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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Combichrist – Koko
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.
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.
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.
Disaster Area 10 Oct 2014
Disaster Area played a couple of songs at the MGS Arena on the 10 October 2014. This should really be a page under the DA section on MyMusic but I am moving those pages to communications to tidy up my menu etc.
Set List:
- Symphony of Destruction
- Highway To Hell
Disaster Area is:
- Shredder Shillito
- Destroyer Martin
- Punisher Parish
- The Anvil Gymer
Here’s some pictures, if I can get a video I’ll embed it on this page too.
A little later in the gig most of Disaster Area joined Iron Maidstonian to play a couple of Maiden songs:
- The Number Of The Beast
- 2 Minutes To Midnight
Rock Star Super Nova
I stole the title for this communication from an American TV show from around 2006. This is just some more pictures of me at the Disaster Area gig at MGS. They’ve been released onto Facebook which is why the quality is pretty poor.
Aesthetic Perfection – Electrowerkz
So, Alt-Fest got cancelled. Rather gutted about that. I was looking forward to a weekend seeing some favourite bands and also discovering new music and bands along the way. I guess a number of bands had already organised travel to the UK as a (much) smaller festival turned up at Electrowerkz in Angel.
The SOS Festival played over this weekend and many of the bands who were booked to appear at Alt-Fest played here instead. One of my favourite bands played on Sunday 17 August and I travelled there to see them. I also took my niece as I was going to take her to Alt Fest for her birthday.
Here’s the timings sheet from the front door of the entrance. It’s blurry because I took it in a hurry.
This bothered me slightly! The last train home was at 23:43 from St Pancras, just over a mile from the venue. It wouldn’t be worth it to leave early, or to get the tube, the quickest method to get to the mainline would be to run. We decided that was what we would do.
Jared Louch and Mark Plastic were good fun. Mark Plastic was a guitarist and he played along to a backing track while Jared Louch sang. The songs were reasonable but it was the segways what were great. Jared Louch was an older man of rock and didn’t care. He was funny.
Next up were Global Citizen. As a band they were good but the music didn’t do a great deal for me. There were two keyboardists, a drummer and the singer. The structure of the songs didn’t really have any bass lines. The bass sounds were created using a chord progression on the keyboards with a choral sound. It just didn’t work for me.
XP8 were playing their last ever gig. This is a shame as they were really good. According to Wikipedia they are from Rome, which surprised me somewhat as they sounded perfectly English, but then, what do I know? There songs had pumping bass lines and a good fast and hard dance beat over the top. They had a video show in the background to which I didn’t really pay attention. Their songs were interesting, well structured and both of them seemed to be having a really good time. A minor thing is that the not-singer seemed to look a lot like Greg Wallace from Masterchef and this was a little off-putting, although more my problem than his. I’m not sure what they are going to do now, but I was pretty impressed with their set. They did over-run by about 20 minutes!
Finally Aesthetic Perfection were on. This was causing me slight problems as they were due to do a seventy minute set and they were late. I didn’t want to miss any AP but then again, I didn’t want to spend the night in St Pancras station waiting for the first train home [I’d done that plenty as a teenager].
Aesthetic Perfection were excellent. All of their songs were good and they had great energy. I do have a problem with their live sound. This is the second time I have seen them and some of the best bits of their songs are the high pitched “twiddly” bits. When playing live these seem incredibly quiet in the mix. A lot of the timings in the songs come from these sections and I feel that something is a little lacking. This *could* be my problem, maybe my ears are too old, but my niece also couldn’t really hear those bits. She had a great time, and even got to hold the singer’s hand.
There was slight confusion on stage as they played a song and then announced that it was their last one. I’m pretty sure the club has a curfew and so the band had to finish. I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t see all of the AP set. They had about ten minutes before we had to leave. AP left the stage, we called for an encore and then they played two more songs.
