Category: Album of the Week

Oasis – Definitely Maybe (Album of the Week)

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This weeks marks the theatrical release of the Oasis – Knebworth documentary. It chronicles the two historic nights Oasis played in England at the height of their immense popularity in 1996. So I felt it fitting to make this week Oasis week around here. We’ll start with the usual Album Of The Week, and I’ll get straight into it.

Oasis – Definitely Maybe

Released August 29, 1994 via Creation Records

Favorite Tracks – Live Forever, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Columbia

Creation Records had been plagued with financial troubles, at least somewhat owing to the ridiculous saga surrounding the recording of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. Label founder Alan McGee sold half of the label to Sony and then needed to find a hit to stabilize finances.

He found his hit in the pubs of Manchester.

Oasis’ debut album was an instant success, smashing debut album records in the UK and also hitting platinum in the US. The “brothers’ war” between Noel and Liam Gallagher played out as great fodder for the British tabloids, both painting them as brash bad boys and keeping Oasis in the press. It was a case of instant success for some down on their luck blokes from Manchester, with that would come all the good and bad.

But let’s talk about the album itself. Definitely Maybe is a monster release and a stellar debut that belies the absolute inexperience of anyone in the band besides chief songwriter Noel Gallagher. These are songs of the hopes and dreams of working class people looking for something more than the doldrum of everyday life. It’s spelled out in the beginning on album opener Rock N Roll Star, and excellent banger than sets a hopeful, dream-laden tone.

The album contains several songs of varying scope and heft. Digsby’s Diner and album closer Married With Children are more fun tunes, not quite filler but also not exactly top-shelf stuff. Up In The Sky is a bright, rocking tune while Bring It On Down is a flat-out headbanger, on par with the title track from the second album.

Then there’s Columbia. This song is all about the atmosphere and vibe. This song isn’t about anything at all, or it’s about whatever you want or need it to be. Oasis would offer a few things like this, kind of “nonsense” songs, through their career. And honestly I love it – I just want to go full hipster and strut down the street with this as my theme music.

If one nonsense song wasn’t enough, the album brings another. Highlight single Supersonic is a heavy, mid-tempo affair with a whole lot of words that rhyme with each other and little else. It tells a story of … something or someone who does stuff on a helicopter and, well, that’s about all I get out of it. But it’s a solid song that stands out on a record filled with brilliance.

Sitting between the two “odd” tracks toward the album’s end is Slide Away. A masterful tune, this is a quintessential love song from the Britrockers. And it is actually a love song, unlike Wonderwall, which shocks some people when they find out it’s not a love song. (Seriously, go look up what Wonderwall is really about. Then sing Slide Away to your boo at your next drunken karaoke night. Then consider the existential dread that Wonderwall truly envelops. Then go back to another drunken karaoke night.)

Another favorite of mine is Cigarettes & Alcohol. Yes, both the products and the Oasis song. This tune is a nod to the hollow pursuit of substance abuse to alleviate the strain and nihilism of working class life. Damn, if that ain’t the truth. I’ve been there myself many different times, or perhaps even for just one very, very long time. It’s a statement similar to that of Pulp’s smash hit Common People, though the latter includes some different commentary about how the working class are viewed. No matter the perspective, it’s kind of damn bleak out here, and it wasn’t any different in the early ’90’s.

This album does have one song that, in my estimation, stands head and shoulders above the rest. The song was, metaphorically and literally, an antidote to grunge’s sometimes miserable self-flagellation. Noel told NME in 2013 that he wrote Live Forever as a response to the Nirvana song I Hate Myself And Want To Die.

Live Forever is an amazing song that expresses the bonds of friendship, family, romance, or whatever between people. The song could be, and has been, played anywhere – weddings, funerals, dances, or just hanging with mates. It is a sentimental, sweet, perhaps melancholy yet ultimately triumphant celebration of those deepest, most meaningful connections between people.

Live Forever has been voted among the best of Britrock’s songs in multiple polls, often sharing space with the aforementioned Pulp hit and a few other Oasis tunes. Noel has called it the best song he’s ever written and Liam has said it was his favorite song as well. And it’s number 3 on my list of all-time Oasis songs.

