YNGWIE J. MALMSTEEN'S RISING FORCE: Attack!!

Released: 2002

I've never seen the big deal about Yngwie J. Malmsteen. There are and have always been tons of ridiculously talented guitar players around, but somehow this belligerent, drunken, fat, egotistical Swede has won himself an astonishing army of fans. And yet the more I hear of his music, the more I feel that his reputation is based virtually entirely on his first two (and possibly three) solo albums and his work with Steeler.

For a guy who has been hailed as a genius all this time, he certainly doesn’t seem to stretch his playing very far. As far as my opinion of him goes, Malmsteen’s always come across as little more than a massively ego-driven Blackmore copyist made good, and these days he’s not even worshipping Blackmore anymore because he’s too busy worshipping himself.

Attack!! (with two exclamation points, no less) continues the Swede’s obsession with former Rainbow vocalists (Doogie White in this case, who sang on Stranger in Us All, Blackmore’s last album before he went back to the 16th century), and his own self-indulgent twaddle. The album starts with one of his trademark widdly-widdly fretboard runs and for the next fifty minutes that’s about all he does. Derek Sherinian is credited as playing on this too, but with Yngwie playing everything else except the drums, he doesn’t get to do very much.

By track five or so I was well and truly over it, but I stuck it out in case Yngwie pulled out a good song like he’s want to do now and then. No such luck. Attack!! bored me stupid, and that’s a hard thing to do.

1. Razor Eater


2. Rise Up


3. Valley of the Kings


4. Ship of Fools


5. Attack!!


6. Baroque and Roll


7. Stronghold


8. Mad Dog


9. In the Name of God


10. Freedom Isn't Free


11. Majestic Blue


12. Valhalla


13. Touch the Sky


14. Iron Clad


15. Air

Rating: 23%

PANTERA: Cowboys From Hell

Produced by Terry Date

Released: 1990

This album would prove to be a watershed moment for Pantera. Throughout the 80s, the band had slowly amassed a huge cult following for their wild party metal that was part Kiss and part Van Halen and bands like Metallica and Megadeth were numbered among their fans. By 1990, they were primed and ready for their major league breakthrough, and their fifth album would be the one to deliver.

After more than half a decade of playing shout-it-out-loud hair metal, Pantera had turned a corner with 1988's Power Metal album, going for a hard-edged approach very much like classic Priest; with Cowboys From Hell, they combined a patchwork of influences and styles and created an album that would start them on their way to true world dominance for the rest of the decade.

Cowboys From Hell is a remarkable and remarkably diverse album, littered with insanely catchy, crunchy riffs and killer drumming served up by an inseparable and indomitable guitar/drum combo that must rank amongst the very best ever in rock. Over this faultless framework, Phil Anselmo weaved the most varied vocal performance of his entire career.

While it's clear that Pantera has come a long way since the likes of Metal Magic and Projects in the Jungle here, it's also true that they're still developing their own identity, with some distinctive influences stamped as indelibly on the album as the tatts on Phil's arms. On "Shattered" they sound like Judas Priest and elsewhere there's a heavy Metallica influence, especially on tracks like "Heresy" when Phil sounds exactly like James Hetfield. After years of messing around with styles, however, it is on this album that Pantera came into its own.

The opening riff is an absolute monster, the type that gets instant neck snappin' headbanging going and stays in the consciousness even as others just as good follow in quick succession. Dimebag was already known as a riff-meister of considerable note, but this release was the consolidation of that reputation, and his flashy Van Halen inspired soloing was the icing on the cake.

Cowboys From Hell is a treasure trove of great metal moments: the complex polyrhythms peppered throughout "Psycho Holiday", the sludgy thrash of "Primal Concrete Sledge", the brooding melodies of "Medicine Man" and the thundering thrash of "Domination". Of course, no discussion of this album would be complete without mentioning the haunting "Cemetery Gates", a showcase both for Anselmo's incredible vocal range and Dime's poignant guitar playing. It's a deeply moving album centrepiece that stands as one of the most emotional pieces of music ever put together by a heavy metal band.

As good as Pantera's other 90s album would be, its arguable whether they topped the songwriting, catchiness and sheer consistency of Cowboys From Hell. Tracks like "The Sleep" and "Clash With Reality" are probably less notable than most of the others, but there are no real fillers here and 15 years after it's release, this remains one of the best metal albums of all.

1. Cowboys From Hell


2. Priaml Concrete Sledge


3. Psycho Holiday


4. Heresy


5. Cemetery Gates


6. Domination


7. Shattered


8. Clash With Reality


9. Medicine Man


10. Message in Blood


11. The Sleep


12. The Art of Shredding

Rating: 96%

RAVEN: Rock Until You Drop

Released: 1981

While they were to become even less than a shadow of their former selves a few years later, in 1981 Raven was years ahead of its time. The energetic breakneck pace and exuberence on display throughout this recording wasn't to be replicated until the likes of Metallica and Slayer began to emerge over two years after this was released. Raven had already existed for over six years when this was issued, long enough for them to have developed a sound that, while in some ways typical of north England's metal scene from the time, was also quite original, particularly in regards to its athletic delivery.

This album's mayhemic sleeve art - basically a huge pile of trashed band gear -- is a good representation of the music inside. At this point of their career, Raven was playing what can be best described as outrageously wild heavy metal. John Gallagher wails until he is almost out of breath, brother Mark throttles his guitar like a psycho and drummer Wacko, gridiron helmet and all... Well, Wacko is just whacko! Most incredible however, is the amazing sense of control in the pandemonium on display that results in instantly catchy original songs in the shapes of tracks like "Hard Ride", "Hell Patrol" and "Don't Need Your Money", all bristling with shout-along choruses and cranking riffs just made for unrestrained headbanging. Just as that trio of tracks ignites Rock Until You Drop to a blazing start, it closes in a similarly impressive way. First, Raven takes a medley of Sweet classics "Hellraiser" and "Action" and turns it into a blitzkreig, then they follow it up with the seriously cool "Lambs to the Slaughter" that would later be covered by none other than Kreator. But it's the closing track that elevates this album to true greatness. A complex proto-thrash mini-epic that predates Metallica's Kill 'Em All by a good two years, "Tyrant of the Airways" is easily one of the best British metal songs ever recorded. From a slow, menacing intro, this song explodes into mayhem, slows down again into an extended instrumental break where the lead guitar solos over quiet arpeggios plucked on an eight-string bass and then erupts once again into a frantic speed metal assault. "Phantom of the Opera" from Iron Maiden is about the only other thing from the time that comes even remotely close to this track, and even that isn't a good comparison. All told, Rock Until You Drop is an undisputable masterpiece of early British metal.

1. Hard Ride


2. Hell Patrol


3. Don't Need Your Money


4. Over the Top


5. 39/40


6. For the Future


7. Rock Until You Drop


8. Nobody's Hero


9. Hellraiser/Action


10. Tyrant of the Airways


11. Lambs to the Slaughter

Rating: 91%

METALLICA: Master of Puppets

Produced by Fleming Rasmussen

Released: 1986

There are albums that are called legendary, and then there are albums that truly are so. Master of Puppets is such a beast, a recording held in such high esteem even by people who don't ordinarily listen to heavy metal that it almost defies being reviewed. A breathtaking album when it was first released, this is still one that I come back to again and again among the hundreds and possibly thousands of other records in my collection almost two whole decades later. The reason for this is simple: Master of Puppets is easily one of the best albums ever made. It's almost superfluous to talk about the album's intro, the clunky, clean strumming that becomes a surging, orchestral-sounding clashing that in turn metamorphoses into one of the most memorable metal riffs of all. It seems equally redundant to discuss the crawling horror evoked by "The Thing That Should Not Be" or the magnificence of the title track. While it's true that Master follows almost the same kind of plan as its worthy predecessor, it's also true that Ride the Lightning was merely the prototype for what Metallica was to achieve.

Metallica got everything right here. There's a perfect balance between all the emotions of the band's music as they shift between menace, malevolence, anger, frustration and despair. There's James Hetfield's lyrical vision, putting together intelligent, thought-provoking songs about drug addiction, TV evangelism and war, not to mention his own vocal performance which is the best to be found on any Metallica album. There's also the mix, again among the best of the catalogue, and the playing itself, centred around Hetfield's wrist-achingly tight and complex rhythms, complemented by what is perhaps Lars Ulrich's best ever drumming and guided by Cliff Burton's amazing gift for musical arrangement, perhaps best exemplified by the expansive genius of "Orion", arguably one of the finest rock instrumental tracks of all time.

