This album was actually bought for me. I remember travelling to Wales and there was a clip of this band on BBC Radio 4. Yes, that Radio 4! I was quite surprised and the music seemed decent. So, my passenger bought this for me. I like what the band did, I like the music, but when they come on in a shuffle I tend to skip it. It’s never really something I need at the time.
Combichrist – Islington Assembly Room
So, I went to see Combichrist. Originally the tickets were for 2020 but we all know the heap of shit that this world turned into in late 2019. It has taken two years and finally I got the chance to see this amazing band (again). Luckily for me I did see them at M’era Luna two weekends ago as they replaced a band who had pulled out. This was my first time at a venue called the Islington Assembly Room – it was easy to get to and seemed very nice inside. The floor was wood and bouncy – I suspect it has been used as a ballroom in the past. The floor got slippery as soon as there was some beer on it.
First band up was a French (?) female rapper called Mimi Barks. I really enjoy her show. I liked the music and her anger. She seemed fierce. Not only that but she was in the pit for Combichrist and also sang a song with Priest and the Combichrist finale.
Next up were Priest who, as soon as they appeared on stage, I was convinced I had seen before. Smith couldn’t remember seeing them so I searched this website and found them! I had seem them with my niece one time when we watched Aesthetic Perfection. I will say that this time I thought the singing was better but overall I wasn’t that bothered by their show or music. Just not up to my incredibly high level of tastes!
Then we get Combichrist. I did not recognise any of their first three songs, but then Throat Full Of Glass came on and I was happy. I was on the edge of the pit, I wasn’t quite feeling it as much as at M’era Luna. I think I would say that the pit was more violent and a harsher environment than in Germany and so I wasn’t comfortable getting in. Also, a big part of me just wanted to watch the show. There was a fat twat in the pit who was out of control – I had to move away from the edge of the pit because I was likely to sharply elbow him if he bounced into me. He was a grade A twat.
Part of me finds it quite fascinating to watch bands up close because you start to see just how much of a job it is. You can see the musicians “acting” on stage, creating a show. I think I had always thought that they got excited for the music they were creating and lost control but that is the job for the audience. The band is there to create that atmosphere. Occasionally I see this in performers, there’s an almost dead look in their eyes, there’s only so much you can do night after night. At this gig I only really noticed this in one of the band members, I guess there’s only so much adoration you can cope with?
Anyway, Elliot Berlin was in the band and I’m a fan. He did two things I thought were amazing. During the very last song he crowd surfed while playing a big fat tom-tom. Earlier in the gig he had jumped off the stage and got into the circle-pit and played guitar while people moshed around him and that for me is the highlight of the show!
I preferred Combichrist before they were metal.
M’era Luna 2022
THREE YEARS. That’s how long it had been since I’d been anywhere other than the south east of the UK, Lincolnshire or Cornwall [which was twice this month]. Three years since Smith and I had travelled to Germany to see a collection of bands, dress in weird shit and have a great time. The wait was worth it. 2022 was a great year for M’era Luna and I had an amazing time. There was news to make this year’s event even more interesting: a band had to pull out and they were replaced by Combichrist!
The journey out to Germany went well. The Eurotunnel was on time and Smith and I made it to our standard hotel in Bochum with time to explore the centre of the city and get some food. Most of the centre looked like Harlow – a new town in the UK. But we did find a street with some life and many restaurants. It was a hot evening with temperatures hitting 30C. After food and a couple of drinks we headed back to cheap hotel and planned Friday.
We arrived at Hildesheim early and queued for entry into the camp site. Once in we chose a spot far enough away from the noise and close enough to the car. Then we went for a walk to see how the grounds had changed in the three years since we had been there. Friday night is normally disco night but we didn’t go to that. Instead we found a bunch of Germans who we knew and spent some time with them, drinking their beer. It was good fun. The real music started at 1100 on Saturday though.
As with previous years this is where I just copy my notes from my phone. I can’t remember every band or song. I can’t remember what I thought about them. So I make notes as I go and then regurgitate them here. What follows is pretty much, word for word, my notes. Occasionally I will add detail for particular bands as I have remembered more from those appearances.
SATURDAY
Enemy Inside – main stage -I enjoyed this. They had a female lead singer and it was rock/metal.
Rave The Requiem – main stage – I also enjoyed this, christian sounding metal. There were references to religious passages and I couldn’t tell if they were critical or supportive after that.
Ambassador 21 – club stage – industrial punk and was great. I really loved this show.
