Evil Never Dies

Megadeth – Dystopia

Universal – 2016

Muthas, I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but Megadeth is by far the most prolific of the Big Four™.  Since 2000 they’ve released seven albums, whereas Slayer has put out four, Anthrax has three and Metallica has only managed two. You might not like everything they’ve done, but Dave Mustaine and the bodys shows no signs of stopping their career any time soon.  Which brings us to their newest album, Dystopia, which features one (two?) new band members – Angra’s Kiko Loureiro and Lamb Of God’s Chris Adler (who’s a studio only member or something – he might tour too, whatever.) 

Megadeth’s last album – Super Collider – was an unmitigated disaster that was almost as bad as the atrocious Risk from 1999.  The album was a mess of commercial songs, banjos, fiddles and David Draiman (?!), which stiffed completely at the box office.  I’m not sure what Dave was thinking, but it was a major disappointment for the fans, especially so because it came after a string of good albums. On the plus side, we did learn about Dave’s hatred of model rocketry in the “Super Collider” video. 

Fuck Yo Rocket!

Super Collider was followed by a management shakeup and the exit of both Chris Broderick and Shawn Drover.  There were then rumors that the “classic” lineup of Marty Friedman and Nick Menza would be coming back, but that never came to fruition.  (By the way, that lineup produced exactly one great album and a bunch of good to complete shit albums, so I don’t care if they ever get back together.)  Following this, Kiko and Chris were announced as filling out the vacant slots and recording began.  So how’d it turn out? 

Thankfully, it turned out great with nary a banjo, fiddle or David Draiman anywhere in sight!  Vocally, Dave sounds strong and his old sneering, snotty voice is all over the album.  Junior is solid as always and even gets to show off a bit in some songs.  Kiko and Chris are both good and I think Chris’s drumming adds much needed fire to the compositions.  Lyrically, Dave focuses on corruption, societal disintegration and the illegitimacy of the societal elites.  He’s really full of the old venomous piss and vinegar again.

The album starts with the killer “The Threat Is Real” that features a middle eastern flavored intro before plunging headlong into a thrashy crusher circa Countdown To Extinction. Check out the animated video:

The first single is the blistering “Fatal Illusion” which is pure, old school Megadeth that recalls “Wake Up Dead.”  I would have placed this as the opening track on the album, because this is the type of song that old-school thrashers want to hear and it also ably demonstrates that Megadeth doesn’t take a back seat to anyone in the Big Four™.  Great stuff!

A hallmark of Dystopia is its very catchy choruses the will burrow their way into your brain and live their for a long time.  I was humming the, “Know Know Know” chorus from “Bullet To The Brain” for days after hearing it.   

The drumming is top notch and really stands out when compared to what Shawn Drover was doing.  It’s obvious that Chris Adler was drumming for his favorite band and wanted to put his mark all over the proceedings. Kiko also contributes greatly and actually has co-writing credits on three songs -  “Post American World,” “Poisonous Shadows,” and “Conquer Or Die.” All of them are good with the chugging “Poisonous Shadows” sounding like a long lost track from Countdown To Extinction or Youthenaisa. This cut blends seamlessly with the instrumental “Conquer Or Die” where Kiko gets to strut his stuff from the acoustic flamenco intro to the electrified intricacies on the rest of the song.

Another highlight is the face ripping speedster “Lying In State.” This is vintage Megadeth which would be at home on the mighty Endgame or the classic Rust In Peace.  If you aren’t banging your head at the 2:20 minute mark, you’re most likely dead.

Strangely, I’ve read many reviewers complaining about not liking the chorus from the closing track “Foreign Policy.”  Hey idiots, that’s a cover song by the band Fear, so stop complaining about it.  Maybe Dave’s buddy Lee Ving needed some cash or something to make up for the lack of sales for MD.45.

Hey look!  I bought all this stuff!

Visually, this is probably the best album artwork Megadeth has ever used with the album coming wrapped in a cover that features a cyborg Vic Rattlehead armed with a katana, some drones and a destroyed metropolis burning in the background.  This would make a killer poster for your music room, apocalypse bunker, concert venue or Skynet installation. 

