JIMMY BARNES: Freight Train Heart

Produced by Jonathon Cain, Desmond Child and Mike Stone

Released: 1987

A conversation on Facebook the other day put me in mind of just how much I love this album. It's both a shame and a surprise that Jimmy Barnes wasn't able to crack the American market with Freight Train Heart because it is easily one of the best examples of radio-friendly AOR ever recorded. Anyone who doubts this should first take a look at the list of people who played on this (half of Journey, the singer from Guiffria, Huey Lewis and the guy who would replace Gary Richrath in REO Speedwagon), and then just randomly play any track off it. This is finely-tuned, shiny hard rock that showcases the immense power of Jimmy Barnes' vocals like nothing he's done before or since but it's also one where he and the various musicians around him work as a complete band to create a collection of fantastic songs. Considering the problematic recording process that used three studios in two countries and dozens of session players and the arguments Barnes had with Cain and his US label over who should play guitar on "Too Much Ain't Enough Love" (among other things), it's surprising that anything so cohesive could have resulted. Four singles came from this album, but really all ten of them are hits.

Freight Train Heart opens with some mean, bluesy David Lindley slide guitar as Barnes echoes the blue-collar rock of his previous album with "Driving Wheels", the ultimate ode to truckies. Then, with the help of some of the guys from INXS and the Angels, Jimmy turns an obscure Ronnie Wood song into an absolute blues rock ball-tearer; "Do or Die" is similarly raucous, like Cold Chisel at their most fired-up, but even louder. In between these two is the smouldering "Too Much Ain't Enough Love", one of Jimmy's best songs with one of his best controlled vocal performances. Neal Schon plays all over this and does such a killer job you can understand why Barnes defied company executives who wanted Robert Cray instead.

Later on there's the pop-laced "I Wanna Get Started With You", another riotous rocker in "Lessons in Love" and the majestic "Last Frontier", Jimmy's tribute to the battlers who built his adopted country. And then there's the power ballads, and if ever there was a guy who could put power into the rock ballad, it's Jimmy Barnes. In "I'm Still on Your Side" he hits notes that float somewhere in orbit and unleashes a scream that must have just about blown the roof off wherever he was at the time, and not once does he go out of tune. "Waitin' for the Heartache" is almost the perfect radio rock song, but the real gem is "Walk On", an undiscovered slice of brilliance from Desmond Child and Joe Lynn Turner that Jimmy Barnes takes to a whole new level of awesomeness. It's the perfect closing moment to one of Australian rock's perfect albums.

1. Driving Wheels
2. Seven Days
3. Too Much Ain't Enough Love
4. Do or Die
5. Waitin' for the Heartache
6. Last Frontier
7. I Wanna Get Started With You
8. I'm Still on Your Side
9. Lessons in Love
10. Walk On

Rating: 100%

LED ZEPPELIN: Untitled

Produced by Jimmy Page

Released: 1971

There was plenty of good stuff on the first three Led Zeppelin albums, but the fourth is where all the elements of their sound finally coalesed properly. Unadorned, with a non-descript cover, no title and not even a track listing, this album was intended to be judged purely on its contents alone. After only their second full year as a band, no other group in history would have had the temerity to attempt such an unconventional experiment, but Led Zeppelin were already massive superstars by the time of this release, so anything with their name on it was going to be pre-judged even before it had been heard.

Dominated by the epic masterpiece of "Stairway to Heaven", this album was the culmination of all the band's eclectic aspirations, leanings and inspirations from bombastic heavy rock to psychedelic stomps, folk rock to enormous blues work-outs. No matter what the guise, Led Zeppelin managed to wear it with consummate ease here, as they would for the rest of their career. It was the perfect amalgam of excess and subtlety that set them apart from every other band of their era, and most others to follow.

With its curious "backwards" riff, "Black Dog" got things underway, showing Led Zeppelin at their most primal: Robert Plant's remarkable shriek, Jimmy Page's urgent guitar splats and John Bonham's huge, booming drums. Bonham's immense sound is an integral part of what made this band so special, and here they were recorded with him playing at the bottom of a stairwell and the mikes at the top for maximum echo and reverb. On top of that, on "Four Sticks" he plays with two sticks in each hand! There's more than one reason why Bonzo is still revered as a drum monster, and many of them are on display on this album.

