BRISBANE THRASHED - Issue No. 1

This blog is called The Sound Cellar for a reason. It's a repository for musical goodies (and not so goodies), where they can be brought out and gazed upon in years to come to rekindle some fond memory or other of something. Every now and then, I come upon a true gem, something that really is a rare jewel one doesn't find too often. This is one of those finds.


A little while ago, I was interviewed in The Fallout Magazine and happened to mention that one of my goals is to have a complete archive of Australian metal stuff that I can one day pass on to a museum or something. Shortly after this story appeared, a dude contacted me offering to send me a copy of a video zine he worked on back in the 90s. The early 90s. So of course I told him I wasn't interested, thanks.


Like fuck.


I don't know how many issues of this were made, or how many copies of this issue there were/are, but if I'm ever in the same pub as Walshy I owe him about 100 beers for this. The video may be grainy (this is on VHS) and some of the interview questions a bit cheesy ("When did you form your band, and why?"), but this is pure gold. Brisbane Thrashed is a video zine from 1991 featuring "some of the best underground thrash bands" of the time, including Armoured Angel, Alchemist, Dearly Beheaded and Iron Lightning, as well as some of the more obscure ones like Abhorrent, A.I.M. and the awesomely-named Ewok Zombies From Hell. The interviews are intercut with raw live footage of the various bands playing around Brisbane (or in Abhorent's case, in what looks like someone's front room) and the zine opens with an awesome clip of Armoured Angel playing to a pumped crowd with guys stage-diving everywhere and just going nuts. The interview is a little hard to hear because it seems to have been taped at the venue before they went on so there's a lot of noise around, but at one point Lucy is asked about the future of metal and says something like "It will only get more extreme" which is pretty prophetic considering he's talking in 1991. There are other moments of prescience on display too: the bare-footed and shorts-wearing Alchemist lads are asked if they think they'll still be playing metal at 40... and they are!

Not everything is brilliant though. Hardcore lads A.I.M. seem oblivious to the fact that they are on a video zine for metalheads, making a couple of remarks that all but decry metal in general, including a suggestion that metal bands aren't "political" enough (even though a few minutes earlier, Armoured Angel had basically said that religion is stupid, which is one of the most political comments one can make) while ripping off D.R.I.'s fashion and Minor Threat's music. There's no interview with the Dearly Beheaded lads either, but their musical contribution is a ripper. Apart from occasional lapses in the sound quality though, there isn't a lot to complain about. Brisbane Thrashed was a fun nostalgia trip. Thanks for passing it on, Welshy!

DEVILDRIVER: Pray for Villains

Produced by Logan Mader

Released: 2009

It's taken me a long time to warm to DevilDriver. As one of those who came through the 90s being subjected to the vapidity of Coal Chamber, you could perhaps excuse me for warily steering clear of anything with Dez Fafara's name on it at first. Now four albums in with DevilDriver, Pray for Villains is the heaviest and best thing he's done yet, thoroughly crushing the memories of him as the leader of one of the most reviled of all nu-metal acts.

Of course, with such an enormous personality out front, the rest of the band is often overlooked. While Fafara's vocals snap, snarl and growl his lyrics of retribution and rage, it's the other four guys in DevilDriver who are credited with the musical side. And with the shadow of Fafara's inglorious past always looming over them, DevilDriver has sometimes tried just too hard to bury it. The Last Kind Words was violent and relentless to a point where violence and relentlessness became the be-all and end-all; on Pray for Villains they ease off without toning things down. With Logan Mader at the desk, the band is directly tapping the vein of classic early 90s heavy groove metal. Think the catchy groove stylings of bands like Machine Head, Sepultura and Pantera, who would be proud of tracks like "Back With a Vengeance" and the title track. But this is a remarkably diverse album that also touches base with the Gothenburg-esque elements and the thrashy metalcore they've done before, only better, and occasional injections of punk like in the stomping "Another Night in London". The dual melodies are extremely enjoyable and while the soloing itself isn't particularly spectacular, there are moments like during "In the Cards" where they work really well.

