With bassist Michael Todd and drummer Josh Eppard leaving the band mid-tour, things were looking a little hazy for Coheed & Cambria. After enjoying the success and massive buzz of their previous albums ‘The Second Stage Turbine Blade’ (February 2002), ‘In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3′ (October 2003), ‘Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness’ (September 2005) - the band was in a precarious position as it was about to begin work on the ‘Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow’ album. But as luck would have it, bassist Todd returned to the fold and former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie took over the drummer’s stool. Due to contractual obligations Pennie was not able to play on the album but Foo Fighters’ skinsman Taylor Hawkins appears in his place. Coheed & Cambria play a complex but infectious brand of Progressive Rock that is simply littered with melodic hooks and harmonies that leave you wanting more after each and every listen. Couple all this with some classic guitar riffing and lead crooner Claudio Sanchez’s high pitch Geddy Lee-esque vocals and you end up with (yet another) amazing Coheed & Cambria album! Yet amongst all the prog-rock craziness, there are some brilliant pop moments as these guys have an uncanny knack of writing what is catchy and memorable all at once. Standout tracks for me right now are ‘The Running Free’ and title track ‘No World For Tomorrow’. Bottom line, it’s a Coheed & Cambria album and with that in mind, you are guaranteed a multitude of glorious melodies, serious riffage and the continual nerd-nirvana of the three album space-rock-opera that has even made it onto the pages of a comic book! Geek bliss!
I know it is pretty fashionable to diss them, but I am unashamedly a big fan of Korn. They burst onto the scene as the Grunge move was dying a slow, flannel-wearing death and practically created what became known as Nu-Metal. Tho for the most part, this dire musical mismatch of Metal & Rap inspired some woeful and pretty forgettable acts. (Anyone remember Limp Bizkit?) But to simply label Korn as Nu-Metal is totally unfair. They are far better than that and have spawned some amazing records over the past decade. It is always with great anticipation I await a new Korn release and quickly snapped up their 8th studio album - ‘Untitled’ on its day of release. Produced by Nine Inch Nails stalwart Atticus Ross - this is a damn fine sounding album. You can hear Ross’ influence drip off each and every track. With the band’s ranks weirdly diminishing, (Head found God, Dave is on temporary hiatus) - the band recruited the amazing Terry Bozzio to drum on Untitled. As brilliant as Bozzio is, I found the drumming a little on the annoying side. I missed the ole Korn BOOM-CHUCK as Bozzio is just far too busy on some of these tracks and sonically, the groove is all over the place. Still, there’s plenty of Korn downtuned guitar and bass chunkiness to steady the ship and Davis even injects some grindcore vocals here and there. ‘Bitch We Got A Problem’ features a sickly Trent Reznor-esque keyboard melody intertwining with a malevolent bass riff that sounds positively freaky. Whilst the track ‘Hold On’ could have come off any earlier Korn album as it features all the vintage, trademark Kornisms that make this band so unique and special. The eerie ‘Do What They Say’ is such a bitching, moody fuck as it bumps and grinds from start to finish with rich musical landscapes and really nice guitar undertones. Repeated listens of Untitled continues to reveal fresh, intriguing moments and surprises throughout. Do give this one a go! It is more than worth it.
Whaddaya get when you mix liberal doses of the Rolling Stones, Radio Birdman, a dash of the punk stylings of the Saints and some Ace Frehley insipired licks and solos? Splash ‘em with some Alice Cooper/King Diamond make-up and dress ‘em up as androgynous Nazis and sailors and you’ve got Oslo’s finest exponent… Turbonegro.
It’s so rare these days to chuck a CD on and every track… and I mean every-single-solitary-aural-sonic-blast be simply outstanding. ‘Retox’ features 14 of the catchiest Rock N Roll songs you’re likely to hear all year. Dripping with sarcasm and sing-a-long anthems that inspire the listener to have this disc blasting out of your car sterero, driving down the highway with shades on, window wound down and giving the bird to pedestrians and cars you pass in pure egocentric who-gives-a-fuck about the world attitude!
This is Rock! Pure! In your face! Unadulterated ROCK!