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The Bottom Line: Dystopia is the equal of Endgame and is the best thing any of the Big Four™ have done for years.  It’s definitely worth your coin so go buy it!

As always, MAKE MINE METAL!

Wrecking Your Neck (Part XVI)

Overkill – The Electric Age

EOne Music – 2012

Muthas, there are a few phrases that you will never, ever hear uttered in the world of Metal, such as “That Lars is a great drummer!” or “What a tender Slayer ballad” or “Overkill are a bunch of sellouts.” Especially that last one, because Overkill has been cranking out slab after slab of molten, pounding, pure steel since 1983 and they show zero signs of letting up.  They have never released a shitty album or buckled to trends in their entire existence.  Overkill has been called “The Motorhead of Thrash” for the strength of their catalog and their steadfast commitment to their signature sound. (As as an aside, does that make Motorhead the Motorhead of Motorhead? – huh?)

Here at The Metal Blog of Metal, we consider Overkill to be one of the true “Big Four of Thrash” bands (TM by Lars).  Let’s face facts, Metallica hasn’t been a Thrash band since 1988 and has sucked out loud since Metallica. Megadeth has always been clutching at the hem of Metallica’s cape and cranking out such shit as Risk along with some “return to form” albums that are middling at best.  Slayer hasn’t done anything interesting since Seasons, but at least they are consistent in their mediocrity.  Finally, Anthrax abandoned Thrash and wandered aimlessly from greatness (Sound of White Noise) to garbage (Volume 8), before finally crafting a great album with Worship Music. Through all of this nonsense, Overkill stood tall and unleashed nothing but excellent albums throughout Metal’s darkest days -- AKA the 90s. 

Like clockwork, you could rely on those Jersey boys to drop a new disc every two years that restored your faith in Metal.  Hell, 1997’s From The Underground and Below singlehandedly restored this writer’s faith in Metal during its least popular period.  Sure, some albums are better than others, and some even become personal favorites, but they have always been satisfying.  Which brings us to their newest and sixteenth (!) release overall, The Electric Age.  Did Overkill sell out and release a nu-metal, screamo, angst fest? Of course they fucking didn’t.  That shit ain’t never happening in this world or the next, as Blitz, D.D. and the boys will be cranking out more albums in Valhalla for Odin’s crew long after they are done here.  

The band has stayed true to their signature sound of pummeling Thrash sprinkled with a bit of traditional Metal and a pinch of groove. The Electric Age is not the all out, balls-to-the-wall, Thrash of Ironbound but has a bit more melody and variety.  It’s still a face-blasting, shredding, album of pure titanium with such scorchers as “Come and Get It,” “Wish You Were Dead,” and “Save Yourself.”  The first single, “Electric Rattlesnake,” typifies the varied nature of the songs with Thrashy verses and choruses and then a slower mid-section that quotes Sabbath’s “Supernaut.”  Very cool!  Check out the video below for “Electric Rattlesnake” for a taste of the goodness.

In addition, the record label released a “lyric video” for the track “Wish You Were Dead” and it’s got badassery in spades.  Check it out:

See what I mean?  Skull-splitting Metal for the rabid Thrasher in all of us.  MOSH!!!

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The Bottom Line:  Buy this shit.  Don’t be some hipster asshole that whines about how Overkill albums all sound alike because it’s called a signature sound, you shitbird! The Electric Age is yet another superb album in the Overkill legacy and should be in your collection.  Buy or die!

As always, MAKE MINE METAL!!

    

Swedish Skull Crushers

Wolf – Legions Of Bastards

Century Media – 2011

My fellow Heavy Metal enthusiasts, I am sure you are aware of the New Wave Of Traditional Heavy Metal (NWOTHM.) The NWOTHM tag is essentially a marketing gimmick that was invented by Earache Records in 2009 to categorize all the up and coming traditional metal bands. Bands such as Cauldron, Portrait, White Wizzard, Holy Grail, Armour, Volture, Enforcer, and Skull Fist were all lumped together in the NWOTHM whether they considered themselves part of this group or not.

