Considering how much I like AC/DC I’m not sure I’ve listened to this album all the way through. I love the Bon Scott era and there are some albums from the Brian Johnson era that are stunning but, this one’s just too recent. Black Ice was really the last AC/DC album I really knew. I bought it, obviously, but I’m not enough of a super-fan to listen to this. I didn’t even put it on before writing this.
Ritual de lo Habitual – Jane’s Addiction
I bought this album because I felt that I should like Jane’s Addiction. I bought Strays by Jane’s Addiction and I think I remember liking that. We will find out once we get to the “S” section of these album reviews. I have to say I have played this album one and a half times and I don’t like it. It has no good features. Yeah, I know it was raved about but I don’t like it.
Rio Grande Blood – Ministry
So, I’ve been playing this recently and I really like it. There’s a particular level of noise and industry to it. This is an album well worth getting [if you like industrial metal and hate Bush Jr].
Ride The Lightning – Metallica
Writing this in the middle of a spell of self-isolation is strange. I’m not sure if I’m going to write a communication covering what I think of the current Covid-19 nightmare we seem to be in. I’ve started writing something, not sure it’ll be coherent at all. Anyway, back to what I think about Ride The Lightning.
This album is a MONSTER. It’s raw and powerful.
- Fight Fire With Fire – amazing opening track Lovely.
- Ride The Lightning – possibly about being electrocuted in the chair. I don’t know, I don’t listen to lyrics.
- For Whom The Bell Tolls – look, it has a bass guitar melody. What more do you need. Brilliant song.
- Fade To Black – what all the latter Metallica songs are based on and they can fuck off. This is an amazing song.
- Trapped Under Ice – freezing. Dying. Horror.
- Escape – Possibly the least interesting song on here. But it’s still good.
- Creeping Death – Jesus, this is an amazing song. One of the times I saw Metallica they opened with this and it is a stunning song. Die, Die, Die, Die, Die.
- The Call Of Ktulu – an instrumental. Still great. SR was playing this once on the balcony of her holiday apartment in the Canary’s and it got strange looks. I don’t know why it’s genius.
This is an amazing album and it has that power to keep being great all this time later. I won’t pass on any of these songs when they crop up.
Revelations – Audioslave
This is the third album by supergroup Audioslave that I have reviewed here. The other two can be found by searching but they cover Audioslave and Out Of Exile. This is another excellent album. I don’t know how they do it but Audioslave have managed to write three excellent albums.
I do consider these albums good dinner music. I think they would be suitable to play while having dinner with a group of friends. Now, I do suspect that I’m wrong about this because I know that my tastes don’t really match up to normal. For instance, yesterday, I was at one of those large indoor play parks and they were playing music, probably to cover up the sound of the screaming. I will admit that the music was all quite fun, disco hits from the 70s and a few modern hits but mostly it was unoffensive and quite boring. Everyone should be pushing the boundaries. I do feel sorry for my kids sometimes; who else has a dad who plays Grausame Töchter regularly in the car rather than Heart and similar bullshit.
Reunion – Black Sabbath
There’s something about buying up classic artists and music by those bands who influenced you. Black Sabbath are, really obviously, such a major influence on everything that it’s important to know the history.
I saw a Black Sabbath cover band at a venue in Gillingham, the name of which escapes me and I will enter it here [] once I remember. I wasn’t really expecting much other than an enjoyable evening, this was likely somewhere around 2004. I had too much beer and might have felt a little rough but the main memory of that evening was just how heavy Black Sabbath’s music was. It was slow and hard with excellent grinding riffs. Far better than listening to them on tapes from the mid eighties.
I’ve probably only listened to this album twice or so. I can’t remember much about it. It’s probably really good.
Resident Evil – Various Artists
I’m not sure which came first. Did I see the film and then decide that the music was pretty good or did I take a punt on the album anyway? Given the film was 2002 and I haven’t looked around a record store since the mid nineties I suspect I went to see the film and decided the music had earned the chance of my attention. I can still remember one part of the film where I said to LB that the dead person’s eyes were about to open but she still shouted “fuck me” in the cinema. Forewarned isn’t always forearmed.
This album reinforced my liking of quite a few bands including Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Fear Factory, Rammstein, and Coal Chamber are on there but the rest of their stuff doesn’t do it for me.
If you want dirty metal and an excellent collection of songs to make your head hurt then get this album. It gets a full recommendation from me.
You’re all going to die down here.
Data.
Reise, Reise – Rammstein
Looking through all the “R” albums I can see some amazing things in there. Reise, Reise is one of those good ones. It must be because it’s by Rammstein and they haven’t written a thing I don’t like. They are proper music gods. There’s a gorgeous sound with Rammstein that works so well. It’s an excellent mix of ragingly heavy guitars with rolling bass lines and keyboard work that just fits. Go and buy anything by them.
- Reise, Reise – sends shivers down my spine and is beautifully written.
- Mein Teil – A good one to shout out.
