1291. Gogmagog / I Will Be There. 1985. 1/5

One of the most unusual and seemingly unlikely supergroups ever put together by anyone on the history of music is surely the tale of Gogmagog, the so-called brainchild of producer Jonathan King. King had had his own charting single back in 1965, and had been involved in producing bands such as Genesis, 10cc and the Bay City Rollers through the 1960’s and 1970’s. His list of credits in music is extensive, which eventually brought about this venture. But as will be shown, just what the actual end game was for this project is still a mystery.
According to several sources, originally King attempted to put together a supergroup revolving around then Whitesnake lead vocalist David Coverdale, bassist John Entwistle of The Who, and drummer Cozy Powell, all of whom were apparently keen on the project. It was initially imagined for a three track EP to be recorded and released. The lead song was set to be “I Will Be There”, a song composed by Russ Ballard and originally released by him on his solo album titled “Into the Fire” in 1981. Ballard had had a number of hit songs that he had written that were performed by other bands, including “Since You Been Gone” and “I Surrender” by Rainbow, “I Know There’s Something Going On” by ABBA member Frida, “So You Win Again” by Hot Chocolate, “You Can Do Magic” by America, and “New York Groove” and “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” which were covered by Ace Frehley and Kiss respectively. Cozy Powell said he thought that the Ballard song was "the best he's ever written". The other two tracks were composed by King himself, with the imaginative titles of "Living in a Fucking Time Warp" and "It's Illegal, It's Immoral, It's Unhealthy, But It's Fun", the second of which seems highly dubious considering that King was convicted of juvenile sexual abuse 15 years after this project for offences that occurred around this time.
Entwistle in particular was excited as the concept was apparently originally his idea. However, this early line-up wasn't working out, certainly according to later interviews with former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di'Anno, and all three soon bowed out. That meant that a new line up for the proposed supergroup had to occur, and that was where Di’Anno came in.
Whatever this supergroup was meant to be, after the departure of the original three participants it looked as though the idea was to find members who were in a similar genre of music to those that had left the building. And as it turned out, their time of recruiting members could not have come at a better time. Paul Di’Anno as vocalist had of course been moved on from Iron Maiden, and then the previous year had recorded his debut eponymous solo album, one where he had changed style completely and also refused to play Iron Maiden songs in his set list on tour. That lineup had now dissolved, and when this opportunity had come about it feels as though it would have been one he couldn’t refuse. In interviews since he has had very little to say about it, and what little that he did say was not complimentary. He was completely dismissive of both the group and producer, referring to the failed project as "...nothing. That was some fucking idiot who got us doing that shit." He was also critical of the fact that none of the band members were able to contribute to writing any of the songs, something that if this HAD gotten off the ground would have been interesting to see if that would have changed.

The rest of the band came together from a similar fate and set of circumstances. Drummer Clive Burr had also just recently felt the wrath of the Maiden machine, and while he had had brief stints with both Trust and Alcatrazz, he was at a loose end before this came along. Unlike his former Maiden partner, Burr was more bullish about the project, saying in a later interview that "the others may not admit it, but this is some of the best stuff any of us has done". Pete Willis had also felt the sting of rejection from Def Leppard, and came on board with all sorts of credits behind him to match his two Iron Maiden contemporaries. Joining him on guitar was Jannick Gers who had been a part of Ian Gillan’s band, and of course had a bright future ahead of him a little way down the road, and on bass guitar was Neil Murray, most recently from Whitesnake but with many credits under his belt. As a who’s who of the recently spurned from very prominent hard rock and heavy metal bands, it would be hard to beat.
As to the songs themselves, even for the time that this was released, it is very formulaic. The producer obviously has a reasonable CV behind him, and Ballad’s propensity for writing songs that made charts and hit the right places musically is unquestioned. But there is certainly nothing here that drags you in has you excited to hear what has been laid down. “I Will Be There” is not standing up against ANY of the songs being released in any hard rock or metal environment at the time and certainly isn’t fitting in with the pop scene at the time either. None of the players in this band does anything here that makes you think “Aaahhh yes, that’s what I remember from so-and-so!”. No guitar solo’s, no dynamic bass lines, no dramatic drum fills. Everything is as basic as it can get. Di’Anno sticks out the front of the mix, but while he is serviceable there’s nothing that is in anyway inspirational. Other bands have made more of Russ Ballard’s songs than this group does here. Perhaps that’s just because the wrong song was picked, or the band was held rigidly to what the producer wanted them to do. As to the other two songs composed by the producer... well, he obviously thought they were top notch tracks that would act as a complement to the main track. But we are stuck in the same situation. There is nothing here for the performers to really get their teeth into and offer their undoubted skills to give the tracks the heart starter they need. Lyrically, musically, they are just dead in the water. The constant over repeating of the song title in the second song is just painfully predictable. And about the only thing that is in any way interesting about the final track is the lyrics that say “Don't put that weed in your mouth, boy, Take that sweet young thing off your lap, If you survive this antisocial behaviour, You're going to have to face a long-term prison rap”. It seems that the producer and writer was self-predicting his own fate in the future with this track!
I only ever tracked down this EP for the interest in the performers. The fact that I hadn’t heard about it at the time it was released more or less led me to believe that it was not something that I needed to hear, but when you have the names of Di’Anno, Gers, Willis, Murray and Burr involved in a band together, it is pretty hard to ignore. So I tracked it down, and was about as underwhelmed as I expected I was going to be. There just wasn’t any chance this was going to be an undiscovered gem, even with Russ Ballard also being involved. Is it worth the time and effort to listen to it? It is like everything in music. Listening once won’t harm anyone. And no matter who you are it seems unlikely you will search it out too often after that. I haven’t. I did burn it to CD when I found it, and have it sitting on my shelves as a result, but if not for this podcast episode it is extremely unlikely it would ever have been utilised. Again. Which, as it turns out, it now the truth of the matter going forward.
Being little more than a contrivance concocted by producer Jonathan King, the band quickly fell apart once he lost interest in his own creation. The five members of the group parted to move on to other projects, some with far greater success than others. And this sunk back into the mists of time, only ever to be revived by some tinpot podcaster in 2025 for the sake of filling some airtime. Some completionists are just kidding themselves, aren’t they?

1042. Megadeth / Risk. 1999. 1/5

By the time 1999 had rolled around, there was still a simmering of the rift between Metallica and Megadeth that had stretched back to the day in 1983 that Dave Mustaine had been fired from the band and was forced to go out and start his own brand. Despite the wonderful and brilliant albums Megadeth had released over the following 15 years, Mustaine still seemed to feel as though he was in his former band’s shadow. However, in the previous five years, Metallica had gone rogue and released “Load” and “Reload”, albums that had certainly divided fan opinion with their very obvious refining of their sound. On the other hand, Megadeth’s releases “Youthanasia” and “Cryptic Writings” had garnered cautious praise for their songwriting and absorbing of the musical changes around them without losing the essence of the band’s own sound.
The arrival of Jimmy DeGrasso as the band’s new drummer following the firing of Nick Menza on the tour to promote their previous album was the only change to the outfit leading into their eighth studio album. The band spent six weeks writing the songs before spending another four months in the studio to record it. The question of why it took this long has a different answer depending on which band member was questioned. Guitarist Marty Friedman was a major influence on the direction the new album was to take, as he wanted to create some point of difference in their music and pushed the envelope a little. The record company also wanted to see the band offer it more opportunities for exposure on commercial radio, something the single “Trust” had done from the previous album. DeGrasso himself was up for a heavy album, not surprising considering the stuff he would have been playing on tour. Bass guitarist Dave Ellefson was quoted in an interview as saying that the band’s manager wanted them to release something that would have all of the other band out their smack their foreheads and proclaim ‘why didn’t we think of that?!’
While Metallica’s decision making at that time was obviously still extremely popular and profitable, something Mustaine constantly seemed to aspire to, for much of the Megadeth fan base, the continuity that the band had been able to bring to their albums over the years gave them a sense of comfort, and when the new album was announced the feeling of excitement came from the fact that yet another Megadeth barnstorming album was about to hit the shelves with more awesome tracks and headbanging material.

