52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #1

Metallica – Ride The Lightning

(Megaforce, 1984)

Buy the album here

There is no other band that could be at the top of this list. While there has been an ongoing internal struggle throughout this year concerning the album that would represent Metallica, it was always this band that would be written about on 15^th April 2018, which is, incidentally, my birthday. And as I turn 37 years old it is fitting that Metallica have been in existence for nearly every month of that time having been officially formed in October of 1981. Often credited with popularising, or even creating, thrash metal with the 1983 release of their debut Kill ‘Em All, it only took one album for the band’s ambitions to grow. Ride The Lightning stepped beyond the all-out speed, aggression, and self-reflexivity of Metallica’s first album and set a new standard in epic heavy music. The themes of injustice, war, death, and fear were more complex and personal than before. The music was more progressive, diverse in its instrumentation, and lyrically nimble, yet it was exponentially heavier than Kill ‘Em All. Whatever they had given up in overall speed had been substituted with the vicious stomp of a rhythmically pummelling riff like “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. Whatever they had lost in crowd pleasing sing-alongs like “Seek and Destroy” had been made up for by giant metal anthems like “Creeping Death”. And whatever Metallica may have gone on to miss in terms of the pure fun of a song like “Jump In The Fire”, fans of music could console themselves with the almost unbearable beauty of “Fade To Black”.

Perhaps knowing the challenge the album might pose for existing fans or thrash diehards, it opens with its most direct and aggressive song. “Fight Fire With Fire”, after its delightfully medieval acoustic guitar intro, is a furious, burning cauldron of thrash with Hetfield’s verse vocal evoking incantations or satanic rituals while the wrist-wrecking riffage and incessant, thumping drums give you whiplash and dent your skull. The power and speed of the instrumentation is even striking now, and when Kirk Hammett gives fans their first real glimpse of his lead guitar chops on record it does not let up. Title track “Ride The Lightning” continues this heaviness, but introduces more of the dark complexity that the album embraces. An intro of harmonised guitars and pounding toms takes us to the churning, mid-paced verse riff bolstering the lyrics now famous among fans, “Death in the air/Strapped in the electric chair/This can’t be happening to me”. These first two tracks only begin to open the ears of expectant thrash fans, and it is in the iconic bell rings of “For Whom The Bell Tolls” that this album truly takes shape.

The late Cliff Burton’s insane, distorted, and squeezed bass line provides a unique atmosphere to this opening, but it is the stellar interplay between guitar sounds that define this song. The riff that appears at roughly the minute mark is still the heaviest riff I have heard, sounding like concrete strings being played by concrete plectrums by people with concrete hands. Metallica instantly provide balance to this with a wonderfully gentle, guiding lead guitar sound that lands us at the feet of the inspired chorus riff. But half of the genius of this song is that it knows when to back off, giving the vocal as much space as you’ll ever find on a thrash record, and even playing with moments of silence. Metallica’s thematic preoccupation with the damage done to the individual in war, which most will know from the iconic “One”, finds its first true expression in “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, but in “Fade To Black”, a musical and structural precursor to “One”, Metallica and James Hetfield contemplate for the first time the isolation and emotional vulnerability of suicide. This is a huge step for a band who had previously been singing about The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse or other cartoonish imaginings of death or Death, and it results in perhaps Metallica’s most moving song. The Spanish guitar with wailing electric lead behind it cuts through the crushing heaviness off the previous three songs while Lars Ulrich’s thick yet gentle drums display patience in what becomes an ever-steepening climb to an unbelievable climax. “Fade To Black” is a perfect song. In the six times I have been lucky enough to see it performed live I have cried every time, a lot, and I barely manage to make it through a listening of it on CD, vinyl, or mp3 without shedding a tear. The pitch of Hetfield’s voice, the expansiveness of the last big verse riff, and the escalating drama of that interplay between Hetfield’s sorrowful rhythm guitar and Hammett’s high-pitched shredding build until I feel like I’m going to burst. It is everything I could want heavy metal to be.