Long before these bands were put axe to the wax other traditional metal bands soldiered on such as Twisted Tower Dire, Cage, and Widow. Another band that has been playing rib crunching, spine cracking, traditional Metal for years is Wolf from Orebro, Sweden. Imagine the galloping music of Iron Maiden melded with the high pitched vocals of King Diamond and you’ll have a fairly good idea of the band’s sound.

Wolf has been putting out consistently great albums since the release of their eponymous debut in 2000. Their 2004 release Evil Star is a favorite of The Metal Blog Of Metal, the title track a crushing sledge of metallic greatness. Unfortunately, their 2006 follow up The Black Flame, was a letdown with too many average tracks and poor sequencing which resulted in most of the excellent cuts being at the end of the album. Wolf quickly recovered in 2009 with the fantastic Ravenous which featured the superb tracks “Speed On,” “Hail Caesar,” and “Voodoo.”

This year Wolf has blessed the Metal world with Legions Of Bastards and it’s a cracking album of pure chromium plated steel. Picking right up where the last album left off, the band offers up 11 tracks on vinyl, 12 on digital download and standard CD, and 13 on the deluxe digipak CD. Wolf has in no way back loaded this disc; the album kicks off with three hooky burners in “Vicious Companions,” “Skull Crusher,” and “Full Moon Possession.” Any of these three cuts would make a great lead single or video but right now all I can find online is a live performance of “Skull Crusher.” Check it out:

“Jeckyll and Hyde” is a longer multi-tempo track with crushing riffs and a very cool chorus. “Absinthe” is a tribute to everyone’s favorite extract of wormwood, and it will have you banging your head at the 1:40 minute mark. “Tales From The Crypt” is the album's epic centerpiece and features such jolly lyrics as “Tomorrow is just another word for misery.” It’s another fantastic song with noodly Maiden guitar parts. “Nocturnal Rites” starts with an intro similar to either “E5150” or “The Dark” by Black Sabbath and then develops into a mid-paced grinder with sweet, sweet gang vocals in the choruses.

It’s at this point that the album hits a bit of a snag due to poor sequencing. On the digital download and CD the songs “Road To Hell” and “False Preacher” are back to back and both have the same lyrical content – the perils of organized religion. The tracks are actually separated on the vinyl and the album flows much better as a result. Wolf should have followed the vinyl sequencing in other formats or ditched one of these tracks and used it as a bonus song on different versions.

“Hope To Die” is another fast song with strong solos and riffs and lyrics about spooky rituals and the occult. The last track on the vinyl and standard CD is “K-141 Kursk” and deals with the accidental sinking of a Russian submarine and the subsequent death of all hands on board. It’s a decent song but it has a particularly effective outro as the song fades and all that can be heard is a mournful sonar ping. It conjures up visions of doomed submariners waiting to die in the dark as their vessel takes on water.

The Deluxe edition CD features the track “6 Steps” which was the bonus track on the Japanese edition of Ravenous. It’s a mid-paced number with a crunchy guitar tone that lyrically is reminiscent of Maiden’s “Fear Of The Dark.” Both the Deluxe CD and the digital download end with a cover of Metal Church’s “Method To Your Madness.” Wolf is particularly adept at cover songs, and in the past has produced excellent covers of Mercyful Fate, Blue Oyster Cult, Slayer and The Ramones songs. “Method To Your Madness” is no exception and is well worth the listen.

If you can’t decide which version of the album to purchase, I suggest the vinyl because not only do you get a nice piece red vinyl, but you also get the Deluxe Edition of the CD tucked into one of the gatefolds. That’s a very cool way for labels to entice people to purchase vinyl. You can see the pictures of this version at the top of this review.

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The Bottom Line: Wolf once again delivers the Metal with Legions Of Bastards and they deserve your support. They were NWOTHM long before the NWOTHM was cool so go out there and buy something from them. Here’s hoping that some day they make it to the States for a tour.

As always, MAKE MINE METAL.