Schattenmann – main stage – actually really enjoyable. Heavy songs. Singer had a chainsaw. Flames from front of stage.
OST+Front – main stage – Enjoyable, very similar to when we last saw them. German new metal. Female dressed in various outfits.
Lacrimas Profundere – main stage – Waiting for Faderhead tbh. Opening bars were really good. But everything else was not. Went to sit in the shade at Club stage.
Solitary Experiments – club stage – perfectly fine but his voice isn’t strong enough. A bit boring really.
Faderhead – club stage – AMAZING. Totally loved this. This was the best attraction on Saturday.
Blut Engel – main stage – halfway through when we arrive. Everything Is Black playing. Next song had 4 girls on stage. 4 songs then left to:
In Strict Confidence – club stage – 3 good songs.
Nitzer Ebb – main stage – probably great if you are off your head. Nice beat stuff. But boring live.
SUNDAY
Hell Boulevard – main stage – they sang hit me baby one more time.
Aeverium – main stage – elements of thrash, not really. But I enjoyed it.
Unzucht – main stage – Fuchs yeah. I do love a bit of Unzucht and they were really enjoyable. Great fun.
Feuerschwanz – main stage – medieval rock shit
Combichrist – main stage – Andy and I started the pit and it was good. Thank god. This made the weekend worth it. Totally loved the show.
Rotersand – club stage – amazing. Really enjoyable. People came and thanked us for starting the pit during the Combichrist show.
Nachtmahr – club stage – good show. Two dancers.
Eisbrecher – main stage – amazing show, really good fun.
And there we have it. A great weekend. Such a shame there were massive delays getting back into the UK but that’s the sort of shit we have to put up with now I guess a bunch of arseholes lied to us. One of the best bits of the weekend for me was Smith’s realisation that paying to have a shit in the posh loos was worth it and made things soooo much better.
Wheels Of Steel – Saxon
I do like a bit of Saxon. I am rather partial to their sound. Can I tell you what’s on this album? No. I’ve got a “best of” and that’ll do for me. Not sure when I got this particular album.
Weapons – Lostprophets
Fuck. I don’t know what to say. I haven’t listened to this band since it became known the singer was a paedophile. I just can’t physically listen to it.
I remember that musically this was great. I saw the band once and it was amazing. In a very small way I feel I enabled that man. I know I didn’t. The best thing is that as soon as people knew he was a cunt they just stopped playing this stuff. The political right would have called this “cancel culture”, but really it’s just “we don’t support your views so fuck off”. I feel sorry for the rest of the band. But fuck the singer.
We Want Moore! (Live) – Gary Moore
I’ve had this album since I was a teenager. Listening now I’m surprised that I’ve never heard the first song before but I think my taped version never had that on it. I have always been surprised that Gary Moore wasn’t a bigger star. Everything thing has written is fantastic. He had a great voice, played well, good song writer. I wonder if it’s a thing that his music resonated with me more than with other people and I’m placing my values on the world? Just because I like something doesn’t mean everyone should, and I’m aware that’s clearly a thing, but the metal crowd should love this stuff. It’s amazing.
Every song on this album is great. I think everyone should own this album.
I have to add to this communication. I’ve been playing this album while doing home admin and generally “surfing the internet” [which I don’t think people say anymore]. This album is beautiful. Empty Rooms, Back On The Streets, Shapes Of Things, Victims Of The Future, Cold Hearted. All these songs hit me right where it matters. It’s an album I can listen to when I’m really happy. It makes me happier. If I was sad it would make me sadder. It hits the emotions. Today it makes me absolutely really fucking happy, it’s a Legend of an album.
Nine Inch Nails – The Eden Project
This weekend has been pretty awesome. Smith and I drove down to Cornwall yesterday to see the band Nine Inch Nails. There aren’t many bands that would have the draw to get us to travel the width of the country but NIN are one of them. Firstly we stayed at a hotel in Okehampton which was on the route and far enough away from Eden to make the journey home this morning less by an hour. While waiting in Okehampton I persuade Smith that we should try and see a viaduct!
We parked near the reservoir and walked down by the river to the viaduct. Climbed up and walked the length of the bridge/viaduct. On the return journey we saw Dartmoor ponies and they were rather cute. We also got up close and personal with the dam holding back the reservoir waters.
