1267. Yngwie Malmsteen / Trial by Fire: Live in Leningrad. 1989. 5/5

Yngwie Malmsteen, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, or Yngwie J. Malmsten’s Rising Force, or any of the other names that Yngwie has released his albums under over the last 40 years, had been on a hot steak from the time that their eponymous guitar prodigy had moved on from stints in bands such as Steeler and Alcatrazz and struck out on his own with his own band in tow. After three amazing albums in “Rising Force”, “Marching Out” and “Trilogy”, he had teamed up with lead vocalist Joe Lynn Turner to produce the “Odyssey” album, one where the band gained their first charted single, and continued with rising album sales across the world. So, what comes next after you see a constant rise in popularity? Well, you go out and record a live album, don’t you? To showcase how good your band sounds on stage, and hopefully also bring in more fans to your music and have them consider buying tickets to your concerts as well.
The album was recorded during the band’s gigs in Leningrad in the old Soviet Union in February 1989 and features arguably the band’s best line up showcasing material from arguably the band’s best four albums. Over the years it has been noted often that Yngwie was a difficult person to work with, always looking for perfection, but with an ego that would also be difficult to work with. During the tour for the “Odyssey” album, on which this live album was recorded, there were reported differences of opinion between Malmsteen and Turner, both of whom felt they were the person to take centre stage. Turner should have been familiar with this given his time in Rainbow alongside Ritchie Blackmore, who was Malmsteen’s idol and another ego centric character. Despite these perceived differences, this album contains performances that do indeed showcase the best of what the Rising Force band were able to produce at that time, and as such is a terrific live album to listen to.

The album has 11 tracks to it, which offers you a taste of each piece of the Yngwie Malmsteen puzzle. The songs of the album that the band is touring on to promote are heavily featured, with “Deja Vu”, “Heaven Tonight”, “Dreaming (Tell Me)” and “Crystal Ball”, all of which are fantastic. Joe Lynn Turner gives a great vocal performance on them. The album also has some chosen tracks from the earlier albums, such as “Liar” and “Queen in Love” from “Trilogy”, and “You Don’t Remember, I’ll Never Forget” from the “Marching Out” album. The strangest choice here is the cover of the Jimi Hendrix Experience song “Spanish Castle Magic”. Sure, it is another opportunity for Yngwie to shred his way through a song by a fellow iconic guitarist, but with so much material of his own on offer to put out there to satisfy his fans, he chose to play this instead.
Then we have the instrumental, guitar riffing laden tracks that Yngwie has made his own. Two of these from the first album, “Far Beyond the Sun” and “Black Star”, are the songs that truly brought him to prominence, songs without vocals that are still just as amazing to listen to today as they were when they were released, and these live versions of the tracks are no different. Yngwie’s guitar solo spot in the middle of the set contains pieces of different various classical suites and stretches to over ten minutes. These three instrumental tracks take up a little over 25 minutes of the 65 minute album. And yes, they are important because they showcase who Yngwie Malmsteen is and what he can do. So, bravo for that. BUT... possibly, could it have been better if they had put some more actual songs onto the album to help maintain that side of the album? The video released with the same name as this album contained three further tracks, which would have added to this album immensely. “Rising Force”, “Fury” and “Riot in the Dungeons” are all terrific songs and while they were no doubt edited out to keep this as a single album and not a double, it is a shame not to have them. It is worth watching the video not only for these songs, but to see Yngwie capture the camera and the stage with his guitaring. It is something to behold.

Yngwie Malmsteen has been a part of my music life since very early on in my heavy metal existence. My heavy metal music dealer was very kind in furnishing me with those first three albums when they were released, and “Odyssey” is one that was purchased very close to its day of release. I am fairly certain that I actually saw the video of this concert before I got the album, once again with that same old metal dealer inviting me over to watch it one day. Jason Kearin certainly has a lot to answer for, or more precisely to be thanked for.
The video and album of this live release are both terrific, and had a lot of airplay back at the time of its release. At that point in time Yngwie had not toured Australia, so this was what we had to imagine just what it would be like to see him play live. And this band was terrific. The brothers Johanssen, with Anders on drums and Jens on keyboards, along with Barry Dunaway on bass guitar, do an admirable job of backing up the two stars of the show without trying to outshine them (though on the video Jens does look like he would prefer to be more in the action). Joe Lynn Turner croons and emotes through the whole set list in his inimitable style, while Yngwie himself takes the centre stage and holds it throughout.
I’ve been listening to this album again for this podcast episode, and it has been enjoyable, but I have different feelings about it now than I remember doing when it was first released. Back then I know I loved it, and spent weeks and months playing it over and over. And it is still a good album. But, unlike a lot of live albums, I found my interest waning quickly when I’ve had it on this time around. And for me now, the excess of the instrumental tracks, the Jimi Hendrix cover, all of that is a bit much. They are great, especially “Black Star” and “Far Beyond the Sun”, but if they had removed the other two and hit me with those three songs that are on the video, I would be enjoying this a hell of a lot more at this point of life that I am. Now it is an album that I could have listened to a couple of times, and been happy to stop there. But, because I am dedicated to this podcast and the episodes I produce, that just wouldn’t have been good enough. And so you have my more accurate position on this album 35 years on from its release. It sounds good, and it is more than worth a listen. But then, go back to the actual studio albums. They will retain your interest far longer than this.
When the tour concluded, the band imploded, and everyone moved on to other projects. Yngwie brough in new band members and continued on, including a tour of Australia following the next studio album. But that story must wait for another episode.

1266. Ace Frehley / Trouble Walkin'. 1989. 3.5/5

Best known as the original lead guitarist of Kiss, Ace Frehley had struck out by himself after he had left the band in the early 1980’s, looking to burn a trail of his own. He had eventually formed the band called Frehley’s Comet, which released two albums, the self titled “Frehley’s Comet” in 1987 and “Second Sighting” in 1988, both of which were backed up by tours supporting bands such as Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden. Despite the initial excellent reaction to the band and first album, their fortunes declined quickly, to the point that Frehley decided on a reset to hopefully be able to stage a revival. He dropped the band name, and decided to go back to just playing under his own name. Also at this time, guitarist and vocalist Tod Howarth left the band and was replaced by Richie Scarlett who already had a history playing with Ace. John Regan remained on bass guitar and synths, while Anton Fig, who was a regular with Ace albums as well as contributing to Kiss albums, was again on drums. Eddie Kramer, who also had a history with both Ace and Kiss, was back as producer, with Ace and John leaning over his shoulder.
The album came at an interesting time, and featured some interesting guests as well as choices in songs. Former band mate Peter Criss came on board to lend supporting vocals to four songs on the album, and rekindled a friendship. It also has three members of the band Skid Row lending their vocal support, in Seb Bach, Dave Sabo and Rachel Bolan, all of whom were huge Kiss fans, and needed little convincing to come on board. And with Ace taking over as (almost) full time lead vocalist as well as guitar, the new album not only had the solid backbone of the band as a whole, but with Ace being more front and centre, it truly felt like it was HIS solo album, and the chance to truly show his best side on an album that he called “Trouble Walkin’”

The album has a lot of different writing combinations, which on occasion can make for an album that is fluid, that the style of songs written don’t seemto fit together to make a cohesive album. But here on “Trouble Walkin’” that doesn’t appear to be an issue. Each song concludes and the entry point to the next track is smooth as silk.
“Shot Full of Rock” comes out of the gates like a bull at a red rag, charging along with a... shot full of energy, and featuring a great guitar riff and then trading solo break from Ace and Richie Scarlett, who co-wrote the track. The full backing vocals through the chorus help to make an energised opening song that kicks off the album in style. This is followed by “Do Ya”, the Jeff Lynne composed song that was a hit for his bands The Move and then Electric Light Orchestra. It also became the only single released from this album, for me a really strange choice in that regard. Ace is not adverse to doing cover songs, and this is a reasonable rendition of the song, though the opportunity from Ace to make it his own with a stunning hard riffing solo was not taken. I think it would have made it better. “Five Card Stud” is the follow up, composed by Ace and Marc Ferrari, and this is again a harder rocking track immediately with the best attributes wired into the song. The drums and guitar riff really heavy this song up together, and Ace is absolutely crushing his vocals on this song. Just like the opening track, this is full of energy throughout and delivers exactly what the album opening has promised it would do. The opening stanza to the album does everything right in dragging you in and getting you entranced to this point in time.
“Hide Your Heart” is an interesting song choice, given its history. Originally written by Paul Stanley and Desmond Child along with Holly Knight, it was written during the sessions for the “Crazy Nights” album and was eventually passed over for inclusion. It was then offered around to other artists, of which there were many. Bonnie Tyler released her version in 1988, and from there it popped up on several other artists albums – including Ace’s version here, and amazingly enough Kiss’s own version on “Hot in the Shade”, released a few days after this. Did Ace and his cohorts decide to show up his former band, and do a version that put them in their place? I actually don’t know the story behind how it turned up here, but I can tell you that it is without doubt the best version of this song out there. They play the harder edge of the track, with gang vocals supporting Ace in all the right places of the song. I love the song and especially this version, which like “Do Ya” is only missing a real Ace burst on guitar to make it really special. It’s the only trick he missed on this version of the song. “Lost in Limbo” is the second Ace/Richie collaboration and closes out side one of the album in pleasing style.
The title track “Trouble Walkin’” opens side two of the album, written by outside writers, and it sounds like it, mainly because it is a different style of song than has come from the opening side of the album. It’s a more stylised rock song, again with a gang vocals chorus and while it has some great guitar riffing through the middle it feels like a more commercialised rock sound than what has come before it. This doesn’t detract from it being a very good song, it’s just a tad different. This is then followed by the third Ace/Richie composition “2 Young 2 Die”, which is the only track on the album not sung by Ace, instead it is Richie who takes on the lead vocals. And he does a great job too, injecting his own enthusiasm in his vocals, and the trade off guitars again in the middle of the track are worth the wait. Richie does a great job on lead vocals here, on a song where Ace may have not done as good a job. “Back to School” sees the return of Ace on vocals, a song that screams mid-80's hair metal, supported by the screams of Seb Bach in the background throughout. Like “Trouble Walkin’” but in a different way, this song doesn’t quite fit the profile of the first side of the album. It’s a different style of track that is fine as it is but feels as though it is outside of the puzzle. And in a way is what leads the end of this album in that different direction. Because the next track “Remember Me” follows its own path again, away from the set up that had been created at the front of the album. It’s a blues backed song that, given the heavier way the album started, seems like strange way for the album to divert to as we approach its conclusion. The musicianship is great, but the song itself for me was a choice that doesn’t meld with the album. Indeed, a word I could use at this point is fractured, and that is the title of the concluding track of the album, the instrumental “Fractured III”, which follows the original instrumental “Fractured Mirror” that closed out Ace’s 1978 solo album, and the closing instrumental “Fractured Too” from the Frehley’s Comet” album. At almost seven minutes it is the longest song of the album, but it is totally worth it. It’s an Ace masterpiece, a song that I never get tired of listening to. This redeems any slight misgivings that a couple of songs may have brought on, and draws the curtain over a terrific album.

