through Silver… which, while stunning in its own way, holds you at arm’s length with its intensity. The drums have a depth that somehow brings gargantuan sounds and wonderful subtlety to these tracks at the same time, while nurturing a naturalised tribal quality. This is most evident in “Under the Surface” with its slow burn powered by rumbling toms, whining, squeaking, groaning guitars, and a delectable control of the desire to unleash untold fury. Like edging, but less hassle. Structurally it’s hard to describe but Neurosis show no fear of allowing the momentum to crash out from underneath the song. They extend ambient passages for minutes, almost tormenting the listener with the anticipation of the cataclysmic sounds that surely await them, and with dual screams from Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till of, “your shell is hollow, so am I/the rest will follow, so will I”, that climactic aural wall collapses on you with piledriver force.

“The Last You’ll Know” pursues this crushing feeling with landslide plunges into an imaginary mire, but the scything guitar sound makes it an even more bleak and extreme experience. However, intricate, barely audible backing vocals, keyboards, and samples are indicative of the detailed approach Neurosis employ, and even in their most oppressively heavy songs there is a wealth of aural and emotional stimulation to balance the overwhelming waves of heaviness. Here, the naturalised feel that Albini encourages is promoted by the undeniable beauty of the world’s favourite instrument, bagpipes. It is one of the more memorable passages, evoking a Celtic longing for open spaces and rugged wilderness, on an album that specialises in unforgettable and unique sounds. “Away” is equally evocative but is willing to bring this to bear with a pared back folk approach that is so gentle it repeatedly threatens to lull itself to sleep, at one point almost being carried off on the wind. This track is a startling achievement, fusing folk, post rock, and doom with patience and care that belies the raw emotion at its heart. The founding minutes of the song will send listeners in the direction of Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till’s brilliant solo folk projects, while the latter stages of this song will find their continuation in two of Neurosis’ most thoughtful and “gentle” albums, A Sun That Never Sets and The Eye of Every Storm.

The title track reignites the intensity that fuelled the record’s opening tracks before “The Road to Sovereignty” carries us quietly to a much-needed rest. At this point your mind will start to slowly recover memories of the physical and spiritual challenge you just endured. My mind inevitably returns to the sounds and feelings of “End of the Harvest”. It feels like a séance gone wrong and is powerfully primal, tearing at your soul with lines like, “have you ever tasted the soil (destiny)/and felt your own death in your veins”. There is a dedication to texture, progressive repetition, and vocal viciousness that develops the song into an emotional epic that, even on a record of this quality, stands out. It is a song you will simultaneously wish to revisit yet feel too drained to even contemplate. “End of the Harvest” is inspirationally destructive music.    

Times of Grace feels like a reverse Wicker Man where what appears to be violent and awful turns out to be organic, life-loving, and spiritual. Obviously, that wouldn’t make such an entertaining film, but as a piece of music it is an incredible decades-long journey that promises eternal enrichment. I haven’t even touched on the accompaniment record Grace that Neurosis produced under their instrumental and ambient Tribes of Neurot alternative identity, but there is so much depth in this record that I feel no urge to complicate or cloud the experience. Neurosis recorded an album that defines a whole genre of music for me. Every crafted sound pulls at me, crashes over me, or carries me away, and while it may be nearly 20 years since I first listened to it, Times of Grace still surprises, scares, and inspires me.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #8

Nevermore – Dead Heart in a Dead World

(Century Media, 2000)

Buy the album here

In December of 2017 Nevemore’s former vocalist Warrel Dane died of a heart attack.  The band had split following The Obsidian Conspiracy, and Dane was recording his second solo album when he passed away.  While his problems with alcohol contributed to Nevermore’s split and ultimately his death, Dane's talent for dramatic, histrionically wild heavy metal vocals helped set his band apart from their contemporaries.  One of the few American acts to successfully adopt a more modern European style of heavy metal, Nevermore balanced crushing heaviness with mature melodies, and politicised ruminations on our technological world with Gothic fantasy.  Taken from the word repeated by the titular bird in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, the band’s name seems fitting given their and the author’s American reworking of Gothic and horror traditions more commonly associated with Britain and Europe.  Dane’s theatrical style, lurching from soulful baritone crooning to high-pitched shrieks to sharp-edged, aggressive modern metal vocals, provides the album with a mid-Atlantic feel that somehow avoids compromise. 

