383. W.A.S.P. / First Blood... Last Cuts. 1994. 4.5/5

It’s a funny thing when you look back on – in the mid-1990’s, W.A.S.P. had released five brilliant albums and a live album. However, problems were an obvious concern for the band, and it appeared that it was going to be all over. Blackie Lawless would no doubt continue, but rumours abounded that it would be in a solo capacity.
Here then came First Blood… Last Cuts, a greatest hits compilation that had a couple of unreleased tracks thrown in, like any good record company will do to entice the buying of an album when the fans already have all the songs on it. The problem with that is that it stopped the album having a few more ‘greatest’ tracks on it! As an enormous fan of the band, especially up until this point of its career, there are so many deserving songs that have missed out here. Of course, that is because it is a single disc release, but when I went through all the songs I thought SHOULD have made it, I surprised myself with how many great songs they have.

On the other side of that, this is a great place to start if you are just trying to get into the band. You can probably give the last three songs on the album a miss, but the rest is gold. They are dripping with everything that makes W.A.S.P (of this vintage) such a great band. Raw and intense, no backward step, no apology.

Rating: Only loses points for the final three tracks, which are unnecessary. Other tracks could have been included. 4.5/5

382. Testament / First Strike Still Deadly. 2001. 3.5/5

Now this is an idea that should be used universally, especially in this wonderful age of digital enhancing and so forth. Testament come out here, and take the best of the songs from their first two albums, The Legacy and The New Order and instead of just re-mastering them as is the general rule of thumb, they just re-record them in the modern day environment.

What I like is that this collection doesn’t detract from the original recordings. They still stand alone as their moment in time, and their quality is not diminished. What this collection does is bring these songs to a new generation and with a modernized feel. Tuning down to give them an extra grunt doesn’t hurt either! Production values have obviously improved with the technology of the past few years, and this is a pleasure to listen to.

Rating: A bit of new mixed in with the old makes for a great sound. 3.5/5

381. Deep Purple / Fireball. 1971. 4/5

After three albums to begin their career, a change of personnel to revamp the band into a new era into the 1970’s decade had brought success and a sound that found its audience. Original members Jon Lord, Ian Paice and Ritchie Blackmore had been joined by bass guitarist Roger Glover and lead vocalist Ian Gillan to create what has since been dubbed the “Mark II” line up. Deep Purple in Rock was the first album from this revamped line up, with Ritchie Blackmore pushing for a hard rock sound over Jon Lord’s more classical leanings from earlier albums. It was a success, and Ritchie proclaimed that this is how the band had to progress if it wanted further commercial success.
In attempting to put together the follow up to Deep Purple in Rock, the band themselves between that rock and a hard place. The management had put together a furious touring schedule to cope with the new success of the band, but also wanted a new album out to keep them in the public’s eye and ears. The trouble was, as Blackmore was quoted in several interviews, the management didn’t want them to stop touring, so they didn’t have time to sit down and write and compose the new album – soon to be titled Fireball - and instead were forced to throw things together on off-touring days and try and piece together the new album in that way. Ritchie felt that he didn’t have his best creative moments on this album as a result. The production was haphazard, the recording the same, and the writing of songs didn’t progress as the band would have liked. Blackmore said that rather than being able to creatively come up with ideas in the studio, he instead had to come up with ideas on the run, and just throw them at the other band members on the spur of the moment. Not the ideal way of putting together an album. It also meant that keeping a balance among the tracks was also difficult, given that there was little time together to put tracks together, instead it was all done on the run at different times when they had break in the schedule, thus providing a haphazard approach to the writing and recording.

The mood on Fireball is not as fierce or genuinely heavy as the previous album, slipping back into a tempo between what the Mark I line up had regularly produced on the first three albums, and what was produced on Deep Purple in Rock and albums to come. One wonders if this was more of a source of irritation for Ritchie Blackmore than Ian Gillan at the time it was recorded. Blackmore has felt that the success of Deep Purple in Rock was due to Deep Purple increasing the pace and heaviness of their music from what they had produced up until that time and was interested in furthering that, whereas Ian Gillan was apparently less inclined to move in that direction and was looking to sit more in the middle ground. Certainly the result of Fireball is less hard core and more laid back.

The album opens with the fastest song of the collection, the title track “Fireball”, and the star of the show here is definitely the drumming of Ian Paice which is just brilliant. “No No No” follows this on, a song with a great groove and terrific vocal from Gillan. Then there is the classic Purple song “Demon’s Eye”, one where each band member has their moment but is beautifully crafted around Ritchie’s guitar riff and complementing organ of Jon Lord. Somehow, on the US version of this album, this song is replaced by another, and it seems like a crazy oversight that this could happen. Don’t get me wrong, the song that replaces it is a ripper, but the question I still ask is, why couldn’t BOTH be on the album? The song that appears instead on the US release is “Strange Kind of Woman”, which was only released as a single in the UK and didn’t appear on this version of the album at all. As a single it reached number 8 in the UK... I just don’t understand it... and why?... well... because... “Anyone’s Daughter” is a peculiarity. For an English hard rock group, hearing them do what is essentially a country and western song is slightly off putting. This is more like an early Eagles song without Bernie Leadon’s banjo being interspersed. We even have tambourine involved. If you are looking for a song that is completely out of place on a band’s album, then look no further than this one. How is it possible that the band and management decided that they would put this song on the album proper, but for the UK edition decide to leave off “Strange Kind of Woman”? What a travesty, a complete brain fade of a decision.
The second side of the album has three tracks that are much like the style of the time where band would free form on stage for 20 minutes at a time, reneging on the boundaries of the song and just playing onwards forever. “The Mule” is a shortened version of tis kind of track here, but was played and extended much longer in a live setting. “Fools” stretches even longer, while “No One Came” draws the album to a close with its own sensibilities.

I have to say that Fireball is an album that I have always regarded as being ‘that album between Deep Purple in Rock and Machine Head’, and that’s not to make it sound like a bad album, but it is just that the other two albums are really quite legendary, and Fireball, to be fair, is not. Fireball is an excellent album, and as you have heard has some great songs on it. But it doesn’t blow your house down like Deep Purple in Rock or Machine Head. It gives it a good shake, but it doesn’t live on the same plane as those two albums. And the reality is that somehow Ritchie’s guitar doesn’t get the same opportunities to take centre stage here as it does elsewhere. It comes as no surprise that Ritchie has never really rated this album, even from the time they were writing and recording it, whereas Ian Gillan is a big fan of this album. It shows the stark differences between the two of them in regards to their music, and is no doubt just one of the many factors in why they both found reasons at different times to leave the band.

Once again from Deep Purple, the good is out of this world, and the other songs are still good but without the extra oomph those great songs have to keep them at that high standard this era of the band had. Removing one of those less excellent tracks and inserting “Strange Kind of Woman” into the mix would probably have lifted this album to the highest echelons that other Deep purple albums have attained – I think that’s how close this goes. But the summary remains the same as it always has for Fireball – we want more of Ritchie’s guitar and we want some extra pace and fire in those tracks. And we want less of “Anyone’s Daughter”. Please.

380. Yngwie Malmsteen / Fire & Ice. 1992. 2/5

As I have mentioned on previous occasions, following the release of Eclipse I had given up on Yngwie ever doing anything great again, and stopped buying his albums. It wasn’t until more than a decade later that I drifted back, to see what had actually occurred during those dark days of the 1990’s. Some of it had been quite good, and I found myself regretting my absence.
One listen to Fire & Ice, the album that directly followed Eclipse is enough to somewhat thank my lucky star that I stopped when I did, or I may never have come back.

This is an obvious continuation of Yngwie’s desire for commercial success. Vocalist Goran Edman is still on board (the man who had so repulsed me when I saw him live in 1990) and still spinning the lyrics that he and Yngwie have come up with to promote their commercial advances. It is quite disappointing to see the songs of this band degenerate into this kind of formulaic hair-metal “I-want-you-girl” stuff. “Teaser” is the perfect example, an attempt to write a commercial hit which backfires terribly by being awful (apart from Yngwie’s solo, which people whom the song is aimed at wouldn’t like anyway!).

OK, it’s not all bad. The opening instrumental “Perpetual” is great, and there are another two or three songs along the way that make you smile and remember the REAL Rising Force when that’s what they were doing. But overall, you just can’t enjoy the album. Yngwie’s guitaring is still fantastic, his breaks and licks bring you out of you slumber whenever they appear. But as a package, this is just terribly lame.

Rating: Closer to ‘Embers and Lukewarm Water’ than Fire & Ice. 2/5.

379. Rainbow / Finyl Vinyl. 1986. 4/5

Released in the mid-80’s at what was considered to be the final incarnation of Rainbow (we probably should have known better given Ritchie Blackmore’s history), this album is a collection of mostly live tracks. Again, most also generate from the Joe Lynn Turner era, with a couple included from previous eras with Graham Bonnet and Ronnie James Dio.
While on the surface it appears a bit uneven, it does at least show all three lead singers in a live environment on the same album. Could it have been done better? Well, no doubt there, but there was an obvious focus on the final band combination, and at least the singers were singing the songs from their own era.

Not many bands give you the chance to ‘compare’ vocalists on the same recording. This does, and I like it, while I acknowledge many may not. Funnily enough, the highlight on the album for me is the live version of “Difficult To Cure”, which has no singer involved.
I would love to have heard more of Bonnet’s era live. But I don’t get to make these choices, do I?

