"Nothing but the rain"
This is the remix album companion to Broken. Broken is pretty good but this is better. I like the combination of decent drum beats and blistering guitar sounds. I even played this in the car with my sons so they could listen to lots of drumming.
This is very much worth owning.
I bought this album so I would have access to two songs:
Upon listening there are some other pretty good songs on here. I would recommend the following:
This is an album full of fun songs. The videos are hilarious too. Worth owning.
Another reason for liking this album is that it contains two songs played by Ca$hback, a band from the early 2000s. Check out the concert list on this page.
I really like this album. It’s most definitely aggrotech. The beats are heavy and a lot of the sounds are distorted. There’s not really any singing but they do use many samples. If you want to get moving then this is a great album. I’d almost say it hurts to listen to!
I’ve a few things to say about Bullet For My Valentine, but thinking about it I probably wrote some stuff here and here. This album was the first by Bullet that I had listened to. I think I would say that it is largely ok but nothing special. It doesn’t really hit the spot for me. The heavy bits are good but the rest is ok.
It’s ok.
Well, I’m not sure where to start with this album. There’s a lot to say and this will end up as a ramble through my history. There’s probably not a lot new there given some of the communications on this site.
I bought this album on the back of previously purchasing Music For A Gilted Generation. This new purchase BLEW ME AWAY. It is heavy and nasty and yet brilliant and perfectly produced.
I used to play quite a bit of Doom and back in ’97 or so and this album was placed in the CD tray to keep a nice background track to me blowing shit up. Fat Of The Land is perfectly moody for this task.
If you don’t own this album then you suck. Go get it. Download it. Play it. Make your ears bleed.
There isn’t a bad song on this album.
I saw this band a long time ago in Wembley Arena. I have a feeling they supported Bon Jovi, but I could be wrong. I bought this album on vinyl shortly after and then obviously I bought the CD to update my collection many years later.
This is very melodic rock/metal. In fact I think metal is NOT what it is. The whole album is very musical with tight long harmonies in the vocals. I like it but you have to be in the correct mood otherwise you’ll hate it.
This is also a very “summer” album. It’s a bit jangly. Quite possibly this is an acquired taste. I know that Andy would hate it.
“Fine Art Of Friendship” is a good song.
This is, as far as I know, the first album by Seattle giants Alice In Chains. It opens with “We Die Young”, quite simply a brilliant song that introduces the whole Alice experience. The guitars are generally heavy and slow while the vocals haunt me.
Alice In Chains formed part of the Seattle sound, a mixture of grunge and anger, but I think they stood out from the rest. On the occasions I have seen them they blew me away.
This is a brilliant album. My favourites are the opening track and “It Ain’t Like That”.
Other Alice in Chains communications are here.
If this is your type of rock then it is a good album. I had a slight Extreme revival about a year ago where I got their albums. I listened to them quite a bit in my late teens. This was their first album. You should get Pornograffitti instead.
So, here’re some photos from the Disaster Area gig on the 20 March. Our set list, although small, was perfectly formed.
The quality of these photos is terrible, mainly because they’ve come from the Disaster Area Facebook page. If you really want to see more head over to that stuff. As I’ve explained before: I don’t do Facebook.
I have an admission to make. I bought this album after getting the Jilted Generation album, which is stunning. This album is a bit more techno that I could handle and I’ve only played it maybe twice in the many years I have owned it. I couldn’t tell you much about it.
This is quite an odd album for me to own. I have two by the Chemical Brothers. They are both similar and will get the same type of review. This is a very good piece of art. The album is what I would call dance and a bit too happy for my liking but it does have it’s moments and occasionally it gets played.
You will tap your feet.
This album is an accompaniment to Everybody Hates You. I first listened to this while having a jog and I can warn you it’s not music to run to. It’s quite quiet and probably almost trance, if I had to guess at what trance is.
It is my current belief that Andy LaPlegua messes around with composing all the time and when he has enough material he adds it to an accompanying album. There’s another darkside album out there which is a bit more upbeat.
Now, dating music this is not but it is pretty good anyway.
Right people, this is a biggy. As you may have seen here and here I love Combichrist. I’ve also had identity crises because precisely of this band. This is the first Combichrist album I have come to review and this is a good one [hint: there aren’t any bad ones]. This album was released in 2005 and is part of a series of projects by Andy LaPlegua. This album can only be described as nasty and heavy, but without guitars. The genre is either Aggrotech or Hellektro depending on your language predisposition.