Like Opeth at their peak, Dead Heart in a Dead World combines distinct styles while maintaining focus and direction.  Jeff Loomis’ guitar sound has a depth and versatility that is also reminiscent of Opeth, while Van Williams' punishing percussion reminds me of Vader but with the feel to deal with Nevermore’s more ballad-like tracks.  This balance of styles has the album on a knife edge of hysterical emotion and technical chicanery.  The joy of listening to Nevermore is the feeling you will fall from that edge at any moment, only to be pulled back by the perfect musical balance or an expertly timed shift in tone.  Take their nearly unrecognisable cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” as an example: tight, heavy riffing and incessant snare strikes create an oppressive atmosphere that runs the risk of overpowering the wonderful lyrics of the original, but Dane’s ability to tell the story with loud “whispers” and proud, full-bodied melodies levels the scale.  Recorded at a time when metal bands were covering all sorts of popular songs, Nevermore’s effort stands out as a benchmark for all others to heed before trying their own.  But it is in their own compositions where they truly excel, producing hard-edged, technical, yet poetic heavy metal that conjures thoughts of Iron Maiden, Mercyful Fate, and most notably Queensrӱche.

In album closer “Dead Heart in a Dead World” we find Queensrӱche’s sense of drama but with an extreme metal edge that punches the emotions home and leaves the listener reeling.  In “The Heart Collector” we find the same earnest self-reflection and near melodrama.  Dominated by Dane’s plaintive cries and melodic crooning, Loomis takes a back seat here and Jim Sheppard’s rich bass sound becomes the foundation on which the ballad is built.  With that said, there are beautiful lead guitar details everywhere you turn in “The Heart Collector” and a heavy closing section that subtly blends the track with its surroundings.  Nevermore are often far more direct, evidenced by opening track “Narcosynthesis” and its furious expression of facing repressed memories.  With military precision Loomis, Williams, and Sheppard drill holes in your skull, which Dane then fills with fear-driven emotional drama.  It feels like Loomis’ guitar might break in two under the pressure, while Williams’ drums are steel kegs shattering your teeth with their exacting harshness.  “Inside Four Walls” opens with a more rounded bass-driven sound, but quickly pares back to a vicious Loomis verse riff perfectly setting up the expansiveness of the chorus.  Loomis’ bridge passages and solos are startling, as if he’s treating the song as a Youtube guitar exhibition while somehow retaining focus on the song’s tight 4-minute structure.  Even when Loomis and Williams show off it always feels as though it’s in service of the song.  “Engines of Hate” might be the perfect example of this: it seems to twist and turn with aggression and speed, displays incredible musicianship, and never once loses sight of its purpose.  It’s furiously heavy, technically complex, but structurally tight and unadorned: the sound of a perfectly focused heavy metal band.

However, the album’s peak appears when Nevermore bring together fantasy, spirituality, and humanity’s dangerous attempts to dominate nature through technology.  “The River Dragon Has Come” seamlessly blends these tropes into a seething and somehow featherlight heavy metal onslaught.  It’s here that Loomis' perfectly distorted guitar sound is able to lift its listeners to the greatest heights: phenomenal riffing, displays of patience and timing, ear-melting leads, and a songwriter’s willingness to let everyone else shine.  Complemented by Williams' bionic limbs, Sheppard’s huge bass foundation, and Dane’s inspired, emotive storytelling, “The River Dragon Has Come” is one of the most re-listenable songs I’ve ever encountered.  In fact, this is one of the most re-listenable records I’ve ever heard and is among the best heavy metal albums of the millennium it helped to mark.  Incorporating traditional metal sounds with focused songwriting and modern metal production quality, Nevermore, along with Opeth and Strapping Young Lad, set a standard for modern metal bands that was proud to look back but far more excited to push forward.  Dead Heart in a Dead World is ironically an uplifting and inspirational emotional journey.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #14

Tool – Ænima

(Zoo Entertainment, 1996)