As if they knew that the heights of “Fade…” would be too much for me, the duo of tracks that follow are a somewhat odd couplet. “Trapped Under Ice” and “Escape” seem to exist in a concept album that did not get made. The former is a furious and lively thrasher with exciting rhythm guitar and vocal parts that set it apart from “Escape” which, aside from the gliding harmonising of the opening and the gently catchy chorus, is a relatively uninspired drudge. Luckily “Creeping Death” comes along to wash away the memory of “Escape”… WITH BLOOD. This is heavy metal. Epic, theatrical, heavy, complex yet direct, filled with opportunities for the crowd to chant, and designed to get people thrashing their necks. It tells the story of Passover from the point of view of the destroying angel, but more importantly has chants of “Die! Die! Die!” which have likely ruined the larynxes of many over-excited teenagers. It was arguably the last time Metallica were this much fun and this good all at the same time. “Creeping Death” will always be one of Metallica’s best songs as it feels so pure, so part of them, and absolutely rips listeners to bits at the same time. To piece listeners back together the album closes with what would become a Metallica staple: an epic instrumental. “The Call of Ktulu” is resplendent in its cyclical building of tension, key changes, and patient leads. It is reminiscent of the skilled escalation found in “Fade To Black” and I find myself rising and falling with the scales and arpeggios of Hammett’s brilliant work. It is one of the many tracks from this era of Metallica that carries the stamp of Cliff Burton’s influence, the desire to branch out and not be constricted by expectations or genre limitations. And that is what Ride The Lightning represents for Metallica and their development of a music that would somehow come to shape the mainstream of rock in the following thirty years.

In recording Ride The Lightning Metallica created a blueprint for themselves that contributed to their rise and rise through their next two acclaimed albums, Master of Puppets and …And Justice For All. And in less musically sure times they would return successfully to that blueprint with 2008’s Death Magnetic. So as I asked myself whether Ride… or …Justice…  would be my choice as most influential album in my musical life, I simply asked myself which was most influential to Metallica. Here is an album that defined what Metallica did for nearly a decade, made them inspirations to legions of new thrash and extreme metal bands, and landed Metallica on a major label following its successful release. Ride The Lightning is Metallica to me. For years I had a long sleeve T-shirt with the album cover on the front and the mantra “Birth – School – Metallica – Death” emblazoned on the back in that unmistakable James Hetfield font. I’ve never felt so at home in a piece of clothing, and while that mantra is becoming worryingly close to truth for me, I’ve never felt so at home with a piece of music. In fact, that understates it. This music feels as if it is an essential part of me, that I could not live without it. As I tried explaining to an equally intrigued and worried friend who is not particularly passionate about music, the sounds of Ride The Lightning do not feel as if they are coming from speakers, but from within my body, as if my organs were vibrating in unison to produce perfect sounds to express my soul. Metallica have been and will always be the music of my soul.  

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #3

Slayer – Reign In Blood

(American Recordings, 1986)

Buy the album here

In honour of Slayer’s legendary speed during the recording of this album, I’m going to attempt to write this review in 28 minutes. That’s just enough time for you to have your skin sliced from your face by King and Hanneman’s duelling solos, your eardrums pierced by Araya’s screams, and your neck thrashed into submission by Lombardo’s incessant snare and bass pedal attack. Rick Rubin infamously cleaned up the band’s sound and played a huge part in shifting the mainstream in the direction of thrash metal, but Slayer still sound more extreme than that today. The album’s grizzled darkness played at hyperspeed still burrows under the skin nearly 22 years after its release, and the original production is heavy, crisp, and fresh. In “cleaning” up their sound, Rubin didn’t set out to make them more palatable, but rather give each perfectly timed note its due respect. There are few heavy metal albums in the mainstream that do more to prove the untouchable musicianship that exists in the genre. From death-obsessed beginning to blood-soaked end, Reign In Blood refuses to be denied its due respect with blistering solos, cord-ripping vocals, and a beats-per-minute count that set a standard for technical death metal for years to come.

