52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #6

Exhorder – Slaughter in the Vatican

(Roadrunner, 1990)

Buy the album wherever you can find it, because I can't

I had seen Exhorder T-shirts flying around long before I even knew what they sounded like.  The jagged letters in the logo suggested death metal influences, but the swampy yet razor sharp thrash I eventually heard was somehow heavier than that.  The frantic drumming only heightened the sheer fear generated by the vile and disgusting guitar sounds, and the pained and brilliantly arranged vocals surprised and slayed in equal measure.  While their sound doesn't easily associate them with the NOLA scene, the southern sludge influence of the band’s hometown can be heard throughout their debut album and lends a unique atmosphere to their groove-thrash.  The infamous Scott Burns was drafted in by Roadrunner to produce and, while the results are controversial for some, there is no doubting the intensity that the band captured with this melding of thrash, groove, and death.  Having reformed in 2008, the band have yet to release a follow-up to second album The Law, but with Slaughter in the Vatican setting the benchmark it is understandable they are taking their time to write killer material.

“Homicide” is nasty.  Plunging bass sounds that make you want to vomit, demonically twisted backing vocals, disgusting lyrics, and a guitar/drum assault that feels like GBH come together in a musical maelstrom of murder.  The groove kicks in during the second minute, but the damage is already done to a neck that will need warming up before listening to this beast.  That it’s only 3 minutes long is little help, a point proved again in another relentless blast of thrash in “Anal Lust”.  Snare ‘til you die in this two-minute wrecker gives you no time to think, but on repeat listens you will notice the skill of Kyle Thomas’ vocals.  Whether he’s going with the rhythm or against it, Thomas pulls out the perfect emphasis, pitch, pace, and intensity at every turn.  This is one of thrash metal's finest vocal performances.  Even when they slow things down on a track like “Desecrator”, the barks, growls, and screams all hit their marks, at times being spat out with such speed and precision that you can’t help but picture a torrent of spittle flying from his overworked mouth on every plosive.  “Desecrator”, while still brutal, allows Exhorder’s influence on thrash and groove metal in the 90s to shine through.  Everything the band are about is on display here.

“Exhorder” is more succinct.  No preamble here.  Just smashing you in the face from the outset.  The guitar tone and drumming are incredible and the cries of “Exhorder” are gleefully pained and catchy at the same time.  “Legions of Death” turns my prefrontal cortex to mush.  Bashing it against the inside of my skull has that affect.  Title track and album closer, “Slaughter in the Vatican” is perhaps the most patient composition, but the moment the band lose that patience is breath-taking.  Around the 1’40” mark, after a building groove, it sounds like their ADHD has driven them spare.  The next 5 minutes has them lurching back and forth between sickened grooves and brutalised blasts of thrash punctuated by Thomas’ hurling of the words, “If the father of the church is to lead and teach you/Then why doesn't he follow the rules?/Imitate the son of man and live with the poor/Instead of fearing him while he's on tour”.  But it’s the first song rather than the last that leaves its mark on the listener.  Every time I listen to opening track “Death in Vain” I think that there can’t be a better track than this on the record.  Following a suspiciously Sepultura-esque atmospheric sound effect, Exhorder unleash an album’s worth of energy in the following 4 minutes of anti-war proselytising.  It’s a petrifying whirlwind of sludge-thrash riffing, pounding snare, and gnarled vocals crowned with the lyrics, “Cause of death was never confirmed/Did he really die?/Get permission from the state/To save his precious life”. 

It’s an album that could send its fans in the direction of Obituary, Pantera, Anthrax, Eyehategod, or Sepultura, but I guarantee they will always return to Slaughter in the Vatican.  This is an album that should have been a touchstone for the thrash generation, but somehow got stuck in the sinking mud of the early 90s near-death of the genre.  Once metal fans had pulled themselves free of that mud they were free to dive back in to the swamp with Exhorder and we’ve seen a rejuvenation in the genre fuelled by old and new bands alike.  And that’s what Exhorder did for me as a music fan: reminded me how vicious, vital, and different thrash can be and brought me back to my favourite musical genre.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #7

Prong - Cleansing

(Epic, 1993)

Buy the album on eBay

I use the term “party metal”, and nobody ever seems to know what I mean.  I refer to music that has all the hallmarks of heavy metal, meaning it would never be able to infiltrate the mainstream, but has the energy, danceability, and sense of fun that might result in a party getting started, even if only by one lonely guy in his front room.  I’m most often referring to bands like Every Time I Die, their no-holds-barred lyrics, and their don’t-give-a-shit charm, but the term started before that band even came around.  For one shining album, Prong made party metal that could have sweaty maniacs moshing hell-for-leather one moment, and grooving all sexy-like, looking for a hook-up the next.  It feels like music for people who would wear leather trousers out even though it’s 35 degrees in the club, but simultaneously it’s for those who subscribe to the Andrew W.K. party uniform.  So even if you’re in your jeans and white T-shirt, grab your leathered friend, get Cleansing blasting through your speakers, and let the party commence.