Buy the album here

On the CD of Tool’s Ænima is the image of a person performing an act of incredible flexibility, perhaps in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and physical stimulation of the chakras found in yoga… perhaps attempting to fellate himself.  This is the tone Tool struck on their second full length release.  Even the title - a combination of Carl Jung’s term ‘anima’ representing the feminine archetype in his theories of collective unconscious, and the word ‘enema’ which is the flushing of faeces from the bowels – is equal parts intellectual and scatological.  Throughout the album there are challenging ideas, lyrics, and song structures, but Tool are more than happy to throw them in your face as if it was an elaborate rouse, or a stairway to nothing.  Disdain dominates the tone.  If I imagine the band sitting together while I’m listening to it, Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, and Danny Carey are looking away as if they don’t care whether I’m listening or not, while Maynard James Keenan is giving me the finger with his twisted-up, little rat face.  This combination of disaffection and anger is Tool’s reaction to the vapid and flaccid cultural surroundings of mid 1990s Western capitalism, but feels even more relevant in the age of the internet where readily digestible content has elevated the meme to our primary form of emotional self-expression.

Ostensibly an alt-metal album with prog leanings, Ænima’s songs are frequently interspersed with odd conjoining tracks of varying tone and content.  These range from the distorted record sounds of “Useful Idiot” to the infamous recipe for hash cookies found in “Die Eier von Satan” which is read in German with the stylings and crowd reaction of a Hitler speech.  It seems to be an attempt to disorient the listener, making them evermore vulnerable to attack or new ideas.  After softening them up Tool hit them with the Altered States-like closer “Third Eye” which, in true Tool fashion, references both a transcendental gateway in human consciousness, perhaps found through psychedelic drug use, and the human male urethra.  It’s a mammoth song with musings on psychedelic drug use “prying open” the third eye, childhood memories, enlightenment, and freedom.  Opening on a pounding heartbeat and Bill Hicks eulogising drug use in artistic creation, the song is birthed by way of searching drum lines, slowly building bass, criss-crossing guitar distortion, and more of Hicks’ challenging comedy.  Keenan’s vocal is gentle and instructive, but as the tension builds his voice and the guitars heavily distort, and the song feels as though it will burst.  This passage seems to represent the trauma of drug use, and the calm and melody that are found on the other side stand for the enlightenment that may be reached in discovering the true meaning of the “third eye”. But ultimately, the album leaves us with the vicious heavy screaming, crashing drums, and sheet metal guitars of the line “prying open my third eye”.  It suggests violence and damage in finding enlightenment, but also conveys that passivity will never discover anything new, that meekly accepting the commodified life of capitalism will never enrich your life.

Tool are more musically accessible than this would suggest.  The intensity and focused malintent of a track like “Hooker with a Penis” is indicative of Tool’s ability to write direct, aggressive, powerchord-driven rock music.  “Forty Six and Two” takes a different tack, drifting in on warbling bass sounds, deliberately picked guitar notes and what sounds like bongos, before Maynard’s delicate vocal carries us patiently to the instant hooks of the track’s huge chorus.  And in “Jimmy” and “Ænema” Tool carefully build and nurture a desire for melodic catharsis that they are unafraid to fulfil.  The peaks of “Jimmy” are awe-inspiringly, spine-tinglingly intense with the dense riffs and melodic wails creating an atmosphere that is simultaneously claustrophobic and epic.  “Ænema” is more upfront with its riffs and melodies but matches this with an aggressive chorus that builds with each reprisal and Maynard’s soliloquy on “this stupid shit”.  The band’s suggestion that we all “learn to swim” is made more convincing by the sheer weight of sound that swamps your brain in the furious build towards this album’s climax.  Maynard gives us the rest we need with his beautiful delivery of the line, “I’m praying for rain”, but it’s a momentary distraction as landslide guitars crash in to this beauty, driving it out of our minds with thoughts of Armageddon.  Tool will make you feel like the world is ending, but that worse things could happen.