Smooth Slayer

Angel Of Death?

The Gods That Failed

Enter Night: A Biography Of Metallica by Mick Wall

St. Martin’s Press – 2010

Bangers, you know as well as I that whenever Heavy Metal is discussed Metallica will somehow enter the conversation for either good or ill. Usually the subject of the dreaded SELLOUT will be mentioned. Older fans like yours truly will then relate at which point they stopped listening to the band by saying, "I liked the first 3 (or 4 or 5) albums but after that they lost me."

I remember listening to Master Of Puppets when it came out in ’86 and thinking it was the tightest, heaviest album of all time. As the years went by Metallica seemed to have lost their way and caved into pressure from management and producers (Bob Rock in particular), and had diluted their sound to the point where they were just another hard rock band.

By the time they released St. Anger in 2003, it seemed obvious that they were completey out of touch with what it meant to be a hard rock band, let alone a heavy metal band. The 2004 Some Kind Of Monster documentary made the band look pathetic and clueless as these millionaires were crying and whining to a goofball therapist. Ugh. Truly this was the nadir of a once great band.

I thought I knew exactly what happened with them: Lars controlled the band and poor old James and Kirk followed along blindly while Bob Rock completely destroyed their sound in a quest for hits. It turns out that I and many others were completely wrong. Mick Wall’s new book Enter Night: A Biography Of Metallica sets us straight. The 470 page tome details the band’s career from inception all the way to the 2010 Big Four shows in Europe. Mick Wall has been covering the band since their earliest days for Kerrang! magazine and that puts him ins a unique position to write their biography.

Wall’s writing is excellent and fast paced and he does not hold back with his opinions. He also reveals a host of interesting facts about the band that I didn’t know. Among them are:

• Metallica has never gotten along with Slayer, and Slayer feels likewise. Upon seeing Some Kind Of Monster, Kerry King called Metallica “fragile old men.”
• Not only did the band try to get John Bush from Armored Saint to front them, but they also tried to get Armored Saint’s bass player Joey Vera to replace Cliff Burton when he died.
• Immediately prior to Cliff’s death, James and Cliff had seriously contemplated firing Lars because of this his mediocre drumming. Dave Lombardo was someone they considered for his replacement.
• Jess Cox of Tygers Of Pan Tang was also considered as a vocalist but the band had no way to contact him.
• Metallica has more number one albums than any band in history including U2, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Beatles.
• The four top contenders for Cliff’s replacement were Mike Dale of Corrosion Of Conformity, Willy Lange of Laaz Rockit, Les Claypool of Primus and, of course, Jason Newstead of Flotsam And Jetsam.
• Jason Newstead was in the band for 15 years and he had exactly 3 songwriting credits.
• Every album that Metallica has released since Metallica has sold progressively fewer units and St. Anger was a commercial disaster.
• Lars has only ever been in one band in his life.
• Lars is one of the savviest people in the music business and usually makes the correct decisions about the band's financials. He makes Gene Simmons look like a kid with his first lemonade stand.
• James runs the band with an iron fist. All musical decisions are his and he also approves all major business decisions.
• Kirk has little to no input into the band either musically or business-wise. He enjoys smoking weed, surfing, horror films and reading comics. He is essentially a non-entity.
• James is a vicious drunk and a bully who has no clue who he actually is as a person. He is a real nasty piece of work and I have zero respect for him.
• Both Flemming Rasmussen and Bob Rock forced Lars to take drum lessons during recording as his skills were rudimentary at best. In fact, Rasmussen had to teach Lars that drumming meant more than just fills and Lars didn’t even know what an upbeat was.
• Kirk relied on Joe Satriani for help when he was working on solos early on. Joe was Kirk’s guitar teacher.
• Jonny Zazula was still serving time in prison when he brought the band to New Jersey to record Kill ‘Em All.
• Geoff Tate is an insufferable asshole. He labels Metallica fans as “low education, lower income, drunks, and drug users.” Geoff, what the fuck do you know about Metal anyway, you washed up, no voice-having shitbird. Release something as good as the Queensryche EP again and maybe I would listen to you, but until then shut the fuck up.