This also marked the full flowering of Plant's lyrical mysticism, marrying mythological elements with Tolkienesque themes and characters in the mandolin-driven folk tune "The Battle of Evermore". Also featuring his vocals intertwining with those of Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny, this is a rare moment of rock magic that is another gem in the crown of an album already spilling over with them.

The centrepiece of course is "Stairway to Heaven", a classic so insurmountable that it lingers to this day as one of the greatest rock songs of all. There's no need for an elaborate description; this song is a microcosm of everything Led Zeppelin was about, and this album is sheer genius from beginning to end.

1. Black Dog
2. Rock and Roll
3. The Battle of Evermore
4. Stairway to Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going to California
8. When the Levee Breaks

Rating: 100%

DOWN: NOLA

Produced by Down and Matt Thomas

Released: 1995

It's pretty rare when both critics and fans agree about the greatness of an album, but an album like NOLA is a very rare thing indeed. Supergroups are usually pretty hit-and-miss affairs, with most of them not being particularly "super" at all. But Down is one of those that really worked, fusing its various talents to create one of the best metal albums of all.

Written almost entirely by Pantera's Phil Anselmo and Pepper Keenan from Corrosion of Conformity and fleshed out with the assistance of Crowbar's Kirk Windstein and Eyehategod drummer Jimmy Bower, NOLA is a glorious sludge-fest, a relentlessly murky album that simply defines its genre. Anselmo puts in a slow-burning vocal performance that is in parts mournful, desperate and angry and really quite different from his Pantera style. Keenan's riffs are catchy and immense and Bower's drum sound borrows from the enormous, up-front style of John Bonham: powerful, echoing thunder. The raw production only enhances the atmosphere of this release. NOLA sounds like it was recorded in a rehearsal studio during a jam session in which ridiculously copious amounts of controlled substances were being imbibed.

From the opening chords of "Temptation's Wings" you know that this is going to be a dark, pained but strangely enjoyable journey through tales of prison, hard living and celebrations of drug use drawn into stark reality by Anselmo's cryptic, seemingly train-of-thought lyrics that rank as some of the best he ever penned. The sensational, layered "Stone the Crows" is the album's stand-out and rightly its best-known cut, but immediately after it is "Pray for the Locust", an acoustic interlude that recalls Tony Iommi's on Master of Reality, the album NOLA most closely resembles. Then comes the monumental closer, "Bury Me in Smoke", a cataclysmic stoner epic that perhaps only Sleep could match.

NOLA is a true masterpiece, easily as good or better than anything Down's individual members created with any of their other bands. One of the best heavy rock albums ever.

1. Temptation's Wings
2. Lifer
3. Pillars of Eternity
4. Rehab
5. Hail the Leaf
6. Underneath Everything
7. Eyes of the South
8. Jail
9. Losing All
10. Stone the Crows
11. Pray for the Locust
12. Swan Song
13. Bury Me in Smoke

Rating: 100%

PINK FLOYD: The Dark Side of the Moon

Produced by Pink Floyd

Released: 1973


In commemoration of the passing of Richard Wright this week, The Sound Cellar has decided to take a look at what is undoubtedly his greatest work. Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon almost defies reviewing because it's so well known and so important that almost everyone has an opinion of it but there's no way to deny that this is one of rock music's defining elements, an immaculately conceived album that employed the cutting edge of musical and recording technology of the time and an unsurpassed masterpiece of progressive rock.



This was Pink Floyd's first full-fledged concept album, a dark journey through the human psyche that maps a path through insanity, beginning and ending with a heartbeat (the modified kick drum of Nick Mason) and winding its way through birth, death, the loss of youth, greed, despair and musings on the nature of madness itself. Tape loops and synthesised sounds helped to complete the band's vision, many of which were pieced together by the band and sound engineer Alan Parsons from taped interviews during the recording process. The Dark Side of the Moon was a portrait of a band using every ounce of new gadgetry available to them to create something that had not been attempted before, and it worked.