If you need to convince a friend that they need this album, the opening three tacks of Ænima will do that work for you.  “Stinkfist” is an immense opening track.  I can still feel the surprise I felt on first hearing that pulsing bass, Maynard’s equal parts fragile and angry voice, and the lilting, scratching, searching sounds of Jones’ guitar.  That sense of awakening is sustained through “Eulogy” and “H.”, and it’s in these two songs that we become familiar with Tool’s progressive sensibilities and soaring choruses.  “Eulogy” wanders, but is always mere seconds from exploding with melodic force, taking advantage of the tight, almost sinister, chugging of the verse riffs to provide a sense of elevation.  As the song closes one of the album’s defining moments leaves a lasting impression: Maynard screams “goodbye”, holding that final vowel sound for 12 seconds.  It’s an awe-inspiring, breathless moment that never fails to grab my heart and pull me closer.  This connection is further cemented with the more abrasive passion of “H.” with its similarly powerful chorus of brilliantly gauged drumming and truncated syllables and instant vocal hooks.  And this is Tool’s true strength.  Concepts, themes, enlightenment, deconstruction of western capitalist emotional wastelands, and even the undeniable skill of each musician all fall by the wayside when you are grabbed by these passionate, uplifting, and hook-laden outbursts.  Tool fans talk about interpretations of lyrics, album art, interval tracks, and even Bill Hicks, but what we’re all really in love with is that almost every song on Ænima lifts you up, shakes your bones, and has you singing and screaming along until you slump exhausted on the floor.  Music for self and global annihilation.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #21

Corrosion of Conformity – In The Arms of God

(Sanctuary, 2005)

Buy the album here

Let’s start by addressing why this Corrosion of Conformity album, and not Deliverance or Wiseblood, is the topic of this post.  When In The Arms of God made its long-awaited appearance I had been a COC fan for nearly ten years, and I considered both their classic mid-90s albums among my all-time favourites.  Deliverance and Wiseblood are genre-defining albums that bridged the gap from heavy metal to more MTV-friendly hard rock without sacrificing an ounce of the band’s originality, credibility, or identity.  Their southern-fried metal-rock crossover is infused with politicised anger, provocative lyrics, and cultured musicianship.  They are important albums that continue to dominate my thoughts and shape the music that I’m drawn towards.  They are the albums that COC fans will discuss and debate online to determine which is their best.  But neither of them have quite captured my imagination or challenged my preconceptions of the genre in the way of In The Arms of God.  This is an album that intertwines the epic, the personal, the domestic, and all things in between.  It constructs for itself an aural atmosphere that enhances the songs in the moment and the memory of your listening experience after the fact.  It is impassioned song-writing laid down in surprising and exciting ways, and I have no doubts that there are many more COC fans who consider it their favourite record, whether consciously or not.  I am writing about this COC album because it is their best.

Flooding in on a wave of organ, the opening solo sets out COC’s approach on this record: they don’t give a shit what people expect.  This record is going to go where the hell it pleases, is going to ask you questions you’ve never been asked, and isn’t really going to care what your answer is.  It is at times catastrophically heavy but somehow never steps outside of the hard rock/metal crossover for which COC are known.  “Stone Breaker” may have taken fans by surprise on first listen, but it is a spine-tingling and dynamic song that plays with Led Zeppelin guitar epic stylings, hardcore aggression, and gigantic, irresistible riffs that will have people’s heads flying off their necks.  All that without even mentioning the stellar drumming performance of stand-in drummer, Stanton Moore, who brings a depth of sound and drum fill prowess that are impressive and memorable.  The seamless manner in which Mike Dean’s bass sound and Moore’s drum lines work together is testament to their abilities and contributes to a heavier overall sound.  That heaviness continues with “Paranoid Opioid” in which we are thrashed relentlessly by a riff from COC’s hardcore days while being spun into confusion by the psyched-out vocals.  As strong as this opening duo is, it’s third track “It Is That Way” that will have fans feeling at home.  The train samples and echoed drums of the intro give the impression the band are playing in some NOLA dirt patch, while the slower paced bluesy guitar tones from Woody Weatherman and Pepper Keenan’s welcoming drawl hark back to earlier work, and perfectly set up the listener for the album’s most idiosyncratic and atmospheric passage.