Definitely Maybe was an amazing debut album that helped set the stage for the scene of Britrock to take over the world in the mid ’90’s. Oasis themselves would truly conquer the planet the next year with their second record. But the debut is absolutely possessing of its own merits and is often, perhaps rightfully, regarded as their best overall record.

With the theatrical release of the Knebworth documentary coming this Thursday, I’ll take the rest of the week to discuss Oasis. On Wednesday I’ll pick out one song in particular, and on Friday I’ll address the “what if?” elephant in the room question that comes up when talking about Oasis these days.

Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears (Album of the Week)

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Programming note – I was unable to post last Friday due to technical difficulties with pictures. That post, which is just a look at my Iron Maiden collection, will come at another time. But this week there will be a post every day of the week.

September of 1991 was a watershed month in music history. There are so many albums that released that month of importance, some of grand significance. September 17th of that year saw the release of two, or I guess three, huge albums for the rock crowd. Guns N’ Roses dropped their long-hyped Use Your Illusion double set. Those captured my attention to a point that I’m literally going to spend the rest of the week on here talking about them.

Yes, really.

But not today. The Album Of The Week comes from the same day in 1991, but from a different rock and metal institution. The Prince Of Darkness Ozzy Osbourne released No More Tears on the 17th nearly 30 years ago.

It’s not that we necessarily need a special occasion to discuss this seminal record, but with its 30th anniversary approaching and also a sorely-needed vinyl reissue of the album coming on its 30th birthday, I figured this week would be a great time to pay homage to it.

Ozzy Osbourne – No More Tears

Released September 17, 1991 via Epic Records

Favorite Tracks – Hellraiser, No More Tears, I Don’t Want To Change The World

I was very hyped for this release as soon as it was announced. By this time in 1991 I was staying up every Saturday night to watch Headbanger’s Ball, which quickly became my church rather than the droll kind I got drug off to on Sunday morning. Ozzy was a fixture on MTV and especially the Ball around the time of the album’s release. For 14 year old me it was can’t-miss viewing.

Lucky for small Midwest town me, the album did not come with a dreaded Parental Advisory sticker, so the only place in my cowtown that sold albums, Wal-Mart, stocked it. I bought it the minute I could and jammed out to it over and over again.

I know this is a divisive point in Ozzy’s catalog. Some older than me turned their noses up at this direction, preferring the all-out evil Prince Of Fucking Darkness to the more subdued elder statesman of rock that Ozzy became in the ’90’s. But for me? No way – this is absolutely where it’s at. It was the perfect album at the perfect time for me.

This is a beefy album, with 11 tracks and nearly an hour runtime. It works just great for me, there honestly isn’t a tune or even a note that I don’t appreciate here. Even the three quasi-ballads – Mama I’m Coming Home, Time After Time, and the excellent album closer Road To Nowhere are all choice cuts.

Of course Ozzy’s calling card is rock and metal, and No More Tears delivers in spades. This album slams with Zakk Wylde’s guitar and a deep-rooted drive and groove. Mr. Tinkertrain opens with a frantic pace and, while maybe kinda creepy, sets the mood as dark and heavy. The title track is an epic masterpiece – a long, brooding, doom-laden lament of lost love, or at least sex, or something, I don’t know. The Lemmy-penned Hellraiser really kicks up the dust and throws things into high gear. Desire is a very tasty rock anthem that could be suited for a raceway, pro wrestling entrance, or something of that like.

As I look back in the absolute gold mine that was music in 1991, I honestly feel like this album was the one that really kicked things over the top for me. Yeah, grunge arrived and changed the world. Sure, Metallica became one of the biggest bands in the world. Guns N’ Roses offered up a double serving of their unique brand of psychotic excess. Skid Row didn’t let “hair metal” go out quietly into the night – they recorded one of the greatest albums of the era and honestly probably transcended the term hair metal. Van Halen even dropped a Van Hagar-era cut that I feel is woefully underrated and sneakily heavy.

