Category: Album Reviews

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W.A.S.P. – W.A.S.P.

I’ve been trying to see this band for about two years! It’s all been messed up by Covid-19. I missed this band in the late 80s and early 90s for some reason. There were stories of Blackie Lawless throwing raw meat into the audience and I wonder just how true those stories are? It doesn’t really matter. This band cemented their reputation with the song “Animal”. I love the sound of this album but it’s not one I’ve played loads as I prefer the live album which has many of these songs on it. This is proper 80s cock rock.

  • Fuck Like A Beast – AKA “Animal”, a brilliant song and really quite funny.
  • I Wanna Be Somebody – a galloping song of excellence.
  • Love Machine – another galloping song and it’s great.
  • The Flame – Pretty good.
  • B.A.D. – a little slow for my liking but a generally good song.
  • School Daze – Blackie’s voice is so classic. This song is ok. Funny cow bell like sounds.
  • Hellion – I’d love to mosh to this one. It has a good speed, the crowd would be amazing.
  • Sleeping (In The Fire) – a great slower song.
  • On Your Knees – Nice up tempo song. Classic W.A.S.P.
  • Tormentor – Excellent.
  • The Torture Never Stops – Proper galloping.
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Walk On – Boston

This has been playing while I take a flight in X-Plane.

I need your love – well constructed but bland!
Surrender to me – starts really well. Decent riff. Pretty much maintained this until the end.
Livin’ For You – slow and boring. probably a good song.
Walkin’ At Night – somehow missed this when it was playing or it was a short song.
Walk On – Amazing guitars after a slow start, very rock ‘n’ roll.
Get Organ-Ized – Decent organ solo instrumental. Very operatic.
Walk On (Some More) – Decent reprise of Walk On to make the last twenty minutes one song.
What’s Your Name – Another pretty decent song that’s written really well.
Magdalene – Look, this is a good song, but it’s boring.
We Can Make It – It’s an ok song.

Here’s the thing I’ve said before about Boston. It’s absolutely really well written music and it’s great for the car. I would imagine that if you know the songs then they would be brilliant for singing along to.

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Vulgar Display Of Power – Pantera

There are those people who fixate on a couple of bands and then there are others who just like lots of slightly different same sounding stuff. I’d like to think I’m in the second group but I’ve obsessed over bands in the past and some I’ve seen multiple times. Anyway, that’s a really boring way of saying that Pantera are OK but they never really hit home with me for some reason. I got this album and really like Mouth for War, Walk and Fucking Hostile. I think I remember being at a concert in Brixton (?) when Fucking Hostile came on in the before the gig music selection and I really enjoyed it. But, that’s about it. For some reason I never quite got into Pantera.

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Volkerball: Live In Nimes – Rammstein

There’s a lot to say in this communication but also at the same time every song on here is covered in another communication where I review the studio album. So, there isn’t a lot to say. Except, Rammstein have the best fucking sound I have ever heard live. The show is amazing but the sound shocks me at how good it is. I’ve seen them three times and haven’t had a bad experience. Wembley Arena, Donnington, and Milton Keynes Stadium, every time it was an amazing experience and I loved it. This is a band who knows how to put on a show and knows how to create an album. See it, love it.

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Volcano – Satyricon

I got some Satyricon albums when I was due to see them as part of a festival in 2014. The festival got cancelled and I didn’t end up seeing this band. I might have listened through this once, I’m not sure. I didn’t like it.

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Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses – Slipknot

I’ve had this album playing while I’ve been sorting out my SSL certificate on this website. So, given the music has finished I’ve been working on this for about an hour. I’d like to say I managed to do it all myself but I had to employ some lovely people at my hosting company a few times to guide me through the process. I think it’s something I did about two years ago so it’s unlikely for me to remember all the things I have to do. I also find that terminology changes between help pages and the actual webpages that you are trying to edit so it can be a pain sometimes when you aren’t sure if you are doing the right thing.