Produced by 90s metal producer extraordinaire, Terry Date, you’ll hear Pantera guitar tone influences on this record, and at times that groove metal feel might make you think Prong are little more than Pantera impersonators.  However, Prong and Tommy Victor (guitar, vocals) are far less interested in macho posturing and way more into industrial and dance music influences.  In fact, Prong are closer to White Zombie in their sense of musical fun, and, while the explosion of DJs in metal bands wouldn’t occur until later, you can feel the push towards scratching being incorporated into metal with some of the guitar techniques and sampling employed here.  “Broken Peace” begins with a Tom Morello-inspired background riff and a pummelling bass line.  Those Rage Against the Machine-like guitar squeaks hint at the developments mainstream metal would see in the 90s, but more importantly provide a lighter, more danceable backdrop to the industrial riffing that kicks in.  While Prong want you to dance to their tunes and keep everyone happy with their rounded rhythm section sounds, they are a heavy band and the riffs are crushing in their weight and sharpness.  Tommy Victor’s vocals are not the usual frothing, angry metal frontman style, but rather have a slow, deliberate burning intensity to them, exemplified by his delivery of the lines:

Now it's all exploding

Pick up the broken peace

Nothing left to break.

“One Outnumbered” maintains this vaguely politicised burning intensity but balances it with coddling passages of dream-like guitar clouds and soothing bass.  It’s indicative of a band mindful of dynamics and the value of a gentle sway to break up the neck-snapping headbanging.  That’s all well and good, but it ain’t metal if it doesn’t punch you in the face at some point, and the riff here is a series of jaw-cracking jabs, the vocal a left hook to make your head spin.  It’s one of those riffs that makes you wish you could bang your head backwards as well, as if standard headbanging doesn’t fully express your approval of the pacing, rhythm and crunch of that guitar sound.  Tommy Victor displays an exceptional innate sense of rhythm and groove on this record, both on guitar and in his vocals, and at points the album feels like a tribute to the riff, every song designed to put its perfectly formed guitar parts directly into your brain.

Even when things get a little swampy on the later tracks, there is an undeniable guitar hook in each song.  The squeezed riff of “No Question” inspires thoughts of Zakk Wylde’s over-exposed production on Sonic Brew; “Home Rule” hits with the intensity of Rollins Band and its great riff is perfectly complemented by peppery drumming; the staccato phrasing of “Sublime” is a prime example of what Prong do even if it wanders too much.  But the true heart of this album is in its opening third.  First track, “Another Worldly Device”, does not delay its riff attack, shredding your tympanic membrane with a delightfully abrasive guitar sound played at speeds that keep your feet moving double time.  The raspy vocals match that riff, before the solo injects a little left-field lunacy with wailing squeaks that continue to lie below the surface of the closing chorus.  “Cut-Rate” has a lunacy of a thrashier nature, with top speed being reached within tenths of a second of the song’s beginning.  The solo somehow seems to crank that speed up until the song can barely contain itself and it dissolves into some vague industrial noises and a plodding, heavy outro.  While both of these songs are great, Prong’s strength is not necessarily in playing at speed.  The album’s iconic high point is the party metal duo of “Whose Fist Is This Anyway?” and “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck”, both more focused on intense groove, stop-and-start rhythms, and banging of the head.