I remember my love of Kiss had grown to ample proportions by 1989, mainly on the back of the “Crazy Nights” album, because I remember vividly when this album came out, and the new Kiss album “Hot in the Shade” a few days later. In those days however, there was no way I could consider affording to buy multiple albums at the same time, and so it became a decision as to which album I was going to get. It ended up being the Kiss album, and instead I would look longingly at this album in the racks whenever I was able to check out my local record stores. In the end, it would be almost two years before I got a copy of this album, on my first trip to Bali, where I purchased this (and about fifty other albums) on cassette. The fact that I bought so many other cassettes on that trip made it difficult for them all to get a fair listen, but this album was one of them. For me at that time, it hit the sweet spot. It balanced out the thrash metal I was still very much into with the more commercial bent of the hair and glam metal I was also interested in, along with the growing influence of grunge. And for me that is the real brilliance of this album. It’s a hard rock album that utilises the best aspects of everything Ace emphasised in his previous band and sifted out the chaff to keep what worked for him at this stage of his career. It was released at a really good time for that, and even though I didn’t really discover it until two years later, it mattered not one iota in translation.
I have had this on my playlist for nearly a month now, and as the other albums get whittled away as I complete the episode reviews on them for this podcast, this became a go-to. It has been years since I listened to this album, but over the last little period of time, when I’m deciding what album to put on in the car, or at home in the Metal cavern, this album has been the one that has invariably gotten another listen. I would say over this period I have listened to “Trouble Walkin’” about 30 times, and I’m not tired of it yet. In fact, I keep getting more enthused about listening to it again. Why should this be the case? Is it nostalgia? Is it making me feel 19/21 again? Maybe a little. Ace released an album this year, “10,000 Volts”, which was okay, but it pales into almost insignificance compared to this album. These are fun songs, with lyrics that are fun to sing along to while the album plays. I think it is still a great album, easy to listen to. For me, this is a better album than the Kiss release of the same week, even though it significantly outsold and outperformed this album on the charts.
For me, this is Ace’s best album away from Kiss. His band is great, his guitaring is great, and his vocals are at their peak on this release. And surely the fans reaction to this song in particular would have warmed his heart.

1264. McAuley Schenker Group / Save Yourself. 1989. 3.5/5

The fact that Michael Schenker, whose ego rides as high as most of those legendary guitarists of the 1970’s and 1980’s, found himself so comfortable with the partnership that he was beginning to forge with vocalist and songwriter Robin McAuley when they first began working together in 1986, that he insisted that they change the name of the band from the MICHAEL Schenker Group to the MCAULEY Schenker Group, retaining the initials and therefore logo of the band in the process, shows just how confident he was that the pairing was going to work. Their initial album under this banner, 1987’s “Perfect Timing”, had done better than expected in sales, but also showed exactly the direction this new formation of the band was heading. Not only did they produce a more commercial direction, one with an obvious bent for cracking the US radio market, and also skewing their music towards the hair metal genre rather than the hard rock heavy metal based sound that Schenker had come from with his earlier albums in the 1980’s, but this also had another guitarist in the band, Mitch Perry, who also played lead solos in two songs, and almost had one of the great guitarists of the age playing mostly rhythm guitar in his wake! It was all a little strange, despite the fact that I enjoy the album immensely and still do to this day.
Put all of this together, and going into their second album it felt as though little had changed. The band was still looking for that major breakthrough. The album had made the US top 100, and the single “Gimme Your Love” had reached as high as #40 on the singles charts, which meant more of the same from MSG in order to make a real breakthrough. That meant a mix of songs again, along with the true commercial singles tracks which they hoped would provide them with the success they were striving for. What that meant for the fans of Schenker’s early work however was open to question.

The album opens up with the title track “Save Yourself”, and immediately lets you know exactly what direction the music on this sophomore album is aiming for. Because this does end up being the hardest of the hard rock songs available on this album. It has a great sound to it, great riffing from Schenker himself and vocals from McAuley, but there is already that commercial feel about the track. “Bad Boys” follows in a similar direction, up beat musically and catchy lyrically, looking to retain the faithful with atypical hard rock tracks and nice riffing from Schenker himself.
“Anytime” is the full-blown radio attention seeking missile directly written in order to find a way to crack the commercial market. It’s a rock ballad, in the mould of Kiss and Whitesnake looking to gain as much radio airplay as possible, and no it isn’t horrible, but it is certainly skip worthy. Michael Schenker had flirted with this direction since he joined with Robin in their partnership, and this was what they were hoping for, a hard rock-based album with enough moments for Schenker to show he could still shred when he wanted to, but with an agenda to find that marketplace breakthrough with a song like this. Individual tastes will dictate how much you enjoy it. Add this alongside “This is My Heart”, the third single released from the album, is a more hard rock version of a similar style, but Robin’s vocals hold the soft rock ballad style even while Schenker tries to riff hard during the middle of the track. There’s a little each way when it comes to this song, trying to please both sides of the argument.
“Get Down to Bizness” comes after “Anytime” and returns the album to a pace that is far more enjoyable to Schenker’s main fan base, The songs themselves may not be as superbly energetic as on the earlier albums, but they still have a catchiness about them. “Shadow of the Night” offers a chanting, somewhat anthemic feel to the track, with a chorus and lyrics designed to be sung loud and proud, in that midtempo range that was beginning to creep into music at the time. The chorused vocals help to encourage that singalong theme of the song as well. The same is true of songs like “What We Need” and “I Am Your Radio”, energised with the chorus and multiple support singers for Robin who call for a gang vocal like call to arms.
The instrumental short take of “There Has to Be Another Way” allows Schenker to showcase his skills, but at a little under two minutes in length, it almost feels like it is something tacked on at the last minute, rather than one of his great instrumental songs from the past such as “Into the Arena” and “Captain Nemo”. Those are terrific tracks that stand on their own. This does not. Following “This is My Heart” we have “Destiny” which is a little bit like a join the dots colour by numbers hard rock track, based around Robin’s vocals than anything musically that stands out and makes itself noticed. The album closer is “Take Me Back” which is pretty much a similar situation, finishing off an album that does what it always proclaimed it wanted to do.

Those who have been with this podcast from the beginning will know of my love of Michael Schenker as a guitarist in the many different bands he has been in over his career. The Michael Schenker Group was a band that helped me get through my doomed university days in the late 1980’s, and I have always enjoyed those albums and UFO’s albums.
I bought this album on its release, on vinyl back in those days, a copy that was sadly eventually lost in the new house flood of 2001. But it got some plays for some time before that occurred. As I’ve mentioned, I loved “Perfect Timing” on its release, and so I went into this album hoping for something similar, or even better, perhaps a bit heavier with more influence from Schenker himself. And what I got... was not that. I got an album that, as has already been well covered, was looking for a commercial success, and as such was written and performed that way. So, while I enjoyed it when I first got the album, over time it began to wane in excitement for me. It began to feel very samey, like the songs were more or less running into each other without much to discern each from the other. And so eventually the vinyl went back onto the shelves, and there it sat, only finding itself moved over the next decade on the eight or so times I moved house during that time, until its eventual demise in the flooding of that final house. In the two decades since, I have attained a digital copy of the album and on the very rare occasion it has come out for a listen. And now for the last three weeks it has been in my rotation, and there is no doubt that I have listened to it more over that time than I have in the previous 30 years. And what I have discovered is that nothing much has changed. I have enjoyed the album overall, though I did eventually get to the point where there were three songs that I had to skip to continue to listen. And thus, it is to a certain person’s taste. Those that find this boring or unlistenable, I do understand. Like I said, for me the album is fine, but there is a very big chance that it will be a long time before I choose to listen to it again now that this podcast episode is finished. There are a lot of better options out there to try.

