Tag: metal

Bruce Dickinson – Afterglow Of Ragnarok

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week10 Comments

Usually I do a “song of the week” but this week we’ll get two as I have the new Bruce Dickinson single in my hands and, as luck would have it, there are two songs on it. One of them many are already familiar with, but we’ll get to that.

Afterglow Of Ragnarok is the lead single from Bruce’s forthcoming album The Mandrake Project. The album has now had its tracklist previewed and will be released on March 1st, 2024. Anticipation is high among the fanbase for this one, as this is Bruce’s first solo album since 2005, nearly a two decade wait. This first single was released to streaming on Friday, December 1st and it was also issued on 7-inch vinyl, which I got in the mail this past Monday.

The single package includes a small comic book which sets up the story being told in this concept album. There will also be a graphic novel running alongside the album that further gets into the crazy story Bruce has set up here. The music video for this song and the small comic inside the vinyl seem to be setting up the same story.

Afterglow Of Ragnarok

The A-side is the title song here so let’s hit that up first. You may notice the video is 8 minutes long, but rest assured the actual song is a more lean 5:40. There is an intro and extended credits cut on the video here.

This is one heavy, heavy song. It does go into some more melodic sections that give Bruce room to shine (well, sort of, we’ll get into that in a second) but this is seriously heavy stuff from Roy Z. It’s honestly a little stark just how hard hitting this one is. Not in a bad way at all, but there’s an edge here beyond what we’ve heard from Bruce or his other outfit.

Lyrically this one is a tough nut to crack. It’s not one of those songs that offer something to the usual human experience and that anyone can take a bit of meaning from. This is a pretty dense affair that has all to do with the story being told. The song functions well on its own but it will require hearing the whole album and knowing more about what the hell is going on to really get into the theme.

There is a pretty big issue here, one that I am far from alone in bringing up. For whatever reason, Bruce’s vocals are fairly buried in the music here. The instruments, which again are heavy as all hell, are somewhat flooding out a guy known as the Human Air Raid Siren. It’s a very noticeable flaw here and one I put down to production. Bruce sounds fine, all concerns about his age and past throat cancer aside. He may not wail like it’s 1984 but he can still carry a tune plenty well enough to do this solo record. But a puzzling choice was made to put his vocals under the music for some reason and it sticks out. It is maybe a bit better on the actual vinyl as opposed to digital but it’s still noticeable. I don’t know how this all works but I’m hoping someone can stealth fix this issue a bit before the full album releases, at least get the digital version of the album set straight. I do still like the song and I’ll gladly play the album but this flaw can’t be looked over.

If Eternity Should Fail (demo)

The B-side offers up a bit of a treat and a song nearly 10 years old now. This is the demo recording Bruce and Roy Z did of this song back when they were first laying plans for this album. The album was supposed to go by this title and this was presumably either the centerpiece or the starting point for the huge story.

Well, something got in the way, and that something is Steve Harris and Iron Maiden. Steve heard this demo and really liked the song, and as you may notice it is the opening track of The Book Of Souls. This led Bruce back to the drawing board and he chose a new title for the album and, after some rewrites on the background story, he also re-christened this song. I presume the track Eternity Has Failed from the album will bear some resemblance to this one but also be its own entity.

But here we have the original demo recording done in 2014. It is pretty well what most would think – it’s a demo version of this song. It is basic in structure though the song is fairly well formed, it hits the same beats as it does in its final form and there isn’t anything missing or altered. It is bare bones compared to the Maiden version but that’s certainly excusable as this is only Bruce and Roy’s demo version, they didn’t even get a chance to finish it. It’s a cool thing to have as a B-side, especially since the song proper didn’t make the album. We also get to clearly hear Bruce speak what is a bunch of distorted vocal gibberish on the end of the finished Maiden version – it’s all stuff that directly relates to Bruce’s story but Steve said to leave it on the Maiden album because “lol,” I guess.

One further note – as of now, this B-side seems to only be available on the physical vinyl single. I could not find it on any official digital service and I’m not gonna bother posting a random YouTube version that will probably get taken down in a day. This is more of a cool bonus track anyway, it’s not something essential to the album itself.

That about covers it for this new single, ahead of one of my most anticipated albums of 2024. The old guard are still flying the metal flag, gotta enjoy it while we can.

Naglfar – Harvest

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the WeekLeave a comment

Today I’m going back to 2007 and getting out a melodic black metal album that saw a subtle yet noticeable shift in the band’s sound and a change in theme from raging about external issues to focusing inward on one’s own shortcomings.

Naglfar – Harvest

Released April 2, 2007 via Century Media Records

My Favorite Tracks – Harvest, The Darkest Road, The Mirrors Of My Soul

Naglfar were fresh off their 2005 opus Pariah, which was the second to feature Kristoffer Olivius as the band’s principal member after the departure of co-founder Jens Rydén in 2003. Olivius kept at vocal duties for this album but passed bass playing to Morgan Lie. Andreas Nilsson and Marcus Norman handled guitars, and Mattias Grahn was the drummer.

While Pariah was a bomb aimed at the corruption and rot of society’s institutions, Harvest took a different approach and explored the decay of self. The themes here are depressing, bleak and suicidal. It is truly not for the faint of heart.

The album runs 9 songs out in 45 minutes. A few versions of this release had bonus material, including a DVD with live stuff, but the core album remains the same across versions.

The album opens with Into The Black. The pace is slower here, very noticeably so compared to the past few Naglfar albums. But the slower tempo works in the song’s favor, it is a creepy dive into the mind of someone who is done with life. It sets the table well for the rest of the album. Up next is Breathe Through Me, which musically sounds more like something from the prior album. It’s a faster black metal offering that gets into personal damnation, also wrapped up in the religious symbology that Naglfar often employ.

