Tag: album

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Faith Hope Love – Kings X

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.

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Facelift – Alice In Chains

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.

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Extreme – Extreme

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.

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Experience – The Prodigy

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.

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Exit Planet Dust – Chemical Brothers

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.

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Everybody Hates You – Darkside – Combichrist

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.

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Everybody Hates You – Combichrist

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:

  • This S*it Will Fcuk You Up
  • Feed Your Anger
  • Enjoy The Abuse
  • Today I Woke To The Rain Of Blood
  • God Bless
  • This Is My Rifle
  • Like To Thank My Buddies
  • Lying Sack Of S*it
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Every Dog Has Its Day – Salty Dog

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:

  • Come Along
  • Cat’s Got Nine
  • Heave Hard (She Comes Easy)
  • Slow Daze

You can always JFGI if you want to know more of the specifics.

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Enter The Grave – Evile

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:

  • First Blood
  • Bathe In Blood
  • We Who Are About To Die

It’s lovely comic stuff. Or possibly slightly scary if you can’t cope with thrash.

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Eliminator – ZZ Top

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.

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Elephant – White Stripes

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.

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Electric Ladyland – Jimi Hendrix Experience

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.

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Eject EP – Senser

It is hard to explain just how important this EP is to me. I know that it shouldn’t really appear in this series as it’s not an album but I don’t care.

Loud, hard, heavy, angry, sexy, violent, calming, soothing, political, gentle, vicious

Rock, rap, heavy, soft, crazy, DJ, mixing, scratching, chugging, funk, trance

Andy first got me into this in around my third year of university. I lived in Ongar road and he gave me a tape of new music he had found. He always found good music and passed it on to me. It sounded a little like Faith No More who, I felt, had messed up heavy metal a little by mixing in some funk and crazy stuff.

Senser had taken music I loved and turned it on its head. They had funk, metal and they even had a DJ dude who would scratch in the background. This stuff blew my mind. It has to be played loud and let the bass ring out. I do like rolling bass lines that play all the while other ditties are played around the steady beat of the drums and thumping bass. I think all my favourite bands have managed that [AC/DC, Dokken, Iron Maiden].

So, all of the four songs on here are great. Download it from iTunes or whatever your preferred music provider is. I especially love Eject (Over Zealous Mix) with the David Koresh quotes. You youngsters should look it up and see how religion fucks everything up and belief in crazy things fucks everything up.

I would say that the sound that Senser created, along with the Prodigy, allowed other bands to build and transform the heavier side of music leading to Rammstein and Slipknot.

This EP still sends shivers down my spine. If it can do that after about twenty years then I’d say it deserves all the merit I can bestow upon it.

No one knows when it’s going to happen. When they asked him, Jesus said even he didn’t know the exact time, but it’s going to happen. One of these days, and it could be any minute now, Christ is going to come back for us all and after that it’s going to be pretty awful around here.

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Echogenetic – Front Line Assembly

I can’t quite remember how I heard about Front Line Assembly. I think they were on a compilation album and then I downloaded the album “Millennium” which will be reviewed much later in this series.

This album I bought before I saw FLA last summer at the Garage. This was their latest album and I wanted to make sure that I knew some of the songs they were going to play. I do like it. All FLA stuff makes it into my Hellektro playlist on my phone and Sonos system. This album has fewer guitar sounds throughout and is a bit more industrial/dance than Millenium. The voice is distorted and almost whispered throughout the album and that’s not my favourite type of sound. The songs are all well crafted as you would expect from someone with over 20 years in the business.

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Dream Evil – Dio

Dream Evil is a quality fast 80s metal album. It should in everyone’s collection along with Holy Diver by Dio. There are many songs on here that make me happy and send shivers down my spine. I love the sound, the feel and the attitude of the whole album. I think this, along with Holy Diver, has my ideal “sound” for a metal band. The way it is mixed really resonates with me.

The album has some definite singles, songs that are catchy and would work well on the radio and also get everyone singing at a concert. Favourite songs are:

  • Dream Evil
  • Sunset Superman
  • Naked In The Rain
  • Faces In The Window
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Dr Feelgood – Mötley Crüe

For whatever reason I really love the 80s metal/rock stuff. I’ve watched documentaries where it’s explained that it was nasty, drunk and misogynistic. I actually agree with all of that. Mötley Crüe were the worst of the bunch really, the album “Girls, Girls, Girls” pretty much sums up that era. It’s hard not to like stuff when it moves you. I think feeling moved by a song is a base emotion, possibly based on some early learnt patterns, but mostly something to do with real unconscious stuff. It’s hard to get away from what moves you like that.

Dr Feelgood is a damn good album. The production is clean and heavy. The riffs are all good it’s just a quality cock-rock album. My favourite songs of this group are: Dr Feelgood, Kickstart My Heart, She Goes Down and finally “Don’t Go Away Mad (just go away)”.

Pretty much every Crüe album has a bad song on it. They’ve always recorded one song that just doesn’t fit with the rest of the album and, for me, this is their first album where every song is valid and fits. “Without You” is a ballad, but well written, I just don’t like it much anymore.

 

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Don’t Look Back – Boston

I bought this on my Boston phase. I bought up all their stuff as I really liked “Foreplay – Long Time” from Rock Band on the Playstation. Any Boston album is very well written and just what you want. I’m pretty sure this is stuff someone not into rock would cope with playing in the background. More driving music. See Boston review.

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Discovery – Daft Punk

I think I’ve listened to this a couple of times. I’ve been getting into electronic music since I saw Combichrist with Rammstein a few years ago. I don’t think I could tell you anything about any particular song on this album. However, given it is Daft Punk I assume it to be quite a good album. Not one I regularly play but am happy to have in my collection.

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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – AC/DC

Firstly let me announce that I think AC/DC are one of the best bands ever [40 million copies of Back In Black sold]. I love the raw rock sound and the cheeky lyrics. I remember being 17 years old and discovering that there were thirteen AC/DC albums and just being excited at the thought of owning them all. I probably had three albums at that time, Blow Up Your Video being my first.

This album, from 1976, has an excellent ensemble of songs by the gritty Aussie [although there is an argument to say they were British] band. Not a single bad song. Some excellent songs.

  • Dirt Deeds
  • Love At First Feel
  • Big Balls
  • Rocker
  • Problem Child
  • There’s Gonna Be Some Rockin’
  • Ain’t No Fun
  • Ride On
  • Squealer

Big Balls is hilarious although Wikipedia claims it has controversial lyrics but it depends whether you have a dirty mind or not. I’m pretty sure this song is about a costume party [NOT].

Rocker takes the power riff and makes you bounce.

Squealer has a brilliant bass riff and is an altogether brilliant song, for some reason I love it.

Ride On makes me cry.

10/10 for this one.

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Dirty Cash – Reaper

This isn’t really an album. It’s more an EP. Of the eleven songs on the album, seven are the same song just re-mixed. I really like the other Reaper stuff and this is ok. It’s more commercial and less dark/devil-ish. Not really my kind of electronic music but ok nonetheless.

I hope to see Reaper at some point in the future. His songs really mix the darkness and sex.

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