Rating: One for the nostalics amongst us. 4/5.

378. Jordan Rudess / Feeding The Wheel. 2001. 1/5

In one of those curious phases you sometimes go through with bands you have just discovered, I sought out the solo works of the members of Dream Theater to see what they did when they weren’t on the job. Notably, it wasn’t as if I was expecting to seriously fall in love with this work from their keyboardist. Actually I was expecting elevator music.
In the long run, it didn’t turn out to be that way at all. There is no mistaking the quality of his musicianship, or of those who help him out on other instruments for this project. The tracks themselves are very eclectic and obviously synth-driven. In places it sounds like some of the stuff that my four year old daughter plays on her little electric keyboard when she’s trying to perform one of her ‘symphonies’.

This, therefore, is a fan’s album. To be perfectly honest, you would have to be a frustrated keyboardist or a techno-head to be able to sit down and listen to this over and over again, and get anything of any real value out of it. I like my music to be song-orientated and driven, not just have long-winded keyboard solo-breaks, which is what most of it sounds like.

Rating: One for the musicians I believe. While it is musically very clever, it’s not my thing. 1/5.

377. Pantera / Far Beyond Driven. 1994. 3/5

While many bands that I have reviewed in recent times had their problems negotiating their way through the early 1990’s due to the changing musical landscape that they faced, the opposite seemed to be the case for Pantera. Having already made the jump to tear away from their hair metal roots late in the 1980’s decade, their journey towards the groove metal sound they created for themselves had occurred before the tidal wave of grunge in 1991 had arrived, and as such they had already set their course on a different path well before so many other bands had to make a deciion about their future direction. From the wonderful guitar based hard core sound of “Cowboys from Hell” to the much heavier groove orientation of “Vulgar Display of Power”, Pantera tore through those indecision years of hair and heavy metal with their own brand and picked up fan adulation and momentum along the way.
The tour to promote “Vulgar Display of Power” had included many places they had not been to before and included being a part of the Monsters of Rock festival in Italy, before the band came back to the studio to write and record their follow up album.
Given that the band had steered the Pantera battle cruiser so expertly through the waters of the early 1990’s, they now needed to find the way they wanted to continue on this voyage. They were at the precipice of a new dawn in the evolving of the metal genre, one that in many ways they were leading. What was necessary was to decide just what they wanted to achieve with their own sound now that they had begun that route, and just how that would sound once they released their next album. Stay the course, and hold where they were, or take the next step and make things more extreme than they had already gone. Pantera was not averse to making great changes to their sound, and the next step in their evolution could have been the make or break of that course.

Pantera had been a polarising band from the outset, and the arrival of “Far Beyond Driven” didn’t change that. The fact that this album went straight to number one on the album charts in both the US and Australia shows that the fan base was awaiting its arrival and bought it en masse when it was released. And the album delivers more of where the direction of “Vulgar Display of Power” was heading musically by continuing in a very groove metal direction as Phil Anselmo’s vocals moved to an even more aggressive growl away from what he had first been known for, with Dimebag Darrell’s guitar finding its place to crunch those riffs and the squeal in the solo breaks, all held together by Vinnie Paul’s drum beat and Rex Brown’s tuneful bass guitar.
The album opening is straight in your face, upon you before you have barely pressed the play button. “Strength Beyond Strength” attacks you from the outset blasting out of the speakers at pace which careers along for the first minute or so before pulling back into the halting slow grind pace for the remainder of the track. For new listeners it is a confusing opening, where you think you are going to be getting an album at that high tempo but then find it dropped back before you know it. This segues straight in to “Becoming”, a song that throws all of Dimebag’s guitar squeal tricks into the fray. Lyrically, there is a lot going on here, and even for me in my mid-20's it was a bit beyond the singable options in some of the songs. To say Anselmo has tickets on himself in certain songs would be being kind, and he’s certainly entitled to write what he likes. Some of it is a bit cringeworthy though, even for the age. “5 Minutes Alone” carries on the same musical direction, and some may feel at this point that there hasn’t been a lot of change between songs, that there is a similar theme running throughout. Not an unfair comparison to make. The first single “I’m Broken” increases the passion and intensity in its own way, and it would be fair to wonder how Phil has any vocal chords left after this album’s opening. Also, is there not a lot of similarity in this track to “Becoming”? Or is it just me?
“Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills” changes the course of the album somewhat. Rex Brown once suggested that the song came from a jam, Vinnie drumming and Dimebag messing around with his pedal, and they ALL said “What the hell is that”? To be fair, most people who listen to the song think the same thing, and openly wonder how this made the cut for the album. And the lyrics... far out... seriously childish... but I guess they all had to agree on it. Fair amount of rubbish there though. This song pretty much seemed to kill this album off for me when I started listening to it. The banality of the lyrics and the utter boredom of the music is all I think about when I have to listen to this song.
The middle of the album recovers this slightly, though the length of the tracks now adds to the drama. There are some reasonable groove riffs in here and Anselmo’s vocals aren’t quite as abrasive, but the songs stretch too long. Seven minutes for “Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks” and over six minutes for “25 Years” does stretch the friendship a tad. “Slaughtered”, musically at least, is one of the better songs here, though the lyrics again are a nonsense.
The back end of the album has some good moments along the way. “Shedding Skin” is more moderately toned than most of the tracks here, “Use My Third Arm”, when it breaks out into the faster paced thrash-like moments, actually takes on the better parts of the album, while “Throes of Rejection” has its own style of enamour. “Planet Caravan”, the cover of the classic Black Sabbath song, is firstly a strange song for the band to cover, and secondly a strange song to complete the album. It’s quite a good version of the song, but after everything that comes before it, why is THIS the song that closes out the album?

This is by far the heaviest album Pantera released at this point of their career, but it came at the cost of the music. “Cowboys from Hell” had real singing, not shouting and screaming from Anselmo, and as a result Dimebag’s guitar riffs and solos were more measured, still looking to create a melodic environment rather than just crushing heavy riffs ad infinitum to sell this alongside how the vocals now come through. That’s a band choice, and one that a majority of fans seem to enjoy. I’m all for heavy, but not just for heavy’s sake.
Panera have never been a massive favourite of mine. I enjoy them in small doses, and I definitely enjoy the less extreme more than the more extreme. This is the more extreme. I was on a bus in Sydney on the night Pantera played their first ever gig in Sydney on the tour to promote this album, and there were a lot of metalheads on the same bus coming home from the gig. I asked them how it was, and they all revelled in telling me how awesome it was. When I was asked why I didn’t go (I was wearing some form of black metal shirt) I simply said I didn’t think Pantera were very good. This received a more violently aggressively voiced reply than I expected.
Over the years I have listened to this album sporadically. I never bought it. My CD copy was given to me by a friend who told me when he did that “I thought it was going to be great but it isn’t” and that because I collected albums that I would like it. And for the most part it sits on the CD shelves. It has come out for the last 2-3 weeks as I prepared this episode, and I won’t deny that through my stereo in the metal cavern this still packs a punch. It is a wall of noise. And there are songs, and even pieces of songs, that I have really enjoyed again through this period. The lyrics are generally awful, and the music does get routine and overbearing, but it isn’t a bad album. For me, I would consider it an average album. I don’t hate it, and I don't love it. And for a guy who doesn’t hate Pantera, but also doesn’t love them, I guess that is enough.

376. Dream Theater / Falling Into Infinity. 1997. 2/5

I have spent the better part of a day and a half at work listening to this album, and trying to work out how I feel about it. As it turns out, my first impressions were pretty accurate, but it is important to check these things out.
I’ve had this album for a while, but have rarely put it on to listen to since I first got it. So I wanted to make sure I gave this a fair go when I was sitting down to rate and review it.

Is this the forgotten Dream Theater album because it is really average? There is very little of what I feel makes Dream Theater a good band on this – few sizzling Petrucci solo blazes, little Portnoy drum thumping mania, almost no register of the Myung bass flicks. Most of the songs sit on the edge of ballads, or are precisely that.
I don’t know the story of the recording of this album, or the theories that the band had in place for it. But it is missing an awful lot of what makes Dream Theater good, and it is quite obvious all the way through.
Was this a hiccup? Certainly they redeem themselves in future releases, but what was the reason for this massive change in quality? One could only ask the band members themselves I guess. I am unable to fathom it. But the boredom I feel from repeated listenings over the past couple of days has not abated, and that’s not a good sign for any album in my collection.

Best for me include “Lines In The Sand”, “New Millenium” and “You Not Me”.

Rating: There are not a whole lot of redeeming features here for me. 2/5.

375. Evanescence / Fallen. 2003. 2/5

I can truly say that I got this album purely on a whim. The two singles, “Going Under” and “Bring Me To Life” had been played incessantly on the radio at work when they were first released, and they had gotten in my head a little. So I thought I had better check out the rest of the album to see how it held up.
I can’t say that I found anything else on there that I would listen to with any sort of enjoyment, apart from perhaps “My Last Breath”. Amy Lee has a good voice, but I think there is only so much of it that I can take in one sitting.

Though not to my particular taste overall, no doubt there are people out there who enjoy it. But to me it is a bit like Bon Jovi’s Crush – one or two great songs, and a whole lotta filler.