As with all Metallica releases, at the very heart of Master of Puppets is some stupefyingly incredible songwriting. This is the key reason why this album still stands so tall after such a long time: where other albums from the period, even the very good ones, are beginning to sound dated, Master of Puppets is as powerful and as relevant now as in was in 1986. With a mere eight songs but at just under an hour in length, Metallica's third album epitomises the very best that heavy metal has to offer and as close as others have come, it's still arguable that any have quite matched what they did here.

1. Battery


2. Master of Puppets


3. The Thing That Should Not Be


4. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)


5. Disposable Heroes


6. Leper Messiah


7. Orion


8. Damage, Inc.

Rating: 100%

ANNIHILATOR: Metal

Produced by Jeff Waters

Released: 2007

This album caused considerable brouhaha when first announced, but with guest appearances by Jeff Loomis from Nevermore, Anders Bjorler from The Haunted, Jesper Stromblad from In Flames, Trivium's Corey Beaulieu, and the Arch Enemy pair of Angela Gossow and Michael Amott, among others, it's easy to see why. So imagine my disappointment when the latest Annihilator album turned out to be one of the cruddiest things I've heard in ages. Seriously, I want Jeff Waters to give me an hour of his life in exchange for the hour he stole from me with this. And while he's there, give me an extra two hours for the last couple of albums as well.

Metal promised a couple of things. First of all, by it's very title it promised metal. Secondly, it promised a bunch of colloborations with a bunch of shit-hot guitarists. It pretty much fails on every level. Dave Padden's vocals are annoyingly bland and try-hard at times, and Loomis' and Alexi Laiho's contributions are the only ones that really stand out. If the other guys' solos weren't notated in the booklet, you would barely notice that it's anyone other than Waters himself.

The album kicks off in fine style with "Clown Parade", a nice crunchy and pacy thrash track featuring some quality trade-offs between Waters and Loomis. It's one and only highpoint on the album. The very next song is a lame radio track featuring someone called Danko Jones, the singer from an Ontario rock band who are nothing spectacular from the samples I sought out after hearing this. For some reason, Angela from Arch Enemy does her demonic vocal stuff in the background here, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. After this, Lips from Anvil gets roped in to lay down a 38-second lead break in "Army of One", an embarassingly awful 'shout-out' to the old school that's even worse than some of the stuff Anvil themselves have come up with lately. And that's saying something.

Metal doesn't really get any better after this. Alexi Laiho plays all over "Downright Dominate" but the track itself is just generic filler, and pretty much every other song is cut-and-pasted metal-by-numbers crap, with barely-noticeable guest appearances tossed in to make people buy it. Add to this the fact that seven pages of the booklet are full-page ads for all the companies Waters endorses and what you really have here is one of the biggest sell-outs in metal history. If this is all Jeff Waters has left in him, he needs to do something else with the rest of his life.

1. Clown Parade


2. Couple Suicide


3. Army of One


4. Downright Dominate


5. Smothered


6. Operation Annihilation


7. Haunted


8. Kicked


9. Detonation


10. Chasing the High

Rating: 20%

WARBRINGER: War Without End

Produced by Bill Metoyer

Released: Tomorrow

Half the guys in this band weren't even born when Kreator released Pleasure to Kill but obviously their parents and/or older siblings made sure they spent plenty of time listening to it. Warbringer may have only formed in 2004 but on War Without End they could just as easily have come from mid-80s Essen via San Francisco.

Fiendishly relentless for most of its 40 minute length, War Without End is pure and simple old school thrash and shows that Warbringer has precisely zero pretentions to be anything else. Only the distinctly modern production sets this apart from the thrash metal classics that are this band's major influences, and who better to help them perfect this sound than BIll Metoyer, whose list of credits include production and engineering duties with Slayer, Sacred Reich, Atrophy, DRI and literally dozens of others. The playing is ridiculously energetic, the guitars are crunchy and heavy and the vocals are an urgent, tuneless shouting; when John Kevill isn't channelling Mille Petrozza he's doing Tom Araya instead. Behind the ripping chaos of the incredibly catchy, headbangingly good riffs Ryan Bates lays down some deceptively technical drumming that really does hold everything together in a pretty remarkable fashion.

While it is true that the shadows of Kreator and Slayer loom large over every move this band makes, it would be a mistake to assume that Warbringer doesn't have ideas of their own, even if part of "Systematic Genocide" sounds exactly like "Angel of Death". Rather than just simply ripping off the greats, these guys mix up their influences and add a singularly darker element that is in tune with the warlike themes of every single one of their songs. It isn't totally original of course, but it is certainly inspired.

No review of this album would be complete without mentioning one other factor that really makes them stand out. Warbringer's material is simply drenched in the blazing lead guitar work of John Laux and Adam Carroll, who combine furious shredding with spectacular melodic sections in the extended solos and add in machine-gun like spitfire fills and splats elsewhere. This is truly glorious stuff.

Warbringer is emerging as the thrash revival begins to roll around the world and War Without End should see them way out in front of the oncoming stampede.

1. Total War


2. Systematic Genocide


3. Dread Command


4. Hell on Earth


5. At the Crack of Doom


6. Beneath the Waves


7. Instruments of Torture


8. Shoot to Kill


9. Born of the Ruins


10. Combat Shock


11. A Dead Current (unlisted)

Rating: 72%

PEARL JAM: Ten

Produced by Rick Parashar and Pearl Jam

Released: 1991

When Pearl Jam's debut album began to achieve its monstrous success almost a year after it was first released, critics blasted the band for riding on the coat-tails of Nirvana's success (even though Ten had actually came out a month before Nevermind) and contemporaries, most notably Kurt Cobain himself, castigated Pearl Jam for the commercial aspects of their sound. The critics, of course, were clueless and Cobain, a self-declared enemy of anything remotely mainstream, was probably being simply unfair. Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard had already made a play for mainstream success with Mother Love Bone, yet when that band dissolved with the drug death of singer Andrew Wood, the pair went in a darker direction instead of the clearly even more commercial path they had been on. While Ten is far more musically accessible than the raw punkishness of Nirvana and the sludgy metal of Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, Eddie Vedder's cerebral, personal lyrics held a deeper relevance than the disposable ditties of dozens of charting rock bands. Indeed, this was an album that appears to have succeeded in spite of itself, with dark, dramatic songs about murder, incest and suicide that were far removed from most of the radio fodder that even Nirvana couldn't kill.

Ten opens bleakly with the serial killer song "Once" and rarely surfaces from the gloom of violence and inner turmoil for the remainder of its playing time. Vedder delivers his lyrics in an unusual (though since much imitated) semi-baritone uttered like a man gargling marbles so that barely less than half of them can be clearly understood by the casual listener but their true impact lies more in this passionate vocalisation than in any concrete analysis. Written in the dark days following Wood's death, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament's riffs are big, lumbering and plodding like 70s dinosaur rock that sometimes belie the meaning of Vedder's bleak lyrical outlook. In "Even Flow", Gossard wraps a stark picture of homelessness in an upbeat, almost funky motif. "Alive" sounds like an enormous, triumphant song of inspiration surmounted by a wildly atonal guitar solo from Mike McCready that's almost bigger than the song itself; in reality the tune is about betrayal and incest.

If that wasn't grim enough, the album's centerpiece "Black" looms like a thundercloud in the middle of the album, a slow-building, emotional masterpiece of bitter heartbreak that finally explodes with something like both the despair of a spurned lover and the rage of a stalker: "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life/I know you'll be a star/In somebody else's sky, but why/Can't it be mine?" Black, indeed. Following that, almost anything would seem light-hearted, but Pearl Jam almost surpasses it with "Jeremy", a track that deceptively starts out with a pop-inflected bass harmonic but transforms into a violent tale of a kid who blows himself away in class. Further on and "Deep" is a haunting vision of drug-addicted loneliness that possibly only Layne Staley could match.

Pearl Jam was cognisant of the aspects of broad appeal while maintaining a level of artistic credibility, allowing Ten to succeed in spite of the starkness of its songs and crafting as fine a rock album as such a thing can be.