Next is The Mirrors Of My Soul and this one is a masterpiece. It a bit faster but also quite, well, groovy. It is a look at a person’s descent into total madness, with death the only option out of it. The lyrics to this one are pure poetry – the lines “Deeper into darkness, deeper I fell – When I close my eyes I see myself burn in Hell” are just amazing work by Olivius. I’ve held this as a personal favorite Naglfar track since first listen back in 2007.

It’s now on to Odium Generis Humani, which is Latin for “hatred of the human race.” This one leaves behind the self-hatred for a minute and revisits the “fuck you all” attitude of Pariah. The blistering music matches the intensity of the misanthropic delivery.

Song five is The Darkest Road and is another brilliant work from Naglfar. This is a haunting tale of someone embracing the “dark side” of life and also the nihilistic acceptance of life having no meaning. It is not necessarily a celebration, more of a matter-of-fact statement. This song was more or less an album single, and a wise pick for one as this both leaps out in its dire message and is also quite catchy.

The Way Of The Rope comes next and, if you at first think that it’s about Sweden’s long nautical history and the importance of ropes to seafaring, well, you’d be very wrong. If you guessed that it’s a savage tale of suicide, you’d be correct. After this comes Plutonium Reveries, another callback to Pariah and the misanthropic desire to see humanity perish in nuclear war as payment for misdeeds. The hits keep coming with Feeding Moloch. Moloch was an ancient entity mentioned in Hebrew texts that accepted child sacrifices, and the narrator of the song gladly supplies Moloch with its desires.

Everything winds to the end of the road and the title track Harvest. It’s clear from the drop that something extra is up here, as most of these songs run 4 or 5 minutes but this final song gets over 7. This is a dark and majestic song that feels like the whole album was building up to. Its theme is the concept of reaping what one sows, though of course it is again from a misanthropic perspective and aimed at everyone who has wronged the song’s subject, or perhaps all of humanity. While of course quite noisy like the rest of the album, the song goes out quietly with a piano outro. It’s an effective, unsettling quiet after the past 45 minutes of pure misanthropic hatred.

Harvest was another well-regarded success for Naglfar, displaying that the band still had staying power after the loss of a primary member after 2003. The band would tour behind this effort then re-enter the studio to prepare their next album in 2012. They would then take an extended layoff, something the group is known for doing, before their most recent album in 2020.

For me this has been my favorite Naglfar album, and it’s a lofty title since I love both Sheol and Pariah. The twist on theme here and the shift in music to something more catchy put this one above the others for me. When it released in ’07 I was not in the greatest of mental states, so this was either the absolute best or worst album to get into. But it all worked out in the end, and Harvest still holds up for me all these years later.

Maiden England 88 – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series18 Comments

This week we’re back to 1988 and the celebrated Maiden England tour. This live set comes from two shows at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England. The shows were played at the end of November and then put together for a live video and audio package, though we get into some interesting stuff when it comes to the album’s release dates.

This was originally offered on video form in 1989 – even on LaserDisc, the vinyl-sized CD precursor to the DVD. It was not released in audio form until 1994, when a CD was issued. However – neither of these initial packages were the complete show, both omitted the encore. In 2013 the set was re-released in complete form both audio and video, and officially on vinyl for the first time. This coincided with Iron Maiden’s tour through 2012 and ’13, which was a recreation of the Maiden England package with a few setlist tweaks.

I know most people who see this will likely know what I’m about to say, but I do want to offer a caveat to anyone who maybe isn’t all that familiar with the Iron Maiden timeline or release windows – this live set I’m discussing is from the 1988 tour, despite being released in 2013. This is not a live set chronicling the 2012 and 2013 tour – there is no official live material for that tour cycle. I could see where someone new to looking at all of this could be easily confused by it.

The line-up here is the band’s classic era roster – The Captain Steve Harris on bass and bandleading, Bruce Dickinson at the mic, the guitar tandem of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, and Nicko McBrain on the drums.

We do have another compare and contrast feature here – the cover art for the different versions was changed. Up above I’ve actually posted the original 1989 cover art, a badass image featuring a leather-clad Eddie flying over a concert crowd on a motorcycle. It’s a pretty iconic image of Eddie, no doubt about that. The 2013 reissues saw modified art, with Trooper Eddie in his redcoat uniform leaping on a horse over a cannon. The more recent cover art was done by artist Hervé Monjeaud, while the original cover and other associated artwork in the reissue was courtesy of Eddie’s iconic artist Derek Riggs. The newer art is very worthy by all means, but that original Riggs image is just massive stuff.

Let’s do the usual thing – look at the tracklist, then jump into the sounds and highlights.

Moonchild

The Evil That Men Do

The Prisoner

Still Life

Die With Your Boots On

Infinite Dreams

Killers

Can I Play With Madness

Heaven Can Wait

Wasted Years

The Clairvoyant

Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

The Number Of The Beast

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Iron Maiden

This is all from the Seventh Tour Of A Seventh Tour, which obviously was in support of the album Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son. This set kind of reads like one of the reunion-era set lists, in that you get six songs from the current album, maybe a few hidden gems, then a grouping of obvious hits. Given that Seventh Son… is my favorite Maiden album, you won’t hear me complain about it being the focus of this package.

We get a good assortment of songs from Seventh Son… here. The singles are here, as well as Infinite Dreams, which would be a single released from this set. We also get the epic and amazing title track, which is a massive treat for a live performance and not one the band busts out all of the time given that now they have a billion epic-length songs to choose from.

We do get a couple of more out of the way songs from the earlier days here in The Prisoner, Die With Your Boots On and Still Life. The latter especially hasn’t been featured in too many other places. The Prisoner and Die With Your Boots On had a bit more representation in other live releases but it’s always nice to hear them again.

