Month: December 2022

My Top 10 Albums Of 2022

On By bigbadburchIn AOTY 20227 Comments

It’s that time of year for album lists. For me, things snapped into place pretty easy this year. I haven’t had to deliberate much on what should be here or what order it should go in.

Most of this stuff hasn’t really been discussed here, beyond a glimpse from one of my preview posts. I’ve only discussed two of these albums at length this year and a few weren’t mentioned at all. Covering new music is tough and requires a lot of time so it’s something I do very sparingly.

Last year I split this up and gave the album of the year its own post, this year I’m keeping it simple and doing everything at once. Let’s get to it and see where all this stuff ranks.

10: High Command – Eclipse Of The Dual Moons

This is some very nice dirty thrash that also pulls influence from a lot of ’80’s metal legends and also incorporates a fantasy story arc across its lyrics. It can be enjoyed on a surface level for its great music and can also be explored further for the story. Really great stuff here.

9: Witch Fever – Congregation

This is the debut full-length from a group billed as punk but playing a harsh version of doom, noise and grunge. The album takes aim at institutions of power, especially religion. It’s a great, pretty unique sound Witch Fever have going on here and hopefully there are great things to come for the English group.

8: Undeath – It’s Time … To Rise From The Grave

What’s old is new again, and this year old school death metal returned in a big way. That was thanks in large part to Undeath and their much-hyped second album. This album slots in nicely alongside the death metal classics of the early ’90’s and is a signpost for a new generation of death metal mayhem.

7: Lorna Shore – Pain Remains

This was one of the most anticipated releases of the year after the hype over To The Hellfire in 2021 went to a whole new level for deathcore. Lorna Shore delivered by avoiding the trap of trying to recreate what they did a year prior and mixing things up a bit. The ending Pain Remains trilogy of songs is some majestic stuff.

6: Mother Of Graves – Where The Shadows Adorn

It’s been awhile since I’ve heard some good death/doom, yet here it is in a new form from a newer group out of Indiana. This hits all the right notes and shows its influences while still very much being its own thing. A really great album that, in a way, kind of came out of nowhere.

5: Blind Guardian – The God Machine

The German power metal legends returned with their first proper studio album in seven years and they came back in a huge way. This album is very to the point and direct, no mucking around here. The band haven’t lost their touch and have re-explored some of the speed metal elements of their earlier career. This album is a true highlight of an already impressive catalog.

4: Chat Pile – God’s Country

Chat Pile had built a healthy amount of buzz over the past few years and delivered on that this year with their first full-length record. This sludge/noise offering is a disturbing listen that looks at the less savory side of life in Oklahoma and nails the perspective. The music and themes aren’t for everyone but those who get it, get it.

3: Lamb Of God – Omens

I was one of several who had thought Lamb Of God’s best days were behind them, I hadn’t been wowed by a release in quite awhile. All of that is out the window now – Omens is a sharp, stark return to form for the groove metal legends. This is an ass kicking from start to finish and I was totally blown away by it.

Omens is the only album from this list that I covered as an Album Of The Week, that post is here.

2: Scorpions – Rock Believer

Now, you want to talk being surprised and impressed by some old dogs? The Scorpions coming out in 2022 with this absolutely killer set of tunes was not something I saw happening. While they’ve had some moments in the past few decades, this band was long thought to be in their twilight. But no, they totally reinvigorated their sound and came out fresh despite being literally older than dirt. Klaus Meine sounds fantastic here and he’s older than a lot of old rock singers that have lost their voices. And the songs are some of the best they’ve done in a long, long time.

I did cover this album in more detail a bit after its release, here is that post.

Album Of The Year 2022

Cave In – Heavy Pendulum

The New England group known through the 2000’s for metalcore, post-rock and/or whatever you want to call it had been quiet through the 2010’s and suffered the loss of bassist Caleb Scofield in a car accident in 2018. The band reconvened with Converge bassist Nate Newton handling those duties and recorded their return album through the course of the pandemic.