“Whose First Is This Anyway?”, a song title applicable to so many life situations, is built on an incessant rhythm that allows the guitar parts to chop, stop, roll and generally keep the listener grooving and moving.  The influence of and on White Zombie can be heard most clearly here and is a clear sign of Terry Date’s work across the bands he worked with in the 90s.  “Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck” is a bona fide heavy metal classic.  The lyrics of working class hardship seem to carry a self-reflexive heavy metal importance that has made the track a club classic since its release.  The rolling bass intro lines up another cutting Prong guitar sound, but it’s happy to let Victor’s voice stand on its own before lurching back in with a galloping pre-chorus riff.  The picked sections, open string strumming, pinched harmonics, and vicious main riff provide an incredibly varied foundation for the iconic line to grab hold of its listeners, “snap your fingers, snap your neck”.  It’s a song for singing along, swinging your hair, and banging your head with your friends whether they prefer leather or denim.  Christ, even if they prefer corduroy or twill cotton.  Cleansing is an album that exists right at modern metal’s heart.  Welcoming fans from both ends of the metal spectrum to celebrate guitar riffs and party hard.  While Prong have never quite rediscovered this perfect balance, Cleansing stands as a classic metal album with an identity all its own.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #13

Death – Symbolic

(Roadrunner, 1995)

Symbolic is not Death’s best album.  Human and Leprosy are essential listening, but as an ultra-infectious starting point for new fans, there is no better than Symbolic.  Filled with viciously grooving hooks, frenetic galloping passages, 80s and 90s video game riffing, and customarily excellent musicianship, this record is a smorgasbord of Death sounds.  It doesn’t have the cohesiveness or invention of Human, but it crams into 50 minutes just about everything you could want to know and feel about this band.  Symbolic was my gateway to the phenomenal and genre-defining work of Death, and as such has shaped my musical life as much as any other extreme metal album.

Line-up changes had become an accepted part of Death’s career, with only the late Chuck Schuldiner being a constant in their existence, and their 1995 release was no exception.  Bobby Koelble and Kenny Conlon would make their only recorded appearance with the band, while Gene “Atomic Clock” Hoglan would make his second and final album with Chuck before continuing his unmatched drumming tour of heavy music.  With the exception of Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinert’s influence on Human, Death was really Chuck Schuldiner and the Death Boys from the outset, and that fact shines through on this record.  Symbolic feels as though Chuck is allowing his writing to flow naturally, fusing the more exploratory styles of Human and Individual Thought Patterns with the instant catchiness of Leprosy and allowing himself more fun through his music.  There is a 90s video game quality to the whole affair.  In songs like “Without Judgement” I hear Makoto Tomozawa’s work on Megaman X, but the album’s frenetic riffing, rampant solos, and insane drumming continually remind me of playing Smash TV on the SNES or Xenon 2 on PC.  I feel like I’m dodging a hail of laser bullets, spinning in circles trying to avoid obstacles or collect power-ups, and panicking every time more baddies enter the fray.  It’s a dizzying experience of dense riffs, crystal clear solos, military precision drumming, and beautiful death metal vocals.

“Crystal Mountain” might be the best example of the immediacy of Chuck’s approach on this album.  Opening on a galloping riff, supported by Hoglan’s exquisite double bass control and overlaid with echoing lead guitar accents, this track is about as cheesy and catchy as extreme metal gets, with even a Spanish guitar somehow infiltrating the final moments.  It was the first Death track I ever heard and convinced me in mere seconds that I would be buying this album.  Once purchased, “Without Judgement” continued in this vein with its video game initial riff leading to more tightly packed verse guitars and frenetically paced choruses.  The speed and pitch perfect delivery seems to physically pick you up and spin you round, while Chuck’s vocals and lyrics provide the thoughtful counterpoint to this loss of corporeal control.  His drawn out vowels and deliberate pacing highlight his lyrical plea for a society and its people to be more open-minded, and to eschew over-simplification of others’ issues.

And I have to be careful not to oversimplify what Death have done on this record.  While it is more accessible than its two immediate predecessors, there is interesting complexity at every turn.  From Chuck’s slightly offbeat vocal on “Zero Tolerance” to the eight minutes of structural and pacing experimentation of “Perennial Quest”, via the choppy guitars and wild mid-section solos of “Empty Words”, this album is frequently surprising and rewards repeat listens.  The grooving intro of album opener “Symbolic” belies the chopping riffs, psychedelic sci-fi-inspired solos, and unexpected vocal rhythms that follow.  At times the song is travelling so fast, and there is so much density of sound, that the mind almost can’t keep up.  Adrenaline starts to flow in response to this barrage, and each Chuck growl stands to attention the hair on your neck and arms.  This is a feeling that doesn’t let up through album highlights “Empty Words”, “Sacred Serenity”, “1,000 Eyes”, and “Without Judgement”, each contributing to the album’s astounding middle act, and leaving listeners gasping for more.