Retox is an album I have not stopped playing. It gets better with each listen and if you’re a fan of big, dumb guitar histrionics and catchy hooks that refuse to leave your brain - then just go and get this album. Pompous! Ballistic! Offensive! And all in all fucking amazing!
Continue reading ‘Turbonegro - Retox’
Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Ronnie James Dio, Vinnie Appice
The Dio era of Black Sabbath has always had a soft-spot in my old blackened heart! The news of the formation of this incarnation of the greatest Metal bands of all-time - had this particular fanboy donning a black cape and throwing the devil-horn salute at anything that moves! Although they are touring under the monicker ‘Heaven & Hell’ due to legalities and a certain cunt known as Sharon Osbourne not allowing them to use the Sabbath name… it is still Black Sabbath and this compilation album pays tribute to Ronnie James Dio’s incredible contributions to this classic line-up. Tracks from the Dio era (Heaven & Hell, Mob Rules, Live Evil and Dehumanizer) isn’t all that you get here… there are three new tracks which prove beyond any reasonable doubt - just how insurmountably great Messrs Iommi, Butler, Appice & Dio are. The new tracks ‘The Devil Cried’, ‘Shadow of the Wind’, and ‘Ear In The Wall’ are fucking incredible! I was floored on first listen and I pray to all that is unholy that these guys give us a full album. Let’s face it, Dio’s solo career - apart from his first two albums ‘Holy Diver’ & ‘The Last In Line’ - has been a little on the lackluster side. With that in mind I was dreading what these new tracks might possibly sound like… but after picking my jaw up from the floor… I was completely blown away at what is on offer here. The new tracks are worth the price of admission alone! Brilliant Iommi riffs that chug and chug along embedding themselves deep into your synapses whilst Geezer Butler and Vinnie Appice lay down monstrous foundations. And on top of it all… the greatest voice in Metal sings like an angel possessed, waxing lyrical the doom and gloom that is and always will be… Black Fuckn Sabbath! Goddamn!!!
And here we are at the death knell of another year. This can only mean one thing for all ye faithful droogs who’ve been here since 2003. You guessed it! It’s time for the Dogmatic Best of 2006 where we look back at the year’s best offerings in the pop-counterculture’s cesspool of goodies, nasties and indeed - all the delicious things that go bump in the night! Boo!
Musically, it has been an awesome year of supremely fine tuneage with some damn good releases from the established acts of the Metalsphere as well as some great young acts coming on through. There wasn’t a month or week that went past without a decent slab of tunes coming down the pipeline.
So without further delay, and after considerable consideration, internal debate and over analysis… here are the Dogmatic Top 10 Albums Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi… 2006. Enjoy!
Continue reading ‘The Dogmatic Best of 2006′
If someone ever told you that Iron Maiden would release a classic slab of music in the year 2006, you would probably laugh in their face. And yet, Maiden’s latest opus ‘A Matter of Life & Death’ is as close to being a masterpiece as is humanly possible. In fact, this album is probably the band’s best work since the glory days of the mid-eighties and the ‘Powerslave’ era. Speaking of which, I got to see the band on their second tour of Australia in 1985 on the aforementioned ‘Powerslave’ tour. That was truly a magic day for this young metalhead as I got to spend the day with the guys as they were shooting a promo for music show Countdown. (I still have Nicko McBrain’s sweat-band and drum-sticks from that day and a slab of signed goodies that I treasure to this day! But that’s another story and another era all-together!) When the band reformed with vocalist Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith back in 2000, they released the brilliant ‘Brave New World’ album. They followed this up with the disappointing ‘Dance of Death’ album so I didn’t have high hopes for this new CD. Boy, was I wrong! This is really an incredible return to form by Maiden - particularly the second half of this album which is as majestic as it is astounding. Dickinson’s vocals are as amazing as ever and the melodic overtones that these guys manage to inject into their music is second to none. The intro to ‘The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg’ is so brilliantly dark and sombre and has ‘vintage’ Maiden stamped all over it. Same goes for my fave track on the album ‘Lord of Light’ in which Dickinson just blitzes on. Classic stuff.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the Deftones. In fact, I found them a little on the over-rated side but having said that, they did stand out from the rest of the sickly irritating ‘Nu-Metal’ movement that spawned them. Apart from their blistering debut, they’ve released a slew of bloated, pretentious and misdirected follow-ups but for some reason or another, I would always take time to check them out nonetheless. As a live act, they are simply incredible. I saw them a while ago on a Cure tribute performance and they floored me with how good they sounded. So full of atmosphere, depth and genuine emotion. I said to myself, ‘now why can’t they be like that on their albums?’ Someone must have heard me because on the latest opus ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ - they have blown me away. This is a multi-layered, textured slab of music that gets better with each passing listen. Magnificently produced by one of the genuine supremos of the production world - Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, KISS) - the sounds on this album are vast. Emotive and cathartic. ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ is a sinister and moody fuck that becomes more memorable each time you venture through the tuneage on offer. An incredible listening experience that always gets my attention every time I fire it up on the iPod.