This album has some awesome songs on it, mostly I think I know them from the Antennas From Hell live album but they are still good songs. I highly recommend The Blister Exists, Duality, Before I forget.

It’s a Slipknot album. It’s what you expect. Chaos and noise. It’s great.

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Vixen – Vixen

It’s been a while since I wrote an album review but I’m tantalisingly close to getting this done. I’ve started to understand the problems with winning a Grand Slam or the World Championships – it’s something you dream about and hope for and work towards, then, once you win, there’s nothing left to aim for, it’s done, all that work is ended. Now, while not a sporting accomplishment, I get that kind of feeling when I finish a television series. The time, the emotional investment, the pain, it all comes down to the final hour of broadcast and then is over. It’s something I simultaneously want to do and yet, I’m worried about what comes next. So, here we are with the album reviews and my around the world flight on X-Plane. Some day these reviews will end. Once I’ve done the A-Z of albums I’m going back to review all the non-metal albums! I’ve already got plans to review all the EBM albums I have, which is pretty much everything I’ve bought over the last ten years. I am mildly terrified what I’ll do once I get back to RAF Valley on my around the world flight. I’m currently in South Korea and still have to get around the Americas but one day that will come to an end.

I do love this album. It’s a product of its time almost perfectly. It’s such an 80s rock sound and is great to listen in the summer. I think it makes perfect BBQ background music, but then I could be wrong about that. I know that whenever I put music on the atmosphere dies so . . . . This album was recommended by Mark H when I was at school. I think he had a copy and so I got it on tape. Music cassettes were the easiest way to transport music and also listen while moving in those days. I don’t think there’s a bad song on this album. It’s brilliant middle of the road tempo rock that works in almost any situation. The fact that it’s recorded by women is secondary to all that.

If you want an album to recreate the worst or best of the 80s without the blatant misogyny then this is a good choice. Women playing hard music and beating the men at the job. I really do enjoy this album. It’s always enjoyable.

This is communication number 2014 and so I write a few things that happened in that year of the common era, all the while knowing that soon I’ll have to make a decision about what happens when I reach 2022.

  • Belgium legalises euthanasia.
  • MH370 disappears.
  • 304 people die when a Korean ferry capsizes.
  • Alan Eustace sets a world record highest and longest free fall jump from 135,908 feet.
  • Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae probe successfully lands on Comet 67P.
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Vivid – Living Colour

I got this album because Living Colour should be something I want to listen to. I’ve never listened to it.

This is communication number 2004. Here are some things that happened that year.

  • Transit of Venus which I remember watching at work.
  • Schumacher wins his final F1 title.
  • The Millau viaduct opens.
  • The Boxing Day tsunami.
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Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor – Rob Zombie

All the Rob Zombie stuff is good. I bought a load before seeing him at M’era Luna a long time ago apparently, I seem to remember it was just the year before last, covid has fucked memories. I couldn’t tell you anything specific about this album. I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you got it.

This is communication number two thousand and two. Here are some things that happened in that year:

  • The Euro becomes the currency of those countries in the Eurozone.
  • Iraq agrees to disarm wrt UN Resolution 1441.

It’s been curious completing these little lists of things that happened in each year. When I started back in the 1800s I think there were lots of things that stuck out from the rest as I went through the list of events on Wikipedia. I found fires, human rights and climate change things with ease. Now I’m looking at the lists of things from the 2000s it’s becoming harder to find things that resonated with me in that time. The 80s and early 90s were quite clear and events stuck out. But, now, not so much. I wonder if that’s to do with my experience of those years and whether I just wasn’t that aware of what was going on? It will be interesting to see what happens as we come closer to the present day.

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Use Your Illusion II – Guns ‘n’ Roses

Each new communication seems we get a little closer to ending the work that has been the album reviews because that is literally the definition of writing about a finite list. But, I will go back to the beginning and start over with all the EBM, Aggrotech music once I’ve finished this. It looks like there’s around thirty or so to go but I don’t think I’ll finish them this calendar year. Here’s a tweet about a journey around the world that I’m undertaking at the moment. Nothing to do with music but it’s nice to add something into these communications.