Every time a Symbolic track pops up on shuffle, it’s time to stop what I’m doing, pay attention, and thrash my head relentlessly.  Every song is irresistible, the production is perfect, and the lyrics and vocals challenge any preconceptions of death metal.  That feeling of being thrown into a physical maelstrom while being intellectually stimulated is rare in music and is the reason that Death are so iconic.  To Chuck’s credit, Symbolic retains these qualities while somehow managing to incorporate an almost pop music level of catchiness.  This is death metal for those who enjoy a little life with their death.

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 - #15

Machine Head – Burn My Eyes

(Roadrunner, 1994)

Buy the album here

1994: corruption, racism, hate.

The church has failed.

If Jesus came down, he’d be shot.

These words blew my mind.  Machine Head were like nothing I’d heard before.  The second metal band I found, after the obvious Metallica moment of my youth, and they were talking about the world as it was right then!  And spitting venom as they did.  Recorded to make it feel like a newscast from the riot-ravaged streets of LA, this opening line to “Old” transported me to a world where all the things I’d grown up believing – Christianity, the world being a fair place, and other middle-class norms – would be challenged or even permanently erased.  From the moment I looked at the twisted, industrial Dave McKean album cover the experience was visceral, uncomfortable at times, and insanely addictive.  Unsure of what I thought on first listen, there was a burning need to revisit time and again to understand what was going on, what made these guys so angry, and how anything could be so heavy.  These were the first forays into what felt like some bizarre underground scene for teenage me, and while that perception quickly shifted over the coming years, that feeling of newness, fear, and excitement still strikes me when I listen to this record.  Burn My Eyes will always be one of my favourite metal albums.

I vaguely remember seeing the video for “Take My Scars” (from the following album) on ITV’s Chart Show (!!!), and being hooked by this grainy, dirty, playing-under-a-freeway aesthetic that I hadn’t seen before.  Machine Head carried a street-smart vibe that seemed completely alien for a middle-class kid from northeast Scotland.  This vibe infuses Burn My Eyes with an edge of authenticity and reality that makes every vaguely politicised track hit home harder.  “Block” is a prime example of this.  It comes scratching into existence on a gigantic, earth-shifting rhythm section intro with electric guitars barely able to contain their energy.  The thrash-punk attack that follows stands as a flag of resistance to the inequities and damage that modern capitalism wreaks, and encapsulates the wide-ranging rebellion against the mainstream that Machine Head were trying to embody.  From poverty to pollution via drug addiction, “Block” is a catch-all neo-thrash anthem of rebellion, and the perfect way to conclude the album.

What precedes it was just as vital back in 1994, and still feels fresh to my ears now.  While there are a couple of slightly lower points on the record – “A Thousand Lies” suffers from following the eventually iconic opening tracks, and its rap-inspired verse vocal and the accompanying lyrics are not good, while “I’m Your God Now” just feels lazy – even they work to provide balance to an otherwise non-stop onslaught.  On an album that is mostly famous for its opening duo of “Davidian” and “Old”, and perhaps rightly so, it’s impressive to note that the best tracks here are “None but My Own” and “Blood for Blood”.  The former begins as a mid-paced celebration of piercing pinched harmonics before working itself into a thrashy lather with traded solos from Robb Flynn and Logan Mader.  The final outro is a frantic thrash attack fuelled by Chris Kontos’ perfect modern metal drumming, and charged with the mantra-like words, “my heart bleeds for none but my own”.  The latter sets out to be as harsh on the ears as possible with droves of distorted sounds crashing in on top of one another, until Flynn’s count of “1-2-3-4-GO!” clears the way for another neo-thrash riff backed by pummelling drumming that had insane mosh pits breaking out wherever Machine Head played.  With Kontos on top form, bassist Adam Duce’s backing vocals setting the tone, and Flynn and Mader trading the most interesting solos of the album, “Blood for Blood” is Machine Head at their most focused and effective.

And that’s how I feel about this record as a whole.  Machine Head have journeyed through the sub-genres of mainstream metal with accompanying highs and lows in their critical and commercial success.  The nu-metal laughability of Supercharger was probably a low point for most Machine Head fans, while those same fans will probably hold the following two albums in high esteem thanks to the Gothenburg stylings and improved songwriting.  But as good as Through the Ashes of Empires and The Blackening are, they simply don’t have the same honest energy, focus, and likeability of Burn My Eyes.  Like the humanoid figure on the cover, this album crackles with electricity and captures the desire to keep thrash alive in the 90s when many bands were going the other way.  In “Blood for Blood” and “Block” you couldn’t find a better jolt of electricity to awake a genre that had, just ten years prior, changed the direction of heavy music forever.   

