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.
P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge has died. I don’t often write about particular deaths on here because when you read those pieces it’s more of a shout by the writer about themselves rather than the person. This is going to be like that. I pretend it’s about Genesis Breyer P-Orridge but in reality I write about me.
I first came across Throbbing Gristle in the early 2000s. A friend talked about them and I was curious. So, I have some of their music. I listened to it. It hurt. But I liked just how different it was. Then I heard about COUM Transmissions and the ICA installation called Prostitution. When I read descriptions of that show I was fascinated and amazed at the same time. The undercurrents of sedition were real and the establishment didn’t like any of it. I do believe we can thank those early artists who “rebelled” for our liberties today. They planted the seed. The mold breakers have been there in most ages and they push the boundaries allowing people to feel more normal.
The ninety eight percent of you out there who fit the norm of our current society never have anything to fear except your normality being threatened. What you don’t realise is that the other two percent don’t share your views and want to be different and want to feel comfortable in their own skin. Those people with different feelings and needs should be listened to. They should be allowed to exist and feel normal because that is a basic human right.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge kept pushing those boundaries to the end. I am sad they have died. I am also sad that as I grow older more of those who influenced me die. It’s inevitable and a reminder that one day I too will cease to exist.
Long live the boundary pushers, for the sake of all of us.
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.
It’s Just Like Exercise
I wrote recently about a damn good gig that I went to, Aesthetic Perfection, at the Lounge 666 or whatever it’s called. Because technology is so wonderful and lovely I can now show you a graph of my heart rate throughout that day.
There are three main aspects to this graph to chat about. The first is that low bit at the beginning. It’s me asleep. I’d have to compare it to my REM patterns to know what the little blips are in that section. Then, there’s me waking up at the little alarm clock symbol. The running man symbol is where I went for a run and the break in the graph is where I took my watch off for a shower. The low level preceding the first grey man is me driving my car into London for the show. The peak at the first grey man is me walking from where I parked the car to the venue. The next big dip is me eating food and so sitting down. Then, the bouncy bit is me bouncing at the concert.
The second grey man is me walking back to the car from the concert and then my watch thought I had fallen asleep because there’s a “Zzz” symbol. In reality that we me driving home from London and my heartrate stabilised because I wasn’t doing much. You can see that this resting heart rate is still higher than my normal sleeping rate. Finally the small peak just before the end is me walking from where I had to park the car in my village to my house.
This level of detail is pretty cool but I do wonder if it’s worth knowing? All that extra data I have about everything I do but does it change my life? I don’t know.
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.
Aesthetic Perfection – The Lounge, Archway
Took my lovely niece and Smith to see Aesthetic Perfection last night at The Lounge 666 or whatever it’s called near Archway tube in London. Before the show we were just about to go to get food when I checked where the venue was and spotted Daniel Graves on his way out of the venue. I, very politely, asked if he would meet my niece because she loves him. I think I even used the phrase “I don’t mean to impose but would you mind . . . .”, jesus, what a british twat I can be. Anyway, he came over and met my niece and they had a photo taken. She was very happy.
The first band we saw, but second on the bill, was Jadu. Biomechanimal were on first but we missed them. That’s not a bad thing, we’ve seen them before a few times. Jadu are a German band who I quite enjoyed. There were four of them, a female singer and a drummer, guitarist and keyboard person. It was quite slow stuff but perfectly good. I quite enjoyed it. I did note that the sound of the kick drum was pretty good and didn’t over power the rest of the sound. I’m probably going to get a Jadu album, it was good enough for that.
Shortly after that Aesthetic Perfection came on stage and this is now the about 9th time I have seen Joe Letz. This makes him the artist I have seen most. I don’t mind. His on stage persona is brilliant and I enjoy his antics.
Aesthetic Perfection put on an amazing show. It was probably the best I have seen them and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The crowd was nice and pleasant. Even the six foot six female pair allowed those of us shorted than them in front. I spent the whole gig about three rows back from the front, which didn’t even have a barrier.
The band played for a decent length of time and I have to say I enjoyed it all. There was a moment when Joe Letz tapped Daniel in the penis and it was pretty funny. There’s a good camaraderie between them all. It’s nice to see a theremin being used at a concert, they’ve probably used them before I just didn’t notice it.
This was a bloody good gig. Probably the best I have seen them and I really enjoyed it. My niece managed to sweet talk one of the roadies and got a Joe Letz drum stick at the end of the gig. This will now go with her stick from a Combichrist gig a few years back. I am a little jealous.
Well done AP and I look forward to seeing you again sometime soon.