If anything, it is Fafara who is the weak point. His lyrics verge on the simplistic at times and his vocals can be monotonous. That said, this is only a moderate criticism. Pray for Villains is a solid album of heavy, aggressive, catchy modern metal that could well be the precursor of the true genre classic that DevilDriver is yet to make.

1. Pray for Villains
2. Pure Sincerity
3. Fate Stepped In
4. Back With a Vengeance
5. I've Been Sober
6. Resurrection Blvd.
7. Forgiveness is a Six Gun
8. Waiting for November
9. It's in the Cards
10. Another Night in London
11. Bitter Pill
12. Teach Me to Whisper
13. I See Belief

Rating: 82%

DREADNAUGHT LIVE IN SYDNEY

Dreadnaught, Switchblade, Be'lakor, Darker Half, From Winter's Grace
August 8, 2009
Bald Faced Stag Hotel, Leichhardt


When veteran campaigners Dreadnaught announced a Sydney date with a bunch of staunch up n' comers, it was time to once again come out of gig-going hibernation and try to find a parking space in Leichhardt on a Saturday evening to catch a show that held the promise of awesomeness. By the time I arrived, From Winter's Grace had already played and the room was full and vibing greatly to the melodic strains of Darker Half. Tonight was the first time I'd seen them since their early days when they really weren't very good so the change I noticed was stark, if not unexpected considering only one guy is left in the band from back then. While it was new guitarist Brad Dickson's first show with them tonight, the rest of Darker Half have spent much of the year touring and becoming a lean, mean metal machine in the process. Their slick trad/power sound struck the right chord with the crowd which was quite large and eager considering how early it still was.

Melbourne's Be'lakor have been getting all kinds of wraps for their dark noise and tonight was the proof as to why. These days the term "melodic death metal" conjures up images of Swedish metal-gone-lame acts like Soilwork and In Flames and their myriad of clones, but these guys who were scarcely out of nappies when The Red in the Sky is Ours came out go back to its roots and produce a dark, heavy and crushing style like early Dark Tranquillity crossed with the progressive meanderings of Opeth's Morningrise period. Be'lakor might not have moved around as much as the Darker Half lads, but they held the audience just the same with a tight set of great songs with real death metal vocals and not this raspy scream that masquerades as same so much lately. They really are something to check out.

Much like Darker Half, Switchblade has seen some line-ups come and go but it hasn't slowed them down. While Dreadnaught were the deserved headliners, it was no surprise this band drew the biggest crowd. These guys are arguably Sydney's most popular metal act at the moment, and I have never seen them play a bad show. This evening was no exception. On the back of several other high profile shows and a killer new album, Switchblade cut a swathe through the Bald Faced Stag crowd with a high-energy assault of aggressive groove and twin-guitar modern metal that highlighted the choicest cuts off both their albums. Andrew Najdek and Anthony Delvecchio make a formidable guitar partnering and Mat Picco nails everything behind the kit.

Dreadnaught has been under-appreciated in this city for too long, so the brilliant undercard meant they had a really decent crowd when they unleashed "Tattooed Tears". A few people may have left by then, but more fool them. With former bassist Squiz making a special appearance on behalf of an injured Ando tonight, the Naughties tore through their latest album in its entirety, omitting only the acoustic tracks and replacing them with a trilogy of earlier songs with the same level of venom as their newies. Just like the band to precede them, Dreadnaught are always awesome and explosive live, Greg Trull the angry, tortured front man, Richie and Damon trading melody lines and carving out catchy rock-inflected riffs while up the back drummer Racca rolls out the beats effortlessly. By the end of the set they had the crowd wanting more, and only finished up because Squiz "didn't know anymore songs" but they had rounded out the night with a devastating performance that may well have gotten though to the Sydney fans at last.