“Dirty Hands Empty Pockets/Already Gone”, like its title, is split: part rumbling bass with gravelly spoken word, part giant riff explosions.  It feels like pure COC, but is bold enough to spend more time on building anticipation than on the catchy, headbanging sections.  It’s a decision that pays off with each lunge into that riff being a highlight of the album. “Rise River Rise” is another.  Again displaying patience and a willingness to stand out from its surroundings, this track takes the layered atmospherics to the hilt with three guitar sounds flowing over one another.  A thick electric sound forms the foundation upon which an electro-acoustic riff slides, before squealing leads offer accents and changes of direction.  Pepper Keenan’s hard rock clean vocal and the wailed and whispered backing vocals perfectly complete the epic disaster atmosphere that ties so neatly into the biblical feel of this album.  It is a truly entrancing song.

After extended atmospherics “Never Turns to More” bursts to life with phenomenal drumming and breakneck riffing.  The long bridge section is filled with beautiful guitar and vocal details and fully justifies this track’s status as the album’s longest.  “Infinite War” is much quicker to get to the point.  Blistering with hardcore aggro, tight riffing, and pounding drumming, this song steps on your neck to ram home its simple message.  In the brief moments it eases up the musicianship is astounding.  Weatherman’s leads, the weight of Moore’s drums feeling like 60s and 70s psych, and Keenan’s vocals all bring unique qualities that enhance and diversify this brutal rager. 

COC introduce the album’s final passage with the classically mid-paced “World On Fire”.  Weatherman’s closing solo is epic, and is the final moment of light before the melancholy of “Crown of Thorns” and the utter devastation of “In The Arms of God”.  The former is upsetting with its cries of pain, distorted spoken word samples, and eerie rocking chair sounds building a portentous atmosphere.  The latter takes that atmosphere and throws it in to the heavens with rumbling and cascading drum fills, escalating riffing, and furious screams of Nietzschean angst.  It feels like every muscle is trying to tear itself from your bones as you try to keep up with the desire to explode like the music you’re listening to.  At this moment the entire last hour of music you have listened to feels like nothing more than precursor to this insane riff epic.  It is not without interesting detail either, but the final feeling is one of pure heavy metal exhaustion where every last bit of passion, energy, and anger has been spent in releasing this built-up pressure.

In The Arms of God is breath-taking.  It hits me on every level as hard now as it did when it was released.  There are no faults to be found, no spare moments, and no wasted ideas.  Everything contributes to the whole and that whole makes each song better in return.  I might not convince every COC fan that this record is their best, but I hope that everyone who reads this takes an hour in a room with a stereo turned all the way up, and sets themselves In The Arms of God.  

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #24

John Knox Sex Club – Raise Ravens

(Self-released, 2011)

Buy the album here

Scotland is renowned as a proud country of great national beauty, from the coves and jagged rocks of its coastline to the beguiling and ever-changing scenes of its highland ranges, but for most of its inhabitants Scotland is a far more urban experience.  With massive population centres like Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland’s history and character are as tied to industrialisation, living conditions, and education, as they are to its famous mountains, lochs, and wildlife (real or mythic).  While Scottish music may still be widely considered to stem from rural and Highland traditions, and most commonly encountered at ceilidhs, Scotland has a more recent but equally important musical identity.  Bands like Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, and Mogwai have created a new urban “folk” music that, inadvertently or otherwise, draws on tradition but actively engages with the urban existence of Scotland’s contemporary population.  For me, John Knox Sex Club does this better than anyone.  Even their name pulls on Scotland’s history and drags it in to the red-tinged light of modern, urban Scotland.  Filled with traditional instrumentation juxtaposed with amplified guitars, crashing percussion, and honest vocals with native accents, theirs is an openly folk approach to post-rock-influenced indie.