After the last song, which conveniently was “Spit It Out”, I say conveniently because I think it’s their standard set finisher, my niece and I ran out the door, down the steps and then the mile and a bit to St Pancras station. We got there with just enough time to buy a bottle of water and get on the train before we departed.
Here’s how far we moved over the entire day:
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.
DA 8 July 2014
Disaster Area played a gig along with some very talented bands last night.
Set List:
Highway To Hell [guest bassist – S-Mac, guest vocals – Parish]
Symphony Of Destruction [guest vocals – Parish]
This is only the second time I have sung in front of an audience and the first time without an instrument to play. I found the whole experience awesome. It was a real blast to be able to move and sing without having to concentrate on playing bass at the same time. I would quite like to do some more in the future.
Yes, that is an 8 year old child playing guitar in Highway To Hell.
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
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.
Therapy?
I travelled to the big smoke last night to see Therapy? play at the Scala near Kings Cross. The journey out was good, the trains were on time and the sun was out. London looked gorgeous. While I waited for Smith to turn up I sat and watched the world go by. I’m sure I remember more nutters hanging around train stations when I was younger!
The venue was good. It was smaller than I expected but there were plenty of balconies and raised areas where a good view of the band could be found. We waited in the middle of the pit.
The first band on were called Only The Brave. It was guitar based music and not my stuff. I was wondering what it was about the music that I didn’t like and finally Andy told me it was Indie Wank. I suddenly understood why it did noting for me! For the last few songs I spent the time browsing various news sites and apps on my phone. I was glad to get 4G service inside the venue.
These were a funny band. The singer looked as though he had personality issues and spent his time staring at the side of the stage [which doesn’t really matter as long as he can sing], the RH guitarist never looked up, the bassist seemed worried about stuff and the frontman was too happy. All their songs sounded the same and rubbish [sorry, not my stuff].
Therapy?, by contrast, were an active band who looked at the crowd and actually seemed to enjoy what they were doing. It is twenty years since the release of the Troublegum album and they played it in its entirety. It’s a very good album and the show was dynamic. The crowd were jumping and I sweated loads in the middle of the pit. Smith had someone try to steal his mobile phone a few times and so he was disappointed with some members of the crowd. I had noticed around three people looking for their phones on the floor. I can’t imagine that you would put a phone somewhere where it would fall out so maybe their phones were stolen?
The sound was good and I really enjoyed the show. I stayed in the pit for around 3/4 of the set and then spent the last few songs watching from the edge of the pit. I will confirm to @trusmoov that it was a “normal” pit.
The real excitement of the evening was waiting for me at the train station. Smith and I wandered to Kings Cross and said our farewells. Then I headed to the correct platforms in St Pancras. There was a queue of people nearside of the barriers all talking to the railway people. I glanced a the departures board and saw that the 20 past was about to leave. I was wrong. It was the 2220 train and the time now was 2318. There were delays.
Apparently some kids had entered a tunnel near to Stratford station and so we were waiting for the police to make sure that the route was clear. I boarded the train and found a seat. I was feeling a little tired and tried to read a book on the Kindle app. There were announcements about how we could head to Victoria or London Bridge to get trains from there, but a quick check of the app on my phone told me that there were no other departures to Ebbsfleet, where my car was parked. I was stuck waiting for the fast train to leave.
At about 0130 we had the announcement that we would be departing soon. I arrived at Ebbsfleet at around 0150 and was home by 0215. I guess the journey could have been a lot worse but I was tired. I didn’t care. I was just glad to be home.
Five Finger Death Punch
I snuck into London last night to see Five Finger Death Punch at The Forum in Kentish Town. Curiously Kentish Town didn’t look as Kent-like as the name implies. Here’s a power station viewed from the fast train from Ebbsfleet to St Pancras [who was a Roman convert to Christianity and beheaded for his belief].