1258. Testament / Practice What You Preach. 1989. 4/5

Having come up through the breeding grounds of the US West Coast thrash metal movement, Testament had broken out of the pack to some degree, and on the back of their first two albums “The Legacy” and “The New Order” - episodes for both of which you can find on earlier seasons of this podcast – they had begun to build their own audience away from their home scene. This had come from tours such as opening for Megadeth on their “So Far, So Good... So What!” tour in Europe, and through North America with contemporary bands such as Overkill, Voivod, Death Angel, Vio-lence, Nuclear Assault and others, along with replacing Megadeth on some dates of the European Monsters of Rock tour which also featured bands like Iron Maiden, Kiss, David Lee Roth and Anthrax.
Coming into the writing and recording of their third studio album in February of 1989, Testament had spent a lot of time playing with fellow thrash bands that had come from the Bay Area, and could compare exactly where they were in regards to their careers, and just what they were doing with their music at that point of their careers as well. What they would have seen and heard is a mass explosion in the way the music was changing, and how these bands had decided to approach it. Bands like Overkill, Death Angel and Nuclear Assault were pushing the speed metal aspect of their craft and finding their success in that method. Megadeth too was holding that part of their craft, but with songs such as “In My Darkest Hour” had tapped another part of their arsenal and shown they could make some adaptions without putting off their fan base. All of this is interesting in respect to how Testament approached their new album. Did it encourage the less than subtle changes that the band had afoot, in minimising the occult and gothic themes found in the lyrical content of their first two albums, and focusing on issues like politics and corruption, and drawing influences from traditional heavy metal, jazz fusion and even progressive metal in the music. And, perhaps more pertinent, would the fans be on board with this?

One of the criticisms of this album from some sections of the fan base is the changing direction of the songs from straight out thrash to a more technical playing and composition of the tracks. It has even been compared to Testament trying to follow the path taken by Metallica, who had in their own way both begun to play much more technically composed songs on their instruments as well as beginning to sing about more worldly topics. To a certain extent, that IS what Testament do on this album, but to suggest they were trying to follow Metallica’s lead can’t be concluded. For a start, guitarist Alex Skolnick himself was not just a thrash metal guitarist, having also been one of a long line of amazing guitarists that had their start under the tutelage of Joe Satriani. There is little doubt that the songs that Alex was beginning to write by this stage of the band’s career were ones where he was looking to inject more of his technical proficiency on his instruments into the songs, rather than just being called done of the ‘fastest’ guitarists in the world. So his influence, let alone any other of the writers in the band, saw him looking to expand their pure thrash roots into a band that had songs that may not be as fast as they had played before, but sounded brilliant through their skills involved. As well as this, having now toured extensively over the course of the previous two years, the band had begun to have more worldly views, seen things that peaked their interest, and gave them ideas on what to write songs on that differed from what they had written on the first two albums. And look, there are enough similarities here for someone to point out and suggest the similarities here are too close not to be deliberate. But while it would be easy to say ‘Testament was following Metallica’, it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that by this third album, the band had matured and wanted to expand its horizons, an evolutionary path that other bands had already followed for the same reasons. Or, maybe I’m just looking for reasons not to state the obvious. As always, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
People coming into this album away from the time it was released do seem to have more problems with its output than those who were around at the time that it was released. I get the criticism, because it is like when all bands change their stripes, whether it be a little or a lot. No band is immune from it at some point of their career. There is less use of atmosphere and melody to stage the more aggressive rhythm guitars. The songs are more mid-tempo than on the early albums, and while the guitars still have a great sound to them the speed of the songs has been reigned back as Skolnick and Peterson spend much of the time in cruise mode, allowing Chuck Billy's more melodic vocal range to carry the songs.
The title track “Practice What You Preach” is a barnstorming opening and sets the album off on the right note, and is well followed up by “Perilous Nation”. "Time is Coming”, “Blessed in Contempt” and the second single “Greenhouse Effect” all hit all the right places. Skolnick’s soloing in particular continues to be a highlight of the band's music.
OK, let’s talk about the conclusion to the album. In particular, “The Ballad”. Yes, that is the name of the song. Yeah... not a fan. Not a fan of the quiet start, not a fan of Chuck Billy’s attempted quiet morose vocal, not really a fan when it finally tries to become the fast thrash final three minutes. Do I say what we all know?... ok... Testament’s attempt at a Metallica “Fade to Black”? It doesn’t work. It stops the momentum that the album has built up... and they released it as the third single from the album! Gee. And sure, “Nightmare (Coming Back to You)” and “Confusion Fusion” kinda redeem it, but I seriously wonder if Chuck and Alex dropped the ball a little there.

Back in 1989, I’m over at my mate's house as he mans the phone for the taxi business his parents own. This mate will eventually become my brother-in-law and the owners of the business my parents-in-law. We are watching the late night music video program “Rage” on ABCTV, a staple for teenagers on Friday and Saturday nights once the pubs have closed and you have to come home. Usually around 1 or 2am they would play their metal selection, and on this particular night, the first song from that section is a song that slams out of the TV, of a band I’ve never heard before. We both go ‘wow - who the hell is this?’ The band was Testament, and the video playing was for the song “Practice What You Preach”. It was one of those moments that you don’t forget. Now in those prehistoric pre-internet days, the only way to find out what was going to be played on Rage on those Friday and Saturday nights was to phone a number, and they would read out the entire playlist for the eight hours of music videos they would play. So the following afternoon I did just that, found out they were going to play the video again that night, and I stayed up again – just to record that video on my VHS tape with all my other metal videos on it. Having then watched that song a hundred times, I went out to my local-ish record store, The Rock Factory at Shellharbour Square, and bugger me, they had this album on vinyl, just waiting for me to purchase it. Which I did.
And – as my first taste of Testament, I loved it. It was new, it was different. And I didn’t notice any supposed similarities to Metallica, because... I didn’t know any better! Once I went back and listened to the first two albums, which were a good shock because of their real thrash metal roots, I understood where the qualms had come from in those metal magazines I read. But I didn’t care, because I just thought – and think – that this is a terrific album. Yes, it will always be special because it was my introduction to the band. And it isn't perfect, there are a couple of songs that don’t maintain the standard. But having had this on again for the last two weeks, and had it pouring out of my speaker at work, I have annoyed my work colleagues enough to know that it still works. Because this is not an album that you can play at half volume and expect to get the most out of it. You need to turn it up, and have that album charge out at you, to get the full experience.
What has always amused me is that, given the way this album is received by some, the follow up album “Souls of Black” moves in an even more interesting and distinct direction.

1257. Alice Cooper / Trash. 1989. 4.5/5

As we approached the end of the 1980’s decade, Alice Cooper had been through the wringer, from the depths of the inordinate drug and alcohol fuelled lows to the going clean and fighting back highs. As has been noted in several episodes throughout the run of this podcast on albums that have been reviewed from his 1980’s period, Alice had recorded albums that he dubbed his ‘blackout’ albums, as he has no memory of actually recording them. There is also a difference in opinion in Alice Cooper fandom of the quality of those albums from early in the decade. From here Alice got clean and sober, with a break of three years before making a return alongside Kane Roberts and Kip Winger to record the hair metal themed hard rock albums “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell”, which also tended to split the fans as to how they felt about the modern sound and feel of the albums.
In 1988 two things happened for Alice. Firstly, he almost died after a safety rope broke during a rehearsal pretending to hang himself, a stunt he often performed during live concerts. Secondly, his record contract with MCA Records expired, and he instead signed with Epic Records, a move that was to prove revitalising.
Having spent two albums centring on themes such as b-grade horror movies and teenage angst, no doubt Cooper decided he needed a reboot, a way to kickstart where his music was heading. 1989 signalled 20 years since the first album released by the Alice Cooper Band, and it was a long bow to draw to keep producing albums like those classic ones of that era. The music scene had changed, and Cooper needed to adapt to the change, and find a way to invigorate his brand, and become the sneering frontman he had always been.
In a move that was to be the biggest he had made since deciding to go out as a solo artist for the “Welcome to My Nightmare” album in 1975, Alice approached songwriter and producer Desmond Child to become his partner for his new album. Child has earned the nickname ‘The Hitmaker’ after a career of writing some of the most popular songs of all time. By 1989, he had been involved in the writing of songs on several Kiss albums, as well as the two biggest Bon Jovi albums and the two albums that revitalised the career of Aerosmith. At the time Alice was quoted as saying: "The rarest of moments is when I find myself turning up the radio in my car, and it almost always seems to have been from hearing a Desmond Child tune. There is this certain crazy insanity mixed in with genius". In bringing Child on board as producer of the album, and co-writer of all of the album, Cooper was banking on his magic rubbing off on him and bringing him to a point where he could once again stand up and take centre stage as the popular entity he had once been. It is fair to say that with “Trash”, this was well and truly achieved.

