LORD: Return of the Tyrant

Produced by Lord Tim
Released: October 2010

If there's one band from this country that does epic well, it's LORD. So when they decide to record a sequel to the 2005 Dungeon track "Tarranno del Mar", a long-standing live favourite, they don't just do an EP, they do an enormous EP that's even longer than their last two albums! To be fair, the original intention was to split this into two, but time and budget constraints forbade it, so "Return of the Tyrant" clocks in at a whopping 65 minutes, which ain't bad for a CD with only three new songs on it.


The first of these is the title track, an immense 10-minute saga into which LORD cram almost every trick they've ever pulled and then some: crunchy guitars, catchy riffs, soaring vocals, big melodies, huge solos, cheesy voice acting and finally an epic dose of orchestration that makes this perhaps the biggest sounding song this band has ever recorded. And that's saying a lot. If ever there was one song that could encapsulate a band, "Return of the Tyrant" is the one that represents LORD, and there's another two versions -- a radio edit and an orchestral one -- included just in case one isn't enough. The other pair of newies are covers. Both are relatively faithful to the originals and both show the band taking something of a departure from their usual style. "Of Sins and Shadows" is a Symphony X song and features extended keyboard soloing for the first time on a LORD recording. For such a guitar-oriented band, this is a refreshing change and works so well here, the question has to asked: will there be more in future? Next, they slip into melodic AOR mode for a run through the 80s classic "(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight" with vocals handled by bassist Andy Dowling. As always, the covers are done with aplomb and deep respect for the originals and show LORD's versatility.

If those songs are a departure, the rest of the tracks are a complete digression - unplugged versions of tracks from the past two LORD albums as well as of the Dungeon songs "Against the Wind" and "Paradise". For a band that has pretty much stayed completely away from acoustics in the past, you have to question whether they are capable of pulling this off. Metal songs don't always translate well to the unplugged format, and to a degree that's the case here too. "100 Reasons" and "Paradise" misfire, but the others come across well: "Rain" has some great guitar play-off that actually reminded me a little bit of Tommy Emmanuel's Up From Down Under, and "New Horizons" is probably better done this way than in its original form. Considering how heavy it is normally, "Eternal Storm" somehow works too.

Overall this is a pretty valid experiment that really shows the depth of talent LORD has and the risks they are willing to take in the name of their music.

1. Return of the Tyrant
2. Of Sins and Shadows
3. (I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight
4. Against the Wind
5. Rain
6. 100 Reasons
7. Paradise
8. Eternal Storm
9. New Horizons
10. Return of the Tyrant (orchestral mix)
11. Return of the Tyrant (edit)

Rating: 75%

PLATINUM BRUNETTE: Platinum Brunette

Produced by Lord Tim

Released: 2009

Platinum Brunette is kind of like being punched in the face by a nun. You simply don’t expect something that looks so harmless or so silly to make this kind of an impact. Dressed like some sexually-repressed transgendered nightmare, this band is one of the most spiteful parodies in circulation, a punked-out melodic metal suckerpunch with venom-barbed lyrics about love gone wrong and being generally fucked over.

Both mainman Justin Sayers and guitarist Lord Tim were once in Dungeon, and to some degree this sounds a bit like that band’s early work given an angry, punk rock twist. Tim’s guitar work is as formidable as ever but more understated than usual and Sayers’ vocals are melodic and raw; the choruses are big and punchy and the hooks are everywhere. If you’ve ever heard the original version of Dungeon’s Resurrection, just imagine something like that, but with sneered vocals and songs about how much you fucking hate everyone. Seriously, Platinum Brunette is one majorly pissed off unit, with the upbeat, clean but raw metal hammering belying the sheer vindictive, sardonic irony expressed in the lyrics of tracks like ‘Surrounded by Idiots’, ‘Get Someone Else’, ‘Your World’ and, really, virtually every song on the album.

Platinum Brunette might look like the world’s worst drag-queen act, but behind the costumes is a serious band simmering with caustic sarcasm and seething ire.

1. Surrounded by Idiots
2. Braindead
3. Get Someone Else
4. Slam
5. BMW (Bitch Murder Whore)
6. My Own Way
7. Rise
8. Ex
9. Your World
10. Wake Up
11. Your Funeral
12. Pretty Vacant

Rating: 82%

DUNGEON: One Step Beyond

Produced by Lord Tim

Delving into their melting-pot of influences, Dungeon came up with eight tracks of pure metal class on One Step Beyond. Even amid drastic line-up changes, one of Australia’s top true metal forces was able to unleash a solid and fitting follow-up to A Rise to Power, one of the very best Australian metal albums of all.