1. Once


2. Even Flow


3. Alive


4. Why Go


5. Black


6. Jeremy


7. Oceans


8. Porch


9. Garden


10. Deep


11. Release

Rating: 98%

TWISTED SISTER: Stay Hungry

Produced by Tom Werman

Released: 1984

Yesterday I reviewed Eddie Ojeda's album, and today it's time to look at the album that made him famous. This was one of the biggest metal albums in the world in 1984. After more than a decade as an outrageous New York club act, Twisted Sister suddenly became an outrageous arena band when the first single from this album smashed into the top end of music charts around the world. "We're Not Gonna Take It" was shout-it-out-loud, rebellious headbanging rock and roll, a three and a half minute introduction to one of the best American metal albums of the early 1980s.

For a band whose best musician was a lead singer who didn't play an instrument, Stay Hungry is a surprisingly strong album for much of its length, and only let down by a couple of real throwaway tracks towards the end. It's quite a testament to what a handful of great songs can do despite a band's musical ability.

Dee Snider was the genius behind Stay Hungry's songwriting power. Musically simple and inherently catchy, his lyrics were a step above much of what was coming out of the scene at the time. Twisted Sister songs weren't just about rebellion, they were also about empowerment. The ripping opening tune and title track gets the album off to a brilliant start, a roaring song about seeing one's dream through to the end. That's followed by the infamous "We're Not Gonna Take It", on the surface just a fist-in-the-air anthem that any band could write, but Snider's meaningful lyrics rise above the norm. Then comes the album's real highlights. The first is "Burn in Hell", a track that drips with a real malevolence that makes it rate to this day as one of the best metal songs of the decade. Twisted Sister never topped this although the ensemble piece that follows certainly came close.

Twisted Sister may have been lumped in with bands like Quiet Riot and Kiss, but try finding a track like "Horror-Teria (The Beginning)" on any album by those bands. Part one is simply nasty as Snider half-narrates the tale of a sicko child-killer over a slow, buzzing, single guitar riff while part two erupts into frustration and rage as justice goes awry. "I Wanna Rock" and "The Price" round out the six tracks that make this album legendary, the first a basic glam rock fist-pumper and the second a strong power ballad that again transcends the norm thanks to Snider's lyrics.

After this, Stay Hungry slides quite a lot with the next two songs not really up to the standard of the others, and Ojeda practically recycles his solo from "The Price" for "The Beast". "SMF" (for Sick Motherfucker) is ok, and only just, but the first six songs are so good that it doesn't really matter that the rest are pretty ordinary.

While it is a little dated these days, Stay Hungry is a triumph of songwriting over technical skill and proof that the ugliest motherfuckers in the world could have a big hit record if they put their mind to it.

1. Stay Hungry


2. We're Not Gonna Take It


3. Burn In Hell


4. Horror-Teria (The Beginning) i. Captain Howdy ii. Street Justice


5. I Wanna Rock


6. The Price


7. Don't Let Me Down


8. The Beast


9. SMF

Rating: 78%

EDDIE OJEDA: Axes 2 Axes

Produced by Eddie Ojeda

Released: 2005

When you think of guitarists doing solo albums, Eddie Ojeda from Twisted Sister is probably not a guy whose name would spring to mind. Ojeda's guitar playing was hardly the most outstanding aspect of Twisted Sister's music, and even in comparison to 80s contemporaries like (dare I say it) CC Deville or Quiet Riot's Carlos Cavazo, he probably doesn't rate that highly. The idea of him putting together an album of his own, then, is surprising to say the least, even if the collection of talent he's gathered around him for the exercise is less so: Ronnie James Dio, Joe Lynn Turner, Dee Snider, Rudy Sarzo and latter-day Sister drummer Joe Franco among them.

Draped in a terrible and terribly uninspired cover (a selection of guitars burning at the stake? Come the fuck on), Axes 2 Axes doesn't hold much promise, and therefore doesn't have much to live up to. Which is just as well, because this is pretty ordinary stuff. The Dioesque "Tonight", with Ronnie James himself on vocals, starts things off rather well. It's a fairly heavy, mid-paced metal tune that goes along all right even if it is completely unmemorable the moment it's over and "Please Remember" with Ojeda on vocals is also OK and in fact sounds remotely like Rainbow when Turner was singing, which originally made me think it was Turner but he doesn't make an appearance until track 11 and I was beyond caring by that stage.

By this point Axes 2 Axes is already an unremarkable album, but after this it really becomes a puzzle as to why it exists at all. The cover of "Eleanor Rigby" with Snider singing (and badly, at that) is just terrible. "Evil Duz (What Evil Knows)" with Ojeda again handling the vocals is heavy enough but lyrically infantile, the instrumental tracks only showcase how average a player Ojeda is and tracks like the awful "The Reason" prove why Dee Snider wrote all of Twisted Sister's material.

I don't really know what Eddie was thinking with this. A way to issue a statement of his own after so long living in the shadow of Dee Snider, perhaps, but Axes 2 Axes is so bad he really shouldn't have bothered.

1. Tonight


2. Axes 2 Axes


3. Please Remember


4. Eleanor Rigby


5. Evil Duz (What Evil Knows)


6. Crosstown


7. Senorita Knows


8. Love Power


9. Funky Monkey


10. The Reason


11. Living Free

Rating: 35%

FATE: V

Released: 2006

Back in the mid-80s, Mercyful Fate split into two halves. King Diamond, Michael Denner and Timi Hansen went one way, doing pretty much what they were doing before, just under a different name. Hank Sherman went another. In fact, Hank went just about as far to the other side of the spectrum as possible, forming Fate. One of his partners in crime was drummer Bjarne Holm, who went by the name Bob Lance back then and somewhat ironically later ended up in the reformed Mercyful Fate. Fate was a Danish version of the melodic/hair bands storming the US charts at the time, although originally a rather more heavier one, until Sherman quit after two albums and the band went into party metal territory for a few years until the gravy train finally crashed and burned. I give this history lesson only to familiarise younger readers with one of the forgotten bands of the 80s. A forgotten band that, I must add, should have stayed that way.

With Sherman and Holm no longer in the band, V was Fate's comeback album after 16 years. The cover art, production and more metal sound is an admirable attempt to contemporise, but that doesn't stop V being ordinary. Opening track "Butterfly" is actually a fairly reasonable stab at present-day melodic metal, but it's really the only good track here. For the rest of the album, Fate tries on just about every melodic guise that's available, and none of them seem to fit. "Heaven's Crying Too" is ham-fisted epic power metal with Per Henricksen singing at close to the limit of his range, and that isn't pretty. "Everything About You" starts out with a Goth rock feel that steals a melody line directly from The Animal's "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" but then changes into a power ballad, and things just get worse from there. Corny sub-standard hair-metal lyrics and Henricksen's irritating voice don't really help things, but the band's struggle to develop an identity is by far the worst aspect of V.

When bands lose their relevancy, it's usually time for them to part ways. When they never really had much relevancy in the first place, they should reconsider getting back together.

1. Butterfly


2. Heaven's Crying Too


3. Everything About You


4. Ecstacy


5. Nobody Loves You the Way I Do


6. Burned Child


7. I'll Get By


8. Life


9. Fate


10. Memories Won't Die


11. Toxic

Rating: 42%

ARMORED SAINT: Symbol of Salvation

Produced by Dave Jerden

Released: 1991

As Armored Saint went in to finally record this album, they were a band on the verge of a split. For much of the 80s this band had existed on the verge of commercial breakthrough but lack of consistency on their albums and a habit of sounding just a little too much like Judas Priest had held them back from really going places. In typical rock n' roll fashion, the album that could possibly have elevated them beyond the second tier came in the midst of tragedy and too late to save them. Symbol of Salvation saw Armored Saint finally hit the peak to which it aspired. With injections of groove and a surprising but effective experiment with tribal rhythms, this album showed Armored Saint to be a band that wasn't afraid to tinker with its basic sound in the quest for true recognition. Long before it was even recorded, however, the band's creative and spiritual heart had been torn out and Armored Saint folded not long after it was released.

Symbol of Salvation was begun in 1988 but while it was still in the demo stages, guitarist, chief songwriter and producer David Prichard died from leukaemia on February 27, 1990. As a tribute to their fallen leader, Armored Saint completed the album but by the time it was released in 1991 the market for metal in the US was faltering and the band felt it could continue no longer. Under such a gloom cloud, this effort could have been a turgid and depressing volume, but instead it's a veritable celebration, a fantastic and vibrant album from beginning to end.