What’s more is that Slayer didn’t just perform like heavy metal superhumans, they wrote perhaps the perfect extreme metal record. While the most memorable, covered, and referenced tracks are the opener “Angel of Death” and final song “Raining Blood”, these actually serve as bookends to the most incredible blast of anti-religion, death-dripping, gore-drenched musical violence that has ever been recorded.  From the chugging groove at the start of “Piece by Piece” to the insane catchiness of “Postmortem” and its vicious speed metal segue into the bloodstorm of “Raining Blood”, the album’s concise, thematically united sub-20-minute body is extreme metal purity: lyrics are spat at you, riffs are barely repeated, and there is not a single deviation from the ultimate purpose of aural destruction. There is no balance here.

“Necrophobic” is evil in audio form. It races by in little more than a minute and a half, and there is barely time to register everything that has happened. Araya’s faster-than-possible vocals and sickening screams are matched by King and Hanneman’s overlapping solos and abusive rhythm sounds, all while Lombardo and Araya hammer through an intense hardcore rhythm section barrage. It’s as stunning as thrash metal has ever been. “Altar of Sacrifice” doesn’t let up the evil sound but feels outright expansive next to the brutal brevity of “Necrophobic”. There is more space for dynamics with the move towards groove-laden moments which in turn paves the way for the insidious slow build of “Jesus Saves”. This momentary patience capitulates to a frantic verse riff and three solos which will melt your ears. Hanneman’s solo in particular feels like its tearing the skin from your flesh and flaying your unprotected body.

“Criminally Insane” is a creeper punctuated with big floor tom sounds from Lombardo, expressive solos, and astounding vocal delivery of the line, “I have yet only just begun/To take your fuckin’ lives”. It leads us to the most uncompromising portion of this mid-section. “Reborn” is an onslaught of ever-changing riffs, vicious drumming, and vocal delivery so fast and snarled it defies belief. To this day it makes me feel sick to listen to “Reborn”, but Slayer care not as they tear into the equally potent and vile “Epidemic”. There is 10 seconds of some sort of catchy, bouncy riff just after the 90-second mark which quickly descends into the chaos of Araya’s screams and garrotting wire solos, but for one brief moment on this album Slayer allow you a peek to the world above, before reminding you that there is no escape once you’ve gone to hell. The giant riffs and atmospherics of “Postmortem” follow and are matchless in their sinister yet addictive qualities, providing ample set-up for the crushing and iconic sounds of “Raining Blood”.

And while the harmonised guitars, thundering gallop of the drums, and pit-starting glory of both “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood” are electrifying, what exists in between is in many ways the crowning achievement of Slayer’s career. It is rare for a collection of such unforgiving, focused, and frantic tracks to claim such widespread acclaim and acceptance, but by placing the body of this album between these towering monoliths of modern metal, Slayer were able to satisfy the hordes while simultaneously taking a surgeon’s knife to the burgeoning genre of thrash metal. What was left behind after they finished cutting was akin to Thomas Geminus’ engraved platesof a flayed man: concise, exact, brutal, and eternally alive in death. Slayer’s Reign In Blood is the perfect embodiment of thrash metal.

[Note: the 28 minute limit was exceeded, going some way to proving you can’t get anything done in the time it takes to listen to Reign In Blood.]     

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 - #5

At The Gates – Slaughter of the Soul

(Earache, 1995)

Buy the album here

The second album in a row on the blog with “slaughter” in the title (c’mon metal bands…), and the second band in a row on the Bloodstock 2018 bill. Seeing At The Gates at Bloodstock in 2008, spinning round in a mud pit, is still one of my greatest music memories. While the new material is not up to the standard of Slaughter of the Soul, it’s amazing to see them live when it seemed like it would never happen. The appeal of this At The Gates release over its predecessors is the faultless melding of fun pop brevity and extreme metal sounds. While the melodic death metal movement that At The Gates are credited with spearheading was more palatable than the brutality of outright death from other parts of Sweden, Europe, and America, this is still heavy, heavy shit with some ferocious musicianship. What the band embraced in recording Slaughter of the Soul is that death metal, while messed up and brutal, should be infectious, fun, and fast. No song clocks in over 4 minutes in duration, and this 11-track album is barely 34 minutes long, which is to say that At The Gates obviously liked Iron Maiden, but probably preferred Slayer. While they have influenced metalcore bands like Killswitch Engage, let’s focus on all the sounds that make this album from 1995 stand up so well today.

