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So let’s start with another EP that slipped through the radar in the shape of Belle and Sebastian’s Dog on Wheels. Released back in 1997, it may be four tracks long but as it essentially their first recordings it captures all the elements that made early Belle and Sebastian such a game changing propersistion. Title track Dog on Wheels is a fragile, understated and intricate piece of introspective indie that must have sounded so alien alongside the Oasis led brainless dad rock of the late nineties. Whilst it was released after their first two albums, this is Belle and Sebastian’s manifesto and mission statement in four songs. Power metal is very much a European phenomenon and with a couple of notable exceptions its pomp, ceremony and absurdity has been absent from America’s much more straight ahead take on heavy metal. One of those exceptions is the prior mentioned Iced Earth and the other is the magnificent kamelot (yes with a k). Dominion was their second album and shows a band a still developing their unique sound. This is a far rawer and rudimental record than later releases and its Maiden and Helloween influences are worn very firmly on its sleeve. Its not band but it lacks and craft, presentation and the sheer songwriting brilliance of later Kamelot records. Back in 1985 Done with Mirrors was meant to be a reunited Aerosmith big comeback album, however its raw bluesy style did not sit well with a audience now much more used to the slick polished pop rock of Bon jovi and Forgenier. In fact it took the much more accessible and commercial Permanent Vacation in 1987 for the ‘Smith to finally return to the top of the heap (a position that haven’t really shifted from in the subsequent 28 years). Now Done with Mirrors gets a lot of unfair and negative press (even from the band who whilst not disowning it have all expressed their dissatisfaction with it), however I have a soft spot for it. I first heard it back in the late eighties when I feel in love with Aerosmith thanks to the absolutely awesome Pump and immediately preferred Done with Mirrors’ dirty, rootsy bluesy rock to the stadium filling fodder of Permanent Vacation. It may not have had the radio hits that Aerosmith needed to save their tarnished image but its got some great guttural blues tracks like Let the Music Do The Talking and My Fist Your Face and for me that is good enough.

OK we have had CSS already and branded their self titled debut as having aged rather badly alongside a number of other releases that came from the short lived phomonaon that was nu-rave, well Donkey was their poorly received and woefully under-performing follow up and, well it sucks big time. It is dull, repetitive and bereft of any ideas. The Lo-Fidelity All-stars’ Don’t Be Afriad of Love is not much better and is a hodge podge of ideas and comes across like a poor persons Fat Boy Slim. Now their 1998 debut, How To Operate with a Blown Mind, is fantastic and is a dirty, funky, distorted dance classic however following on from the departure of vocalist Wrecked Train they produced this, essentially a run of the mill clean beat dance record. All the menace and the subversiveness of their wonderful debut had done and all that was left was crowd pleasing, mainstream dance. And the rubbish records keep on coming, Oasis made two great records and everything else has been rubbish. Don’t Believe the Truth was Oasis’s last but one album before they imploding and whilst at the time it was called a return to form, actually its more mediocre dross from a band that had hit auto-pilot a long time ago. Every song follows a template of what an Oasis track should sound like it and there it is none of the rawness or spontaneity that shone out of their first record. Awful.

So three really bad records but the gods of music blogs smile on me by sending me Doolittle by The Pixies. OK lets deal with it straight off, this album is twenty six years old but still sounds as new, enticing and downright scary as it did when when i first undid the shrink-wrap on my vinyl copy back in 1989. It hasn't aged in any way, shape or form and essentially is the Dorian Grey of recorded music. It sounded wonderful and not of this earth on my first listen and still sounds like nothing else all those years later. Peerless, just peerless. And keeping the karma going another excellent record in the shape of Pop Will Eat Itself’s very underated heavy metal album. Dos Dedos Mis Amigos saw them sign to Trent Reznors vanity record company and take their sound drastically down an industrial metal alleyway that they never actually emerged from.  

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Documenting the Distant Divine Dogs

Lets start very much in the present with two great albums from last year that both found themselves firmly planted within my top twenty of the year. Distant Satellites is yet another piece of majestic piece of atmospheric widescreen modern prog from Anathema, who are probably British rock’s best kept secret. For nearly twenty years this former death metal outfit having been churning out exquisite and intricately constructed albums of soaring, heart-wrenching and utterly beautiful prog metal. Every album is an imaginative emotionally charged roller-coaster of melody and time-changes that is greeted with rapture by their small but perfectly formed fanatical fan base and ignored by everyone else. Distant Satellites follows on in style from 2012′s terrific Weather Systems in that it is highly structured, highly emotive, highly emotive alternative rock and mostly importantly in being an album you can become totally lost in. Another stunning album from another fantastic British Band in the shape of Winterfylleth’s The Divination of Antiquity. This is a landmark release not just in terms of British Black Metal but in terms of the whole genre. Winterfylleth are the leading lights in the burgeoning British Black Metal movement and with The Divination of Antiquity they have managed to form their own distinct sound and create a very British take on the style of metal that was in danger of getting stale and boring. Rather than go down the post or prog routes that so many Black Metal acts have ventured in order to put their unique mark on the genre, Winterfylleth have stuck to the traditional sound but have enhanced the production and added a good dollop of British folk traditions. By simply creating a record that is well polished and expertly produced they have given the whole concept of Black Metal a whole new dimension. Whilst many purists believed that high production values would rob the genre of its menace, it in fact has given it a whole new lease of life. Simply put this is an album that can take Black Metal into the Metal mainstream.

Yet more metal and yet another appearance by Dutch symphonic heroes Epica. The Divine Conspiracy is their third album and their third appearance in this here experiment. Not as heavy as Design your Universe, which would follow it but far heavier and tighter than their previous outing, Consigned to Oblivion, the form should be familiar to all you all by now. So we get swirling semi-operatic female vocals, gruff death growl male vocals, plenty of Latin chanting choirs and more swirling keyboards than you can shake a stick at. Quality wise its rather good but you can’t help but feel this is symphonic metal by numbers. The patron saints of extreme metal now in the shape of Slayer and a bit of a confession in that I am not at all familiar with 1994′s Divine Intervention. Whilst I had adored their '86 to ‘90 output, by the time Divine Intervention turned up four years after the utterly amazing Seasons in the Abyss I had fallen well and truly out of love with Metal and therefore did not even notice its existence. So in essence whilst it is twenty years old this, to me, is a whole new Slayer record to discover and its rather good indeed. Faster and less doom laden than the aforementioned Seasons in the Abyss, it seems to be a combination of the sense of urgency from 1988′s frantic South of Heaven and the sheer brutality of the classic Reign In Blood, which nearly thirty years after its release is still the last word in extreme metal. Divine Intervention is essentially Slayer doing what Slayer do best which is white knuckle nasty as hell thrash metal and its great. Also great is Divinity of Purpose, the most recent album from metalcore mainstay’s Hatebreed. Released in 2013 it continued to cement Hatebreed’s position as Metalcore’s blue-collar heroes. Essentially Divinity of Purpose cuts straight to the chase and is twelve slices of non-apologetic brutal heavy metal topped with Henry Rollins-esque almost spoken word vocal delivery. It lacks subtlety but is utterly true in its convictions, so whilst it is not particularly clever, imaginative or game changing it is overall a highly enjoyable romp. 

The Division Bell is solid proof, if it was needed, why most millionaire middle aged rock stars should not make records. This is Pink Floyd’s only album of the nineties and in many ways the last true ‘new’ Floyd record released (last year’s dreadful Endless River is essentially a poorly executed shunt job of unused material from the sessions for Division Bell and 1988′s Momentary Lapse of Reason). Division Bell is a blotted self delusional mess, It lacks any direction or bite and frankly really has no reason to exist. It makes Dire Straits sound edgy and anti-establishment and is just safe and uninspiring. A horrible record from a once great band. I am going to carry on in grumpy old man mode as Django Django’s 2013 critically acclaimed self titled debut, Django Django annoys me immensely. The reason is that it sounds note for note like a watered down Beta Band, however whilst Django Django have been hoisted on the nations shoulders like some indie second coming and have been praised to high heavens for allegedly creating a whole new innovative sound the band that they nicked wholesale their entire sound from never got an ounce of the acclaim that Django enjoy. I feel again like the boy in the Emperor’s new clothes shouting that i have heard this all before and that the Beta Band did it so much better. Anyone who bought this record should be physically made to listen to The Three EP’s so they too can see through the smoke and mirrors. Rant over.