"Reign of Fire" kicks things along nicely with a chugging, near-thrash riff. Armored Saint could have made the whole album sound like this and it would have been good enough, but Symbol of Salvation excels because the mix of styles they use is so effective. Not only are the songs memorable with catchy, singalong choruses, each one stands out from the other as Armored Saint varies the diet with a blend of American-style power metal, hard rock and small doses of thrash, not to mention hints of groove and an occasional innovative twist. "Tribal Dance" has a hard rock feel with a main riff slightly reminiscent of GNR's "Rocket Queen", but the tribal beats give it a distinctive and original vibe almost half a decade before Sepultura or anyone else got the idea. "Another Day" builds nicely from a delicate start towards an epic-sounding twin-guitar finale. "Hanging Judge", "Warzone" and "Burning Question" are simply great heavy metal songs and "Spineless" closes the album with some genuine thrash, a genre that Armored Saint had merely only hinted at in the past. As a final tribute, the band lifted Prichard's solo from a demo version of "Tainted Past" to use on the album version of that track.

Symbol of Salvation is chronically overlooked and comes across as dated today, with a sound and production that places it squarely at the end of the 80s, but as a prime example of classic American heavy metal, it definitely has a cherished place.

1. Reign of Fire


2. Dropping Like Flies


3. Last Train Home


4. Tribal Dance


5. The Truth Always Hurts


6. Half Drawn Bridge


7. Another Day


8. Symbol of Salvation


9. Hanging Judge


10. Warzone


11. Burning Question


12. Tainted Past


13. Spineless

Rating: 82%

ENTOMBED: Clandestine

Produced by Entombed and Tomas Skogsberg

Released: 1991

With the American scene losing some of its impetus at the start of the 1990s thanks to the proliferation of bad hair bands and a flood of generic thrash acts, smaller, less exposed markets were beginning to come to the notice of metal enthusiasts. In the Swedish cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm, a burgeoning underground scene was just awaiting discovery. Out of Stockholm came Entombed, a band that had existed (as Nihilist) since 1987 and one that was making a truly brutal and ugly style of death metal, a style that would quickly become de rigueur for other emerging bands from that region. Entombed had already clearly stated their objectives on Left Hand Path. Here, they simply went to town.

Entombed is yet to make a bad album, and Clandestine is easily one of their best. For those more used to the band's later groove death and punk-edged stylings, the sludgy, horror-movie character and sheer brutality of this album may come as something of a shock, but few could argue that this is a benchmark by which all other death metal to follow would be measured. Unlike the statement in speed that its predecessor had been, Clandestine is almost elaborately intricate, featuring technical arrangements and dark, supernatural themes and lyrics supplied by outside contributor Kenny Håkansson. The distinctive guitar sound of Uffe Cederlund and Alx Hellid is already clearly in evidence, and there are hints of the 'death n' roll' style Entombed would later develop, but here the emphasis is on grinding, gut-churning riffs. Nicke Andersson embellishes and drives the tracks with jaw-dropping drum work and the production gives the album a murky, suffocating atmosphere. Not a single track on here is wasted, from the opening explosion of "Living Dead" through the crawling doom of "Evilyn", the monstrous "Crawl" to the head-caving "Chaos Breed" and the unsettling, evil-sounding "Through the Colonnades" and "Stranger Aeons", Clandestine is not only immensely heavy but a deliberate and carefully-plotted soundtrack of fear.

This mood is further enhanced by the unusual vocals, a series of raw and undeveloped grunts and screams from drummer Andersson. In one of those freaks of chance that can often make a merely good album into a great one, Andersson only initially laid down the vocals as a guide for Carnage bassist Jonny Dordevic, who had been chosen to replace the recently-fired LG Petrov, but in the end they were never replaced. The result could not have been planned better, because his uncharacteristic style just gels perfectly with Clandestine's chaotic arrangements and dark, sinister feel. This album is like a nightmare come to life, a groping swamp-born horror of a work that is absolutely essential and without doubt one of the best death metal releases of all.

1. Living Dead


2. Sinners Bleed


3. Evilyn


4. Blessed Be


5. Stranger Aeons


6. Chaos Breed


7. Crawl


8. Severe Burns


9. Through the Collonades

Rating: 98%

ALICE IN CHAINS: Dirt

Produced by Dave Jensen and Alice in Chains

Released: 1992

Alice in Chains arose from Seattle at the same time as grunge and are still often considered as part of that scene. While their music encompassed aspects of grunge, Alice in Chains had formed as a speed metal band in the mid-80s before developing a brooding, moody and at times depressing style that remains unique to this day despite the myriad of copyists to have emerged since.

This is no better exemplified than on 1992's Dirt, a seminal masterpiece of dark, sludgy metal that spawned five hit singles and left an indelible mark on artists throughout the rock spectrum from Godsmack to Metallica and beyond. By rights it should be impossible to actually enjoy an album as gloomy as this, yet the catchy riffs, sublime vocal melodies and superb songwriting engage the listener again and again, taking them on a depressing and occasionally sordid journey through soul-crushing drug dependancy and bleak emotional turmoil. Most of the Seattle bands from this period were offering up similar volumes that wallowed in self-loathing and self-pity, but only a handful are still remembered and probably none still ring with such potency as this.

Much of Dirt centres around singer Layne Staley's drug hell: "Godsmack", "Junkhead", "Hate to Feel", "Sickman" - all so candid and pained in their exploration of hopeless heroin addiction it's a wonder anyone could try it after hearing them, especially "Junkhead" in which he seems to realise how trapped he is, but no longer cares. Just listening to the anguish and despair in Staley's voice as he wails through lyrics like "Cast all them aside who care/Empty eyes and dead-end stare" is disturbing enough but Alice in Chains went further, combining it with a musical backdrop of brooding, heavily bass-driven Black Sabbath-like sludge for a starkly haunting result. Even the songs that aren't about drugs are thoroughly unsettling: "Rain When I Die" and "Down in a Hole" are pure desolation.

The album's centerpiece is "Rooster", Jerry Cantrell's dedication to his Vietnam-vet father, a song completely different in subject matter to all the others but with exactly the same theme. With the band providing the perfect combination of moods, Staley's voice precisely embodies the despair, angst and rage of a man trapped in a situation of utter hopelessness; his soaring choruses are deftly and subtlely underpinned by Cantrell's backing vocals that would only be noticable if they weren't there.

Alice in Chains never made a bad album but Dirt is where all the elements came together, transcending almost everything else that Seattle threw up in its self-deprecating misery. It was Layne Staley's great triumph, and the foretelling his own doom.

1. Them Bones


2. Dam That River


3. Rain When I Die


4. Down In a Hole


5. Sickman


6. Rooster


7. Junkhead


8. Dirt


9. God Smack


10. Iron Gland


11. Hate to Feel


12. Angry Chair


13. Would?

Rating: 97%

NITOCRIS: Screaming Dolorous

Produced by Mark Thomas, Liberty and Nitocris

Released: 1994

While a teenage band from Newcastle was about to shake not only Australia but the world in late 1994, another group of teenagers had already cut themselves a swathe through the Sydney alternative music scene. With an average age of 17, Nitocris had already played the Big Day Out, opened for The Cult and Suicidal Tendencies and scored a best-selling EP by the time this album dropped in November and while they never even came close to emulating the success of Silverchair, they did carve a small niche in history for themselves as the country's first successful all-female rock band.

The idea of five teenage girls headbanging like crazy while playing loud and angry rock songs may have sounded like some kind of novelty act, but Screaming Dolorous showed that Nitocris was a band that could not only play but had an intrinsic ability to write well-crafted and inherently catchy songs. Each of the ten originals was stamped with a memorable hook and a clever pop sensibility that belied the band's years and the punked-out cover of "N.I.B." remained a crowd favourite for the rest of their career.