Rating: Reasonable without being outstanding. 2/5.

374. Van Halen / Fair Warning. 1981. 4/5

To be honest in some ways it is still a bit raw thinking about Van Halen now that the guitar god Eddie Van Halen left us permanently last year. I think it made casual listeners appreciate more fully how brilliant he was, and as a result just how good the band and their albums were as well. And having already had an album reach its 35 year anniversary this year, it was interesting to come into an album that reaches its 40th anniversary of release today, April 29, and not only hear the differences in the music between the two even though they are just five years apart, but of the general reaction of both albums.

I read a lot of reviews of Fair Warning coming in to do this, both fan reviews of people like me, and then journalists reviews from back in the day when the album was first released. And the reasoning behind that was that I just wasn’t sure if anyone else had the same reaction to the album as I did, and whether that was a good thing or a true indication of the general populous view of the album. Because, and my research tends to prove this, Fair Warning is an album that divides fan's opinion pretty much at 50/50 - and I’m talking huge fans of the band not just casual listeners who might only be interested in the popular songs or the big selling albums of the mid-1980's. In essence, it is an album where people think it is the greatest of the Van Halen discography... or one of the worst. Now, that seems like a difficult thing for an album to do, considering the vast array and number of releases that Van Halen managed in their career. And in some ways, perhaps it was the changing of the style of album that Van Halen have attempted here from their first three albums that has provided this range of opinions.

One phrase that is used heavily when it comes to reviews and descriptions of Fair Warning is “their darkest release”. Now, I understand that the first two albums came across as fun-loving, sunshine-filled anthems with bright guitar riffs and vocals and melodies that sounded like everyone was enjoying themselves, which no doubt was the case. And certainly some of the songs here seem more languid and dark-back-alley type of atmosphere than banging out bright hard rock. But “dark?!” “Sinister?!” I think some of this is a bit of a throwaway in order to describe away what some may think are lackluster songs than to actually call them out for that. I’m happy to do that for a couple of them. “Push Comes to Shove” is a change of scene for Van Halen, it’s almost a blues track being sung in a low key night club rather than a stage filled with noise and thousands of circling spotlights. I don’t hate the song, but it certainly doesn’t match up with what I see as a Van Halen classic track. And I’m happy to put my hand up for a similar observation with “Dirty Movies”. It also strides a similar path, one that has forked away from the usual path that Van Halen had trod. Dominated by the 16/4 rhythm of Alex Van Halen’s drumming and the thumping bass line of Michael Anthony, the sludgy pace and slightly monotonal vocals of David Lee Roth generally leaves me bored. Once again, I don’t hate the song, but it is different, it is a change, and you can see why lots of early fans of the band didn’t enjoy where these two songs in particular headed. But having opened with the excellent "Mean Street" the album then follows it up with another cracker, the harder faster rocker “Sinner’s Swing!”, which contains all of the best elements of Van Halen – hard hitting drums, great bass riffs, Dave’s duelling bright vocals and Eddie’s brilliant riffing guitar.

I wrote a review of this album about 14 years ago, and what I had written at the time didn’t marry up with what I think of the album now. Some of it was still true, but for the most part I had taken a rather negative view of most of the album, apart from probably three songs. It was interesting, because during that time I was heavily invested in listening to European power and speed metal, something a long long way from what Fair Warning is offering up, and I don’t have any doubt that this clouded my opinion as I wrote it then. What I have said here earlier was at the forefront of that, and also with “Sunday Afternoon in the Park” which has never really done much for me. And reading that review made me understand why there were some absolutely hammering reviews of this album that I read in my research. But I think a lot of that is misplaced, as was my own opinion all those years ago. I didn’t listen to this album until well after its release, a few years into the Sammy Hagar era I suspect, and at that time the only song I really cared for is "Unchained". Eventually I got the album and actually gave it a decent listen, and my memories of that is that I thought it was fantastic, which only made my review later on strange even to myself. And while the first single from the album, “So This Is Love?” might seem a bit predictable and completely the opposite of the reaction to some of the albums so called darkness, it was always part of the love I had for the album as a whole.

So what do I really think about the album? Honestly, I think I’m an idiot for whatever I was thinking back in 2006 or whenever it was that I penned that previous review. No doubt I was listening to a lot of stuff that wasn’t related to this at all.
Because, quite simply, this contains all of the great elements of Van Halen. I thoroughly enjoy Alex’s drumming on this album, he is synched into the groove and his drum sound is just perfect, and uses every form of timing at some stage during the album. I’m not sure his drumming ever sounded better than it does here. Michael’s bass thumps through the speakers, and his backing vocals are as ever such a massive part of the band’s sound. Dave's vocals are as sensational as ever, and Eddie is just Eddie.
Not every song on here is a winner, and that’s okay because that’s the case with about 95% of all albums ever recorded. And perhaps the greatness of the good tracks is what weighs so heavily on the couple of tracks that are not quite up to that standard. I don’t know. But 40 years on, this album still rocks the house, and holds its place – in MY opinion – as one of the best the band released. And the major reason for that? It’s because of the song that will, in my opinion, always be arguably Van Halen’s best song, with the opening guitar riff that still send shivers down my spine each and every time I hear it.

Rating: "Maybe enough ain't enough for you..." 4/5

(Updated April 2021)

373. Yngwie J. Malmsteen / Facing The Animal. 1997. 2.5/5

Yngwie Malmsteen keeps churning out the albums in the hope he can find something to inspire the next generation. And sometimes as a result of this his albums can be a bit hit and miss as many of his albums through the 1990’s decade were felt to be. Well, by the time this album was about to be released, his career could be categorised by the decade they were in. With most of his previous albums from the 1990’s, all of the songs had been fairly generic, power ballads and then guitar expositions where the structure of the song barely mattered over what Yngwie was actually playing.
On the other hand, his best album in years had been the one prior to this one. Titled “Inspiration”, it was full of cover songs that Yngwie loved, by bands such as Rainbow, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix and Kansas, and with several different vocalists such as Jeff Scott Soto, Joe Lynn Turner and Mark Boals, who had all been his vocalists on his best albums. So this new album was really up against it when it came to creating material that was going to better those songs and that manner of band members.
Yngwie has a history of pissing off his fellow musicians, and requiring replacements. Here on “Facing the Animal”, new lead vocalist Mats Leven is introduced, along with legendary drummer Cozy Powell to provide the backbeat. Also, for the first time, all of the writing of the songs is solely credited to Yngwie himself, something that could have been the making or the breaking of the whole project. And, in a time when Yngwie’s style of melodic hard rock and heavy metal was being overrun run by the advancing popularity of industrial metal and the like, one could only wonder if he still had a place in the music world outside of his native Europe where that style of music was still able to retain its popularity.

There’s no denying that Yngwie is a great guitarist, and his solos and licks are unmistakable. And those early albums were ground breaking in many ways. But eventually we all suspected that he would have to come to the realisation that the only people who are going to buy his albums are the ones who love his guitaring and appreciate his heavier work in song writing and his instrumentals, and not the attempts he makes at rock ballads and radio-friendly fare. At least, from my perspective, that appeared to be the best course.
Except that, once again on this album, he tries to go down that road, where radio-friendly fare as well as power ballads are the way he wants to go. The particular examples here that I am thinking of are “Alone in Paradise” and “Only the Strong”. Both are songs that turn me off his work completely. Indeed, songs like these were the reason I went over a decade from listening to any more of his new albums – which included missing this one on its release, and not picking it up until a few years later. They have a typical Yngwie solo break which is always enjoyable, but the ‘slow and mushy’ tone of the songs and lyrics really does stuff up an otherwise fair album. And you know what I’m talking about, the songs that change the momentum of the album, and really go down a path that is better left unwalked.
The tempo of this album is very different to what has come on some of the earlier work as well, mainly because of the style of Cozy Powell. There is little to no double kick, on which much of Yngwie’s best work follows. But that is not the criticism it sounds like, because Cozy’s drumming here is as powerful and enjoyable to listen to as always. It was one of his final recording moments before the tragic accident that took his life, so there is always a touch of melancholy for me listening to it. Mats Leven gives a solid performance on vocals, though this is the only studio album he appeared on.
The album is saved by songs such as “Braveheart”, “Enemy”, “My Resurrection” and the particularly excellent “Poison in My Veins”, but they don’t compare to his work in the 1980’s. And again that is not a fair comparison to make given the obvious excellence of those albums.
On a completely different note, the album can probably lay claim to having one of the worst covers of all time. It’s got to be a difficult to promote an album that has that photo as the cover art. It may as well be in the used section of old 1940’s albums that no one looks at in the second hand record stores.

As I mentioned here earlier, this album came out during the time when I had blacked out all Yngwie Malmsteen releases. The last album I had purchased of his was the “Eclipse” album back in 1990, the year he first toured Australia. Now while I had enjoyed pieces of that album, it did not inspire me to follow him any further, and it wasn’t until the “Unleash the Fury” album in 2005 that I bought another Yngwie album. And that one was well worth it, I must add. So I went back and discovered all of the albums I had missed in the preceding 15 years, to find out if they match the enjoyment I had gotten from that 2005 release. And a couple did have some good stuff on it. And the same applies to “Facing the Animal”. There are some very good songs here. Sure they may not have the ferocity and energy and passion of his earlier work, but they are enjoyable with some nice vocals and supporting guitar shredding from Yngwie.
I did initially review this for my old album review blog (still out there if you are interested in checking it out) and was fairly scathing of it at the time. And I wonder if that was still the scars of the feelings I had back in 1990 when I swore off his work. For the last two weeks I have had this going around and, while it may not be the album that is the stand out of those that are in my current listening bundle, several songs keep making themselves noticed, and the odd Yngwie guitar lick still brings music to the ears. So it isn’t as ordinary as I had thought when I first reviewed it over a decade ago. But it is the same old story, that if I am in the mood for Yngwie Malmsteen, then the albums I am generally going to reach for are from the decade of the 1980’s and not the 1990’s.

