Category: Album Reviews

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Apple – Mother Love Bone

I bought this album mostly for a digital version of the song “Crown of Thorns”. I’m pretty sure this song was on a tape that a friend, Mark H, made when I was at school. I might be mistaken though as the song appears on the “Singles” original soundtrack and this came out in about 1992 or so.

So, the album version of “Thorns” doesn’t have the “Chloe Dancer” part at the beginning which I really like. So I got the album for pretty much nothing. The singer is dead, AFAIK. I could look it up but that isn’t a concern with me here. I’m pretty sure the band were also part of the Seattle sound which influenced music for about 10 years [more later].

Are there any more songs of note? I’m not sure. I haven’t listened to this enough to know. I’ve grown out of the Seattle sound now and I don’t know if it’ll come back. This is another summer album and sound.

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Appetite For Destruction – Guns ‘n’ Roses

It is very hard to give this album enough credit and praise for just being brilliant.

I bought this when I was about 16 from the Our Price record shop in Jackson Square in Bishop’s Stortford. How do I remember? Well I was just very excited at owning this rather controversial piece of vinyl. I remember opening the album in the car on the way home with my dad driving and my sister in the back seat. I proceeded to inform my father of some of the lyrics that were printed on the record dust cover. Also I have the original album cover, which the record label changed after a while over complaints about the subject matter. Funny, but I never really saw what the picture depicted, I just thought it was a good cover. So, the songs:

  • Welcome to the Jungle – brilliant
  • It’s So Easy – until you’ve heard 100,000 people shout out its most famous line you’ll never truly appreciate this song! Brilliant.
  • Nightrain – I don’t like it. It really bothers me and I think it’s a lazy song. I don’t like guitar parts that follow the vocals. Just me, I know.
  • Out Ta Get Me – Brilliant.
  • Mr Brownstone – Brilliant.
  • My Michelle – Brilliant.
  • Think About You – Brilliant.
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine – Absolutely Awesome.
  • You’re Crazy – so very crazy, great lyrics, find the acoustic version on Lies.
  • Anything Goes – of course it does.
  • Rocket Queen – Marvellous

Such a seminal album and one they could never really live up to afterwards. I reckon the teenage angst and drugs made this perfect. Very much a “summer” album, more on that later.

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Apocalypse Now Soundtrack – Various

I have been a little obsessed with Apocalypse Now! since I first watched it in my second year at university. I bought the soundtrack after Ades told me he had seen it in HMV in Oxford Street. This time being the early 90s there was no email really, no mobile phones that were cheap or small and no tweets! To find an album you had to search through record shops!
Ades informed me he had seen this and I rushed off to the tube station and got to HMV. I bought it. Happy person!
What I would really like is a full length version of The End by The Doors with all the naughty words in but I can’t find it so I’ll just have to cope with the version on this album.
To appreciate the album you need to be a fan! Considering I only watch the film when I’m feeling a little messed up it shouldn’t surprise you that the soundtrack isn’t played that often but it is an important part of my collection!

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Angst – Reaper

Reaper – a band I found out by searching for more aggrotech. I like this album, it’s got a dirty dance sound (that’s more an unclean sound rather than lots of songs to which you can dance dirty). There isn’t much in the way of vocals and what lyrics there are seem to be from movie soundtracks. Obviously it’s all rather dark and gory. That just makes it all the better.
HELLectro!

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Angel Dust – Faith No More

I knew of Faith No More from their hit song “Epic” and so asked for this for a present. ER bought it for me, I think for an Xmas in the early 90s. I think it was one of the first CDs I owned, even before I had a CD player. I know ER was rather distraught at the pictures of hanging cow carcasses on the inside cover.

This album provided a great deal of the soundtrack through my second and third years at university. I saw the band one when they supported Guns ‘n’ Roses at Wembley Stadium.

My favourites from this one are:

  • Be Aggressive
  • Caffeine
  • Midlife Crisis
  • Smaller And Smaller

All in all this is an excellent genre-busting album. Not quite metal and not quite anything else.

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. . . And Justice For All – Metallica

This is the first album by Metallica that I really heard. I was in the lower sixth form at secondary school and was already into Iron Maiden and AC/DC. Someone introduced me to the song “One” from this album and I never looked back. I have a copy of “One” the single on music cassette (cassingle) the cover of which might have a burn hole in it!

This was Metallica’s first studio album since their bassist, Cliff Burton, died. Although they released an EP and it had a good mix with the bass nice and loud this album turned Jason Newstead down. You can barely hear him. It’s a shame as he’s a good player.

