Tag: music

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

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week2 Comments

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.

Soundgarden – Burden In My Hand

On By bigbadburchIn S-Tier SongsLeave a comment

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

Soundgarden – Burden In My Hand

This tune always stood out to me from the band’s 1996 set Down On The Upside. It’s some kind of twisted murder ballad that also seems to leave something to the imagination. It’s a bit distorted and trippy and it fits well on what would be Soundgarden’s final work for a long time.

Lyrically the song captures the torment of someone who killed his lover and now wanders without her. The words are well-placed and also fit the psychadelic music with a sometimes vague quality. Yeah, it’s clear he offed his old lady and that he’s messed up but this isn’t some Point A-to-Point B story. There is plenty of exposition, or perhaps mystery, to be found in the lyrics. There is no clear-cut resolution for the subject or certainly his victim.

Part of this may be due to how Chris Cornell wrote the song. In a 2012 interview with Artist Direct, Cornell states that he wrote the lyrics while playing on the guitar. It wasn’t a straight lyrical sketch – the riff seemed to dictate what words should go where. I’d imagine that would lend to the song’s lack of straightforward storytelling.

It’s a little hard to say this song has too powerful of a personal meaning – I mean, kinda hard to relate to murder. (At least I would hope…) However, the idea of wandering without direction through a desert, literal or metophorical, just totally lost – that part can hold some meaning.

Though not really important to evaluation of the song I did want to mention the music video. I like a video such as this that simply accents what’s in the song. The entire thing is just the band walking through the desert, just the same as the song’s subject murderer. It’s nice when a video accompanies a song, far too often a video has its own identity that I feel takes away from the song’s meaning. Certinaly not the case here.

Why is this song S-Tier?

It’s the combination of almost post-grunge music along with haunting yet cryptic lyrics sung by one of the best to ever pick up a microphone. Both the imagery conveyed and the space left for the listener to fill in offer a masterful soundscape.

That does it for the first edition of S-Tier songs. Enjoy your weekend and try not to like, stab your significant other or anything.

House Of Hair

On By bigbadburchIn Memories6 Comments

I outlined before the first part of my journey through life with music a few weeks ago. It’s time to get to the next step in that process. I left off in the mid-1980’s where I was starting to assemble a bit of a cassette collection.

Well, what did people rock out to in the mid- and late-80’s? Come on, you know.

It was the glory days of hair metal.

Yeah, I thought they were girls the first time I saw the cover…

Yes, hair metal. The saccharine love ballads and railed out rockers performed by androgynous men in very tight-fitting clothing and great make-up. They ruled the airwaves back then and there was no escaping it. For a semi-sheltered, naive kid growing up in the Midwest, nothing shouted out to me louder than the bombastic party culture of the 1980’s hair metal rock star. It was the polar opposite of life as I knew it.

Hair metal was everywhere. It was all over MTV, on the radio, on magazine covers all over grocery store media racks. People far and wide adopted styles based on the scene – big hair, acid washed jeans, blinding and garish accessories. It was a fast, loud and eye-catching time.

For me it was what shaped me as I entered double-digit age and approached that all-important mark of adolescence. All the cool kids in grades above me at school were all-in on hair metal and they were setting the stage for what I’d be when I got there. They would move on and pass the torch to me and my crew and we’d live forever in glourious hair metal harmony.

Guess not. Thanks, Kurt.

As for what exactly I got into, well, it was everything. You couldn’t leave your house without tripping over some new hair band’s tape. Every day a new hard rocker or sappy ballad would premeire on MTV. I didn’t really keep track of what was what – I just consumed, as all good ’80’s kids were programmed to do.

I wasn’t really exercising any quality control. I was too young for that, just put in the tape and jam out, you know? Thankfully for all of us, the record labels also weren’t exercising any quality control. Gainful employment in the late ’80’s involved somewhat being able to play an instrument and sing about driving fast or liking girls.

It doesn’t mean that good music didn’t exist back then. I can go back today and check out stuff like Cindarella, Tesla, Ratt and Skid Row and find some great music. I can just as easily find a million copycat bands and less than stellar efforts, but even today there is room for curating high-level hair metal music.