372. Alice In Chains / Facelift. 1990. 5/5

When it comes to the history of the band called Alice in Chains, and especially of how the band first formed and worked their way up to this stage of their career, the writing and release of their debut album “Facelift”, what I will offer you here is the merest snapshot. For anyone who is even remotely interested in the real, true story, I formerly encourage you to seek out and listen to the podcast called “And Volume for All”. In Season 2 of that podcast in 2024, Quinn does a deep dive like no one else could on the history of Alice in Chains and the ins and outs of everything that happened over the course of their career. It is a remarkable series of episodes that everyone should listen to at least once. For the true, remarkable story that I will touch on here, you should definitely go and seek out that podcast. You will not regret it.
Layne Staley first appeared on the music scene when he auditioned to sing for a local glam metal band known as Sleaze, after receiving some encouragement from his stepbrother Ken Elmer. Prior to this Layne had been playing drums, but this opportunity as a lead vocalist changed the course of his life. This band went through several lineup changes, as most new bands do, and eventually also decided to change their name to Alice in Chains. However, apparently over concerns that the reference to female bondage may prove to be a problem, they chose to spell it as Alice N' Chains to offset any perceived notions of this type. It was claimed that this had nothing to do with the way another up and coming band called Guns N’ Roses spelt their name, as this was a year prior to that band’s debut album being released, and they were as relatively unknown at that point as Alice ‘N Chains was.
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell saw the band perform in early-to-mid 1987 and had been captured by Layne’s voice. A few months later they met at a party, and as Cantrell was currently homeless, Staley invited him to move in with him at the rehearsal studio Music Bank. It was the start of an amazing partnership. In fact, the actual formation of the band that made them both famous was set with such amazing coincidences that it seemed as though fate was moving to make it come to pass.
Alice N' Chains had disbanded with Staley then joining another band., while Cantrell's band, Diamond Lie, broke up as well, and he went about trying to form a new band on his own. Staley gave him the phone number of Melinda Starr, the girlfriend of drummer Sean Kinney, so that Cantrell could set up a meeting with him. The two of them went to the Music Bank to listen to Cantrell's demos which they were enamoured with. Cantrell mentioned a bass guitarist he had once played with in a band called Gypsy Rose by the name of Mike Starr that might also fit what he was looking to create – at which point Kinney said that his girlfriend was actually Mike’s sister, and that he had played in bands with Mike since they had been kids. The connection between the three drew them all together, and the core of the band was complete.
One part remained unfilled, but the three had a plan to deal with that. They all wanted Layne to be their lead vocalist, and so they began to audition terrible singers in front of Staley to encourage him to come with them. It wasn’t until they auditioned a male stripper that Layne finally threw his hands in the air and said “OK, I’ll do it!”. The new band played a couple of gigs calling themselves Diamond Lie, the name of Cantrell's previous band, and also "Fuck", before eventually adopting Alice in Chains, the name Staley’s band had originally thought of. Staley apparently contacted his former bandmates and asked for permission to use the name, which ultimately, they gave their blessing to.
Local promoter Randy Hauser became aware of the band at a concert and offered to pay for demo recordings. The final demo, completed in 1988, was named “The Treehouse Tapes” and found its way to music managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver, who also managed the Seattle-based band Soundgarden. Curtis and Silver passed the demo on, and the band was signed to Columbia Records in 1989. They released the promotional EP “We Die Young” in mid-1990, with the title track becoming a hit on metal radio. On the back of its success, the album, which had been recorded in the early months of 1990, was released quickly afterwards. Producer Dave Jerden recalled sometime later, "I told Jerry Cantrell, 'Metallica took Tony Iommi and sped him up. What you've done is you've slowed him down again. He looked at me and said, 'You got it.' That's how I got the gig”.

That wonderful guitar riff to open the album, followed by Layne’s Ooooooooohhhhh down into the first burst of lyrics is just fantastic. Cantrell’s stinging lyrics such as “Down, down, down, you're rollin', watch the blood float in the muddy sewer, take another hit and bury your brother”, describing the scene he saw travelling on the bus to rehearsals one day are gruesomely fascinating, beautifully expressed by Staley as only he can, along with the combination of Jerry’s accompanied vocal on the chorus. Cantrell’s lead licks flesh out the track with squeals and rumbling riffs, while Kinney’s drum hitting expresses and heavy tone that was almost missing because he had broken his hand just prior to the recording. As he explained: “I almost didn't play on the record - they started rehearsing with the drummer from Mother Love Bone, Greg Gilmore. I was sitting there playing with one hand, guiding him through it. Dave Jerden came in and they started to try to do it. He was like, 'Screw it - pull the plug. This is not going to be the same.' Luckily, we took a tiny bit of time off. I had that cast on for a while, and was like, 'I can't miss this.' I cut my cast off in the studio and kept a bucket of ice by the drum set. Kept my hand iced down and played with a broken hand. I tried not to do that again - your first big break, and you fuck it up”.
However the hell he did it, Kinney’s performance on this album is just superb.
“Man in the Box” is the song that broke the band, coming some months after the album was released, when the video for the second single was released and found itself on constant rotation on MTV and other music video platforms at the time. In the first six months after its release “Facelift” apparently sold around 40,000 in the US. Following the release of “Man in the Box” and its MTV rotation, the album sold another 400,000 copies in a six-week period. That is a lot of albums to sell based on one track, but “Man in the Box” has always had those qualities about it. The slow tempo simple rhythm backing of drum beat and bass riff bely the qualities of the track, which comes from the vocal playoff between Layne and Jerry, firstly with the voice box that Jerry uses while Layne wails the same tune on his own, and then the trade-off in the chorus, with Jerry’s almost beautiful backing vocal quality holding the traditional ground while Layne gets to those other heights and tones that become almost the entire focus of the song. If you take out the vocals, and Jerry’s wonderful soling through the middle of the track, and the song itself is almost five minutes of a ponderous plodding journey through the main street of an old western fil, an abandoned town with tumbleweeds blowing along. There is just not anything there beyond the slow tempo. But my word those vocal exchanges and Jerry’s guitar turn this into a masterpiece of joy.
And then comes “Sea of Sorrow”. The unexpected piano opening along with guitar, the almost melancholic yet gritty moaning of Layne’s opening vocal entreaty drags you in. What I love about this song is the way that we transfer from verse to chorus through the song by way of Sean Kinney’s drum rolls, and empowering part of the track that brings a powerful note to the chorus each time, one that drives into each chapter of the track. Once again Layne and Jerry’s mutual combination vocally plays off perfectly, and then into the final pre chorus bridge into the chorus where Layne goes to a higher level – its just shivers down the spine stuff. Another terrific song.
Following on comes the moody opening of “Bleed the Freak”, which after Layne’s opening two almost spoken lines the song opens with... the chorus. Another amazing combination of the two voices of the band, one leading the other and then both combining into the chorus again. And again, as was the case in “Sea of Sorrow”, the song almost stops, leading you to believe that it has ended, before ramping up again for a final curtain call to complete the song on a high again, which also segues into “I Can’t Remember”, which for its opening combines three styles of guitar into its space, the clear electric, the thick strum of the bass strings and the final rise of the acoustic guitar before the burst into Layne’s opening vocal delivery. And then, through the verses, that amazingly heavy riff from Jerry just dominates, even as Layne’s vocals rise to the heavens as he explains his predicament in song, and that last high note he sings before Jerry’s second solo burst... far out, this is just an amazing song, with so much a part of it that sometimes feels as though it is all out of sequence but is actually amazingly crafted together. And then - “Love, Hate, Love”. If you want to talk about tracks you can draw a lineage from, then this song and Black Sabbath’s eponymous title track on their opening album is the one here. The spooky-type intro guitar riff is a mood setter, the soft rolling drums rather than hard hitting beat, the bass guttural but slowly strummed, and then the rise of Layne’s vocal into the bridge, before settling back into the moodiness of the opening. There are similarities – in my mind at least – to the song “Black Sabbath” here. This goes with much darker thoughts, and once we have the second bridge, the build into Jerry’s amazing solo, so very Iommi-like with the mood it creates to back what has come before it during the song. And then Layne begins his long scream of anguish and pain of “Love Hate Love” for the next 90 seconds or so... honestly, this song is a masterpiece, and again comes to what you think is the close before extending out again into another 30 seconds of angst. My word, those first six songs still stand on a pedestal when it comes to truly amazing music of any genre.
Whenever I think of this album, I always think of it as being a faster tempo than it actually is. Because all of the songs here are mid-tempo at best, many at slow-mid-tempo, and yet in my mind when I am singing the songs when not actually listening to the album, I sing them faster and hear the music faster. That is one of the genius parts of the album to me. It made me believe it is a faster album than it actually is, but that’s because the structure of the entire album gives it the impression that it could, or should, be that way. Point of fact is “It Ain’t Like That”, which is an almost morbidly slow tempo track, indeed for me the only real grunge track of the whole album, that is still a great song but if feels as though it should be faster, and yet it certainly is not. “Sunshine” follows, written by Cantrell as a tribute to his mother Gloria, who passed away in 1987. The band had just moved from Seattle to L.A. after the death of their friend Andrew Wood, lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone, to record the album. In an interview with Spin Magazine Cantrell was quoted as saying: “When I was a little kid, I’d always tell her, “I’ll be famous and buy you a house and you’ll never have to work again. I’ll take care of you like you took care of me.‘ When she passed away, it was a really shitty time for me. I didn’t know how to deal with it then, and I still don’t. But it gave me the impetus to do what I’m doing”.
“Put You Down” is the rockiest song on the album, and also probably the fastest tempo. It lifts your head as soon as it comes on and the vibe is the most upbeat on the album. “Confusion” that follows definitely is not, but my word it once again showcases the amazing vocal talent of Layne Staley. The differing platitudes that he reaches throughout this song are just amazing, the build in the vocals as he sings “Now there's time to give it all, I put my fears behind again, On skinned knees, we'll crawl, I want to set you free, ah, Yeah, recognize my disease, ah”. This then moves into “I Know Something (Bout You)”, again mixing up the style of song that has come in the first half of the album. The faster tempo again surprises after what has come before it. And finally into the closing track, that again repeats this tempo, “Real Thing”, where Layne vocally sounds like he is having a ball, singing about things that he is probably very familiar with.