I had a pleasant walk from the London terminus to The Forum, about 40 minutes, and waited in The Assembly Rooms for Smith. Once he had arrived we chatted and ate. The queues to enter the auditorium were large, but gave us time to digest the contents of the flyers we were handed before discarding them in the traditional manner.
The first band on were called Pop Evil. They played ROCK. It was ok. Not to my current tastes but they were a good warm up band.
Then, on came Upon A Burning Body. A band from Texas. They played pretty good music although I couldn’t understand most of what the singer sang. This didn’t worry me, I don’t really do lyrics. Although I wouldn’t go out of my way to see this band again they were pretty good over all. I liked the suits they wore.
During their set all the lights stopped working and they carried on while lit from torches held by security and the guys in the “desk-in-the-middle”. The pit opened up in front of me and it was quite funny to see this close. Young men running in circles and generally pushing into each other. The atmosphere was one of comradeship as when someone fell down after being hit, they would be helped up by everybody. I saw a couple of rugby tackles and at some point it turned into a competition to see who would be the last man standing. Then, it went wrong. A short tubby man decided he was going to hit with his hands. He threw a punch and got warned to stop by most in and around the circle. He had gone too far. You don’t intentionally hit people in this small world of machismo. Then he threw another punch, caught a chap on the chin and stood gloating. About five guys rushed at him, pushing him to the floor and then two of them dragged the guy to the side and security. I didn’t see him again. As much as most people would look in horror at “the pit” it’s actually a safe place where, if you accept the rules, you will be looked after and everyone has the same needs.
Five Finger Death Punch burst onto the stage playing “Under and Over It”. There was energy and excitement. They played well and have a good stage presence. I was really impressed at Download last year and so was looking forward to this. They played songs. I don’t know the names of the songs. I just recognise them. I’m pretty sure my head is full up and can’t learn new song names. Also, the way I listen to music has changed. I no longer sit in my bedroom staring and the record sleeve, I play music while running, driving or working.
It was a solid gig. They played well. They played 3 ballads too many. I hate ballads. The atmosphere gets lost and the energy of the room fades during ballads. Also, as a rock child of the eighties, ballads were how bands promoted themselves. They had their place but are not necessary anymore.
The set finished at 22:30. This made the FFDP stage time about seventy minutes which was rather short. I was hoping to hear four more hard and heavy songs when the houselights went up. I was left feeling a little disappointed. They didn’t quite “bring the house down” in my opinion. A big problem for me was the singing of the chorus to Champagne Supernova by Oasis. I never liked Oasis. I think they wrote poor songs, sang badly and were hyped in a battle with a group of real intelligent people who could write songs. Don’t be a metal band and then play some Oasis. They were shit. It’s shit and it makes you shit.
No Heart
I noticed this earlier in my cupboard while I was putting away some crockery. It remains from the days when I had an FM radio/cassette/CD player in the kitchen.
This tape is Mechanical Resonance by Tesla. It’s actually a pretty good album. I don’t have the heart to throw away any of my old cassettes, records or CDs. It’d be like throwing away books – wrong.
Rock Identity
For practically all my life I have been a fan of heavy metal. See this communication about my descent into metal.
For me the 80s were filled with early flirtations with pop, from Madonna to Frankie Goes To Hollywood and then into Heavy Metal and Rock. I love Iron Maiden and AD/DC following on from Bon Jovi and Def Leppard in 1987. Come the very late 80s and early 90s I descend into thrash with Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax. I see these bands regularly along with new British metal bands such as Wolfsbane and The Almighty.
During university I don’t really expand my musical tastes a great deal. My major discovery (via Smith) is Senser and their cross-over political rock and rap. This sustains me for a few more years along with Alice In Chains.
My music buying diminishes as I start my career and I don’t really get into new bands for a few years. I don’t have a network of friends who can inform me of new things and I don’t live in London. I spend a number of years sustaining myself on the stuff I already own. I still see bands like Iron Maiden and Slayer when they come along, but nothing small or new.