To make me feel better, four excellent albums followed, two of them bona fide modern classics. So lets start with British Sea Power’s brilliant third album, Do You Like Rock Music?, which was meant to be the record that truly broke them into the big league but ultimately turned out to be too eclectic and challenging for the mainstream. Do You Like Rock Music? is a wonderful album both in the fact it has so many good songs but also in the fact that it is deeply subversive. This is an album that requires you to listen and interact with it. Each track is a treasure trove and on each play you discover a little bit more of its wonder and its intellect. Its not an easy or immediate record and even what seems to be anthems like Waving Flags and Atom are actually distorted, bitter and twisted. But as a entity it is just such clever, charismatic and cohesive record and probably the best thing British Sea Power have done. And another piece of indie wonderfulness follows with R.E.M’s legendary and utter compelling Document. This is their high watermark, this is the moment they cemented themselves as the biggest alternative band in the world and this is the moment they went global. There is not a band song on here and the for me first six track (Finest Worksong, Welcome to the Occupation, Exhuming McCarthy, Disturbance at the Heron House, Strange and Its the end of the world as we know it) make up one of the finest side ones on a record ever. This really is REM at their best and sadly as they meandered towards mainstream it was all downstream afterwards but if they are to peak, then Document is some peak and we haven’t even mentioned The One I Love. Now those who know me well will have reaised that we are nearing Dog which can only mean one thing, but before we drown in hyperbole we have Chairlift’s rather good and rather underrated Does You Impress You. Minimalistic New York electrico indie, it sounds like a more refined and understated Yeah Yeah Yeah but without the pretentiousness. It is also has far more to it than its i-tunes advert sound-tracking break out single, Bruises. I really rather like it and its quirky indie style really appeal to me and it is because of that it manages to hold its own against what is to come. So we reach the final one of these four great albums and the last in this segment and when I started on the D’s i knew this was on its way and would tower head and shoulders above each and every album. So we get my second favorite album of all time, Suede’s utter utter masterpiece Dog Man Star. It is such an incredible record and on each and every listen it immerses me in the journey from the rhythmic opening of Introducing the Band to the heartbreaking beauty of the closing of Still Life. It really is a work of high art and there is not a single wasted note, let alone track and its closing crescendo of The 2 of Us, Black or Blue, Asphalt World and Still Life will never ever be bettered. Over four incredible diverse tracks Brett offers everything he has got this. This is haunting drama and spin-tingling emotional rawness. There is just nothing like it, it truely is utterly utterly amazing. And apart from one other record that we wont actually get to for a very very long time, there is nothing that betters this. so a timely time to stop.

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Discovery of Dirty Disintegration

Dirt is not up there with Sonic Youth’s finest work, but it wins a special place in my heart as it is the moment that I came in. I had become aware of Sonic Youth during the promotional tour for their previous release, Goo, but Dirt was their first record that I bought religiously on the day of release and specifically made sure that I saw them on the accompanying tour (a rather lackluster headline slot at the 1993 Phoenix festival). Sonic Youth are a unique band with a unique sound and whilst Dirt is not up to the standard that they had previously set with Daydream Nation or would go on to recapture with Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped, it is not in anyway a bad record. It just does not have those moments of genius that turn good Sonic Youth records into great ones. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was AC/DC’s third album (though only second to be released outside of Australia). Its far more primitive sounding AC/DC than we are used it and it has a real raw bluesy boogie woogie feel to it. It also brings up the huge the elephant in the room that AC/DC were very influenced by, in fact took their whole sound from, classic Status Quo. So whilst AC/DC maybe cool and hip they are essentially nothing more than a good time bar-room boggie band. 

Dirty Hits is a best off from Primal Scream and starkly demonstrates the utter diversity of this remarkable band. With Screamadelic, Vanishing Point and XTRMNTR they produced three zeitgeist worthy records each of which holds a major place in the evolution modern music. it is rare for a band to produce one record that had seismic impact on the whole development of music, Primal Scream have produced three. However as well as groundbreaking records they also know how to produce a great three minute singles. Rocks and Jailbird are both classic tunes, even though the album that birthed them, Give in But Don’t Give Up, is piss poor. This compilation only really looses its way when we reach stuff from the frankly disappointing Evil heat (after the extraordinary XTRMNTR anything would be a disappointment, but Evil Heat is a failed attempt to add sleaze to the agit pop of XTRMNTR and it really doesn't work). However really i cant say a bad thing as Come Together, Burning Wheel and Kill All Hippies alone are worth the admission price. Now Dirty Hits was released simultaneously with Dirty Remixes, a parallel collection of all the remixes done of Primal Scream stuff. now the scream team were the first indie band to truly understand and embrace the power and the kudos of the remix. Essentially Screamdelic itself is a remix album, as it is Andrew Wetherall going all acid house over what was a in essence a shoe-gazing record, so i had great expectations and hopes. However either these weren't the heady brain busting remixes that i remember from my clubbing days of the early nineties or over the intervening years my memory has greatly over elevated how good the remixes of Swastika Eyes and Higher Than the Sun were, as this is a rather dull record. it felt like listening to Dirty Hits again, but with slightly altered versions that were not as good as the originals.

Now Disarm the Descent is bloody brill and in hindsight should certainly been in my top five of 2013 (i think it made number twenty). It is Killswitch Engage’s first album since the split with Howard Jones (not that one) and the return of original vocalist Jessie Leach and it shows when Metalcore is done well, it is excellent. It has the melodic structure of Maiden and Priest but with the attitude and venom of Black Flag and it just soars! The energy, passion and vibrancy just drips of each and every track and it feels like an album that is just happy to be alive. Now I rather liked the previous Killswitch album (entitled simply Killswitch Engage, but there were many who felt it sounded tired and boring and that it was simply a band going through the motions. Whilst I would not go that far, I would agree that with Disarm the Descent Killswitch sound rejuvenated and once more in love with being in a band. More metal next, but a completely different flavor. Katatonia (with a K) are Swedish Goth Metal and play a much slower and doom orientated form of Metal to the high octaraine hundred mile an hour style of Killswitch. This is still quality stuff and The Discouraged Ones oozes confidence and conviction. It is understated but what it lacks in bombastity it more than makes up for in solid songwriting and well constructed melodies. 

And now three albums that actually blurred into one. I started with Daft Punk’s 2001 second album Discovery and to be honest I have a real emperor’s new clothes feeling about Daft Punk. I have never got what others, who musical tastes i respect, see in them and Discovery, as always, just felt like a rather bland Chicago house compilation. I have tried but compared to other dance acts, I always find Daft Punk to be, ironically, musically faceless and that their stuff lacks any charisma. However towards the end of the record I find myself enjoying the shift towards a more female fronted eighties electro style, only to discover that we had infact slipped into Dubstar’s Disgraceful. In today’s eighties obsessed musical scene Dubstar sound probably more relevant than ever. However whilst Disgraceful has some stand out moments, in the shape of Stars and the wonderfully sinister Not So Manic Now, it got quite dull after a while. However in its final tracks i found that it picked up and gained a punky, almost spikey edge, however on closer inspectition I discovered that we had moved into Robots in Disguise’s 2001 debut album, entitled simply Robots in Disguise. Whilst it maybe nearly fourteen years old it screamed trendy as hell Shoreditch. Robots in Disguise were/are the self appointed queens of DIY electropunk and this really is style over substance. The attitude is great and of the three shunt job records into is the only one that has any character but the music is juvenile, nieave and, in some places, absolutely god awfully bad. 

However you will be glad to hear that the next record is so distinctively brilliant that it stands out a country mile. I have mentioned Disintegration by the Cure before and how it is heads and shoulders the greatest thing they have done. 1987′s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me might have been a huge commercial success but it worried many hardcore fans that The Cure were dropping their Gothic etherialness to go mainstream. Disintegration was the atmospheric desolate answer and it probably one of the most densely gloom laden commercially successful albums of all time. It is one of those rare albums that works as a cohesive whole as well as twelve individual tracks. It has such a majestically dark feel to it and the layers of sound are just incredible. However within this shell of Gothic doom there are moments of utter wonder, Plain Song is one of the greatest opening tracks out there with its waves of tragic euphoria and Untitled is probably one of the great album closers, with its glimmers of hope and soothing melodies. Disintegration is just utterly wonderful and a good place for us to end.