To describe John Knox Sex Club simply as indie denies them the full impact of their epic visions and immense musical power.  It’s a music that should only be played in the cavernous and echoing halls of grand castles and cathedrals.  Fittingly, the vocals are delivered with the worryingly addictive vehemence of a preacher sermonising on your sins, while the orchestral strings clash with the rhythm section like the forces of heaven battling the demons of hell.  This is epic indie with unbound scope and musical ambition.  Opening track, and 13-minute behemoth, “Kiss the Dirt” does all of this and more with its cold, foggy, Scottish morning opening gently strummed and lyricised, and its powerfully cathartic peaks packed with Mogwai-like progressive dynamics.  The heartfelt and beautiful vocals work alongside the violins to cut through the intensity of the instrumentation and provide a moving poetic exploration of modern civilisation.  The lyrics are an epic poem of human history, mythology, politics, fate, love and more that anchors itself to modern urban life:

Link arms across

High rise flats

Or watch as our lives drop

Like dripping taps

In forgotten rooms

It is an unfathomably good song; uplifting yet honest, musically epic but never complex, “Kiss the Dirt” is an astounding way to open an album.  The only problem being that it’s impossible for the album to maintain this standard.

“Above Us the Waves” is a beautiful song of longing that replaces the immensity of “Kiss…” with lyrical and musical subtlety.  Passion is still a driving force here, but John Knox… ask us now to take pleasure in quiet moments, gentle melodies, self-effacing hooks, and minute domestic observations meeting grand nature similes.  It’s a comedown of sorts, but one that rewards repeat listens.  From there an instrumental track leads us from “…Waves” to the more outwardly post-rock slow build to powerful release of “The Neighbours” and its memories of family strife in urban settings.  A memorable chorus is supported by a twisted bass line that winds itself around the gliding strings and escalating wails of both vocalists, before ominously leaving us with the permanent and unresolved danger of the line “like footsteps in the hall”.  It’s another impassioned poem of urban life that leaves the listener in awe.  “Katie Cruel” is a reworking of a traditional song that further develops the idea of a new folk music in Scotland.  The sparse, gloomy atmosphere combined with the underlying distorted guitar sounds give this traditional song a modern twist without overwhelming the strings and the original lyrics.  Where hints of Harvestman peek through on “Katie Cruel”, the final track has a more accessible Crippled Black Phoenix quality to it.  A noticeably warmer verse and guitar sound in “The Thaw” is interrupted by the experimental, part spoken word, mid-section that layers light sounds in a dizzying manner.  John Knox… then find their way gently to the uplifting and hopeful repetition of the album’s final line:

The grass grows beneath the ice and snow

Produced in small batches and packaged by hand by the band themselves, Raise Ravens is a unique view on modern life in Scotland produced by a truly independent band.  Never disavowing the past, never judging the present, and finally pointing to the future, John Knox… have produced an album that touches on all parts of life in Scotland.  While the lack of record company backing may have contributed to multiple hiatuses, it is their independence that allowed John Knox… to truly express themselves and deliver the beauty of this album to anyone who wishes to listen.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #29

Gojira – From Mars to Sirius

(Listenable Records, 2005)

Buy the album here

Godzilla is a gigantic monster.  Whales are huge mammals.  The distance from Mars to Sirius is unimaginably great.  Gojira somehow manages to make sounds that seem larger than all these things.  Theirs is a crushingly heavy yet uplifting sound that holds a contemplative beauty in its brutality.  From Mars to Sirius is an album that will make you feel like a colossus astride the globe, Joe Duplantier’s roars flowing through your veins, but invigorated by a protective sense of belonging to its creatures, resources, and potential.  The heaviness, the deep growled and screamed vocals, the death metal-inspired drums, and thick, equal parts doom/death guitars place Gojira as one of the more extreme bands in mainstream heavy metal.  While heavy metal has often dealt with feelings of isolation, Gojira want us to see that we’re all part of the same ecology, and that we all have a part to play in keeping it alive… even if their music is devastating to all that stand in its path.

Extreme metal tends to engender assumptions.  These can range from the obvious stereotype of thuggish guys peddling mindless noise, to the belief that death metal vocals can be about nothing other than violence.  And while there are plenty of bands throwing their hands high in the air to proudly lay claim to those stereotypes, Gojira show us the other side of extreme music where heaviness, aggression, and loudness are about caring deeply for something, bringing people together, and hoping to be a force for positive change.  In fact, Gojira are at their most effective when their heaviness is more natural or seemingly incidental, as if just an extension of their feelings on the subject.  The Way of all Flesh, the follow up to From Mars..., struggles to produce the same emotional connection simply because it is hitting its listeners too hard.  But here we have incredible moments of heaviness on “From The Sky”, “Where Dragons Dwell”, and “Flying Whales” that never overstep, never impede your emotional connection, and never cease the spine tingling feeling that inspires you to hug everyone and simultaneously kick holes in the wall.  Gojira do what all good heavy metal bands should do: bludgeon you around the ears and make you smile about it.