Dreadnaught set list:

• Tattooed Tears
• The Push
• Save Your Life
• Collapse
• More Than One Way
• Agony/Ecstasy
• Dead in the Dirt
• 10x the Pain
• Twist the Knife
• The Game
• The Gobbler
• Buried

LORD: Set in Stone

Produced by Lord Tim

Released: August 2009

While often exploring the darker side of human nature, LORD's songs can also be positive and empowering but without going into that cheesy "happy metal" area of their European kin. So it is that they open their latest album in typical style, an uplifting anthem in the shape of "Redemption", pure metal that should get heads nodding from the outset. It's clear right away that "Set in Stone" is a LORD album. It has that distinctive sound, bristling with loud crunchy guitars, booming drums and soaring vocals. Then the band goes into a melodic heavy rock direction in "100 Reasons" with its amazing pop-laced hook. After this is the big epic metal of "Eternal Storm" and the driving title track with its catchy riffing and duelling lead guitars.

By now you get the feeling that LORD is building to something, and so they are. "Someone Else's Dream" is a surging progressive melodic thrash juggernaut with all the band's colours on display including Lord Tim's much-developed harsher vocal style that contrasts starkly with the massive choruses. This song is much like something Soilwork used to do before they stopped being interesting. And LORD continues to keep everyone guessing, with "Forever" deceptively belying its dark subject matter by opening like a typical over-wrought power metal ballad before exploding into guitar violence. The surprises don't stop there, as LORD unleashes a mountain of guests for the ridiculously shred-laden "Be My Guest", with people including Craig Goldy, Glen Drover, Olof Morck from Dragonland, Chris Brooks and members of Harem Scarem, Angra, Argument Soul, Paindivision and Vanishing Point all trying to melt each other's faces off for the sake of heavy metal. Because essentially that's precisely what Set in Stone is: a glorious heavy metal album that doesn't have pretensions of being anything else.

Lord Tim has an amazing knack for pumping out consistently high quality metal, but I've been waiting for him to match the pinnacle that was Dungeon's A Rise to Power for quite a while. With LORD's Set in Stone, he's finally done it.

1. Spectres of the Ascendant
2. Redemption
3. 100 Reasons
4. Eternal Storm
5. Set in Stone
6. Someone Else's Dream
7. Forever
8. Beyond the Light
9. The End of Days
10. Be My Guest
11. New Horizons

Rating: 95%

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%

METALLICA - The Club Dayz 1982-1984

by Bill Hale
ECW Press

Bill Hale is a Hawaii-based rock photographer who was lucky enough to be where plenty of us probably wish we could have been 27 years ago: hanging out on the San Francisco metal scene. He got to see, and document, the birth of one of the greatest bands metal has produced. Regardless of your opinion of Metallica, without them it's unlikely metal would have become the institution it is today, and in this book Hale captures the embryonic days of a band that has since become one of the world's biggest musical acts.

The first few pages are reminiscences from some of the others who were there: John Strednansky from Metal Rendezvous, Ron Quintana -- the zine editor from whom Lars stole the name Metallica -- and Scott Earl from a band called Culprit, whose drummer got into a fight with Dave Mustaine at Cliff Burton's second ever Metallica gig: "Mustaine basically threw my guitarist's pedals into the corner in a big ball of duct tape. I guess we weren't getting out of their way fast enough." There's nothing from any of the members of Metallica themselves, so this probably hasn't been sanctioned by the band but even if it's not, the photos are Hale's and history belongs to everyone, so no one has any reason to object.

The tales of the band's early days, in which Mustaine features very prominently, are pure gold. But the good stuff - the great stuff, the stuff that really shows us how it began and what it was like - that all really begins on page 25, with a series of shots from a gig in September 1982, when Metallica was still based in LA and opening for Bitch. There's Hetfield, wearing a bullet belt and a Venom shirt, flipping the bird. Later on, there's a bunch from Burton's first gig, headlining over Lääz Rockit and Exodus, with Cliff in his bell-bottoms, clutching his Rickenbacker, another from backstage of Hammett and Mustaine side by side. Further on, Kirk's in the band as they open for Raven and near the end, a slightly blurry candid picture of Dave and Cliff, hanging out after a Megadeth show in August, 1986, six weeks before Burton was gone forever. What strikes you the most is how fresh-faced, fun-loving and rebellious everyone is: in a backstage shot with Burton, Mustaine's wearing an inverted crucifix in his ear, elsewhere there's Lars yakking it up with Gonzo Sandoval from Armored Saint.