And yes, I realize the very definition of hair metal can be questioned. Who is or who isn’t hair metal? Is Tesla really a hair band? I don’t really think so but in all reality it’s hard to seperate every corner case from the larger scene of that time period.

Everything would culminate in one album purchase, one band who would put a stamp on everything for me at the end of the ’80’s. The very band who started this whole hair metal mess in the first place released their 5th album right as I was turning 12 and getting ready to enter the 1990’s.

Motley Crue were the ultimate bad boys of hair metal. They were the ones who brought this music to life and turned the Sunset Strip into ground zero for ’80’s music. They were larger than life and apparently stronger than death. They put out the songs that defined the era and were the act that most everyone aspired to be.

I wound up getting Dr. Feelgood on tape as a gift for some thing or another and that was the moment when I became completely obsessed with music. I played that damn album over and over and over again. I played it when we vistied relatives out of town, I played it when I was at home, I played it everywhere I could play it.

That was what changed everything for me and sent me into the ’90’s ready to be a complete music junkie. That’s exactly what would happen, but of course that’s another story for another time.

As for hair metal, well, it definitely lefts its impression on me. The goofy, slight kid with some bleached jeans, high-top shoes and a jean jacket with a Poison patch on it really did enjoy his time with that scene. I wasn’t exclusively into it, hell I was already listening to Iron Maiden at this time and was on a crash course to the heavier end of the spectrum. But in that place in that time, I was all about that oft-derided hair metal scene. From now to Ragnarok, make mine hair.

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

On By bigbadburchIn Album of the Week1 Comment

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.

Most Hated Bands – Part Two

On By bigbadburchIn Most Hated Bands1 Comment

It’s time for Part 2 of our exploration of the Most Hated Bands as provided by science stuff from BestLifeOnline.com. Here is Part 1 if you missed it. Part 3 hits tomorrow.

As a note, the list as originally provided counts down from 21 to 1. I am running the list in reverse order, from 1 to 21. Just a minor mishap with the secondary source I originally used that also ran the list in reverse order.

#8 – Radiohead

Of course Radiohead were gonna show up. I’ve certainly encountered no shortage of vitriol spewed their way in my Internet travels. They evoke strong reactions from both their fans and detractors. And their fans seem to trigger the detractors even more. I personally haven’t run into a lot of that but there’s definitely an “annoying Radiohead fan” vibe that plays into their slot on this list.

I have spun Radiohead a time or two but am by no means a huge fan. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually get into them but if a good act pisses a lot of people off it’s something I totally here for.

Overhated? Probably, but roll with what ya got

#9 – KISS

I would have been disappointed had Kiss not been on the list. They are a rock institution unto themselves, but boy do they get the blood boiling. Their possible lack of talent, their less than graceful aging, the sordid history of ex-members, a 35 year long farewell tour and Gene Simmons being kind of a dick a lot of the time will lead to people talking some shit on you. No way around it.

Do I dig Kiss? Yes, I do. I am a Kiss fan. I’m not the world’s biggest fan but I do enjoy some Cold Gin and Detroit Rock City. Maybe they are marketing and merch whores to a huge degree, but the hell with it, money’s money – go get it. (I mean, my favorite band would never deploy a marketing scheme quite like Kiss, but here we are…….)

Overhated? No, not really

#10 – Dave Matthews Band

If there is any sort of justice or sense of right in the universe, let this be the only time on my blog that I mention Dave Matthews.

I am not a fan. I don’t know what that stuff is, really. I don’t think he drinks, smokes or thinks enough because if he did he wouldn’t have graced us with his awful music.

Overhated? Impossible.

#11 – Coldplay

So I’m at my favorite craft beer brewery awhile back, sitting outside to enjoy a nice, socially-distanced IPA because it was still virus stuff then (just like now!). A song comes on that I hadn’t heard before and I thought it interesting. I used the old Google song identifier thing on my phone to find out that I am, in fact, enjoying Coldplay.