After the walk and some food we drove to Eden. Parking was at the top of the project but there were shuttle buses up and down before and after the concert. It was lovely wandering through the biomes with 6000 other metal fans. It was absolutely pissing it down outside at this point with a lightning storm. The noise of this inside the biomes was like a small jet taking off, quite spectacular.
First band on were Yves Tumor. Not really my thing. Listened to a couple of songs but left it at that. Wandered around for a while.
Nine Inch Nails were quite spectacular. There wasn’t much interaction with the crowd from Trent Reznor. But is was still an amazing show. I hadn’t noticed until right towards the end of the concert that the biomes had lights and lit up as part of the show. The sound quality was really good and the fact there were only 6500 people attending made it quite an intimate venue. It’s the largest concert I’ve been to for years (mostly because of covid).
Andy disappeared into the pit on the second song which was “Wish” from The Downward Spiral. I maintained my composure until they started playing March Of The Pigs and I joined in with the pit. I didn’t stay there, I just hovered on the edge and enjoyed the show.
At one point Trent spoke and said there were two things that happened this evening that had never happened at any other gig. First, he made a mistake playing one of his songs and secondly, there was a rainbow. The rainbow was enjoyed by the crowd, it was quite life-positive-affirming.
It was a great concert. As we left and walked up the winding path to the main entrance my niece called both of us and drunkenly chatted which was pretty funny. Also, the biomes were lit up thus:
What hits!? – Red Hot Chili Peppers
This album was one of my first CDs! I recall getting a CD player in somewhere around 1993. Before then I had used vinyl records and cassette tapes. I think I knew about the song “Under The Bridge” and that was on this album so I bought it. There were a few CDs I had bought before I even owned a CD player because I knew I would get one. I really enjoy this album. It is a good collection of the best songs this band produced in the days before they got mainstream and super massive. I’ve always considered the band to be a great rock show. I’m also really impressed with the bass playing because bass was meant to be my thing but I didn’t practice enough to become great at it. I consider myself “good enough to play a song”. I am not musical.
I’ve just looked at the track listing and I could have sworn that Give It Away was on this album but it isn’t and now I need to go and re-evaluate all my memories!
Weirdmachine – Treponem Pal
I bought this album after seeing Treponam Pal support Killing Joke at the Forum. It’s quirky and fun. Worth the money.
We Are Not Your Kind – Slipknot
I’ve been listening to this while doing some other things on the computer and this is a very good album. I enjoy it a lot and there are some great songs. But the problem, as always, with this new music is that is has to get into my brain on top of all the old music and I think the old dog struggles sometimes to learn new tricks. I can remember playing this album in the car quite a bit and I liked it.
Slipknot are great.
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.
Welcoming iTunes Back
I have been using CopyTrans for over ten years to manage the music on my iPhone. I found in the distant past that iTunes mostly hated me and it would crash/hang/takeforever to do anything and was a complete pain to use when synchronising with my phone. So I move to a free piece of software that did exactly what I wanted CopyTrans. I could upload songs to my phone and edit their details. This worked well because some music I have been buying from Bandcamp rather than through iTunes because the artists get more money. I was still using iTunes to collate all my music on the NAS drive and for the Sonos system. It made sense as it organises the music nicely into directories and allows the creation of playlists. The thing I couldn’t do was synchronise my phone.
All of that changed when I got a better computer. But it has still taken around two years to actually take the plunge and delete the music from my phone and allow iTunes to do its job. There were a couple of things that made me do this. There were two albums which CopyTrans consistently – or maybe my phone – had the wrong artwork even though it was correct in the iTunes library. I really couldn’t figure out how to correct this. I also wanted to synchronise a playlist onto the Sonos system, one I had created on my phone. I took the plunge yesterday and for the first time in over ten years I plugged my phone into the computer and opened iTunes at the same time. I clicked synchronise and left it to do its job.
Three hours later, after transferring around seven thousand songs, it was done and I opened the music app to see what had happened. It had worked! After deleting some albums a second time around I synchronised again and it took a couple of minutes. Well, that is a timeframe I can live with. This makes it a lot easier to buy music and keep all the content nicely aligned over time. I’m quite happy and it feels like a decent achievement. Sad really, but I do feel smug sometimes over music.
War Is The Answer – Five Finger Death Punch
It isn’t. Decent people is the answer. Don’t think I’ve ever listened to this.
Not All Of It, Just What’s On The Phone
Here is my music library as screen captured from iTunes. I think you can head over to this actual page and see a word list of all the song.
I just thought this would make a good visual representation of what sort of stuff I’ve got.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.