And let’s start with the first sound: an electrical buzz as if a guitar was being plugged in to an amp. It builds anticipation that increases with each eerily slicing sound effect, culminating in a furious burst of energy. The classically clean production of melodic death metal is infused with thrash-inspired speed that barely relents over the following 30 minutes. “Blinded By Fear” sets the tone sonically and thematically with galloping riffs, smooth lead guitar details, piston drums, and the lyrical creation of hell on earth. At The Gates are preoccupied with a world they see turning on itself, cracking under self-inflicted pressure, and the first of many mentions of suicide is both literal and a metaphor for the self-harming behaviour of humanity as a whole. The pop sensibility I mentioned might seem unlikely at this point but, after the perfectly framed MTV video quality of the opener, title track “Slaughter of the Soul” highlights the band’s focus on immediacy. The opening riff pauses just long enough for vocalist Tomas Lindberg to shout “Go!” and kick everything off in an almost cheap, but undeniably effective, pit-starting moment. Lindberg repeats the trick with a call of “Do it!” just before the pitch perfect solo turning this track into a formidable pop death hit. Don’t be mistaken, the band still embrace the dense and distorted guitar sound, near-permanent double bass pedal, and frosty growl that gives At The Gates such intense atmospherics, but there is a focus on grabbing attention quickly and efficiently. The fact that the Björler brothers, responsible for most of the songwriting on this album, take these elements then do so much with them in such little time is what makes this one of the best heavy metal albums I’ve heard.

They went on to prove their prowess in this regard with several of their releases with The Haunted following the original break-up of At The Gates, but it’s on Slaughter of the Soul where you’ll find their most vital work. “Nausea” is like travelling down river in a barrel: filled with periods of disorienting buffeting and tranquil floating but always thrilling and potentially nauseating. “Need” ups the game, tossing its listeners furiously across the room for little more than 2 minutes. It’s like being accustomed to a gentle jog on the treadmill at the gym then signing up for a HIIT class: it’s hard and fast, but you get so much more done. It’s built on unforgivingly heavy drumming from Adrian Erlandsson, thrashy verse riffs, and typicaly expansive melodic death metal passages that come together to create a bleak yet uplifting plea to “lay your fears to rest”. With all the similes I’ve used in describing these two tracks though, I think the most fitting one for the album as a whole is that it feels like riding a galloping horse through a Mordor-like landscape, dodging arrows, slaying orcs, but every now and again you fall from the saddle, your foot caught in the stirrup, and you are dragged painfully over broken ground. But in a good way.

“Suicide Nation”, “World of Lies”, and “Unto Others” all do this. Each of these tracks has undeniable groove embedded in their opening moments, but the unbridled pace will have you wondering how to get back on your horse. The pop sensibility shows through again at the start of “Suicide Nation” with the shotgun cocking sound effect that ignites the song, but in “World of Lies” it is the album’s biggest and catchiest riff that steals the show. Coming at the perfect moment to reenergise a potentially battered listener for the final few songs, “World of Lies” is brimming with energy and a delightfully bouncing heavy sound that will keep your head banging all day long. “Unto Others” harks back to Terminal Spirit Disease more than any other track here, but its raspy viciousness is the perfect antidote to the giant super groove of “World of Lies” and sends the album in the direction of “Nausea”. On such a focused and brief album, this three-song passage is perhaps the most memorable.