For many, From Mars… would have been their first Gojira listening experience, but looking back, it’s incredible to note how much of a leap forward in songwriting, performance, and production the album represents.  While the moments of djent-inspired complexity and bruising vocals are all present on their earlier albums, they lack the individuality and ear for hooks and doom heaviness that allows them to stand apart on this and later albums.  The opening track “Ocean Planet” introduces the running theme of the album with gentle whale song, and instantly displays a newfound confidence in their unique identity with riffs built around brutal repeated breakdowns and pinched harmonics, and lyrics preoccupied with the interweaving of nature and human consciousness.  “Backbone” does similar work with a more free-flowing, high tempo approach, blastbeats, expansive guitar sounds, and extended vocal growls.  It’s an attention-grabbing opening salvo filled with diverse sounds, textures, and emotions.  Oddly, having grown up on 90s metal like Machine Head and Fear Factory, Gojira give me a little of everything I’m looking for from heavy music: big guitar sounds, ferocious vocals, double bass pedal action, and loads of pinched harmonics, but with enough hook and melody for me to latch on to.  The main difference being that Gojira wrap it up in the theme of nature and spirituality, so while they’re making you feel like a mean, bad-ass… you’re a caring, mean, bad-ass.

Back-to-back tracks “From Mars” and “To Sirius” take us on an abbreviated journey from the former’s gentle, whispered prelude to the enormous, adrenaline-pumping genius of the latter’s opening riff.  Gojira’s ability to take a simple riff and make it feel epic with the infusion of Mario Duplantier’s intense double-bass led drumming, and the elongated vowels of brother Joe’s death vocals is unmatched in metal right now.  At times Joe Duplantier’s cries are like sheet lightning flashing across the sky, leaving only the memory of its existence before the thunder and depth of his death growl comes to remind you of its power.  “The Heaviest Matter in the Universe” and “Global Warming” are the high points of an album that has not a single bad song.  The former is a pit-starting, thrash-death masterpiece that briefly toys with being too heavy before punishing you with the catchiest song about mental and spiritual anguish you’re likely to hear.  The latter closes out the album with a beautiful, diverse, and rich prog-death culmination of the thematic threads introduced with “Ocean Planet”.  Gojira wear their hearts on their sleeves here, unafraid to proclaim a sense of powerlessness in the face of human arrogance and wastefulness:

We are taking everything for granted
I don't think we should do this now
And when I see the smoke all around
I feel like I'm not

From humankind down there
I feel like glaciers are my eyes
And mountains are my head
My heart is ocean
And I feel all alone
Because everybody's wrong

But they are a positive and forward-thinking group so never let go of hope:

I had this dream, our planet surviving
The guiding stars always growing
And all the worlds
The fates all the countries
They're all rebuilding at the same time
I never fell and always believed in
We could evolve and get older
Open your eyes and let all this flow
Now see a new hope is growing inside

From Mars… is a perfect unit.  Nothing stands out too far, there is nothing that doesn’t belong.  It is focused and aggressive, but confident enough to explore and experiment.  It is unendingly catchy, but has enough depth to have you interested in new ways on every return.  Gojira have, in making an album about the dangers the earth faces, channelled their frustration, hopes, and desires into a timeless piece of music.  It has all the sonic qualities that suggest it will age well, and, even 12 years on, it is as vibrant and modern as it was on its release.  I hope, as I imagine the band do, that the album’s warnings of irreversible damage to the planet don’t prove to be as timeless as I think the music itself will.  Let the warnings be heard.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #31

Rainbow – Rising

(Oyster/Polydor, 1976)

Buy the album here

Heavy metal would be a different experience if it weren’t for the contributions of Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore.  Dio and Rob Halford of Judas Priest led a generation of heavy music vocalists with unlimited talent, operatic stylings, incredible range, and, in Dio’s case, a penchant for ludicrous fantasy lyrics.  Blackmore stands proudly in a line of iconic heavy metal guitarists like Tony Iommi, Randy Rhoads, and Eddie Van Halen who pushed the envelope and changed common perceptions of what the guitar could do, and what heavy metal could be.  Together, Dio and Blackmore have taken me to heights that none of these other musicians’ bands could accomplish.  The imaginative epic quality of their music, the riffing and structural intelligence of Blackmore in combination with his renowned soloing, and Dio’s badass, righteous voice do more for me than any other band of the era.  Rising is the pinnacle of Rainbow’s all-too-short existence.