Here we go with my review of Illusion II. It’s very similar to Illusion I in its feel and atmosphere. They did come out on the same day.

Civil War – boring.

14 Years – Doesn’t have a huge amount going for it.

Yesterdays – plinky plonky boring.

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – great live, but then it’s not their own song. Dull as.

Get In The Ring – something worth listening to. I testament to Axl’s treatment by the metal music press. He calls out the journalists and reckons he could fight them. Look, when you are out of it on drugs and alcohol you think things should be settled in one way only. I do like this song.

Shotgun Blues – Nope.

Breakdown – whatever.

Pretty Tied Up – I quite like this one. It’s a bit more upbeat that most and makes me smile.

Locomotive – I’m playing this right now and I genuinely can’t remember this song!!

So Fine – boring.

Estranged – boring.

You Could Be Mine – used in a film. A good song.

Don’t Cry – AGAIN? What. Isn’t this on number one?

My World – really nope.

I know it looks like I hate this album and I do think I would skip a lot of the songs if they came on now but I loved this and the other one. They forged a part of me. I mean, I saw Guns ‘n’ Roses three times in the early 90s and had a great time at every concert. I’m not sure Illusion II stands the test of time, or possibly the test of my patience with ballads.

This is communication number 1995 and we get closer to the massive TWO THOUSAND each week. I wonder if the end of the second thousand communications will happen this side of my christmas break or in it. It depends how keen I am to keep writing stuff on here. Here are some things that happened in the year 1995:

  • I started learning to be a teacher after a year of doing sabbatical stuff.
  • Genocide in the Balkans.
  • Windows 95.
  • Existence of top quark is announced.
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Use Your Illusion I – Guns ‘n’ Roses

There was a time when Guns ‘n’ Roses were the largest band in the world. This is communication 1994 and it’s quite close to the release year of 1991 for these two albums, Illusion 1 and Illusion 2. I can remember walking around near South Kensington underground station trying to find an “Our Price” record shop to buy these things. My thinking was that that there are shops near the tube station and so there should be an “Our Price”. Where I grew up where there were lots of shops there was an Our Price so I think my logic was solid I just hadn’t realised at that point just how “shoppy” London can be. I had to walk all the way to Kensington High Street to find a shop that could sell me these albums. I know I bought them on album and then transferred them to tape to listen more conveniently, record players being quite rare in drivable vehicles.

I have listened to these albums recently and I would think it’s been around twenty years since my last full run through of the songs. There are some songs that I really like and many that I’m just not fussed by. I wonder how much my experience of these songs has changed over the last thirty years. I think I’ve changed a lot in my tastes. I mean, fuck ballads. But then I don’t think I’ve ever really loved Don’t Cry and November Rain – they are too popular and musically written to create that popularity.

Right Next Door To Hell is a good fast song that smashes the sound and experience into your head. But it’s followed by:

Dust N’ Bones which is a bit bluesy and shit. It was with these two albums that G’n’R started having lots of backing singers on tour and it all went a little not-dangerous. But what are you going to do when you are the biggest band in the world.

Live and Let Die can fuck off.

Perfect Crime is a bit boring and so much of the same. Maybe I’m too old for this shit. I’m not bothered by most of this. I do think Appetite is still an amazing album though.

You Ain’t The First is boring.

Bad Obsession I absolutely love the slide guitar at the beginning of this song. It’s an awesome sound. Is that a harmonica in the mix? Not sure, but I don’t think I like it. The song isn’t terrible though.

Back Of Bitch. I really struggle with the term bitch when referring to people. I don’t like it. It reeks of a poor attitude and behaviour.

Double Talkin’ Jive I quite like the solo and overall I think the song works quite well.

November Rain – utter shit.