Error.

This album took massive liberties with the Megadeth sound and direction and entitling it “Risk” pretty much covered all the bases. Because it was a definite risk to mess around with what had worked for the band for such a long time, in order to gain more radio airplay or more widespread recognition.
From the opening of the album, there is a highly critical difference in what is offered than what had come on their previous albums. It’s industrial alt-rock mixed with lifeless rock ballads, songs that sound like they are either stretching for commercialism or for the alt-rock credibility stakes, where sales are the driving force but the ‘hey man – this is awesome’ call from the general public.
Now, if you just want to listen to this album and not expect anything from it, there are moments that are tolerable. If you close your eyes, and see mishmash of Nickelback and Creed up there trying to create a heavier sound than they normally do, you could probably get something out of this album. Beyond that... it’s a difficult listen if you turned up for a Megadeth album.
The first half of the album is tolerable. “Insomnia” is a mish mash of strings and screams and patchy lyrics that doesn’t allow you to bang along in time or even sing along to the lyrics, such is its structure. “Prince of Darkness” is a moody, building song but again doesn’t bring any great love to the table and it isn’t a pure heavy metal song. It has its moments where it comes into its own. “Crush ‘Em” has a vibe that you can tap along to, probably because Mustaine wanted this to be an arena anthem and be played around the world. You can hear how he crafted it to be just that. So it’s okay without being any more than a chanting tune, one you could possibly get on board cheering your team into the arena by. Maybe. And “Breadline” has a very mainstream sound to it, mostly lyrically as Dave decides to try and sing in a much softer tone than he normally does which is a dead ringer for that commercial bent. The single did well on American charts, but it just doesn’t do anything as a metal song in the slightest. But at least it isn't a power ballad.
But as for the rest? It doesn’t improve with age. “The Doctor is Calling” has pretty much nothing going for it. Dave chants along while the drums roll slowly and patiently and the guitars play some semblance of a tune before an almost-solo breaks out towards the end, but without any real energy at all. “I’ll Be There” for all intents and purposes IS that wretched power ballad that destroys all heavy music. As average as most of the songs are on this album this is still the one that sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it, and not in a positive fashion. This is the kind of song that could have destroyed Megadeth if it had had any kind of success, because then perhaps the band would have felt the need to keep writing songs like it. No, this is terrible. It is the antithesis of the great Megadeth songs Dave wrote of his ex-girlfriends, the songs that are the greatest in the Megadeth discography.
I can’t even describe the reaction I get when “Wanderlust” comes on. Just what exactly is being thought of in this song is beyond me. This is followed by “Ecstacy” which is the exact incorrect emotion I get listening to this song. It again has gone for a basic musical premise in riff and rhythm, with no excitement or energy appearing in any form. Terrible. There is even less to be said about the remainder of the album. “Seven” is a mirror image of the previous two songs, while the double track at the conclusions of the album, “Time: The Beginning” and “Time: The End” simply don’t carry their weight. The majority of the first track is acoustic based and without any great drive, while the second track is more electric but in such a mournful way that it becomes depressing to even get to the end of the album.

When this album was released, I was driving taxis as my main source of income back home in Kiama after five years living in Sydney, and I spent a LOT of time listening to it while I waited for fares in the middle of the night. I still remember the excitement I felt when it came out and I bought it, and the number of times I listened to it was astronomical. Because, you know, it’s Megadeth, right? It HAS to be good! And I continued to listen to it over and over again. And, after a few weeks of doing this, I finally began to question... is this a good album? Is it enjoyable? And I finally came to the conclusion that... no, it really was not good. Indeed, it was on such a different plane from what I was enjoying at that time of my life that it was hard to believe that this wasn’t very good, and that I was still wasting my time listening to it! But, in those pre-streaming days, that’s what you did, because you could only afford to buy a certain number of albums each year, and when you did, you needed to get your money's worth out of them. The final straw was swapping it in my taxi for Gamma Ray’s “Powerplant” album one day, and the amazing difference in quality relegated “Risk” to the CD shelves for a very very long time.
Are there any redeeming features on this album? My opinion is that it really doesn’t seem like it. The first half of the album, up until the end of “Breadline”, was eventually as far as I would get if I ever put this album on. It was the finish for me, because everything after this point has got nothing that interests me whatsoever. That’s not to say the first half was much better, but I can at least muddle my way through if it becomes necessary. And the fact is that most of the people involved in that album feel much the same way about it now. The title “Risk” apparently came about from a quote by Lars Ulrich, either in a magazine article or a TV interview, where he claimed that Mustaine and Megadeth had to take more risks with their music if they wanted to achieve the kind of success that Metallica had. Well thanks very much for that Lars, way to fuck up TWO bands for the price of one. With the disastrous direction (in my own opinion) Metallica had taken on their last two studio albums “Load” and “Reload”, the announcement of a new Megadeth album had been a welcome relief. It was a great feeling to know that I could expect more of the same from this band, that no matter how bad things were getting, there was no way Megadeth could record an album as uninteresting and boring as “Reload”. Wrong.
Dave Mustaine was apparently quoted as saying “If anyone else’s name was on the cover of this album, it would have sold”. So on a couple of occasions I have put this album on, and just listened, not letting any judgement on the name of Megadeth enter what I’m listening to, just to see if I would enjoy the album as something someone had put on and asked me to listen to it and judge it without knowing who the band was. It did not improve. I have listened to this album a lot over the past month, because it is Megadeth and I needed to know if there could be any change to the way I feel about this album. There is not.
The fact that this was Marty Friedman’s final album with Megadeth was both sad and probably welcome. His own path was leading in a different direction and he needed to take that on his own. For Megadeth, the path that this album took was probably not repeated, but that didn’t mean that there were not albums beyond this that were not questionable when it came to their output.

792. Michael Kiske / Instant Clarity. 1996. 1/5

There was always going to be an element of ridicule in going into tracking down, purchasing and then listening to this album. It's like watching a movie and knowing how it is going to end, but you watch it anyway, because there is always that chance that you could be mistaken, and it could end a different way. Michael Kiske was a known quality. The brilliant lead singer who presided over arguably Helloween's two finest albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I and Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II, and then was heavily involved in the writing and performing of arguably their two worst albums, Pink Bubbles Go Ape and Chameleon. It was following Chameleon that he was fired from Helloween, and he publicly divulged his abhorrence of heavy metal as a medium, and wanted to hide as far away from it as he possibly could. Thus is the double-edged sword of buying Instant Clarity - you want to hear work from this marvellous singer, but you just know that in all probability it is going to be absolute rubbish.
Guess what?! This is EXACTLY how you expect this album to be if you weighed up all of the factors above. This is Michael's first solo album, and the songs range in style from the boring and predictable to the astoundingly bizarre. Ballads and slow songs abound, causing writhing on the floor and gagging and the odd moment of 'Exorcist' vomiting whilst they assault your senses.