Unlike most of the band's work prior, the material on The Dark Side of the Moon was focused and linear, a successful reining-in of the ridiculous pretensions of albums like Atom Heart Mother that just rambled pointlessly, but without losing their progressive aspects. The compromise to more conventional songwriting did Pink Floyd far more good than harm and crystalised their vision for this album. Everything about this is just masterful, from the perfect harmony of Dave Gilmour and Rick Wright's uncannily similar voices in "Time" to the bass-driven plod of "Money" to the magnificent "Us and Them", one of the Floyd's career highlights.

While previous releases hinted at their genius and later volumes had some transcendental moments, The Dark Side of the Moon is where everything came together in total unison, an album for the ages the likes of which will never be seen again.

1. Speak to Me
2. Breathe
3. On the Run
4. Time
5. The Great Gig in the Sky
6. Money
7. Us and Them
8. Any Colour You Like
9. Brain Damage
10. Eclipse

Rating: 100%

COLD CHISEL: East

Produced by Mark Opitz and Cold Chisel
Released: 1980

In mid-1977, Cold Chisel was a hard rocking blues band that couldn't get a record deal. By the end of 1980, they were the biggest-selling act in the country. This album is why. A finely-crafted slab of contemporary radio-friendly rock and pop, East never faltered from its opening seconds and remains to this day one of the best Australian albums ever made.

Cold Chisel's previous album Breakfast at Sweethearts had taken the rough edges off the band's brash sound and begun to display its pop sensibilities. With East, the slick production of Mark Opitz enhanced them even further. That all five of the band's members contributed songs for the first time also helped to create a bunch of tunes that continue to resonate through the national psyche.

East succeeds because its subjects are so familiar to its audience. They are simple songs about the everyday experience: "Every night when I come home/I settle down to prime-time limbo," sings Jimmy Barnes in "Ita"; on "Standing on the Outside" he dreams about robbing a TAB and setting himself up in a personal Paradise somewhere. Other songs are about dreams come unstuck, like the jaded protagonist of "Cheap Wine", who just leaves it all behind for "cheap wine and a three days' growth". "Four Walls" is a sorrowful piano ballad about life behind bars and the emotional "Choir Girl" follows a young woman through an abortion.

Of course it wouldn't be Cold Chisel without straight out rocking, and the pensive mood of the ballads is balanced by the brash rockabilly of Barnes' "Rising Sun", the smouldering, political "Star Hotel" and the ragged "My Turn to Cry". Every song was memorable, as East struck the perfect balance of all the band's moods. Ian Moss' "Never Before" became the first song ever played on Triple J, Barnes still performs "Rising Sun" in his live shows and Phil Small's sweet pop ditty "My Baby" remains a radio staple to this day.

28 years later, East is still the perfect Australian rock album.

1. Standing on the Outside
2. Never Before
3. Choir Girl
4. Rising Sun
5. My Baby
6. Tomorrow
7. Cheap Wine
8. Best Kept Lies
9. Ita
10. Star Hotel
11. Four Walls
12. My Turn to Cry

Rating: 100%

AC/DC: Back in Black

Produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange

Released: 1980

Where do you even start to review an album that is by mass of sales alone the greatest rock album ever made? Perhaps an anecdote might be a way to begin to explain the enduring qualities of Back in Black that has kept it at the forefront of rock since it first appeared.

During my late teens I went on a camping trip with some friends. Where we went and when isn't important. What is important is that the only music was had for the trip was Back in Black and the Blue Brothers soundtrack. That both got played endlessly and that we never got tired of either is a testament to the greatness of them. Back in Black was only about seven years old then, but even now it sounds as timeless.

As their tribute to their fallen comrade, AC/DC could have done no better. In making one of rock's defining moments they succeeded almost without peer. Back in Black has it all. Killer songs, ferocious guitar, some of the greatest riffs ever and the sheer power and caustic urgency of Brian Johnston, surely one of the world's most unique vocalists. The opening is simply ominous, as if announcing that this is the truly great piece of work it turned out to be. The slow tolling bell gives way to a simply evil-sounding intro; "Hell's Bells" is genius with Johnson's voice splitting eardrums the same way he tells us his flashing white light is splitting the night. The title track features one of the ultimate riffs of all time and a dirty blues vibe permeates through "Rock N Roll Ain't Noise Pollution". Everything is executed perfectly, even if Johnston's attempts at Bon Scott-like craftiness come occasionally unstuck. There is, for example, something quite disturbing about lines like "Don't you struggle, don't you fight/Don't you worry coz it's your turn tonight" from "Let Me Put My Love Into You", but in the impossibly catchy "You Shook Me All Night Long" he gets the metaphors so right that he and the band were fighting off allegations that Bon actually wrote it for well over a decade.