The prior album Somewhere In Time gets a bit of representation here, with the obvious single Wasted Years and then Heaven Can Wait, which gets a fair bit of live play. It’s a shame the album didn’t get a ton of play live before 2023 but stuff happens, I guess.

The other songs are a fair collection of the obvious songs Maiden would play live. Killers was a live staple in the early days, and the three encore songs are ones that aren’t getting cut at a Maiden gig. Well, one would, but we’ll get to that next week.

There is a glaring omission on this set – The Trooper was not played. It seems really weird that it got cut for this tour. The song was in the set for earlier tours the same year in other parts of the world, I don’t know why they chose to cut it here. I haven’t watched the documentary of this time period in many years so I don’t recall if it was brought up on there or not. But the song’s absence does stand out.

As for the sound quality – this is good, in parts very good and in others it feels maybe a bit “off.” I don’t know if the band was out of sync early or if the thing just wasn’t mixed entirely right but there is a bit of odd sounding stuff in the first few songs, this does seem to fade as the set goes on. This isn’t the band’s best sounding live album but it’s not unlistenable by any stretch. It doesn’t require being a superfan or a great deal of effort to get into, but it does sound a hair lesser than other live albums.

Talk of sound quality does require a look at the vinyl – the official vinyl release is on picture disc. Now, I’m not an audiophile by any means, but yes, there is surface noise on the vinyl of this that does pick up on playback. I think it’s even more noticeable here than other picture discs I’ve played where I’ve had very minimal noise. The CD and streaming offerings of this album do sound better.

Overall I do feel like this is a worthwhile live album. It does have a few faults but it’s a great set and it captures a tour from my favorite era of the band. It might be tough to call this one “essential” but I feel it’s worth it.

Next week it’s back to the reunion era as we’re nearing the end of the list here. It was Maiden’s first album in five years, Bruce’s return from a cancer scare, and an epic song was left off the set due to legal wrangling. All that and more in seven short days.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88 (you are here)

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Saxon – Hell, Fire And Damnation

On By bigbadburchIn Song Of The Week5 Comments

First off – I haven’t been on schedule this week at all. This was a combination of the holiday weekend and just general laziness. I’ll have a post today, the next Maiden live album tomorrow, then be back to normal next week.

For today here’s a quick and easy one – this is a new song from metal legends Saxon, who are preparing the release of their 24th album this coming January. 24 records is absolutely staggering and just a great accomplishment, and that the vast majority of them are solid albums is also fantastic.

This new song Hell, Fire And Damnation was released last week and is the title track from the new record. It is a really nice song, Saxon have had a winning metal formula down now for quite awhile so it’s no huge surprise. The music does suit the pretty heavy topic at hand, which of course are also three of my favorite things – hell, fire and damnation.

I am a bit unclear as to one member of Saxon’s present line-up. The following are in place – Biff Byford as the band’s constant presence on vocals, guitarist Dug Scarratt, Bassist Nibbs Carter and drummer Nigel Glockler are all along for the ride. Back earlier in 2023, co-founding member Paul Quinn retired from touring. It was assumed he was going to be involved with future recording endeavors, but here we have an interesting quirk without a ready answer.

To replace Quinn in the touring line-up, Saxon recrutied longtime Diamond Head mainstay Brian Tatler. He was billed as a touring replacement and did state in certain terms that he would also be continuing with Diamond Head. However, the video clearly features Tatler in it and the video blurb touts the guitar duo of Scarratt and Tatler, so going by these bits of information it appears Brian Tatler is fully Saxon’s second guitarist. I’m sure all of this will be made clearer as the album’s release is closer.

That is about all for this one, it’ll be one of many albums I’m looking forward to next year. I’m curious also to see just how much longer Saxon goes on, but at this point I won’t doubt the great British beast to continue for several more years, anyway.

En Vivo! – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series18 Comments

Let’s get this first bit out of the way – En Vivo!, as it translates from Spanish, means “as it happens live.” I don’t actually know this myself as I don’t speak Spanish even though I took it for two years in school 100 years ago, but I’ll trust Wikipedia on this one. Google seems to confirm that it has something to do with “live,” so we’ll go with that.

And live is what we have, once again we are on to a reunion era album and its corresponding tour. The feature album this time is The Final Frontier, which was released in August of 2010. The studio album was pretty well received both commercially and critically, though it did “dip” a bit in perception and maybe was under the radar compared to other reunion albums. All of that is relative, of course, I can only speak to what I’ve witnessed over the years.

This album, which also received what is to date the last physical release of an equivalent video component, was released in March of 2012. This concert was recorded in Santiago, Chile in April of 2011. This is another case of a single, complete concert being released officially. While in the end that’s no huge deal, it is cool to have complete documents of shows.

This audio release did chart in many countries, though not all that high in most cases. The video release did chart extremely well. The song Blood Brothers was nominated in the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance category at the 2013 Grammy Awards, Halestorm was the winner of that one.

I’ll do the normal thing here – post the tracklist, then get into the nuts and bolts of it.

Satellite 15

The Final Frontier

El Dorado

2 Minutes To Midnight

The Talisman

Coming Home

Dance Of Death

The Trooper

The Wicker Man

Blood Brothers

When The Wild Wind Blows

The Evil That Men Do

Fear Of The Dark

Iron Maiden

The Number Of The Beast

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Running Free

So there’s not a whole lot to talk about in terms of song selection, we know by now what we’re getting with these reunion era live albums. It is several tracks from the new album, here we have a sprinkling of other reunion era cuts, and then a whole list of very obvious Maiden live inclusions.