Sometimes musicians go all out to offend and to move the boundaries of acceptable. This is one of those albums. You can see that this is meant to annoy the establishment. It seeks out the angry youth and goes extreme. Most metal does that and the really successful stuff is nasty and angry, that’s how you make it big. Speak to people as though you understand their pain, make it a club where only your music feels on the outside of society. Sit back and watch the money roll in. You can sing about love and shit like that but I would say that’s a harder market to break.
So, this album is up there with the greats. It’s brilliant. It’s offensive with a good beat. I would recommend everyone tries this, if only to video your reaction to it. Oh, don’t look up some of the details, it’ll make you feel unwell [such as the song God Bless]. Now, here’s the thing. When I list the song titles, you need to understand that this is not an endorsement of those things. It is a list of song titles. Just as I watch war films and yet I do not endorse war or people go to church but don’t endorse all the child sex abuse by priests I listen to music and do not endorse the messages contained within. That may be a subtle argument but you just have to get over it. I like listening to stuff that moves me.
So, after all that, here’s a list of the best songs:
I love this album. I’m not sure I can explain why though. For some reason every song makes me smile and want to jump along. There’s something about the sound and beat that gets me going. This is an odd album because I would say that the sound is a bit harsher than Poison and the songs a bit ruder and I’ve grown up out of Poison. Not this album though. I still play it. Quite a bit. There’s also some slow songs on here and they don’t bother me!
I bought this on Music Cassette back in the days when they were popular and I think I was probably working at Cossor Electronics in Harlow. There was an Our Price store next to the bus station and I used to get at least one album a week. More importantly, this album along with Blue Murder turned out to be a good buy in the days before preview and dodgy downloads.
As far as I know this band only made the one album. They are described as “sleaze metal”, whatever that is? I think they sound “southern” a bit like the Black Crows, but then I could be very wrong about that. It’s a great album, almost romantic [except for the song titles].
I like it, that is all.
Favourite songs include:
You can always JFGI if you want to know more of the specifics.
Yesterday I travelled into town to see Combichrst at Koko in Camden. I took my niece and, of course, I met Andy there. We had a lovely low key dinner at Prezzo in Kings Cross station and then some cake from Patisserie Valerie. As much as dinner at a railway station sounds dull it was in the new-ish atrium and very pleasant. We walked to Camden and had a quick drink in the Lyttelton Arms before heading in to Koko. This pub and venue is just outside Mornington Crescent tube station. I suggest you look up the game “Mornington Crescent“.
First band on were DKAG. I didn’t watch them. I could hear them. They sounded quite upbeat and ok.
Second band on the bill were Naked Lunch. I wasn’t that keen. They all looked old, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but they weren’t interesting. The music was ok but the “show” was terrible.
William Control took to the stage as the third band and were very good. The songs were well crafted with some good chorus lyrics that William got everyone to join in. They were a good support band. William’s thing seemed to be twirling the microphone around like a cheerleading baton which was quite interesting to watch. After the gig, my niece spotted William at the stage door and she went over to shake his hand and inform him that she really enjoyed his set.
Now we come to the best bit.
Combichrist
Overall, Combichrist were stunning. I love their music. I Loved them live. There isn’t a great deal else to say other than: It was just awesome.
This band started with “We Were Made To Love You”. Played lots of other stuff.
Then they played more stuff including “Blut Royale”, “This Is My Rifle”, “Body Beat” and “Never Surrender”.
More songs I remember [added as and when]:
Denial
Shut Up And Swallow
Trail Of Blood (possibly)
Electrohead
At the end of the evening I was tired. I had danced and jumped and spent all my time in the pit. My niece had managed to grab a Combichrist drum stick and was the happiest girl alive. I settled for having an ace time at a gig that is officially rated as outstanding.
Some other things have come back to me whilst I was driving in to work. My niece lost a shoe at some point. Apparently a strap broke. She did find the shoe again and so this was a non point. We all chatted at some point to a girl who was at Download two years ago but was high on MDMA and cocaine at the time.
Koko itself is a very good venue. It looks great, has a balcony bar outside and two balconies inside for excellent viewing opportunities. I was very impressed with the sound quality, more than I was at Briton two weeks ago.
I should also mention that I saw Combichrist at Elektrowerkz a year ago and they were stunning then too. The previous gig a gave them a score of 9.9 < r < 10. I said at the time that I wasn’t sure why. I can now confirm that I was slightly too drunk at that gig. This time though I was just right. It scores a 10.