Do I actually like Coldplay? I never fucked with them before. I just rolled my eyes when I saw Chris Martin in the tabloids like any good angsty prick with no life would do. When they were part of the One Love Manchester gig I thought “hey, good on them.” Hell, they even jammed with Liam.

But that’s a league away from actually liking them. I guess I’m gonna have to consult Spotify and maybe professional help and see if I do actually dig Coldplay. I’ll report my findings.

Overhated? Probably, but maybe not.

#12 – Green Day

I don’t know, Green Day never really bothered me. Wouldn’t call myself a fan but I also never really worried about them. I didn’t change a radio station if they came on. I just heard some of their more recent stuff and it sounded like crap, but I don’t think that’s why they’re hated.

Of course they’re hated because they watered down punk and got massive. Punks don’t take kindly to that shit. I’m cool with punk even if I’m not one myself and I get the vibe of not digging Green Day. I just kinda don’t really care one way or the other.

Overhated? No, I get it

#13 – The Doors

Yeah, to be honest I see why they’re hated. The Doors have been worshipped for eons, Jim Morrison was some kind of freaky sex symbol/godhead figure, and their music has been everywhere forever. It probably gets annoying to someone who can’t stand them.

I have friends who like them. I have friends who hate them. I personally fall somewhere inbetween – I don’t mind some of their songs but their overall sound isn’t really my jam.

Overhated? I don’t know

#14 – Metallica

At first I was surprised to see their name on the list. They are one of the biggest bands ever, they defied genre and expectations to conquer the world, they have a gargantuan fanbase and they do unconventional and cool shit sometimes.

But then I realized who hates Metallica. No one hates Metallica more than Metallica fans. No one bitches about shit they like and don’t like more than metalheads. I know, I’ve done this dumb shit for over 30 years now.

Metallica changed tack in 1991 and took over the world with a more accessible, polished sound. They also alienated legions of die-hard supporters who wanted it longer and harder. They continued changing their sound, getting haircuts, suing Napster and doing other shit that caused consternation among the metal community.

There’s also Lars Ulrich. People love to hate Lars. I wonder how much of the band’s placement on this list is affected purely by Lars hate. Personally I have no issue with the dude but that’s just me.

Where do I stand with Metallica? I’ll take the first four albums, a bit of Load, and Hardwired. The other stuff isn’t for me, to varying degrees. I did once look back in anger at the band for their deviant ways but over time I quit giving a shit and agreed with others that a band ought to do what they want at the end of the day. It isn’t for me to tell one of the biggest and most influential acts in the world how to record or how to run their business.

Overhated? Yeah, to what extent I don’t know

I’ll wrap up the final 7 spots on the list tomorrow with Part 3.

Most Hated Bands – Part One

On By bigbadburchIn Most Hated Bands6 Comments

Earlier in the year a site called BestLifeOnline.com released a list of the world’s most hated bands, according to science. This list was compiled by the use of algorithms that measured a series of metrics across several platforms. After going through the cesspool of the Internet for long enough they provided a ranked list of the most hated bands.

As an FYI, the list runs from 21 to 1, though my list starts at the top and works its way down. I used a different source to write this but decided to link to the original source for the post. My apologies, and please scroll down to find 1 through 7 and the least surprising thing you’ve probably ever seen in music discussion.

It’s an interesting topic. I read through the list and see a lot of bands that yeah, they’re gonna be on this list. There’s a few that caught me off guard, too. Some of the bands I don’t care about, others I like. And at least a few I join in on the hate campaign. But here we have this definitive, ranked and science-backed list of the bands that people bitch about the most.

There are 21 bands on the list. I’ll split this into 3 parts and tackle 7 bands at a time so I can spread the good vibes and cheer over a greater time span.

#1 – Nickelback

I mean, no shit Nickelback takes the top honors here. Talking trash about Nickelback has been a prime hobby of every disaffected angstwhore for the past 20 years. If you’re bored on Twitter and need something to take a shot at, Nickelback is always there for you.