The Garden – is that fucking Alice Cooper? Such a malevolent voice. Makes this entire song something worth listening to.

Garden Of Eden – nope.

Don’t Damn Me – again, a decent riff and a decent song. I like this one.

Bad Apples – nope.

Dead Horse – OK.

Coma – I quite like a decent opus and this one works for me!

I guess the next album to be reviewed will be Illusion II with bloody Civil War and other songs that are wildly popular but just piss me off. Oh well. I can’t help being a grump.

This is communication number 1994, so here are some things that happened in that year, the twenty-third of my time on Earth.

  • I graduate and prior to that had won an election.
  • Bill Clinton calls for a ban on assault weapons. I wonder how that’s going.
  • The Downward Spiral is released.
  • Kurt Cobain takes his own life.
  • Ayrton Senna is killed the day after Roland Ratzenberger dies.
  • The Channel Tunnel is opened to passengers.
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Up From The Ashes – Don Dokken

I really do just like some classic cock-rock. And this I think is classic cock-rock. I don’t know anything about the history of Dokken and Don Dokken, it’s mid to late 80s stuff and all information about rock bands came from magazines in those days. I didn’t really care for that stuff. Does it matter who leaves what band and who fought whom? I guess it’s a bit like a soap opera if you are really into that stuff but I don’t think I was really bothered by it. When Izzy left G ‘n’ R it was more a understanding of “yes that makes sense” than OMG G ‘n’R are breaking up. Bruce left Iron Maiden and I wasn’t fussed and so on.

Sometimes I wonder why people give up on a thing that clearly makes them plenty of money. If I had an acting job that meant loads of money but it was shit TV then part of me would want to keep doing that job. However, the motivation of money is much higher in my personal priorities having grown up with not much of it and as an adult choosing a career where the financial rewards aren’t great [even diminished under the tories]. Ah, now I see my motivation – I chose a career path that I find fascinating and fun and the lack of money is just a side product which I cope with – hence other people choosing to leave their success and seek fulfilment. Good on them.

I don’t think Dokken were ever megastars with the ability to retire whenever they want. One of their songs was used for a film soundtrack and that’s about the limit of their fame and fortune. Their favourite album of mine was recorded in Japan and as a previous headteacher of mine said to me once regarding his own music success in Japan – they buy any old shit over there. So as I write this the songs are playing and they are broadly speaking very well constructed rock songs with reasonable riffs and verses that are a little too ballad for my tastes now. I don’t really like songs which slow down. The verse should be upbeat and then the chorus should be even more so. It’s an 80s thing to have ballad shit in songs and keep repeating it. I don’t think I’ve ever really liked it.

Some song highlights are:

  • When Some Nights – I like the guitar and bass combo in this one. It’s the fist song with some life in the album.
  • Give It Up – good bass sound. Good quality sing along song.
  • Down In Flames – interesting opening with mechanical voice.
  • The Hunger – opening drums – amazing, riff – amazing. Balled verse – shit.

Comms #1991, so here are some things from that year:

  • I was working at Raytheon/Cossors and almost considered joining the air force if the Gulf War became “bad” whatever that means.
  • I started university and met some great people.
  • Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
  • The Moby Prince sinks killing 140 people.
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United Abominations – Megadeth

Here’s the thing with Megadeth; since they gave up drugs and became all christian they’ve kinda gone a bit shit. I understand the reasons for coming off drugs, that makes loads of sense, I’m not sure I understand the christian part because doesn’t that mean that god made them an addict in the first place and he’s a fucking asshole? I do know that twelve step programmes might not work that well and one of the steps is to surrender yourself to a higher power. Fuck that shit. In Scandinavia they have a programme that doesn’t depend on abstinence and that works better I suspect. Anyway, it’s a complicated picture and not one that I’m going to do justice to in this here little blog.