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Diary of a Different Dig

Right up and at em with some Ozzy to start. Diary of a Madman was his second solo album and whilst it lacks a Suicide Solution or a Crazy Train, it is a stronger and more cohesive album than his debut. The reason the album works so well is the chemistry between Ozzy and guitar playing wunder kid Randy Rhodes. His passionate and electrifying style of playing brings a warmth and depth to even the dullest track and clearly rejuvenated Ozzy seems to relish their interplay. The tragedy is that just months later a stupid and avoidable mid tour accident involving a light aircraft ‘buzzing’ the tour bus robbed Randy of his life and Ozzy of his muse. And next comes an abject lesson in the fact that trying something new is not always a good idea. We already have had Slayer’s catacylistic attempt at nu-metal, well a Different Beat is Irish blues guitar god Gary Moore’s attempt at dance music. Really, i am not making this up and it is utterly awful. It really has no redeeming features what so ever. Modernizing Gary’s classic sound with a flurry of random dance beats does not even sound a good idea on paper and is truly excruciating in reality. However to wash away the truly appalling, comes the utterly wonderful. From 1993 to 2000 Pulp produced four the greatest albums ever made. 1995’s Different Class is the height of the commercial peak and whilst, in my humble opinion, it is provably the weakest of the four it is still an utterly incredible record. One of fascinating things about is how dark it is, this was a multi-platinum selling mega success album that broke into the mainstream, yet it is sinister, forbidding and has a pitch black heart. It’s genius, infact Pulp’s genius was to dress the perverted, mutated and disenfranchised up in the most wonderful intelligent pop. In Jarvis they have one of the finest English songwriters of the last fifty years and it the structure and depth of these songs that make this such a good record. 

And now a lesson in being careful what you wish for as it might come true. For years, enfact decades the idea of a new Van Halen album with estranged front-man David Lee Roth seemed a tantalizing but unattainable propersistion. Then when Lee Roth rejoined Van Halen in 2007 for a highly lucrative reunion tour talk inevitably begun of a mythical new album with Diamond Dave on vocals. In 2012 nearly twenty eight years after the last Van Halen album with Lee Roth, the wonderful 1984, A Different Kind of Truth arrived and it is not very good. It is as flat as pancake and lacks any of the charisma or the piazza or show-biz glam that made those late seventies and early eighties albums with Dave so exciting. In fact it is probably the weakest and the least exciting thing Halen have ever done. It just feels like a creatively bankrupt attempt at contractual fulfillment and just is dull, really dull. I would still kill to see them live though. Dig Your Own Hole by the Chemical Brothers appears next and whilst I was much more an Orbital man, I really really enjoyed it listening to it again and it found me happily dancing home from Hyde North Station. It is such a rich and varied record and there is so much detail in the music. Whilst it probably has been a decade or so since I last listened to it, I immediately recalled how much I particularly loved the closing two tracks Where Do I Begin and The Psychedelic Reel. Both songs feel like they move dance music and I found myself loving them now as much as I did at the time. 

I have talked a lot about Springsteen being a unique propersistion because he is an elder statesmen of rock still making and releasing culturally relevant material. However even the Boss has made some duff records, where as Nick Cave is the only member of rock’s musical elite that is yet to make a bad record. As part of the Birthday Party, backed by the Bad Seeds and as a member of Grinderman, over four decades Mr. Cave has consistently made great great records and he shows no signs of stopping. Released in 2008 Dig Lazarus, Dig!!! was Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds first record for four years and the first since the sprawling Abbiator Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus and its excellent. Its certainly (Grinderman aside) his most punky and scuzzy stuff since Birthday Party. It seems to reveal in its experimentation and its abandonment of perceived song structure, Nick Cave is the master of heart wrenching torch song (Into My Arms makes me cry on each and every listen) but there is none of that here. Dig Lazarus, Dig!!! is rebellious, playful, irreverent and far more noisy than you would expect from an album by a man approaching his sixties. Digimortal is another piece of industrial metal from Fear Factory and it is as poor as Demanufacture was good. The latter album felt cutting edge, organic and fresh, even though it is a good twenty years old, Digimortal feels contrived and over constructed. Each track feels like it has been created by committee and it has no natural flow or feel. It just was a really dull listen as it had no stand out tracks and nothing that made you think, oh that’s interesting.

Finally, and its a large finally, we reach Direction, Reaction, Creation which is a five disc box set consisting of literally everything The Jam ever recorded. Its all the albums, all the singles, all the b-sides and all the forgotten never got round to releasing stuff. It’s real point of interest is that as it is chronological you can hear the band evolve and also you can hear which bands were influenced by which periods of The Jam. The early stuff is simple, spiky, shouty rock n roll. What my good lady wife refers to as lads go fighting music, it is the nearest The Jam get to the punk that they are labelled with and to be honest this stuff is a lot closer to the r’n’b pub rock of Dr. Feelgood than it is to the heavy snarl of the Pistols. However you can hear this early chuggy sound recycled numerous times over the last thirty years in bands like Northern Uproar, the Enemy and the Ordinary Boys. The middle period is much more sophisticated though retains a rocky feel. Mid period Blur is brought to mind and their a realization that their masterpiece of Britishness, Modern Life is Rubbish, is as much influenced by the The Jam as it is by the Kinks. In fact far from being a year zero, The Jam fit in as direct continuation from the Kinks and then in its a direct linkage into the Smiths etc. As said listening to all their stuff together in one large spurge puts pay immediately to any thoughts that the Jam were punk and this is especially clear when we get nearer the end as musically we are nearer the working class soul of early Simply Red than anything else. in fact for a band from Woking there is a strong Northern soul feel, as well as a number of tracks that directly steal from the Small Faces (then again blur's Parklife is essentially Ogden's Nut Gone Flake revisited). Overall this was enjoyable, if a little much at times. There are some bloody brill tracks (essentially the hits Beat Surrender, Bitterest Pill, Going Underground etc) but also i got bored more than i probably have should. so that's that, next!

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Determined Diamond Devil

OK trying a different approach as we have a number of short themes to come (i.e. two or three albums with similar titles) so going to lump them all into one post and one or two other stragglers. So to start let’s have some German Viking metal from Wolfchant. Determined Damnation is essentially a poor person’s Amon Amarth. It’s got the anethmic melodic death down to a tea, it just seems to have forgotten the need for memorable tunes. So where as I can list you and sing with vigor a good dozen Amon Amarth tracks, I can’t remember a single Wolfchant number. Good, but unmemorable metal. More metal in the shape of Heaven & Hell’s The Devil You Know. This album has a degree poignancy as it was the last record to be made by the late great patron saint of Heavy Metal Ronnie James Dio as he died midway through the tour to promote it. As a final monument to probably the greatest metal vocalist of all time (and yes I include Ozzy and Halford in those who Dio’s vocal range towers above) it is not bad and whilst it ain’t no Heaven & Hell (the record, do keep up it gets quite confusing) it is quite fitting that Ronnie’s final record was with the classic early eighties Sabbath line up. For those that gave up decades ago on the great metal revolving door that Sabbath became in the eighties and nineties, Heaven & hell (the band ) was the name adopted by the reunited Heaven & Hell (the album) Black Sabbath line up, when Ozzy (now back with Sabbath) would not allow them to use the Black Sabbath name with another singer (forgetting the fact that Ozzy was not the singer with Sabbath for almost four times as long as he was). So The Devil You Know is not particularly remarkable but still rather enjoyable. Dio’s distinct voice accompanies Tony Iommi’s distinct riffs so well it is always a joy to hear the two interact even when the songs themselves are not that great. It is just feels so sad that’s this it, this is the last next stuff we will even hear from the great Ronnie James Dio. 

Wiping the tears away we get our next record, Devildriver, the 2003 self titled debut from Devildriver. Essentially what former Coal Chamber frontman Dez Fafara did next, it abandons the nu-metal of the aforementioned Coal Chamber to liberally borrow from Machine Head. This is a really nice way of saying that it really doesn’t have an original thought in its entire body and essentially seems to think the sum total of making a heavy metal album is loud fast guitars and shouty vocals. Devildriver would go onto to make five much better albums (I as already discussed I rather like 2011’s beast) so we can forgive their rather faltering start. More Devil but complete change in style for Devils & Dust, the third in Springsteen’s decade spanning trilogy of stripped down stark acoustic records (following Nebraska in the eighties and The Ghost of Tom Joad in the nineties). The bizarre thing about Springsteen is that, certainly here in the UK, whilst he is stadium filling platinum selling artist he is also highly highly underrated. The public persona of Springsteen has not moved from the fist pumping anthemic artist of Born in the USA and the introverted insular dark storyteller Springsteen of albums like Devils & Dust is virtually unknown. Which is a huge shame as I believe as a cronicalar of modern America, he is more important than Dylan. Devils & Dust is low key in both it’s focus and it’s delivery, this is small scale tales of everyday small town America. There is no heroics here and the optimism and hope for the future that returned to Springsteen’s music with 2002’s The Rising is once again absent (as the vast majority of tracks on here were actually written prior to The Rising’s release this is unsurprising. Springsteen is essentially rock n roll’s biggest hoarder…). Overall Devil & Dust biggest success is to prove once and for all that whilst Springsteen (at the time) was fast approaching his sixties, he was and still is by far and away the most relevant voice in modern American music. 