When this album first appeared, it was probably one that all areas of the Alice Cooper fan base were taken by surprise by. It wasn’t a return to his 70’s roots, it wasn’t the experimental new wave of early in the decade and for the most part was also not like the hair metal of the late part of the decade. What “Trash” ended up offering was a mature sounding album that was the hallmark of what Desmond Child was able to achieve with so many artisits over the years, but in essence built on the success he had achieved in those recent years with Bon Jovi and Aerosmith. And the way to build that success was to write a couple of hit singles, ones that caught the imagination of the listening public and then get expansionist exposure on radio and music video shows, and drag in old and new fans alike as a result.
Queue “Poison”, the opening track to the album, the lead single from the album, and the huge and somewhat controversial video from the album. Yep, a leather clad beauty partially exposing her breasts is one way to create controversy and draw in the viewers. There are a multitude of voices in a supporting role throughout the song, but it is the cool calm menace in Alice’s vocals through the song that capture the moment, that draw you in to the song and in the long run capture you. Alongside this is the second single released from the album, and the track that opens side two of the album, “Bed of Nails”, which again utilises Alice’s menace in his vocals. It is heavier in style and retains the atmosphere of the first single, with another catchy chorus surrounded by backing vocals with Alice firmly in the centre. Kane Roberts, Alice’s partner for the previous two albums, co-writes and plays guitar here, and his presence is a great lift for the song. Both of these singles signals this next era of Alice Cooper, moving from B-grade horror to true glam metal icon, with lyrics and music that draw from the battery of sexually charged lyrics by Motley Crue and Ratt while harnessing the integrity of the ‘boy wants girl’ playfulness of Bon Jovi. Alice and Desmond unashamedly write songs here that are anthems sung to and about the female sex, either wooing them into the bedroom or proclaiming the darker side they possess. Both have had experience in writing songs of this description through their careers, and here they combine it into one big best seller.
There are two distinctive power ballads on the album, and for me, one works and the other doesn’t. The fourth single released from the album was “Only My Heart Talking”, the closing track of side one of the album, and also the only song on the album not co-credited to Desmond Child. Perhaps that is telling. “Only My Heart Talkin’” is Alice begging for one last chance, trying not to lose his love as she tries to walk away, and more me is too sickly sugar sweet to enjoy overly. That could also be Steven Tyler’s guest vocals that perpetrate that. On the other hand, “Hell is Living Without You” is a more true Alice type of power ballad, like his great tracks such as “Only Women Bleed” and “You and Me”. Lyrically it is a similar story to “Only My Heart Talkin’”, but musically it is far more heartfelt and emotionally performed, making you feel the pain the protagonist feels. Play them back-to-back, and you will hear the different nuance between them. This has the polish of Child, along with his Bon Jovi co-conspirators Jon and Richie Sambora that the other power ballad does not. The addition of guest guitarists in Sambora himself and Steve Lukather adds to the track immensely.
Then you have the Alice songs that continue this drive but draw upon more recent ideals as well. “This Maniac’s in Love with You” draws on the fun and menacing side of Alice from the previous two albums, more a statement of Alice’s proclamation of love and the warning of that in the same breath. Then you have the closing track “I’m Your Gun”, the double-entendre laden song that became a hallmark of some of his most popular tracks from the late 1980’s albums. Middle class songs that play the role of advancing the album beyond the big tracks. And the title track “Trash” finds itself in this category as well, a fun filled upbeat song with Jon Bon Jovi joining in along the way.
Filling in the gaps between all these are other top shelf songs. “Spark in the Dark” gets the album moving after the opening track, a typically crafted Desmond Child song with Alice playing his alter ago to perfection throughout. “House of Fire” utilises Cooper’s anthemic style again, with chorused backing vocals helping him along, along with Joe Perry’s excellent solo slot on guitar. And “Why Trust You” is arguably my favourite track on the album. It moves at the best tempo, it has Alice at his moody best, and it sounds light and fun even when lyrically he is spitting venom. Modern Alice at his very best.

To be in the music business for over 55 years – and to be successful over that huge amount of time – you do need to adapt to the changing music climate. Not to ignore your roots, not to completely remake yourself, but to be able to incorporate what is happening around you into the way you are writing and recording. Alice Cooper has been extraordinarily good at this, creating albums that often absorb what is happening in music at the time, but still remaining quintessentially Alice Cooper. That doesn’t mean that old fans or new fans will necessarily like or adore what you do at each step of the way as it happens, or feel that an album holds its legacy as the years retreat. In many ways that is how “Trash” is looked upon. And the comparisons can sometimes be skewed. On its release, there was a backlash from the fans of the original band and of the solo albums he had released in the 1970’s. They felt this album was a sellout, of Alice selling his soul to the Desmond Child conveyor belt of hard rock singles and hit makers. It was felt he had lost his way and forgotten the songs and albums that had ‘made’ him, and that now he was just out for a cash grab at the expense of those fans that had also “made” him.
For people like me, 19 years of age at the time and no doubt one of the prime examples of who this album was aimed at, we couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Those old singles and some of the albums from the 1970’s were great, but so was this. This was Alice Cooper seeing our generation, and coming out with an album that, for the time, perfectly fit what we wanted. The leather, the hair, the top hat and cane, the make-up... Alice Cooper was COOL, something that nerds like me aspired to be (sadly, never to eventuate). Was all of that selling out, or was it adapting to his market as it was at the time? A couple of my parents' friends were Alice Cooper fans, and they all listened to this album. Sure, at the party to celebrate my 21st birthday, where at one stage I was playing “Trash” on the stereo, one of my parents' friends did ask me if we could play some ‘old’ Alice Cooper instead (which I readily acceded to), but they weren’t hostile to the new Alice Cooper.
On top of this, there are many people today who look back to this album, having been a fan in the day, and feel that it has either dated badly, or feel now that it was ‘overrated’. These are the kind of fans that wrote off all hair and glam metal as soon as grunge hit the scene. People’s tastes change over time, and not feeling the same enthusiasm for this album now as you did 35 years ago is something that can be quantified.
For me, I still love this album. Of course, I feel and listen to it differently today than I did 35 years ago. This album was ripe for 19-year-olds, and everyone remembers those days of that age with an air of reminiscence, and the albums released at that time is the soundtrack to your life. For me, this is one of them, along with Skid Row’s debut album, Motley Crue’s “Dr Feelgood” and Whitesnake’s “Slip of the Tongue”. Many would have the same feelings about those albums as well, that they are tied to the age and that they perhaps don’t feel the same way about them now as they did then. I can assure you I feel EXACTLY the same now as I did then.
And for me all of Alice’s work of this era and beyond is fantastic. “Constrictor” and “Raise Your Fist and Yell”. Then “Trash” and “Hey Stoopid”. And then “The Last Temptation” (just recently reviewed here on this podcast) and into “Brutal Planet” and “Dirty Diamonds”. Alice just finds a way to write and record albums that don’t all sound the same, that can absorb what is happening at that time, and yet still remain an Alice Cooper album. It is a wonderful gift.

1253. Faith No More / The Real Thing. 1989. 5/5

Back in 1987 Faith No More had released their second studio album titled “Introduce Yourself”, the episode of which you can find in Season 2 of this podcast. It contained the song “We Care a Lot” which became a minor hit at the time and allowed the band an increased profile with which to tour places that to that time they had been unable to reach. However, during a tour of Europe through 1988, there were a number of incidents involving lead vocalist Chuck Mosley that caused disruption in the band, both on stage and off. At the release party for the album, Mosley fell asleep on stage as the band was being interviewed promoting the release. Then he allegedly (both parties have different versions of the event) punched bass guitarist Billy Gould on stage, and at one stage one of his roadies got into a fistfight with guitarist Jim Martin. All of this came to a head once the band had returned home from that European tour. Billy Gould, in a story published in Classic Rock in 2014, was quoted as saying, “There was a certain point when I went to rehearsal, and Chuck wanted to do all acoustic guitar songs. It was just so far off the mark. The upshot was that I got up, walked out and quit the band. Just said: ‘I’m done – I can’t take this any longer. It’s just so ridiculous’. The same day, I talked to Bordin, and he said: ‘Well, I still want to play with you’. Bottum did the same thing. It was another one of these ‘firing somebody without firing them’ scenarios”. It was similar to the same way the band had moved on from another former member some years earlier. If it works once, surely it will work again. And Chuck Mosley, just like that, was out.
In his place, the band hired Mike Patton, who at the time was singing with his high school band, Mr. Bungle. Jim Martin had heard their demo tape and urged the band to at least audition Patton for the role. When Patton came to the band, the music for the new album had pretty much already been completed and recorded. According to producer Mike Wallace, when Patton came in, he would occasionally ask if a piece could be extended, or changed, and he was summarily told “No, this is it, it’s done, so you’ll have to do it this way”. And then he went and wrote the lyrics for the entire album in a 10-12 day period, at the age of 21, having to fit the contours that had already been decided. An amazing feat, and to then sing them in the way he did, to help create what was this album “The Real Thing”, is quite an accomplishment.

