Anatomy of Perfect Bestiality
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: Anatomy, Bestiality, Perfect
Deriding His Creation
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: Creation, Deriding
Diabolical Kingdom for $11.99
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: 1199, Diabolical, Kingdom
Death Magnetic for $4.45
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The Metal Militia is back in business. Metallica`s ninth studio album “Death Magnetic” is the proof that they have found their way back to speedy thrash metal. Who would have thought this, after their hard rock and country attempts “Load” and “Reload”, as well as the raw and one-dimensional forerunner “St. Anger” in 2003? Nevertheless, “Death Magnetic” should be the desired turn to their thrash metal roots.
The album was released on September 12, 2008 through Warner Bros. Records and debuted as number one on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Outside of the U.S.A. they are distributed by Universal Music Group. No less a figure than the famous producer Rick Rubin accepted to work with the band. He displaced long-term producer Bob Rock, who acted as their producer since the excessively praised “Black Album” and even supported Metallica as bassist during the recording process of “St. Anger”. After they had finished recording “St. Anger” in 2003, Rob Trujillo was announced to be the band’s new bassist. Therefore “Death Magnetic” is the first Metallica record that features his bass tracks.
The rest of the band is still the classic line-up from 1983, consisting of the charismatic frontman and rhythm guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich and lead-guitar-gunslinger Kirk Hammett. For the recording the band decided to work in different studios as well as their own studio HQ.
However, “Death Magnetic” features 10 tracks, including an instrumental. The album’s starter “That was just your Life” begins with the beating of a heart and atmospheric, clean guitars that lead into the first gallops and palm muted riffs that James Hetfield is famous for. The sound is raw, mighty and with a certain edge to it. Hetfield’s vocals sound like that of an angry sailor and are often interrupted by extended instrumental parts with dual-guitar lines. Fortunately, Ulrich’s drums sound like drums again and not like bush telegraphy, as on “St. Anger”. It is almost shocking to hear lead guitars and solos again, as Hammett was not allowed to do this on the forerunner. Concerning the lyrics, Hetfield surely does not sing about the happy days in life. The centre theme of the album is death and this is featured in all songs.
The intro of “Broken, Beat & Scarred” reminds a bit of the song “The Shortest Straw” from 1988, because of the staccato rhythmic. The track also contains a fiery guitar solo that starts with fast legato runs and ends in roaring double-stop bends. At this point, one has to say that the drumming of Lars Ulrich changed over the years. It seems that there is not as much use of the beloved double-bass as on the classic records. Hetfield’s “What don’t kill ya make ya more strong” lyrics make the whole thing kind of optimistic and motivating too.
Next in line is the song “The day that never comes”. This one is the first single on the record that was released separately. The video to this song aroused some attention, as it deals with the war in Iraq. Some fans recognized similarities to Metallica’s “Fade to black”, as “The day that never comes” starts with clean and atmospheric arpeggios with a melody line on top. The verses are soft and melodic whereas the chorus is loud and powerful. Therefore, this song takes the same line as “Welcome Home” or the mentioned “Fade to black” in terms of these dynamics.
“Crawl from the wreckage one more time…” is the first line of the album’s next song “All Nightmare Long”. What a fitting line for the beginning of Metallica’s new era, isn’t it? The song contains a lot of fast tremolo picking and gallops. In terms of the vocals, it seems that this song put a lot of stress onto Hetfield’s voice, as there are a lot of high-pitched notes to reach. All in all, it is fast and heavy and comes close to old-school thrash metal. Another specialty is the song “The Unforgiven III”. This song falls in line with “The Unforgiven” and “The Unforgiven II” – both on previous records. The song dynamics are changed around, so that there are heavy verses combined with a calm chorus. “The Unforgiven III” features piano arpeggios along with the typical clean, almost sterile sounding, guitars. As the song moves on, subtle strings come in and support the slow-moving vocals. “Suicide and Redemption” is the only instrumental on “Death Magnetic”. With almost 10 minutes of length, Metallica have met their standard from the old days in terms of quantity. On the quality side, this instrumental can not keep up with the ones on previous records. It sounds like a typical Metallica song, but there is the impression that the vocals are missing. There is no chance that “Suicide and Redemption” reaches the power and the groove of instrumentals like “Orion” or “Ktulu”. Death Magnetic’s grand finale is the song “My Apocalypse”. With a length of about 5 minutes it is the shortest track on the album.