Cave In’s return was nothing short of a massive success. Heavy Pendulum visits all points of Cave In’s past and works with a variety of sounds to shape concepts in the 2020’s. It’s a monster of an album at 71 minutes but everything here works, especially the epic album closer Wavering Angel. The bag of riffs on this album is of insane size and visits about every kind of rock and metal you can think of.

That wraps it up for the 2022 stuff. I did more last year but I think just doing the album list is fine enough. Only a few weeks until it’s time to stary worrying about what 2023’s top albums will be.

A Story And A Song – 3 AM

On By bigbadburchIn A Story And A Song6 Comments

Today’s song and story come from a recent holiday drive. The song is 3 AM, one of the hit singles from the debut Matchbox Twenty album Yourself Or Someone Like You. In an odd bit of trivia, the song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100 only because it was not released as a physical single in the US. But the song did very well and the album was a super smash hit.

Matchbox Twenty were a pretty important band at the time. While I think their proper classification is alternative rock, the term “post-grunge” is used a lot when talking about them. This was the shape of rock after grunge flamed out in the middle part of the 1990’s.

The story goes back to Thanksgiving Day, which was was back like two weeks ago here in the US. We were driving back from a Thanksgiving dinner in a car with me, my girlfriend, her sister and her sister’s kid (my girlfriend’s niece).

We were coming from a fairly remote part of southwest Missouri back to the one city in the region that we live in. Finding something on the radio on forlorn highway roads is always a chore. These areas are known for having country, talk radio or religious programming on the dial. And of course, FM stations tune in and out very easily out in these rural areas.

At one point a rock station came on and the song in question was playing. After a bit, my girlfriend’s sister asked her daughter what she thought of the song. Her response?

“It’s fine. It sounds like country music.”

It was a pretty funny observation to the rest of us in the car, who have all been plenty exposed to country music. But after a second I realized how telling of a statement it was from a 13 year old kid who probably isn’t up on the history of country music.

The point is obviously about the state of modern country music – is this where it’s at? Someone not alive in Matchbox Twenty’s heyday thinks that their stuff is representative of a different genre of music?

Country music takes a lot of hits these days. The bro-country phenomenon of the past several years was awful. There has been a long-running battle between the entrenched machine of the Nashville industry and artists wanting more creative freedom. Country also takes a lot of flak for representing “older” values as well as a slant towards conservative politics and a lot of the worse things associated with those, both fairly and unfairly.

But when someone on first listen to an old alt-rock song thinks it sounds like your genre? I think it speaks volumes about the genre. Granted, I’m not very up on country these days and if I do pay attention, it’s to more independent artists who aren’t part of the Music Row network. I don’t really know what’s playing on mainstream country radio these days. But from the bits and pieces I’ve picked up, it’s not a far leap to suggest that today’s country is yesterday’s alt-rock. That’s not an absolute statement, of course, but it’s probably fair.

There are probably a lot of larger issues about country music that warrant discussion but that’s not really what this post is about. It was just a funny comment that made me think “Wow, is that what country has come to?” And there may not be as much to it as I’m speculating, but I’d say there’s something to it.

I could wrap up by posting Rob Thomas’ actual biggest hit, but I won’t do that to myself or anyone else. Instead let’s bow out with a bit of country.

Alice In Chains – Down In A Hole

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier Songs7 Comments

This post was part of a series that I called S-Tier Songs. I later decided to abandon the series in favor of a simpler Song of the Week format. I am keeping these posts as I wrote them but removing the old page that linked to the list of S-Tier Songs, so that is why these posts might look a bit odd. Enjoy.

Today’s offering is one of the finest moments of the grunge movement. Even with being “grunge,” it is a suiting power ballad that evokes sadness and despair in a way not a lot of artists can touch.

Alice In Chains – Down In A Hole

Our song today hails from the album Dirt, the 1992 masterpiece of the Seattle-led grunge period. The album sold millions and was ever-present on radio and video airwaves. It qualifies as “classic rock” today and is still in rotation far and wide.