The opening track "Be True to Yourself" I guess is a metaphor for Michael's new-found desire to no longer be "metal". This track emphasises this to a point, being a very dull and boring soft rock sachet of his feelings. However, as if to counter this, we immediately clamber into "The Calling", which not only was co-written by (at the time formerly of ) Iron Maiden's Adrian Smith, it features him on guitar as well, and suddenly the whole tempo of the album is lifted. This is a much better song, with Michael's vocals soaring over a heavier guitar riff and drum beat, and enhanced by a great guitar solo in the middle. Great stuff! So unexpected, and so very appreciated! However, we come screaming back to earth with "Somebody Somewhere", with a dreadfully boring, completely awful, moaning and whining soft rock ballad type song that erases all merit within the first few bars, and does not lift above that again during the course of the song. Oh, but do you think that's bad? Well, take a listen to "Burned Out", which continues down that same path, and yet manages to even out do the previous song with awfulness. So this is what Michael's vision of music was, that which dragged Chameleon into one of the most disappointing albums I have ever bought? Wow. This really is just... unbelievable.
You wonder then how you can then come up with the next song, "New Horizons". Co-written again with Adrian Smith, but also here with former band mate Kai Hansen. After two songs that made me feel my life was seeping away from me, this clicks straight back into gear, and brings a close approximation of metal back to the album. It isn't as 'metal' as "The Calling", but the solo break is a dream, picking out both guitarists solo's is just so easy, and both are brilliant. It's like chalk and cheese between these two tracks and everything else on the album, and an indication of what we may have gotten a few years before this. What a shame.  "Hunted" seems to have a bit of this harder stuff seep into it just from being placed next to it on the album, and is much more listenable because of it.
"Always" is a dreadful piano based ballad, something that does not appeal to me in almost any form. It is written and dedicated to the memory of former Helloween drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, who had committed suicide the previous year. For that, I am willing to forgive this song its liberties. "Thanx a Lot!" has Michael using effects on his vocals. Why does Michael Kiske need effects on his vocals?! Madness. "Time's Passing By" is very AOR oriented, utilising acoustic and clean guitar most of the way through, thus shunting any hint of power out of the song. There are so many styles being utilised here it's hard to keep track. I don't know what "So Sick" is. Is it a carnival song? Is it a way for the band to have one song that stands out from the pack in a slightly different, interesting manner? I'm not sure. It's different in a stylistic way, and Michael goes with the effects on his vocals again, but not in a way that would be regarded as memorable in a good way. Then, to close out this boredom-fest in style, we have the ten-and-a-half minute ballad "Do I Remember a Life?", which drags on interminably, never really sure when or if it wants to end. Great gosh almighty, it takes a certain amount of courage and will power to hang in for the entire song.

Like I said at the start, I knew what I was in for when I went in to this. It was only in the hope that I could find something out of the ordinary, something unexpected, that I made the effort to find this and listen to it. And to be honest, both "The Calling" and "New Horizons" were enough to say that it wasn't a complete waste of time to track it down. And it was nice to have a song that was dedicated to the memory of Ingo. But the rest really does belong in the crap bucket of easy listening soft rock or something of the sort. Without those two songs, this could well have been a zero.

Rating:  The further you get the more you use it up.  1/5

Listen to full album here

787. Brides of Destruction / Runaway Brides. 2005. 1/5

Having been drawn in to buying the first album, Here Come the Brides, by the lure of a project containing Nikki Sixx, John Corabi and Traci Guns, and having been unsatisfied completely by the results of said album, I approached this follow up release, Runaway Brides, with a positivity I probably didn’t completely believe. Nikki had moved on, and whilst the debut had its moments, could the sophomore release build on that? Or would it fail dismally to live up to any type of expectation? Sadly, in the long run, it is the second thought that dominates this release.

My greatest problem with this album is the lack of vitality in the music. At least there were songs on the debut that were up tempo numbers, ones you could drum along to on the table or air guitar along to. For the most part, Runaway Brides plods along at an interminable tempo with little to be joyous about I any form. If the band was looking for a latter day grunge of morbidity, then they have succeeded. But why would you head in this direction? Like so many ‘project’ bands, I guess you generally only do them to indulge in music that is different from what your main focus is. So, if you come looking for a Motley Crue/L.A. Guns knock off here you aren’t going to find it. What we do have here is some slow, grinding, passionless drivel, from the somewhat pointless intro of “Aunt Biente” which then moves straight into “Lord of the Mind” with its moaning monologue and motionless music, all the way through to “Dimes in Heaven” which with its grunge guitar riff that a thousand bands have played in the 90’s and lacklustre vocal performance isn’t sure whether it should be a punk or hardcore extravagance. Between these two extremities of the album there is some rather more ordinary material, with a couple of songs that break the mould and could be classed as ‘not as bad as the other tripe’. “Criminal” is awful. Truly, some of these songs sound like garage band demos, ones that have just been thrown together and then put on a disc. “White Trash” and “Brothers” especially sound like this.

There’s no a lot of doubt why this was the Brides’ last album. Sure, Traci went on to re-form one version of L.A. Guns, but this album and the material within just isn’t very good at all. Some may say it is vile crap. More is the pity after the promise of some songs on the first album. None of that promise appears here.

Rating:  And I’ll never say never again. Well, something like that.  1/5

Listen to full album here

663. Queensryche featuring Geoff Tate / Frequency Unknown. 2013. 1/5

Whichever way you choose to look at the problems that have beset the band once known as Queensryche - be it the last 12 months, the last five years, the last fifteen years - this album becomes 50% of the way to put the controversy to bed once and for all.
Whether you believe this is a 'real' Queensryche album by the 'real' Queensryche is not particularly relevant. What is true is that this album is written by the same writers that have produced the majority of the songs from the last three Queensryche albums, those being Operation: Mindcrime II, American Soldier and Dedicated to Chaos. So with that being the case, it is the opportunity for Geoff Tate and band to make a statement, and show the world exactly what their vision is for their brand of the Queensryche name.
Well, you probably know how the story turns out without even having to read any more of this review. In simple terms, if you enjoyed those three aforementioned albums, you will most likely find something here that you will enjoy. If you felt that, for the most part, those three albums were the shite topping on the pile of vile excrement that has been Queensryche's career for the past decade, then you will not be brought out of your disappointment haze with this release.

There was a little promise early on. The first single "Cold" is slightly catchy if not blessed with anything memorable in the speed or musical departments. What is problematic is that you are already bored with the album halfway through this song. That's right people, from the opening riff I had hopes, and then less than 90 seconds later I was struggling.
Many of the songs lyrically seem to be referencing the demolition of this band's relationships from twelve months ago, which is not a bad situation to try and draw some inspiriation to make an album. Hell, Masterplan's eponymous debut a decade ago did it brilliantly. But here the lyrics appear mostly childish, sloppy, and far too repetitive in many cases to make any effect except to make you feel like asking him to get off the case. "Dare" does this, it just goes on too long to enjoy. "Give It to You" is the first real indication that nothing is going to change musically from the last couple of albums. The songs have the same grunge guitar and maudlin pace and whining vocals that cruelled those records. When Geoff is crooning "How do you like me so far?" you can hear millions of people giving him the answer that he probably doesn't want to hear.