The truth is that, yeah, Nickelback are overhated. They’re just a damn rock band. Sure, they’re mega-popular and influenced a bunch of soundalikes back all those years ago, but it’s whatever. Yeah, that song about the photographs is ultra shitty, but beyond that I really don’t have time to care about Nickelback.

Overhated? Yeah, but just like Thanos, this was inevitable.

#2 – Limp Bizkit

Good old Limp Bizkit, in at number 2, and not at 1 just because Nickelback exists.

And yet, here we are over halfway through 2021 and Fred Durst and company are in the midst of some rennaissance. A few years of memes about the band created this backdoor into a new appreciation for them and the group seem ready to capitalize on it.

I tried to like them for about 20 minutes when they blew up in ’99. Then I turned my nose up at them for the next few decades. Now? The world is so screwed and everything is so upside-down that honestly, it’s just one of those days. I can set aside any false pretense of intellect and have some fun for a bit.

Overhated? Yes and no, somehow.

#3 – Creed

I can recognize the life of its own quality that Nickelback hate has. I can even find retro appreciation for Limp Bizkit, one of the world’s most derided bands.

But Creed? Please take this Pearl Jam-meets-praise and worship trash somewhere else. I don’t need some ham-fisted warbling about God and guilt when I’m trying to have … well, literally anything else. If any cosmic forces could convene to make sure this group doesn’t re-up for a cash grab reunion tour, that would be great.

Overhated? If every sentient entity in the universe focused their energies on hating Creed it would still not be enough.

#4 – U2

Well, can’t say I’m surprised to see the ol’ U2 on the list. They were bigger than life at more than one point in history. Bono does come off as a douche sometimes but he doesn’t personally bother me.

I really don’t mind the stuff from the 80’s but I don’t necessarily have to hear it again either. Not a whole lot to say, no one is shocked that U2 made the cut.

Overhated? Eh, no.

#5 – Mumford and Sons

I’m a little shocked to see them this high on the list. But after thinking about it, not really. Their shit is pretty weak and I’ve honestly never heard anyone say anything good about them. In fact I’ve heard plenty of people slag them off, so I can at least say I run in the right circles after all these years.

Overhated? No, but a very strong showing for a more recent-ish band

I mean, I’m not gonna post a fucking Mumford and Sons video. Might as well ride the hot hand.

#6 – Bob Dylan

So I guess I shouldn’t register shock that he’s here, but it seems out of place to me. I mean, I won’t cop to being a Dylan fan, just never got into him.

Bob Dylan is one of the most important forces in American music, like, ever. I understand how much he has contributed to the art form even if I don’t personally jam to his stuff. I think that appreciation ought to mean something outside of one’s tastes and fandoms. There is an objective side to music and Dylan clears that bar by leaps and bounds.

Overhated? Yes, he shouldn’t be on the list.

#7 – Phish

I can’t cop to liking the jam band stuff at all, but I’ve had friends that are all about it. It’s definitely its own scene and one I’ll leave them to. I’ve never listened to them, I probably never will, and on we go to other stuff.

Overhated? I don’t care

That’s it for part one. Part 2 drops Thursday and Part 3 wraps things up on Friday. Till then let’s break stuff.

Playlist discussion – Best of Rock 1990

On By bigbadburchIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Ok so this won’t be what anyone would consider “top tier” content. This is scraping the bottom for stuff to post. I didn’t have a Friday post ready for this first week so I went back to this idea I had worked on a bit a few months ago as I was preparing to re-enter the blogosphere.

I sat through the “Best of Rock 1990” playlist on Spotify and checked it out. I wrote what I thought about each song down. I quit doing it a thrid of the way through because there are 60 damn songs on this list and no one cares what anyone thinks about every one of them.

So in desperate need of content to float me through my first few weeks of a new blog, I decided to revisit this and pare it down to where I just discuss a handful of the songs. I left off a few things that I’m going to do more in-depth posts about later and I also left off some that all I have to say is “why did you write that?” It’s also out of order because I think Spotify shuffles stuff around on these sometimes and because this whole thing is kinda boring.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

AC/DC – “Thunderstruck”

Good way to open. I know people are down on AC/DC but I always dug ’em, and Razor’s Edge specifically was a badass record. This always was one of their better songs.