As their second truly international release, there was a lot riding on this, and the band showed they were up to the task immediately with “The Power Within” opening proceedings with a crunching guitar sound and some effective European-style multipart vocal harmonies building a catchy chorus, aspects that are mirrored strongly in the next track “Against the Wind”. “The Art of War” is a real stand out, the first song from the album to feature in live sets and retaining all of its glory in its studio form, showing the further flowering of Dungeon’s more thrash metal direction. That move is near-perfected in the blistering “Surface Tension” and its Gothenburg-inspired guitar melodies. The more introspective “The Hunger” is nicely positioned between these two, the closest this band is ever got to a real ballad. On the other side of “Surface Tension” is the pirate epic “Terrano del Mar”, a true highlight with its somewhat elaborate arrangement that infused all of Dungeon’s stylistic flirtations. The title track blazes a trail of smoke as the band lays rubber like never before and the album ends on another high note as Dungeon dives into Australian history for inspiration with “Under the Cross”, an epically-structured piece that tells the tale of the Eureka Stockade in the 150th anniversary year of that event.

As usual Dungeon weren’t reinventing the wheel here but One Step Beyond is wildly catchy heavy metal that features typically breathtaking, wrist-breaking guitar work and simply great songs. The rather flat, lifeless drumming is a little bit of a downer however. At times too, the album was in danger of being over-produced, lacking something of the immediacy of its predecessors. Nonetheless, anything bearing the Dungeon name was nothing less than quality and that is true of this album as well. An album for metal fans everywhere.

1. The Power Within
2. Against the Wind
3. The Art of War
4. The Hunger
5. Surface Tension
6. Terrano del Mar
7. One Step Beyond
8. Under the Cross
9. Epilogue

Rating: 90%

DUNGEON: The Final Chapter

Produced by Lord Tim

Released: 2006

The release of a new Dungeon album almost 12 months after the band was put to bed caused a little confusion among some who havd’t followed them as closely as their dedicated and somewhat rabid fanbase. The title of this however, made things pretty obvious: this was Dungeon’s final album. Just like the others, there’s a meticulous attention to detail in everything down to the extensive liner notes detailing the band’s history, but as usual the music is the most important thing. All the regular Dungeon hallmarks like ball-tearing lead breaks and soaring vocals are in place, but most importantly there’s great songs, with added touches like a sprinkle of keyboards and an epic eight and a half minute ballad that isn’t anywhere near as drawn out or as wearisome as such a description might sound.

First track “Pariah” is a thunderous opening that could be Dungeon’s heaviest ever song. Both it and “Better Man” house a sense of anger and frustration that seems to appear elsewhere also, and this second song features an unbelievably ripping guitar solo that must have almost started a fire in the studio. There’s another in the ANZAC song “Gallipoli” that almost trills wildly out of control, but never does. Stunts like this are what set Dungeon apart from other bands of a similar proclivity, a keen sense that sometimes just enough really is just enough. By the same token, it wouldn’t be Dungeon without a little cheese, and here it’s the unashamedly dumb fist-waver “Steelheart” and the lyrics of the ten-minute forty-second title track, although musically this is awesome with dive-bombing guitar solos and clashing and booming drums.

On the production side, The Final Chapter has a more natural feel to it than the over-produced One Step Beyond, particularly in the drum sound. If there is a criticism, it is that the vocals seem a bit lost in the mix and those drums can be a little too up-front here and there but at least that lets you hear what a killer player Tim Yatras is. Another point to the band’s credit is that they’ve made an album with a running time of over an hour that seems like it only goes for forty minutes or so.

When the Dungeon story had to at last come to a close, The Final Chapter certainly saw it go out in style.

1. Pariah
2. Better Man
3. Curse of the Pharaohs
4. Fire of Time
5. Gallipoli
6. Life is a Lie
7. Steelheart
8. The Final Chapter

Rating: 90%

LORD: Ascendence

Produced by Lord Tim

Released: 2007

As LORD currently tours around the east coast with Saxon (review of the Sydney show to follow), it's time to take a look at their album Ascendence. To those who were familiar with Dungeon, it shouldn't take more than half a brain to figure out that the Ascendence of the title is a resurrection from the ashes of that great Australian metal band. LORD is two-thirds of that band's final line-up and as can probably be expected, this is very much a transitional album, featuring a style, a sound and material that fans and followers of Dungeon would find pretty familiar.

The opening intro "Echoes of the Past" helps to lay that past to rest before "Reborn" rises up like the demon on the cover on a firestorm of loud, supercharged guitars. Right away then that typical Dunge... er, LORD sound is stamped all over this: the guitars are HUGE! As always, guitar freaks will be shitting their pants in anticipation of this album and with a couple of masterclass plank wielders in the shape of Chris Brooks and Mark Furtner helping Lord Tim out on a few tracks, you just know that there is going to be some spectacular six-string wrangling going on here.