    

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #18

Entombed – Wolverine Blues

(Earache, 1993)

Buy the album here

With one demon grunt my musical life was changed.  A grizzly bear of a riff and thumping drums suddenly exploded then unexpectedly stopped.  A primal roar burst forth, and the music continued on its destructive path.  The moment was over in four seconds, but it is still one of the most memorable in my listening experiences.  The opening of “Demon” tells you everything you need to know about Entombed’s objective on Wolverine Blues: simple, direct, instinctive, heavy, and hell, even anti-intellectual.  This album is more concerned with making your guts vibrate than firing synapses, more focused on gigantic power chord riffing than duelling solos and Classical-inspired structures, and would rather you fear it than respect it.  Where Death, Carcass, and the emerging death metal mainstream began taking a surgically exact approach to their music, Entombed decided to down tune, fuzz out, and ride a Pantera-inspired wave of groove metal success.  Wolverine Blues has been credited with birthing the sub-genre of “Death ‘n’ Roll”, and in doing so it opened the door for hard rock and heavy metal fans to work their way backward to the oft intimidating world of death metal.  While the album sounds like it wants to kick you in the face, it is actually politely opening doors for you.  How nice of it.

“Demon” is the centrepiece.  It is brash, violent, and lyrically vacuous, but at its pounding heart it only wants to make you stomp your feet and bang your head.  The immediacy of the riffs, the pauses, the wild yells all serve that singular purpose.  The direct approach is maintained by “Full of Hell”, with lyrical insights along the lines of, “I'm organized chaos but don't call me stupid I'm insane”, and “Hollowman” with its punchy riffs and drunken-mate vocals.  The whole thing clocks in at around thirty-five minutes of groove-laden, mid-pace riffs, blues-tinged solos, fat drums, and fatter vocals, but there’s an argument to be made that it should have been even shorter.  While the riffs are always catchy and there is never a "bad" song, the first four tracks do the job of the whole album in less than half the time.  Opener “Eyemaster” is the most musically interesting on the album.  Combining the groovier “death ‘n’ roll” sound with the faster old school death of their first two albums and throwing in some killer solos, the song stands head and shoulders above the rest.  The buzzsaw guitar sound and syncopated riffs on “Rotten Soil” are dirty and broken in the best way, and clearly show the band’s influence on Bloodbath, while title track “Wolverine Blues” is a sludgy monster that balances the thrashier tracks it follows.  Rounded off by “Demon”, Wolverine Blues could have been one of the most legendary EPs of all time.

It may not have aged as well as its Stockholm Sound defining predecessors Left Hand Path and Clandestine, but this album’s influence on me is stronger.  By giving my fearful little mind enough groove to hang on to, family friendly satanic imagery, and that rounded sound of mainstream metal, this album brought me slowly and gently into the death metal fold.  Nuzzling in its big, furry arms I was cradled into the midst of earlier Entombed, Autopsy, and Deicide, but never felt alone or exposed.  It was like having a big brother to take you to the pub for the first time, but this pub was serving pints of blood in hollowed out skulls. you paid with your everlasting devotion, and your brother was a viking warrior.  Wolverine Blues will always be my big metal brother, even if he’s a little past it these days.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #26

Clutch – Blast Tyrant

(DRT Entertainment – Weathermaker Music, 2004)

Buy the album here

These words are a foreign language in my brain…. I didn’t really like Blast Tyrant when it came out.  I found it fluffy, poppy, and lyrically esoteric on the first few listens and decided I was better off without it.  I had stumbled across Clutch when they supported Raging Speedhorn in Glasgow (to our delayed collective confusion) and was overjoyed and blown away on first listening to Pure Rock Fury.  PRF is an album that hits with hardcore intensity, delightful blues-tinged jams, wild vocal dexterity, and that bursting-at-the-seams garage heaviness that I adore.  By the time the more polished, key-infused rock ‘n’ roll of Blast Tyrant came around I was rabid for “Pure Rock Fury II”, and found myself slowly backing away from the new album as if trying not to offend it.  It just wasn’t what I wanted.