Scorpions – “Wind of Change”

I played the shit out of Crazy World back in the day. Yeah, I know the CIA maybe secretly wrote this song. I gotta check that podcast out someday.

Jon Bon Jovi – “Blaze of Glory”

I actually do dig this song. Sure it’s whatever, but I always jammed out to it when I was young and dumb. Now that I’m older and dumb I’d still play it but I never really do.

The Black Crowes – “Hard To Handle”

The Crowes are all over this playlist and with good reason. The whole album is a monster. One of the best things to come from the year.

INXS – “Suicide Blonde”

The death of Michael Hutschene was to sex what the death of Dale Earnhart Sr. was to auto racing. Advances in auto-erotic asphyxiation devices have kept generations safe in lonely hotel rooms since. I know I feel safer.

Oh yeah, the song totally slays. INXS were badass.

Alice In Chains – “Man In The Box”

I’m all about AIC, I took to them right off the bat when this vid hit MTV back when MTV was MTV. Sure, local cover bands beat this song to death in every dive bar across our great land. But that doesn’t deter my enjoyment of it.

Bad Religion – “21st Century (Digital Boy)”

Here we are with the first thing I’m not familiar with on here. I never did give this band a proper listen and I don’t remember if I’ve ever heard this song. I should definitely throw the band onto the “check out” pile. This song is fine, I don’t know where the band’s fans rank this recording or anything like that.

Jane’s Addiction – “Stop”

Jane’s were a good time back in the day. This song does a bit more for me than the ever-present “Been Caught Stealing” but it’s all good.

Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity”

So yeah, it’s that song that scored big for them and also marked a pretty big shift in their sound. That’s a bit misleading though since they reshaped their sound on every prior record anyway. I’m cool with it and it was my intro to the band. I went to buy this tape but it was sold out and so I settled for their prior album. That changed my fucking life.

Poison – “Unskinny Bop”

Nothing like a Poison track to usher in a new decade. This surely flew the flag for hair metal and ensured it would carry on through the next ten years.

I was into Poison when I was young. Like, I asked for their second album for Christmas and I got the tape. My mom went through and tore out a huge part of the insert that had bunch of pictures of them partying, often with scantily-clad women. Gotta love those good Christian households, always looking out for your welfare.

I don’t really mess with Poison these days but hearing the stuff now and again doesn’t really bother me.

Blues Traveller – “But Anyway”

Oh yeah, this is the song from Kingpin. Love that movie. But anyway, I’m not a huge BT fan though this is a pretty cool song.

Cocteau Twins – “Heaven Or Las Vegas”

Ok so I do like shoegaze but I literally just started listening to it last month so I don’t know jack about it. MBV and Slowdive are like all I really know about, which if the memes are to be believed, means I know all I need to know.

I know that CT predate shoegaze but they were clearly very influential to the movement. That doesn’t mean I really want to listen to much more of this, though.

Depeche Mode – “Enjoy The Silence”

I do really like Depeche Mode. That said, Violator is the only album I’ve ever owned of theirs. But yeah they were/are really good and this happens to be my favorite song of theirs.

I didn’t realize this came out in 1990, I thought it was earlier. Oh well, time is made up anyway.

Midnight Oil – “Blue Sky Mine”

So I only know that song about the burning beds from them that I mistakenly thought Talking Heads did. This song is fine but I don’t really have to have it in my life. 1990 was weird, man.

I think that about covers it. 1990 was the year before I absolutely dove headfirst into music so this was kind of a “before the storm” time for me anyway. What would happen in 1991 would blow apart the music landscape and then by the end of the decade I don’t know what the hell anyone was doing. We’ll call this good and try to post stuff that isn’t as lame. (Next week is a good week for that, by the way)

Feels Like The First Time

On By bigbadburchIn Memories3 Comments

I suppose it might be wise to offer a bit on how I got into music in the first place. I’ll do these in pieces over time since there’s a lot of ground to cover.

