1224. Black Sabbath / Reunion. 1998. 5/5

For almost 20 years from 1979, when Ozzy Osbourne finally parted ways with Black Sabbath, the fan base constantly speculated about the possibility of a reunion of the original foursome to not only tour but to record a new album. No matter how good other lineups of the band happened to be, or how enjoyable the albums that they released were, there was a somewhat morbid anticipation of what might occur should the individuals Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne ever get on the same stage again, and then the studio.
There were some close calls along the way that tried to amount to something but eventually fell short. The four did get on stage together to play a three song set at Live Aid in 1985, but it was a far cry from an outstanding success. Up against the biggest bands of the era, they failed to show the same energy that came from many of the other acts, and they all went their separate ways once again. Then there was the ill-fated appearance at what was to be Ozzy’s final touring performance when Iommi, Butler and Ward agreed to support Ozzy at that gig, and then come out at the end as the original quartet to play a couple of songs. It resulted in that current formation of Black Sabbath, with Ronnie Dio and Vinny Appice, collapsing on the spot. From here there was an attempt for these four to get together and compose some new material, but old scars and wounds seemed to reopen, and the venture once again fell apart as they all moved on again.
Eventually in 1997, for Ozzy’s own Ozzfest festival, Ozzy, Tony and Geezer came together to play as Black Sabbath, with Mike Bordin from Faith No More filling in for an absent Ward on drums, and played a set of classic songs to a rousing reception. This led to yet another bout of ‘will they-won't they’ discussion on a possible reunion. Following the success of these gigs, the four got together, and managed to agree on playing two nights in their home city of Birmingham in November 1997, which they would record to release as a live album under the name Black Sabbath. This was despite their still being concerns over Bill Ward’s ability to play two gigs given his health problems. Another former Sabbath drummer in Vinny Appice was on hand to step in if required, which fortunately did not eventuate. And so, the fans finally got what they were after, a true Black Sabbath reunion, even if it was only on stage. Or so everyone was led to believe.

So what we have here is a two CD set, unless you have just purchased the brand new anniversary release on 3LP’s, that contains a great mix of songs from Black Sabbath’s era of 1970 to 1978, the era of the band that many hard core fans believe is the ONLY era of the band. And, looking back now, it’s probably a little hard to believe that these guys were still amazingly young. They were all under 50 years of age when this was recorded, well within the prime of their playing existence. And it comes across here beautifully. All of the songs played are classics, and while the versions may not be as fast of energetic as they were back when the band was in its prime in the 1970’s, they sound magnificent on this album. The production and recording of the two nights is done perfectly, and the result is a fantastic live album.
You get the songs you expect. The opening battle cry of “War Pigs”, the psychedelic ramblings of “Fairies Wear Boots”, the drug anthemic lines of “Sweet Leaf” and “Snowblind”. The majesty of “Black Sabbath” and “Iron Man”, the heaviest riff ever written in “Children of the Grave” and the afterthought of “Paranoid”. All are performed here exactly as you would expect, and their impact is significant. There are the other great tracks you would expect to hear as well, such as “N.I.B” (complete with a stage intruder at the end of the song proclaiming his love of Ozzy and the band before being dragged off) and the fantastic “Electric Funeral”, the power doom of “Into the Void” and “Lord of This World”. Each of them is terrific.
There are a couple of surprises, but none of them is a disappointment. In fact for me they are a highlight. Who would have expected “Spiral Architect” to make the cut, and yet it is a brilliant version of this classic song. I’m not sure anyone was expecting “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, if only for the reason that there is no way Ozzy could have sung this song in its original pitch, even at that stage of his career. But play it they did, and Ozzy’s subtle change in the way he sings it just gives it a different character that is fun to hear. And the wonderful version of “Dirty Women” from “Technical Ecstasy” is perfect, and great to have a song this far into their catalogue get a run for this album.
Perhaps the biggest talking point at the time of this album’s release was the addition of two new studio tracks, “Psycho Man” and “Selling My Soul”, both written by Ozzy and Tony. These were done in Aril and May of 1998, when there was a concerted effort to try and write for a new album. The sessions went slowly however, and eventually these two songs were all that eventuated from them. The differences in their styles are obvious, and given where each of the four members were at in their careers at that point in time, perhaps it is not difficult to understand how it would hard to write together again.