Not everything is a dead loss here, but it is only the occasional interjections from guest musicians that are the highlights. K.K. Downing's guitar solo in "Running Backwards" is the best moment of the album - that's how striking it is when it rips in to save what is, apart from that, a very average song. Paul Bostaph's drumming also kicks in this. It must be the most damning indictment on an album and its writing when the best moments I can find are the guest guitar solos by guys like Ty Tabor ("Everything"), K.K, Dave Meniketti ("Fallen"), Brad Gillis ("Life Without You") and Chris Poland ("The Weight of the World").
It's also amusing listening to the songs, and on some the bass or the keyboards suddenly seem to be a lot clearer and much more forward in the mix. A quick check of the credits leads to the fact that on those particular songs, Jason Slater is playing those instruments. Seems as though the producer/recorder/mixer (Jason Slater) felt that these needed to be highlighted in these songs.

But just when you thought it was all over, the record company insists that Tate-Ryche re-record four of their songs from their greatest era so that they can tack them on at the end, no doubt as a money spinning opportunity. They apparently also wanted them to sound as close to the original versions as possible. Now, in reality, Geoff should have said no to this request. Why? Because they sound AWFUL, and all they prove is how good these songs and the band was two deacdes ago, and just how much tate's voice is floundering at this point of his career. These versions are just an embarrassment, and if his former band mates actually bother to listen to all of this then I think they will feel very comfortable with their decision from twelve months ago to part ways, for many reasons.

I went into this with an openmind, hoping it would be good. I don't think there can be two bands with the same name, that has to be sorted out. But there is no reason why both bands cannot exist with their seperate futures. What this album does is irrevocably proves who has been in control of the past decade of Queensryche's career, and that I cannot continue down that path. Whether I can continue down the path with the other three-quarters of the band will only be answered once their album comes forth in a few months.

626. Queensrÿche / American Soldier. 2009. 1/5

Given the improved success of their obvious attention-grabbing previous album, the sequel named Operation: Mindcrime II the writing core of the Queensrÿche band obviously decided that they were on a roll, and that the next step was... another concept album. Because lightning always strikes twice, or three times. No... wait...

Anyway, this is the direction they went in. That's fine. Nothing wrong with having a theme or story running through an album. More important of course is that the creative process is in place, and that the lyrics are sustainable, and that the music itself is enjoyable to the fans. In pretty much every one of these facets, this album falls apart, and badly. There is nothing particularly wrong with the concept, that being focused on the events of war in general, but American Soldier is a flawed concept in all areas of song writing. The songs all struggle their way through at a melancholy, even funereal pace. Lyrically it just seems to repeat itself over and over. Songs are permeated with the interviews of actual soldiers, which is fine if you want to listen to actual soldiers giving their own stories. Honestly, in a song-listening mood, they are just a hinderance. Or in most cases this would be true, but when you have the unimaginative instrumental creations that you have here it doesn't really detract that much. Why would you create such boring, banal music which creates no enthusiasm for the listener? As I said, it is all and fine to set out a story within the framework of an album, but if the music does not inspire or enthuse or ROCK the listener, then how can you possibly hope to retain your fan base?!

The music here is definitely leaning towards a grunge element. In many places it sounds like Soundgarden or Nirvana or Alice in Chains - but without their killer hooks and sponteneity. This just plods along from song to song, barely discernable from one to the next, and not really giving you any real motivation to even try and make the effort to find out. Where are the brilliant duelling guitars that punctuated Queensryche's earlier work? Where is the scintillating drumwork that drove the songs, not just kept a solemn beat in the background? They may as well have had a drum machine in the background for all the use they get out of Scott Rockenfield. Why is this happening? What has caused this enormous change in focus direction with this band's music? There is simply nothing here to get enthused about musically or lyrically.

I revisited this because of the recent break-up within the Queensryche band, and the rhetoric that is going back and forth as to whom was responisble for the direction of the music in the band and who was writing what. No matter what the outcome, it is obvious that this album at least was driven forward by Geoff Tate and his co-writers, who are not a part of the band.
In the long run, this album is just a major disappointment and completely out of synch with the best music that this band has written and performed at its peak. There is no doubt that Tate's voice is still just wonderful, and that the msuicianship is crisp and clear. The songwriting is just of such a boring and uninspiring standard that it is difficult to believe this is the product of the Queensryche brand. Something needs to change if they are to rediscover their mojo, or they will be left to wallow in mediocrity forever.

625. Edguy / Age of the Joker. 2011. 1/5

With Tobias Sammet bouncing between engagements with Edguy, and with the success of the expansionistic episodes of Avantasia's The Wicked Symphony and  Angel of Babylon as well as the live tour and album that followed, it was always going to be interesting to see what he had left in the tank inspiration-wise for his number one act. Not only whether it could live up to what Edguy had done in the past, but whether it could pull itself out of the massive shadow that the multi-starred Avantasia was casting.

What they were thinking when they put "Robin Hood" as the lead-off song here though, I have no idea. This was also the single lifted from the album (albeit a radio friendly 4 minute version), but at over eight minutes in length it is about five minutes too long. It could have had the chaff sifted out and shortened significantly to make it a more appealing song. This song also enhances the opinion that the band has left behind the power metal of wonderful albums like Mandrake and Hellfire Club and progressed closer towards a rock direction.
"Nobody's Hero" is like a throwaway song, something written as a B-side of a single, not the second song of a major album. "Rock of Cashel" sounds like it is trying to be a Blind Guardian song, without the pace and power of a Blind Guardian song. It is quite bland and uninteresting while bringing in the mandolins to try and create an old medievil fair sound. Not good. 
More is to come. The steel guitars come out in "Pandora's Box", which, seriously, should never appear in a song by a power metal band. It just isn't right at all, and while experimentation is fine, surely not in this way. A power metal ballad featuring steel and slide guitars makes this a dreadfully awful track with no redeeming features.
"Breathe" tries to come back to something close to Edguy's classic speed and power metal roots, before the almost gagworthy soft rock ballad "Two Out of Seven" drags the album back into the sickly mire of mediocrity. Is this all Tobi has left? It is repulsive.
"Faces in the Darkness" tries hard to restore some semblance of order but is still too close to the previous song to really enjoy. Finally, "The Arcane Guild" comes, bringing a pacey guitar riff and vocals that more closely resemble the Edguy of old. This is the pick of the album by a country mile.
Of course, it was too good to last, and "Fire on the Downline", despite great vocals from Tobi, is just another power rock ballad with little substance or heart, as if the guitar section of the band had been completely forgotten about.
"Behind the Gates to Midnight World" isn't a completely lost cause, and it does have its moments, though it isn't able to hold onto its momentum all the way through. However, all this is offset by the lacklustre and weak effort of "Every Night Without You". The closing song on the album is a close fought tussle of worst ever Edguy song. This is pretty much like a really awful Bryan Adams ballad, except that the Bryan Adams ballad would be better than this piece of shite. Truly, truly awful uninspiring crap.