There really isn't any need to go on. Everyone is so familiar with Back in Black it defies being written about any more. Only a few other albums have come even remotely close to its greatness.

1. Hell's Bells
2. Shoot to Thrill
3. What Do You Do For Money Honey
4. Given the Dog a Bone
5. Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Back in Black
7. You Shook Me All Night Long
8. Have a Drink On Me
9. Shake a Leg
10. Rock n Roll Ain't Noise Pollution

Rating: 100%

ALCHEMIST: Embryonics

Released: 2005

With 28 tracks spread across two discs that encompass over two and a half hours of music, Embryonics is the perfect representation of a band with a musical scope and vision that exceeds virtually all boundaries. There really isn't any other band that sounds like Alchemist, from the intricate pot pourri of musical styles to the broadly interesting and thought-provoking lyrical sense, and this collection showcases eight years' worth of recordings that shaped this great act.

As usual for an Alchemist album, the first thing that catches your attention is the striking artwork of guitarist Roy Torkington, a vivid, psychedlic dreamscape that captures the feel of the music within. Inside, the booklet features a gallery of archival photographs and gig flyers going back to the demo days, plus extensive liner notes on every track penned by the band members themselves. Such immaculate and careful packaging holds the promise of great things within and Embryonics does not disappoint. With so many fine songs to choose from, the hardest part of compiling this collection must have been deciding which tracks would miss out, yet in the final wash-up there could be no better representation of the Alchemist back catalogue than the list that made the cut.

Embryonics includes six tracks from each of the band's first three albums, plus six demo tracks and their version of "Eve of the War" from the long-deleated and much sought after 1999 EP of the same name. The local release also features three live cuts as bonuses: the version of "Chinese Whispers" from the EP and work outs of "Yoni Kunda" and "Closed Chapter" from a Three Hours of Power radio episode in 1996. Opening with the Spiritech version of "Chinese Whispers", the track that remains to this day as perhaps the finest example of Alchemist's work, Embryonics shows the progression and development of their sound. From the raw but magical 1990 demo version of "Jar of Kingdom", the truly off-the-wall arty-prog of "Imagination Flower" and "Found" with Michelle Klemke's strangely keening vocals to the fully-developed ethereal journeys of "Staying Conscious" and "Spiritechnology", there isn't a single moment where Alchemist's reputation as one of the most interesting and creative metal bands of all is in doubt.

This is a geniunely essential release not just for fans of Australian metal but for anyone who enjoys truly progressive rock music.

Disc One:

1. Chinese Whispers
2. Abstraction
3. Unfocused
4. Enhancing Enigma
5. Dancing to Life
6. Brumal: A View from Pluto
7. Lunation
8. Staying Conscious
9. Shell
10. Garden of Eroticism
11. Jar of Kingdom
12. Paisley Bieurr
13. Yoni Kunda (live)
14. Closed Chapter (live)

Disc Two:

1. Eve of the War
2. Beyond Genesis
3. Yoni Kunda
4. Purple
5. Imagination Flower
6. Spiritechnology
7. Soul Return
8. Road to Ubar
9. Found
10. Clot
11. Worlds Within Worlds
12. My Animated Truth
13. Closed Chapter
14. Chinese Whispers (live)

Rating: 100%

STRAPPING YOUNG LAD: City

Produced by Devin Townsend

Released: 1997

What do you do when your previous album sold a stunning 120 copies in the US alone, you have no band, no money and you're sleeping on your A&R guy's sofa eating noodles and margarine and listening to Morbid Angel and Shihad? If you're Devin Townsend, you write some of the angriest and most intense heavy metal music of all, get Gene Hoglan to play drums for you and record them as City.