For so many fans, this album was the first that they had experienced the band, and what better way to be introduced to Faith No More than the barnstorming opening track “From Out of Nowhere”, which blazes out of the speakers without warning and trips the album into overdrive from the outset. Energetic and browbeaten from the start, it is a killer opening, and surely impressed the fans who knew the first two albums with the onus on the new lead vocalist.
Everybody on the single’s release knew “Epic”, a song particularly well named for the way it sounded and the way it was treated on release. The video is mayhemic, and indeed created some controversy because of the vision of a fish out of water, flapping madly to breathe. But it was the manic energy of the track both on screen and on vinyl and CD that made it so popular, that drove the sales of the album because it funnelled the popularity of the single into people wanting to dive into the album itself and find out what else they could find. Surely no one left disappointed.
“Falling to Pieces” was also released as a single and is perhaps the most mainstream song that the band performs on this album. It is followed by the amazing “Surprise! You’re Dead!” which apart from being incredible musically must have been ridiculously difficult to write lyrics to fit to the music the band had written. In the end, it is triumphant. It was written by Jim Martin in a previous band Agents of Misfortune, which had also had Cliff Burton on bass guitar.
If nothing else, on this album you get the full burst of what Faith No More was so good at – songs that could be calm and pretty and almost beautiful in musical output, and then descending into the heaviest and hardest change up, without creating a song that you can’t listen to. The composition may sound strange in explanation, but when you actually hear the output, especially on the amazing “Zombie Eaters”, which defies the normal characteristics of what goes in to composing a song, you know how well it works. “Zombie Eaters” is a triumph, an amazing progression from the sublime to the subliminal. The title track “The Real Thing” is in a similar style but without the same range of difference of the previous track. These two songs especially stand out because of the way they are almost a hybrid of sounds and vocal styles that shouldn’t mesh together, and yet with this band do so as if it is just the normal thing to do. Both of these tracks are undeniably brilliant.
The back third of the album mixes up what has come before and offers another dimension to the band’s music. “Underwater Love” and “The Morning After” retain a less manic and more uniform song structure than what has come before, with just as much enjoyment from the band’s efforts. “Woodpecker from Mars” is an instrumental, and a terrific one, but I do wonder if Patton just ran out of ideas for lyrics, or found it too hard to find a way to incorporate them into the music the band had recorded. It would have been a difficult task, that’s for sure. The cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” is amazing, although Patton has always shown a lot of ambivalence for it. Indeed, when singing it live on that tour, he often was unable to show enough interest to sing the lyrics correctly on occasions. The album concludes with the much more serene “Edge of the World”, a style of song the band would drift back to down the track
The band itself is so perfectly represented on this album, that everyone who was a fan or not could discern exactly how wonderful each musician in the band is, because each of their instruments are all powerfully audible in the mix of each track. The brilliant funk bass sound from Billy Gould is so prominent throughout, and indeed alongside Mike Bordin’s perfectly attuned rum style is perhaps the driving force of the band as a result. Sometimes these two instruments become just the background of a band on an album, holding time, but not much else, not given the stage they deserve. That’s definitely not the case here on “The Real Thing”, as both the bass and drums are in your face on every song. Matt Wallace can take a massive bow for his production here, it is superb. Then there is Roddy Bottum and his keyboards, whose expression on every song is so important, and are so intrinsic to the song without sounding like they are just filling a gap between the other instruments. As one of the main song writers alongside Gould, Roddy helps compose the tracks so that each instrument is prolific, including his own, and that is not an easy thing to do for the keyboards, which in other bands can dominate without a purpose. On “The Real Thing”, they complement throughout while still being able to be a major part of each song. And Jim Martin on guitar brings the heavier side to the band, sticking his landing perfectly every time he is asked to punctuate the song with his trademark riffing.
The vocal performance by Mike Patton on this album is one of the most remarkable, and perhaps one of the most outstanding performances in the history of music. The way he is able to sing in every possible genre of music ever, sometimes all in the same track, is quite incredible. The more you listen to the album the more you can understand just what an amazing performance it is. He hits notes in a normal sounding vocal line but can hit the same note again in a soaring melodic voice and then also in a raging metal scream. It is out of this world, and in a way he never did again on a Faith No More album. Everything following this album was different again, and no less spectacular, but definitely in a different category than what he does on this album. Most likely, that was deliberate. Patton is nothing if not an individual who does not like being pigeonholed into one persona.

My first memory of this album was on the release of “Epic” as the single, and the video that promoted it, which was a good six months after the album was released. I didn’t hear the album until the friends that I was in a band with at that time actually played it one afternoon after band practice, and then began suggesting we should play songs off it. I did buy the CD sometime after that (because the cover of “War Pigs” only appeared as a bonus track on the CD and not the vinyl), and once I had digested it all I became hooked. Our band did eventually play some of the songs off this album. We first had a crack at “Epic” for our first ever gig, at our mates 21st birthday party in the back half of 1990, an interesting experience given that we had practiced it twice, and we only played it because a number of people actually requested it that night. Yeah ok, it was awful, but the drunk attendees loved it. It was NOT as awful as the version of “From Out of Nowhere” we played at Jamberoo Pub about six months later, which was truly diabolical. However, we then played “Surprise! You’re Dead!” at another gig about six months after that, and it was a triumph, at least according to the crowd in attendance. It was fun as well. There is nothing easy about playing Faith No More songs, I can tell you from experience. It probably would have helped if we had practiced those first two songs more than we did as well.
1990 was a pretty hectic year in heavy music, but this album held its own throughout the listening year for me. The unique combination of song composition, brilliant musicians and amazing vocals was more than enough to keep interest in this album and band for years to come. And it was one of those rare albums that crossed genres, that was able to be enjoyed and even loved by people of vastly different music tastes. On the tour of Australia to promote this album, the band played amazing smaller venues like The Venue at Dee Why, The Cobra Club, the Revesby Roundhouse, the Marquee Nightclub, and the Sylvania Hotel, where I happened to see them with about 300 other people. It was just amazing to see such a band in such an intimate venue. On their next tour, there was no chance of that.
This album has been on my playlist for the last three weeks. I made mention on my episode on Nirvana’s “Bleach” album that another album had been overshadowing it completely. That was this album. The brightness of the songs, the ecstatic energy and stylistic brilliance of “The Real Thing” is a beacon, even today, over most albums. It’s a mood changer, one that still turns people’s heads whenever it comes on.
Faith No More of course continued on their merry way, but in a different form. The story goes that, having played most of this album on the tour that followed, given the lack of superior material on their other two albums, that by the end of the tour the band was well and truly tired and over playing the same style of songs every night. It led to them moving in a different musical direction by the time they came around to recording the follow up album, one that divided the opinion of the fans they had picked up from this album. But that story is for another episode.

1252. Nirvana / Bleach. 1989. 3/5

In another one of those ‘school bands made good’ stories, vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bass guitarist Krist Novaselic met when they were at high school together. Their band, and the lineup, went through a number of changes over their initial period together. In fact, they started out as a Creedence Clearwater Revival covers band, with Cobain on drums and Novaselic on guitar and vocals. Eventually they began to write their own songs, and rotating through drummers like spinning tops, almost as many as different bands names that they played under. Some of their names included Skid Row, Ted Ed Fred, Pen Cap Chew, and Bliss, before they finally settled on the name Nirvana. Around this time, having collated a football team full of former drummers, Cobain and Novaselic were introduced to Chad Channing, who became their next, and longest serving to that point in time, full time drummer.
After six months of playing together, the band recorded their first single release for the Seattle independent record label Sub Pop. It was a cover of the song “Love Buzz” by the band Shocking Blue, a Dutch band from the late 1960’s. Following this, the band practiced for two to three weeks in preparation for recording a full-length album, even though Sub Pop had only requested an EP. The band went back into the studio in the final week of December in 1988, to record their debut album, with the main sessions taking place at Reciprocal Recording Studios in Seattle, with local producer Jack Endino. Combined with three tracks that had been written and recorded in January 1988, these came together to form what would become Nirvana’s debut studio album, titled “Bleach”.

As mentioned in the first part of the episode, three of the album's songs were recorded during a previous session at Reciprocal Studios in January 1988. These recordings all featured Dale Crover on drums, who was the drummer from the band The Melvins. The band did try to re-record them with Channing but eventually decided to just release those original versions. Those tracks all have a similar vibe as well, but the most obvious one is ”Paper Cuts” which is difficult to take for several reasons, but one of the main ones for me is the amazing similarity in a 16 bar snatch of the song, on two occasions, that sounds almost exactly like the song “Angry Chair” by Alice in Chains. Of course, this song came before that song, so it begs the question – was the Alice in Chains song a direct rip off of this? Or is it just an amazing coincidence? That’s for you to work out I guess, but it is uncanny just how similar the music and vocals sound between the two. I also know which is the better song. “Downer” only appeared as a bonus track, while the other song was “Floyd the Barber”, whose lyrics are somewhat strangled while the riff and drumbeat retain the same medium throughout. An early example on the album of less lyrics and more repetition.
In the back half of the album, you have songs such as “Scoff” which continue in this tradition of five or six lines of lyrics that still fill four minutes of the song through constant rotation. “Swap Meet” also does this, and with the less refined way that Kurt sings in only to keys all the way through the song. And the closing track “Sifting” repeats this style once again.
Elsewhere, “Blew” opens the album on a positive note with Cobain’s warbling guitar and early grungy guitar riff. The band’s first single, the cover track “Love Buzz”, also found its way onto the album, and is an immediate obvious different track from those written by the band. It is almost a freeform psychedelic journey, with those changing qualities from the rest of the album. There is a lot of buzz coming out of the speakers on this track.
The upbeat songs for me generally come across the best. “Negative Creep” is one of them, though the lyrics again aren’t anything to write home about, pretty much four lines repeated ad nauseum. The same goes for “School”, a song from the same lyrical song book, with the music banged out for Cobain to sing over. It mightn’t be imaginative, but again here the riff chords and drum lines are excellent and enjoyable to listen to. And “Mr Moustache” is perhaps the best of them all, finally breaking out into a faster tempo, allowing the guitar to speak, and Kurt actually sounding like he wants to break into a more energetic vocal line.
The star attraction of the album is “About a Girl”, with almost no distortion, the drums perfectly played and recorded, and Cobain’s best clear vocal melody. It is still difficult to comprehend that this song comes from the same band and the same recording sessions, so different is it from pretty much every other song on the album.

While I did pick this up on CD at some point following the demise of the band in the mid-1990's, my best guess is that it was after the demise of Cobain, and a point at which I had played both “Nevermind” and “In Utero” to death and went back to find this album as a stop gap. I was also eventually gifted this on vinyl by a work colleague, who had a still shrink wrapped second edition vinyl on the Sub Pop label, unopened and unplayed, which he claimed he would never listen to because he didn’t have a turntable. So that was an absolute bonus. Cheers Trent.
One of the problems with re-listening to this album over the past couple of weeks has been that at the same time I have been listening to an album that was released just five days after this, one that got a far greater exposure around the world, one which I knew a lot more of on its entry point to the world, and is a far superior release in every way, shape and form. And that episode is coming up next, on Music from a Lifetime. Stay tuned!
The other major problem that this album always holds, is that there are very few people who could honestly say that they knew of this album, and had heard this album, prior to the release of the band’s follow up effort, the slightly better known “Nevermind”. Indeed, if you meet one of these people who say they DID know of “Bleach” before hearing “Nevermind”, I’d suggest you make them take a lie-detector test. So, it is easy for people’s thoughts on TIS album to be swayed by what they thought of the sophomore effort.
And to be perfectly honest, I have never really been a fan of “Bleach”. There are a few songs here that I enjoy, but for the most part, the songwriting and performance is light years better on the next album and trying to judge this album having listened to “Nevermind” for so long before that, always made this a difficult job. Especially as it really has none of the spark and energy that that album has.
So did this have much going for it? Honestly, no. It cannot be compared to the other albums the band released. It is a perfectly reasonable debut album, one that probably offered a glimpse into what could possibly occur in the future. For me though, it's an album that I might put on for a couple of songs. And that’s about it.