I didn’t get this album on its release. I mean, to be honest, is there anyone out there who can honestly say they did? It was a new band, their debut album. In Australia they were basically unknown. Like most, it wasn’t until the release of the second single “Man in the Box” at the start of 1991 that this began to gain traction in my friend group. My heavy metal music dealer, still even 6 years after he began this role, was the first to mention the band and this album to me, and from there it was my friends that I was in a band with at the time who also started to push the track and eventually the album with me. I was the only one of those in that band who actually had a job at the time, so they obviously had more time in their schedules to do such things as checking out new albums.
My own discovery of the album began with those initial discussions and moved forward even further when the girl I had just started dating mentioned that she had heard that single on Rage one night and she thought it was an interesting song, and that the guy singing had an amazing voice. That girl became my now wife, so the qualities of both wife and band were there from the start. So I bought the album, and the magic began from that moment.
There has always been some question as to how to classify the band and this album. Having come from Seattle, as did several bands that then got roped in to the genre of grunge music, Alice in Chains were generally classified as the same. I would contest that if it came to a discussion on the subject. For me there is only one grunge-genre song on this album, that being “It Ain’t Like That”. The rest is far more in the metal category than grunge. A few years later and there was a move to suggest that they should be backdated to an alternative band, which they also certainly were not. I guess in the long run, to try and class this as you will – heavy metal, grunge, alternative – it doesn’t really matter. Appealing to a multitude of masses, this album brought a new face to the music scene and made its mark immediately. Combining riffs and breaks that on the surface seem so simple, and yet are quite brilliant, and the magical quality of the diverse vocals of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell, “Facelift” is a blending of anger, sorrow, frustration and determination that combines to produce an album that constantly drags you back for more. I could sit here all day and discuss Jerry Cantrell’s amazing riffs but more impressively his guitar solo’s slotted in that enhance each song with their influence. I could marvel at Layne Staley’s vocals, the way he squeezes the exact right amount of angst or emotion or anger out of each line he sings, and the way he and Jerry combine so fantastically throughout. I could talk about the tone of Mike Starr’s bass guitar, and how its influence on the songs is subtle and yet so important to each. And marvel at Sean Kinney’s drumming, where he inserts pieces at different places on songs that sometimes gets missed, unless you hear the songs without them, and then realise how much he enriches each track with his presence.
While for most episodes I have the albums I’m reviewing out for a couple of days in order to get the right feel for what needs to be said, with “Facelift” I have been listening to this for about two weeks. And this is another of those episodes that has been so difficult to script and record, because it is an album that deserves to have its complete existence implored upon the listener, to impress upon everyone just how seismic this album is. I don’t think I have achieved that even given the extra time I have taken to get to this point. But I can assure you I have tried, because this album stands amongst the giants, an album that was breaking new ground without even considering that it was going to do so. These four just somehow found each other through the workings of the universe, and then just created music history. And, more to the point, as amazing as this album is, it is arguably not even the best that the band managed to produce. But as much as I would like to talk about that more now, it truly is a conversation that I will be having with all of you a little further down the track.

371. Godsmack / Faceless. 2003. 2.5/5

Godsmack are a band that I tracked down after their excellent tribute to Judas Priest on the VH1 Rock Honours a couple of years ago. They also did a great cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” on a tribute album some years ago. Sometimes there is always a problem that the band might have too much to live up to when you have heard them pull of classic covers. This may well be a case in point.

Overall the album is good enough. It isn’t special, and won’t make any “Great Albums Of All Time” lists, but the heart is there. The most noticeable thing is that most of the songs are very similar. Both the music and the vocals seem to retain the same tone throughout the album. Trying to listen to an album that is so similar in structure eventually will bore the living daylights out of you.
To me, Godsmack appear to be somewhat of a combination of the sound of bands like Therapy? and Pearl Jam, but without the angst and emotion in the vocals that both those bands have with their vocalists, and certainly not the intensity in the music that I believe Therapy? have. Perhaps they were trying a little hard to be someone else rather than being their own band. That might be a harsh call, but that’s what it sounds like to me on constant listens.

There’s no doubt the lyrics are trying to evoke an emotional response. I just don’t think that, on this occasion, it works for them.

Rating: Despite the effort, they miss the mark. 2.5/5

370. Exodus / Fabulous Disaster. 1989. 4/5

Listening to Exodus on Fabulous Disaster is an interesting experience, especially when trying to compare styles of bands of similar vintage. Metallica and Megadeth, for instance, released what I would term very serious metal albums – … And Justice For All and Rust In Peace. Both great albums, and both very serious musically and lyrically.
Fabulous Disaster is another great album, but to me very different from those two albums. With multi-tracked choruses enticing you to sing along in a group anthemic way, and lead singer Steve Souza very bouncy in his lyrics, especially in songs like “Fabulous Disaster” and “Toxic Waltz”, it reminds me of (a much heavier) Quiet Riot of the early 1980’s.

I love the way this album seems to build as it moves along. The early songs on the album such as “The Last Act Of Defiance”, and from there we build into a forceful middle and a slamming end to the disc. It’s easy to see where Australian 80’s metal bands like Mortal Sin and Frozen Doberman got their inspiration from – it’s pretty much all here on this album.

Favourites here for me include “The Last Act Of Defiance”, “Verbal Razors”, “Open Season” and “Overdose”

Rating: Still gets better with every listen. 4/5.

369. Black Sabbath / The Eternal Idol Demos [Bootleg]. 1986. 3/5

These are the demo versions of the album that became The Eternal Idol. Ray Gillen is the singer here, who eventually did not record the album, that being left to newcomer Tony Martin.

In reality there aren’t that many differences. The vocals change a little here and there, and of course the production is not A1, but it is good for interest sake. It won’t make you like the album if you don’t already like it, however…

Rating: Interesting for fans. 3/5

368. Masterplan / Enlighten Me [Single]. 2002. 5/5

An absolute pearler of a single release.

Containing the first single off the unbelieveably brilliant self-titled album by Masterplan, it also has the equally brilliant “Kind Hearted Light” as the 2nd track, the quite wonderful unreleased track “Through Thick And Thin” (which I find remarkable it wasn’t on the album itself), and the Led Zeppelin cover “Black Dog”.

Top notch all the way through. If only all single releases were this good.

Rating: Brilliant. 5/5.

367. Killswitch Engage / The End Of Heartache. 2004. 2.5/5

There is little doubt that Killswitch Engage are probably the best of the modern metal bands. Having had one short stint of seeing them live, they are no doubt also a better live band that a studio band.

Here on The End of Heartache I think they are probably a little bit samey when it comes to their songs. Sometimes I can put the album on, and before I know it I haven’t the faintest idea what song I’m up to. Actually, it has just happened as I type this. A 20 minute break , come back, and where the hell am I up to?
The genre does lead itself to that a little, to my ears anyway.

The music itself is still solid, and there are a few standout tracks, such as “World Ablaze”, “Rose of Sharyn” and “When Darkness Falls”. In the end though, I find myself thinking, ‘Meh… what album do I listen to next…’

Rating: Average fare. 2.5/5.

366. Trivium / Ember To Inferno. 2003. 2/5

Like everything Trivium has done, the majority of people really love it, or really hate it. For some reason I have sat on the fence with all three of their albums. Sure, I have made my point that the vocals that the group employ are not my cup of tea. Funny thing is, with clear vocals there would be no power in the music, which means there is something lacking there. But with guttural screaming, I find it difficult to enjoy the songs. So there is something lacking there.

Ember To Inferno, the group’s first album, has similar problems to the other two albums. And it’s not that I really hate the album – but I don’t love it either. There are just too many obstacles set up that can’t allow me to appreciate it like many people do. Can I listen to it? Sure, if someone puts on the album, I can get through it without shrieking. But so help me if they decide to play it again!