City really is the last word in angry music, created not by a group on its way to being comfortable millionaires pissed off about being heckled or getting bad reviews but by a frustrated genius existing hand-to-mouth for months. Sure, there's some other guys who play on this, but City is Devin Townsend's album; it is his energy, vision and rage that drives it smashing through every pre-conceived idea about intensity and extremity. To the untrained ear or a first-time listener, this will be nothing but a ceaseless cacophony as Townsend crams every space with as much noise as possible. It sounds at first like extremity for the sake of it, but as overwhelming as the relentless, multi-tracked guitar onslaught is, repeated listenings reveal Strapping Young Lad's genius for infectious hooks and melodies that surprise with their ability to seemingly come from nowhere and add further dimensions to the music. There is also Townsend's bizarre sense of irony, with his minimalistic, stream-of-consciousness lyrics both evoking his frustrations and rage and poking fun at the ludicrous extremity of metal.

And, as mentioned several times already, City is ludicrously extreme. "Oh My Fucking God" is one of the heaviest, most full-on and over-the-top examples of industrial grind ever recorded with Townsend's apoplectic vocals pushing the envelope into the realms of the truly insane. Similarly, "All Hail the New Flesh" and "Detox" are triumphs of noise and total chaos but even there a cleverly-timed keyboard surge or poppy melody will suddenly burst forth, making you wonder how they ever got there in the first place. "Home Nucleonics" is another crushing barrage but in "AAA" a monstrous groove takes precedence until "Underneath the Waves" unleashes further mayhem. The Cop Shoot Cop cover "Room 429" gets in the way a bit, somewhat breaking the flow of the album because the epic, surging "Spirituality" would be the perfect way to come in after the layered screaming of "Underneath the Waves". A minor quibble however, because CSC was a major inspiration for City so the homage is somewhat deserved.

This is an exhausting and overwhelming work, a masterpiece that combines both bombast and subtlety in a curious and staggering unison and a statement in the extreme that may never be matched.

1. Velvet Kervorkian
2. All Hail the New Flesh
3. Oh My Fucking God
4. Detox
5. Home Nucleonics
6. AAA
7. Underneath the Waves
8. Room 429
9. Spirituality

Rating: 100%

JEFF BUCKLEY: Grace

Produced by Jeff Buckley and Andy Wallace

Released: 1994

Every generation needs its romance album, and for sophisticated Generation Xers, Grace was that album. An audacious mixture of styles and disparate influences, Jeff Buckley assembled his carefully orchestrated songs from a heady blend of jazz, blues, rock and folk and touched base with all manner of classic artists, many of whom would subsequently heap praise on him.

Some commentators have criticised Grace for containing no less than three covers, but this is as unfair as suggesting that Elvis and Sinatra were somehow lesser artists for not being songwriters, and overlooks Buckley's bravery at those he attempts. His brittle version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" has since often been lauded as definitive; his take on the tragic "Lilac Wine", a track previously only recorded by female artists, is equally commanding.

Yet it is Buckley's own songs that truly carry the album, a work of ornate textures and delicate arrangements providing a backdrop for his intuitive vocals, the key feature of which was his evocative falsetto so stunning that it became bigger than he was. It was, however, but one aspect of his talents. With "Last Goodbye" he somehow conjures the spirit of Led Zeppelin so overwhelmingly it sounds like it could have come from Physical Graffitti and the heart-rending poetry of "Lover, You Should Have Come Over" is made all the more moving by the sheer emotion of their delivery. If nothing else, Grace showed Jeff Buckley to be an artist who poured true passion into his work and there's simply no way of telling how great he could have become.

The legend of Grace has grown almost exponentially since Buckley's death but there's little doubt that even if he had lived, this album would still hold a very special place in the hearts of many.

1. Mojo Pin
2. Grace
3. Last Goodbye
4. Lilac Wine
5. So Real
6. Hallelujah
7. Lover, You Should Have Come Over
8. Corpus Christi Carol
9. Eternal Life
10. Dream Brother

Rating: 100%

FAITH NO MORE: The Real Thing

Produced by Matt Wallace and Faith No More

Released: 1989

Part metal, part funk, part rap and often publically dysfunctional, Faith No More was a groundbreaking act for its time and one so original that even now there is no other group that sounds quite like them. Although they had released two albums before this, The Real Thing was most people's introduction to the quirky genius of this San Francisco five piece, and most people's introduction to this album was "Epic". A stunning combination of genres that epitomised the group's style perfectly, "Epic" remains to this day possibly the most bizarre-sounding song ever to reach #1 on the Australian chart and began a love affair with this band that was sustained by Australian audiences until Faith No More split up eight years later.