I was so looking forward to this album when it was released, and have rarely been as let down by an album as I was by Age of the Joker. As a power metal band from the continent, Edguy has been one of the leaders in the first half of the previous decade. In recent times they have slipped a little, and whether that can be attributed to the amount of time their leader has spent with his 'side project', and that his creative juices have been used more thoroughly on Avantasia than Edguy is perhaps up in the air. Whatever the reason, this isn't what I was looking for nor hoping for from a band who I have a lot of time and respect for.

484. Hellyeah / Hellyeah. 2007. 1/5

Following the demise of Damageplan after the murder of Dimebag Darrell, from the ashes came drummer Vinnie Paul’s new project Hellyeah.
Now nu-metal is not my perfect cup of tea, and while there are certainly things to like about this album, I think it falls short on too many issues.
For a start – it isn’t unique. That’s not an inherently bad thing, but originality does help in new bands. This sounds like a thousand other bands out there. The similarity of the songs also creates some confusion when trying to decipher which song you are listening to. Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as long as you can pull it off and make it your own. That isn’t the case here.

Indeed, I would back most schoolboy garage bands in the modern day to be able to come out and write and play stuff just like this, and in some cases probably even better it. There is nothing spectacular in the guitars, or the drums, or the vocals, or the lyrics. Kids in the garage would probably play something more inspired.

Rating: Lackluster and without any hooks. 1/5.

475. Cinderella / Heartbreak Station. 1990. 1/5

A hair metal band that wants to be a country and western band? An interesting career choice, I would have thought. Send in the steel guitars, bring in the piano. It’s all here, and it’s all a bit of a change.

Though I was never a huge Cinderella fan, this album surprised me with what seems to be a huge change in direction musically. Honestly, when you first put on the album, and “The More Things Change” starts, you would dead set start looking at the CD cover to see why you had put on a rockabilly country album.
So what was the reasoning behind this? I don’t know, I must admit. But it isn’t one of my favoured genres of music, and therefore this album really doesn’t rate at all. I guess, in a morbid kind of way, I can listen to this and try to appreciate it for what it is, like for instance Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues. But it really doesn’t appeal to me at all, and I wonder (still) why they went in this direction.

Rating: No, no, no… this just isn’t right… 1/5.

434. Gene Simmons / Gene Simmons. 1978. 1/5

In 1978, Kiss and their management, in their wisdom, decided that each member of the band would record and release a solo album, with all four to be released on the same day. It had been mandated in the band’s contract, but the recording and releasing all at once was apparently not specified. None of the members were to be involved in the other’s albums, this was a chance for each member to express themselves in their own way. The style of all four solo albums were completely different from each other, which could be seen to be either a good move to be that counterpoint to the main band’s normal sound, or one that maybe went too far.
The album to be recorded and released by Gene Simmons always had the ability to be the most interesting of the quartet, depending on what attitude Gene went into the project with. His contributions to the other band both in the writing of songs and the ones he contributed lead vocals were often the ones that were the different, interesting tracks of the albums they released. Songs such as “Cold Gin” (written by Ace but sung by Gene), “Deuce”, “Rock n Roll All Nite”, “God of Thunder” and “Calling Dr Love” were examples of great songs that were different from their usual modus operandi, and it was that kind of thing that had the potential to provide a great album. In particular, my guess is that the fans of the day were looking for a real hard rock album from Gene, reflecting those harder songs where he gives that more intense performance like “God of Thunder” and “Deuce”, where his presence could be felt through the speakers as the songs rumbled out at them. What they received instead was something that perhaps no one could have expected.

There is quite the mixture of tracks here on Gene’s version of his solo album, perhaps more so than any of the other three releases in this regard. Firstly, Gene has brought in a number of special guests to help him out. This is introduced from the opening track “Radioactive” which was also the single released from the album. Aerosmith’s Joe Perry plays guitar on the song, with Bob Segar lends backing vocals. Helen Reddy provides backing vocals on the song “True Confessions”, and Donna Summer does the same on “Burning Up with Fever” and “Tunnel of Love”, while Eric Troyer from ELO adds keyboards in the opening track and also “Living in Sin”. Secondly, and in addition to this, he has brought in a whole slew of backup singers to flesh out the vocals behind his own lead vocals to help compensate that his is without having his usual three bandmates to do this. Thirdly, he involved the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras to help him out, in particular with the arrangements of two tracks. “Man of 1000 Faces” has it more of a background piece rather than overly dominating the song but it does give it the air of a more diverse track as a result. Meanwhile the cover that concludes the album of the Disney track “When You Wish Upon a Star” utilises it much more. It seems like a really strange idea, but Gene is quoted as saying that he had always related to the song, and with his love of Disney movies he wante to do his own version.
The songs "Burning Up with Fever", "Man of 1000 Faces" and "True Confessions" were all songs that Gene had written for the “Destroyer” sessions, and all of which were apparently vetoed by producer Bob Ezrin at the time. Of the three, “Burning Up with Fever” sounds closest to the sound that Kiss may have used. “True Confessions” here has a reworked sound that almost makes it like a gospel church song, with the choir vocals as backups and the tinkling piano throughout the song.
As to the other songs themselves, there is an eclectic mix in styles. “See You Tonite” tries to be a middle of the road pop rock song that sounds like it is an attempt at 70’s radio commercialism, despite not being released as a single. It had also been demoed with Gene’s other band a couple of years earlier. “Tunnel of Love” is a typical Simmons ditty where the sexual innuendo of the title is exactly as you would expect. “Living in Sin” does the same, with an overbearing repeating of the chorus “I’m living in sin, at the Holiday Inn”. No worries Gene, we get the message. "Always Near You / Nowhere to Hide" goes down the same path as “See You Tonite”, with Gene going falsetto towards the end of the song, and “Mr Make Believe” is of the same ilk, again utilising the strings that several of the track here do. The other track on the album is “See You in My Dreams”, the Kiss song from their previous album “Rock and Roll Over” which Gene re-recorded because he didn’t like the way it had been done on that album. As a result, it becomes almost the best song on the album, simply because it really is an actual Kiss track and not a solo composition by one of the four members.

Despite my enjoyment of Kiss, I did not hear any of these four solo albums until about 20 years ago. I just felt no compunction to go and find them and listen to them. I didn’t know anyone who owned them, so it wasn’t until the years of downloading that I decided to get around to checking them out.
When I first listened to this album, I was really just confused. There were some good hard rock tracks here, but there were also songs here that would be classed as close to soft rock ballads, actually the kind of songs that Peter Criss would sing in the other band. And for me that didn’t sit right. The fact there was a lot of strings and piano come into play on songs as well, had me in a position that I was unable lock in to the album as a whole, to find where its centre was, and to find a way to actually enjoy it.
So we come to 45 years after the release of the album, and about 20 years after I first listened to it. I have spent about two weeks listening to this album pretty much once or twice every day, and while for the most part it still doesn’t grab me, I have at least come to terms with the different style of songs that are gathered here, and been able to reconcile that, as a solo album that was more for the artist to express themselves in a different way than they may have been able to in the band, it probably fills that quota. And it is different, not to the extent that Peter Criss went with his album, but certainly in a way that for the most part you can be sure this isn’t a Kiss album. Indeed, having had a number of tracks on this album that were eventually rejected for a Kiss album, and one song from an actual Kiss album that was redone here because Gene had been unhappy with the original version, then this can be seen as close to the second level Kiss album that many people had actually been hoping for from this solo project project. Does it convince me to go out and buy a copy of this album, even just for the purpose of completing my Kiss release collection? Absolutely not. Does it convince me that I need to listen to this album more in the future? Absolutely not. But... at least I have given this album a very fair second hearing some 20 years on, to see if I had made any errors in my thoughts from when I first listened to this album all those years ago. On his occasion at least, I had not.