More post editing! I have found a website with the set list from a slightly previous gig.
I travelled to the lovely Brixton Academy last night, although it might be called something other than that. In my [not really] long time on this glorious planet I have always known the Academy as the Academy and so it shall remain in these communications.
Mastodon were the band of choice last night. I would describe them as a modern 70s rock outfit. Complex musical riffs and tunes, pretty impressive drumming and harmonious vocals leading the way.
Anyway, the first band up were Krokodil. They did nothing for me. Had they lost a guitarist and then had some singing instead of shouting then I could have been persuaded but I spent most of the time considering the audience and surrounds. The Academy is a lovely building, an ex theatre, with a sloping floor so everyone gets a good view. The art-deco interior makes this a high class venue compared to the underground grot [meant nicely] that is Elektrowerkz.
Big Business were a two-piece, bass and drummer. Their music was initially impressive and powerful but after a while I was bored. The attraction of just a bassist and drummer wore off and the songs lacked something. I wasn’t moved.
Mastodon came on at around 21:20. Like most bands they started with their last first song from the latest album. They played until around 22:45 and played lots of songs. I have no idea what songs they played because I don’t know the names of the songs. I could hum them to you, but that wouldn’t work well in this forum.
They were impressive. The sound was heavier than I was expecting as the I have earmarked the albums as 70s rock. There were simple rock riffs and complex twiddly bits. It was nice to hear different singers but sometimes the levels were a bit low, not sure if they turned the microphones down between songs or if I was just slightly in the wrong position to hear correctly, I was near the front directly in line with the SL guitarist.
Overall this gig is rated as SOLID. The music was good and I enjoyed it but there are other bands I would enjoy more. Combichrist is soon and I am rather excited for that!
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There’s a few things I’ve remembered from the show. An odd thing was that once Mastodon had finished the drummer came forward and spoke for what seemed liked ages but was probably only a few minutes. I think he was saying that London “gets” Mastodon. It was nice but very strange. Also, there was no encore. This is great. Play your stuff and then get off.
More! Some young girls (probably about 20) were smoking in front of me. A little part of me was jealous of the carefreeness of this, part of me was annoyed at the smell and part of me was proud of the rebelliousness.
Even more! A plectrum from one of the guitarists fell right in front of me. I put my foot on it and I thought I’d pick it up once people had moved away but one of the aforementioned girls went down to pick it up. She offered it to me, but I let her have it. It’s a plectrum.
And even more! I bumped into an ex-pupil who was at the show with his girlfriend. He was in a metal band while he was at school and they were pretty good. They don’t get together much now but he’s working on new stuff. I wish him all the best. When he left school he gave me a book about Metallica. Good kid.
If you want thrash metal. This album is for you. It’s fast, angry, heavy and can’t be taken too seriously. If you like Slayer, you’ll love this.
Song titles are:
It’s lovely comic stuff. Or possibly slightly scary if you can’t cope with thrash.
What is there about ZZ Top that isn’t to like? Their sound is a unique blend of well-polished down and dirty guitar rock. This album was a commercial success and had many singles that zoomed to the top of the charts. If you understand the American music taste then you’ll see why these songs worked so well.
All the songs on this album and toe-tapping head-banging great. Probably the sort of stuff you could play while your mum visits and she’d say she likes it. On my version I think “Legs” is the weakest song, but it was the biggest hit, maybe because of the video. I also think that “I need you tonight” is a lovely love song, it should be on every “intro to metal” mix tape, as it once was on a tape I made.
Alongside the comments I wrote about Boston, this is a great driving album.
This was the second album by The White Stripes that I owned. I really like the first one I owned and I guess it’ll be written about eventually in this place.
This album is much the same as the other one. I haven’t really played it a great deal in the last ten years but I really do appreciate the barebones sound and writing. I think it shows that every now and then the popular taste in music comes full circle.
One thing I would say is that this is the album with Seven Nation Army blasting off as the first song. It’s a great song with an amazing riff that has been ruined by every sports ground ever since.
Look, I am perfectly aware that this is a classic album. I’m also perfectly aware that it’s hard to criticise things that are considered classic. For instance; I’m not that keen on The Beatles, they don’t really do much for me. I feel much the same way about this album. It’s OK. I can see that it’s considered a classic and I can even see why but it does little for me. I don’t really play it often.