What makes this book invaluable is the understanding it provides about why Metallica makes the choices they make when it comes to musical direction. Here's the picture that emerges from the book.

Initially Lars and James wanted to emulate their heroes of the NWOBHM and thus they made Kill ‘Em All. Both Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets were revolutionary and sounded like nothing else in Metal. It’s at this point that Metallica as a revolutionary force in Metal ended and the band became reactionary.

Believe it or not, …And Justice For All was a reaction to Guns ‘N Roses’ Appetite For Destruction and Lars really wanted an angry sounding album like Appetite. Later, Lars had been listening heavily to both The Cult’s Sonic Temple and Motley Crue’s Dr. Feelgood and wanted the drum sound in particular on the next Metallica album, so they brought in Bob Rock who had produced those albums. Both James and Lars wanted to go in a more commercial direction so they recorded music that would lead to singles and videos. The result was the massive Metallica album that has sold 25 million copies to date.

In 1995, the band regrouped and once again reacted to what they thought was the dominant music of the day – grunge. They were determined to stay on top commercially and thus recorded Load and “reinvented” the image of the band with the short hair, eye liner, cigars and Lollapalooza tours. It’s here that the band was too clever by half because Grunge had already over after Kurt Cobain gave himself a shotgun shampoo.

In essence, they miscalculated gravely and left a lot of money on the table. The smart thing for them to have done would have been to continue in the vein of Metallica and make commercial Metal. They failed to do this and as a result they alienated a large part of their old fan base and gained none of the Grunge audience who had zero interest in Metallica regardless of their hair length, tattoos or piercings. Their absence in the Metal market allowed bands like Pantera to pick up the ball and run with it to great success.

Following Load, the band pooped out Reload which consisted of the remaining tracks from the Load sessions. It sold half of what Load sold and was subpar at best. This was followed by Garage Inc., and S&M because the band had renegotiated their contract, which now allowed them to count live albums and compilations as part of their obligation to their record company. Thus they churned out stopgap material to satisfy their seven album deal.

By 2003 the band was in turmoil because of Jason's departure and James' stint in rehab. They had no clue what to record because there were no real trends to follow. Thus you get the unfocused nonsense that is St. Anger which is virtually unlistenable. Their label was beyond dismayed when they heard it and it was a disaster financially.

Finally by 2008, the band had noticed that the “classic rock” or “nostalgia” circuit was in full swing with bands like Kiss, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden cleaning up on the road. This led them to crank out Death Magnetic and then to agree to the Big Four shows. After 20+ years they cared about thrash again.

Thus Metallica has always been about being the biggest band in the world and not the biggest Metal band in the world. They want commercial viability above everything else and with Lars’s business acumen and James’s songwriting abilities they were successful beyond their wildest dreams. In many ways I admire them because they have achieved everything they wanted and more, but I am also sad because I now realize any integrity they had about being a Metal band was a fraud. They used that when it suited them and then discarded Metal when it was no longer fashionable.

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The Bottom Line: I would recommend this book to anyone who's a current or former fan of Metallica. It’s chock full of details and revelations about the biggest band in the world but don’t be surprised if you become melancholy upon finishing it. The band you thought you knew and loved never really existed.

As always, MAKE MINE METAL.

Am I Evil?

The Hirschkraft Slayer Dashboard

My fellow Metalheads, have you ever wondered just how evil each Slayer album is? Well wonder no more because the good people at the Hirschkraft Slayer Dashboard have constructed a little widget that will definitively answer all your Slayer evilness questions. No longer will you be sitting at a dinner party unable to join the riveting discussion of the relative evil merits of Haunting The Chapel vs. World Painted Blood. You will know just how many times Slayer has used the words blood, death, evil, hell, kill, satan and war in their songs.

The secret of which band member writes the most evil lyrics will be revealed to you with this fantastic Dashboard as well as who writes the evilest music. But wait, there’s more! Act now and you will also know the average evil song length and evil album length. Hail Satan!