Down In A Hole was the fifth and final single from the album. It was released as a single almost a full year after the album arrived. The single sold over a million copies and charted in several countries. On Spotify it is the third-most streamed song from Dirt, behind only the mega-hits Rooster and Would?

The song begins very softly, almost in a way that departs the hard-edged album it is from. But it remains within the Alice In Chains lexicon, with suitably melancholy guitar work from Jerry Cantrell and the sheer power of the vocals of Layne Stayley, with harmonies provided by Cantrell. The singing has always been a highlight of AIC and both Stayley and Cantrell shine especially bright on this song.

The lyrical content of a song called Down In A Hole is, of course, pretty downtrodden. Though not from the doom genre per se, this could easily be considered a doom song thematically. It sounds like someone in the grip of utter despair and hopelessness. Every line is awash in depression and soul-crushing anguish. Lines like “See my heart, I decorate it like a grave” and “You don’t understand who they thought I was supposed to be, look at me now I’m a man who won’t let himself be” are jewels in this crown of misery.

Jerry Cantrell, the song’s sole writer, shed some light on the song’s origins in the liner notes to the band’s 1999 box set Music Bank. He states that the song was written about his girlfriend at the time and the realities of a long-term relationship and how they clash with being in a band. While there are plenty of songs about that and about life on the road in general, I don’t know how he got Down In A Hole out of that. But hey, I’m glad he did.

Down In A Hole has been a staple of the Alice In Chains setlist, with one major caveat to that – they did not often perform the song when Layne Stayley was alive. It was not a regular part of the setlist on the band’s tours in the early 90’s, and the group did not tour much after that due to Stayley’s health issues. A vast majority of Down In The Hole performances are from the band’s modern incarnation with William Duvall at the vocal helm.

One notable exception was the 1996 MTV Unplugged performance. This did feature Layne and the song worked very well in the unplugged setting. Alice In Chains were always a proficient acoustic act anyway, so having this version of the song is a massive plus.

Why is this an S-Tier song?

Down In A Hole is both beautiful and soul-crushing. It communicates absolute sadness but in a very majestic way. It showcases the main strengths of Alice In Chains, those being the voice of Layne Stayley and the musicianship and songwriting of Jerry Cantrell. It is an amazing work that got huge airplay despite being such a depressing affair.

Album Of The Week – December 5, 2022

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week12 Comments

This week’s pick is the album released in 1990 after one of heavy metal’s legendary acts spent some time in the late 80’s indulging in the sound of the times a bit. It was both a return to form and a new phase for the group, that sadly would not last much beyond the album’s cycle.

Judas Priest – Painkiller

Released September 14, 1990 via Columbia Records

My Favorite Tracks – Painkiller, All Guns Blazing, Between The Hammer & The Anvil

Judas Priest in the late 1980’s was a mixed bag – both Turbo and Ram It Down had varying degrees of commercial success but both albums were also not received as well as the band’s early-80’s classic metal phase. The band came into 1990 with a new drummer and a new approach to album crafting.

Priest were also engaged in public turmoil around this time – the infamous trial over subliminal messages was held in the summer, it was only after the dismissal of the lawsuit when Painkiller would see release.

Painkiller comprises 10 songs at about 46 minutes in its original form, the version I’ll discuss today. 3 singles were released from the record – A Touch Of Evil, the title track and Night Crawler.

Painkiller

Opening with the title track and one hell of an introduction for new drummer Scott Travis as he blasts his way through the first seconds of the song. The intensity keeps up as the riffs enter and especially when Rob Halford wails his way through the song in a manner raising the bar even for him. Painkiller has to do with some robot thing saving the world and has become an all-time Priest classic.

Hell Patrol

The tempo goes down a touch but the heaviness and atmosphere remain on this track having to do with fighter plane combat. Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing get a bit of time to flex some solos on this one and they stand out a touch more given the less violent musical presentation.