This album is not on my iPhone. I think that says it all really. While it’s in my collection and on the NAS drive in the house I won’t listen to it anywhere else. To be perfectly honest if I want some Megadeth in the house I wouldn’t even put this album on. I think there’s only so much twiddly thrash metal you can have in your head at one time before all the songs start to sound the same [I will admit that typing that just made me sick]. The Megadeth albums on my phone are:

  • Killing is my business . . . And business is good.
  • Peace sells . . . But Who’s Buying.
  • So Far So Good . . . So What.
  • Rust In Peace.
  • That One Night – Live In Buenos Aires.

So, there. You now know what I think of this album.

This is communication number 1989 and as has become a recent tradition these are some things, curated by me, that happened in that year.

  • 47 died in the Kegworth air disaster.
  • Union Carbide agree to pay the Indian government 470million for causing the deaths of 3,700 in the Bhopal disaster of 1984. [$127,000 per human life in case you wondered].
  • 97 people die in the Hillsborough disaster.
  • 51 people die in the Marchioness disaster.
  • 11 die in bomb attack at Deal Barracks, Kent.
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Unholy Terror – W.A.S.P.

I had this album playing while I was flying X-Plane yesterday. I had thought that I might recognise some of the songs, but I did not. It could be that yesterday was the first time I actually played this album. W.A.S.P. are a comically larger than life band who sought out the controversy and I’m hoping to see them soon. But this album left me unfazed. Just go listen to Live . . . In The Raw.

This is communication number 1988 and it’s quite exciting writing and finding these little happenings each year as we enter a period of time when I was quite aware of the world and the goings on therein. I was sixteen in this year. ATC summer camp was at RAF Coningsby, I took my GCSEs, it was the very first year of those examinations.

  • 3 members of the IRA are shot dead by SAS in Gibraltar.
  • 167 die in the Piper Alpha oil platform explosion.
  • 75 people are killed in an airshow accident at Ramstein.
  • Total one million dead as Iran Iraq war ends.
  • F-117 acknowledged as existing and first B-2 is revealed.
  • Pan Am flight 103 is blown up over Scotland, the debris lands on town of Lockerbie.
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Undaunted – Mordecai

I saw this band live at Download 2013. They were in a smaller tent and Smith and I just went there out of curiosity. They were not terrible. It was perfectly good rock/metal music. So, I bought their album.

I’m not sure there’s anything special about the album. There’s not really anything that stands out enough to say that this band should be massive. But, that might be the crux. The whole album is crafted really well. There aren’t any shit songs and it all works pretty well. It’s a pretty good choice when I want to listen to rock but nothing superstar.

This is communication number 1987 and as with recent traditions I have been adding a few things that happened in that particular year in the current calendar system. Having typed this I’ve remembered I didn’t do it for my previous communication so I’ll head back that way and adjust it shortly.

  • The Archbishop of Canterbury had sent an envoy to the middle east to try and help but Terry Waite was kidnapped and not released until 1991.
  • 193 people die in the Herald Of Free Enterprise ferry disaster at Zeebrugge.
  • 16 people are killed in a massacre in Hungerford, UK.
  • Mathias Rust lands a small light plane in Red Square Moscow.
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Ultra Payloaded – Satellite Party

I think I got to hear about this album from a television show I watched in Australia, something like that. It’s a side project of the singer for Jane’s Addiction and as such, this is an OK album. I enjoy the songs when they pop up on a shuffle but I don’t think it’s an album I would normally reach for unless it’s summer time and maybe I’m outside in the garden, it’s got that kind of feel to it.

This is the first of the “U” albums and it’s a quite exclusive club. Definitely not as many as “T”, thank goodness. We’ll be at the end of the list soon I guess unless the “W”s have a surprise for us.

This should be communication number 1973 because all the other communications before this one have been building up to number 2000. That’s why I started added year-information-stuff. But now there’s a controversy. WordPress thinks this is number 1972 and not 1973 and I really am unsure why.

