This, as far as I know, was the second album by Mr Big. They were a supergroup. They had a massive hit with the dong “To Be With You” which is the last song on this album. Can I remember any of the other songs? Not really. I think the album is fine for a US rock band. It’s just never really hooked me in.
Laughing – Re-Animator
I’m pretty sure I got this album sometime in my third year of university. Although I can’t remember the specifics I do suspect it was in the “metal” section at a music shop. Obviously this was in the days before streaming and even previewing an album. What you bought was what you got.
I’m not sure this is a serious album. I mean musically it’s pretty good and the songs are good but there are plenty of songs with humour in them and start with clips of audio from film etc. If you like heavy slow paced thrash metal then this is a good album for you, assuming that you don’t mind the odd piece of fun.
The following songs are stuck in my head, even after twenty (or more) years.
- Rude Awakening
- Kipper ‘n’
- Research – has French spoken at the beginning
- Another Fine Mess
- Monkey See, Monkey Dance
- Don’t Patronise Me
I guess you could stream this album now, for nothing, listen to it and then dismiss it. Over the last few months I’ve come back to the idea of paying for music properly! Sad old me and my liberal sensitivities.
Fleisch – Fire
Fleisch were the main band in the venue Fire last night. They are an industrial metal band from somewhere up north. The first band though were called AlterRed.
I honestly can’t remember a huge deal about AlterRed! I don’t remember hating it but I don’t remember being incredibly impressed. It was watchable. I think Smith and I gave it about a 3/10 score, although the grading system for watching bands isn’t as rigorous as the cinema review section of this site.
I didn’t take any photos during the gig, it wasn’t that sort of place so I have found a music video and you can judge for yourself:
The only other band playing that night were Fleisch. There were better and rated at about a 5/10 by Smith and me. I’m not sure the sound was super brilliant and I certainly didn’t get a Rammstein feel, which they claim but it was a good performance. What I don’t understand is the need for separate bass tracks in the backing track and also a bass player, one or the other folks. Your sound doesn’t need two lots of deep sounds, one will do.
Here they are, again, no photos from me:
Paying For It
I often think that musical artists get the raw deal with regards to money and effort. So, a while a go I decided I would PAY for individual albums rather than just stream stuff. I do understand that actually owning music is a decreasing trend, even when it’s electronic files but I am sure that the artists will get more money from me paying for an album rather than the streaming rates they get from Spotify or whatever your chosen music service is.
This month I paid for the album Black Piranha by Klutæ. It’s a project of Claus Larsen who is also Læther Strip.
You can listen to other songs from this artist here, Black Piranha isn’t on Spotify:
You might even want to pay for it properly.
Killing Joke – Killing Joke
This is the last of the “k” albums. I got this album after getting Pandemonium by Killing Joke which is an awesome amazing album. This one though excites me less so. I don’t often listen to it but there are some highlights.
Requiem, Wardance and The Wait are all excellent songs and The Wait has been covered by Metallica so that gives you an idea of the influence of this band and their music.
Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good! – Megadeth
This is a Megadeth album which I came to late. My start with Megadeth was watching a BBC2 documentary called “Heavy Metal”. In the film there was a clip of Megadeth playing Peace Sells at an outdoor venue in Northern Ireland. Quite a while after watching the show I kept playing the riffs over and over in my head and I thought I ought to get the album. I wasn’t quite a full on thrash metal fan and I remember being disappointing at the opening song Wake Up Dead. “just another thrash band” I thought. The song “Wake Up Dead” is listed on this site as one of my favourites, THREE classic riffs in one song.
When I got hold of this album a good few years later I was surprised and shocked. It has a very much less-polished feel that the other albums, I guess as you would expect for a band’s first album. It’s faster and more melodic than Metallica, which, given the history, you would expect. MegaDave play hard and fast melodies and it’s their signature sound.
Last Rites / Loved to Deth – piano opening getting you to think you’ve got the wrong album and a little wiggly guitar work and BLAM – Megadeth riff hits you. A fast, heavy, bruising song.
Killing Is My Business – that opening riff is ace. The bounce and feel of it is enough to get anyone jumping around. The songs ends in a speed fueled repeating chorus, lovely.
