Tag: review

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Pure Devotion – Various Artists

I was given this album by a friend, Vince, in the early 2000s. Curiously it was Vince’s wife who gave me two CDs by Rammstein around the same time! Pure Devotion is a compilation album by various artists attached to the Pure Devotion record label. This addition to my collection was worrying. Having been a metal fan for all this time and only really liking guitars, drums and vocals this album started to bring in electronic sounds with an industrial vibe. Along with the bands Senser, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails this was the start of exploring another music genre.

This album is a great starter into industrial-electronic music.

  • Beers, Steers and Queers – Revolting Cocks – you know it’s probably good when you can’t tell which is the band name and which is the title. This is a brilliant song from the Revolting Cocks. Everyone should experience this at some point in their life.
  • Supernaut – 1000 Homo DJs – this band come up first on my list of iPhone music. I think people find it amusing. This is a cover of the Black Sabbath song and it’s great. They’ve given it that industrial twist.
  • No Name, No Slogan – Acid Horse – A classic beat and haunting melodies in the background. A deceivingly simple song.
  • Murder Inc. – Murder Inc. – A heavier guitar based song with excellent lyrics. Funny how so much music is written to protest the state of the world.
  • Teenage Mind – Hyperhead – This is a spooky early 90s sounding track with steady beats and a trance like quality. Delightful.
  • July – Chris Connelly – This is a great song with a simple but working chorus. This man has been involved with so many greats, he’s instrumental to the whole scene: Acid Horse, KMFDM, Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Murder Inc., PTP.
  • Faster Than Light – Lead Into Gold – Simple beats with sounds building up along with guitars and excellent vocals. What isn’t to like?
  • Rubber Glove Seduction – PTP – Samples, steady beats, an almost “Relax” vibe to it. You can feel the early beginnings of industrial and how it would move music on creating newer metal bands in the late 1990s.
  • Re-Release – Malhavoc – Speedy with a certain level of dischord and snarly vocals. This would get the pit going.
  • Conquer Your House – Excessive Force – More dance like than most of the others but with distorted vocals. This is good enough for me to buy one of their albums.
  • White King – Crow Force – A bit more rock with a rolling riff and faster beat.
  • Sympathy For The Devil – Skrew – A delightfully heavy version of the ‘Stones classic. Makes the song darker and more sinister.
  • Hoeda, Hoeda – Bomb Everything – A metal song with samples.
  • Ten Ground & Down – Pigface – Feels a bit 70s experimental.

This whole album is a great starter into electro-industrial.

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Le Mans ’66

I took a recent trip to see a film. I decided I needed to get out and do something and I also wanted to go somewhere new-ish. So, rather than journey over the Medway to Strood I went a little further and made Bluewater my destination. Now, this could have been a terrible decision as it’s the end of November and therefore well into the Christmas shopping season, I don’t do well in crowded places full of people buying shit for a stupid human festival. I have no idea of the state of the tide for my film trip. I didn’t purposely look at the river to observe the tidal phase but I did see a boat on another boat which I will try and get a photograph of next time.

After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB and there is a guide to the rating system in this communication. Then my phone tweets the result as well, such is technology nowadays.

So, what did I think of the film? I enjoyed it. There was the right amount of humour [at least I laughed] and I liked the cars. I wasn’t aware of the life of Phil Hill although I had heard the name before. This film really highlighted his racing career and how he was as a human being. It clearly showed the idea of man and machine as one, racing as fast as possible. The relationship between Hill and Shelby was great to see, as was the battles they faced with the bureaucratic monster that is Ford. There were a few liberties taken with the real story and the film version, but I can live with that.

The race tracks looked bloody amazing. I’m really impressed how, with tons of cash, you can turn the race tracks back into their 60s counterparts. It was nice to see Willow Springs in real life having raced around it in games for many years.

This film highlights some of the main issues with filming racing cars or people driving fast. Firstly to make the scenes look as though they are happening fast the camera is placed down close to the road, this gives the impression of speed because we are accustomed to seeing the road move from a greater height. You’ll see this all the time when cars race in film and it makes me giggle a little when you know they are only doing 40mph but acting as though it’s 100mph.

The second thing is that directors would like us to believe that you can always put your foot down more and there’s always another gear to change into! This isn’t the case. Race drivers use all the gears all the time and will generally be driving as hard as possible. Now, there may be times when they “go EZ” but this still requires the use of all gears but generally they will change at lower revs and avoid full throttle but they are still driving fast. I blame it all on the Fast And The Furious.