1251. Queen / The Miracle. 1989. 5/5

The career of the band Queen over the stretch of five years that preceded the release of this, their 13th studio album, truly pushed their profile and bankability as one of the biggest bands in the world to its greatest height. The great radio hits of the 1970’s had been prolific in raising the band’s profile, and the resulting lull through the change of decades had been somewhat rectified by the release of “The Works” album in 1984, the episode of which appears just a few episodes ago in this season of this podcast.
From that album’s release, Queen had soared, with the resulting world tour being massive, and then followed by their appearance at Live Aid in 1985, a set that has been coined as the greatest 20 minutes of live music in history. The band then wrote the soundtrack for the sci-fi adventure film “Highlander” which starred Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery, and produced the follow up album “A Kind of Magic”. Another world tour followed, and indeed became the final live performances of the band’s career which were commemorated with the “Live Magic” single LP, and down the track the “Live at Wembley 1986” double live album that showcased that entire performance.
Down the track this was revealed to be caused by Freddie’s illness in having contracted the AIDS virus, but at the time Freddie and the band had done a convincing job of hiding that diagnosis from the world, and of course it was not known at the time that the previous world tour would indeed be the band’s final one.
Three years was a long time between albums for the band, but on top of the long tour and Freddie’s illness, which was first diagnosed in 1987, Brian May had been going through a painful separation and subsequent divorce from his first wife, about which he had suffered feelings of failure as both a husband and father. While the band had begun the writing process for their new album in January of 1988, the process of writing and then recording eventually took up the whole of the next 12 months. It was also the first time that a Queen album had all of the songs credited to the band as a whole, rather than the individuals who were the composers. Given the collaboration that was always a part of their songwriting, it did seem as though it was a fair way of not only crediting all four members for their art, but sharing the song writing royalties.

Like all Queen albums, this really is a journey, where the music moves from different styles and genres all the way through, incorporating all four members and their contributions musically, in composition and vocally. As the band reached the end of the 80’s decade, there is a smooth combination of all of the band’s strengths instrumentally – the guitars, drums and piano/keyboards. Add to this great songs lyrically, and then sung as amazingly as always, and you have the basis of a great album.
The opening two tracks more or less meld together to make one song. The opening of “Party” sounds exactly like that, from Freddie’s opening spiel into Brian’s electrifying guitar riffs, John’s jutting bassline and Roger’s drumbeat, you can see in your mind the party going on as the band plays along. And as the song, and the party, winds down, suddenly we segue straight into the second track “Khashoggi’s Ship”, where ‘no one stops my party’, and the journey continues onward. It is a terrific energetic opening to the album. Then comes the less outlandish and more down to earth sound of the title track, “The Miracle”, certainly one of the most profound, beautiful and amazing songs from the band’s catalogue, and showcases the best of the Mercury/Deacon writing partnership. Lyrically it takes its own journey, poignant and heartfelt, strong and uplifting, a positive spin on everything that the world has to offer, before breaking out in a musical cacophony towards the end of the track. Just to quote the whole song is to read a list of what the world should be like – “We’re having a miracle on earth, Mother Nature does it all for us” – “If every child on every street, had clothes to wear and food to eat” – “If all God’s people could be free, to live in perfect harmony” – and most telling, “The one thing we’re all waiting for, is peace on earth, and an end to war”. This song is a masterpiece, one of Queen’s defining moments. I love how Brian May has been quoted as saying it is one of his favourite songs.
This is then followed by “I Want it All” which is quite simply one of the best songs ever written. It’s an anthem, an inspirational song on a musical level as well as a lyrical level. A Brian May blockbuster, with that guitar riff and drum beat at the very forefront of the track. Freddie’s vocals here are supreme, and I love the shared moments with Brian in the middle break. But then there is that middle solo section, where everything is contributing to the brilliance of what comes out. Yes, it is Brian’s amazing guitar solo, perfectly nuanced all the way through, but Roger’s drumming in this piece is also the element that is driving it, galloping the song along with its beat (apparently the only time he ever used a double kick drum), and then John’s superb bassline, jutting at the start, before running up and down the fretboard in the middle of the section – it truly is one of the best solo sections of any Queen song.
The magnificence of “The Invisible Man” follows, with great motion throughout and the rise and surge of the music and vocals along the way. The combination of Roger’s vocals alongside Freddie is terrific, as is the name checking of each of the four members of the band.
Side Two of the album opens with “Breakthru”, the song that sounds so much like a train rumbling down the tracks that the video for the song incorporated exactly that. As someone who generally despises love songs… this is the greatest love song ever written. Once again the lyrics speak for themselves – “I wake up, I feel just fine, you’re face fills my mind” – “Make my feelings known towards you, turn my heart inside and out for you now” – “Honey, you're sparking something, this fire in me, I'm outta control, I wanna rush headlong into this ecstasy” – and of course, “If I could only reach you, If I could make you smile, If I could only reach you, That would really be a breakthrough”.
“Rain Must Fall” has a very Latin sound about it, and is very much a change from the songs that have come before it, something the Mercury/Deacon compositions have a way of doing. Then comes “Scandal”, the scathing attack by Brian on the scathing attacks the media made on him during his divorce and subsequent relationship. Freddie creates a lot of emotion in his vocals in the way he sings this song, really driving home just how Brian must have felt at this time, and to me it has always acted as a marvellous tribute by Freddie to his bandmate in the way that he emotes while performing it. And, by the way, makes it a stunning track. This emotion is brought back in by “My Baby Does Me”, another Mercury/Deacon track that reels in the tempo and utilises and almost R&B sound to the song. The album then concludes with the majestic “Was it All Worth It”, a song constructed by Mercury, and when listening to the lyrics seems like an early epitaph. Freddie was obviously aware of his diagnosis when he wrote the lyrics, and though it can be read as simply a song that looks back on the bands career, and the work they had put in over the years, and asking the question was it all worth it… you can’t help but think that perhaps Freddie was also exploring his own mortality as the song was being written.

The Queen of the 1980’s is my band. “The Works”, “A Kind of Magic”, “The Miracle”. These are the albums that created my love of the band, and no matter how much I love their entire catalogue, it is these three albums that is where my heart still resides. Each is different, each has its own charms and foibles, and yet each to me are basically perfect albums. Each had their moment to imprint themselves upon me. “The Works” did so with the radio airplay the singles received. “A Kind of Magic” did so through the movie “Highlander” that it acted as a soundtrack for. “The Miracle” did in a different way. It was one of the albums released at this time that was not the focus of thrash and heavy metal that I was so indulgent with during 1989. This album acted as one that could be listened to in all company, and it was. For the remainder of 1989 from May onwards, and into the next year, my three closest friends at the time and I would go on car trips to Sydney, just under two hours drive from where we lived, once a month on a Friday. We all found a way to either get out of work or avoid uni, and go to Sydney for the day, almost always in the same friend’s car. During this time, he had purchased “The Miracle” on cassette so we could listen to it in the car. Thing was, at some stage, the cassette got stuck, and so it was the ONLY album that we could listen to, inn his car, on these trips. So, we listened to this album, much as Freddie sings in “Scandal”, ‘over and over and over and over again’. So, I can assure you we knew every word of every song. Great times and great memories. And it was a good thing we loved this album, and that another album wasn’t the one that got caught in there, like the rubbish dance music he also liked at the time, such as New Order or Pet Shop Boys. Ugh.
I bought this album on vinyl on one of those Sydney trips, at Utopia Records in Sydney, not long after its release, and was enamoured with it from the start. Actually, I fell in love with it. The constant playing of the album in the car on any road trip was amplified by the number of times I listened to it at home, and the number of times I played air guitar on “I Want it All”. As with all Queen albums, the differences between each of the songs came with the writers involved, even if they didn’t actually have their name credited against it.
The other major memory I have of this album was later in 1989, prior to going out to bat in a cricket match where we were chasing a large total. I sat in my car for an hour before I was required to bat, listening to “I Want it All”, then fast forwarding to “Breakthru”, and then back. Just those two songs, over and over. Nerves were expunged, and I went out that day and scored my highest score in top grade cricket, and we won the game. Coincidence? Unlikely. Those two songs in particular are anthemic, and great motivators. For me, on that day, they did exactly that.
“The Miracle” was the soundtrack to my life for the second half of 1989, as my life changed from under-performing university student to first full time job, and also being asked to join my first band, where I could parley my love of music into... something that resembled playing music. All of these memories flood back to me every time I put this album on. Some are great, some are not, but one thing that never changes is my love of this album. One of the very great things I have ever had the pleasure of buying and listening to.