We do get two songs from Brave New World as well as the excellent title track from Dance Of Death. Those are really nice songs to hear still included years later. The Wicker Man is one of the more recognizable and energetic songs from BNW, and Blood Brothers is a Maiden anthem at this point.

The real judgment of this album comes from the songs picked off of The Final Frontier, and on this the band hit a home run. I’d say every critical track is here – the singles like the title track and El Dorado, the quite underrated quasi-ballad Coming Home and two of the album’s epic cuts – The Talisman, and the nuclear war song Where The Wild Wind Blows. Some might quibble about El Dorado but I think everything here works.

Some might also vent over the inclusion of Satellite 15, which is an intro cut. The main issue people seem to have with the song is that it was placed on the studio album as one track along with the first proper song. Here is was a separate track and also different in form. I personally don’t care that much if bands do intro stuff and I simply have other things to care about, it doesn’t bother me.

I could pine for two songs that didn’t make the set – Isle Of Avalon and Starblind. The former might be a bit much to work with live as it is in contrast to the rest of the band’s material, but Starblind would have worked. It would have been super cool to have them but the band typically does about six off the recent album so this pretty well fits the mold.

The performances here all sound good, nothing is off or bad. It’s a good quality recording and probably wasn’t edited, it has a very “in the moment” feel. Maiden generally don’t edit their live stuff but have been known to do so a time or two, but this sounds pretty solid and untouched.

Maiden do again keep more to the songs’ original paces here, maybe sped up by a hair in some cases and honestly a bit slower in others. The band were getting long in the tooth entering the 2010’s and many wondered if the album title hinted at the band’s impending demise. Well, its 13 years since The Final Frontier released and no, Maiden certainly did not intend to quit in the 2010’s.

Overall En Vivo! Is a fine live package from Maiden. The main highlights are the inclusions from the album being featured on the tour. Those who aren’t necessarily out to get every Maiden live album would have to decide how much they want to hear live stuff from The Final Frontier to judge if this is worth a pick-up.

Next week we’ll go back in time for one final visit to the band’s golden 1980’s era and a deluxe offering of a set that showcased Maiden at the end of their peak, or at least their first peak..

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666

En Vivo! (you are here)

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Deep Purple – Machine Head (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

It’s time this week for one of rock and metal’s most immortal albums. Deep Purple were looking to build on momentum from a prior album and also do a better job of capturing their live sound on a studio album when they made a series of recording choices that would both cement them as rock titans and also contribute one of rock and roll’s most infamous song origin stories.

Deep Purple – Machine Head

Released March 25, 1972 via Purple Records

My Favorite Tracks – Space Truckin’, Smoke On The Water, Highway Star

The story of Machine Head and its recording has long been etched into rock music lore. Deep Purple were out to better capture their live sound on a record. The band had established some success on the basis of their album two records ago, Deep Purple In Rock, and were convinced that bringing their live sound to a studio record would help them along. The band booked the famous Rolling Stones Mobile Studio and lined up to record at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland. The original plan was to record a live set as well as the studio album and release a double record. Of course, those plans went up in flames, as we’ll get to.

Tracking Deep Purple line-ups could drive the world’s foremost scholars mad, there is a whole lore and science behind it. This album featured the band’s Mark II roster, which would be the band’s most successful configuration. It featured Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Ian Gillan on vocals, Roger Glover with the bass, the immortal Jon Lord on keyboards and the band’s lone constant member Ian Paice on drums.

Deep Purple would be credited as album producers. They were joined by engineer Martin Birch, who had worked with Purple on previous albums as well as Fleetwood Mac in their early career. Birch would go on to produce for Blackmore again in Rainbow, handle the early Whitesnake albums as well as the first two Dio-fronted Black Sabbath records before settling in as the long-time producer of another British band I might happen to talk about all the time on this site.

Today’s album has a fairly lean 7 songs running at 37:46. Several deluxe editions of the album are also available.

Highway Star

The album opens with a quick hard rocker that was literally written in front of journalists on a bus after one reporter asked how the band wrote songs. Blackmore started jamming on a guitar while Gillan composed lyrics on the fly about simply “being a rock and roll band.” This was also released as a single.

This ode to cars and women accomplished its mission of depicting rock and roll, and the music laid a blueprint for many bands to follow – keep things simple and just rock out.

Maybe I’m A Leo

Up next is a blues jam soaked in Blackmore’s guitar tone and spiced up with Lord’s organ work. It’s a really nice song and a good bridge from rock’s recent past to what it was becoming. There are sparse lyrics here, but Gillan laments the loss of a woman, who maybe was taken away against her will, it’s hard to tell. But she is gone and Gillan is a Leo, but not a lion. (Hey, me too. And it turns out Ian Gillan and I have the same birthday, didn’t know that.)

Pictures Of Home

We have a very amped up jam session here, as each instrument player gets a spot to go off on his chosen weapon of rock. It’s far from just an individual showcase though, it’s also a cohesive song that works when everyone’s playing together as well as when one person takes the spotlight. It also features a harrowing lyrical tale of a mountain climber stuck on a mountain, which would be a pretty awful position to be in. And there’s probably not a British rock royalty jam session going on up on the mountain to pass the time with.

Never Before

It’s another blues-based tune here also with a bit of funk creeping in on occasion. While Lord and Blackmore are up to their usual mastery here, it’s Ian Gillan that really gets a chance to shine vocally here. His tale is one of sorrow, as he’s been done wrong by a woman, but the song is pretty hard hitting and ready to soar.

Smoke On The Water

And here we are. The truth is that this song’s full details deserve their own post so I will Cliffnotes things today. DP were set to record at the Montreaux Casino after it shut down for the winter, the last gig the venue booked was Frank Zappa. A “stupid with a flare gun” decided to burn the place down instead. DP had to find another place to record and also found lyrical inspiration for a song in the fire. In fact, the song’s lyrics give most of the details of the events.