But I keep coming back to Ozzy for this year. I’ve been over it before – I was ready to come into the 1990’s and have my turn with the fun and ritz of hair metal. But the world just threw everything into chaos right when I arrived to the station. Instead I came in amazed at the shifting landscape around me, but still looking for something familiar to cling to. And old reliable Ozzy offered that.

It isn’t just that Ozzy helped anchor me in a turbulent musical climate or that he offered his own gateway into the far heavier things I was about to explore – No More Tears is an excellent document on its own terms.

For Ozzy he seemed to shed the “general of the Satanic armies” persona he had developed in the 1980’s, fueled in large par to the grotesque Satanic Panic of that time. Instead he was the rock god that everyone respected and revered, he was the dad and husband who talked funny but also got on stage and brought it every night.

For me this album was extremely important. It absolutely fits the “raised on rock, made by metal” ethos that shaped my formative years. Ozzy was that metal god and he delivered a sermon I was more than ready for. No More Tears stands to this day as one of my favorite albums and most important steps on the road through music I travel. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to move on and make the most of the night.

Iron Maiden – Senjutsu (Album of the Week)

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Last Friday, heavy metal legends Iron Maiden released their 17th studio album Senjutsu. The double disc or triple vinyl album clocks in at a mammoth 82 minutes, rivaling their prior effort Book Of Souls. Maiden have been riding a wave of new popularity and legacy building for the past few decades since a reunion of their classic lineup in 1999. This new effort, correctly assumed to have been recorded before the events of 2020 put everything on hold, was instantly hyped and anticipated by fans.

Iron Maiden are my favorite band, they have been for a very long time. I’ll get more into that later this week, as all my posts for the week will be dedicated to Maiden in celebration of the new album and their overall legacy.

For today though it’s pretty simple – Monday is the Album Of The Week, and that pick for this week is Senjutsu.

Iron Maiden – Senjutsu

Released September 3, 2021 via Warner/Parlaphone Records

Favorite Tracks – Hell On Earth, Writing On The Wall, The Parchment

I’m not one much for doing album reviews right off the bat. I prefer the gift of hindsight to settle on a record’s place in my music library and in a band’s catalog. I honestly was going to do a ranking of Iron Maiden records as my debut video for YouTube later this fall – the second I started working on that was when they announced a new album was coming. So my Maiden ranking will have to sit until I have time to consider where Senjutsu fits with the rest of their discography.

But this AOTW thing is not always a strict review – it’s more often a discussion of a record I like. And I certainly like the new Maiden offering. It’s another epic, multi-faceted album that stands in fairly stark contrast to its predecesor. It is yet another movement for a band that hasn’t rested on its laurels since finding acclaim in the later years of existence.

It’s also clear that the captain is steering the ship again. After kind of talking Book Of Souls off and letting the rest of the band handle that, Steve Harris is all over this album. It does at times recall the mid- and late-90’s when he was the creative force in the band. That could mean different things to different people, but in this case it’s a good thing.

I think an easy way to approach this is to go track-by-track. Let’s dive into the hour and 20 minute epic that is Senjutsu. Something to note – I have not, to date, read or watched the fairly extensive interviews that the band have given discussing meaning and theme on the record. I will do so after I’ve spent some more time with the album. I wanted to go into it on my own and see what I came out of it with.

Senjutsu

Iron Maiden have almost always been on their game with title tracks. Senjutsu is no exception and is a standout for both the album and in consideration of past title tracks. This song about heading into battle features some sick drum sounds and an atmospheric, almost hazy layer to the production, as if recalling a fog of war. The song does a great job tying into the album’s samurai theme and setting the tone sonically as the lead track.

Stratego

This was the second of two preview singles released ahead of the album. I struggled with the song on its own, it too is atmospheric and a bit buried in itself. But in the context of the album it works very well. It’s another tune about war and tactics, which “tactics and strategy” are the rough translation of Senjutsu. I honestly never played the board game that this track took its name from so I can’t really comment on that.