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.

345. Alcatrazz / Dangerous Games. 1986. 1/5.

Following the departure of Steve Vai to join David Lee Roth’s solo gig, Alcatrazz hired guitarist Danny Johnson to record Dangerous Games, an unsightly blemish on the world of hard rock/heavy metal music. All pretence at being in this genre of music has been scrubbed away on this release, and they have obvious tried to go for the big 1980’s pop power hit, and failed dismally even at that. They are not the only band that has fallen for that trap (Def Leppard in the past two decades come to mind), but this is incredibly disappointing considering the start they had, and the musicians who have been in the band.
Graham Bonnet has a great rock voice. His work with Rainbow and Michael Schenker Group is outstanding. Here however he has sunk to new depths, and there is nothing even remotely interesting on this album. It is truly cruddy, awful stuff – cringe-worthy even.
It is no surprise the band went their separate ways following this album. There was obviously no future. What a shame.

Rating: As poor a release as there was during the 1980’s. 1/5.

209. Gary Moore / Dark Days In Paradise. 1997. 1/5.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! ANOTHER GARY MOORE BLUES ALBUM!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating : 1/5. For musicianship.

200. Alice Cooper / Da Da. 1983. 1/5.

Oh. My. God.
WHAT was going on here?!?!

Seriously – I cannot imagine what was being thought when this was written and recorded. This is one of the most famous bands/vocalists/personalities in the history of music, and this is one steaming pile of crap.
I don't like to be that harsh, but it really is ordinary. Toward the end of the album, there are a couple of songs that show the real Alice, but it doesn't come anywhere near making up for what came before it.

Rating : YIKES! 1/5.

168. KISS / Carnival Of Souls. 1997. 1/5.

Can someone explain to me WHAT this crap is?!?
This was dubbed “The Final Sessions”, but the final sessions of what?

This is as ordinary a release as I have obtained in my years of music. What these four guys were doing when this was recorded and released I have no idea. At one stage they even appear to be trying to rip off Alice In Chains – and failing!

Why? Why? WHY!!

Rating : So close to getting a half it isn't funny. 1/5.

143. Gary Moore / Blues For Greeny. 1996. 1/5.

Look, I'm sorry, OK? I just can't get into this.
Blues. So why have I got it? Because Gary Moore plays on it, and sometimes you just hope he's going to do something again that is brilliant to my ears.

Rating : This isn't it... 1/5.

130. Lita Ford / Black. 1995. 1/5.

Having begun her career in the band “The Runaways” when she was 16 years old, Lita Ford has fought not only to be a female rock vocalist and guitarist in a male dominated profession, but also for relevance in an ever changing industry. Having released two solo albums that touched the edges of the charts in the US, her breakthrough came with the album titled “Lita” in 1988, guided by her new management team headed by Sharon Osbourne. The album was perfect for the time, hair and glam metal based with Lita as the front woman, with a little help in the writing department from Motely Crue’s Nikki Sixx and the pairing of Ozzy Osbourne with her for the power ballad duet “Close My Eyes Forever” which made the top ten in the US.
With exposure assured, Lita’s next two albums, “Stiletto” in 1990 and “Dangerous Curves” in 1991 failed to find their mark. Several reasons could be put forward for this – the changing musical landscape, also the already saturated market the hair/glam metal genre found itself in at the time – it felt that it was simply that Lita and her music were unable to find its niche and therefore its mainstream audience.
It was during this time that Lita had a short-term relationship with W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, to whom she was married for a very short time. Following this divorce she met former Nitro lead vocalist Jim Gillette, whom she married after they had known each other for only two weeks. Her record company had dropped her after the lacklustre performance of her previous two albums, and she eventually found a contract with ZYX Music, a German record label that specialised in disco, early house music, and 1990s techno music. With her frequent writing partner Michael Dan Ehmig in tow, Lita went about the process of writing for a new album in the second half of 1994 before heading to the studio with Larry 'Bones' Dennison on bass and Rodger Carter on drums. With Lita performing all lead vocals and all guitars for the album, they came up with the album “Black”, released on 14 February of 1995, Valentine’s Day for some, but in this case into an environment that seemed as hostile and bleak as the name of the album itself.

Right from the start of the album, you notice that this isn’t the usual fare from Lita. Her albums have always been upbeat, more hair and pop metal than anything else, vocalising on fun and partying and yes boys. From the outset, that has been pretty much eradicated from the arsenal.
“Black” immediately sounds a lot like P.J. Harvey in both sound and vocally, the grungier guitar toning down Lita’s usual upbeat fun attitude in the songs and drawing on the darker tones that come through in the grunge era. And in this instance, I don’t mind because I quite like P.J. Harvey as an artist. But initially it was a difficult thing to get past, the change in the sound of this album to just about everything else she had ever done. There’s a lot going on in the lyrics too, with lines such as “Is it the shame that burns your soul? Is it the fear you can't control? Is it the night that won't let go?” and “Is it the shame that drives you back? Is it the train that jumps the track, just as you're slipping through the cracks?” Lita isn’t mucking around here, dragging some very dark tones into cold light, and the mood of the track suggests either she is following the musical tones of the time, or she has some heavy shit going on in her life.
“Fall” follows up in the same dark slow tempo as the opening track, bass heavy and almost moaning vocals from Lita, and again the lyrics suggest a tale of dark and hard times – ‘everybody’s got to fall’, ‘show me a reason for anything I see’. So far, drowning in bad sentiments. And then comes “Loverman”, a song that musically at least shows a bit more upbeatedness though still in a blues acoustic based style that keeps the mood on the south side of positiveness. Lita is positively badgering the named Loverman with questions as to would she stay with him even if she was to be in the worst of places, no doubt physically but mentally. The blues solo through to the end of the track suggests the worst if he was allowed to answer. While the opening track had a more unique feel to it, the two follow ups overstay their welcome time wise and musically.
“Killin’ Time” tries to bring that mid-90’s grunge guitar into the power ballad along with keys in snatches through the song. Lita as an artist has lived off these kinds of songs, but they were of the 80’s hair metal style. This 90’s grunge-ified attempt on the same subject matter falls very flat. Following this comes “Hammerhead”, a song name that should make you sit up and expect something on a much harder and heavier scale. Lyrically it tries to mirror Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, as portrayed by lines such as “Now he's lost within his madness, And more and more each day, The metal man turns his hand, To the price the world must pay”. But the song isn’t metal, it is the same deathly slow tempo grunge-alt style that every band was doing in the day, and most a lot better than this. Whoever listened to this stuff and gave it the green light needs a savage kick to the head. There is some potential in these songs, but it is left unrealised.
“Boilin’ Point” is the first song on the album that sounds like a Lita Ford song. The pace of the track, the power and energy in the vocals and guitar, is the template of her best songs, and that is all encompassed in this track. There’s no doubt that the change in the definition of her music to this point of the album is directly correlating to the time it was written and recorded, but as a fan I feel more of this would have been more beneficial than the direction of the first half of the album. And just as a spoiler alert here, it is the only song on the album that actually has the typical and best-known Lita Ford sound about it. So be prepared for what follows.
“Where Will I Find My Heart Tonight” is another dark themed power ballad with the blues grunge sound that proliferates this album. There is almost a country twang to it as well, so Lita is beginning to play all sides of the street on the album. There’s no problem with expressing deep seated feelings on an album – hell, Taylor Swift has raked in billions doing it – but the tone is killing this album as an enjoyable commodity. Then we have “War of the Angels”. It seems to have a twofold meaning – the obvious is the desperation of a young woman who eventually resorts to a firearm to try and solve her problems, but also metaphorically it seems to be describing Lita’s own fight against hope and despair in her own life. Almost the theme of the entire album in fact. The song “Joe” follows and harks on the same themes of whimsical memories of the past and the thoughts that wish that things had turned out differently. Musically the tones have a very bluesy scale with the grungy style of the day of bands like Garbage and Hole, but without the energy those bands possess. These songs through the middle of the album are not unpleasant, but they do take some time to get used to if you are a fan of Lita’s earlier work.
A new trio of songs appear to close out the album, with a whole different style about them. “White Lightnin’” is pure blues with slide guitar and harmonica, and Lita back belting out lyrics in a more typical fashion. The blues signature here though is significant and dominant. The instrumental “Smokin’ Toads” is an extension of the previous song, another pure blues track again with the atypical blues riff of the guitar. There is little doubt by now that this is the direction Lita wanted to follow, as this is purely credited to her. Then to complete the trilogy set, the album closer “Spider Monkeys” stays in the exact same moment, such that you can picture yourself in one of those underground blues nightclubs with a smoke haze and bourbon being drunk by the vat full, the blues guitar and keyboard riffing off against each other, and the crooner of the vocals being the young lady with her name on the cover of the album. It also extends out forever in a freeform style that the blues lovers to do, stretching out to almost seven minutes in length which really does outstay its welcome.