And memorable is exactly what “Cold” and “Under a Serpent Sun”, my favourite tracks here, are. They are arguably the band’s collective shining moment, with sickeningly distorted leads (the solo at the 2-minute mark of “Cold” is insane), absorbing basslines, furious riffing, and some exceptional cymbal and snare work from Erlandsson all clamouring for attention. And they are without doubt Lindberg’s finest tracks as lyricist and vocalist. His delivery of the lines, “I feel my soul go cold/Only the dead are smiling” and “Stricken numb by fear I fall” are two of my favourite things in music and are eternally with me, while his ferocity on “Under a Serpent Sun” is unmatched anywhere in At The Gates’ work. And this is why Slaughter of the Soul means so much to me. That, while it is brutal, obsessed with suicide imagery, and punishing at times, it is so memorable that the songs just appear in my brain at random moments causing me to spit out lyrics like “Under a serpent sun we shall all live as one” while testing the ripeness of avocadoes in the supermarket, or banging my head to a silent beat while walking down a crowded street. All the members of At The Gates probably don’t realise this, but they’re my friends and always in my thoughts. Except Adrian Erlandsson… because I told him.

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 - #8

Nevermore – Dead Heart in a Dead World

(Century Media, 2000)

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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 - #10

Fantômas – The Director’s Cut

(A&M, 2001)

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The Director’s Cut is an act of genius.  Like many iconic films that bring us a new perspective on familiar material with the release of director’s cuts, such as Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now, Fantômas take recognisable film themes and score and nefariously twist and abuse them.  The result is a mesmerising concoction of batshit crazy tunes that briefly touches down in every genre imaginable, all the while managing to harness the essence of the original music it is distorting.  Every song is injected with joy and enthusiasm for the source material that cannot be faked, and even though those sources are disparate the album holds together in part due to the utter excitement each track builds.  Fantômas is the brainchild of Mike Patton (Faith No More), Buzz Osborne (Melvins), Dave Lombardo (Slayer), and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle), and is named after a French supervillain created in the early twentieth century, and perhaps most recognised from the film Fantômas (1964).  The band pursues this not-quite-esoteric tone with a track listing that tows the line of being interesting and important while never completely obscure.  If you love the films from which they draw inspiration this is a fun way to experience having your ears drummed off the side of your head by Dave Lombardo, but if you don’t there is still texture, melody, inventiveness, and a sinister energy that will bring you back again and again.

Mike Patton always feels like the maestro behind his various side projects (with the exclusion of Nevermen perhaps), and if you’ve had the chance to see Fantômas live you will have seen him conducting the group from behind his desk of a million noises.  Whether or not they are paying any attention to him is another matter, but it’s a joy to behold and to imagine as the album cracks through this classic film music.  Things get underway with one of the most famous pieces of film music, The Godfather theme, TRANSFORMED INTO UTTER BEDLAM.  All seems well and normal until the band tear into an insane thrash reimagining of the music, as if the band asked themselves what The Godfather would feel like if the entire story happened in thirty seconds, and from that point you expect anything.  The fact that Patton decides to retain his “who needs lyrics when you have barks and grunts” vocal approach from the band’s first album is barely surprising, but it is incredibly effective.  Lombardo’s drumming is off the charts, and when combined with Osborne’s wrist-wrecking riffing, creates a dizzying desire to destroy your neck.  For the duration of that song, NOTHING ELSE EXISTS. 

The fact that they slow the whole thing back down again is only testament to the craziness – as if they thought they might get away with it.  Their adaptation of Henry Mancini’s work on the 60s thriller Experiment in Terror sounds like Melvins playing a fictional David Lynch stage with its drone and lounge jazz components, while “Cape Fear” mimics King’s X but fronted by angels struggling in the spiralling fires of hell (an unbelievable interpretation of one of the greatest and most accessible film music composers, Bernard Herrmann).  Their intent is to inspire a fear in the listener akin to that felt by contemporary viewers of most of these films.  Stories with dark hearts, suspense, and often inexplicable evil met by modern music made of the same.  In “Rosemary’s Baby” Mike Patton’s high-pitched lullaby vocal and distorted xylophone perfectly capture the creeping fear of that film, but the vicious explosions of guitar and drum violence don’t allow the audience to deal with it rationally, keeping them perpetually perched on the edge of their seats.  Alfred Hitchcock would be proud.