Rating: Still sitting on the fence somewhat I guess… 2/5

365. Iron Maiden / Eddie's Archive [6 Discs]. 2002. 5/5

Even if, like me, you seem to own almost everything that Iron Maiden has released, you still couldn't go past buying this boxset. It is a spectacular release of old and rare and some hard to find stuff, all stashed into a little box that puts more dollars into Rod Smallwood's wallet.

Containing six discs, this has the best of everything. The old live stuff from the BBC Archives that most of us have had on bootleg tapes for years, combined with pieces from the 1988 Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour. The Beast Over Hammersmith set, once again a gig most of us have bootlegs of, but now have on crystal clear CDs. And the combined B-Sides collection, most of which we own from the Ten Year anniversary albums we bought back in 1990.

So OK - we had it all before. But we went out and bought it again, didn't we? And why? Because it's Iron Maiden, and you just have to have it.

Rating:  Some great stuff on here, that major fans of the band will love. And probably already own.  5/5

364. Armored Saint / Eindhoven 12-5-1989 [Bootleg]. 1990. 4/5

This is an A quality soundboard bootleg from Armored Saint at their theoretical peak back in 1989.
It contains the very best of the Saint's songs, the band are in awesome form, while John Bush screams at his best throughout.

As the band lack a full live release, this is probably the best that you can find if you want to experience how the band sounded live. A terrific mix of great songs and great attitude.

Rating: "March of the Saint" indeed! 4/5

363. Foo Fighters / Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. 2007. 2/5

Following In Your Honour I went into this album without any hopes whatsoever. I didn’t run around excited to hear the new album, nor did I allow my expectations to get the better of me. Whether this was the right thing to do or not I don’t know, but when it finally arrived… I found it was no better than I expected.

I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who think this is great, but to me it is a long way from their best stuff. Where has the aggression gone? What have they done with the passion? I read somewhere where someone had said it was as close to the music of Nirvana that Dave Grohl has done. WTF is up with that?!?!
The single that was released from this album, “The Pretender”, is the one song on the album that would nearly make a best-of combination. In reality, it is a complete misrepresentation to the public as to the kind of album this is.

Never mind. You can’t always have what you want. Perhaps they have just drained all of their best stuff, and now they are heading down the road of ‘easy-listening’. If that’s the case, I really can’t see myself investing in their future releases.

Rating: In almost all respects, just not the kind of album I like, nor was looking for. 2/5.

362. Sting / The Dream Of The Blue Turtles. 1985. 4/5

In 1983 The Police, who had been on a steady rise as a band over their four previous albums, released “Synchronicity”, an album that was to shoot them to almost super stardom. On the back of singles such as “Every Breath You Take”, “King of Pain” and “Wrapped Around Your Finger”, the album went to number one in Australia, the US and the UK, and they sold out concerts all over the world.
Over the course of the touring schedule to promote the album, the band played a sold out show at Shea Stadium in New York, a moment that Sting later described as an Everest moment for the band, and something that made him think about what the future now held. Near the end of the concert, Sting announced: "We'd like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium." Drummer Stewart Copeland later reflected, "Playing Shea Stadium was big because, even though I'm a Yank, The Police is an English band and I'm a Londoner – an American Londoner – so it felt like conquering America." The tour ended in Melbourne on 4 March 1984 at the Melbourne Showgrounds, and the band could rightly claim to be the biggest in the world.
At the height of this popularity and fame, the band then went on hiatus, as Sting announced that he wanted to pursue a solo album as a way of winding down, and to see just where his own musical instincts wanted to take him. The initial writing sessions for the album were said to have been synth driven with a funk vibe about the tracks, something that would have been a complete departure from the music produced by The Police, which suited the fact that he wanted to do a solo project to explore these roads. Eventually as the writing sessions progressed he abandoned this direction, and instead pulled back to a far more jazz-infused style, still a stretch from what he had been writing and performing before this album. And looking back over the way that The Police had changed their sound from album to album, infusing new sounds into their songs and making them a part of the evolving sound of the band, one can see that Sting had an ability to move with the times and utilise these changes to his music as a whole. Even with that said, I’m not sure anyone was truly prepared for what awaited them with the release of his debut studio album, “The Dream of the Blue Turtles”.

How best to approach a review of Sting’s first solo project? A song by song appraisal perhaps doesn’t quite seem appropriate for an album that has so much depth and variety about it, along with the aforementioned changes to the script. And there is a change throughout the track list on the album that moves with the mood that Sting was obviously looking for when it came to his solo outfit.
The opening track “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” was the also the opening single to the album, released a few weeks before the album made the shelves. It was the song that was to set in place the tone of the album for the fans prior to them hearing it. And it immediately showcases a different style for Sting than he had with his band. But – it isn’t so different that it would scare off any fans. Yes there is more a of jazz swing about the track, it has sax and backing singers in the chorus lending a hand, and it is less moody or dark than had been some of the more recent singles from his other band. Overall it lends itself to being the perfect song to act as the bridge between The Police, and drawing that fan base into accepting his solo album. Or, at the very least, buying it to find out for themselves. This is followed by “Love is the Seventh Wave”, which also acted as the second single released from the album. This track is a very ska and reggae influenced song, something that his previous band dabbled with on their early material, but thi is a much more pop related environment than those songs. The use of saxophone again even adds a touch of new wave to the song, and as a result sets itself very apart from what fans had come to expect from him. But as a solo artist, this was his vehicle to explore new material and directions, and he has taken that on here, though at the very end of the track invoking parodied lyrics from one of The Police’s great songs “Every Breath You Take”.
“Russians” was arguably the song that not only cemented Sting’s solo project, but also put the nail in his band ever going forward again either. Not a protest song as such, and while it is critical of the foreign policies of nations on both sides of the Cold War that was in effect at the time, Sting’s moral lyrics, quoting both sides and then suggesting that he doesn’t subscribe to that point of view, is hard hitting from such a prominent musician at that time. “There’s no such thing as a winnable war, it's a lie we don’t believe anymore” seems sadly to have fallen on deaf ears in the modern day, but at a time in the 1980’s when the tension was so great, Sting’s few verses here were perhaps the most profound statement of the day. It is still a powerful statement today, though there still seems like no one is truly listening. He continues on his war theme with “Children’s Crusade” describing the destruction of a generation of youth in the First World War, this time only from his own country’s point of view. “The children of England would never be slaves, They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves, The flower of England face down in the mud, And stained in the blood of a whole generation, Corpulent generals safe behind lines, History's lessons drowned in red wine, Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade, All of those young lives betrayed, All for a Children's Crusade”. The song cleverly and sadly parallels the destruction of the younger generation in World War I to a similar thing occurring through heroin addiction in modern-day London, in a style as gently hard hitting as his previous song was.
The music returns to a more upbeat style with “Shadows in the Rain”, a complete restyling of The Police track from their album “Zenyatta Mondatta”, and yet a style that immediately sounds like Sting’s previous band than his own solo material. In fact, this version of the song is infinitely better than the original which was always mired in a boggy tempo and a lack of enterprise, whereas this is bright and breezy and saxophone laden that increases the enjoyment throughout, not the least with Sting’s vocals here sounding like he’s having a good time. Sting returns to his social conscience again with “We Work the Black Seam Together”, with the song discussing the toils of the coal miner, the debate about nuclear energy (something that somehow continues in Australia to today) and the striking of miners in the UK during the Thatcher government’s reign during the 1980’s. Once again Sting cleverly weaves the political connotations of the time into lyrics that put forth the thoughts from the miner’s point of view in a simple and effective song with appropriately muted music. It is another wonderfully effective song musically and lyrically. “Consider Me Gone” mirrors the song “Tea in the Sahara” musically from the “Synchronicity” album, at last the bassline from Sting certainly does. This moves to the instrumental title track, a minute or so or tinkling jazz styled piano, before cruising into the slow moody crooning of “Moon Over Bourbon Street”, the very jazz club track that Sting based on the book “Interview with the Vampire”, with Sting playing the double bass here to intensify the mood he was looking for.
The album closes with “Fortress Around Your Heart”. In an interview with MUSICIAN magazine when the song was released as a single from the album, Sting was quoted saying about the track, “"Fortress" is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you've laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it. I think it's one of the best choruses I've ever written”. It was the song on the album that most resembled something that he would have written for his former band, and to me is the best song that he has written in his post-Police career.