And in terms of pinnacles there are none greater, none more impressive, than the masterpiece of “Stargazer” in which Dio and Blackmore exceed even their own high standards.  Dio’s lyrics concerning a wizard who enslaves thousands in his quest to build a tower to the stars are thematically focused but fantastically realised, and his delivery is bold, aggressive, and pitch perfect.  Blackmore’s riffs are huge, atmospheric clouds that seem to change with the wind, and his solos are both as sharp as lightning strikes and as gentle as summer rain.  But it’s the powerful drum solo from heavy metal legend Cozy Powell that brings “Stargazer” to life, and the work of both The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and Tony Carey on keyboards that have the song reaching for the stars, much like the delusional wizard Dio creates:

All eyes see the figure of the wizard

As he climbs to the top of the world

No sound, as he falls instead of rising

Time standing still, then there's blood on the sand

Oh I see his face!

From the moment the wizard falls to his demise, the song continues to scale the heights of musical greatness.  The strings, guitars, drums, and vocals keep pushing and pushing, insisting that there must be higher peaks to reach, as if the spirit of the wizard is still convinced of his ability to touch the stars, and take his place among the gods.  The progressive element of Rainbow’s approach matches so perfectly the tale they want to tell that you may find yourself wishing that the story and this incredible song may never end.

Rising is more than just a vehicle for this show-stealing epic though.  “A Light in the Black” continues the story of the enslaved people of “Stargazer” with yet more inventive work from Blackmore, solid driving rhythms from Powell, and Dio stamping his vocal authority over everything.  It seems like a comedown after the excellence that has preceded it, but Blackmore’s and Carey’s histrionic solos followed by Dio’s screams of “I’m coming home” make it a fitting end to the album.  The chorus of “Do You Close Your Eyes” is perhaps a low point on the album, but the verse riffs and vocals are awesome, even if the song lacks the high-flying creativity of the rest of the album.  The mid-paced chug of “Run with the Wolf” is a more direct heavy rock song with Dio’s vocals providing the greatest highlights, while “Starstruck” draws a stirring harmonised sea-shanty guitar opening in to one of Dio’s customary tales of dangerous women. 

But it’s the album’s opening track that evens the scales when set against “Stargazer”.  “Tarot Woman” begins with floating, prog keys delicately setting the scene for an album that belongs to an astral plane.  The exaggerated vocals work off the staccato rhythms of much of the main riff, before the solos carry you to another level.  Dio pins you down again with screams of “no, no, no” that develop the sense of danger that lurks just beneath everything in this fantastical album, but ultimately it’s the unique sound of Blackmore’s guitars working alongside those keys that leaves it mark and builds the foundation from which “Stargazer” launches itself towards greatness.

Rising taught me to love that more natural 70s drum sound where the heaviness is incidental, the power of fantasy lyrics, and the genius of Ritchie Blackmore.  Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath always dominated my thoughts of the period, but this album changed that for me, and I have to give most of the credit for that to Ronnie James Dio.  The man credited with popularising the use of “devil horns” among heavy metal fans gave more to us with his vocal talent than he ever did with crowd-pleasing gestures.  Just listen to Henry Rollins discuss his love of Dio’s voice or the Sabbath album Mob Rules and you’ll start to understand that Dio had something that no other heavy metal singer has ever had.  He may have sung about beasts, dragons, mystical lands, wizards, evil women, and many other things you will never encounter, but he did it with an intense sincerity that could, and still does, make you care about things you barely understand.  His was a talent for inclusion, a weapon to draw people in rather than slay them like the dragons he saw in his mind.  Heavy metal sung with heart and soul to give others heart and soul when they needed it most.