My only real qualm with the album’s production is on this song – it’s almost done in the vein of a shoegaze song where the individual parts are left in vague layers to consumed as one unit. Iron Maiden isn’t a shoegaze band by any stretch and the music needs to stand out. I think Bruce’s vocals are supressed here. But again, I do like the song and I think it fits the album’s theme and mood.

Writing On The Wall

Here we have the album’s first single, released before we even knew the album title. Any Maiden fan is already well familiar with this post-apocalyptic biker metal jaunt that heralds the arrival of the Four Horsemen.


I’ve played WOTW hundreds of times since its July release. The song is terrific and is an instant classic from the Smith-Dickinson songwriting tandem that has delivered many crucial metal cuts over the years. The song also sets the stage for the album’s other theme, that being how screwed our civilization probably is. It’s a theme that has always grabbed my attention and does so especially now.

Lost In A Lost World

This excellent track gets into some conventional past Maiden melodies and also tells the tale of some long lost civilization. It could be a past reflection on a lost culture, something the band have tackled before. Or it could be a look from the future back on our time. That would certainly fit the album’s second, apocalyptic theme.

Days Of Future Past

This short, blistering song seems to outline some war against a god, perhaps the lines are from Satan’s perspective. Or maybe it’s a burned, scorned mortal who fell out of favor with a god or king, who knows. Either way it also seems on theme – some damned soul wandering the wasteland with no purpose or end. Pretty stark stuff from the band, though they are no strangers to that sort of introspection.

The Time Machine

This song has a fairly vague theme, it appears to be a man recounting what he’s seen over his life. It doesn’t get too specific into what that is. The music is great on this track, very much signature Iron Maiden with a few intersting movements and twists.

Darkest Hour

Another tune from Smith and Dickinson, this song recalls some sort of war. It does feel a bit like World War II, with the mention of the beaches in blood. I have to wonder if it’s purely a look back or again, if the darkest hour is one just on the horizon. The song is, like the rest of the album, great. Very dark and moody stuff.

Death Of The Celts

Here we have the first of 3 Steve Harris-penned epics that close Senjutsu. This track is an absolute callback to The Clansman, a highlight from Maiden’s oft-maligned Virtual XI album. It is again, the tale of a lost culture, this time in its final battle from the perspective of a lone remaining warrior.

It is yet another welcome addition to the Iron Maiden catalog of long, epic songs. A powerful yet somber recounting of a last stand in the face of the conquering enemy, the song itself triumphs in a way its protagonist could not.

The Parchment

Look, it’s a 12-minute long song about a piece of paper. What else is there to say? Is it some ancient text of forbideen knowledge being sought, or did the band forget to cash a royalty check from Powerslave and set out on a quest to be whole?

More seriously, the song tackles yet another war. This time the depth and meaning is not found on the surface, at least for me. It’s a song to sit with later on and find its hidden passages and themes.

What does stand out on this track? The guitars. For a guitar-driven band with 3 players, this song lets them have at it. It is, for Maiden, a shred fest disguised as another gradiose epic. It’s a song that stands out from the crowd to me and one I’ll be spending more time with down the line.

Hell On Earth

The album’s closing track rounds out the creative burst trilogy from Captain Harris. It brings the album’s theme of “we are doomed” to full bore as the song literally depicts what the title suggests. It isn’t hard to look at how things are going and reach the conclusion that we’re either already there or are about to get there. It came up in several spots on this record and now it has a fitting, full exploration.

And for the love of all that is Maiden – this one is a masterpiece. It almost immediately joins other post-reunion epics like Paschendale and For The Greater Good Of God as some of the best work the band has ever done. It’s early of course but I don’t really mind saying it so soon.

It’s all here on this song – Bruce’s command of the song, the guitars both flowing and slamming, and the band’s drive and rhythm in full force. The starkest and bleakest of songs on the record provides a true Maiden singalong moment and yet again shapes their ever-growing legacy.

I haven’t dove too far into others’ opinions on the record yet but I do know I’m really only offering consensus when I talk about how much this song stands out. People are going off about it on every corner of the Internet. Hell On Earth is absolute power, force and Iron Maiden.