“Spider Baby” lightens the mood with its Halloween party atmosphere, mental samples, and background horns.  If anything, it’s an easier and dancier track than the original and shows Patton’s more playful side.  “Vendetta” (not the Danny Dyer one) isn’t as light-hearted an interpretation, it carries the full weight of King Buzzo’s guitar for one, but its inclusion of twinkling keys, vocoder effects, and reality-bending theremin sounds provide effervescent relief from crushing heaviness.  And it’s the perpetual guessing game of when these moments of frenetic insanity will burst forth that give the album so much life.  The peak of this art of destructive homage is found in “The Omen (Ave Satani)” and a frankly bizarre and brilliant reimagining of the music from the Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant romantic comedy, Charade.  Buzzo’s guitar scratches at the beginning of this song only give slight warning of the unexpected barrage of belligerent rhythm section and weird staccato vocal barks.  Patton does his best to smooth this out with his insatiably rich voice, but the hardcore attack has the final word and, much like The Omen, brings out the darkness that exists beneath the surface of even seemingly innocent characters.  “The Omen” is an almost indescribable thrash/hardcore outburst with the original Latin prayer lyrics sung in hyperbolic, monk-like fashion with a hardcore edge.  Lombardo’s drumming is sensational, and the speed of the whole thing has you bewildered and seeking respite as the track segues into the dark slough of “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”.  Fantômas, at this point, have me in the palm of their collective hand.         

And talking of being in the palm of someone’s hand, given David Lynch’s leaching, leaking, and blending of realities in Twin Peaks: The Return, it is a shame that Fantômas weren’t invited to play their great version of the music from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on the stage at The Roadhouse.  The mix of breakneck snare, Sci-Fi laser sound effects, overly earnest vocals, and portentous bass would have suited Lynch’s unsettling combination of pure evil, human kindness, and confused/confusing realities.  With all these realities colliding at once I may have avoided the fanboy embolism that this album induces on every listen.  Fantômas made one of my favourite ever albums.  

     

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #11

Monster Magnet – Dopes to Infinity

(A&M, 1995)

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There are albums that always feel like you’re coming home when you listen to them.  You’ve been away a long time, and the welcoming familiarity of those sounds brings back relaxing and reassuring memories.  But it’s not just the nostalgic comfort it brings, it’s the quality of the sounds, and that sense the music, like your home, exists within you the whole time.  Dopes to Infinity is one such album.  Monster Magnet accomplished this simply by not trying.  They weren’t trying to be anything, they only wrote and performed the music they were destined to make, with no pretensions, no posturing.  While the band lost that natural feel over the next four albums – Powertrip was an attempt to become hard rock icons (and did this brilliantly); God Says No came off as a self-aware diversification of their sound; Monolithic Baby! was a disjointed mish-mash of the previous two albums; and 4-Way Diablo felt like they were lacking direction or inspiration – they would regain it spectacularly with the release of Mastermind.  It’s the spaced-out, laidback, drug-fuzz of Mastermind and Dopes to Infinity that is the best of Monster Magnet.  On these albums the notes, echoed vocals, organic solos drift from one astral plane to another, combining corporeal pleasures, metaphysical meanderings, dream-like imaginings, and modern cultural references to form a space rock cornucopia.

Title track “Dopes to Infinity” is a clear example of this, effortlessly sliding from dense stoner riffs to floating on heavenly clouds through the gentle hum of the backing vocal and the perfectly mixed guitar lead.  That’s without mentioning how utterly righteous Dave Wyndorf’s voice is, and its ability to imbue words like, “We are all here my friends/Alive and spaced but all so beautiful”, with both cool and gravitas.  I haven’t always understood what Wyndorf is singing about, but I’ve always felt like it means something.  The seamless transition into second track, “Negasonic Teenage Warhead”, takes us to Monster Magnet’s first notice to the world that they could write incredible rock anthems.  Essentially conveying Wyndorf’s disappointment at Kurt Cobain’s elevation to rock star and the accompanying saddening of rock ‘n’ roll, Monster Magnet wanted to remind the mid-90s that it was ok to rock out JUST FOR FUN.  Big bass, killer riff, cyclonic theremin sounds (?), rock screams, and a giant pogo-ing chorus all combine to create the foundations for giant rock hits on next album Powertrip.  In 2001, Scottish comics geniuses Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely used the track title to name their new teenage X-Men trainee character, who was subsequently brilliantly re-imagined as a disaffected teen with explosive powers in the 2016 film Deadpool.  These things seem to exist in meta-textual harmony as Monster Magnet used a Jack Kirby Marvel character to name the fifth track here, “Ego, the Living Planet”, most recently seen depicted by Kurt Russell in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.  I have it on good authority that Kurt Russell is a huge Monster Magnet fan.  It’s all connected…