There isn't much "art" to Hale's shots, and almost none that can be called "posed". Even the publicity pics were of shirtless, beer-swilling reprobates with cheesy, cheeky grins and enormous pitchers of amber fluid. Just like the music the band was making back then, Bill Hale's photos are raw, urgent, immediate and vital, capturing the young Metallica's very essence. For anyone who was there, or wishes they were, this is a great book.

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%

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE: Killswitch Engage

Produced by Brendan O'Brien and Adam Dutkiewicz

Released: June 30, 2009

Killswitch Engage virtually pioneered commercial metalcore and have consistently led the way ever since. They've been able to do this by gradually tempering their sound toward mass acceptance with each new release. While they haven't fallen as from the tree as In Flames (whose path from greatness to sheer blandness makes Metallica's mid-career shift look like a mere swerve) Killswitch Engage's second eponymous album is their most accessible yet, about as far from the inferno of rage that was 2002's Alive or Just Breathing as they can get and still be recognisable as the same band.

The first four tracks set the tone for the whole album. "Never Again" is the aggressive, guitar-fuelled opener in which KsE wants to show their older fans that they can still be a heavy band. But they then switch straight to emo mode for "Starting Over", a teenage heartbreaker written with airplay in mind. You can just picture some dude with a fringe getting all teary over this one as he remembers the time he dumped for the guy with the Dimebag tatt. Following that is "The Forgotten", where the band plays the heavy card again, this time with some pretty convincing (if fleeting) old-school thrash moments and Howard Jones really bringing back the hardcore rasp. "Reckoning" then is the totally generic pissed off metalcore song that every band KsE has influenced in the past seven years has done. For KsE themselves to be still doing this, and no better than anyone else, is the real measure of this album.

Because, essentially, Killswitch Engage is just those four songs, redone in slightly different ways enough times to fill up a 40-minute playing time. Some of the tracks are heavy and angry (but not too heavy), and others are more melodic and angsty; sometimes Jones screams more than he sings, and sometimes he sings more than he screams. Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel mimic classic Murray/Smith guitar harmonies but steadfastly refuse to bust out into real soloing because everyone knows nothing breaks a kid's concentration on the mosh more than a guitar solo, and lyrically they're trapped in the silly twilight world of adolescent angst. Like Twilight, actually, but for guys. Who wear eyeliner.

The songwriting hasn't really changed much from where they were with As Daylight Dies three years ago but if anything Brendan O'Brien's production has highlighted the commercial aspects even more. It's immaculately done, but in the end it's just mosh-friendly metalcore by numbers, which means that KsE now don't sound any different to any of the bands who've been ripping them off for the past five years. Hopefully, the upcoming Shadows Fall release will hand these guys their arses on a plate.

1. Never Again
2. Starting Over
3. The Forgotten
4. Reckoning
5. The Return
6. A Light in a Darkened World
7. Take Me Away
8. I Would Do Anything
9. Save Me
10. Lost
11. This is Goodbye

Rating: 68%

SERPENTCULT: Weight of Light

Produced by Greg Chandler

Released: October 2008

A few years back, the members of Belgium's Thee Plague of Gentlemen were gearing up for their second album release when their singer got arrested for being a child rapist and thrown in the can, hopefully to never see freedom again. The rest of the band did what any self-respecting group of people would do when confronted with a truth such as this, and utterly disavowed all association with the guy. They did hang on to a few of the songs they were working on, though, as well as the name of the album: SerpentCult. Two years on, with Michelle Nocon handling the vocal duties, Weight of Light surfaced from the sludge, recorded under the guiding hand of Greg Chandler, the vocalist from Esoteric whose first album, Epistemological Despondency, is one of the greatest doom albums of all time.