Screaming Dolorous is a combination of a love of classic heavy rock, a youthful punk energy with a hint of thrash and mountains of attitude. Unlike the posturing of other bands however, Nitocris was able to make it sound real, thanks in no small degree to the manic vocals of Morgana Ancone. Over the aggressive, hook-ridden riffs of Jess Finlayson and Kira Taylor, Ancone snarls, howls and spits a vocal tirade like a demented Debbie Harry channeling a banshee. On "Anger", an appropriately-named track if ever there was one, she simmers toward a climax of psychotic jealous rage; elsewhere "10 Stories Down" and "Egotestical" are streams of invective poisonously delivered. With "Thunder Machine" however Nitocris gets almost carefree with a loose, punkish straight-out rocker about hooning around in cars, and "Epic Voyage" sees them taking the foot off the accelerator for a dark, drifting semi-ballad. "Hell Bitch" and "Suxiety" are more furious bursts of oestrogen-driven guitar aggression and the album is closed off by the insanely catchy and poundingly heavy "Haemorrhaging Souls", one of the best songs the band ever wrote.

Screaming Dolorous is a short and punchy album without a wasted moment, an exuberant and angry record from one of the best Sydney bands of the mid 1990s.

1. Anger


2. Thunder Machine


3. Cringe


4. Egotestical


5. N.I.B.


6. Epic Voyage


7. 10 Stories Down


8. Suxiety


9. Hell Bitch


10. Night Stalker


11. Haemorrhaging Souls

Rating: 90%

CORROSION OF CONFORMITY: Wiseblood

Produced by John Custer

Released: 1996

Corrosion of Conformity's previous album Deliverance showed that the band's journey from hardcore band to sludge metal overlords was complete. With Wiseblood they tweaked a few things and created their masterpiece, even managing to rope James Hetfield in on the fun.

Deliverance may have scored the band some US chart action and elevated their status somewhat, but while it had plenty of moments there weren't nearly enough memorable songs and it was obvious COC was still trying to perfect its Southern rock/sludge thrash crossover. Where they had failed there, on Wiseblood they nail everything perfectly. "King of the Rotten" gets things underway with a scorching riff and Keenan's snarling vocals and mid-way through the running order is a knock-out trio headed up by "BOrn Again for the Last Time", leading into the pure gem that is "Drowning in a Daydream" and following through with "The Snake Has No Head".

There isn't really any filler on here, just one killer cut after the next as COC veers effortlessly from Southern-style sludge to doomified rock to ultimate bottom-feeding drone (titled, erm, "Bottom Feeder", no less!) while delivering nothing less than an thoroughly enjoyable and consistent album. Keenan and Woody Weatherman fire off some truly tasty riffage with Mike Dean's huge bass sound rumbling along underneath. The debt paid to Black Sabbath here is both obvious and enormous, but that could be said about lots of bands, and Corrosion of Conformity adds a well-honed groove to it that Pantera would not only envy but admire. Another admirer was Hetfield, who chimes in with some backing vocals on "Man or Ash", marking one of few musical contributions outside of Metallica.

Put simply, Wiseblood is just musical dynamite, a fantastic album from a band at the very top of their game and one that should find a home amongst the collection of any devoted listener of quality heavy music.

1. King of the Rotten


2. Long Whip/Big America


3. Wiseblood


4. Goodbye Windows


5. Born Again for the Last Time


6. Drowing in a Daydream


7. The Snake Has No Head


8. The Door


9. Man or Ash


10. Redemption City


11. Wishbone (SomeTomorrow)


12. Fuel


13. Bottom Feeder

Rating: 92%

ELECTRIC WIZARD: Witchcult Today

Produced by Liam Watson

Released: 2007

Few bands do stoner doom as impressively as Electric Wizard, and on Witchcult Today the band has more or less dispensed with some of the experimental angles they were taking and returned to the roots of the their sound. Not a group to do anything by halves, this time they have truly gone to the source: analog recording gear, valve-driven 70s amps and just bucket-bong loads of occultism. Even retro-sound producer Liam Watson was brought in to ensure that Witchcult Today would sound like it was recorded in 1971 and not 2007.

In that regard then Witchcult Today is a complete triumph. The guitars are simply massive, fuzzed-out beasts lumbering languidly through a heavy haze of pot-smoke and Jus Oborn's atonal, almost tuneless warble is 1970s psychedelia personified. The title cut gets things underway in a typically Wizard fashion with an enormous riff that lingers like a really good bong-hit and cheesy Hammer House-style lyrics about devil worship (and pot, of course). "Dunwich" heavies things up considerably and adds a bit fat groove that actually makes them sound like Cathedral; "Torquemada 71" has that strange hippy-sounding quality also in spit of the fact it's about torture.

The problem with this album is that it's just really not that interesting. Listening to it under the influence of a cloud of dope or some kind of acid would most likely be a freaky trip, but without that stimulation Witchcult Today just plods along without going anywhere. There's only so much you can do with stoner doom, and most of it has already been done. Oborn's vocals are quite weak and the riffs are slow and immense but that's really about it. "Satanic Rites of Drugula" (about a drug-addicted vampire) has possibly the most memorable motif and is both amusing and pretty cool and "Dunwich" is definitely a stand-out, but the most noteworthy track is the droning ambient horror film soundtrack "Black Magic Rituals & Perversions" although even this is ruined by a self-indulgent 11-minute playing time.

Witchcult Today is undoubtedly how an album of this nature should sound, but it really doesn't need to be this uninspired.

1. Witchcult Today


2. Dunwich


3. Satanic Rites of Drugula


4. Raptus


5. The Chosen Few


6. Torquemada 71


7. Black Magic Rituals & Pervesions: i) Frisson des Vampires ii) Zora


8. Saturnine

Rating: 48%

THE MARK OF CAIN: Ill at Ease

Produced by Henry Rollins

Released: 1995

It's rare that an album comes complete with such an appropriate title. Ill at Ease is a disturbing album of bleak bitterness and despair, a twisted and unforgiving insight into tortured minds and black-scarred souls. I once played this at high volume at a young man who had just learned he was being cuckolded and he told me it made him feel better because not even he felt as embittered and lonely as the characters in these songs.

By the mid-1990s The Mark of Cain had already racked up more than ten years as a band, grinding out a strict, militaristic form of hardcore built on impeccably tight rhythms and the snarling, unsung vocals of John Scott. Their reputation as a formidable musical unit was esteemed in punk circles but their first few recordings were virtually unknown outside of the underground. When Steve Albini lent a hand to their "Incoming" EP, however, this would soon change.

Ill at Ease was The Mark of Cain's first album for the rooArt label, and with Henry Rollins as producer it came with one of the alternative music's scenes biggest names attached. The band's blend of US-style hardcore aggression and British post-punk influence like Joy Division and Gang of Four already gave them a sound similar to that of Rollins' own band and a lot of Scott's lyrical themes were also quite alike so the match-up was nearly perfect. All of The Mark of Cain's albums are nothing short of excellent, but this one remains the pinnacle.

The staccato opening salvos of "Interloper" give immediate notice that what is to come is not about to be pleasant, but The Mark of Cain is not about pleasantries. Each of the band's tracks are stark portraits of a loner's existence, heavily draped in military metaphors. John Scott's bitter worldview is a harsh, Neitzschean universe of exhausting discipline and contempt for weakness, dominated by broken relationships and betrayals. The group's music perfectly embodies the cold, clinical and calculating outlook of the subjects of their songs. Pummelling beats and aggressive guitars leave little room for breath and less for remorse. Riffs are bludgeoning, machine-like slabs that punish like heavy blows and ring like a swinging blade. Underpinning them are Kim Scott's throbbing, pulsating bass lines and these are further accentuated here by Aaron Hewitt's taut, tireless, snare-heavy time-keeping. John Scott's vocals rarely deviate from a snarling rage that in tracks like "Interloper" and "You Let Me Down" come close to a psychotic fury. Rollins' production further emphasises the tone with a minimalistic approach that strips away every emotion except anger and despair.

Ill at Ease is a dark and unforgiving masterpiece, a harrowing glimpse into a tormented psyche that is both uncomfortable to listen to and almost impossible to turn off.

1. Interloper


2. Hindsight


3. First Time


4. Remember Me


5. Point Man


6. You Let Me Down


7. Tell Me


8. Contender


9. LMA

Rating: 90%

BLACK SABBATH: Master of Reality

Produced by Roger Bain

Released: 1971

There are those who would argue that either Vol. 4 or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath are the best of Black Sabbath's 70s albums, but for others, myself included, Master of Reality is where it's at. It's almost impossible to imagine a more appropriate soundtrack to an early 70s dope session than the appropriately-named opener "Sweet Leaf", the greatest song ever written about pot. Every stoner rock song there's ever been has its genesis in this cut, and it could well be that Tony Iommi never wrote a more spaced-out riff than this, one that stumbles all over itself like a man so far under the influence he can barely stand up. From the depths (nay, perhaps the highs) of unrestrained THC intoxication, Black Sabbath takes on religion next. In one of only three songs (all on this album) credited to Iommi alone, and perhaps in response to the claims of Satanism levelled at them in light of earlier work, "After Forever" examines the question of faith in a purely Christian context and is without a doubt the only time one is ever likely to hear Ozzy Osbourne singing that "God is the only Way to love".