Smoke On The Water was not immediately recognized as a hit. In fact, the band had a live album and another studio record out before this was officially released as a single. The song went on to hit number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and was also certified gold in the US.

But the song’s true success goes far beyond charts and sales. The Blackmore riff is perhaps rock and roll’s most recognizable guitar sound. It is simple yet highly effective, and it led to generations of future guitar players annoying music shop employees with repeated plays of a riff so simple that most anyone could play it in a few minutes. This is quite possibly the greatest contribution to rock music ever, it is that massive and influential.

Lazy

This one is nearly an instrumental and is a fantastic jam between Blackmore and Lord. The song is 7:22 in length and these two take up most of the track. It is a jam in the truest sense, with them simply going off and doing what they want to do. The small verse section is about, well, being lazy. It is split in two with Ian Gillan on the harmonica between.

Space Truckin’

The album closes with a brilliant rock and, honestly, heavy metal track. It’s a fantastic, trippy march through the idea of being just what the title says – a space trucker. It’s like Han Solo a few years before he came around. The song is carried by Jon Lord’s just plain gross keyboard riffing. This song got turned into a massive jam in live settings, including an infamous one in 1974 when Blackmore was pissed off and destroyed thousands of dollars in gear.

Machine Head was to be the magnum opus of Deep Purple’s long and storied career. The album hit number 7 on the Billboard 200, and number 1 in 8 countries, including their home UK. It was certified gold in 4 countries and 2 times platinum in the US. Bear in mind that most record labels stop certification counts due to expense and it’s likely that the record has gone on to sell vastly more.

The immortality and legend of Machine Head is undisputed. When there is a list of the greatest rock and metal albums, this album is on there. When there is a list of the greatest songs, Smoke On The Water is on there. When there is a list of rocks’ greatest guitarists, Ritchie Blackmore is there. Deep Purple would, along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, form the “holy trinity” of rock music in the 1970’s. It is the influence of these three bands that shaped the face of music to come and the foundation upon what a lot of the stuff I listen to was built on. It was Deep Purple that influenced a lot of what I and we listen to, and specifically Machine Head that spun on the turntables of the next generation of musicians over and over again. There truly is nothing without this piece of rock history.

Flight 666 – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series23 Comments

This week we head to 2009, when Iron Maiden released a live album to coincide with a theatrical documentary release. The band had been approached by Banger Films to do a documentary and Iron Maiden: Flight 666 was the result of that. The film was widely celebrated among fans and also helped truly nail down the group’s legacy. That legacy had been growing exponentially through the reunion era, to a degree that people might not have even realized.

I’ll go over the film in the future, but will fully recommend it to anyone, Maiden fan or not. Today’s focus will be the accompanying live album. These songs were recorded during the band’s Somewhere Back In Time Tour in 2008. As the name implies, the setlist was purely focused on retro material. Every song is from the 1980’s but one, Fear Of The Dark from 1992. This was a hits set and was billed as such. In and of itself that is no problem at all, though it did cause a curious issue regarding what we didn’t get for a live album.

Maiden had come off the tour cycle for A Matter Of Life And Death before this tour. Those shows were unique in that the band played the entire new album on stage, followed by a small encore of signature hits. The emergence of this Flight 666 film gave the band the opportunity to release a live album for that, clearly not a bad idea at all.

But – we lost on an AMOLAD live album, and I would guess it’s because of this. I presume that the film was what kept the group from releasing the “entire album” live set. There is fan speculation that Maiden were taken aback some at the not always enthusiastic response from the crowd at the AMOLAD live shows, and further speculation that this is what caused them to shitcan the live album idea for that tour.

Now, it is true that some people didn’t really know what was going on when Maiden were playing their new album live front to back. People die hard into the band like me would not only enjoy the premise but also eat up the content, but a lot of people at shows haven’t heard or don’t like the new albums. There are plenty of people out there who adore Maiden and will go see them in concert but just don’t like any of the reunion material. Add in groups of fans who weren’t really keeping up with the group and I can see where some were thrown off by the AMOLAD performances.

So the point in all of this is that, perhaps, Maiden chose to write off the AMOLAD stuff due to fan backlash. I don’t know if that’s true, I feel the more practical matter of having a film tie-in led the band to focus on it. But it very well could be true that the band shuffled the deck a bit after not getting as glowing of a reception as they wanted for AMOLAD’s tour. Some guess that all of this was the reason for the Somewhere Back In Time tour in the first place, but again it’s all just a guessing game and we’ll likely never have concrete answers.

So with all the background and speculation and a missing reunion era live album all covered, let’s get into the details of the live album we did get. Flight 666 covers the Somewhere Back In Time Setlist and is a compendium of different stops on the tour. Each song is from a different venue and the locations selected were every inhabited continent except for Europe. It was a really cool way to spread the love as far as possible, so now places like India, Australia and Costa Rica have at least a song documented on a Maiden live album.

Maiden had decent-ish success with sales and album charts on their prior few live albums, but this one really ignited attention. The audio portion charted reasonably well across many territories, including being the first live Maiden in awhile to land on the US Billboard 200 at number 34. The video package, including both the film and concert video, was a smash success, hitting number 1 in 22 separate countries.

Let’s have at the tracklist for this set and then get under the hood of it.

Aces High

2 Minutes To Midnight

Revelations

The Trooper

Wasted Years

The Number Of The Beast

Can I Play With Madness

Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

Powerslave

Heaven Can Wait

Run To The Hills

Fear Of The Dark

Iron Maiden

Moonchild

The Clairvoyant

Hallowed Be Thy Name

As for the sound quality – it is very good. I will say it’s maybe a step off of amazing capture quality, but it all sounds good and is not in any way an unpleasant listening experience. I can see where it would be challenging to get a cohesive set out of 16 performances all in different venues, but it is stitched together pretty well.