I guess my question to Lita after listening to this the first few times wo9uld have been... “What the hell were you thinking!!” Because the album, though ties together, has at least four different styles of songs throughout, which seem to be combined into sections or suites. There are the almost country twangs and ballady notes of "Loverman" and "Killin' Kind", the bluesy "Smoking Toads" and "Spider Monkeys", the grunge of "Hammerhead" and the desolation and desperation of “Where Will I Find My Heart Tonight” and “War of the Angels”. It is only on "Boilin' Point" that Lita fires up with anything like her old hard rocking self, but even this song is punctuated with a harmonica solo that tries to turn it into a different style right before your ears. There is no continuity with the songs on this album. Generally when you buy an album, you know the kind of style the music will be and can be comfortable with that. Here, Lita is obviously trying to do something different, to extend herself, but by melding sounds into her songs that are most unlike what she has produced in the past, it makes this an unusual album to get your head around. I have wondered in the past if this is what other fans think as well?
The best way I can explain it to a person who doesn’t know Lita Ford’s work well is to say that this album “Black” compared to her most famous hair metal and popular album “Lita” is like comparing Iron Maiden’s “The X Factor” of this same era to their most famous album of the late 80’s era “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son”, when it comes to the tone and darkness of the music. It is a massive change in album’s structure and strengths, as there was on those two Maiden albums - but there is no change of lead singer here for Lita Ford for the fans to lay the blame on.
I did not hear this album until the early 2000’s, for several reasons, mainly because I had been less attracted to Lita’s pervious two albums before this one, and I felt my money (once I had that opportunity) would be better spent somewhere else. And my initial reaction is probably very close to everyone else at the time – I just didn’t handle the big change in style. I listened a few times and then moved on. Very probably, the only time I have listened to the album since has been over the past few weeks. It was an album that when I saw its anniversary was upon us, I seriously thought about just bypassing and going on to the next one. But that’s not how this podcast operates, and so back into the rotation it went. And my initial reaction again were much the same. But once I got serious enough to be sitting down to really review the album, I began to see my prejudices. Okay, this is basically a blues grunge rock album, no two ways about it. So treat it at such and see if you can find what you like about it. Okay, probably still not a lot, but it isn’t a terrible album. What disappoints me most about it is that Lita was obviously not in a great space when she wrote and recorded it, and that comes across in spades. And to me that’s what holds this album back more than the overall push to blues grunge music. Lyrically it speaks volumes of her headspace, and while for some people that can create amazing albums that doesn’t happen here. I’ve listened to this 15 times in this cycle, and at the end I haven’t minded having it on. How I really notice how far back in the queue it is, is by what I listen to next. And almost without exception, the next thing has been better, because my mood isn’t dragged into the depths of despair by listening to it.
As you may have imagined, when ranking Lita’s eight solo studio albums, this one comes in at 8, but perhaps not by as far as it might sound.
This was Lita’s last album for 14 years, though that came from marrying (again) and raising two boys. Better was to come after that break, though it would take more unhappy family stories to bring back the rock chick that we all knew and loved.

98. Gary Moore / Ballads & Blues, 1982-1994. 1995. 1/5.

OK, look...this is getting ridiculous. How many Blues bloody albums did this guy do? I don't know, and I've probably got all of them!!

This hits release seems to me like an excuse to re-introduce Parisienne Walkways to another generation.

No need to go any further with this. It's average. Some may like it. I am OVER it!!!

Rating : I may be poorly biased in this respect. 1/5.

64. John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess / An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess. 2004. 1/5

Well, this certainly wasn't what I expected. I was hoping for some drilling solos and fast driving music. Instead, what you get here is mainly classical.
And don't get me wrong. What they play is brilliant. There is no doubt both are brilliant musicians, who are just unbelievable at what they do.

The problem here is – I was expecting something completely different when I acquired it.
And even now, listening to it again, and knowing what it was, I was unable to like it.

Rating : Ooooohhh...nasty. 1/5.

44. Stryper / Against The Law. 1990. 1/5.

For the previous five or so years prior to this album coming out, Stryper had found a way to place themselves in a happy medium, in a place that seemed to work perfectly. Overtly Stryper was a Christian rock band. They sang about God, they sang about Jesus, they sang about the power and the glory that their religious beliefs offered them. And for this they gathered a following that exuded the gratitude that they expressed in the lyrics of their songs. Along that path, their music had managed to draw the interest of the mainstream scene, those that followed the different genres of heavy metal that existed at the time. Though their music could well have been said to side on the glam and hair metal side of the border, some of their songs actually crossed that border into genuine heavy metal, and by this fact they had managed to lure this fan base towards them as well, even those that were far less interested in any message that their lyrics might be promoting. In doing so, through albums such as “Soldiers Under Command” and “To Hell with the Devil” had gained exacting followings.
The band’s third album “In God We Trust” had not garnered the same reaction, enmeshed as it was with a slightly altered sound and perhaps a too heavy focus on the power ballads. Or perhaps, as was discussed at the time, perhaps the fans of the band who were not religiously motivated had grown tired of hearing about what the band was singing about, that no matter how excellent the music might sound perhaps the tide had turned when it came to the band’s viability to fans of all music genres.
Was this a motivation as to what happened next? It does seem feasible, though never truly investigated. Because when it came to their follow up, there were a great many changes that took place. The first was the abandonment of the stage gear that the band had worn since their inception. The yellow and black spandex was discarded, and in its place came the leather jackets and jeans of a more familiar scene that was occurring around this time. More noticeably however, was the change in the lyrical style and substance of the songs produced for the next album. Rather than visibly evangelical lyrics that had come from the first three albums and the initial EP, now we had songs that were most noticeably about relationship troubles and more common world topics. There was still a slight bent towards the ideals that they had once sung about, but the themes in general left the preaching aside.
This was all intimated well before the album hit the shelves, and the reaction at the time was as mixed as you might expect. The fans of the religious side of the band were confused and concerned, the fans of the metal music side of the band thought perhaps this might be a revelation. And in the long run, perhaps no one really knew what to expect when Stryper’s fourth studio album finally landed, under the name of “Against the Law”.