Beyond this point, however, Master of Reality takes a darker and more sinister turn. A brief acoustic interlude from Iommi serves as a stark counterpoint to the monstrous "Children of the Grave", an immense, slab-like Vietnam War-era anti-nukes protest that stands virtually uncontested as perhaps the heaviest song ever written before 1980. Another short instrumental break opens the second half of the album before giving way to "Lord of This World", another track with a moral sting in its tail -- albeit one that is similar yet almost directly opposite to "After Forever" -- and possessed of what could well be the ultimate doom riff if not for the previous existence of "Electric Funeral". Then comes "Solitude", the epitome of gloom with an opening verse that ranks among some of the most depressing lyrics ever penned. One can't help but imagine a two and a half-year old Aaron Stainthorpe hearing this song at some point and being haunted by it forever more. In the wake of this suicidally dismal tune almost anything would be a lift, and "Into the Void" does in fact round out the album with a vague sense of hope, as the last remnants of humanity leave the Earth to "Satan and his slaves" and go off to "Make a home where love is there to stay".


It's true that none of Black Sabbath's first six albums are particularly joyous affairs, but Master of Reality is the blackest and darkest of them all and the one that, perhaps even more so than the albums before it, really laid the true foundations for what heavy metal was to later become.

1. Sweet Leaf


2. After Forever


3. Embryo


4. Children of the Grave


5. Orchid


6. Lord of This World


7. Solitude


8. Into the Void

Rating: 95%

MISERY: On Demon Wings

Produced by Misery

Released: 2007

Few bands were as consistent as Brisbane veterans Misery. They never really changed much from album to album. While for some bands that meant becoming really repetitive by their third or fourth album, it was always Misery’s style and approach that remained the same, not their material. For them, each release was wall to wall with dark, cataclysmic death metal, but mixed up with a bit of doom and tempered ever so slightly by melody. Really, Misery was the closest any Australian band got to perfecting the ultimate death metal template cut by Morbid Angel, and only isolation and constant record label problems stopped the rest of the world from appreciating them.

So we come to their fourth and, sadly, final album, On Demon Wings. Recorded in 2005 but unreleased until 2007 by emerging Brisbane extreme label Obsidian, On Demon Wings shows that the transition from four-piece to trio with the departure of guitarist Laz Khananghinis had no adverse effect on Misery’s music. This has all the hallmarks of the band’s distinctive brand of metal: the dark guitar sound, the grinding riffs, Damon Robinson’s tomb-throated vocals, slower, doom-ridden passages and occasional bursts of melody and groove.

The title track is built on a monolithic descending riff as slow as it is monstrous; “Butchered” is even slower, almost pure doom-death with Robinson sounding like the door to a crypt creaking slowly open. Elsewhere of course, Misery play pretty fast, sometimes coming close to grind. Again, this is exactly the type of trick this band became known for, but most importantly of all, On Demon Wings is just as good as anything they’ve done before. Pick any track on here, from “Priest” to “Burning Hatred” and what you get is nothing less than crushingly heavy, demonic death metal of the highest quality.

Misery was one of the country’s best metal bands and On Demon Wings shows how much they will be missed.

1. Priest
2. On Demon Wings
3. Twisting the Knife
4. Blood of Ancients
5. Butchered
6. Ill of the Dead
7. Disciples of War
8. The Black Arts
9. And They They Die
10. In Tongues
11. Burning Hatred

Rating: 85%

IRON MAIDEN LIVE IN SYDNEY

ACER ARENA, February 9, 2008

Iron Maiden's first Australian tour since 1992 was perhaps one of the most anticipated events for a large part of the local metal community since it was announced in September. 14,000 tickets for the first Sydney show had sold out within five minutes of the official release date and it looked like at least half of those people were crowded in to the Homebush Bay Brewery before the gig, singing along to any song that was even remotely heavy metal.

Inside Acer Arena, Steve Harris' little girl Lauren was opening the show. I'm not sure if many people saw her set as I can't find anyone who did; I certainly didn't catch it.

Of all the bands that could have followed, apparently Iron Maiden chose Behind Crimson Eyes. In other countries, where Maiden has gone out with acts like Funeral for a Friend, this may have worked. But Australian metal audiences are ridiculously parochial, and BCE quickly learned that an Iron Maiden show was no place for them to be. Despite the fact that they are awful, Behind Crimson Eyes gained a modicum of respect from me just for trying. As a totally inappropriate choice of opening band, to their credit they tried to make it work - sometimes way too desperately - and their cover of "Ace of Spades" was diabolical. They received possibly the worst reception from any crowd I've ever seen but somehow they battled through it. It was major level ownage, but maybe Behind Crimson Eyes will take something away from it. No longer calling themselves a metal band might be a good place to start.

After that the anticipation was simply incredible, and when the stage lights went down to the tune of UFO's "Doctor Doctor" there was an enormous roar that almost drowned out the intro. Then with a blast of flame and a high-kicking leap from Bruce Dickinson, Iron Maiden was on stage, ripping into "Aces High" and for the next two hours the capacity crowd at Acer Arena was treated to one of the most dynamic live bands in the world. In front of their gigantic movable backdrop and classic ancient Egypt set, Iron Maiden played through their best known songs and the whole room sang along.

On stage, Iron Maiden is amazing, a spectacular, well-oiled machine. Even without all the trappings they would be an incredible band to watch. Liveliest of all is Bruce Dickinson, who is never still for a moment and the focus of the band's entire show. While the others criss cross the stage and Janick Gers carries on with his wild acrobatics, Dickinson is singing, running, leaping, flag-waving and even changing costumes throughout. The set list was a non-stop parade of classics, faintly echoing the running order of Live After Death, the DVD of which has just been released (and shot to No.1 according to Dickinson) but with a few others thrown in to the mix. This is of course meant that the sublime "Revelations" got an airing, one of my favourite songs of all and done brilliantly. The immense "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was also rolled out once again, at long last. It was one of the highlights of the World Slavery Tour and it was again tonight, with a massive backdrop of a rotting ship looming above the band and smoke filling the arena. Before it began however, one of those transcendental concert moments happened: as the band paused for Dickinson to do his introduction, the entire crowd began to spontaneously chant, clap and stomp, completely unbidden. For a long moment, it seemed even the mighty Iron Maiden was overawed and Dickinson, for once, was completely speechless. It's rare when something the crowd does can be the high moment of a show, but this was one of those times.

"Heaven Can Wait" was another high point when a huge group of competition winners got to join the band on stage, and it was great to hear "Wasted Years" get a run too, along with "Moonchild" that opened the encore.

If there was one criticism, it lies with the mix, which was remarkably uneven throughout the show, but most noticably during "Powerslave" where the guitars were incredibly muddy and virtially non-existent for much of the first verse. My only other beef was with Eddie, whose cameo during "Iron Maiden" seemed terribly lame. That could be just a minor nit-pick however, because otherwise the whole performance was pretty much flawless. The band looked like they were truly enjoying themselves, and it would have been hard not to have been revved by Acer's vast crowd tonight, who were clearly relishing every moment.

Bruce said at least twice that Iron Maiden will return to Australia again soon, and after the reception they got tonight it would be hard to argue against it. They may have left it a long time to come back, but they tonight they almost made it worthwhile.

