52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #1

Metallica – Ride The Lightning

(Megaforce, 1984)

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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)

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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 - #7

Prong - Cleansing

(Epic, 1993)

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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 - #15

Machine Head – Burn My Eyes

(Roadrunner, 1994)

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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 - #28

Pantera – Vulgar Display of Power

(Atco, 1992)

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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.      

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #29

Gojira – From Mars to Sirius

(Listenable Records, 2005)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #33

 Faith No More – King For A Day… Fool For A Lifetime

(Slash, 1995)

 Buy the album here

If this was an album review for a commercial site or a popular music magazine, there is no chance that the editor would give me this job.  When the assignment was offered out, “Mike Patton Fan Boy” would be scrawled over my joyful face or ingrained in the over-enthusiastic words of my near-instant response.  Impartiality, balance, objectivity… these words mean nothing to me when it comes to the output of the world’s greatest man.  Even a fan of his music struggles to keep up with the sheer volume of work – three albums over 2016-2017 so far – but the quality never seems to suffer.*  For a man who is so vocal about his reluctance to re-tread ground, this is an incredible feat.  Point being, Mike Patton is great.  Now let’s have a listen to the band that he is reputed to have felt creatively constricted by….

King For A Day... will make you think Mike Patton was a lunatic.  The entire album is about creative and talented musicians pushing each other to ever greater heights.  Seems Mike is a little hard to please.  The band’s first album without highly respected guitarist and friend of Bill & Ted, Jim Martin, is not the work of a band with limited avenues of expression.  It turns sharply, lunges lazily, jumps wildly, and sways gently.  It is a place where the thrash-schlock-horror of “Digging the Grave” can sit comfortably next to the lounge warbling of “Take This Bottle”.  It is an album of musical joy, unbeholden to a scene, a genre, or even fans.

The title track of sorts, “King For a Day”, encapsulates the Faith No More approach.  New and temporary guitarist Trey Spruance is asked to gently strum with an electro-acoustic while also bringing huge rock landslide guitars similar to those fans would hear on next release Album of the Year.  The quietly supreme Mike Bordin is bone-crushingly heavy, using every tom and cymbal in his collection, then suddenly his sound is so delicate it feels more like the thought of a drum strike than the strike itself.  Bill Gould’s wild, wandering bass rumble contributes to an undeniable heaviness that the floating keys of Roddy Bottum cut through in creating the equal parts earthquake/sensual massage sensation this album seeks.  The master of the voice Mike Patton simply does it all: croons, screams, gasps, rasps, coughs, and gigantic vocal hooks are interwoven until you no longer distinguish between them – they are all equally great.

 

As musicians they are serious masters of what they do, but this album feels as if it has its tongue firmly placed in its cheek while also appealing to our most sincere emotions.  No song displays this more than “Ricochet” with its infectious, wickedly spiteful, and sardonic chorus:

It's always funny until someone gets hurt
And then it's just hilarious

Faith No More love to pick up idioms and throw them in to the air or the dirt dependent on their mood, much the same as they will move seamlessly or destructively from heavy to light.  “Ricochet” maintains a thread of heaviness drawn through from album opener “Get Out” while also providing a new mood for “Evidence” to pursue.  Elements of reggae, lounge jazz, and soft rock interplay on this funky little number.  Mike Patton hits you with a gut-rumbling baritone before smoothing things through with his trademark melody and panty-dropping delivery.  It’s just enough to get you in the mood for something a little darker.

The tone found in “Ricochet” makes a return in “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” but with a more deliberate thrash heaviness.  Trey Spruance brings a catchy main riff, Bill Gould sets the dark tone with an ominous bass line, and Mike Patton draws on this with his Vincent Price-esque verse vocal.  With Mike Bordin’s drumming sounding like the ticking of a clock, there is a driving menace to this song that in part characterises the heavier parts of King For A Day and Album of the Year.  But on both of these albums the most enjoyable and successful moments are the faux epic, spine tingling, sing-along-if-you-can masterpieces of cheese.

On King For A Day that track is album closer “Just A Man”: a song so powerful you will feel like an angel, a demon, and a human all at the same time.  You will cry though you feel like laughing.  You will sway with your eyes closed even though you feel like moshing while smiling.  You will melt, evaporate, and solidify again before this song is done with you.  It is a huge song with lullaby verses, choruses seemingly sung by a chorus of Mike Pattons (heaven), and an insane spoken word section that will make you feel weightless before a choir picks up your featherlight frame and carries it to wherever you would wish to go when your time comes.  It’s like dying happy. 

Faith No More wrote albums very few others would ever think of or be brave enough to record, and they did it with the verve, wit, and commitment that makes them all passionate pieces of art. 

P.S. That’s what I meant about a lack of impartiality, balance, and objectivity.