“Ego, the Living Planet” is built on a cosmically repetitive, driving stoner riff with monk-like chanting and frantic lead woodling lying just below the surface.  The only vocals are the briefly repeated line, “I talk to planets baby”, and the screams of presumably planet-devoured souls.  Wyndorf’s love for and fascination with the epic sci-fi and philosophical work of comic writer and artist Jack Kirby inspired him to create a song about one of his most innovative characters, a living planet.  The size of the riff and the cosmic feel to the whole song perfectly capture the feeling of awe such a character can inspire.  But Monster Magnet being Monster Magnet, they pivot in the following track, lulling us back to comfort with gentle strumming and loving vocal melodies in “Blow ‘Em Off”.  Monster Magnet are in such a perfect groove on this record that you never notice the changes of tone, the shifts from quiet to loud, or the difference between hallucinatory visions and very real observations from the world of 1995.

It is difficult to pull out favourite tracks from Dopes… because each song has at least moments that near perfection, but Monster Magnet reach levels of undeniable stoner excellence in “King of Mars” and “All Friends and Kingdom Come”.  In the former, Wyndorf shines the light on another comics influence, Edgar Rich Burroughs, by referencing two of his most iconic creations with the single line, “And I can crown me Tarzan, King of Mars”, while taking us on a journey through soundscapes of heavy, reverberating, open string strumming, gentle leads, booming bass, and perfectly unnoticeable drums.  “All Friends and Kingdom Come” seems to describe the megalomaniacal actions of another comic character from Evil Ernie, who, having been given Armageddon-like superpowers, holds the future of humanity in his psychotic hands.  Where “King…” displayed the brilliance of Ed Mundell, Joe Calandra, and Jon Kleiman on their instruments, “All Friends…” presents the subtle melodies of Dave Wyndorf’s voice as the focal point. 

“King…” keeps us hooked with detailed soundscapes, “All Friends…” with simplicity and immediacy, but both display how completely interwoven the band’s various sounds, tones, and ideas are on this record.  The experience of listening to this record is one of seamlessly flowing sounds, images, tastes, smells, and touch.  It is the gentlest of trips because, even though it rocks incredibly hard at times, it never forces things, never pushes things where they don’t want to go as musicians, and where you as listener rather they wouldn’t.  It is undoubtedly healthy for artists to push themselves into unfamiliar territory in the pursuit of new forms of art, but sometimes it is more enjoyable to witness artists working at the peak of their ability within their limits, simply riffing on what they already know and bringing us along for the ride.  As with the brilliance of White Zombie, there is little point trying to discuss all the detail that goes into a record like this, all I can suggest is finding a copy of Dopes to Infinity and letting your mind be blown to kingdom come.  

    

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #12

Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine

(Epic, 1992)

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Sitting in the back seat of my Dad’s car with a personal cassette player listening to Rage Against the Machine en route to a family holiday in Florida is not the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done.  But hearing those words and crazy guitar sounds burning in my ears during those hours, I felt ready to protest everything, to jump out of a moving car, to tear the branded holiday wear from by body, and live a life outside of the machine.  While this has never actually happened (it’s a work in progress…), this was a watershed moment for me musically, culturally, and politically.  It’s not every day that a kid goes to Disney World a neatly dressed, rule-obeying lad, and returns a ferocious, politically minded and opinionated nuisance.  My Mum and Dad are probably angrier at RATM than any other band. 