All Guns Blazing

Back with the speed on this aptly-named song. It’s a tried and true metal song about going for it at full capacity, as the title suggests. The slowdown of the main riff at the song’s conclusion is a nice touch to end the song in a bit unconventional fashion.

Leather Rebel

By now a standard Priest theme, get decked out in leather and kick ass. The guitars go ham on this one, it’s a marriage of classic Priest subjects with the updated speed metal of 1990.

Metal Meltdown

Another scorcher that lives up to its name and could be an accurate description of the album as a whole, as if the band were reviewing their own work in song.

Night Crawler

Rather than being an homage to the X-Men character, this song invents a monster that comes to eat everyone. Making up their own monsters worked out better for Priest than singing about famous ones, though we’re not there yet in the Priest chronology. This one is a fairly simple tune that executes very well.

Between The Hammer & The Anvil

The title offers another take on the “between a rock and a hard place” concept. The song was apparently created out of the subliminal messages trial. Rather than being a literal offering of their feelings on it, things are dressed up here to fit a song that very much recalls the classic Priest era.

A Touch Of Evil

A song that hearkens back to the late 80’s time period, replete with synth. It’s a track about how love can be painful and twisted. Though it sticks out a bit on the album it’s still a very nice addition and doesn’t detract from the proceedings.

One Shot At Glory

After the brief intro Battle Hymn, the album wraps up with this solid metal offering. It delves into the “good side” of war, that rush of adrenaline and desire to do something greater that comes with stepping onto the battlefield. It’s a nice, motivating track to close out the record.

Painkiller marked both a return to the old ways and a new direction for Judas Priest. It was heavy on a scale beyond what the band had done before, entering speed metal territory and deftly changing direction as the sounds of the 1980’s were quickly dismissed in the new decade. The album made a decent showing on several nations’ charts and has a handful of gold certifications.

Acclaim and praise would come with Painkiller. It left some jaws on the floor upon release and in the years since it is widely hailed as one of the band’s strongest efforts. It was an impressive effort all around for the metal legends.

Sadly this time period would not spark a new era of Priest classics. Not long after the touring cycle for this album, Rob Halford wished to do a side project. Due to strange contract wording Halford had to leave the band to release anything else, and he would be out of Priest for a decade. The rest of Priest took some time off before regrouping with a new singer and a couple of albums that also explored the heavier side of things.

In the end, Painkiller was a triumphant piece of the Judas Priest catalog. An old dog learned a few new tricks and translated an already successful formula to a heavier shade of metal. Even in modern times, Priest have still made a fair bit of stuff that sounds like it could have come from this album. Metal would go on to be a timeless beast, and Judas Priest were one of the ones chiefly responsible.

https://youtu.be/6cdGf1cEZLQ

The Song Remains The Same – Dancing In The Dark

On By bigbadburchIn The Song Remains The Same5 Comments

The game is back again. This time I’m doing one I just happened to notice as I was scrolling through a huge list of these “different songs with the same name” thing. I wasn’t aware there were enough different songs with this same title to do this one and when I saw it I figured I’d give it a whirl. I was aware of the existence of exactly one of these songs before I set out on this course.

Real quick for anyone who hasn’t seen one of these posts before, it’s really simple – I go through a bunch of different songs with the same name (not covers, actual different songs) and pick the best one/my favorite. I don’t do exhaustive searches to try and cover every instance of the song’s title in all of recorded music history, I just go with what’s in front of me. Today’s contest has five entries which is a good spot for these posts.

Bing Crosby

The first entry is from one of music’s most popular artists. Bing Crosby was the man, and was for a very long time all through the 20th Century. The song was released in 1931 and was a hit, and would go on to be recorded by everyone and their mother as was the fashion in the old days of music.

I’m not a huge expert on this era of music so I won’t get that much into it. The song is fine to listen to and it reminds me of the kind of stuff my older relatives would play when I was growing up. It’s not stuff I’d seek out but I think it’s fine to hear.