Here we are on the release of yet another classic from one of heavy metal’s most enduring icons. Senjutsu is a well-crafted, on theme and on track record that offers a greater unity amongst its individual parts than some of its predecesors. It’s one I’ll have to spend a lot of time with to reach conclusions about its overall form and where it fits in the already bursting with treasures discography of the band. It will certainly be time well spent.

Album Of The Week – August 30, 2019

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Yeah, I know it’s 2021. Yeah, I know the title says 2019. You’ll get the gist of it here in a minute, just bear with me.

August 30th, 2019. It was to be the culmination of the great “Stan Wars” between Taylor Swift’s mega-huge fanbase and Lana Del Rey’s smaller but dedicated stan squad. Twitter was a raging dumpster fire of toxicity and hatred hurled back and forth between these warring factions. It was an epic showdown to see if LDR’s album release could dethrone Taylor’s second-week of release album from its throne at number one on the charts. Fans were lining up to buy multiple copies of everything they could get their hands on.

LOL

On August 30th, 2019, Tool released their long-awaited fifth studio album Fear Inoculum. It was a 13 year wait after 10,000 Days arrived in 2006. Whatever contributed to the delay, Tool fans were finally getting this eternally sough-after release. And, to the chagrin of mega-stans everywhere, it would claim the number one spot on the Billboard charts the following week.

Tool – Fear Inoculum

Released August 30, 2021 via Volcano Records

Favorite Tracks – Descending, Pneuma, 7empest

Me? Yes, I’m a Tool fan. I know there are annoying Tool fans out there. I know that I am annoying. But I am not an annoying Tool fan, I promise. I’ve been a fan since Sober first hit airwaves in the early ’90’s but I’m a sorta-casual.

And being sorta-casual is ok with Tool, since they spend 13 years between albums. Math is a thing so let’s figure – I was 28 when 10,000 Days came out. I had just turned 42 when Fear Inoculum released. That’s a lot of damn time. Trust me I know, I was there.

I was a bit concerned when the news of the album hit. The preview tracks were fine but unrefined phone recordings aren’t going to offer enough of a quality preview of a Tool song to pique my interest. I was cautiously optimistic that I’d be fine with it but I did have my concerns.

How was it really gonna be? It had been 13 years. What were they like now? What kind of headspace was I in to process a Tool album in my early 40’s? It was entirely possible that my enjoyment of Tool was from a bygone era and that they and I had both moved into different waters that just didn’t meet up anywhere.

Those fears were unfounded. Fear Inoculum is an absolute masterpiece. A collection of songs that are each over ten minutes in length, entwined with a few interludes. It is a dense album that conjures atmosphere at the expense of accesibility. But Tool have been drifiting toward that kind of sound anyway so it isn’t some huge leap, especially the powerful title track from 10,000 Days.

I do have to give Tool credit – they released an album and title song about inoculation and contagion less than 6 months before a world-altering pandemic struck. It’s almost like they themselves opened a portal to something and ushered in a whole new reality. It’s just an odd bit of coincidence, of course, but it’s a bit morbidly funny given the times we’re in now.

Of the 7 main songs that comprise the album I don’t find any real fault with any of them. A few do stand out, though. Pneuma is a fantastic cut that probably hearkens back most to past eras of the band and also offers a message either about unity, the interconnectedness of the universe, or something like that. 7Empest furthers the band’s fascination with the number 7 on this album and offers a more confrotational view of things, though what those things are lay beyond the scope of my understanding.

It would take me several listens to truly process the album as a whole and also figure out what my favorite song is here. Oddly enough, in the end it came back to Descending, one of two songs made available before release. It is truly a call to arms and order as our world descends into chaos. Many fans have made the connection that Descending is like the antithesis to Aenema, the band’s celebration of misanthropy that cheers the end of the world (or at least California).