 

*If you haven’t already, please check out Nevermen, Kaada/Patton, and Dead Cross – to name just the recent projects.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #40

Sepultura – Arise

(Roadrunner, 1991)

Buy the album here

Scott Burns and Morrisound Recording are responsible for the production of what seems like 50% of classic Floridian death metal.  Just as examples, Death's Leprosy, Obituary's swamp-crawling birth in Slowly We Rot, and the joyous fun of Eaten Back to Life before Cannibal Corpse became too focused on being the band with the biggest circle pits, were all brought to us by this inimitable pairing – their tiny enclave in Tampa was death metal's haven.  However, Burns and Morrisound also worked together in 1990 on the thrash metal outburst of Exhorder's Slaughter In The Vatican, an overlooked album that has always dragged behind it rumours of disagreements over the sound and the hiring of Burns as producer for a sludgy thrash band from New Orleans.  This didn't deter Roadrunner or Sepultura in teaming up with the now notorious producer and his famous recording home.  In 1991 they were responsible for the “big budget” return of Brazil's biggest band, and their intimidating combination of thrash and death metal.  Having also worked on Sepultura's breakout album, Beneath The Remains, in 1988, the stakes were high for band and producer alike.  For Sepultura there is a suggestion that they played it safe by sticking to the style they formed in the making of the previous record, but it's a hollow criticism in the face of such charged, focused, and aggressive music.

Igor and Max Cavalera seem to bring an intensity to the heavy music they make that distils all elements to their purest form.  Andreas Kisser is a great metal guitarist with a unique solo style and keen ear for dynamics and texture, perfectly complementing the top-string-battering, rhythmic barrage of Max, and the elite drumming of Igor.  Hints of the sound that would make them known worldwide on their next two albums popped up in “Altered States”, and there is a certain industrial sound that prefaces Max’s intense side-project Nailbomb, but otherwise this album just tears at you with sharp riffs, non-stop true percussion from Igor, larynx-wrecking vocals, and wild solos.

There’s no better place to start than the title track.  The intro is grim and frightening like the music from some racially insensitive voodoo zombie horror from the 70s, but the explosion of drums and guitars that follows is more demon-summoning than necromancing.  That unforgettable first riff with its angled jabs conjures real malevolence while the drumming is the scrambling of hell-bound souls sent south of heaven by that sharp, heavy snare.  Those souls seem to escape through Max’s layered vocals which climb over one another to deliver their rites.  Max’s growl is a polyp-scraping bark which opts for intensity over range, and demands its listener arise in the political and cultural apocalypse that would come to inform much of Sepultura’s output.  It’s an irresistible call in this three-minute thrash-death attack.  “Dead Embryonic Cells”, however, takes us into groovier Sepultura territory with little glimpses of their breakthrough in to the mainstream on next album, Chaos A.D.  A more textured riffscape gives shape to this medium paced metal groove, with double bass drum-infused injections of speed retaining that thrash feel.  Just after the three minute mark, Kisser pierces the ears with a squealing and electrifying solo which drops us in to a bridge section breakdown with gigantic power chords, heavy drums, and harmonising guitars.  While “Arise” is a neck-jarring attack, “Dead Embryonic Cells” insists that you should let your head move and find that groove.

There are more suggestions of what was to come on Chaos A.D. and Roots in “Altered State” and “Under Seige (Regnum Irae)” with Brazilian tribal drumming and acoustic guitar intros respectively.  What marks them out from later work is the Scott Burns influence: the thick death rhythm guitar; solos riding high in the mix, and a drum sound that seeks to dominate as much as support.  “Altered State” is incredible; easily and ceaselessly transitioning from thrash assault to lead guitar bridge sections to foreboding drum breakdown, it’s a brilliant example of everything that Sepultura can do.  From the moment Kisser lets his solo trail off just after the four minute mark the song becomes an adventure of time changes, riffs, beautiful clean guitar woodles, and inspirational drumming.  It sits right at the heart of this album and most keenly identifies the Sepultura sound.  Alongside the lowdown chug of “Desperate Cry” and the ferocious, heart-pounding “Subtraction” (a fine example of Max’s abilities to add vowels to anything, a la “mass hipponosis”), these songs form the thick and unmoving spine of this record.

The album closes out with the infectious grooves of “Meaningless Movement” and the neck-breaking thrash-death of “Infected Voice”.  The former has some of the most memorable riffs on the album, and one of my favourite Max vocal deliveries on “words I caaaannot uuuuunderstand”, ironically enunciated in such a way that they are the most easily understood words on the album.  The latter harks back to the opening track with blistering riffing and drumming making even “Arise” seem tame.  While it doesn’t have the quality of hook and atmosphere of the title track, it’s a fitting close to an album that melds both ends of the extreme metal decade of the 80s. 

And that’s why this album is here for me.  While I was growing up, the sounds of Metallica and Anthrax were safe enough for me to rebel without ever feeling like I was getting in to dark territory that I didn’t understand.  Sepultura, Scott Burns, Morrisound, and Roadrunner bridged that gap and brought a whole new sub-genre in to my world.  Though I spent a lot of time explaining to people that Roots wasn’t death metal, Sepultura took those influences and opened them up to me and others while forging their unquestionably unique identity.