While it was the best-known and most identifiable song from The Real Thing, "Epic" was only one of an entire album's worth of fantastic songs, and it succeeded as a heavy rock album in spite of owing very little to the standard heavy rock conventions. Instead of the pre-requisite lead guitar work of almost every other band playing anything even remotely metal, The Real Thing had virtually none, while in its place keyboards surged prominently and heavy metal riffs clashed with funk-laden bass grooves. Jazz tunes about paedophiles sat alongside funked-up Black Sabbath covers and crazy organ-dominated instrumentals. There were dark songs about child-rearing sung from the baby's point of view and extended stream-of-consciousness tales like the title track. Topping it all off was Mike Patton's schizophrenic vocal style that shifted guise as often as the music, crooning, whining and--most conspicuously--rapping. His innate ability to syncopate spitfire lyrics with Jim Martin's metallic riffage even inspired and influenced rappers and set the scene for a myriad of so-called rap-metal acts that were to follow in the decade to come, almost none of which were able to match the level of originality, wit and inspiration on display on this album. What made this even more phenomonal was that the band had already completed the album when Patton joined. His disturbing and thought-provoking lyrics and vocal acrobatics were added virtually at the last minute.

Both a breakthrough album for its creators and a groundbreaking one for heavy music, The Real Thing has also outlasted its legion of imitators, most of which have already been forgotten. It's a perfect and timeless release difficult to fault and almost impossible to tire of.

1. From Out of Nowhere
2. Epic
3. Falling to Pieces
4. Surprise! You're Dead!
5. Zombie Eaters
6. The Real Thing
7. Underwater Love
8. The Morning After
9. Woodpecker from Mars
10. War Pigs
11. Edge of the World

Rating: 100%

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Born in the USA

Produced by Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Plotkin, Steven van Zandt

Released: 1984

In order to review this incredible album I had to take myself back in time to my high school days. It's easy to appreciate Born in the USA when you're an adult a few years older than Springsteen was when he wrote and recorded it, but to get a really good idea of the impact this release had, you have to go back to a time when an average looking guy in his mid-30s suddenly became a pop idol that 14-year old girls were hanging poster of on their bedroom walls.

Bruce Springsteen had never been as well known in Australia as he was at home because his songs were so rooted in the American experience. But Born in the USA had such a successful pop formula that kids everywhere could get into the music without needing to know what the songs were about. School girls wanted to be on stage with The Boss like that chick in the video for "Dancing in the Dark" without even caring that it wasn't even actually about dancing.

There's almost no better start to any album than Springsteen's magnificant Specktorish triumph of the title track. The discordant, clanging synths punish the listener into submission as the urgent, ragged despair of the singer's delivery lets them know they are hearing a song for the ages even if most of them -- including parents and US Presidents -- would completely miss the point.

Born in the USA's themes are the same as those Springsteen had always followed but his introduction of synths and dance beats served to disguise the real meaning of the songs, although even the more obvious ones are still deceptive. The character in "Working on the Highway" turns out to be a member of a chain gang, and "My Hometown" is set up as a tribute but is actually exactly the opposite, a tale of shattered dreams and broken pride. Even so, Springsteen stills give his small town denizens a sense of hope in the exuberance of the beat and injects humour into tracks like "I'm Going Down" and "Glory Days".

Bruce Springsteen perfected his craft here and made stories of ordinary Americans into three and four minute sagas that even teenagers with no grasp on irony could enjoy. Without doubt, this is one of the best albums of all time

1. Born in the USA


2. Cover Me


3. Darlingotn County


4. Working on the Highway


5. Downbound Train


6. I'm on Fire


7. No Surrender


8. Bobby Jean


9. I'm Going Down


10. Glory Days


11. Dancing in the Dark


12. My Hometown

Rating: 100%

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%

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%