Another American institution and another bonafide voice of the disenfranchised follows in the shape of Slayer. Released back in 1998 Diabolous In Musica was their seventh album and was very much their career wobble. Whilst to the casual ear there may not seem to be too much difference between this album and previous Slayer records, Diabolous In Musica actually signaled a massively unpopular (and short lived) musical departure for the band. In the opinion of most fans, including myself, this was the moment where one of the most consistently brilliant bands in heavy music got it rather wrong. This is essentially their nu-metal record and whilst it did not (thankfully) see an outbreak of crap white rapping, it did signal a ditching of the crisp, clear and concise thrash guitar riffs of previous Slayer records for a much more muddier, murkier and looser sound. There are even shades of death metal thrown in for good measure and the result is an album that is frankly a big old mess. Slayer albums are usually slick driven concise affairs where less is very much more, Reign in Blood manages to say everything that needs to be said about extreme music in  twenty eight minutes and fifty eight minutes. Diabolous In Musica has too many unnecessary things going on, it feels unstructured, unedited and very much like an experiment gone rather wrong. With God Hates us All Slayer would go back to what they do best, but for now Diabolous In Musica is a monument to that fact that not all experimentation is good 

But as the D’s seem to be the letter most preferenced by classic albums, we are never too far from a bloody good record, enfact Bowie’s awesome Diamond Dogs shuffles in next. Now Diamond Dogs is always thought of as Bowie’s last great glam record, however the biggest thing that has struck me from this listen through is how Diamond Dogs as an album sits actually far more comfortably with the two studio albums that would succeed it (Young Americans and Station to Station) rather than the preceding Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust. In fact the rather pointless covers album Pins Up which came directly before Diamond Dogs was probably the line in the sand for glam Bowie. Title track and rebel rebel aside the rest of the stuff on Diamond Dogs is very much the white soul boy Bowie of Young Americans, enfact Rock n’ Roll with Me and We Are The Dead are far more Tamla Motown than I ever realized. Now this doesn’t not make it a bad album, from ‘71’s Hunky Dorry to 1980’s Scarry Monsters (and Super Creeps) Bowie seemed incapable of making a bad record with a mega ten album run of genius records. It just proves (if it needed proving) the diversity and variance of the man and the fact that he could sing the telephone directory and make it interesting. More Diamonds in the form of Diamond Eyes from the Deftones. Released in 2010, many considered it (and many still do consider it) a real return to form after 2006’s poorly received Saturday Night Wrist. However (and you knew one of those was coming) at the time I couldn’t quite see what the fuss was about and listening to it again now I still can’t see what makes people declare it to be as good as (or for some people better than) the classic White Pony and The Deftones. I love the aforementioned two albums but Diamond Eyes I can take or leave, its not bad it just doesn’t grab me in anyway. It, for me, lacks that pulsating claustrophobic power of those earlier records. The music on diamond eyes has more room to breath and that’s the problem for me, as the tense smoldering danger is not there. And a final diamond and in fact the final one for this entry and a right different one to leave you on. Diamond Mine is a stark understated and emotionally raw modern folk album from King Creosote & Jon Hopkins. This is folk music at its most stripped down and coarse. This is miles away from the pretty boy comfortable middle class modern folk of the Mumfords, this is tragic working class folk with all the trimmings torn away. All is left is powerful human emotional and tales of life and loss. It is a voice and a low key minimalist piano but this is such a powerful and moving album. And on that, look to the skies!

[sholucas-blog]

Hail Destroyer

OK yet another themed one, so let get destroying with Scottish techno wizard Mylo’s one and (so far) only record, Destroy Rock n’ Roll. Now, on release I loved this record, however it is one of those many albums that very soon fell off my radar. So revisiting it after a five year absence finds me struggling to recall what all the fuss was about. Its all very Moby lite and just feels like tame dance music for people who have never been near a nightclub. I had memories of something quite special and to be honest i was bitterly disappointed, as this time around it just anonymously slid by. And talk of the balded vegan Christian techno god and lo he will appear as the real Moby is next with Destroyed and its time for more disappointment as its utter pants. Destroyed is a direct facsimile of his classic Play but just not nearly as good. There is no law to stop you plagiarizing yer self but this is such a pale and imagination less copy that it just feels utterly pointless.

However happy faces time as we now have one of the greatest, most over the top and utterly wonderfully ridiculous albums ever made. Ladies and gentlemen the self absorbed ego fest that is Kiss’ masterpiece of the absurd, Destroyer. I love this album so much as it is by far the most self-indulgent, up its own bottom and down right silly record ever made. Kiss as a band are a ludicrous, decadent and fantastical propersistion and that is why they are so special. Everything about them screams escapism and they are offer a brief but crucial exit from everyday living that is really what rock n roll is for. They are the archetype good time band but that is combined with size, scale and the utter fantastical to create the extrodinary and the unattainable. They embody all we want to be but will never be and they are the bright neon colors that punctuate our grey existence. Destroyer is the pinnacle of their career and it is quite simply magnificent. It is cartoon rock n' roll at its over-blown, self interested best and it is a melting pot of lust, ego and pure unadulterated arrogance. The self belief that runs through the record is both stunning and admirable, this is the (then) biggest band in the world telling you they are the biggest band in the world and Gene Simmons colossal ego makes Liam Gallagher and Ian Brown seem shy and retiring. Destroyer's beauty is that it combines camp Egotistic stupidity (Great Expectations has the line 'You see Paul play the guitar and see what his fingers can do and you wish those fingers were doing that to you') with some of the greatest rock songs ever written. Opener Detroit Rock City is the greatest rock n'roll teenage car crash song ever made, God of Thunder is a menacing anethmic chest beating gem, Beth is the power ballad to end all power ballads and in Shout it Out Loud, we have probably the finest dumb party metal track ever written. Destroyer is just a stupid, simplistic joy of a record with its brain in its pants and an ego the size of Jupiter, wonderful, just wonderful.

And Destroyer of the Void by Blitzen Trapper brings me back down to earth. This is one of those modern records that wants to be back in the seventies, this one is Supertramp influenced or to be honest Supertramp worshiping and whilst it ain't bad it just feels rather dull and tepid after the multicolored rocket ride that is Destroyer. And 65 days of Static's Destruction of Small Ideas rings a close to our little destroy and destruction group. This is art rock ala Mogwai but less atmospheric and more metallic. Not a patch on their excellent Fall of Maths, This is still highly interesting and inventive music. And that's it, and as Gene Simmons tells us "Shout it out, shout it out loud, if you want to have a party", genius!!!

[sholucas-blog]

Definitely Dedicated to Decadence and Depravity

Right loads to get through as i am massively behind where I am listening wise. Some absolute barnstormers to come so lets get to it boppers. Debut is Bjork’s stunning first album and whilst it is over twenty years since it first appeared it still sounds quirky, alluring and just so different. It really was the record that launched a thousand careers and every left field female artist from Florence to Zola Jesus, from Pulma Faith to Feist owes a debt to this record. It still sounds so different and so unique even though it has pretty much written the rule book on modern female fronted indie. A fantastic record that still gives so much on each and every listen. Decade of Decadence is another compilation, this time from Motley Crue, and charts the first ten years of their chequered career and pulls from the five albums that they released during that time. Interestingly twenty five years after this album appeared, the Crue’s farewell tour setlist pulls almost exclusively (Saints of Los angels aside) from the first five albums which proves that everything they have produced 1989 on-wards has made little or no impact. Which in some ways is a shame as I love their self-titled 1994 album they made with John Corabi even though it has been more or less Stalinised from their official history. Musically this is the hits, two great tracks from each of the five albums and they are the hits because they are great songs. You can’t complain with Livewire, Wild Side, Smokin in the Boys Room and Shout at the Devil.

Deceiver of the Gods is, quiet simply one of the best metal albums that has been relased this decade. It is certainly Amon Amarth's finest moment and is just a great example of well crafted anthemic melodic death metal. Decemberunderground is yet another record from AFI, who have already turned up numerous times, this is their commercial high-point with Miss Murder finally (after nearly twenty years as a going concern) turning them into ‘over night’ success. Its not a bad album and is better than the blatant commerciality of the subsequent Crash Love but it is not a patch on the  wonderful Sing the Sorrow which  is the last word in dark goth punk. Decemberunderground is good but it just doesn't have enough darkness to be anything more than just good. Declaration of Dependence takes us in a completely different direction. This is quiet-core and the Kings of Convenience are its absolute central movers. This is gentle, well constructed, lo-fi, understated indie. Political and heartfelt, it is music at its most introverted and insular. Less is very much more and it manages to emote by being gentle, laid back and more less invisible. It is not music to go to a run to but it still manages to be inspirational in its stripped down production. And then we get another one of those bloody good records that I promised in the form of another incredible debut album. The Decline of British Sea Power announced the arrival of British Sea Power as the most quirky, different and highly unique British indie act since Super Furry Animals. By pulling inspiration from a million different places the album manages to come across as completely different to everything and anything else. Unlike so many other records which are essential just a bunch of songs, this records takes you on a journey. It starts off loud and noisy, sounding like the pixies and then gradually it morphs into a much more sophisticated pop before it again changes direction and ends up almost in a prog place. Its the amount of thought that has gone into this record that makes it such as fantastic listen, just outstanding.