The Skull Beneath The Skin – the title sounds gross but is really probably just a line from a biology text book. Cantering opening and then a Dave scream with a climbing riff followed by ring chord strokes and then – Kaboom! A galloping ride of guitars and drums over the fields. It’s always amazed me how some riffs are so amazing and then bands only use them for tiny sections of their songs.
Rattlehead – Here I Come. A bass line I can’t comprehend, smash cymbals pushing you to jump either way and this is a dose of metal you need.
Chosen Ones – Oddly this is not a song that sticks in my head. It’s not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t quite do it for me.
Looking Down The Cross – very wiggly at the start. A good song with a blisteringly paced kick drum through. Excellent.
Mechanix – If you want a proper version of Four Horsemen by Metallica then this is where to come. I remember seeing Megadeth play this live at Cambridge and it blew me away. Amazeballs.
These Boots – you can guarantee that there’s always one shit song on a Megadeth album and this is the one on this album. They are like The Crue, chuck in one song that’ll annoy everyone. I do not like this one.
Killers – Iron Maiden
There’s something about the raw power and sound in this album that has stayed in my core. Along with Iron Maiden, Killers has that kick in the teeth, it pushes you around and beats you up with its riffs and lyrics. I bloody love this album. My feelings for the first two albums often goes against the grain of general fandom. In my view Iron Maiden were good until the end of Seventh Son. After that they went shit. Or maybe I just grew out of them?
The Ides Of March – Borrowed from Samson and written by Bruce before he was part of Maiden. This opener gets you ready for the onslaught.
Wrathchild – rolling bass line with bouncy riffs. A great song.
Murders In The Rue Morgue – such a melody that I get shivers down the spine.
Another Life – You can imagine jumping around to this song in an East End pub in the early 80s. The riff change halfway through is ace.
Genghis Khan – This song pops with the main riff. What out for the speed change that doesn’t accelerate it just knocks you flat.
Innocent Exile – Another bouncy tune that keeps me jumping around the room.
Killers – Entirely about stalking someone and killing them. What do you expect from a band named after a medieval torture device?
Prodigal Son – Devil’s got hold of my soul. But with a ballad feel. Although it’s not a ballad.
Purgatory – high speed danger in this song. It races along daring you to join in.
Drifters – The symbol crashes on the off beat excite me in this song. Just one of those things. This song canters along with room for a breather at the end of each verse.
This whole album encapsulates a teenage yearning for power and respect. You can feel the angst in the writing and the production. It still excites me after over thirty years of listening. I bloody love it.
“Sanctuary” isn’t on this album and so probably wont’ get mentioned until “Live After Death”. That’s an “L” album and so won’t be too far away. As a clue I’ll let you know that “Live” is simply the best Maiden album.
Kill ‘Em All – Metallica
I’ll keep posting album reviews here while I suffer from such anxiety and anger about the current state of politics in this country and the world. The entire Brexit bullshit needs to be mostly ignored else I’ll get too worked up and angry about it all. An electorate who were lied to with illegal spending and Russian money voted to leave an organisation it knew mostly nothing about because of a systematic campaign over thirty years by right wing newspapers to remove cooperation and friendliness between countries. If you aren’t sure about that last bit then have a look at this website. It’s a list of all the lying claims by the UK press.
Now it’s time to be happy about reviewing this album. This album starts a small series of “Kill” albums that are bloody amazing and ground-breaking. Kill ‘Em All is the fist studio album by a tiny band called Metallica and while they are shit now this collection of songs is bloody amazing. The sheer raw power and energy in the songs is more than in anything else they have produced. It is probably something to do with Dave Mustaine having helped write a lot of it. Once you get to the Black Album it’s all gone wrong. I’ll review that one in about a year I guess.
I was asked recently what is the last decent Metallica song. I took some time and went with “Harvester Of Sorrow”. The question asker plumped for “Shortest Straw”. Fair play. Blackened is also a choice for that but the rest of “Justice” aren’t that good.
Back to “Metal Up Your Ass”. This album, in my view, helped create thrash metal as a genre and introduced chugging as a “note” to be used below lyrics rather than the swinging bouncy guitars used by Iron Maiden.