In conclusion, Metallica achieved to awake their passion and love for speedy and heavy music. For the first time since the late 80s, the songs feature the typical complex structure and the raw charm of thrash metal from the Bay Area. Metallica went back from short, radio suitable tracks to the old-school metal sound. The band’s intention was to create songs that follow the line of their classics. In different words, they tried to copy themselves. As a consequence, the tracks on “Death Magnetic” do not feature a lot of variety and start to get old fairly quick. As mentioned, the sound is raw and not in any case over-produced. Here and there it seems that some parts are distorted and need a bit of re-mastering. One could see the reason for that in Rick Rubin’s unconventional style of producing, as he was not present at the studio very often.
Nevertheless, Metallica have made a step into the right direction and they have clarified that there is still life in the old dogs yet.
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: Magnetic
Dream Theater – Live at Budokan for $15.89
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Once upon a time in the fall of 2004, I went to a YES concert. The opening act was a band I had never heard of, called Dream Theater. Not knowing them, I arrived at the seating area as they were taking their final bows. But over at the cocktail area, I kept noticing a lot of people wearing Dream Theater T-shirts.
A month later, I was in a music store browsing, and came upon DT’s live @ Boudakan DVD, the day it was released. Remembering the name from the YES show, I thought I’d take a chance and buy it. And ya know, sometimes there are times in life when we just make right decisions, and the decision to buy this DVD changed my musical life FOREVER!
I had never been so amazed by a group of musicians (and mind you, I am now 56 years old). Their performances just blew me away. Literally. I was absolutely awe-struck. I couldn’t believe the technical perfection and the sheer musical brilliance and genius of this band. Where had I been? Why had I not heard of this band before? Suffice it to say, this DVD opened up a very wide door for me musically. Since that purchase, I have purchased EVERY CD the band has recorded, two more DVD’s and seen another concert. As far as I’m concerned, this band is the culmination of every bit of rock and progressive-rock music I have ever enjoyed from the 70’s until now. And by the way, of the other DVD’s of theirs I own, “Boudakan” is the best. EVERYTHING about BOTH discs on this DVD is just great. So if you’re reading this, get this DVD NOW, or be a LOSER!!!!!!
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: 1589, Budokan, Theater
Destined to Suffer
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Into the Pit for $19.32
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This box set contains all three FIGHT albums, “War of Words”, “Mutations” and “A Small Deadly Space”. The studios album have been remixed and remastered, while the remix “EP” has been remastered as well (it was already remixed, as that was the point to begin with.) It also comes with a DVD of a live performance at Phoenix.
The first album, 1993’s “War of Words” is material very similar to what the next Priest album would have been like had Rob not left. After all, he still had Scott Travis on drums. The 2nd album, 1995’s “A Small Deadly Space” has Rob experimenting with the sound to mesh with the state of metal music in the mid-’90s. More of a ‘core sound to it. This album was not quite received as well as the first one due to that fact, but with this new remaster and remix, that strange ‘core vibe is gone to some extent. Or maybe it’s just that after 15 years, that particular vibe doesn’t bother metal fans as much, as we’ve all been inudated by it so much that we’ve grown accustomed to that sound.
But anyway, the remixed and remastered sound on these discs makes these three early ’90s releases sound quite modern. Much heavier. More bass. They sound like they were recorded yesterday. This is the way remastering and remixing should be done. Metallica take note. Same thing to Dave Mustaine as well, for his contraversial 2004 remixing of the Capitol Records releases. Don’t have to change the tempo or whatever, just bring out the sound of the instruments that were already there.
I have all theses albums uploaded on YouTube at my channel “Lincoln6Echo1″ in 720p HD quality. Check’em out.
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In: Metal music store · Tagged with: 1932