I’ve been sitting on this review for a while for the sole reason that it takes time to fully digest anything that Mastodon release. A lot of time. ‘Blood Mountain’ marks the band’s first release for major label Warner and features a diverse range of cameos from the likes of Neurosis vocalist Scott Kelly, Queen Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Cedric Bixler-Zavala from the Mars Volta. An eclectic bunch of characters right there but then again, Mastodon are an eclectic mob themselves. Musically, Mastodon is unparalleled - delivering an intricate bludgeoning with each and every track. But it ain’t all a slice of bludgeon-riffola as far as these guys are concerned. The solos are interlaced with melodic undertones and the band have an uncanny knack of injecting unique sounding melodies with vocal and guitar alike layered on top of a complex and perplexing rhythm section. Or in short, the drumming is fucking amazing and lays an immense foundation for the band to work from. This album is so multi-faceted and continually refuses to let up its ferocity despite frequent shifts in style, mood, and attitude. Truly, a classic album.
Holy Mother of God! Celtic Frost’s newly released ‘Monotheist’ has not only exceeded my expectations, it has completely blown me away and refused to leave my iPod and iTunes. On heavy rotation, it permeates the office and home airwaves as I will not play anything else but this fucker! I had thought Celtic Frost all but dead - their glory days buried deep and far away somewhere in the mid to late 80’s. Even though the band’s origins spawned out of the (awful!) Hellhammer back in 1984 (they were so bad back then you just had to take notice!) they reformed as Celtic Frost and released the wonderful ‘Morbid Tales’.
With the rest of the metalsphere trying to mimic the fledgling Metallica and trying to play at ridiculously fast speeds, Celtic Frost took a different approach. Haunting, catchy Sabbath-esque riffs filled their repertoire. Always experimental and even operatic in places, infinitely evil and sinister, the Frost were a unique and cathartic band that were busy creating a sound uniquely their own. No one sounded like them. No one had the balls to pull off such an album as the gloom-ridden opus ‘Into The Pandemonium’. Which other Metal band would even attempt a cover of Wall of Voodoo’s ‘Mexican Radio’ and do it so magnificently? And here we are, years later - Celtic Frost have returned with quite possibly one of the finest releases for 2006. I can’t even begin to put into words just how good this album is. Innovative. Fresh. Atmospheric. Brutal. In this Metalcore (ugh!) world we currently live in where every band tries to out-muscle every other band by screaming and growling like a carbon-copy of eachother, it is refreshing, so refreshing that a band like Celtic Frost are back with an album so sinister, so macabrely evil that they are going to take the Metal world by the scruff of its collective neck and send it to hell!