Luckily, I was wrong.  It’s exactly what I wanted, what we all wanted.  Blast Tyrant is crowd-pleasing, life-affirming, perfectly conceived and executed rock ‘n’ roll from the best active rock band in the world.  Clutch have continued to sharpen to a fine point their approach on Earth Rocker and Psychic Warfare, but it’s on this album that guitarist Tim Sult, bassist Dan Maines, drummer Jean-Paul Gaster, and vocalist Neil Fallon reached their zenith.  The extended jams of earlier work like Clutch, the heaviness of PRF, and the more tightly packed simplified rock of Earth Rocker all meet in the middle of this band’s phenomenal career to produce a record that genuinely gets better from first track to last. 

“Mercury” rolls in on Sult’s heavy yet rounded and warm riffing, Gaster’s balanced drumming, and Maines’ beautifully light touch on bass before silence descends and Fallon cries out “Daedalus, your child is falling and the Labyrinth is calling”.  The difference between this record and PRF is instantly recognisable – the assured guitar sound is rockier and distances itself from their hardcore roots, the drumming is about feel rather than punching a hole in your eardrums, and Fallon’s vocals are more diverse than ever.  By the time we get to the dancefloor-filling “The Mob Goes Wild” it’s clear that the band are musically channelling Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Tom Waits, and AC/DC while drawing on Fallon’s unmistakable talent for telling frontier-type stories touched with sci-fi, fantasy, and mythology.  But there is barely any time to take note as the songs fly by in a flurry of brilliant riffs, genius vocal hooks and choruses, perfectly delivered drum fills, and general rock prowess.  “The Regulator” brings a moment to breathe and reflect.  The beautiful acoustic guitar intro is goosebumps-inducing, while Fallon’s deep and smooth vocal carries the listener off in to the world of The Regulator.  When the song bursts into its rocking chorus it feels as if you are being lifted by the very angel feathers Fallon sings of, and the hairs on your neck will to stand to attention until the guitar slowly fades out and into “Worm Drink”.

Other high points on the album are “Cypress Grove” with its rock single feel refining the intent of earlier album The Elephant Riders, “Army of Bono” where Fallon’s ripping chorus vocal points forward to his unmatched performances on Earth Rocker and Psychic Warfare, and the breakneck speed and superb backing vocals of “Subtle Hustle”.  But the whole album finds its perfect representative in “(Notes from the Trial of) La Curandera” where immediacy, jamming, storytelling, and otherworldly feelings of being carried off somewhere combine to supreme effect.  Sult’s riffs are huge and uplifting while Fallon’s voice is equal parts gravel and soaring melody, giving the impression that the song exists in the clouds somewhere.  And I think this is the key difference between this record and PRF: where the former was very much a gruff, earthy album, Blast Tyrant takes flight from the very beginning and never puts you back down.  It’s a journey that makes you feel weightless, inspired, and almost breathless.

This is all thanks to the skills of each of the band members.  There is at least one song that perfectly displays what each of them does better than any counterpart in any rock band in the world.  The sheer array of insane and catchy guitar sounds Tim Sult produces on “Profits of Doom” sets him apart from his contemporaries, while Dan Maines’ controlled and rumbling performance on “Worm Drink” does more for the song than any other instrument while simultaneously not drawing any attention to itself.  Jean-Paul Gaster also has this skill of being able to serve a song without outwardly showing off.  During “(In the Wake of) The Swollen Goat” Gaster sits just behind the gigantic riffs powering the whole song with insane fills, exquisite feel on the high hat, and perfect timing.  And if you thought that Neil Fallon was all shouty and gruff, just skip to “Ghost” to hear his sonorous tones and melodic range deliver another of his gripping stories.  I used to daydream of perfect all-star rock and metal band line-ups when I was a kid, plucking a frontman from this band and a guitarist from another, but I don’t need to any longer.  Clutch are all I could ever need from a rock band, and they fill my heart with joy. 

      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #27

Primus – Frizzle Fry

(Caroline, 1990)

Buy the album here

As with so much of the music I love, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey deserves the credit for bringing Primus into my world.  A rat-tailed Les Claypool screaming and grumbling about some cat called Tommy was unlike anything I had heard, and I can remember rewinding the soundtrack cassette over and over to try and get my head round it.  The whole thing felt dirty and weird, like some sort of anti-music to my 10-year-old ears.  I don’t think I knew if I liked it or not, but it was the most intriguing song on an album I still listen to today.  And while that film’s soundtrack sent me in the direction of Primus, Primus also guided me towards Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and Buckethead.  Their influence on my ears has been immense and undeniable, and no album has caught their attention more than Frizzle Fry.