- Dalai Lama – A nice slow heavy riff with a bouncy beat. It might be about that dude, it might not. I’m not really into ly
- Keine Lust – Oh gosh. Go and see the video for this one. It’s fantastic. There’s a brilliance associated with Rammstein songs that blow me away. This is a great song.
- Los – A nice and gentle song with a rolling bass riff and gorgeous high pitched melody thing.
- Amerika – A cash cow.
- Moskau – I think this has some Russian people on it. Maybe from Pussy Riot. I don’t know what it’s about but I don’t think you can sing about Moscow and be praising of the regime. Maybe it’s positive about the population there. It’s an OK song.
- Morgenstern – Choral opening. A great start-stop riff to beat you up. Once the beat and riff goes continuous it’s glorious.
- Stein Um Stein – starts quietly but will blat you in the face.
- Ohne Dich – get those lighters in the air. It’s a lovely song.
- Amour – Deep voiced love story??
I love Rammstein and all their music is beautiful. Everyone should get these albums.
Reign In Blood – Slayer
So, I bought this album quite a while after getting Decade Of Aggression which is possibly the only Slayer album you need. I can imagine how, back in the eighties, this album would’ve scared the shit out of adults. It’s heavy, gross, disgusting and amazing.
- Angel Of Death – a song about Mengele and the shit he did during the second world war. Look, the whole point of metal is to shock and make you think. This song is gross but amazing at the same time. It doesn’t celebrate gore it brings that knowledge to a wider world. This song creates pacifists.
- Altar Of Sacrifice – Amazing and heavy.
- Jesus Saves – that opening riff is heavy as hell.
- Criminally Insane – more heavy stuff and a great opening.
- Postmortem – amazing. Such a heavy riff and masterfully blends into the next song.
- Raining Blood – awesome. Can you see what they did with the title of the album and the name of this song? Clever eh?
If you want to seriously damage all your body then get this album playing at full volume and let it assault you.
Ready For This – Tim Minchin
This is a live album by the Australian musician Tim Minchin. I remember first seeing him on Channel 4 when I thought I was about to watch a stand up show and it turned out to be some guy not wearing shoes and playing music. It was funny and skeptical, I loved it. Tim Minchin is one of those people on the right side of stuff. He’s a science based comedian who speaks the truth about boobs. You definitely need to listen to any of his stuff.
I would recommend this album as it’s a good introduction to his music. The album does contain the song “White Wine In The Sun” which is guaranteed to make me cry. I have bought it as a single but I haven’t played. Minchin releases this song every christmas and the money raised goes to charity. Not only is he a brilliant song writer he is also an actor.
STORM
You need to listen to Minchin’s song called Storm. It might be nine minutes long but it is also brilliant. A discussion of evidence based science, relationships, and dinner etiquette. There’s a YouTube version that I show all my leaving classes in their last lesson. I’m trying to change the world a small bit at a time. Getting people to realise that humans are subject to so many biases. We need to work to overcome those biases and science is the best way to do that.
Cardinal Pell
Tim Minchin has also written a song called Come Home (Cardinal Pell). It’s not on this album but deserves a mention anyway. It concerns the terrible story of child rape in the catholic church and their systematic attempts to cover it up and protect those who are guilty of child sexual abuse. Cardinal Pell had claimed that he was too unwell to fly home to Australia to face criminal charges concerning child abuse. He has since faced trial and he is now in jail after being found guilty.
The systematic covering up and protection of child rapists by the catholic church is a heinous crime for which they deserve to crash into nothingness. I don’t care overly that they are wrong about god. But the whole system has been protecting child rapists for the last very many years and they need to fall. No, I’m not exaggerating. If you want to know why all the churches are closing and there are money worries in the church it’s because of the fucking money they are paying out [quite rightly] to all the victims of paedophiles that they are sheltering.
Just one US state, Pennsylvania, held a grand jury investigation of child abuse by the catholic church. IN THAT ONE STATE they found that 301 priests were sexually abusing 1000 children and were shuffled around in that area to save them being caught. It’s likely still going on and isn’t history. Fuck that organisation.
It’s not just the catholic church. Every organisation that runs has issues with sexual abuse. Every organisation that works with children has issues with child abuse. Those other organisations have done what they can to prevent it. It’s probably impossible to eliminate it but you don’t want to protect those fuckers. You have to have security procedures in place to minimise the risk. The catholic church has ACTIVELY covered up all the abuse. That church needs to die. Don’t ever give them any money.
Addendum
Last night I remembered a thing about this album that I love. It’s hidden within the lyrics to Prejudice, a song about prejudice. It’ll make you laugh, go and listen to it. Do you ever remember that saying your mum used: “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”? It’s a funny saying isn’t it. It’s pretty much telling you it’s OK for anyone to call you names because they don’t hurt. But here’s the rub: words hurt like hell. Tim Minchin updated the saying to a more realistic version:
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can break hearts.
Minchin, T