As for the performances themselves, they are Maiden in good form and executing things well. They do actually seem to be more on normal tempo here than they often are live, I guess they left the truck stop pills at home for this tour. There generally isn’t anything wrong with their accelerated pace but it is interesting to hear them dial it back a hair on this one.

Now into the song selection. This one is pretty obvious given the nature of the tour. This was a greatest hits set and thus all of the songs are pretty obvious choices. Of course we’d get Aces High and The Number Of The Beast, and of course they’d close with Hallowed Be Thy Name. And really nothing here is a “hidden gem” or deep cut – these are all beloved songs that have been played live a lot before and have been again after this tour.

Some might consider Revelations a bit of a “secondary” track that did get played, but it’s a pretty revered cut and they’ve played it over 600 times live so it’s not a … revelation. The true “treats” on this one might be Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Powerslave. Both have been on multiple other live albums but their length often keeps them on the sidelines, at least compared to how they’ve played the song Iron Maiden at every single gig.

So what we have is a nice hits package that is played well, sounds good and represents the band’s most popular songs very well. There’s nothing to knock here – some might call this an unnecessary set due to these songs’ proliferation across other live albums, but it’s still nice to have a document of this tour and movie. I have no issue with it and consider it a welcome addition to the catalog. If you’re gonna have this many live albums, might as well have one that runs down the highlights.

Next week it’s back to the reunion era live album cycle, as a possibly underrated studio album got some live light shined on it.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road

Flight 666 (you are here)

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Omen – Battle Cry (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week6 Comments

Going back in time this week to one of the early foundational albums of US power metal. This isn’t the same power metal of 2000’s Europe – this is far more “meat and potatoes” metal that draws a direct line from the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal.

Omen – Battle Cry

Released November 1984 via Metal Blade Records

My Favorite Tracks – The Axeman, Dragon’s Breath, Battle Cry

Omen got their start when founded by guitarist and lone remaining original member Kenny Powell in Los Angeles, California in 1983. Powell was joined by J.D. Kimball on vocals, Jody Henry on bass and Steve Wittig on drums. The band would have this debut album ready about a year after forming.

Today’s album is rather brief, with 10 songs at 36 minutes. We are also light on background info for this one, any easily accessible digital information is very lean and any good old interviews or the like are buried in old print magazines that aren’t easy to come by. Too bad there isn’t a heavy metal library with all the old stuff accessible for reference, but there isn’t so we can run through this one pretty quick.

The album opens with Death Rider. This opens with a nice intro guitar piece and goes into a pretty fast-paced romp through a maniac tearing up the world. Up next is what I and many others consider the album’s highlight, The Axeman. This killer song offers up the impending execution of someone who tried to usurp a kingdom. This isn’t a sad ode to one’s last moments as in many other noted metal execution songs, rather this a recording of the nefarious deeds that condemned the offender.

Last Rites is next and could almost be a sequel to the prior track, though this time gallows are substituted for beheading. It’s a very nice riff that runs through this song. Dragon’s Breath comes in next and is straight out of the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, of course the cool first edition with demons and shit in it. But this time it’s a dragon tearing things up in fantasy land and as this killer power metal song unfolds, it’s clear the tyrannical dragon has the upper hand.

Up next is a bit of a gag of a song with Be My Wench. I could see people having an issue with this one as some of the lyrics get at the woman in question being a bit too young to be engaging in wench-like activities, but I don’t think this was ever meant to be taken seriously. It is a pretty decent song in the end.

It’s time next for the title track Battle Cry. This is another bit of a horse gallop playing with a nice gang chorus chant as more war and carnage ensue in this unnamed fantasy land. The slaughter continues on Die By The Blade, which is pretty self-explanatory. There’s more very epic riffing from Kenny Powell on this one.

The album rounds into the close with Prince Of Darkness. While this album isn’t a concept album, this little arc of songs does almost form its own little story with this one seeing what could be the main villain in battle. Next is Bring Out The Beast, a song where a guy hooks up with a woman then all of sudden is being burned at the stake, not sure what’s up here. Pretty cool music, though. Things wrap up with In The Arena. The intro to this one is not the greatest but the song moves into a better form after that. This one is a bit slower paced than the other songs here.

Battle Cry was a rock solid debut and one of the foundational albums in US power metal. Omen would issue a few more albums in the ’80’s that furthered their initial legacy, the band would then begin a series of line-up changes and go on hiatus in the 1990’s. They would reconvene and remain a consistent touring outfit since, occasionally dropping new material as well.

Omen would not sell on the same levels as the thrash acts that took off in the mid’80’s, but they have cemented an important place as helping establish the power metal sound on US shores. Today they are hailed as a lynchpin of traditional metal and this first album is a great spot to hear the reasons why.

Death On The Road – The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

On By bigbadburchIn Iron Maiden Live Album Series17 Comments

This week’s Iron Maiden live excursion goes back to the reunion era. This album is culled from the 2003 tour for the album Dance Of Death. This was the band’s second album in the reunion era, which at the time was still growing legs but as we know 20 years later has been the most enduring era of Maiden.

Back on one of these earlier live album posts I said something like how there were only two or so of these live albums taken from a single concert. Well, I think I’ve covered four of them by this point that are single-show complete concerts. This one is also a single show concert that features the complete setlist. It was recorded in Dortmund, Germany in November of 2003 and the songs featured on the live record are the same as those they played that night, so this is a complete show.