From start to finish Frizzle Fry is the band’s most accessible album, punctuated with catchy “hits” like “John The Fisherman” and “Too Many Puppies”, yet it still displays the full Primus portfolio.  “Mr. Knowitall” and “Pudding Time” contain all the irreverence you would expect from a band that created the theme song for South Park and named a record Brown Album.  “To Defy The Laws of Tradition” and “Sathington Willoughby” play with tropes of gentlemanly white male norms with which Primus often clash.  Bassist and singer Les Claypool bumps up against imagined histories in much of his work and can be seen equally drawing inspiration from and usurping ideas of any collective past we might share.  Things get slow and strange with “Frizzle Fry” and “The Toys Go Winding Down” before Les turns brutally honest or scathingly cutting with “Spegetti Western”.  All of this is wrapped in the bass-heavy alternative punk-metal madness that made Primus so unique in 90s mainstream heavy music.

The middle stretch of this album contains a flurry of phenomenally groovy, catchy, and intriguingly odd tracks.  While “Too Many Puppies” may have to bear the blame for Korn existing, it is an insanely catchy and heavy stomper on an album that isn’t afraid to be direct.  “Mr. Knowitall” continues this approach with its pounding bassline, heavy guitar riff, and near perfect lyrics: “They call me Mr. Knowitall/I am so eloquent./Perfection is my middle name/And whatever rhymes with eloquent”.  Up next is the exquisitely judged “Frizzle Fry” which combines Les’ popping bass sound with Larry LaLonde’s squealing guitar to maximum effect, and goes on to display the unbelievable prog jamming talent of both them and Tim Alexander on drums.  “John The Fisherman”, with its downright memorable likeability, and “The Toys Go Winding Down”, imbued with foreboding and creeping oddities, round up this flow of youthful and creative genius with a reminder of the range of Primus.  They drew from all sorts of sources and allowed themselves to go in any direction they wished.      

If you don’t know Primus, trying to describe their sound is particularly tough.  It’s like Frank Zappa, The Stooges, Minutemen, and Metallica all mashed together, but delivered by a bass-wielding genius who’s simultaneously voicing all the animal characters in a twisted cartoon about what goes on when humans aren’t around.  I once said to a friend about “Too Many Puppies” that it made me want to strap a platypus to each foot and go stomping around the pit.  Sadly, I don’t think this blog post does any better a job than that one sentence does of encapsulating the bizarre and primal power of Primus.  They can worm their way into your brain almost against your will, and before long you’re hooked on the mutterings of madmen, the basslines of faux-historical figures, and the unreal world of a band who undoubtedly defy the laws of tradition. 

Oh, and I almost forgot… Primus sucks.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #28

Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power

(Atco, 1992)

Buy the album here

This blog post is getting stuck in my brain.  Pantera were a huge influence in my shift towards heavy metal, and years ago would have been a top ten band.  But my understanding of their music is shrouded now.  The on-stage murder of guitarist Dimebag Darrell amid an acrimonious band split, a retrospective reinterpretation of the band’s open embrace of white American South values, and the ongoing problem of vocalist Phil Anselmo’s racism have marred a joyful experience of chest-beating, mosh-pitting, trend-killing heavy metal.  In a 90s scene that was struggling to hold on to the aggressive, virtuosic, solo-filled thrash fury of the 80s, Pantera were the self-proclaimed saviours of “real” metal.  While metal would have survived without Pantera, it is not an exaggeration to credit them with maintaining the dreams of mainstream metal fans enduring the side effects of grunge in the early 90s, and the near disaster of nu metal in the latter part of the decade.  In 1992 Pantera intended Vulgar Display of Power to be the antidote to the seismic shift in heavy metal caused by Metallica’s “Black Album”.  It is concentrated metal attitude with the hardcore edge that Phil Anselmo brings to most of his projects.  The fun-time rock ‘n’ roll shenanigans of Dimebag Darrell and his drummer brother Vinnie Paul, evidenced by their earlier power metal phase, are keenly balanced by Phil’s desire for Pantera to lead rather than follow at a time when heavy metal was in disarray. 