And yeah, the world looks pretty bleak to me. Has for the past several years. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. I mean, I’m fine in my day-to-day life, I get through the days no problem. But this society, civilization, whatever, just looks like Hell. I don’t know if I really possess the strength of spirit or perspective to see through it to something better, it looks really ugly and like it’s headed down rather than up. And yeah, Descending might be a more fitting song for the times than Aenema, it might truly be time to sound the dread alarm. But in the end, might still wanna learn to swim in Arizona bay, I don’t know.

Fear Inoculum sees vocalist Maynard James Keenan take something of a backseat in terms of performance. He’s still there of course, but he’s not necessarily as out there front-and-center as he has been in the past. There is nothing wrong with that, this album is a marathon and the music as a whole sets the pace rather than any frentic vocal performance.

But there is a standout musical peformance on the album – this whole record is the Danny Carey show. The drums are unreal from front to back on this release. I’d highly recommend throwing on some headphones and just taking in the drums. It’s one hell of a trip.

We are now 2 years removed from Fear Inoculum releasing and giving long-starved fans new music for the first time in over a decade. I’d have to assume the band will not spend that long on a follow-up, given that them or us aren’t getting any younger. I guess we can place bets on whether their next album or Elder Scrolls 6 drops first. I’d put the money on Tool at this point.

I definitely enjoy the album and would dare say it’s at least my second-favorite of Tool’s releases, and an argument could be made for it taking the top spot. That’s a discussion for another time, though. For now I trudge on through the muck and mire of our world, taking solace in the fact that I love these really long, dense songs that so many people can’t stand.

Lorna Shore – … And I Return To Nothingness (Album of the Week)

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What is an album, really? If I were ranking an artist’s albums I would use some kind of metric to determine that I’m only going to include full-length studio records. No live albums, no EP’s, no extended singles, no greatest hits compilations.

But for an informal exercise like the Album of the Week? I’m certianly going to include live albums at some point. My favorite band has like 13 of them, there is no avoiding that. And EPs? Sure. Some of my favorite music is in EP form. Broken by Nine Inch Nails is probably my favorite piece of music they did and it’s not really a full-length album.

So this week it’s time to look at a newly-released EP, only 3 songs, that has moved mountains in the metal and deathcore landscape.

Lorna Shore – …And I Return To Nothingness

Released August 13, 2021 via Century Media Records

Favorite Track – To The Hellfire

Lorna Shore have been around for a bit over a decade and, like most any band, have had to endure a few lineup changs over the years. The band were left searching for a new vocalist after some unfortunate issues with their prior singer, and this new EP is a showcase of new vocalist Will Ramos as the band re-enters the touring scene after a year of pandemic-induced inactivity.

And yeah, it is quite the showcase.

It’s been a pretty kinetic summer for me – sort of coming out of the pandemic and trying to find some semblence of a life after 2020 so I haven’t really been keeping up with stuff. I do sometimes watch a fair amount of reaction content on YouTube and I noticed some of the ususal vocal coach people I watch covering To The Hellfire when it released in June. But I was too busy doing the early work to launch this blog and, well, going out and drinking beer to sit and pay attention to what was going on.

It was just before the EP’s release when the band dropped a video for And I Return To Nothingness. I was killing time one afternoon and checked it out. I hadn’t heard much at all of Lorna Shore before so I was trying to play catch-up both with an unfamiliar band and the hype that was generating around them. I liked what I heard so I went ahead and started checking out those reaction videos on To The Hellfire.

Holy shit.

I’ve been listening to extreme metal since the early ’90’s, so nearly 30 years. It has been around for roughly 40. It is exactly what the name implies – extreme. And over all this time, it makes you wonder where else there is to go with it. How far can you really go with war, death, Satan and Hell? It’s been done, redone, overdone, underdone and at every point inbetween. There’s only so much ground to cover, so much innovation to find.

And then To The Hellfire comes along. This song about the acceptance of death and damnation pulls off a rare feat – it sounds exactly like Hell. In a genre where the topic of dying and going to Hell is derivative at best, Lorna Shore invokes a soundscape that marries the lyrics and imagery and presents it in a way that transcends any individual medium. It absolutely stands out from the crowd of “Hell, fire, death, Satan” songs that are out there. Like, a person with enough money could fill a large building with nothing but physical releases of those songs.