“Synchronicity” was the first album I ever bought for myself. I had always enjoyed their singles, and I wanted to start hearing bands full albums, not just the songs deemed worthy of being played on the radio, and The Police was the first, and it is still one of the great albums to this day. And then the band went on ’hiatus’, and I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Sting announced that he was going to do a solo album, and it was more or less intimated at the time that the band would get back together after that and write more albums. Okay then. Everything is above board, noting to see here!
So I was looking forward to the solo album. I didn’t really consider just what it was going to mean to the music itself. I mean, Sting had been the majority shareholder in the writing stakes for The Police anyway, so I just assumed it would more or less be similar, right? Well no, that wasn’t the case, and at the time I got the album that was both good and bad. Because even though the album was not what I expected, I still really liked it. Now remember, this album was pre-heavy metal obsessionfor me, so I was listening to this kind of stuff anyway and wasn’t looking for heavy music. So the songs here are mostly very good. And lyrically they are beautiful, so well composed and put together, and that was a major part of what drew me in, reading and learning the lyrics to “Russians”, “Children’s Crusade”, “Moon Over Bourbon Street” and “Fortress Around Your Heart”. And the music is beautiful and well performed. It isn’t The Police but it is Sting and all of that comes together nicely. And I enjoyed this album.
Over the years, that has perhaps changed a bit. My heavy metal awakening came at the end of that year of 1985, and my path to the heavy side of music cast a slight pall over this album. It was no longer what I wanted to listen to. The memory of my enjoyment of listening to the album was still there, but I had no need for it anymore. The album stayed in my collection, on rare occasions coming out for a listen, especially when I met my now wife, who also loved and owned a copy of that album. But that was about it. I was drawn to The Police and those albums I loved, but rarely this one.
So for the past week and a half, this has been dusted off, and put back on all in the name of reviewing it for this podcast. And guess what? I thought it was okay. A couple of things stirred in me, but generally nothing much happened. Until I ACTUALLY listened to it, one afternoon with no one in the house. And I remembered. I felt what I had originally felt when I listened to this album as a 15 year old in my parents lounge room. I reconnected, especially to tracks such as “Russians” and “Children's Crusade” and “We Work the Black Seam”. I remembered by teenage love for “Fortress Around Your Heart” - and I, not for the first time, thanked this podcast for bringing back an album to me that I had once loved but had mostly forgotten about through the mists of time. In this case, not forgotten the album, but how much I had adored it at the time. And for me, that is what makes this podcast special to ME, because of albums like this. I’m really glad I got the opportunity to travel back in time, just for an instant, for 41 minutes and 40 seconds as it turns out, and felt like I had all those years ago.
On the flip side, my heavy metal birth meant that I have never once felt the need to check out any of Sting’s further 14 solo albums that he has released in the years since. They were never going to be for me, and I have not ventured down that path. Will this be the final time I listen to “The Dream of the Blue Turtles”? That seems less likely now after the past week.

361. Iron Maiden / Download Festival 10-6-07 [Bootleg]. 2007. 4/5.

By mid-2007, Maiden had flogged A Matter of Life and Death all over (most) of the world. With the usual plethora of mid-year festivals coming up to complete, the band decided on a change of tact. Retaining half of the setlist they had been using for most of the previous two months, they then added a couple of extra songs from The Number Of The Beast and called it a 'celebration' of 25 years since that album's release. In essence, the gig contained mostly songs from those two albums.

This bootleg is A- quality, and while are still at the top of their form, we've heard most of the early songs a thousand times (c'mon - why not "Invaders" or "Ganglands", just for a change?!), and the later songs were done better when they played the whole album live in previous gigs.

Rating: If you were to go to a Maiden gig and see only these songs, you'd be disappointed. 4/5.

360. Elf / Carolina County Ball. 1974. 1.5/5

Having been in a multitude of bands – or at least been in bands that have had a multitude of band name changes – Ronnie James Dio appeared to have hit paydirt when his latest iteration had settled on the name of Elf for their current formation in 1972, having originally been called the Electric Elves in 1967, before shortening that to the Elves in 1969, and finally Elf in 1972. With that name the band had released their self-titled debut album produced by Roger Glover and Ian Paice from Deep Purple, the story of which you can hear on the episode dedicated to that album in Season 3 of this podcast.
Following this album, Dio, who both sung and played bass guitar on the album, decided they needed a new member to take over the bass duties, and so Craig Gruber was hired to perform that task. Also guitarist David Feinstein, who was Dio’s cousin, quit the band, and Steve Edwards was brought in to replace him.
Elf then supported Deep Purple on two separate tours, becoming a well liked touring partner with the band and in the process making other connections that would be instrumental in future plans. After this the band entered the studio to write and record their follow up album in January and February in 1974, and album that when released in the United States and Japan was titled “L.A. 59” after the second track on the album, but for the rest of the world would be known by the first track on the album, “Carolina County Ball”.

Listening to this album, it is interesting even today to hear the kind of music the band plays. For 1974, several songs here are just old time blues ragtime songs. Sure, you may well have heard a bit of this from Marvin Hamlisch on the soundtrack to the movie The Sting, but it probably isn’t what you expect from this album. “Carolina County Ball”, the title track, is very much what this is. The boogie woogie piano throughout, before the wailing blues guitar riff at the end, sets up exactly what you can expect to hear on this album from the outset. And yes, the debut album had this kind of heavy blues influence upon it. But is this what people expected that the follow up would be like as well?
All of the songs on the album are written by Dio and keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule, who also contributed rhythm guitar when needed... which wasn’t often. The piano is the overwhelming influence in the music on the album, probably to excess when there are other elements of the band that could have been utilised better. The opening tracks including “L.A. 59” and “Ain’t it all Amusing” are entertaining enough but are countered by songs such as “Happy”, which paradoxically is quite dreary and uninteresting. "Rocking Chair Rock 'n' Roll Blues" has the quiet slow start that builds to something more powerful by its conclusion, and is a reasonable example of what Dio can do with his voice at both ends of the spectrum, but maybe making this two songs instead of just one would have worked better.
Dio’s vocals showcase here exactly what was being searched for by two of the main influences on his climb to immortality. The power he exhibits at times on songs such as “L.A. 59” and "Annie New Orleans” are certainly more important than any of the music produced here.
The drumming by Gary Driscoll is especially imposing on songs like “Ain’t It All Amusing”, a song dominated by his drum work and the blues guitar of Edwards who also shines when given a decent opportunity to do so. Indeed, this is where the band needed to steer their direction – more guitar from Edwards, and less keyboards from Soule. As it turns out, the future was to pan out in that way, which worked for some of the members of Elf, and not so much for others.

One of the things about doing a podcast called ‘Music from a Lifetime’ is that not all of the albums that I review from the music that I have listened to and/or purchased over the course of my lifetime, turn out to be good. Sometimes it just turns out to be very very different from what you expect it is going to be.
I don’t think anything could have prepared me for Elf and the music they produced on their three albums. Because I came into Elf as the result of one man – Ronnie James Dio. Because at some stage in the early 1990’s, when the band Dio had begun to run out of steam, the Black Sabbath mark II lineup had finally been brought undone by the same jealousies as they had with their original break up, I felt a need to go back and find the roots of the man with the magic voice.
The first time that I heard this album was having purchased the CD from Utopia Records in Sydney, a CD that contains both this album and its follow up “Trying to Burn the Sun”. And I can’t tell you the excitement I felt as i headed for home with the anticipation of what I was going to hear. And then I put it on... and in the immortal words of Edmund Blackadder... “I think the phrase rhymes with clucking bell”.
This was simply nothing like what I imagined I would hear. I would probably have been less surprised if it had been full of Dio just singing gospel songs. The blues? And, I mean, almost pure, unadulterated blues?! I just couldn’t imagine that this was the kind of music that Ronnie James Dio would be involved in. Of course, over future years and further deep diving, I discovered Ronnie and the Red Caps and Ronnie Dio and the Prophets, and got a much clearer aspect of his musical journey. But that doesn’t make this any less difficult to digest.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have resurrected that same CD, the one that I purchased all those years ago, and promptly abandoned to the shelves to collect dust, only moving when I moved house, and it went from shelves to moving box to shelves again. And I have played it again, and searched desperately for something to grab a hold of. And of course, being older and wiser now, I found... not much. I enjoyed Gary Driscoll’s drumming. Steve Edwards when given the chance plays some nice solos. Ronnie’s voice is amazing. There are several pl aces throughout where you can hear exactly why Roger Glover asked him to participate on his post-Deep Purple project “The Butterfly Ball” and then create the best moments on hat album, and why Ritchie Blackmore asked him to join a new project with him post-Deep Purple, the project that became the band Rainbow. So there are moment here that sparkle. But, through the whole experience, every time I have listened to this album over the last little period in order to do this podcast episode, I spent the whole time the album was on looking forward to it being over, so I could then listen to something that I WANTED to listen to, something that I would ENJOY. And sadly, that is the only true impression I can offer of “Carolina County Ball”. The almost desperate desire to run as far away as possible from it. It led to much greater things, but that doesn’t make it a good album. I will say this though. Compared to albums such as Echobrain’s self-titled debut album, or Metallica and Lou Reed’s “Lulu” album, this album is a bloody masterpiece.

359. Arch Enemy / Doomsday Machine. 2005. 3.5/5

Doomsday Machine mixes touches of brilliance with pieces of monotonous boredom, and one can only wonder how. It is difficult to fathom just how an album that has so much in its favour, and so much potential, can fail to ignite and find the higher reaches. Perhaps it is Angela’s vocals – ahh, my old prejudices rise again… J

Certainly, listening to the album four or five times in a row at work today, I felt no need to suppress any particular songs, or not to put it back on again when it was over. I think it holds its own quite easily. But I can’t shake that nagging feeling that they left something in the kit bag when they had an opportunity to do better.
The guitaring is as great as it always is, and there is still much to like about the release.

Favourites for me include “Enter the Machine”, “Nemesis” and “I Am Legend / Out for Blood”.