Full set:

• Transylvania (recorded intro)
• Churchill's speech/Aces High
• 2 Minutes to Midnight
• Revelations
• The Trooper
• Wasted Years
• Can I Play With Madness?
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• Powerslave
• The Number of the Beast
• Heaven Can Wait
• Run to the Hills
• Fear of the Dark
• Iron Maiden
• Moonchld
• The Clairvoyant
• Hallowed be Thy Name

diSEMBOWELMENT: Transcendence Into the Peripheral

Produced by diSEMBOWELMENT

Released: 1993

Back in the days before My Dying Bride and Anathema even existed, there was a two-piece grind band in Melbourne called Bacteria that decided after a little while to combine what they were doing with some things that were completely different. As a result of this, one of metal's most truly amazing bands came to be.Perhaps more than any other band, diSEMBOWELMENT is the true embodiment of crushing, soul-scarring doom. Their combination of epic, glacially-paced riffs, fuzzy, post-rock sonic architecture, mournful, tortured vocal atmospherics and blast beat violence was a truly unique recipe that has since been mirrored and echoed across the metal sphere but rarely as impressively or as compulsively.

Transcendence Into the Peripheral is diSEMBOWELMENT's only full-length release, a culmination of their experimental technique that remains untarnished due to the band's decision to split not long after it was released, and thereby ensuring a legacy that could not be sullied by an attempt to match or surpass it.With a mere seven tracks stretching the running time to almost an hour, Transcendence Into the Peripheral is neither an album for the faint-of-heart nor the attention-deficient. Psycroptic and Dillinger Escape Plan squeeze more riffs into one song than diSEMBOWELMENT use on this entire album, but the dark, brooding introspection and mystical reflection conjured by the languid drone of a track like "A Burial at Ornans" is the exact and diametric opposite of the shock and awe tactics of those bands.

The album opens with "The Tree of Life and Death", a strange combination of grind, death and ambience that was the inspiration for the Alchemist track "Soul Return" that came out two years later. diSEMBOWELMENT's minimalist style is perfectly represented here. Incredibly slow riffs reverberate forever until an occasional vicious blastbeat or grind section comes from out of nowhere and then subside again almost immediately for a truly haunting atmospheric section to take its place. Vocals ooze out of the distance as a variety of low, growling rumbles, whispers, shouts and chants that only accentuate the band's stark aura of dismal gloom. That's just the first track. "Your Prophetic Throne of Ivory" is bleaker still, with a soul-withering atmosphere almost painful to endure. The gentle acoustics of "Nightside of Eden" belie the abyssic despair of its spoken-word poetry as what at first seems like a lighthouse of hope is merely a corpse-light amidst further gloom.

Then diSEMBOWELMENT rolls out the depressing triumph of "A Burial at Ornans", a hope-crushing fourteen-minute colossus so slow the main riff drones on for almost a minute and a half. This track is a genuinely remarkable achievement, the centrepiece of the album's agonising existential journey, a journey completed by "Cerulean Transcience of All My Imagined Shores" that slowly lifts the listener up from the depths of mortal despair and through a gateway to ethereal existence.

Transcendence Into the Peripheral is precisely as its title suggests, the most complete musical metaphor for spiritual enlightenment thus far conceived and an unassailable masterpiece never to be bettered.

1. The Tree of Life and Death


2. Your Prophetic Throne of Ivory


3. Excoriate


4. Nightside of Eden


5. A Burial at Ornans


6. The Spirits of the Tall Hills


7. Cerulean Transcience of All My Imagined Shores

Rating: 100%

IRON MAIDEN: Piece of Mind

Produced by Martin Birch

Released: 1983

Tomorrow evening Iron Maiden will be playing their first Sydney concert since 1992 and I will be there somewhere screaming and pumping the air with my fist like 15,000 other people. So what better time than now than to examine the album that is arguably their best?

Lacking a title track and with its comparatively understated cover art, there was some initial concern that Iron Maiden's fourth album wouldn't catch on. Of course, the concern was unfounded, because where The Number of the Beast had opened the gates of the world to Iron Maiden, Piece of Mind blew them off their hinges. On this album, the band's creative talents truly flowered and the material benefited from the input of four songwriters for the first time. With the exception of one track, Piece of Mind is as flawless an album as Iron Maiden would ever make. It is here that the band not only finally developed its signature sound, but perfected it, and it could be argued that they never quite matched this ever again.

As usual, primary songwriter Steve Harris took as his inspiration an eclectic group of influences, from avant-garde French cinema, to the Charge of the Light Brigade, to the pulp war fiction of Alistair Maclean. Tempering this was some fine contributions from Bruce Dickinson, Adrian Smith and Dave Murray. Dickinson's majestic "Revelations" is almost spiritual, a glorious rebuttal of the accusations of devil-worshipping levelled against the band by America's lunatic fringe after the previous album. Murray's portrait of insanity "Still Life" has a haunting quality and is nicely slotted into the running order after the typical Harris gallop of "The Trooper". On "Die With Your Boots On", the boys sound like they're simply having a blast as they poke fun at wanton prophecy-makers and their faithful. "Flight of Icarus" is Maiden at their catchiest, with an awesome vocal display from Dickinson as he holds his note over half of Smith's climactic solo. The oft-overlooked "Sun and Steel" is also something of a gem, an uncharacteristically simple song with a massively catchy chorus.

The album's only real fault lies in the lyrical awkwardness in some of the songs, most particularly the infamous "Quest for Fire", the only bonafide filler track on Piece of Mind. Almost redeemed by some typically nifty guitar work from the incomparable Murray and Smith, it still fails because almost every line is nothing short of embarassing absurdity. Bruce Dickinson has conceded in interviews that he often took Steve Harris to task over some of his lyrics. I can't imagine the argument that must have taken place when he skimmed his eyes over babies like "They fought a vicious, angry battle" and "In a time when dinosaurs walked the earth", but I'm sure it must have been a doozy. The album's closing epic, "To Tame a Land" suffers from lyrical excruciation also, but considering the subject matter, Frank Herbert's overblown and almost incomprehensible sci-fi saga Dune, that is perhaps understandable. Despite this, "To Tame a Land" remains one of Maiden's best long songs, with Murray and Smith conjuring up some nice Middle Eastern-inspired motifs and Dickinson again shows the incredible power of his voice, even if the task of trying to fit words like "He is the Kwizach Hadarach/He is born of Caladan/And will take the Gom Jabbar" into a workable metre must have had him pulling out his (then) considerably long hair.

While Piece of Mind was to be eclipsed by the monumental Powerslave and the incredible two-year tour that accompanied it, it remains debatable as to whether Iron Maiden ever actually bettered this album. No matter if they did or not, Piece of Mind is easily one of the best heavy metal releases of all.

1. Where Eagles Dare


2. Revelations


3. Flight of Icarus


4. Die With Your Boots On


5. The Trooper


6. Still Life


7. Quest for Fire


8. Sun And Steel


9. To Tame a Land

Rating: 98%

MORTAL SIN: Mayhemic Destruction

Produced by John Darwich and Mortal Sin

Released: 1987

In 1987, even the name Metallica was practically unknown outside of a hardcore cult following in this country. Few people then could have possibly conceived of a Sydney band recording an album of primeval thrash metal that would bring them notice throughout the world. Mortal Sin had only played live six times when they went in to record this album in July 1986. Released six months later, Mayhemic Destruction captures the essence of the embryonic Australian thrash metal scene in its minimalist production values and the immediacy of its delivery. As Australia's first major metal release, this album is as important today as it was when it first appeared.

At times lyrically awkward and with a somewhat thin guitar sound, there's no denying that despite this Mayhemic Destruction can still be held up as a minor thrash classic. Taking their cues from both the Bay Area and the German schools of thrash, Mortal Sin came up with something that wasn't particularly original but was easily on par with anything being produced elsewhere. The epic, Metallica-inspired "Lebanon" towers over the rest of the tracks, with only the Kreator-style title track really coming close, but it's hard to call any of the songs duds. For the most part, the lyrics are throwaway and often forced ("Stay down there with all your mates and lie yourself to death" runs one line from 'Liar') and Matt Maurer's nasally vocals a tad monotonous, but all of the songs are infectiously catchy and memorable enough that even after barely hearing them in 15 years, they came back to me while I was merely reading the lyric sheet. Had Mortal Sin let some of these tracks mature a little more before they were recorded, they could have been better still, but the most interesting thing of all is that Mayhemic Destruction was originally designed only as a demo. With that in mind, it's actually quite staggering to think how powerful and crushing these songs would have sounded with a decent production job.