Overall, an enjoyable film about those Yanks winning something four times but never before or since in the 87 runnings of the race.

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iVardensphere – Electrowerkz

Smith and I travelled to attend the Beat Cancer 2.0 festival last night. Last year we saw Freakangel play somewhere in east London and now the fund raising jaunt returned in a bigger venue and with eight bands. The gig was based in the large room downstairs at Electrowerkz and there was a small bar set up but there wasn’t really a lot of space. It looked like there was a wedding going on in the Tube Train room – you’ll know what I mean if you’ve been there.

So the music started about ninety minutes late. The organiser blamed Lufthansa as the headline band, iVardensphere, were in Germany at the beginning of the day and without planes had to get to London. They managed this and set up but the running order was late by a long way. I had an important event to attend the next morning and so while the event was scheduled to finish at midnight I didn’t mind that once the delay was announced it made seeing all the bands rather problematic. I guess most people attending didn’t have to march through a town in a Remembrance Parade eight hours later.

First band up were Drakenwerks who I had missed by turning up late to another gig when they supported Nachtmahr. My notes say that the band was made of a man and woman, they were OK and played upbeat electronics with a hint of EBM.

Drakenwerks - Electrowerkz
Drakenwerks – Electrowerkz

The lighting rig seemed to consist of single colour washes for each song. In the above I caught a “green” song.

Then there was Vain Machine. Two chaps from the USA and it was their first time in London. It was a bit too goth for me. They even played a terrible cover version of “I was made for loving you” by Kiss.

Vain Machine - Electrowerkz
Vain Machine – Electrowerkz

Then there was the band of the organisers. The people who run this charity gig had a band and they played. It was experimental bullshit. A wall of noise. It was terrible. They were called Bein-E. Their full name was a massive German word but I only saw it on one piece of literature and didn’t make a note of it.

Bein-E - Electrowerkz
Bein-E – Electrowerkz

Then there was Cygnosic. This band was much more upbeat. The vocals were “growly” and while I didn’t understand what they were saying it was an improvement on most of the previous bands. The only problem was that their songs had no variation within. The structure was a single unit and lasted three minutes and stopped. I needed some form of difference as the song progressed. Judging by the accent of the singer when he spoke the band were from Spain or maybe Italy or similar [if they are Portuguese then I’ve probably offended a whole country!].

Cygnosic - Electrowerkz
Cygnosic – Electrowerkz

It was now 23:00 and there were three bands to go. iVardensphere wouldn’t finish until around 01:30 and I had stuff I was required to do the next morning. I had to call it a day and drive home. I’m gutted, but at least I have seen the Sphere before. They were really good both previous times but I can’t change my schedule. I’ll see them again one day soon I expect.

I missed:

  • Nature Of Wires
  • C-Lekktor
  • iVardensphere

So, after all that I saw five bands of varying degrees of not-good and the one band I really wanted to see I couldn’t as I had to get home to parade the next morning in Maidstone. I was gutted but also aware of my commitments and limitations. It was good to see the Smith.

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Pure Cult – For Rockers, Ravers, Lovers and Sinners – The Cult

I bought this album, a massive two LP disk set in a box, back when I still had a record player. I suspect I got this while at university. I remembered The Cult from school where there were one or two songs that were pretty good, if a little pop. As this collection was meant to be the best of all worlds I chose to get it. I think they had a massive album called “Electric” or “Blue” or a combination of those, I’m not going to check.

Apart from listening to the more pop side of this album I don’t think I’ve really listened to the rest. This is possibly a failing on my side of the bargain but I guess they’ve already had my money, the failure is mine.

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Terminator: Dark Fate

Last night I snuck over to the cinema at Rochester [it’s really in Strood] and watched the latest Terminator film. There’s a couple of things I need to cover here before I get to the actual review.

Firstly, the tide. The Medway river by the cinema is tidal and amusingly this area is on the will-be-underwater-by-2050 list. Anyway I couldn’t really see the water but I could see lots of white seagulls sitting on the mud flat dotted around being lit by the streetlamps. So my deduction is that the tide was low if the mud flats were exposed.