Rating: Middle of the road for the guys and gal. 3.5/5

358. W.A.S.P. / Dominator. 2007. 3.5/5

Ooooh, if ever a band, or a man, had to work his bollocks off to regain lost support after some dodgy recent years, it was Blackie Lawless and W.A.S.P. Following the critically acclaimed 9/11 themed Dying For The World with the flawed and basically just dreadful rock-opera that was The Neon God Parts I and II, Blackie was a million miles from the sound he had produced that shocked the world back in the 1980's.

I can confirm that Dominator repairs as much of the damage as it possibly can. For the most part Blackie has gone back to the basic formula with his music. Like everything he has released since The Crimson Idol however, it all has the same sort of melody lines and bridges. This isn't a problem unless you allow it to be. His usual ballad (on this occasion “Heaven's Hung In Black”) sounds just like his others have on previous albums of the past 15 years. The majority of the album returns W.A.S.P. to the standing of albums such as Unholy Terror and Dying For The World, a solid release with solid songs. Strangely, the energy Blackie usually exudes seems to be missing for the most part here. Perhaps he is now in a place in his life where his influences on his music from past decades now escapes him.

Favourites for me include “Mercy”, “Long Long Way To Go”, “The Burning Man”, “Heaven's Blessed” and “Deal With The Devil”.

Rating: A return to a much more enjoyable setting. 3.5 / 5.

357. Alcatrazz / Disturbing The Peace. 1985. 2/5

When Alcatrazz had formed back in 1983 there had been a super-group aura around their formation. Indeed, with the personnel on board in the band, the music they were trying to write, and the age in which they had come into, there was a fair amount of hype about just what was going to be produced. That debut album, “No Parole from Rock ‘n’ Roll” provided some of that, but the promotion of the album and its lead single “Island in the Sun” on MTV was not able to funnel in the numbers that the band and their record company were looking for. Then came the live album that was recorded in Japan, “Live Sentence” which showcased how the band sounded in that environment. In some ways it was a canny move, which all went to hell in a hand basket after the ongoing tension between lead vocalist Graham Bonnett and lead guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, a tension that was born in the background but eventually spilled over into live performances. This culminated in a performance in Japan when Bonnet poked Malmsteen in the stomach with his microphone stand, and Malmsteen retaliated by punching him. This led to Malmsteen finally quitting the band and starting up his own solo career, one that eclipsed his former band through the rest of the decade.
Keyboardist Jimmy Waldo went about the job of replacing Malmsteen, and eventually was able to lure former Frank Zappa guitarist Steve Vai to join the band, despite resistance from Bonnet. Looking back now, at the band’s first two lead guitarists and the careers they have since then, it is hard to imagine that Alcatrazz did not have a bigger following and profile than they did. At the same time their record company was shit down dur to the embezzlement of millions of dollars, and so they instead signed with Capitol Records. From here the band began to work on new material, before then headlining another tour of Japan which introduced Vai to the fans and allowed them to play new material from the upcoming album. All of this was forebearer to the release of their sophomore album, which saw the light of day in late February of 1985, titled “Disturbing the Peace”.

It’s fair to say that most people who first listened to Alcatrazz would have done so for the same reasons that I did initially – because of Graham Bonnett and Yngwie Malmsteen. The departure of Yngwie would have been a difficult hole to fill for the band given his profile and ego. But the recruitment of Steve Vai certainly covered that and made discovering the second album another adventure worth looking forward to. The songwriting for the album was for the majority share done by the duo of Bonnett and Vai. There are a couple of songs early on that utilise the skills of other band members, but for the most part it is the lead singer and the lead guitarist leading the way.
The opening track also was released as the only single from the album, “God Blessed Video”. It showcases what the best songs from the debut album detailed, Graham Bonnet’s outstanding vocals often doubled to create a further impact, a solid rhythm from Gary Shea on bass and Jan Uvena on drums, and the mix of Vai’s guitar with Waldo’s keys and synths. Vai offers his first super solo on this track, which as you would expect has all of his usual characteristics and does replace the outlandish antics of Malmsteen’s guitar with aplomb. It’s a catchy song that sounds like it is from the exact era it is set in. Following on from this is “Mercy”, a song where all of the band members get a writing credit. It dials back the tempo of the first track and concentrates on vocals being mixed over the top of each other to create a wall of noise that Bonnet does enjoy getting out of his voice. Sometimes it is overdone and perhaps this is one of those occasions. It is an interesting structure, that doesn’t quite stand up alongside the opening track.
After the initial musical passage into the start of the next song, “Will You Be Home Tonight”, I still always believe that the opening lines of the song are sung by a different singer, because it sounds nothing like Bonnett. That soon changes, but that opening could have been any other singer. It is an average song that does its job of padding out the album. “Wire and Wood” ramps things back up again, and we have the band in its best element, that 80’s hard rock sound with keys and synths through the verse and chorus of the song, Bonnet in full cry vocally, and then Vai’s guitar punctuating the song at interludes and adding its texture throughout before it takes over in the solo section. Is there any chance someone can go back in time and let the band know that THIS is what the fans want to hear when it comes to your music! This song is the perfect combination of all of their talents.
But then, having said that, “Desert Diamond” descends back into the slow tempo with drudgingly thumped drum beats and heads for a different atmosphere altogether. And while this is fine to listen to as a part of the album, it does present itself at the wrong location. The whole song is saved by the interruption of Vai’s amazing lead solo break that brightens the whole process up and gives it the gravitas that it was probably striving for, but did not have until he arrived.
The second side of the album opens with “Stripper”, a song in the same style as the opening track and “Wire and Wood”. Upbeat, fast tempo, Bonnet charging, Vai tossing licks and riffs through the speakers. Lyrically it isn’t a Booker Prize winner, but it is fun and enjoyable to bounce along with. “Painted Lover” follows the path of the album by harking back into mid-tempo speed again, a comfortable hard rock song with no surprises and standing with the standard formation of track that has come before it. “Lighter Shade of Green” is a 45 second spurt of instrumental extravagance for Vai before bursting into “Sons and Lovers”, a fairly stock standard soft rock ballad, one that is searching for an audience that is probably not going to be attracted to this band. “Skyfire”, like “Will You Be Home Tonight”, has a Bonnet vocal through the song that is very unlike what he usually offers. It isn’t unpleasant but it is nothing like his usual style. Does that throw you off when you listen to the song? Well, it does for me. Or perhaps it is just that the song itself isn’t particularly memorable APART from that changed vocal melody? Now there’s a thought! The album then concludes with “Breaking the Heart of the City”

Hands up if you have ever listened to Alcatrazz the band! My guess is that there are extraordinarily few of you who have. To be fair, their lack of time on music charts anywhere let alone the US is the best proof of that. I can still remember when their only couple of music videos, two off their debut album and “God Blessed Video” off this album, came on to the Australian ABC late night music program Rage, and the odd occasion on MTV’s Headbangers Ball, and thinking ‘oh yeah this is okay... Bonnett, Malmsteen, Vai... it must be all right!” So much so that I sought out the first two albums to listen to. That didn’t come until 1991 on my first trip to Bali when I bought a hundred cassette albums for about $13. And thus, I listened to them. And what I found was probably not anything like what I expected, even having seen those videos of their early singles.
When the band released “Disturbing the Peace” along with the single "God Blessed Video", it was barely played on radio or MTV alike. The album peaked at No. 145 in the US and nowhere else, not even Japan. They had to cut a tour short due to financial problems, and not long after Steve Vai left to join David Lee Roth's solo band - on good terms, as it was an offer Vai could not refuse.
I think “Disturbing the Peace” starts off promisingly enough, but the band has run out of ideas early into the second half of the album, and the style of songs begins to alienate any possible fan base that could really get around this. And as always it is a shame because there is no doubt that the band is full of excellent musicians who are very good at their craft.
To me Alcatrazz never really thought about what market they were trying to access or populate. And that isn’t something you probably think about a lot as a band, you just want to create music that YOU like and then hope to find an audience. But Alcatrazz never really found that audience. I found the band and listened to their albums on the back of knowing their lead vocalist from other bands I love, and their first two guitarists for the same reason. If you weren’t coming to the band for that..., what WERE you coming in for?! So surely really focusing on the background of those guys -Bonnet with Rainbow and MSG, and Yngwie and Vai as guitar gods – would have been the best option this band had going for it. And in places you can hear it on this album. Vai has some terrific solo spots in songs and comes up with some great riffs in others. Bonnet’s vocals for the most part settle into the style he thinks works, whereas something more like he had in the two bands I mentioned would probably have worked better.
My cassettes disappeared a long time ago, which is a shame because there were a lot of great albums in there that I know I owned and have now forgotten about. I have an mp3 version of this album that I did indulge in through the first decade of this century, but the past week has probably been the first time in 15 years that I have sat down and listened to this album again. And as it has been one of several albums I am currently listening to, it may not surprise you too much to know that even as I was doing my due diligence for this podcast episode, the last few times I have had this album on I have been waiting for it to end so I could listen to something else from very early on in the playing.
Take what you will from this review and episode, and from the album itself. As a piece of The Creation Of Me puzzle, it is but a small insignificant entry. But it is an album all the same that I have experienced in my life, and one that certainly doesn’t rank in either the all time greats for me, nor the all time stinkers. It’s ok. It is listenable. But the choice to listen to it now has only come from the outcome of this podcast. I am grateful for it, but happy to now move to the next episode thank you!