1. The Curse


2. Women in Leather


3. Lebanon


4. Liar


5. Blood, Death, Hatred,


6. Mortal Slaughter


7. Into the Fire


8. Mayhemic Destruction

Rating: 78%

THE HAUNTED: The Dead Eye

Produced by Tue Madsen and The Haunted

Released: 2006

When this fifh album by The Haunted first lobbed there was a lot of conflicting opinion and almost immediately, when the band slowed down during "The Flood" and Peter Dolving started crooning like Eddie Vedder, I knew why The Dead Eye had polarised opinion. On the one hand, this is a remarkable album so different from anything The Haunted had ever done that the band should be applauded for even attempting it. On the flipside, it's so different from anything they'd done before that you're left wondering what the hell they were thinking. Had this been their first album it could well have been a different story, but The Dead Eye is The Haunted's fifth. After four albums, a band's fanbase can reasonably expect any album that follows to be reasonably similar to the ones before. After all, that's usually why people like a particular artist in the first place. Throwing out a curve ball can be a career-damaging move.

Throughout The Dead Eye, Peter Dolving wears a variety of vocal guises and more than once proves himself to be a fairly noteworthy mimic. There's the aforementioned Vedder reference, a hint of Aaron Stainthorpe in "The Fallout" and in the eerie coda of "The Guilt Trip" even an allusion to Thom Yorke. This is assuredly the most noticeable aspect of the album and it certainly feels as if this is very much Dolving's record, with the song structures deliberately determined by his varying voices, be it a rasping scream, a mellow croon or a frantic whisper. Musically there's a clear emphasis on riffing over soloing, something that many would undoubtedly suggest puts this into the dreaded realm of metalcore, but The Dead Eye is simply too diverse and interesting for that. Past albums have shown that this band is more than able to do the standard Swedish melodic death/thrash thing rather well; The Dead Eye shows that they can also do other things.

This is still very much a metal record, and was perhaps one of the best metal releases of 2006, but its unexpected direction and progressive and experimental nature caused a lot of people who just wanted The Haunted to stay as they were to accuse them of all kinds of things from selling-out to band-wagon jumping. Like all bands that change horses midstream, The Haunted found themselves in the interesting quandary of having made an excellent album that much of their fanbase - rather unfairly - hated.

Whatever one thinks of it The Dead Eye removed any preconceptions about The Haunted, possibly for good.

1. The Premonition


2. The Flood


3. The Medication


4. The Drowning


5. The Reflection


6. The Prosecution


7. The Fallout


8. The Medusa


9. The Shifter


10. The Cynic


11. The Failure


12. The Stain


13. The Guilt Trip

Rating: 93%

DREAM EVIL: Evilized

Produced by Fredrik Nordström

Released: 2003

I have to admit that I didn’t get into Dream Evil’s debut effort as much as many others did, but within seconds of ‘Break the Chains’ blasting out of the speakers here at the Sound Cellar I knew I was listening to a killer metal album. There’s too many labels to attach to metal these days, and it would be easy to apply one to Dream Evil, but in the end what it all boils down do it that this is just true heavy metal like classic Maiden and Priest, fast, catchy and deceptively simple songs with hook-laden riffs, great vocals and endless air-punching choruses. Guided by the vision of guitarist and keyboard player Fredrik Nordström, who also happens to be one of Sweden’s top metal producers, Dream Evil combines all the best elements of all the best heavy metal there is, from thrasy power metal like ‘By My Side’ and the aforementioned opening track, to truly classic anthemic stuff like ‘Children of the Night’ that sounds like in was recorded in California in the mid-1980s!

There really isn’t a bad song on here. Even cheese like ‘Made of Metal’ is palatable and the power ballads ‘Forevermore’ and ‘The End’ are just as catchy and well-construted as the rest, without being the overwrought dreck such things have become these days. Evilized is 100% pure metal, and it doesn’t come much better than that.

1. Break the Chains


2. By My Side


3. Fight You til the End


4. Evilized


5. Invisible


6. Bad Dreams


7. Forevermore


8. Children of the Night


9. Live a Lie


10. Fear the Night


11. Made of Metal


12. The End

Rating: 82%

BLUE ÖYSTER CULT: Secret Treaties

Produced by Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman

Released: 1973

After two early albums on which they blatantly (but skilfully) ripped off everyone from Black Sabbath to Cream and even the Grateful Dead, in 1973 Blue Öyster Cult and their Svengali-like manager Sandy Pearlman brought forth their one true masterpiece.

Secret Treaties is by all accounts a concept album, with the songs forming something called the Imaginos Cycle, a tale set in some kind of chaotic universe wherein events have no specific timeline so past, present and future all happen at once. The idea is so confusing that it's difficult to see how it all fits together, and it's more likely that this "concept" was invented after the fact (the band -- or Pearlman at least -- was not above such things), but nevertheless, Secret Treaties is arguably Blue Öyster Cult's most consistent release, a near-perfect portrait of one of America's most unique 70s rock bands at the height of its creative power.

Beginning with the surging, organ- driven pop-rock of "Career of Evil" - with lyrics by Patti Smith - Secret Treaties lovingly shows off Albert Bouchard's deft songwriting with a combination of nifty drum work, multi-layered guitars, typically blistering soloing from Buck D'harma and the band's patented two, three and sometimes ever four-part vocal harmonies. Pearlman's bizarre and thought-provoking lyrics take a truly star turn too, although Richard Meltzer's truly strange "Harvester of Eyes" tops the charts for oddness: "Well just last week I took a ride/So high on eyes, I almost lost my way". For tripped out lyrics, few other acts came close to Blue Öyster Cult.

"ME262" is flat-out hard rocking boogie like a meaner, dirtier version of Status Quo and represents possibly one of the band's most misunderstood songs, with some people at the time believing that merely writing a song about Hitler's Luftwaffe meant a band had to be endorsing Nazism in some way (in spite of the fact both the lyricist and vocalist were Jewish men born in the mid-1940s). "Harvester of Eyes" has a nice chugging riff that would have been nothing short of face-ripping at the time and, as mentioned, lyrics that border on the absurd. "The Subhuman" and the suitably rocking "Dominance and Submission" with its apparent themes of incest and other sexual depravity are also worthy tracks, but the best is left until last. "Flaming Telepaths" is absurdly simple and immediately catchy, displaying a keen pop sensibility that would more fully emerge on later albums. It builds to a climax that ends sharply with the gentle piano intro of "Astronomy", a sublime track that is without doubt one of BÖC's greatest ever songs. Perhaps better known these days as a Metallica cover, "Astronomy" encapsulates every element of the band's best qualities in six minutes of sophisticated eloquence.

After Secret Treaties BÖC would move into a more commercial direction, before touching on true metal even later, but they would never again piece together an album as complete as this. Don't listen to this expecting to hear the heaviest rock ever recorded either, because by today's standards it's very tame indeed, but this is an album that inspired a generation of metal acts to come and for this reason alone it's one to check out.

1. Career of Evil


2. The Subhuman


3. Dominance and Submission


4. ME 262


5. Cagey Cretins


6. Harvester of Eyes


7. Flaming Telepaths


8. Astronomy

Rating: 94%

SOILWORK: Stabbing the Drama

Released: 2005

Soilwork has been a favourite around the Sound Celler for a number of years. The albums from The Chainheart Machine through to Natural Born Chaos virtually epitomised the modern Swedish metal sound in almost the same kind of way that At the Gates and Edge of Sanity had done ten years before and it was clear that the band was destined to erupt from the shackles of mere cult appreciation at some point. The relative disappointment of the commercially-aimed Figure Number Five showed Soilwork beginning to pander to a wider audience, but even that failed to prepare me for the watered-down, generic travesty they were to become with this, their sixth album.

Stabbing the Drama is a weak, boring pop-metal album, but it’s not because it’s pop-metal that it’s weak and boring. It’s weak and boring because it is so formulaic and safe there’s nothing to surprise the listener or to keep them interested. Each song repeats the same harsh verse-clean chorus-breakdown-chorus recipe again and again, while being completely devoid of ideas, hooks or anything like real riffs. It’s bad enough when bands recycle bits of previous albums, but it’s much worse when they start recycling the same songs, especially when those songs aren’t very good in the first place. After a couple of good albums, a couple of great ones, and one that was just okay, Soilwork was due for a stinker, and Stabbing the Drama is it.

1. Stabbing the Drama
2. One With the Flies
3. Weapon of Vanity
4. The Crestfallen
5. Nerve
6. Stalemate
7. Distance
8. Observation Slave
9. Fate in Motion
10. Blind Eye Halo
11. If Possible

Rating: 20%