I get a “posts” count at the top of my WordPress page and have been using that to figure out the particular comms# but systems have gone wrong somehow. Now I don’t want to repeat a load of information and maybe I should make the content dynamic somehow but I’m going to stick with the system I have been using and hope WordPress catches up with me soon. Maybe this is my “millennium bug”.

Here are some things that happened in 1973:

  • The UK joins the EEC, fore-runner of the EU.
  • US dollar is devalued by 10%.
  • Dark Side Of The Moon is released.
  • Tu-144 crashes.
  • Sydney Opera house is formally opened.
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Tummy – Wat Tyler

Gosh, it has taken a while to get to this point but this is the last of the “T” albums. Once I complete all the albums alphabetically it’ll be time to go back to the beginning and start reviewing all the EBM, aggrotech, albums that I have. Sorry about that but I don’t think there is an end to this portion of this site. If you think these are boring just wait for my list of airports I have used in the Round The World Trip in X-Plane!!

I saw Wat Tyler at a gig in the Square in Harlow way back when I had more hair than now. They were funny and I bought this CD at the merch table. This album is the perfect mix of well written songs and joke songs which make me laugh. I love it.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • Justify Your Book – is it just me or is the singer’s voice remarkably sexy here?
  • It Makes Me Belch – heavy riff and shouty vocals with a great hook into the chorus.
  • Hops And Barley – such an amazing wholesome song.
  • Coming Home – a lovely sea shanty from before sea shanties being popular.
  • Perry Groves – apparently a song about soccer.
  • The Definitive Love Song – a bit of a Freebird rip off with spoken lyrics to make you laugh.
  • Dodgepotterydo – a song with the lyrics of Rolf Harris songs sung to the tune of “Stairway To Heaven”.
  • James Whale – sung to the tune of “I just called to say I love you” but with a chorus of “James Whale you’re a fucking cunt, you’re a fucking cunt”. If you aren’t sure who James Whale is then think Piers Morgan but slightly less offensive.
  • Ruder Girl – If I can find the lyrics I will put them at the end of this communication.
  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – you will love this.
  • Wet Wet Wet (The Fucking Bed) – hilarious.
  • The Little People Make Lurve – a classic operatic story of elves and dwarves and shit.

Gosh, we’ve reached the 1970s in terms of communications and here are some things that happened that year:

  • Unix time epoch.
  • The USA invades Cambodia.
  • Tu-144 exceeds Mach 2.
  • Stonewall Riot.
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Troublegum – Therapy?

Opening lines:

“I’m gonna get drunk, Come round and fuck you up
I’m gonna get drunk, Come round and fuck you up”

This album has the speed and power of a classic punk album but with a little more subtlety. The melodies are great and I do enjoy playing this. While I might not know what the songs are called when they are played I definitely know the songs and this album gets played or at least not-skipped when it comes up in a shuffle. Heavy riffs with disturbing lyrics, you can’t get better than that I guess. This is well worth getting.

The song Nowhere is super single material, very well crafted.

This is communication number 1967 and curating events that happened in certain years seemed a good idea at the time but I do find it irritating now. But, I want to get to the point where I am making up shit for the future, that’s my dream, that’s my nightmare. These shitty few pages are going to make me the Nostradamus of the future, I best get good at being vague as shit.

  • Apollo 1 fire.
  • North Sea Gas starts pumping.
  • China tests its first H-Bomb.
  • First cash machine in world.
  • Race Riots in USA.
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TRON: Legacy – Daft Punk

I got this because I quite liked the music in the film Tron: Legacy. Also because I’m aware of Daft Punk and don’t really mind their stuff. I haven’t played it that often and so pretty much I have no views on this album.

This is communication number 1966 and here are some things that happened that year:

  • SR-71 goes into service.
  • Plenty of racism in USA. Also evident in UK but less noticed.
  • A B-52 crashes and drops three hydrogen bombs on Spain. They don’t go off.
  • Hovercraft service starts across the Channel.
  • An XB-70 crashes.
  • Aberfan disaster where 144 are killed.
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