In the early 2000s someone gives me her Rammstein CDs (Sara T) and I find the sound fascinating and new. It’s exciting. Along with seeing Slipknot perform on the TFI Friday television programme I have found something new. Something a little scary and something that seems dangerous. All the music I have grown up with seems rather tame in comparison to these new sounds. I played them over and over. Until around 2009 not much happened until Smith returned from abroad and he and I started attending gigs and concerts together again.
In 2009 I saw two bands. AC/DC at Wembley Stadium and I loved it. They were brilliant and I their music has brought me so much pleasure over the years [so much so that I wore out my musical cassette version of “If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It”]. The other band I saw that year was Rammstein. Their stage show is just absolutely brilliant. If you don’t believe me then just search YouTube for “Buch Dich”, it is quite brilliant, a little bit dangerous and something to cause moral outrage amongst the leading classes. The support band for Rammstein was Combichrist and that is when the trouble started.
After hearing Combichrist and being impressed with their sound I ordered a CD.
Today We Are All Demons
This music was exciting, different, morally dubious, scary and just damn brilliant. It made me want to dance (something I just don’t do). The big problem was that there were NO GUITARS and it was all SAMPLES and DRUM MACHINES. For someone who likes his music live and reproducible without machines this caused major issues. Why did I like this? Was I going insane? How can I like music with a complete lack of heavy guitars and bursting riffs? I was at the tip of the mountain staring down a great big slippery slope to the valley of “not real” music [as far as my metal head would tell you].
I bought more Combichrist stuff and started to look at their influences and associated acts. I bought more. Bands like:
- Aesthetic Perfection
- Reaper
- Suicide Commando
- Funker Vogt
- Hex-Rx
- Panzer AG
Pretty much all of this is what I would now call EBM, Aggrotech or Hellektro. These names are good because it means I am back on the edge of society and seeking to be different with my music. When Metallica took the world by storm in 1992 or so I was done with them. Their sound had changed and I didn’t like it any more. The “edge” had gone. This new music I had found has an edge. It makes me feel uncomfortable [sometimes] and it is different.
I have tried to describe it to friends and I say:
It’s heavy metal without any guitars. The lyrics are nasty and the tunes are awesome.
or
It’s kinda dance music but without the nice lyrics and happy stuff.
I have leant this stuff to friends who like the same sort of metal as me and they don’t really get on with it. They apologised and handed back the USB stick. That’s fine by me because it means I can carry on feeling “on the edge” and liking the music. This stuff ain’t ever going to be mainstream. It sometimes sounds like it should be playing in a night club on a Saturday night but then I have no idea what sort of stuff these people would play. I’d love to be in a club and hear this stuff come on and the crowd just freak out because it hurts them.
I am struggling to come to terms with my new found musical taste. It irks me that I’ve gone for samples and drum machines. I’ve been to see these people play. I’ve liked their music. I’ve had a great time. Yet still the 18 year old me is somewhat miffed at this odd turn in my ear pleasures. As an extreme I have seen a “band” with three Apple Macs on stage and a few leads and then they danced around pressing the odd key here and there. I loved it. There’s a tiny part of me that isn’t sure it’s music but I like it anyway. Over time I’m sure I’ll heal this mental riff. Much like I’ve got used to being a university snob when at the age of 17 I hated that person!
If you want to try this stuff then have a look for the following tracks:
- 190 – Reaper
- X-Junkie – Reaper
- Hit The Streets – Aesthetic Perfection
- In The Pit – Combichrist
- God Bless – Combichrist
- Tip The Dancer – Panzer AG
I am now listening to more industrial stuff. The following bands are on my current active list:
- Faderhead
- Eisbecher
- Rotersand
- Front 242
- VNV Nation
My metal taste buds are still there. I watched Mentallica last night. I went to Download last year. I’m going to see Therapy? and FFDP soon. However, this Hellektro is here to stay and just wonderfully stunning: suck on that 18 year old me!