While the macho, “us vs. them” lyrics may not have aged well, Phil Anselmo was undeniably the best frontman in metal through the 90s.  On “A New Level” and “Mouth For War” Anselmo’s bravado is a galvanising force for those on the inside and a stiff middle finger to those outside.  The swaggering groove of “Walk” and its staccato gang vocal chorus set the tone for an album that hammers at the same point repeatedly without ever boring the listener.  Anselmo’s unwavering delivery is central to this feat.  Combining vocal depth and abrasiveness previously unheard in mainstream metal, his performance became the blueprint for a generation of American heavy bands.  It is, even after all the shit that has happened, an irresistible display of anger and arrogance. 

But it only partially prepares you for the ferocity of Pantera’s self-proclaimed “hit” song, the almost-too-subtle “Fucking Hostile”.  At this point your ears turn to the perfect rhythm sounds and crisp solos of guitarist Dimebag Darrell.  He was killed in 2004 while playing with his new band Damage Plan, but the work he left behind could be the genius product of a lifetime of practice.  While the influences of Eddie Van Halen and Ace Frehling can always be heard in Dimebag’s work, it is channelled here to produce a genre-leading album that revels in going against the grain.  “Fucking Hostile” is built around a Battery-esque verse riff, a pure Pantera groove-laden chorus, and a phenomenal solo from a man who kept alive the traditions of guitarist forbears while pushing the art in new directions.  Dimebag used his whammy bar as a second vocalist.  If you ever saw Pantera live or have been in a metal club when Pantera songs hit the dancefloor, you’ll have witnessed people “singing” along with Dime’s solos, and “…Hostile” is a prime example, wailing out like a NWOBHM singer.  This quality is continued, at half the pace, on album lynchpin “This Love”.  Dime’s picked opening is atmospheric, channelling the spirit of the classic “Cemetery Gates” from previous album Cowboys From Hell, and is supported by Anselmo’s thoughtful croon.  The direct heaviness of the chorus riff and its interplay with the vocal hark back to “Walk”, but “This Love” has much more happening with an extended bridge section and bruisingly slow and heavy breakdown leading to an expressive Dimebag solo.  Pantera display everything that makes them so influential in this one song.

Drummer Vinnie Paul and bassist Rex Brown are central to that Pantera sound, providing an immense foundation that allows Dimebag to seamlessly veer from rhythm to lead guitar.  Driven by thick bass and tom sounds, measured use of double bass, heavy china and crash strikes, and an unerring snare that cuts through the guitar without ever overcrowding the song, Vinnie’s performance on Vulgar… is classic heavy metal drumming updated for the modern metal fan.  Rex’s bass is gut-shaking low-end with enough hook to stand alone.  In “No Good (Attack the Radical)” the bass riff during the opening verse builds tension brilliantly while Vinnie’s thunderous skin beating powers the song throughout.  “Regular People (Conceit)” displays the unity the band had as performers: the riffs and drums play off each other while the vocals feed on that energy, constantly propelling them forward.  The bass makes this possible with its unshakeable solidity and groove.  But its Dimebag’s riffs that stick in the mind, and “By Demons Be Driven” is a bursting-to-life of his flare, heaviness, groove, and free-flowing solo genius.  He does everything in this song from militarily heavy riffing and blues-inspired grooving, to the pained squeezing of notes and one-man “duelling” solos.  In combination with Anselmo’s perfect roars of “by demons be driven”, Dimebag’s performance creates another classic heavy metal track and sets up the sonically diverse closer.

Establishing itself as a ballad about the death of a friend, “Hollow” displays Pantera’s classic metal influences before splitting itself in half and hitting you with a neck-snapping series of riffs, double bass driven drums, and vicious vocals.  And this is what Vulgar… did to me when I was growing up: it introduced me to music from earlier generations by openly celebrating its influences, but was completely intent on carving out a new extreme, groove-based sound that was unwavering in its self-belief.  Pantera were, throughout the 90s, the one mainstream metal band that refused to pretend.  While other bands experimented, softened, or catered to the masses, Pantera held to their “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke” attitude, and proved that heavy music would always have an audience irrespective of trends.  For me, and many others, that all started with this album and the screeching slide at the start of “New Level”.  That moment proved these guys weren’t here to please anyone else, and that they would dominate through sheer force of will.  And while their story has taken painful and unacceptable turns, during the Phil Anselmo era Pantera produced a decade of musical aggression that stands alongside the work of the biggest metal bands in history.