The opening song sets the mood and the direction for the album ahead with the title track “Against the Law”. Gone is the anthemic and holistic musical rhythm of earlier albums, replaced by a more workmanlike and layman's hair metal hard rock sound driven by bands such as Ratt and L.A. Guns. It follows a template away from their usual style, and immediately announces that this is a statement album from the outset. Lyrically it also tells the listener that there is a change of attitude here, with lines such as: “You've got to point your finger, you think you know it all, I want you to remember, I don't live for you, 'cause I'm against your law” and “We've still got the fire burning in our souls, but we're just rockin' harder to make our music roll”. The message seems clear from the start. We might be singing about different topics here, and we are making music for ourselves, but we are still the same band. Opinions as to whether this worked or not would be mixed. “Two Time Woman” follows, and this is where it begins to get a bit strange for Stryper fans. We are used to hearing Michael Sweet singing his praises to a higher power, but hearing him sing about a two timing woman... that’s a bit weird. You get used to songs that preach a love for Jesus, but the love for a woman who is doing the dirty on him? Hearing him sing: “Hangin' out at a party, all my friends everywhere, thought you were right beside me but you weren't there, no. Then I caught you with someone else, that's the end of the show”... is a little off putting. Then “Rock the People” is very lyric-nascent, simplified and very much in the style of I’m a rocker, I just wanna rock. It has a basic rock riff, that to be fair is improved by Oz Fox’s solo in the middle of the song. And then we have “Two Bodies (One Mind One Soul)”, the next song to reference the ‘girl in a relationship’ vibe. I mean, in many ways, Sweet has just change the focus of his songs from the ’almighty’ to the ‘all-woman’, though more pointedly not avoiding the conflict in the earthly relationships than he was with the heavenly ones on previous albums.
“Not That Kind of Guy” is a complete Van Halen rip-off song. Musically, lyrically, the way Michael sings it, the backing vocals in the chorus, even Oz Fox’s guitar solo sounds like Eddie Van Halen. Everything about it. You could take this song and put it on any of the first few Van Halen albums and you wouldn’t skip a beat. Hey, it sounds fine, but this is a little too close to plagiarism for my taste. “Shining Star” is a cover of the Earth, Wind & Fire song, and has more energy in Michael’s vocals and the two guitars, working together to push the harder rock variety of track. It continues to induce more of the hard rock into the music than previous Stryper albums have, but is still missing an ingredient to make it work. Perhaps that ingredient is polish, because although they have Tom Werman as their producer, who had been involved in albums by bands that this album feels as though it is trying to replicate, such as L.A. Guns, Poison and Twisted Sister, it doesn’t quite make it. “Ordinary Man” which follows is in exactly the same boat, a song with some bones and structure but without the basis to fill it all out. This is followed by the only ballad of the album (which at least was a step in the right direction). “Lady” is lyrically desolate, with wonderfully basic and unwritable lines such as “Lady, I wanna be your man, Lady, I’ll love you all I can”. I mean, at least in the ballads on the previous albums, when they were singing to their God, they sounded like they meant it!
This at least is saved by the next track, “Caught in the Middle”, the only song that sounds like a Stryper song. Everything cooks on this song. The lyrics at least show some heart, some meaning. Michael is singing in the style we know, Oz is riffing and soloing the way we know he can, the backing vocals are Stryper, and the pace of the song is fantastic. Easily the best song on the album. It is followed by “All for One” that moves back to the style of the first half of the album, a style that, as I have already mentioned here, if it had been refined a little would have worked better than it does.
The closing track is “Rock the Hell Out of You”, the fastest and dare I say it heaviest song on the album. For the first time, Michael attacks with his vocals, hitting the gruff scream and the typical high sweet screams that he was renowned for. One might ask the question - ‘why did it take until the final song on the album to really go down this path, if what they wanted to do was do a more mainstream metal album?’ The core elements are all here to show that they COULD have gone further down this path – if they had wanted to. It isn’t a perfect song, but perhaps with a bit more work they could have achieved what it was they appeared to be aiming for.

For me, I think everything about this album just didn’t work when it came to the timing of its release. I had all of Stryper’s releases up to this point, and had even seen them live twice on two different tours of Australia. So it couldn’t be said that I wasn’t a fan. And if memory serves me correctly, I am sure I greeted the news that they were going to release an album that did not focus on religious ideals and instead would focus on other topics with open arms. The possibility of this fabulous band unleashing with some true heavy metal and with lyrics that I could perhaps indulge in without second guessing myself seemed like a perfect match.
Two things probably didn’t help. The first was, I didn’t think the songs on the album were... great. They didn’t have the hooks that songs on each of the other albums had. It is true that I do not find every song on every Stryper album to be appealing, but there were always four or five that had great hooks and riffs, and those Michael Sweet screams that made them conclusively awesome. But for the most part, that just isn’t the case here. In changing the focus of their lyrics, they also changed the focus of their music, and that just didn’t work as well as it had previously. There are some okay songs here, ones that are still enjoyable today. But they aren’t exceptional like on previous albums. The second was, the timing of the release of the album sucked. Like I mentioned on the recent episode for Ratt’s “Detonator”, this album was released in a six week period where some of the greatest albums ever were released – and that list again included Alice in Chains’ “Facelift”, Anthrax’s “Persistence of Time”, Queensryche’s “Empire” and Judas Priest’s “Painkiller”, and with others just around the corner. It meant that even if this had been a better than average album, it would have struggled significantly to get listening time with me on the release of those other albums. And the fact is – this wasn’t a better than average album. It was slightly far less better than that.
Over the years, nothing much has persuaded me to give it much airtime when it came to listening to it again. There have been occasions when it does come up, and I have taken it off the shelves and given it a go again. But that has only been as a result of not really knowing what I wanted to listen to at the time. So for the occasion of this podcast episode, it has had a far larger run in the CD player than it perhaps ever has in the years since its release. And what do I think of it now? Well, given it is 35 years in the past, I found it to be listenable. It is still, for the most part, uninspiring. It is... generic... in a way. It sounds like it was trying to jump onto a trend but missed its mark. Take out “Caught in the Middle”, which is the closest to their original sound, and this album is a missed opportunity. Compared to what had come before, and absolutely compared to what they have released since their reformation in 2005, this is the dullest album of the band’s career. Michael Sweet eventually left to pursue a solo career, and it wasn’t until the next decade that the full band performed together again. Time was to be a great boost for the band’s sound going forward, and to confine this period to the discount racks.