Of special mention is the song’s final minute. Now, I’ve never had an issue with breakdowns in metal, they’re abundant. I have sometimes wondered what their purpose really is, though. I listen to plenty of stuff that has no need of a breakdown. This song employs 3 to great effect, but the final breakdown here does something totally different. In an already crazy song it puts a whole new stamp on things.

There are entire video comps of people’s reactions to simply the last minute of the song. It can be a question we ask each other in the future – where were you when you first heard that breakdown in To The Hellfire? And if you can find someone who has never heard it, well, you can have a lot of fun seeing their reaction for the first time.

This song can’t be discussed without mentioning the talent of new vocalist Will Ramos. He sounds absoulutely inhuman and has been described as everything from a demon to a Dark Souls boss. And this is all from one song, it doesn’t even consider the other 2 tracks on the record or his live performances of Lorna Shore’s older material. He has raised the bar, moved the goalposts, all of that. Hopefully he really is a demon or something because I don’t know for how many years a human can pull this kind of stuff off without shredding his throat.

I’ve been going on about To The Hellfire, as everyone has this summer. But there are 2 more songs on the EP and both are absolutely worthy of discussion. Of The Abyss is a twisted blackened metal tune about some kind of bastardized rebirth that has its own sick-as-hell breakdown. And the title track is another excellent symphonic blackened song that is its own highlight on this 3-song return.

In the end though the star of the show is To The Hellfire. Lorna Shore came out to make a statement after retooling and they very likely blew away their own expectations. Whatever the differences between my more familiar older strains of extreme metal and anything -core suffixed (a discussion for another time), this just blows any divisions or barriers clean apart. …And I Return To Nothingness is a signpost for the deepest and darkest of heavy metal.

Sometimes in our hypebeast, FOMO culture, things get built up to a level they could not possibly achieve. This often leads to disappointment and desensitization. But every now and again something lives up to all the hype. Lorna Shore is totally in the second category. This is one for the ages and something I’ll remember until I’m swallowed by the womb of death.

The Misfits -Walk Among Us (Album of the Week)

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Our album of the week is an old-time cut from the early ’80’s. It’s a cult classic from a band that took on a life of its own after originally breaking up and has now ascended to legendary status.

The Misfits – Walk Among Us

Released March 1982 on Ruby Records

Favorite tracks – Astro Zombies, Mommy Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight, Skulls

Walk Among Us is a record I backed into for fairly obvious reasons – I was 4 years old when it came out. For whatever music I was exposed to in my early upbringing, The Misfits were not going to be counted among it.

About a decade later I was, like many adolescent dudes at the time, into Danzig. The Misfits’ former singer had found success in the early ’90’s with his Evil Elvis brand of metal. He was polarizing and is to this day reviled by some but I still hold up those early Danzig albums as examples of some truly great music.

At some point in that early half of the decade a buddy of mine needed to run to the next town over for something I can’t quite remember. I went along because well, you ain’t got much to do in mid-Missouri as a teen in 1993, or 1994, or 2004, or ever.

We wound up at a pawn shop and I sped straight over to their music section. The quality of music in a Midwest pawn shop was not up to the standards of any living being. It was the literal bottom of the barrel – just rejected tapes and CD’s that frankly should have never been recorded in the first place.

As luck would have it on that day, I spotted Walk Among Us in the pile of cast-off music. I paid $6 for a good used copy of this classic in a day and age where finding stuff like this wasn’t easy at all. The Internet was just barely a thing at the time and was not at all useful for commerce. And rural areas were sorely underserved for music – it was Wal-Mart or nothing.

I got home with my prized find and was instantly in love. I was nothing more than a tourist as it concerns punk but I was a Danzig fan and I was after everything he’d been involved in. And The Misfits were spectacular. The savage attack of unrefined horror punk was absolutely welcome to this young metalhead’s ears. It’s not some huge chasm between their stuff and metal anyway so it was pretty easy to see why so many in metal loved The Misfits.