After I watched the film I rated it on IMDB but there is a guide to how that works and that guide is this communication. Once rated I tweet the result:

So, here’s the review. I really enjoyed this film. I laughed and I smiled and I thought it was good enough to watch again one day. There wasn’t a huge amount I could criticise about it, there didn’t seem to be too many plot holes or things to wind me up.

In my humble opinion the Terminator films only include the first two. Any Terminator films made after T2 have been terrible. This one bucks that trend and while it still isn’t as good as the first two I think it can proudly take third place [out of the three I recognise].

There were a couple of issues with the film but the problem was more the reaction created in me. I laughed out loud a couple of times and no one else did in the auditorium. I’m pretty sure that part of the film was meant to be funny but I’m the only one who laughed out loud. This could be a product of my current mental state, but I don’t know, I’ll react as I see fit. There’s a line about “driving faster”, that’s when it was just me.

My one minor criticism is that C5 Galaxys don’t start that quickly. There are procedures but I’m happy to ignore that because the filming inside the aircraft was amazing and I sat almost open mouthed at the beauty and poetry of that scene. This film took fight scenes, put them in places done before in other films but then showed those other films how to do it properly. Really impressive.

Linda Hamilton and Arnie were both great. Sarah Connor is delightfully grumpy, rightly so, and sounds like me when I’ve got a swear mood on.

I guess the one thing with Terminator films is that the humans need to win and there’s only so many ways you can kill a Terminator. That’s the limiting factor with Terminator films.

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Powerslave – Iron Maiden

Well, what can I say? I’m pretty sure I first listened to this after I had poured over the detail in Live After Death. There’s something remarkably clean about a studio album once you’ve digested the live version. My experience with Megadeth recently went the other way, the live version from Argentina made me revisit all the songs with a fresh perspective.

I used to spend time as a teenager lovingly looking over the album covers of the Iron Maiden albums trying to memorise every detail. The Powerslave album is one of the best covers I have ever seen, maybe Somewhere In Time comes close but I really enjoy the colours of the Powerslave cover.


The body bags and little rags of children torn in two,
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you

Adrian Smith & Bruce Dickinson
  • Aces High – continuing the theme of Empire and the greatness of Britain this song extolls the virtues of the Few who defended our island whatever the cost may be. A great song even if the over-arching themes of this East End band are tired and colonial.
  • Two Minutes To Midnight – well crafted and one of the best. It’s written by Adrian Smith you see and that adds a certain level of clever to it. I’ve been fortunate enough to play this on stage with a bunch of better musicians.
  • Losfer Words – it’s an instrumental. It’s ok.
  • Flash Of The Blade – I guess it’s Bruce harking back to his upper class hobby of fencing. To be honest it’s a good song. Proper Maiden.
  • The Duellists – is an OK song over-shadowed by the rest of the album. Another Maiden song about fighting for things I don’t understand.
  • Back In The Village – The opening riff of this is amazing and I love it. The whole song is a return the the Prisoner theme of earlier tunes. It’s pretty good.
  • Powerslave – Everything about this song is amazing but [oddly] my favourite bit is the end. THIS is how you write the end to a song. Fuck all you who use fade out. Write a proper ending.
  • Rime Of The Ancient Mariner – It’s over thirteen minutes long but doesn’t really feel like it. I mean the opening riff sounds like The Flight Of Icarus but the rest of it chugs along giving all the time.

The top songs on this album are: 2 Minutes and Powerslave followed by Aces High and Back In The Village, although the field is crowded. Go and listen to this album. It’ll burn your soul [well, it won’t will it but you can claim such].

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Powerage – AC/DC

“You say that you want respect. Honey, for what?”

That sums up a lot of how I feel at the moment. Anyway, these communications are meant to be about the albums and what I think of them. I don’t think you can go wrong with ANY Bon Scott album. The way he sings, the lyrics he writes. You can feel the pain and love behind every song. I’ve been a pretty big fan of AC/DC since I was around sixteen years old. There’s something about that crunchy guitar sound and the delightfulness of Bon’s voice and cheek.

There were two of us at school who were really into AC/DC. We’d buy an album and then discuss it for ages. It was a common bond between us and none of the others. I shed a tear at the end of the Let There Be Rock video where the words “To Bon” come up on the screen at the end of the Paris show.

This is an excellent summer album. It has that lovely jauntiness where you can have this playing in the garden while drinking a large rosé. I can imagine the air around me warming my body as the sun dips below the horizon and Bon sings out about that Sin City and I slowly get drunk to remove myself from thoughts about anything specific. It’d be lovely. If I like sitting outside in the garden, which I don’t. Not sure why, I just don’t like it.