1249. Badlands / Badlands. 1989. 4/5

Looking back on the recent history of the members of Badlands before the band had even come to exist, it’s amazing that all four members of the band were available to come together in this project in the first place. That is perhaps more so the case for iconic guitarist Jake E. Lee, who had spent the previous five years in Ozzy Osborne’s band and had been an intricate part of that band. He played on two amazing albums in “Bark at the Moon” and “The Ultimate Sin” and had been hands on with the writing of all of the songs involved, even if the credit wasn’t necessarily given to him at that time. And then, following the tour after “The Ultimate Sin” album, he was unceremoniously fired from the band, without any reason given, though it was pretty obvious that Jake’s constant fight to be given the writing credits he deserved for what he had done on those two albums is what eventually led to Sharon Osbourne issuing his notice. The fact that Jake found this out from his guitar tech and roommate is even more amazing. He was not the first nor the last to get this treatment from the Osbourne camp.
This led to Jake deciding to start up his own band, and his first stop was to find a lead vocalist who could not only perform vocally but also charismatically on stage. It eventually led him to come to Ray Gillen, who had been through his own journey in that time period. Gillen had come in to the 80’s version of Black Sabbath, replacing Glenn Hughes who had sung on the “Seventh Star” album for the tour that followed, and had then begun to write and record songs for the album that eventually became “The Eternal Idol”. Through problems that arose with, amongst others, Gillen being unable to contribute effectively to the writing process, which necessitated Bob Daisley being brought in to help reassess the writing of the album, the process of writing and recording was a mess, and eventually with both Gillen and drummer Eric Singer quit the band prior to the album’s release. It eventually was re-recorded completely with Tony Marton on vocals. Something similar happened with his next band, when Gillen joined John Sykes and Blue Murder as vocalist, but was again let go following singing on demos for the album, also due to difficulties in writing. That story can be heard on the episode recently released for that debut Blue Murder album. Given his problems in just those two projects, it’s interesting that Jake took Gillen on in this project. It is my opinion that vocally at least, Gillen would have improved Blue Murder as a band.
To complete the band, both Jake and Ray brought in musicians they had recently been playing with. Ray recruited Eric Singer to play drums, with whom he had been involved in Black Sabbath, while Jake brought in Greg Chaisson, who he had initially met during auditions for Ozzy’s band. With the foursome complete, it was time for the band that had been brought together to pull together their debut album, the self-titled “Badlands”.

The opening two tracks of the album are the money shots and are the ones that have forever since been Exhibit A and Exhibit B as to why this band should have been in the superstar class. “High Wire” is a great opening track, showcasing all four members doing their job at the highest class imaginable. This is followed by the single “Dreams in the Dark” where Ray’s vocals ramp up, and Jake’s guitar has a very ‘ultimate sin’ sound about it during the solo. These two songs have always been the ones that I would play to people to convince them that Badlands is a very good band and a very impressive album, but the remainder has to also be very good if it is to live up to the opening.
“Jade’s Song” is an instrumental that comes after the opening two tracks on the album, quiet and reserved, written by Jake and showcasing the other side of his guitaring talent.
“Winter’s Call” starts off in the same fashion, segueing from that quiet perspective with Ray singing gently over the top, before the track bursts into action, with its heavy blues base emphasises by Ray’s top notch vocals.
“Dancing on the Edge” is arguably the hardest song on the album, moving along at a fast clip and Ray singing hard with gusto. Jake’s guitaring here again does feel as though it surpasses what he did in his previous band, which is a big call, but that’s how terrific it is. The same can be said of “Hard Driver”, another fast paced track that combines the brilliant bass lines of Chaisson with Jake’s outstanding guitar to drive this song throughout. These are both sensational songs that almost no one seems to know, and that seems like a crime. They are split on the album by the excellent “Streets Cry Freedom” which starts off in a mid tempo range before changing up to bring home the second half of the song with a faster energy.
OK, so “Rumblin’ Train” does dive back into that blues sound, something that seems like a slight letdown considering the songs that have come before it. It’s a stock standard blues rock song, that’s probably all you need to know. “Devil’s Stomp” runs a similar agenda that “Streets Cry Freedom” does with the slower start to the song before it breaks out at the two minute mark with a hard core guitar riff and Ray’s killer vocals stealing the song. Another awesome track on the album. The album then concludes with “Seasons”, which, if I am going to get picky (and I am) is the wrong tempo for a closing track. Nothing wrong with looking for an epic finish to the album, but at least ramp it up a bit in doing so. It’s not a bad song, just not as good as others on this album.
All through this album, it is important to note that all four members of the band are superb. Eric Singer’s drumming, as he was becoming renown for by this stage of his career, is fantastic. Hard hitting, giving those 4/4 and 2/4 beats everything as the signature power of the band. In the same way as Cozy Powell was doing through the decade, Eric was laying his stamp over the albums he played on, and this is no different. Greg Chaisson’s bass lines are just wonderful, providing the core base that allows Jake to play his guitar the way he does, without the music losing any of its depth and power. It is a great performance. And as you will already have guessed, Jake and Ray’s efforts here are platinum. Jake’s guitaring is just superb, and showing that he certainly wasn’t let go from his previous band because of his skills, while Ray’s vocals are supreme, channelling Tony Martin and Ronnie Dio and playing an integral part in making this album as good as it is.

Given the quality of the personnel in the band, it was pretty hard to go past buying this album when it was first released. It had been given a reasonable amount of exposure in Australia’s ‘Hot Metal’ magazine at the time, and having loved both of Ozzy’s previous two albums that had Jake E. Lee on guitar especially, I leapt at this when it finally hit the record stores. I bought it on vinyl from Utopia Records, and played it a lot. I taped it on cassette and had it in the car. And overall I thought it was… pretty good! It didn’t all gel with what I was listening to at the time, and perhaps that slight bias against the blues side of the rock on offer was a part of that. My overriding memories of that time was that it was a really good album but not one I could play in front of other albums released at the time.
On the occasional listens I gave to it after that I found more enjoyment, probably due to that slight bias having retreated after those end of teenage years. Tragedy occurred in 2001 when a flood destroyed all of my vinyl albums, including this one, which given the inability to find this on physical media in the modern age is even more distressing. And have you tried to find this on a streaming service? Also impossible. YouTube is your best bet, though for me my mp3 version is still my best friend.
So when it came to this anniversary coming up, I began listening to it once again. And I found out just how good it is again. It’s a crime that this album isn’t better known in the modern age. Those amazing vocals of Ray Gillen, that blazing guitar from Jake E. Lee, that combination is still fantastic to this day.
Unfortunately, the curse of Ray Gillen’s bands continued down the track. The tensions between Gillen and Lee ramped up during the tour to support the album, and into the writing for the follow up. Gillen was eventually fired during the tour for that album, which had come a year after his initial diagnosis for AIDS. That tragic end… is for another episode down the track.
In the end, this debut album is one that for a short space of time lit up the airwaves and the metal magazines, and if the music gods had aligned in the right way, would have been the first of many more terrific albums from a great lineup. That didn’t happen, but you can still enjoy the short burst of joy that we did receive.

1246. Annihilator / Alice in Hell. 1989. 4/5

Annihilator was formed in Ottawa in Canada back in 1984 by guitarists and vocalists Jeff Waters and John Bates. The meeting of Waters and Bates was through mutual neighbourhood friends with the intention to cover AC/DC songs. After their initial meeting, they decided to instead write original songs together, and the two of them formed what they called Annihilator. Bates then recruited bassist Dave Scott while Waters brought in drummer Paul Malek. The band rehearsed and played in the basement of a women's fashion shop for a two-year period before settling in Val-d'Or, a city in Quebec, after a residency there. During this time, Waters and Bates co-wrote most of the tracks that would eventually make up the majority of Annihilator’s first two albums, though as it turned out, it was not to be with the lineup that was together when they were written. In 1985, the band produced a demo titled "Welcome to Your Death", but not long after this Bates and Scott left the band, citing "artistic differences" and "personality conflicts". Not the first time those phrases have been used in the break up of band lineups. These two went on to form the band Ligeia, notably recording a version of the song “Alison Hell” in 1987 that pre-dated the Annihilator release.
The band, as it was, then went on to record two more demo’s, titled "Phantasmagoria" and "Wicked Mystic", before Waters moved to Vancouver, where he assembled what he hoped would be a more permanent line-up, including drummer Ray Hartmann and former D.O.A. bassist Randy Rampage on vocals. Rampage came with impressive credentials, having been in the influential Canadian hard core band D.O.A, but as bass guitarist. Here he had been brought on board by Waters to take on the lead vocal duties. In 1988, Waters, Rampage and Hartmann went into the studio, with Waters recording all of the guitar and bass tracks himself in lieu of other musicians, and produced what would become the band's debut album. Hartmann’s drums and Rampages vocals completed the task, and “Alice in Hell” was released upon the world as the debut album for the band Annihilator.

For what is, for all intents and purposes a thrash metal album, the opening to the band’s debut album is an interesting start. The instrumental “Crystal Ann” starts with classical acoustic guitar strains, completely out of character for what you would expect from this type of album. No “Hit the Lights” or “Over the Wall” or “Loved to Death” here. Simply almost two minutes of classically aligned guitar with no backing, starting off the album. I’m assuming most people were as bemused by this the first time they heard the album as I was. This then strums into “Alison Hell”, where there is more of the same to start the track, before the opening running riff kicks the album into gear at last. The move between clear guitar and distorted riff is an interesting play off against each other, as well as the change of pace literally within the song before it finally finds its groove. The move between a normal vocal throughout to the falsetto piece before the solo is another interesting touch. Given the lateness of the hour in regards to the thrash metal genre when this was released, this opening to the album at least showed the band had their own take and style with their music, rather than copying what had come before.
“Alison Hell” crashes straight into “W.T.Y.D” - Welcome to Your Death – and now the band has its mojo, with this song motoring along nicely and Rampage now find his range vocally. With John Bates credited with having co-written four of the tracks on this album, it’s interesting that both of the songs he contributed to at the top of the album have the insertion of the clear guitar into the tracks in the middle, a stylised impact that doesn’t occur elsewhere here.
“Wicked Mystic” suffers no fools, racing along and plunging headlong into the speed and riffage that you would expect. Both this song along with “Burns Like a Buzzsaw Blade” have elements comparable to bands like Overkill and Testament, and while they are both enjoyable tracks they do tend to hold the same rhythm riff throughout the song, and the same vocal monotone, interjected only by Waters selected solo to provide the balance. “Word Salad” creeps back into the same pattern as the opening tracks, with the slower clear guitar middle breaking up the word cycle first par and the complete over the top shredding guitar part of the second half. I mean, the second half of the song is just that shredding guitar, which does sound amazing but perhaps outstays its welcome.
"Schizos (Are Never Alone) Parts I & II" continues along the journey of amazing guitar riffs and changing song structure which is for the most part another full on instrumental, while "Ligeia" sticks to the style that has been moulded by this album, a rampaging cacophony of noise thumping out of the speakers at you in a formless void. The album then concludes with arguably the best song of the album, “Human Insecticide”, which flays along at great speed and in the best traditions of the thrash genre, again arguably the best formed track of the album.