With their recently announced Australian tour in October with Killswitch Engage & Unearth, (HELL YEAH!!!!) Lamb of God’s latest album - Sacrament - hit the streets this week. Yours truly quickly snapped up a copy as the record-store staff were placing this fucker on the shelves! The Australian pressing comes with an additional 90 minute ‘Making of the album’ DVD which proved to be a fascinating insight into the making of one of the albums of the year! Let’s face it, any ‘behind-the-scenes’ look into Lamb of God is always an amazing, eye-opening experience and worth the price of the CD alone. But having said that, it would be a shame not to focus on what is a blistering slab of new tunes from one of America’s definitive exponents of the Metal genre. Featuring absolute precision muscianship courtesy of the intricate and majestic drumming of Chris Adler who keeps the band tight and intense, the foundations are well and truly laid for a fine slab of Heavy Metal in its purest form. Lamb of God have an uncanny knack of producing Metal riffs that remain embedded in the sinews of your brain long after you’ve stopped listening to the album. Vocalist Randy Blythe delivers some of his finest moments. His intencity is so magnificently captured by album producer Machine. Blythe’s vocal stylings cut through the bone and his voice is filled with such venom and spite that one shouldn’t stand too close to the speakers when listening to this in case one is sucker-punched by the ferocity and anger eminating from the wall of sound. What we have as an end-result is such a complete and finely crafted Metal opus. The band have injected more melody throughout - nicely toned lead-breaks and a nice measure of controlled chaos at all times. A damingly awesome exponent of where the American Metal movement is headed these days.
A new Slayer album doesn’t happen too often. In fact, it has been a laborious five years since the underrated ‘God Hates Us All’ album pummeled our eardrums on that fateful 9-11 day. Sheesh, if ever a band was created to be the perfect soundtrack for airplanes crashing into towers - then Slayer is it! So here we are, several years later and the band’s original (and definitive) line-up have once again joined forces to bring us another slab of Slayer nastiness! With drummer supremo Dave Lombardo back in the ranks, the band is whole again. Since Lomabardo’s departure, the band never really sounded like Slayer - such is his key influence and importance to the Slayer sound. The return of it’s master skinsman, the aforementioned Lombardo, had this particular fanboy chomping at the bit! So I’ve had the album for a day now and have managed several listens and I gots to tell ya, I’m really enjoying this one. The band haven’t sounded this sinister and visceral since the glory days of ‘Reign In Blood’ & ‘South of Heaven’ - the band’s finest moments. The band haven’t abandoned their Satanic overtones, in fact, they glorify them on this album and mix it all up with the almost pro-terrorist track ‘Jihad’ - a song written from the terrorist’s point of view(!) Now isn’t that gonna rile up the skirts of Christian Middle America? Hell yeah! Slayer are at their best when they shove their collective middle finger in the ass of all that is wrong with this world - and this album is sure to piss off all the self-righteous religious scum of the Earth on the eternal quest for their collective ‘good guy badge’. This is clearly Slayer’s finest moment in over a decade - just do not listen to this one when on your next plane trip!
I grew up on the music of the mid to late 70’s. Particularly the great Rock bands that were destroying cities across the US of A. Kiss, Ted Nugent, Van Halen, Aerosmith and the mighty Cheap Trick.
These were the bands I was cutting my teeth too. These were the bands that as a mere child I would learn to drum to. My parent’s couch in our old home took a pounding until that fateful day when dad finally bought me my first drum-kit. By then, I could play any drum pattern by my heroes of the day - Peter Criss of Kiss and the enigmatic Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick. I could play any of their songs - and probably could to this day although I haven’t drummed professionally since 1990, hanging up the sticks for good to move onto greener pastures. But I digress, that is all another blog post for another day.
One slab of vinyl that the stylus of my stereo wore down (Oh God I feel so damn old!) completely was Cheap Trick’s ‘Dream Police’ album.
Continue reading ‘Cheap Trick: Dream Police’
I guess the only good thing about the tyrannical George Bush years - is the sheer ferocity he seems to inspire and excorcise out of Ministry. Over the past few years, Ministry have been incredibly prolific releasing album after album of absolute bonafide classic material. ‘Rio Grande Blood’ is certainly no exception and a spine-tingling political statement from Al Jourgensen and the band. This is a mutha fucker of an album that should be crammed down the throat of every damn right-wing Christian moron that put this monkey into power for a second term. And when they are gargling at your feet having just had a CD shoved down their wind-pipe, kick them with steel-capped boots whilst blasting out the ‘LiesLiesLies’ track! (sorry, I’m getting way overboard here - ‘LiesLiesLies’ is a classic track that borrows the riff from S.O.D’s ‘Seargent D’ track and gives it the Ministry touch!) This is easily some of Ministry’s finest work featuring guest appearances from Jello Biafra, Liz Constantine amongst others. Get your mitts on this one folks!
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