Dedicated to Chaos is the last album Queensryche made with the (almost) classic line up before everyone else fell out with Geoff Tate and they descended into (ironically) farcical chaos with two Queensryche’s and suits and counter suits over who owned the name. The really sad thing about this all is that Dedicated to Chaos is not a bad record at all. It saw them move away from the self indulgent shite that they had been peddling during the noughties and return to the prog metal sound of 1994’s excellent The Promised Land, the last great album the band produced. Now Dedicated to Chaos is not even in the same league as The Promised Land but it does feel like a band truly finally re-finding their own voice. Its such a shame it went so sour so soon after. Parkway drive are one of the most exciting modern metal bands. The missing link between death and metal cores they have the brutality and intensity of the former but with melodic backing and the tunes of the latter. I really like Deep Blue and find it a real high octatrine and exhilarating listen. It is as heavy as f@ck but manages to crave outstanding tunes into that utter heaviness. Most importantly it sounds like it is taking metal forward into new territories when so many other modern metal bands sound like they are simply recycling the same Sabbath riff over and over again. See i told you this entry was packed to the brim with wonderful records and now we have yet another and our third stellar debut. Definitely Maybe is quite simply a ziegist of a record and was the center of a storm whose ripples we still feel today. Now musically it is simple, unadventurous and treads a very well trodden path but, and this is a significant but, its attitude and ideology was simply revolutionary and game changing. It is a record that is astonishing for its impact rather than its content, as it made the nation fall in love with rock n' roll once more. The rock band as the bad boy last gang in town is a well worn image that gets re-invented and reinvigorated for each generation. Stones, Pistols, Jesus and the Mary chain are the linage and Oasis were the ’90s voice of the people and Definitely Maybe was the fuse that lit the firework.

And now five incredible metal albums from all corners of its wonderful world and i am really going to have to slag something off soon as these are all really good! I know i spoke about System of a Down and Slipknot as being the two bands who rejuvenated my love of metal, however during my indie kid days i did retain a love of some metal and The Deftones was one of those bands. Their 1999 album White Pony is simply extraordinary and The Deftones was their self titled follow up and whilst not as devastatingly brilliant as White Pony it's up there with it as the best things they have ever done. Its the brooding atmospherics that i love about this album, it is a tight cauldron of dense heavy music that reeks of emotion. It's raw, guttural and just feels alive. Great album. Deliverance is the companion piece to the already discussed Damnation. Where as the latter saw Opeth experiment with clean vocals and a prog focused approach, Deliverance is a full on death metal experience and their last truly great album in that style. However this is not commonaul garden, meat and potato death metal, this being Opeth they have stretched it's structure as far as they can, putting much more openness and depth into the death metal formula. It is not symphonic death but there is a real wide screen anthemic feel to it. Opeth just don't make bad albums and this again is such a fantastic hybrid of a record, however fueled at its core by death metal. Ok, I lied as the Mars Volta aren't technically metal, even though they share it's complexity and it's sense of rule breaking. De-loused in the Comatorium is avent grade prog and is probably one of the most in-accessible things in my collection, which makes the commercial success of Mars Volta even more surprising. De-loused in the Comatorium is an intriguing but frustrating listen, frustrating because if refuses to stay still. It alters time signature mid-song and the style and direction changes about six to seven times each track. It has a huge depth and sense of direction, it requires rather a lot of patience to fall in love with it. Demanufacture is probably one of the most important metal albums of the last twenty odd years, however I have only realized this on this listen. Fear Factory are one of those bands that fall in-between my Metal periods, they are appeared in the early nineties as I was moving away from the genre and by the time I returned to the fold in the early noughties they had already imploded and become a spent force. So I have had to retrospectively become aquiented with their material. The simple fact is that Demanufacture is stunning, it is dark futuristic metal that sounds as just as apoloclyptically brutal now as it did on release. It is the sound sound of society collapsing and you can hear its influence on so much modern metal. The final of our five finger metal sandwich is Behemoth's Demigod. More raw and brutal than last years excellent The Satanist, it still has that widescreen feel. As with all later Behemoth releases (Demigod was their seventh record) this is extreme metal with huge levels of ambition. It is not content to play small clubs to a handful of followers, this extreme metal built for stadiums.

We leave the metal behind with lo and behold yet another excellent record, The Gorilliaz stunning second album Demon Days. By far the best and most cohesive thing that Damon Alburn's cartoon band produced, this truely feels new and exciting and like it was produced by fantastical creatures. It has a real cinematic feel to it and is more a soundtrack than an actual album but it has so many excellent tunes on it that it gets away with being wholly manfuctured. The albums that book end Demon Days (Gorilliaz and Plastic Beach) both suffer from style over substance, but this is the album where the product matches the concept. And back to the metal and metal at its most extreme and brutal, 1349 (named after the year that the plague hit Norway, nice) are proper old school Norwegian Black Metal. This is the strong stuff and their no symphonic, melodic or progressive tones about any of the stuff on Demonoir, this is what many refer to as true Norwegian black metal in that it has lo-fi production and sounds like the bowls of hell opening from beginning to end. I rather like it  but this really is the extreme of the extreme. And we hit our first misfire in the shape of Grandaddy front-man Jason Lytle's first solo album Dept. of Disappearance. It's not that its bad, its just that its dull, really dull. It is a real shame as I love Grandaddy and had high hopes for his post split direction, but this just Grandaddy without any of the pisaiz. Its just really flat and lacking any spark, really disappointing but quite nice to find myself after a long streak not enjoy an album, I thought I was loosing my touch!

Right more extreme metal, this time death metal at its most extreme in the form of Dying Fetus. Like 1349 this is the far end of this genre's spectrum and very much the most purest and ugliest example of its output. This is undiluted Death Metal and whilst Descend Into Depravity has in spades the brutality and the aggression I love, it also has no shades to it and therefore very quickly becomes samey and, well, boring. However to follow comes our last but one in this long list and yet another utter masterpiece, Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs. For utterly understandable reasons this is considered by many as one of the great (if not the greatest) albums of the nineties. It is an astonishingly dense psychedelic journey that simply sounds like nothing else. It was their fourth album but their first to make any serious commercial or critical headway, up until then they had been a cult concern famed for wild experimentation and the lack of any decent tunes.  The simple reason for its utter brilliance is that Deserter's Songs took that experimentation and welded it it ethereal melodies. It is a haunting, magical album that sounds utterly timeless. It is now as old as my son (18) and I have listened to it countless times but still immerses me every time and just loose myself in its utter wonderfulness. However (and you knew that there was a but), it is not the best Mercury Rev album! The follow up, All is Dream, which we had almost a year ago is even better as it adds a degree of rock n' roll muscle to the mix. But I digress. Right final one on this long-haul journey and a return to metal but this time the female fronted symphonic variety in the form of  Holland's Epica. Design Your Own Universe was their fourth record and, in my opinion, by far their heaviest release. There is much more use of aggressive guitar massages and death growls and it just feels like it has much more muscle and oomph than the previous three records. Its also rather good. and that's it and if you are still awake, well done you!!!

[sholucas-blog]

Death Becomes Her

So final themed one before we hit a mega long one to catch up with where I am on my listening. So the Death's. First we get Death Came Through a Phantom Ship by Carach Angren, this is very much music hall black metal. Whilst the songs are very much Black Metal in their sound and delivary there is very a musical theatre feel that puts it aside from the bands in this genre. Essentially the whole album sounds like it should be soundtracking some macabre over broadway production and in many ways that is not a bad thing. It is far less earnest than over Black Metal records and its eccentricities gives it a warmth you seldom find with this type of music. The band wear corpse paint with the best of them but describe their type of black metal as horror rather than satanic themed and there is that urge to put hammer movies to music (which essentially is how Sabbath created this whole musical strand) that makes this rather appealing. Death Magnetic is next and is the record that many people belive saw Metallica refind their mojo. Well lets put it into perspective, its the best record they had produced since Metallica (the self titled 'black album') which was seventeen years previously but it in no way reaches the pinnacle of their first five records which still today make up the lions share of their life set. In many ways Death Magnetic is the most straight forward metal album that Metallica had produced since 1991 and that is why it feels like a return to form. Load, Re-load and St. Anger all have intresting stuff on them and none are the utter dogs dinners that people consider them to me. The issues with them is that Metallica stopped trying to be Metallica and started trying to be other bands, Death Magnetic however saw them once more be Metallica and that is why it sounds fresh and a back to the old school. It doesn't have a Battery, Fade to Black, Creeping Death or Sad but True but it sounds like Metallica again and that is good enough for me. Finally more Atreyu, A Death Grip On Yesterday was their third album and their last to be pure metalcore. It is not as good as its predecessor, the Curse, which as you will recall I believe is their best work but it is not bad at all and certainly miles better than the morph into pop punk that was to come. And that's yer Death's. Long Hotch Potch to come as we catch. Be seeing You.