But RATM are just as angry at us.  Tracks like “Killing in the Name” and “Wake Up” throw our passive complicity with injustice in our faces, asking us to arm ourselves with knowledge and act.  While live recordings from the time betray vocalist Zack de la Rocha’s youthful idealism, the band’s integrity and intent cannot be questioned.  They used their major label status to support causes and protests standing against global injustice, with the band’s very real support of the Zapatistas in Mexico even resulting in rumours of Zack de la Rocha being involved in gun-running for the organisation.  Guitarist Tom Morello’s recently created Firebrand Records for protest and rebel music exemplifies his dedication to spreading the word and giving a platform to otherwise unknown political music acts.  It’s this dedication to their causes and the very real burning anger at the heart of each song that makes this album so moving and inspirational.  While the teeth of mainstream metal seemed to have fallen out in the early 90s, RATM came screaming to life, tearing through the posturing of MTV metal bands with incisor-like efficiency. 

“Know Your Enemy” is one such track.  Morello’s killswitch shifting of reality is grounded by Tim Commerford’s enormous funk bass before the speedy punk riff kicks in and takes us into the song’s anti-establishment heart:

Yes I know my enemies

They’re the teachers who taught me to fight me

Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission

Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite

All of which are American dreams.

The final repeated line is the blood-boiling, condemnatory conclusion to a furiously tight, funk-punk attack on the figures of authority who distort and abuse the system to keep others down.  But we should also celebrate the musical diversity on display: Morello’s riffing takes on classic mid-paced metal stylings as well as deeply heavy modern metal “chugging”, not to mention his almost indescribable solo on this track, while Maynard James Keenan’s guest vocal adds texture and a different delivery of anger.  If you are seeking the most direct delivery of anger then preceding track, “Bullet in the Head”, has all you need.  Commerford’s bass and Zack de la Rocha’s vocals form the foundation of this track while Morello’s killswitch antics keep the listener guessing where this song might go.  It’s a relatively slow build, but for the song’s final two minutes that tension and anger are focused on powerfully delivering you the message that you have “a bullet in your fucking head”.  And while it’s easy to dismiss this as just a catchy, violent image, or as an interesting metaphor for being brainwashed by the “system”, it’s important to remember that RATM mean this literally too.  Then as now, innocent people are being shot in America by figures of authority, and it’s an injustice that somehow seems to divide people, such as the political/media/societal fallout of Colin Kaepernick’s beautiful and brave protest of police brutality and systemic racism.  Rage Against the Machine is arguably as relevant today as it was the day of its release.

While album opener “Bombtrack” perhaps feels dated and “Killing in the Name” is over-exposed, a classic track like “Wake Up” is just as violently potent today, and there are less discussed songs that deserve recognition.  “Settle for Nothing” and “Fistful of Steel” are just two examples of an album that is quality from first to last.  The former is a quiet, slow-build to unbelievable waves of heavy rage crashing around your ears intended to motivate immediate change.  The latter is a pounding lesson in the immediacy of heavy metal and rap music combined; “Fistful of Steel” is simple, direct, heavy as hell, and with as much attitude as you could ever need.  But for me, all that built up rage and the message at its heart is perfectly distilled in closing track, “Freedom”.  Bursting in on a bouncing riff, it has as much positive energy as any song on the record.  The stop-start power of the instrumentation, Brad Wilk’s control of the pace and anticipation, and Zack de la Rocha’s spit-filled tirades combine to make me thrash and sing along for seemingly minutes on end without ever breathing.  It’s a suitably destructive and constructive ending to an icon of resistance.

Fusing funk, punk, metal, and rap Rage Against the Machine reshaped rebellion in an age when it became acceptable to add the prefix “pop” to the term ”punk”.  But the commercial success of the band has taken us perilously close to taking this protest music for granted.  Rap-metal became a synonym for shit metal later in the 90s, but RATM are not to be blamed for that development.  In many ways, their final studio album of original songs, The Battle of Los Angeles, is a better album than this iconic debut.  Their legacy should remain untarnished after the bone and brain rattling attack of “Testify”, “Born of a Broken Man”, and “War Within in a Breath” from that album.  However, the band will always be remembered for reminding us to scream, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!”, but to always, and more importantly, back it up with knowledge and action.  So while it is important to know your enemy, it might mean more to know yourself first.