  • Rock and Roll Damnation
  • Down Payment Blues
  • Gimme A Bullet
  • Riff Raff
  • Sin City
  • What’s Next To The Moon
  • Gone Shootin’
  • Up To My Neck In You
  • Kicked In The Teeth

I love that plodding bass of AC/DC. The way the bassist and drummer work to ensure the song gets where it needs to. Malcolm riffing away in the background making all the songs work well to compliment Angus being over the top.

Then there’s Bon. Such a cheeky, tortured chap. He was amazing. I wish I’d had the chance to see him sing live, to see AC/DC in those early days. But, I couldn’t do much about when I was born.

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Power Of Lard – Lard

Strictly speaking this is an EP rather than an album and as such it doesn’t really belong in this section of the website, but who could resist? There are three songs on this EP and they are:

  • The Power Of Lard
  • Hellfudge
  • Time To Melt

For some reason, and probably racist ones, I had thought that this band was a quirky north England piss take punk band. But, after looking it up it turns out to be almost a superband! The first song comes in at over seven minutes and is really well constructed. Hellfudge is a good little rock song.

Time To Melt is a thirty minute tour de force. I’m not even sure I’ve ever listened to it all the way through.

Look, Al Jourgensen is on this album. That’s all you need to know.

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Pornograffitti – Extreme

Much like some smells this album, when I think about it , takes me back to a specific time and era of my life. This one takes me to around 1990 and Thornbera Road in Bishop’s Stortford. I can’t remember when I first heard of Extreme but this album made them big. It’s got some massive songs on it, probably ones I’ve over-played and so now just can’t be bothered with. I do remember them playing “Get The Funk Out” on TOTP and me being quite excited at how racy it was.

The massive songs on this were:

  • Get The Funk Out
  • More Than Words
  • Hole Hearted

Looking over the track listing I think it’s fair enough to say that this is a pretty good album but just one I don’t think I’ve listened to for twenty years.

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Piece Of Mind – Iron Maiden

I’m pretty sure I got this album after I had listened to a taped version of Live After Death. I don’t think I actually owned the live album, just a version that Mark Hodges had taped for me. I’ve bought it many times over since then though, on vinyl, on VHS and CD. But, we are here to talk about this album: Piece Of Mind.

You can’t help but love Iron Maiden. There’s that cheeky photograph on the back of the album with the band about to tuck into a medieval banquet of brains, there’s the “Britishness” [which those who know me will understand I struggle with] and there’s the public school boy humour from Bruce.

The rock and roll rules mean that if you change a band member they get to start the next release with an intro part. And thus begins Piece Of Mind with Nicko McBrain blatting out a drumming introduction to the rocking along “Where Eagles Dare”, which if I had ever really listened to the lyrics is probably a song about the second world war film about something or another.

“Revelations” is a fucking great song, so beautiful and lyrical. The worst thing is that stupid “Go” that Bruce shouts in the middle and when I first heard this song from the album I laughed at that point and I still do chuckle to myself. This song is better on Live After Death, it has a little more speed and a roughness to it. The album version is a little over-produced. I’ve just read that it was influenced by Aleister Crowley which is pretty annoying but I still like the song.

“The Flight Of Icarus” is boring and I don’t really like it. I mean, it’s a good song, I just don’t like it. The live version is a little drab too. The riff structure feels a lot like Mariner from the Powerslave album, it’s just the opening couple of beats that tell them apart!

“Die With Your Boots On” is a good song, well done live. But in reality this middle aged man struggles with the message of jolly good old bashing the enemy and dying on the field.

“The Trooper” a tour de force about another bloody battle the Brits got tangled up in. Nothing like bashing on about the glorious times. It’s a good song though. I think I’m just struggling with the jingoism and battle cry of it all.

“Still Life” has some excellent hi-hat action and it makes me excited.

“Quest For Fire” is ok.

“Sun and Steel” I like the riff and chorus structure. I like it all. It’s quite pop like in structure but I do enjoy it.

“To Tame A Land” is a good song but I think it struggles from being the last track on side two of the album and so I’ve played it little. It might be something to do with those pesky books by Frank Herbert.

Go and buy Live After Death rather than this. It’s a more powerful statement.

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