I am getting a bit long in the tooth these days but I think I’ve pinpointed the first memory I have of actually sitting for awhile and listening to music. It would have been in the early ’80’s – I am guessing here but I think it was ’83. I would have turned 6 that year but was probably still 5 at the time.

I was over at my grandparents’ house staying the evening and my uncle’s room there was uninhabited for the night. I sat with his stereo and his – wait for it – 8 track collection.

I don’t remember exactly what all I jammed out to that evening but I very much recall hearing Jimi Hendrix. That would stick with me to this very day and Hendrix is one of my favorite artists of all time.

I wouldn’t get into having my own music until several years later. In the intervening time I would absorb it through the usual mediums of the time – from relatives’ collections on huge old stereo systems that are now retro and worth money, on the radio, and on the up-and-coming music video channel on cable TV. (What was its name?)

I’d hear and like a lot of the big names of the day – The Police, John Mellencamp, Springsteen, and all the various one-hit wonders of the time. But the one that really got me was Van Halen. I’m far from the only one – Van Halen truly rocked the world. They were the ones who, more than anyone, launched me onto the path I’ve been on all these years.

I was 9 when my mom finally relented with my unending demands for my own music and she bought me a record, straight off the shelf of our local Wal-Mart in Cowtown USA. It was one of the most popular records of the year and probably not something a lot of people would do much but sneer at today, but dammit it was mine. It was Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet.

I’ll be upfront about it – I still dig it to this day. Excellent songwriting and fun stuff to jam out to. I won’t say I’m a huge fan of their whole catalog but this album gets it done for me.

After that my family took the hint and started buying me music as gifts. I’d get the standard fare for the time – hair metal, Michael Jackson, that sort of thing. It’d be a few years until I got into anything off the beaten path, but that’s a whole other story.

The process of discovery was the great thing about the early days. It was easy to do back then, music was massive business and was all over the place. It was also nice to be too young to be into the gatekeeping, elitism and smugness that would come in later years. It was simply a matter of enjoying something that was cool and moving on from stuff that wasn’t.

Alas, the joy and innocence of childhood discovery is long since lost to the ages. But it’s always cool to think back on how a lifetime of musical enjoyment and appreciation began. And somehow there are a series of straight lines to draw from here to extreme metal, and to country, and somehow later curving back to Britrock and shoegaze. But we’ll get there.

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.

Welcome

On By bigbadburchIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Hey everyone. Welcome to my new blog.

For context – I blogged, in some form, almost constantly between 1998 and 2011. I decided to take a break in 2011 to refocus my efforts and hone in on a single topic blog I would want to dedicate my time to.

I guess a decade break is long enough.

My purpose this time is to talk about a signular topic – music. I’ve been a music junkie for over 30 years now. Listening, collecting, playing and discussing music is a lot of what I have done and will do. I used to write about music in past blogs but it was never a total focus. But gone are the days of word vomiting onto a screen about anything and in are the days of curated content creation, so off I go.

As for what kinds of stuff I’ll be talking about? Well, by and large, metal is my go-to. It’s the largest part of what I listen to and what I know. It’s beent he most transformative force in my life and has provided a lot of memories and friends over the decades. I’ll be talking a lot about metal around here.

And hey, look – my favorite band of all time is releasing a new album soon. That’ll give me some content to grind on as I get this out of the starting gate.

I did decide though that I’m not going to focus exclusively on metal. I thought about it at first but then I said the hell with it, just roll with whatever I want to. “Anything else” will involve rock or country, neither of which are all that far apart from metal anyway.

I’m looking to begin with a post schedule of Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I start out. This might falter a bit at first but hey, it’s not like I have an audience to disappoint right now anyway. Some weeks may see extra posts on the two days that start with T. I don’t intend to post at all on weekends, those are for drinking beer and headbanging.

I think that about covers it for now. I’ll be back on Monday with my first Album of the Week. Until then, keep it loud.