Now, I don’t know if they did or didn’t cut some things out. I doubt they cut music but they may have trimmed some stage banter or other stuff. I can’t get definitive sources on this so I won’t commit to saying one way or the other, just that it’s an argument I see going around on fan forums. I don’t have the source material of the original concert and I wasn’t there, so I can’t offer personal testimony. But the setlist is the same, from what I can gather.

The audio release of this was in August of 2005, which was right on a year before they’d do their next studio album. The video of this took longer to get out and was hung up on technical difficulties, which I’ll address down the line when I cover the video series specifically. Today it’s just the audio live album.

Our line-up on this album is the same as it’s been through the reunion years – Steve Harris, the capitan on bass, Bruce Dickinson on the mic, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith and Janick Gers on guitars, and Nicko McBrain handling the drums.

We also get original Eddie artwork on this album cover courtesy of Melvyn Grant, who is the general “number two” behind iconic Eddie artist Derrick Riggs. This is a pretty cool cover with Eddie still in his Grim Reaper guise, leading a haunted stagecoach. What this cover isn’t is the eyesore that Dance Of Death is so it automatically wins a lot of bonus points just for that. But it’s also a cool cover art that should be enjoyed on its own merits.

Here’s the tracklist, then we can get into the meat of the album.

Wildest Dreams

Wrathchild

Can I Play With Madness

The Trooper

Dance Of Death

Rainmaker

Brave New World

Paschendale

Lord Of The Flies

No More Lies

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Fear Of The Dark

Iron Maiden

Journeyman

The Number Of The Beast

Run To The Hills

I’ll lead off with sound quality – this one sounds fantastic. In the 2000’s it was far easier to capture good live sound than in the past, so there’s no production issues or wonky sound quality. There’s nothing here to criticize or point out, it’s all great sound.

Song selection does get to be an issue on these reunion live albums, as four of them all follow the same formula – a pile of stuff from the current record, one or two “oddball” selections, then a compilation of the obvious hits. That’s what we have here, as six of these songs are from Dance Of Death. One is from the prior album Brave New World (guess which one!) and one is from the Blaze album The X Factor. And that one, Lord Of The Flies, is a very welcome addition from my perspective. It’s one I always liked from that period and hearing Maiden keep it alive is very nice.

All of the other songs are dead ringers for Iron Maiden setlists. They are the band’s most known and celebrated songs and it’s no surprise they would get aired out live. It does stand to reason that these songs are also on most other live albums so it’s running a lot of the same ground, but there isn’t any real way around that.

So the heart of these reunion live albums is the material taken from the current album Maiden are touring on. Of the six picks here, all are good selections for the live set. Dance Of Death was a bit varied in scope but did have some clear bangers on it and the record is well represented here. And as this live set is a showcase of the album, it is where the live album’s highlights also come from.

The title track is the first real showstopper moment. This song is a masterpiece and it doesn’t disappoint live. Another massive moment is the live airing of Paschendale. Bruce introduces the song with a passage from a 1917 poem by Wilbur Smith called Anthem For Doomed Youth. The song and poem are both about the horrors of World War I. This song is one of Maiden’s best and has for quite some time reigned as my favorite of the reunion era. It would have been criminal, at least to me, not have this in the set and thankfully it was.

The final highlight is a bit of a departure for Maiden. Journeyman is the band’s only acoustic song and they brought it out live for this tour. Maiden going acoustic sounds like an odd choice but the song worked out very well, and it’s evident that the crowd is into it as they sing along with the chorus. It’s very nice to have a memento of this song being done live, might not ever hear it again on stage.

Death On The Road is a very nice live package. It might have some “limitations” in terms of having a lot of the same obvious songs as other live albums, but this one does have a great selection of songs from Dance Of Death and it’s a good performance to boot. It’s not the first one a person just starting out their collection should grab, but it is a worthwhile document of when the reunion era when from being a stint and showed it had staying power.

Next week, it’s somewhere back in time – literally, as the band culled a live set from that tour to accompany a motion picture about them.

The Iron Maiden Live Album Series

Live After Death

A Real Live One

A Real Dead One

Live At Donington

Rock In Rio

BBC Archives

Beast Over Hammersmith

Death On The Road (you are here)

Flight 666

En Vivo!

Maiden England ’88

The Book Of Souls – Live Chapter

Nights Of The Dead – Legacy Of The Beast Live In Mexico City

The Iron Maiden Live Album Ranking

The Maiden Live Album “Wishlist”

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz (Album of the Week)

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week8 Comments

Back to an all-time classic this week, the debut solo album from Ozzy Osbourne. It was originally supposed to be a band package presentation but instead it would be the launch for the successful and controversial solo career of the Prince of Darkness.

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz

Released March 22, 1891 (US release) via Jet Records

My Favorite Tracks – Steal Away (The Night), Mr. Crowley, Revelation (Mother Earth)

The premsie behind the album is pretty simple – Ozzy had been fired from Black Sabbath and thought he was done with music. Don Arden was the record exec who not only fired Osbourne from Sabbath but also got him lined up with a solo deal from Jet Records. Don had his daughter Sharon oversee Ozzy, who was in a dark mindset after being axed.

After some twists and turns, Ozzy would form a group with guitarist Randy Rhodes, bassist Bob Daisley, drummer Lee Kerslake and Don Airey on keyboards. The group was named Blizzard Of Ozz at first, but when it came time to release the first album things were re-done so Ozzy had solo billing.

The decisions over the band’s billing would also bleed into writing credits. Rhodes and Daisley were primarily responsible for the music on the debut album and were credited as such. Kerslake received a credit for No Bone Movies, while Ozzy was credited on all songs. The Arden management clan would subsequently decide that they did not want other musicians getting songwriting credits, something that would start a chain of lawsuits, buyouts and other legal wrangling down the line. Things were fairly conventional for the first release, but the specter of Sharon soon-to-be Osbourne was looming large already over the reigns of Ozzy’s solo career.