“Blackened” is your classic metal/thrash environmental protest song. Hey, it happened a lot in the 80s, we were concerned about that sort of thing. Not that anyone actually did anything. It’s surprising how far humans have come in the last 30 years. Now we have people denying it actually is happening!

The song “. . . And Justice For All” is alright but I find the opening quite childish. “One” is brilliant although just an updated “Fade To Black”. I really like “Harvester of Sorrow”, just really appreciate its pace and riffs. The last three songs I can live without. I’m pretty sure they only wrote “Dyers Eve” so that they still sounded fast. The problem is the best songs are written at the end of your teenage years and after that it’s all about growing up! The anger gets replaced with money and comfortableness!

It’s not a bad album and not Metallica’s worst but it’s not in the top four.

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The American Way – Sacred Reich

This is a thrash album. During the mid to late eighties there were a number of bands who changed the sound of metal. Metallica and the rest of the big four are considered the trailblazers. I found Sacred Reich while on holiday in Saint-Jean-de-Monts during 1990. One day while walking in the town we found a market and one of the stalls was selling music cassettes.

I bought this album purely on the front cover and it being surrounded by other bands to whom I listened. After a few listens on the car stereo and possibly a Walkman the album really grew on me. I think I recognise it as brilliance now. I love all the songs, even 31 Flavors! Recently I downloaded a digital version and it’s now on my iPhone. I find this album particularly calming and often its mood matches mine perfectly. There might only be eight songs but they are all good.

Given that this album was released in 1990 I consider the political messages of the song Crimes Against Humanity rather prescient. The song is about humans polluting the Earth and although this was a major concern in the 80s it is more of a concern now with anthropocentric global climate change affecting our planet! Sacred Reich aren’t the only band to criticise human pollution, Testament and Metallica have also written songs much to the same effect.

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Amorica – The Black Crowes

I downloaded this album in the last year or so. I first saw the Black Crows at the Monsters of Rock festival in 1991. They opened the show to be followed by Queensryche, Mötley Crüe, Metallica and AC/DC. I was really impressed with them and bought their first album.
I became aware of this album in my last year or so of living in London. I remember seeing posters in tube stations of the cover of the album. If you are unaware it is a close up of a woman’s bikini bottoms with some pubic hair showing. I understand it caused some controversy in the USA when It was issued and the record company had censored covers ready!
I never got around to buying the album in 1995 or so as I was moving out of the blues/hard rock genre into a more rap/metal mix (Senser and Faith No More). I was quite happy just listening to the band’s first two albums.
As for now, I’ve listened occasionally to this but nothing stands out. I might need to listen to it more but as I mentioned before most new music just sits on the edges of my memory core and doesn’t sink in. There are some exceptions, mind!

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All Hell’s Breaking Loose At Little Kathy Wilson’s Place – Wolfsbane

I saw Wolfsbane support Iron Maiden at some time, I think. I’m trying to remember how I got into them but apart from possibly seeing them as support I have no idea. I bought this EP (kinda) on music cassette originally. It is easily the best British Heavy Metal album of the early nineties. There might only be six songs on this record but they are seriously worth having.

My personal highlights from the track listing are:

  • Steel
  • Paint The Town Red
  • Loco
  • Hey Babe
  • Totally Nude
  • Kathy Wilson

The only slightly wobbly song is Hey Babe and that’s still good in comparison to all the other stuff out there. Seeing Wolfsbane live was great and I think I saw them at The Marquee many moons ago. Apart from the song Manhunt on another album it’s just worth getting this EP.

It took me a while to find this on CD. When I was going through a phase of digitising my collection and replacing all my music cassettes and vinyl albums I searched for Kathy Wilson everywhere. I think I finally bought it from an Italian trader on eBay. The volume is a little quiet but then I think that is how the early CDs were made. In recent times it appears that they have cranked up the volume. In reality they’ve just added 5 to all the volume levels, I’m not sure you get better sound quality.

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All Beauty Destroyed – Aesthetic Perfection

There are two bands I consider to be the lead players in the aggrotech / hellectro sound. Combichrist and Aesthetic Perfection. One of the saddest things about me finding this style of music is that I started with the best two bands and the rest just don’t quite match up. More in later editions of album review.

All Beauty Destroyed is an awesome album. The beat is perfect for running. The tunes are memorable and the lyrics freak me out. It’s perfect. Favourite songs are:

  • A Nice Place To Visit
  • Hit The Streets
  • Mother*

If you don’t want to kill yourself before listening then this could help you on your way. It’s a fresh approach to dance music with catchy upbeat tunes and samples and then some sick and gravely vocals over the top. It’s all rather over the top and brilliant. It’s emotional gone crazy.

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