[sholucas-blog]

Doe a dear

So a third group together in a row for the dear's. First off Dear Catastrophe Waitress from Belle and Sebastian. This essentially is the album that took them from cult concern and the favorite band of hipsters everywhere to being an actual successful festival headlining band. It was very much the start of part two of Belle and Sebastian's career saw them put to rest their difficult, one finger up at the system reputation (not playing festivals, only releases singles that were not on their albums) and get down to the serious job of selling records. Whilst Belle and Sebastian can never be described as challenging music, this is very much their most straight forward pop album. It is light breezy and and blissfully melodic. It will never be a Belle and Sebastian fan's favorite album but it gave their career a well needed shot in the arm. Talking of career's Dear Heather saw Leonard Coheon producing one of the best albums at the tender age of 70. It combines the dark electronic influences of his two eighties/nineties masterpieces (I'm Your Man and The Future) with the much more breezy song influenced almost folky Cohen of all. Yes it is easy listening but it is subtle wonderfully constructed easy influencing and his voice is an instrument in its self. Deep, baritone but full of pathos and emotion. Very much an album to loose yourself in.

And we finish with a modern classic, Dear Science, TV on the Radio's 2008 almost perfect indie funk dreamscape. I loved this album when released and still adore it now. It just has so many ideas and contours and layers and stages but, and this is the thing that makes it stand out from the crows, all the different components don't rub up against each other. Rather than cause conflict all the startlingly different components beautifully marry to create this highly complex but stunningly beautiful record..It just sounds so unique and so perfect and so funky. And short one again as DEATH is next...

[sholucas-blog]

The Dead Four

So four dead one’s. Dead is the controversial Mercury prizing wining album from The Young Fathers, controversial because no one outside of the Jury seemed to have heard of it let alone heard it. Even now it still seems to struggle in denting the mainstream and their mercury win seems unlikely to result in the Young Fathers being catapulted into the nation’s affections ala Elbow . Which is a shame as this really interesting, dark hip hop. Heavily influenced by Massive Attack but also original enough to have its distinct voice. I don’t listen to it much, but each time I do I find myself enjoying it. Dead in the Boot is stuff that Elbow deemed either not good enough, or too experimental, for their first five albums. In fact in most cases it actually is the latter case as this is almost exclusively slow burning avent garde Prog Elbow rather than the anthemic sport show sound tracking stuff that has filled their later releases. It's not bad stuff, it just doesn't spine tingle in the way that the slow burning stuff on the first two albums spine tingles. 

Ok, infamous Eurovision conquerors Lordi next and let's deal with a misapprehension first, Lordi may have the image, make up and costumes but they are not death or black metal in any shape or form. In fact they are not metal at all. There material is hard rock at best and there closest point of reference is eighties and early nineties Alice cooper. Deadache is good old fashioned high acessiable shock rock with huge swaves of melody and chorus designed to launch air strikes from. Not bad at all but certainly not the heavy metal invasion that they were purported to be. Finally in this short section we have Deadmau5 - 4x4=12 from Canadian techno god Deadmau5. It's essentially pretty good techno, nothing to particularly get over excited about, but good quality, well done head-nodding techno. And that where i live you to make way for the Dear's...

[sholucas-blog]

Days like these

Ok so we bring together the days and we start with yet another bona finda classic album, the D’s apparently are full of them. So this is Sonic Youth’s masterpiece Daydream Nation, and I know I say this for every ruddy entry and it must be wearing thin but its twenty seven years old! The template, nee the starting point of alternative, avaunt gaurde american rock is almost in its thirties. This was teenage rebellion for the nerdy kids and its importance of voicing the troubled teens of the geek, misfits and clever kids can not be down played. It really is a monumentally important record in showing rebellion could be intelligent and bucking against the system did not mean two cords and one syllable  chants. It still sounds so powerful and so game changing today and I believe will also increase in its importance and its influence. Right two very recent releases next , to start 2013’s flavor of the month Haim, with Days are Gone, and Jesus does it sound like Fleetwood Mac, not just influenced by but trying to be a Fleetwood Mac album with every fiber of it’s being. It is so so unoriginal in that it has gone beyond copying is flattery and become pure plagiarism. We continue with last years Days of Abandon by unashamed indie bed-wetters  the Pains of Being True at Heart. Lovely album in that it is fragile, soaring and just so simplistically beautiful. This is indie pop at its most unashamed broken heart on its sleeve best. It just makes me so nostalgic for the naive indie of old which wasn't about chart places or celebrity status, this is very much music to watch unobtainable girls go by.

The Days of Grays is magnificent, it was only released in 2009 but i think it is a one of, if not, the greatest power metal albums made this century. With this album Sonata Arctica have managed to combine in perfect measure the three cornerstones of power metal: pomposity, absurdity and melody. It is just such a wonderfully stirring album that is packed full of well-made, well constructed and highly enjoyable songs. Unlike most power or symphony metal it does not disappear up its own behind and instead manages to perfectly balance simplicity with complexity creating songs that have depth and structure but don't over faze themselves with having too much going on. It is just breathlessly exciting and highly enjoyable and shows how good Power Metal can be. The Days of Open Hand, i must admit passed by in a bit of blur making no real impact, postive or negative. Susan Vega's third album, released back in 1990, sounded pleasant enough, it just didn't have anything going for it that made me elecist any form of emotion. Finally we get to Days of Purgatory by Iced Earth (them again), now this is a strange one as it is not really a compilation but also it is not technically a new studio album. Released in 1997, It is re-recordings of material from their first three albums with new vocalist Matt Barlow replacing the long departed Gene Adams. The tracks were also re-recorded as the band were apparently unhappy with the bass and drum sound on their early stuff. To be honest this fairly bread and butter traditional heavy metal and in the early to mid nineties Iced Earth were yet to find the flare and complexity that would define their later material. Its not bad, just a little pointless. And there you go and more grouping to come as deal with the dead.....

[sholucas-blog]

short sharp self titled

Emperor front-man Ihshan has forged for himself a highly intriguing solo carrier based on pushing the boundaries of metal as far as they will go. Das Seelenbrechen is his fifth solo record and is semi improvised, which means that it comes across as an amalgamation of the atmospherics of black.metal and the mechanics of free form jazz. It is, as are all of his solo records, a highly intelligent and clever record and whilst as not as marvelous as his previous effort, Eremita, it shows yet again that the possibilities of what you can do with metal is limitless. We stay in Norway but in a completely different genre for Datarock's debut record Datarock Datarock. Released in 2005 they were lumped in with dance punk movement that also begot The Rapture and Radio 4. To be honest this is a bit more throw away than the material of those latter two bands and remind me more of the irreverent indie dance of Mew or La Tiga. It was alright but has no real substance or body. Very short one here as we have another themed entry ahead. So finally the Datsuns with The Datsuns and I was expecting  to say that was another flash in the pan 'real rock band' that emerged along with Jet and d4 and that they were a one trick pony. But unexpectedly The Datsuns has aged really really well and still rocks really hard. Having not listened to it since the summer of '04 I found myself enjoying every moment of its scuzzy hard rock. I think it's redeeming feature is that it walks a thin line between the garage rock of the stooges and the boogie rock of classic quo and that thin lines manages to make it sound exhilarating but also comforting. So thats that so get ready for the days of my life....

[sholucas-blog]

The dark is rising

So another themed entry as i am faced with a brace of dark matters. So lots of trips to metal’s black heart then, well the first entry dispels that as its the multicolored psychedelic groove machine that is the Super Furry Animals. Dark Days/Light Years is their eighth album and the last released before their current hiatus. The Super Furries are 90’s indie’s best kept secret. An eclectic highly creative band, they produce vibrant inventive records brimful of ideas and Dark Days is no exception. There seems to be so many current bands making a ham-fisted attempts at artistic creative pop, that it is so refreshing to hear the Super Furries do it in such a light but self assured manner. The dark though settles in with our next highly tragic entry. The story of Dark Night of the Soul is tragic because such a wonderful album was buried and shelved because of contract disagreements. A unique collaboration between Sparklehorse, Dangermouse, David Lynch and a whole host of alt-rock royalty (Wayne Coyne, Iggy, Francis Black and James Mercer to name four) it was originally slated for release in 2008 but EMI’s insistence that Dangermouse was signed exclusively to them meant the album was temporary pulled and was only released in 2010, long after everyone had lost interest. A tragic waste and fate for a great album, however this tragedy is eclipsed by the fact that Dark Night of the Soul is the last known recording by not only Sparklehorse's main man Mark Linkous but also by alt-folk legend Vic Chestnut. Both sadly took their own lives shortly after the album was completed, Vic Chestnut in 2009 and Mark Linkous in 2010. Whilst their losses is an utter waste of great talents, it is fitting that an album as good as Dark Night of the Soul is the final testament to both their genius’. 