This album came out at an interesting time for metal music as a whole. The genre of thrash had been on the rise for the previous three years, with bands such as Metallica and Megadeth and Slayer being followed into the fray by Testament, Overkill, Death Angel and others. And for this to be the band’s debut album in 1989, riding on that wave, I guess they had no idea the storm that was coming.
I came across this album through the Australian heavy metal magazine publication Hot Metal, a great source of interviews and reviews that began at about the time this album was released. On the back of its recommendation, I found the cash to buy the album. And it was certainly in my wheelhouse as to what I was listening to at the time, and it fit in well. That cacophony of guitar coming at you like a brick wall found its place for me right between the previous year’s “... And Justice for All” and the following year’s “Rust in Peace”. If it had come out a year later or a year earlier, I feel it may have missed its window to grab my attention. And as a result, it did find its place. And it had its moment in the sun with me in regards to listening pleasure.
Flash forward to today, and I still enjoy listening to it. Granted, I hadn’t put it on in quite a long time before two weeks ago, but since then, I have had a good 20-25 rotations of this album, and I still enjoy it. OK, so it isn’t as structured or overly imaginative as some of the great thrash albums you could mention – the aforementioned Justice and Rust, “Among the Living”, “The Legacy”, “Act III” - but that doesn’t mean that you can’t and won’t enjoy it. And say what you will about the actual song composition on this album, there is little more you can say about the guitaring of Jeff Waters here on his debut. At times sounding like Mustaine, at others sounding like Hammett, he really does try to throw the kitchen sink at this album. It’s just that, sometimes, you are looking for more in the actual songwriting than just fast guitars and smashing drums. Not all the time, mind you, but just some of the time. It does depend on your mood.
Beyond this album, Jeff had a revolving door policy with bandmates, from album to album, and the sound he maintained on those future albums seemed to change with the times. But this album remains as solid a debut album as you could wish for. It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and if I was to get below the surface I can see why this is the case. But for pure thrash entertainment without trying to break down and critique every part of the album, this is still a fun ride.

1245. The Cult / Sonic Temple. 1989. 4.5/5

The six years that stretched between the band’s opening influence upon the music world and the release of “Sonic Temple”, their fourth studio album, brought forth more apparent change in The Cult’s music than was probably noticeable to those that grew up with the albums as they were released, rather than discovering them at a later date or all lumped into one big collection. Because it would have been slightly more subtle to have experienced the transition of their music from album to album rather than find it in a way that it could get all lumped together.
The Cult’s 3rd album “Electric” had a fairly significant rise in the hard rock genre than had been apparent on the first two albums which reside more in the goth rock area, and especially the gloriously moody and soulful guitar sound utilised by Billy Duffy throughout those albums, and highlighted by the still amazing “She Sells Sanctuary”. On “Electric”, the band changes it up, not the least by the hiring of Rick Rubin as producer, something to shake up any band’s sound. Coming from a very different musical background, Rubin shepherds The Cult through an album that has a far more traditional hard rock basis about it, with simple riffs and drum patterns held together by Ian Astbury’s vocal carcinogens, and almost looking for a way to force its way into the commercial bent that was occurring during that period of the later 1980’s decade. The move worked, with the album cracking top 40 in the US and UK, and the subsequent tour making significant inroads around the world.
One thing you can assess from the band at this point of their career is that they did not want to rest on their laurels. Even though apparently the beginning of the initial breakdown of the relationship between Astbury and Duffy had its tendrils starting to stretch outwards, that didn’t stop the band from pushing forward with their follow up to “Electric”, once again with an evolving sound coming through, and another producer who was about to become enormous in the music world brought in to help with the transformation that they were hoping to achieve. All of that was the lead up to one of the biggest albums of 1989, the star attraction called “Sonic Temple”.

So, something really occurs between the time the band wrote and recorded the “Electric” album and the time they come to record this album. The sound alone is the killer. This is smooooooooth. Listening to “Electric” and then listening to “Sonic Temple is like starting out drinking Johnnie Walker Black whiskey, and then switching over to drinking a Laphroaig single malt whiskey. “Electric” is a great album with a great sound, but from the opening bars of “Sonic Temple” that smooth sound just runs down the back of the throat so easily. And one of the great contributors to that is the new producer, Bob Rock. To this point of his career, he has been a sound engineer and mixer in the main, especially on previous two Bon Jovi Albums, and it was with this purpose that he was brought in here by the band. And although he had produced albums before this, "Sonic Temple” became one of the ones where he caught people’s attention. As it turned out, 1989 ended up being a big year for him on that front. Here on “Sonic Temple” he smoothed out a lot of external noises on the instruments, and really got the best of the sound available in the studio. Everything is clear in the mix compared to “Electric” which had a different producer looking for different ideas – ones that worked for that album and what t band had been aiming for, but different to what they wanted now.
Ian’s vocals here are being pushed harder and getting more from their output. This is noticeable on the first two tracks in particular, where his importance is at its peak. Whereas “Electric” had a very AC/DC feel about it in places in song structure, sound and tempo, none of that exists here. Indeed, when recording “Electric” apparently Rubin had spent the process comparing the guitar riffs as recorded to those of AC/DC. And yet, what is really interesting about this album is that “Sonic Temple” is a harder album in almost all aspects, an interesting feat given the history of the bands that Rick Rubin has produced in the past, and what Bob Rock generally pushes for in the future.
Jamie Stewart’s bass guitar and bass lines on this album are at their most important, and are the true driving force of the songs here. Their quality, and the perfect resonation that Rock’s producing gives them in post-production, helps to makes the songs here the amazing quality that they have. On the albums two opening tracks, that bass line is massive and is glorious in taking a centre stage in the mix. This is exemplified by Mickey Curry’s drums, the man who has played in more top shelf rock bands than just about any drummer ever. The drum sound he gets on this album is perfect, booming out of the speakers at you and wonderfully intricate without having a thousand drumbeats and cymbal crashes coming at you.
And then you have the writers and composers. Billy’s guitar sound on “Sonic Temple” steps up another notch, another refinement from the Angus Young like qualities of “Electric”, and more that the goth rock flow of “Love”. Here he contributes a guitar sound that probably isn’t harder than the previous album, but has more attitude and emotion. This of course is conducted by Ian’s amazing vocals, honeyed in the lower register and yet still with that unique quality he possesses when he reaches the higher positions of his vocal range. The combination of these two not-overtly-heavy-rock guitar and vocals actually combines to produce music that is, indeed, a heavier rock than they had produced before. Between the four members of the band and their producer, they have combined here to formulate an album that arguably has no weaknesses.

Back in 1989, I was at Tory’s Hotel in Kiama, seeing a band that some of my mates played in on a Friday night, no doubt enjoying a few beers at the same time. Actually, you can take that as a given. At one of the breaks the band had so they could... refuel... one of them came up to me and our other friends watching and said... “Have you heard the new Cult album?”. It was at this stage that I professed that I had no idea who The Cult were. “OK’, he replied, “at the next break I’ll play it through the PA”. Sure enough, an hour later, at the band’s final break, he placed the cassette version of “Sonic Temple” on for the listening pleasure of everyone in attendance, and I was greeted by the opening of the first Cult song I ever heard, “Sun King”. For me, despite Ian’s statement of “this is where it all ends”, it was in fact for me where it all began.
It is difficult to describe just what an immediate impact this album had on me. I went out that week to buy my own vinyl copy, and began playing it on heavy rotation. This was different to everything I was listening to at the time, which mainly involved thrash metal and old school heavy metal. This isn’t anything like that. This has a different presence, a whole different feel. And, as it turns out, perfect timing. Looking back now, at the music landscape as it was leading up to the release of this album, and then what occurred in the next few years, this album picked its moment perfectly. The world was heading away from the keys and synth driven 80’s decade into the stripped down grunge and alternative 90’s decade, and this album straddled that moment perfectly. And in doing so, became a monolith that crossed genres, certainly amongst my friends and acquaintances. Us metal heads loved this album, as did the more commercial rock loving friends of ours, and even those who professed no great lock for anything in a heavy direction. Even my sisters enjoyed it, and indeed were more than a little surprised when they heard me singing along to the songs whenever they played the album.
While I have most of The Cult’s albums now, and still enjoy most of them, for me nothing has ever matched the glorious and abundant joy that this album brought me at the time I discovered it, and that it has ever since. And of course that comes from the time it was released, and the memories it brings back of those days, of going to see bands at Tory’s in my late teens and early 20’s, of parties at mates houses where all we did was play albums and drink beer. This was right in the middle of those great days, and still reminds me of that to this very day. To be honest, that’s what I would like to do right now, have some mates around, open a beer, and play this album loud. I mean, what more could you possibly ask for? Just the mere snatch of this opening 60 seconds is enough to do it every time… ‘wound up, can’t sleep can’t do anything right little honey, since I set my eyes on you…’