The years wore on as they do and found both The Misfits and Danzig changing course and adding distance between them and their classic periods. Eventually they would find each other again and, if nothing else, they could count the money on the table and so they launched a few reunion gigs. I myself didn’t get to see them but that’s ok.

So there we have it – one of my all-time favorites and a more than fitting selection for the album of the week. 13 killer songs in 25 lean minutes and sometimes that, and some brains for lunch, is all you really need.

Carcass – Heartwork (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week2 Comments

I’m going back to the glory days of the early ’90’s for this beast of a pick.

Carcass – Heartwork

Released – October 18, 1993 via Earache/Columbia Records

Favorite Tracks – Carnal Forge, Buried Dreams, Heartwork

Heartwork was released in late 1993 and served as yet another transition for the British metal act. Their prior effort Necrotism… had shifted them somewhat away from grindcore and into death metal, and Heartwork again moved them into the melodic death metal landscape, which was taking shape across the continent in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The album was perfect at the time for me. I was well into my exploration of extreme metal in ’93 and was absolutely floored when I heard this. What has come to be called the “Gothenburg Sound” is one of my favorite subgenres of all time and this was my introduction to it, pre-dating my discovery of At The Gates, Dark Traniqillity, et al. It moved with precision, sounded great and more sharp than some of the rougher death metal of the day.

The album was part of a major record label’s short but ill-fated foray into extreme metal. The band’s label Earache Records partnered with major Columbia to release this and a few other albums from notable acts like Entombed and Napalm Death. Though the move fell flat on its face, it gave more American youths a chance at hearing the stuff through a widened distribution network in the days just before the Internet became a thing.

In the end, Heartwork remains as a beloved staple in any heavy metal collection and probably Carcass’ magnum opus. It’s remained in my rotation from the day of its release and it’s one I’m spinning ’till I depart this mortal coil.

Oh yeah, check out this “red” and white marble vinyl from a recent reissue. Record colors don’t always come out the way they’re supposed to. This one is pretty amusing.

High On Fire – Death Is This Communion (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week1 Comment

I figured every Monday I’d do an Album of the Week. There is no real critera behind it, I just pick an album I’m fond of for whatever reason and talk about it. It could be something with a real story behind it or it could just be something I really like and I just say “jam out to this.”

I’m gonna kick off the series with an absoulte banger and one of my favorite albums of all time.

High On Fire are an institution today and much of that came about with the 2007 release of Death Is This Communion. This band had already set a high bar with their prior efforts and they cleared that bar by leaps and bounds on …Communion.

Released September 18, 2007 via Relapse Records

Favorite Tracks: Death Is This Communion, Turk, Fury Whip

The tunes have always been heavy with High On Fire but the band have also thrown in some melodic embellishments to keep things lively. It’s not stuff that will simply whip your ass, but it will still certianly whip your ass. And it’ll soften the blow with some sweet interludes along the way.

There isn’t any real background story to why I got into this album. The only thing I really needed to know was that there was a new High On Fire album. When we all heard it after release we were pretty well shitting ourselves over it. I recall pretty unanimous praise from my circles for the record, everyone was flipping over how awesome it was.

It’s an album without a single weak note for me. But the title track is the first one that really got its claws in me. Just this long, droning, pounding rhythym and the lyrics speaking of some arisen Eldritch horror consuming all. That’s the kind of stuff I sign up for anywhere, anytime.

This album put High On Fire on a whole new playing field. While they were already known for having a sound their own that didn’t fall too neatly into one of metal’s slog of subgenres, they transcended their own past on …Communion and let the world know they were one of the world’s premeir acts.

In the nearly 14 years since the release, High On Fire have continued to forge a path of their own making in an ever-crowded metal marketplace. This album will probably always be tops for me but they’ve touched the Sun a time or two since on subsequent releases. Our shirtless overlord Matt Pike and his band of hard-pounding doomsters trudge on, pounding us into gleefull submission with the most piss-soaked, metal-hardened riffs to be found.