The album was released in 1980 in the UK and 1981 in the US. It bears 9 songs with a runtime just shy of 40 minutes. I won’t get into any of the myriad other editions with bonus tracks today, though I’ll discuss one infamous re-issue version a bit later.

I Don’t Know

The opener is a blistering metal track that sets the early tone for this phase of Ozzy’s career. The lyrics are about the plague of self-doubt, presumably what Ozzy felt after the Sabbath firing. And while everyone sounds in fine form here, it is the guitars of Randy Rhodes that jump out here. Everything is set here for the creation of a new guitar god – the tone, the writing perfectly for the song with riffs that stand out, and the solos that very few could even hope to imitate.

Crazy Train

Up next is the lead single and what would become Ozzy’s signature song, even though it didn’t crack the Top 40 on release. It’s another crazy riff from Rhodes and a catchy melody and chorus that put the song over the top and cemented it as one of metal’s most-known songs. Crazy Train has been inescapable since then, played on the airwaves far and wide. Someone would have to be born yesterday not to know this one.

Goodbye To Romance

A somber ballad here and one with a pretty 70’s bent, this is another exploration of Ozzy’s down feelings after being sacked from Sabbath. I’ve always like a sad song and this is downright depressing, so it ticks the boxes for me. Not quite what anyone was expecting but a nice song nonetheless.

Dee

A brief instrumental passage from Randy Rhodes here. It’s named in honor of Randy’s mom.

Suicide Solution

And next is the infamous track that would lead to a lawsuit over the influence music has on youth. But before that, this is a slamming heavy metal tune with a riff Rhodes had re-calibrated from his early Quiet Riot days on Force Of Habit.

The song’s message is one of caution – beware of the destructive influence of drugs and especially alcohol. It’s origin is less clear – Ozzy claims he wrote the lyrics after the drinking death of Bon Scott, Bob Daisley claims he wrote the lyrics after observing Ozzy’s own crazy behavior.

But notoriety would come calling – in 1984 a teenager committed suicide, and the parents sued Ozzy and the record label on the basis of the song causing dangerous influences. The case was dismissed on First Amendment grounds, but this and other infamous heavy metal lawsuits would take their toll on the musicians and the scene as a whole.

Mr. Crowley

Another heavy metal standard here as Ozzy jumps into wondering about infamous occultist Aleister Crowley. Ozzy has stated that he had no clue about Crowley and the song was based on not knowing anything about him, though segments of the public would interpret the song as praise of the occult and label Ozzy a satanist. Ozzy was one of the central figures of the Satanic Panic, both this and the lawsuit were key in that casting.

Regardless of the nonsense, this song is wicked in the best way possible, with sublime work especially from Rhodes.

No Bone Movies

A heavy rocker that gets into the subject of “bone movies,” or as we commonly call it, porn. A pretty quick and simple romp through the degeneration of someone who is addicted to the flesh on screen, which back then you had to go to a theater to watch. Now you can log on from home and find out what your teacher or your mom gets up to after dark.

Revelation (Mother Earth)

While Ozzy was branded a Satanist, murderer by proxy and who knows what else, one thing he apparently actually was could be called an environmentalist. This song is the first of a handful over Ozzy’s solo career that tackle the issue of man-made environmental destruction. It personifies the Earth as “mother” and showcases the assault upon her by greed and complacency.

Beyond the song’s message is one absolutely gorgeous tune. This is splendid work by all involved, of course again highlighting Randy Rhodes and his sublime guitar work. Easily one of the best of Ozzy’s solo career.

And now between two songs we have perhaps the most interesting space in recorded music. Revelation ends on a jam that picks up a bit and then closes on a note that indicates more is to come, and that more would be the album’s last song which kicks off right away. After playing this album thousands of times, it feels perfect to have the next one come in right away and it feels wrong when it doesn’t. It is one of the disheartening parts of digital music that this transition often gets cut out by automatic time gaps between songs, or passed over altogether with shuffle features. Those who don’t regularly listen to full albums would be advised to investigate this passage further.

Steal Away (The Night)

The album’s closer is another barn burner that sees Randy shredding away and Ozzy out on a dark journey with some young, impressionable gal probably. It is my favorite song from the album and one I talked about previously here.

Blizzard Of Ozz would be a solid success for Ozzy. While neither single became a hit, at least at first, the album moved copies pretty quick and eventually wound up 5 times platinum in the US. It did also place 21 on the Billboard 200 as well as 7 in the UK and 8 in Canada.

The album would help kickstart Ozzy’s solo career and both his legacy and infamy. It would also establish Randy Rhodes as a top-tier guitarist, something we would all soon be robbed of in a tragic accident.

This album was reissued several times over the years, in 2002 it was redone in very controversial fashion. The powers that be decided to remove the bass and drums that Daisley and Kerslake had originally done, both were suing Camp Osbourne over unpaid royalties from the album. The parts were re-recorded with Robert Trujillo and Mike Bordin, Ozzy’s band members at the time. Also, Suicide Solution was edited to remove sound effect bits that some had suggested were subliminal messages that encouraged suicide.

The reaction to this new version was extremely negative. The execution was not good and the reason behind it, greed, was transparent to most everyone as the stories about the lawsuit were common in metal press. Later reissues worked with the original music and this version was swept under the rug.

Whatever the management of Ozzy’s career would take, no doubt the music itself was spectacular out of the gate. This is a stellar album, performed well by all parties involved. Ozzy would have a second act to his career and Randy Rhodes would become immortal through his work on the early Ozzy stuff. Millions of budding metalheads had a new album to shred out to, and the “moral majority” had a new enemy.