Fortunately the songwriting is also firmly in place, and that means big, catchy songs with big, memorable singalong choruses. Indeed, LORD's formula here is the same that Dungeon used for all those years. At times, maybe almost too close a copy. For example, the main vocal melody lines from "Same Old Lines" sound, somewhat ironically given the song title, rather like that in "A Rise to Power". The comparisons are too many to list but in the end it doesn't really matter because LORD is really just a new beginning, as tracks like "Reborn" and "Legacy" point out.

"Rain" is the track where things start to get really interesting on Ascendence. Beginning with a nice bass intro this one opens fairly quietly with thunder rolls in the background before going into a nice mid-paced chug with some charming backing vocals from pop singer Tania Moran. Another thunderclap then leads into a solo trade-off between Lord Tim and Brooks that's worth the price of admission alone. Ditto for "Through the Fire" where they both seem to push each other to new limits of fret-burning. "Limb From Limb" is a fast, heavy and aggressive track that recalls the A Rise to Power track "Traumatised" but with a more believable effort on the shrieking vocals. The next track, "220" is merely an unashamed shredfest with Tim and Furtner apparently trying to melt each other's faces off. That gives way to the album's epic, "Legacy". Moran's vocals chime in again during the choruses here and it's a bit of a shame that the production doesn't really bring them out a bit more often.

No album these days is really complete without a bonus track, and on this it's a version of Pantera's "Shattered" with a slightly updated guitar mix from the one that appeared on 2006's The Art of Shredding tribute album. This tidies everything up very nicely with a good, faithful acknowledgement of a prime influence.

In the end, Ascendence delivers everything expected of it, certainly no less and probably not really much more. In that regard, LORD could be criticised for taking zero risks with this album. If there is that feeling of safeness about it though, it can be excused for the moment as the band lays to rest the last vestiges of its past while laying a pretty decent foundation for the future.

1. Echoes of the Past
2. Reborn
3. Going Down
4. Same Old Lines
5. Rain
6. My Own Way
7. Through the Fire
8. The Calm
9. Limb From Limb
10. 220
11. Legacy
12. Shattered

Rating: 86%

DUNGEON: Resurrection

Produced by Lord Tim

Released: 2005

When Dungeon released their first official album in mid-1999 it was eagerly snapped up by fans who had caught the vibe of killer live performances from the band. Resurrection went through three pressing before being deleted, which isn’t a bad run for a debut album from a band that was barely known even in Sydney at the time. In retrospect, however, it’s really a wonder Dungeon moved any copies of the album at all. Listening back to that original recording, it's became pretty clear that bottom-drawer tape demos and even some early black metal had better production standards. Fortunately, the playing and songwriting saved it from oblivion. That, and the fact that Dungeon was offering something very different from every other band in Sydney at the time.

As part of their international deal with LMP, Dungeon completely re-recorded ­Resurrection during the sessions for their One Step Beyond album, and the result was a marked improvement in every aspect. Immediately noticeable were some cosmetic changes: new and totally different cover art, the juxtaposition of the tracks “No Way Out” and “Judgment Day” (still spelled wrong) in the running order and the replacement of the Justin Sayers-penned “Let it Go” with a new track called “Severed Ties”. This is a weak point for the album however, as it is perhaps the most generic and boring song Dungeon has recorded since their demo days, a somewhat tired and predictable ballad that could well have been left off altogether.

In all other respects, however, this version of Resurrection is a killer. As mentioned, the first one had the songs and the chops, but this time around the production is there to back it all up. Significantly, the tempo change in “The Legend of Huma” that previously sounded like a bad splice is now much more seamless and the guitar sound is much more balanced. Most of the solos are completely different and the pace seems a little brisker, and overall the whole album sounds so much more alive than the flat, drenched-in-tape-hiss original. “Severed Ties” does let it down, but the consolation is the bonus cover songs.

Dungeon’s choice of covers may raise some eyebrows, but they rule. The first is the John Farnham-era LRB track “Playing to Win” and the second Thin Lizzy’s “Waiting for an Alibi”. Both are handled with Dungeon’s usual aplomb, with “Playing…” receiving a slight thrashing up while the latter is played more or less straight with guitarist Stu Marshall handling the lead vocal duties.

Anyone who missed this the first time should definitely try and grab a copy of this and see why, at their height, Dungeon was one of Australia's best metal bands.

1. Death From Above


2. Resurrection


3. Paradise


4. No Way Out


5. Wake Up


6. Fight


7. Severed Ties


8. Time to Die


9. I Am Death


10. Judgment Day


11. The Legend of Huma


12. Playing to Win


13. Waiting For an Alibi

Rating: 88%