And finally we get the metal with Nightwish’s bombastic folk tinged symphonic metal smorgasbord that is Dark Passion Play. Their first record without the distinctive voice of Tarja Turunen, it proved that the finn’s were still a force to be reckoned with even without their perceived focal point. Musically it is roughly business as usual though there is more goth than usual which is always a good thing. Realistically Dark Passion Play will always be remembered as the album that proved that Tarja`s departure was not the end for Nightwish and the fact that ten years on (and on their third vocalist) they are about to become the first Finnish band to headline Wembley Arena shows that they have only continued to grow. On release in 2012, Dark Roots of the Earth proved to be a wholly unexpected gem of an album. Back in the eighties Testament were the fifth band in the big four of thrash. They flirted with mainstream success in the very early nineties but when grunge took hold they had not managed to build the foundations that Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax had (Metallica by that stage were already well on their way to being the biggest band on the planet) and therefore were swept away never to be seen again, or so we believed. Unlike many other eighties metal bands felled by grunge, Testament never actually split up, they just undertook multiple line up changes and an ill advised attempt at death metal. However in the late noughties the classic late-eighties line up regrouped and produced Dark Roots of the Earth, rather bizarrely their most commercially successful album ever. Bizarre in that it is good old fashioned old school thrash mash, granted the more polished variety but still head down foot to the pedal thrash metal. And it is really really good, creative, interesting and very well constructed. It put Testament back in contention as a great creative force and the for the first time in three decades their next release is highly anticipated.

And then we get to not one, not two but three of the greatest records ever released, in a short succession and this is not just by me, these are genuinely thought as three of the greatest ever by Everybody! And to prove my point we start with Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd's magnum opus and a record that simply does not age. It is a timeless record and the fact that my son, who was born twenty five years after it was released, considers it to be his favorite record ever proves that. It really has transcended all trends and tastes to become a bona fine part of modern culture with apparently one in five households having a copy.  The most astonishing part of that is that Dark Side of The Moon is a highly complex and challenging piece of work and its popularity flies directly in the face of comments about society dumbing down and wanting only simple records. Really there is very little you can say about Dark Side of The Moon that hasn't been said before, apart from to agree with every other critic to say it is a stunning record. Darklands is considered by many as Jesus and the Mary Chain's masterpeice, certainly it is far more accessiable and melodic than their feedback dreneged debut, Pychocandy. For me however choosing between the first four Jesus and the Mary Chain records would be like asking me to choose between my children; they are each highly individual and disntinct but they all give me huge amounts of joy. Darklands is the melloncolly melodic goth one and in terms of songs probably as the lion share in terms of memorable tracks, Darklands itself, Happy When It Rains and April Skies are all just just amazing, tense, terse tales of loss and pain and so blackly melodic. And Finally if we haven't had enough amazing records we get Darkness on the Edge of Town. During a nine year period between 1975 and 1984 Bruce Springsteen entered a creative peak that no other artist has managed to repeat, he created an unbroken cycle of five of the finest records ever made. We already have had the two records that bookend that collectiuon in the shape of '75's Born to Run and '84's Born in the USA. Darkness on the Edge of Town comes directly after Born to Run and the youthful dreams of escape are already begining to go sour. This is a much more pessimistic record than Born to Run, and even the seemingly optimistic Promised Land is much more realistic and grounded than anything on Born to Run. It is still a wonderful album and almost everytrack has become a Springsteen standard. And that my friends is a wonderful point to come out of the dark. 

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Damaged Danger Dance

Welcome to the D’s! We are into our fourth letter and already we have had 415 albums in the first three. So let’s start the D’s with two different examples of industrial. Let’s start with the second album from unequivocally the creators of industrial music as we know it, Throbbing Gristle. The confusingly titled D.O.A: the Third and Final Report was released in 1978 and sounds as challenging now as it did then. Improvised in the studio is more a free form art installation than a record but single handily motivated and inspired every subsequent industrial act. The fact that it is almost unlistenable in places is part of its charm and it’s appeal and it is reassuring to know that Throbbing Gristle continued to push envelopes and challenge the assumptions of what muisc is right up until their demise in 2010. Daggers is modern commercial industrial metal and whilst it is not bad at all, it feels like it is following a formula rather than charging the musical barricades. Creators the Defiled are one of modern British metal’s ones to watch plying an interesting hybrid of metalcore and industrial. As said Daggers is not bad at all, it just feels a little bit of a shunt job in that you can very clearly hear the Nine Inch Nails bits then very clearly hear the Bullet for my Valentine inspired sections. 

And next we get our second underground hero in three records. Black Flag are the pioneers American hardcore and with Minor Threat inspired every spiky shouty punk band that has emerged from the U.S. in the last thirty years. Damaged is raw no comprise hardcore punk and just brims with anger and energy. Henry Rollins' delivery is hypnotically intense and makes you realize the true power of true political punk. A second album entitled Damaged follows but it could not be so different to its namesake. We have spoken about Lambchop before and their laid back whimsical brand of Americana. Damaged is one of their later releases and is more laid back and full of smoldering torch-songs than usual. Its an enjoyable record but it is as soft-core as Black Flag is hardcore. 

Cutting to the quick, Damnation is an utterly wonderful record and was a real landmark for Opeth as it saw their first deviation from their Death Metal roots. Prior to damnation they had always trod a fine line between the prog and the death metal, creating intricate tapestries and then going crashing into full on death growls and blast-beats. Damnation saw them sideline the Death and create a fantastic collection of spellbinding prog metal. Opener windowpane is among their finest work and the whole album is dense with ideas and creativity. Absolutely stunning. Dance of Death is frankly not as good but still a very fine record. Released in 2003 It proved that Iron Maiden’s remarkable comeback in 2000 with Brave New World was not in anyway a fluke. Dance of Death continues Maiden’s new mature direction, it is still very obviously Maiden but there is a new found weight, confidence and intriginatness. Come 2006 They would create their noughties masterpiece with a Matter of Life and Death but until then Dance of Death is key milestone in the evolution of Maiden’s sound.

Final album in this section is the fourth and final album from marmite like emo survivors My Chemical Romance. Now I need to be honest and say whilst I bought Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys and it's predecessor The Black Parade, I have never given either of them a proper or critical listen until now. Well Danger Days is paper-thin and contains a particularly upbeat strand of pop punk. It is far more Mcfly than Offspring and is very lightweight, sunny and sugary sweet. In fact this is more soft rock (al la Starship and my beloved Cheap Trick) than punk. I really was surprised with its lack of danger, aggression and any jagged edges. Now that's not to say that its is awful, as it is not. It's rather infectious pop and pleasant to listen to, it is just so positive, harmless and clean, which to be brutally honest is not his I like my rock. And with that I close the door on our first D entry and next time dark days are ahead....

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You have been watching....

And the c’s in order

 Cage the Elephant – Cage the Elephant

A Call and Response – the Longcut

Can Our – The Tindersticks

CSS – CSS

Captain Morgan’s Revenge – Alestorm

Capture/Release – The Rakes

Carolus Rex – Sabaton

Carry on the Grudge – Jamie T

Carry On Up the Charts – The Beautiful South

A Cast of Thousands – Elbow

Castaways and Cutouts – The Decemberists

Cat’s Eyes – Cat’s Eyes

Cavalcade – Catamenia

Cave Rave – The Crystal Fighters

Cease to Begin – Band of Horses

Celestial Linage – Wolves in the Throne Room

Centipede Hz – The Animal Collective

Century Child – Nightwish

Ceremonials – Florence & the Machine

Ceremony of Ascension – Wallachia

A Certain Trigger – Maximo Park

Cha Cha Cha – EMF

Chain Gang of Love – The Ravennottes

A Change of Season – Dream Theatre

Changing Faces: The Very Best of Rod Stewart and The Faces – Rod Stewart

Chaos AD – Sepultura

Choasphere – Meshuggah

Check your Head – The Beastie Boys

The Chemistry of Common Life – Fucked Up

Cherry Tree – The National

The Chicago Story: The Complete Greatest Hits – Chicago

Children of the Dark Waters – Eternal Tears Of Sorrow

Chimaira – Chimaira

Chinese Democracy – Guns N’ Roses

Christ Illusion – Slayer

The Christmas Album – Jethro Tull

Christy Moore Live at the Point – Christy Moore

Chronicals – Rush

Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager – Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly

Circling the Wagons – Darkthrone

Circuital – My Morning Jacket

City of Evil – Avenged Sevenfold

Civilian – Boy Kill Boy

Clap Your Hand Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Classical Conspiracy – Epica

Clayman – In Flames

Closer – Joy Division

Clouds Taste Magnetic – the Flaming Lips

Clutching At Straws – Marillion

C’mon – Lambchop

Coat of Arms – Sabaton

Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night – Stereolab

Coexist – The XX

Cold day Memory – Sevendust

Cole’s Corner – Richard Hawley

Collected – Massive Attack

The Collection – Dio

Collection – Roxy Music

Collections – Delphic

The Collections – Judas Priest

Collectors of Kings – Ragnarok

Comalies – Lacuna Coil

Come Clean – The Dwarves

Come On Die Young – Mogwai

Come On Feel The Lemonheads – The Lemonheads

Coming Up – Suede

Common Dreads – Enter Shikari

Communion – Soundtrack of our Lives

Community Music – Asian Dub Foundation

Compact Disc – PIL

Complete BBC Sessions – Fish

Complete Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

Complete Works Vol. 1 – Spiritualized

Complete Works Vol. 2 – Spiritualized

Computer World – Kraftwerk

Computer and Blues – The Streets

Conatus – Zola Jesus

Concrete Dunes – Grandaddy

Conditions – Temper Trap

Congratulations – MGMT

Consign to Oblivion - Epica

Consolers of the Lonely – The Raconteurs

Conspiracy – King Diamond

Constrictor – Alice Cooper

Construction for the Modern Idiot – The Wonderstuff

Contra – Vampire Weekend

Cooper Blue – Sugar

The Coral – The Coral

Coral Fang – The Distillers

Cornologhy Vol. 1: The Intro – Bonzo Dog Band

The Correct Use of Soap – Magazine

Corridors of Power – Gary Moore

Cosmic Debris – Ash

Cosmic Egg – Wolfmother

Cosmology – Rollo Tomassi

Costello Music – The Fratelities

The Courage of Others – Midlake

Covers – Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine

Cowboys from Hell – Pantera

Cracke the Skye – Mastodon

The Crane Wife – The Decemberists

Crash Love – AFI

Crazy for You – Best Coast

Crazy from the Heat – David Lee Roth

Crazy Nights – Kiss

A Creature I Don’t Know – Laura Marling

Crest of a Knave – Jethro Tull

Crocodiles – Echo and the Bunnymen

Cross – Justice

Crossroads – Bon Jovi

Crucible of Man: Something Wicked pt. 2 – Iced Earth

Crystal Castles I – Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles II – Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles III – Crystal Castles

Cult – Apocalyptica

The Cure – The Cure

The Curse – Atreyu

Curtin Call: The Hits (vol. 1) – Eminem

Cuttings – The Editors

Cyprus Hill – Cyprus Hill

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Cursed Curtain Cure

Apocalyptica are one of the strange musical anomalies that Metal tends to throw out. Essentially a Metal band that use cellos rather than an electric guitar (referred to unimaginatively as Cello Metal), they started life as a Metallica covers band but evolved into doing other covers and then into doing their own material. Cult is their third album and is the one where they run out of Metallica and Sepultura material to Celloise and started writing their own dark, doomy, celloistic original material. To be honest I am not a big fan, it’s all right and pretty heavy in some places but to be honest I find their albums, including Cult to get pretty samey after a while. The Cure, are the masters of re-invention and have a habit of creating amazing records when they have been seemingly written off. 1990’s utterly amazing Disintegration is case in point, but in 2004 they did it again with the curtly titled The Cure. 1996’s Wild Mood Swings and 2000’s Bloodflowers were both, to be brutally honest, utter pants and it seemed the wheels had finally come off Robert Smith’s majestic Goth machine. But Robert Smith, being Robert Smith threw us a curve ball and went off and recruited Ross Robinson as producer, the man behind the magnificent first two records from Slipknot. The result is the heaviest and grittiest Cure album of them all. Gone are the sonic and ethereal touches of previous releases, this is dark, despondent Cure and it is tremendously good. Undoubtedly their best stuff since the aforementioned Disintegration, Robert Smith seems to re-find his inner malevolent menace and it is the most Goth the band had been in at least two decades. For all their posturing the Cure have always been about songs and this album has some belters. The End of the World and Alt.End are amongst the best things they have ever done and they even manage to squeeze in the obligatory pop moment in the shape of Taking Off. Brilliant Album. 

 I have mentioned Atreyu before and highlighted the fact that they are very much the un-sung heroes of Metalcore. The Curse is, in my opinion, their finest moment and is a highly enjoyable melodically aggressive record. It’s was their second record and fits very much to the Metalcore template (shouty, shouty, clean vocal chorus) as opposed to later albums which wandered off in a pop punk direction. The good news is that the recently reunited Atreyu plan on returning to the sound and feel of The Curse, so watch this space. Now if you think I have been too positive about things lately, we now come to a huge pile of dross. I have really disliked some albums during this process (stand up Rolf Harris and Take That) but this is the first time I have seriously contemplated using the first forward. The offending article? No less than Eminem’s best of compilation Curtain Call: The Hits (vol. 1). I hated it, absolutely hated it. It was dull, repetitive and creatively naïve and juvenile. The raps were puerile and basic and just seemed to recycle the same self-obsessed nonsense. There is only a finite number of times I can listen to how much he hates his mum and wife (ex-wife? Who cares) and how much he loves his daughter but regrets that being rich and famous takes him away from her, oh boo bloody hoo. Essentially lots of self-pitying rubbish that just feels very much up its own bottom and obsessed with its own rags to riches story. There was no redeeming features what so ever, horrible horrible collection of songs.

Anything would be better than Eminem’s simplistic, self-obsessed rhymes however the Editors’ Cuttings isn’t really the tonic I was after. A short B-side collection that was packaged alongside their terrific debut album, The Back Room, Cuttings does not offer any forgotten or hidden gems. It is just songs that are not quite as good as the ones on the debut, fairly forgettable to be honest. And we reach our final C, Cyprus Hill’s debut album entitled simply Cyprus Hill. Now I know I gave Black Sunday a bit of a kicking in the B’s and this is actual technically a weaker album, but after the bland and flimsy excuse for hip hop that was Curtain Call it was actually a very welcome and much enjoyed record. Bizarrely when I saw Eminem at Milton Kynes in 2003 the best bit about that was Cyprus Hill supporting. Ok Cyprus Hill the album has not aged well and it is very clumsy in its attempts to be inflammatory, but musically it at least trys to be interesting and challenging and the raps are at least about other subjects than their own lives so it gains a thumbs up from me for the simple reason of not being Eminem. And that’s the C’s!!!! We are down another letter. The D’s await with Dog Man Star, Disintegration and Destroyer. See you after the recap.

[sholucas-blog]

The Crystal Three

So we reach the three Crystal Castles records, all entitled Crystal Castles so we get them one after another forming some weird, screechy, bleepy trilogy. They probably work more as a trilogy now we know that this is it in terms of Crystal Castle albums, as they announced their uncoupling and dissolvement late last year. Now live Crystal Castles are just amazing, a hyperactive flurry of anarchic energy. It is techno punk and feels like a sideways DIY swipe at dance music's very conservative parameters. On record I never felt them to quite be that technicolored explosion of the Pistols meet Aphex Twin that I wanted them to be, but let’s see.

Well to be honest Crystal Castles I sounds rather tame and never shifts out of third gear. It also relays too heavily on its one gimmick, namely female shrieks over a super Mario soundtrack. Over the course of the album I found it bloody annoying, I wanted heavy gabba techno not the sound of someone playing sonic the sodding hedgehog. So, so far, so disappointing. Crystal Castles II is a different matter and thankfully the very annoying computer game sounds are ditched in favour of proper euphoric techno and bottom heavy gabba. It has lost the DIY feel and comes across as much more polished, even though it is far heavier and tougher than the first record. The songs are also a lot more coherent and Crystal Castles II seems to come the closet to capturing that techno punk spirit that I loved about them live. I am not giving anything away to say that this is the record of their’s that I like most.

Crystal Castles III takes it back down a couple of gears and the euphoric rave is replaced by downbeat electronica. It almost feels rather witch house, which is the term given for very dark, distorted almost gothy techno (an evil Jean Michel Jarre). Certainly whilst the first album is chaotic and the second is euphorically heavy, this one is rather mournful and depressed. Like any good dance act this is the comedown record but like any comedown it is not as fun as the up period.

 So over three records what have we learnt

1) Computer game noises employed in music gets very boring very quickly

2) Screechy vocals are an instrument in themselves

3) Gabba is as punk as hell and is sooo good when it is heavy

4) The faster the Crystal Castles are the better they are.

So there you go. Next.