Where SerpentCult succeeds is that they manage to combine immense, sludgy guitars with a distinctive undercurrent of groovy bass lines and a singular vocal style that sets them apart from many of the other bands of their style. Where they fail is that, like many other bands of their style, the songs eventually blur into the sameness of huge, slow, similar-sounding riffs. They don't succumb completely, but SerpentCult is a band playing a genre of metal that is stylistically limited.

On Weight of Light, they are something like a cross between Cathedral and Pentagram, with the occasional experimental aspects of Electric Wizard added in for good measure, particularly in the swirling, psychedelic closing passages of the final track. "New World Order" begins in a big fuzzy rocking mode and Nocon's raw, bluesy and ballsy vocals really stand out. The next two songs highlight SerpentCult's doomier aspects but the aggressive vocals still ring out and the pulsing groove helps drive them along. After this, the pace of the album slows down considerably. "Awaken the Kraken" and "Arkanum" merge subtly into one another, but it feels rather like the middle act of an otherwise decent movie where it all starts to get bogged down in plot. "Arkanum" trudges on for over five minutes before Nocon gets to do anything and without a nuance of lead guitar anywhere it's like standing in the surf getting pounded by half-arsed waves waiting for a decent one that never comes. Finally, "Red Dawn" arrives and Weight of Light is back on track, keeping itself both within the confines of doom while subtly pushing its boundaries.

This is quite a good debut from a band that isn't afraid to try things that are a little different. Hopefully they will continue to try even harder and make something truly spectacular.

1. New World Order
2. Screams From the Deep
3. Weight of Light
4. Awaken the Kraken
5. Arkanum
6. Red Dawn
7. Templar
8. SerpentCult

Rating: 75%

JUDAS PRIEST: A Touch of Evil: Live

Released: July 14

Judas Priest don’t have the catalogue of live albums that Iron Maiden has (but then, who does?), yet even so A Touch of Evil racks up their fifth, recorded over the course of their last two world tours. The most immediately noticeable aspect is the album’s brevity: while the other two live documents I've reviewed recently are double CDs clocking over ninety minutes, A Touch of Evil is barely an hour, and that’s with three songs longer than seven minutes apiece. The other thing is the track-listing, an unconventional collection of newer tracks and lesser-known older tunes like "Riding on the Wind" (it's from Screaming for Vengeance) that deliberately omits most of their best known songs. Priest deserve credit for this, because it would have been easy to go the Maiden route and just fill two CDs with hits we’ve all heard thousands of times (this is a band who have also never felt it necessary to do a "heritage" tour either, something else that would have been quite easy for them to do). Even better, while three of these tracks have been on live albums before, none of them were with Rob Halford's vocals. So what this lacks in playing time it makes up for in being essentially a rather unique set.

The great thing about this is that even without all the "hits", Judas Priest has still managed to fill this album with great songs, including some of their truly heaviest moments like "Between the Hammer and the Anvil" and particularly "Dissident Aggressor" which was, for its time, one of the most crushing songs ever. "Death" is arguably the only misfire here, an unweildy behemoth of a track that lacks the energy of "Riding on the Wind" that precedes it and the hooks of "Beyond the Realms of Death" that follows. It was one of the better songs on Nostradamus, true, but that's not saying a lot. Thankfully, the only other song from that album here is "Prophecy". "Painkiller" closes the set, and it's clear that Halford has some problems with his pitch here although most of the time he's great (better, it has to be said, than Dickinson on Flight 666, though to be fair Bruce still moves on stage like a guy half his age and Rob barely moves at all) and the rest of the band cannot be faulted.

A Touch of Evil is a pretty good offering as far as live albums go, especially as it does give some of Priest's lesser-known but still killer tracks an airing. The only realy criticism is that it's so short. Another disc with stuff like "Starbreaker" and "Rapid Fire" on it as well would have been ultra cool.

1. Judas Rising
2. Hellrider
3. Between the Hammer and the Anvil
4. Riding on the Wind
5. Death
6. Beyond the Realms of Death
7. Dissident Aggressor
8. A Touch of Evil
9. Eat Me Alive
10. Prophecy
11. Painkiller

Rating: 80%