Hit The Lights – starts with a crash ending of a song and I’ve always loved that. It’s hard and busy.
The Four Horsemen – smashes you in the face with it’s blistering pace and makes you want to rush into the pit.
Jump In The Fire – would be great to sing out loud. It’s got a good moshing pace and plenty of Hetfield trademark “yah!”.
Pulling Teeth – blows my mind. The noise and cacophony that Burton pulls from the basss guitar makes me smile and wonder at the talent. When Ulrich enters the drums create a rhythm perfectly matched that gives a good swing to this bass solo.
Whiplash – I can remember playing this at top volume in school. We were in the sixth form and there was a music box in the common room, which was opposite the staff room. We would open the windows, put Whiplash on full volume and leave the common room leaving the music playing as loud and obnoxiously as possible to the staff trying to enjoy their break time away from those pesky kids. Fast, heavy and a standard song in thrash. Seeing Newstead play this at Download in 2013 was brilliant.
No Remorse – chugs away with a canter. Brilliant. No regrets.
Seek and Destroy – I don’t think you can get better on this album than this song. It’s my favourite and I love it. I once saw Metallica at Milton Keynes bowl and I think the concert was broadcast live on Radio 1. I got a friend to record it from the radio for me and the version they played there crunched away in my head for years. Brilliant.
Metal Militia -we all are aren’t we? Why don’t normal people “get” this music? Why is it that when you play metal to someone who doesn’t understand you can hear their brains pop? You can see the disconnect in their minds as they struggle with the noise. I’ve tried to persuade people to metal over the years and now I don’t bother. I’ve tried playing aggrotech to people but they don’t get that either. It’s all fine by me. Being at a music festival with eighty thousand people all enjoying the same music gives a kinship.
Lord Of The Lost – The Garage
Smith and I traveled to the lofty intellectual heights of Islington last night to visit the Garage venue just outside Highbury station. On the bill were Lord Of The Lost, a German rock band, the venue was meant to be Electrowerkz but I think they sold more tickets than expected and they moved the gig to the Garage.
This was my third time at the Garage and again I was impressed. It’s smaller than I remembered, a nice, cosy (but not squashed) venue. I will say now that the sound in the place was pretty impressive and worked well. Probably better than Electrowerkz but I think this is largely to there being a little more space. Possible improvements would be a light beam a little further out from the stage to light up the bands a little more from the front rather than from a 3/4 position.
The second band were just finishing as we entered and they weren’t that impressive.
One of my favourites on as last support act were Unzucht. I’d seen them before at two M’era Luna festivals and I was looking forward to this.
They were good fun and played a decent set. They play a good hard riffage and then go and mess it up with an almost-ballad in the middle but I enjoy their style and it was good fun.
The headliners came on and I wasn’t really aware of the time but when I did look at my watch it was only 21:30 so for some reason there was an early curfew. It looked like they were setting up an urban-disco type thing.
Lord Of The Lost were good. It was a solid fun set and they seemed genuinely happy to be playing to a large-ish crowd.
I don’t really remember what songs they played but they started with “On This Rock” and ended with “La Bomba” which is always good for fun. Somewhere in the middle they played “Drag Me To Hell”.
It was a good evening and one that I ended too early really because I needed to be up early the next day [boo!]. Normally there would be more written here but I’m tired.
Kerbdog – Kerbdog
I do think that this album was another of my early buys on CD in the days when CDs were the latest technology. I don’t recall where I bought the album but it released in 1994 so that puts me at college. I don’t know a great deal about this band, I do know that when I got another of their albums I was slightly disappointed with it.
This album has some excellent riffs and can only be described as having “wavy” guitars. I used to have quite a bit of resistance to that term but over time I have decided it does represent a style of riffage.
I’m not sure I know any of the songs by title but I do know that I quite often hum the main riff from End Of The Green. It starts with a rolling riff that then hits hard when the rest of the band enter. The vocals are quite haunting also.
Dry Riser hits home as well. A good riff with a sudden pace change towards the end.
Dead Anyway crunches the squawker with its guitar work.
After that the songs fade from my riff-memory-centre. I’d definitely recommend giving the first few songs a blast over Spotify – whoops – just checked and this album isn’t on Spotify.