Bruce Springsteen

It’s quickly on to the one I’m familiar with. Dancing In The Dark was the lead single from Springsteen’s seminal Born In The USA album and was his best-performing single ever (perhaps still is). The song was written literally overnight when producer Jon Landau told Springsteen the album needed a hit single, and hence one was delivered. The video famously features a young Courtney Cox.

If I were to list my favorite Springsteen tracks this song probably wouldn’t be on the list, but it’s still a really good song. It was the first time Springsteen used synthesizers in his music, thought they’re just a part of the song here. It was a good song to set the Boss apart from his usual fare.

Imagine Dragons

No thank you. Next.

Rihanna

This track comes from a movie soundtrack that Rihanna also provided voice acting to. It was some kid’s movie that I’ve never heard of so I’m entirely unfamiliar with it. Rihanna is immensely talented but this song doesn’t do much for me, it’s extremely repetitive and doesn’t have a lot going on.

Kim Wilde

The 1980’s pop star recorded her own version of Dancing In The Dark, which was a single released in 1983. Wilde had a few early international hits but this turn to dance music did not do her any favors – the song and album flopped, and it would be a few years before Kim would find her biggest success.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this tune, but I’d agree with consensus that Kim had better music elsewhere. This may come as a shock to my readers, but I’m not much of a dancing person and it would stand to reason that dance music isn’t really my bag.

It’s time to pick a winner and this turned out to be really easy, my dance partner is Bruce Springsteen. This song title appears to be a popular one, more results turned up but I don’t have the time or energy to go through every one. But no one else here could argue with the Boss.

2022 Spotify Wrapped

On By bigbadburchIn Uncategorized5 Comments

The quick and easy posts continue this week as it’s that time of year for Spotify Wrapped.

I’ll add a quick bit of context before getting into mine – this year I used Spotify for two main purposes – small playlists of 6 or so songs when I go on bicycle rides (which is most every day) and to check out new releases. I figured my wrap-up would be distorted this year based on the small series of 30 minute playlists I constantly rotate through, but as it turns out I can say the results were fairly representative of my listening habits.

First up the is genres. Not a whole lot to get into here, besides whatever “post-doom metal” is. Music descriptors get awesome these days when everyone is trying to invent a new term for a sound that sets even somewhat apart from the rest. I’m also not entirely sure what they’re referring to with “country rock” but that’s a more understandable term.

Now on top artist. Not really shocking to me – I have a handful of LoG songs in my playlists and then when Omens came out in early October I played the hell out of it. I’ve liked them for a long time but the new album really knocked me over and likely explains how they took my top artist crown this year.

And here is the overall Wrapped sum-up. Kind of funny that my top played song in 2022 was the same one as from 2021. My only real “huh?” moment is Muse being in my top artist list – they put out a new album this year which didn’t really hit with me, though one song off of it is pretty awesome. I guess that one new song and whatever sprinkling of others I have in my playlists put them over the top. None of the others register any surprise to me all.

Here is one other little bonus that was going around in the past few days leading up to Wrapped – the Instafest lineup. It essentially takes your Spotify data and generates a three day festival based on what you’ve played. Here is mine.

I’m honestly pretty happy with mine. Now, I do love Oasis, but in no universe would I book Iron Maiden as an opening act for Oasis. I’m sure plenty of people would have my head for that. But beyond that, I would pay huge money to attend that fest. It lines up with what I like pretty nicely. The only oddball? I don’t know the artist “Lord” as listed on the festival bill. No clue who that is referring to and I’m not getting any easy answers on Spotify.

That covers my Spotify Wrapped for 2022 and also the bonus Instafest thing. As a preview for my end of year stuff, I’ll do my top albums of 2022 on December 12, in place of the regular Album of the Week feature. I’ll probably do a small Songs of the Year list too, maybe three or five, don’t know yet. On through the ass end of 2022.