And we’re back with my overly typical comment – and if you are listening to these episodes in release order you’ll know exactly what I mean, as this is the third live album in a row I have podcasted on – in that a live album should ALWAYS be a 5/5 experience, because you have the band’s best songs in their best environment. And with “Reunion”, you absolutely have that. The return of the original line up of Black Sabbath, playing a bunch of their greatest ever tracks in front of an ecstatic audience, and having the time of their lives.
This truly is a terrific live album. Sabbath to this point had not done many live albums, and had barely taken the chance to do so when this line up was together. It is only in recent years, with the re-release of deluxe versions of those classic albums, that they have included rare and unreleased recordings of concerts from those grand old days, and they are all quite brilliant. But for the most part, despite the hurriedly released “Live at Last” album, this line up hadn’t had a proper live release. And this absolutely does the band justice. Bill’s drumming mightn’t be anything like he did in the day but it still fits the bill (pun intended). The ‘wall of noise’ known as Geezer and Tony is simply superb, both still supreme on their instruments, while Ozzy’s vocals are still amazingly good throughout.
I bought this within a few days of its release and loved it immediately. It was one of the highlights of my music purchases of 1998. My best memory of listening to this album was being at a get together at a mates house in my home town of Kiama, where he was renting a house that looked down the local beach into town. We had this album cranking during the BBQ and beers that went into the night, and it was brilliant singing along and air guitaring to each song as it came on. I highly recommend listening to the album this way.
The quartet tried again to write a new album in 2002, but they just couldn’t find a way to make it work, which Iommi always regretted as he believed that the songs they did produce were top shelf. Eventually, following the Heaven and Hell project and then Dio’s sad demise, Iommi, Butler and Osbourne did write and record a final Black Sabbath album titled “13”... but that story is for another day.

1221. Kiss / Psycho Circus. 1998. 3/5

Even for Kiss, the three years leading up to the release of this album was turbulent, with the twists and turns of the band and its fortunes being played out publicly as the unfolding story took place. Most of that began with the band’s appearance on MTV Unplugged, where the four band members were joined on stage for the end of the concert by original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, which got a huge reaction from the fans. Following this, as the public rumours of a possible reunion grew, the band went into the studio to complete the recording of their follow up album to “Revenge” titled “Carnival of Souls”, an album which certainly messed with the prototype Kiss sound to incorporate the more modern rock sound that was around in the mid-1990's. Though it was completed in early 1996, the release was shelved, as Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons then confirmed that a reunion tour with Ace and Peter as the original foursome would take place, and did so in the full makeup and outfits of the Love Gun era, to the rapturous accolades of their fans everywhere. As the ‘return of make-up’ tour wound through 1996, both Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer were paid a weekly salary as they sat on the sidelines to cool their heels, no doubt to assuage just how everything would play out once the tour was over. By the end of 1996, Kulick had left the band, obviously seeing the writing on the wall with the success of the reunion tour, and Singer also found his place had been reverted back to Criss.
The band continued to tour worldwide throughout 1997, with “Carnival of Souls” eventually seeing the light of day in October of that year. But the tours were only playing songs from the era prior to 1982, when this foursome had been the band, and the question from the fans now was; would this reunited line up go into the studio and record a new album? The eventual answer to that question was; yes, they would. But it wouldn’t be Kiss if there weren’t any further twists and turns in the story, and it is fair to say this was true once again of the writing and recording of the album that eventually became “Psycho Circus”.

For an album that was touted as the return of the original awesome foursome, the actual amount that was contributed to the writing and recording of “Psycho Circus” by both Ace and Peter was minimal. Peter only played drums on one song, the Ace Frehley penned “Into the Void”, with the remainder being done by session drummer Kevin Valentine. Peter did sing lead vocals on the Paul Stanley and Bob Ezrin written ballad “I Finally Found My Way”, which was apparently especially written for him to sing. Peter also sang on the song “You Wanted the Best”, written by Gene and featuring all four artists on lead vocals, the only song in the Kiss catalogue where that occurred. Beyond this, Peter Criss was non-existent on this reunion album. For Ace’s part, he co-wrote “Into the Void” with Karl Cochran, and also played lead guitar and sang lead vocals on the track, and also played lead and sang on the collaborative track “You Wanted the Best”. As with Peter, Ace was not involved with any other part of the album. He was quoted some years later as saying he had written quite a bit of material for the album, but it was rejected by Paul and Gene for various reasons. In his book, Peter Criss stated that both he and Ace were paid an enormous amount of money to stay out of participation of the album, while for their part Paul and Gene have suggested different reasons over the years as to why the other two were kept at arm's length, ranging from their not being capable, to them not showing up when required, to their wanting new financial deals, and to its being the producer's choice to not use them. Most of these reasons conflicted with each other at different times over the years, and indeed have changed over time. Even producer Bruce Fairbairn, who has cropped up a few times in recent episodes of this podcast, stated that he wanted to stay away from gimmicks and trends such as guest appearances, and just stay true to what Kiss does best and what people remembered them for. This being the case, why was this not followed? Tommy Thayer, who would eventually replace Ace as lead guitarist a few years down the track, played most of the lead guitar on this album, while there were a few other who contributed either instrumentally or creatively.
Logic would suggest that Paul and Gene felt THEY were in fact the band, and that the return of Ace and Peter was only as hired guns, paid contractors there to do their job of playing on stage and little else. And this was accurate, as both had sign short term contracts to play in the band once again. Thus, rather than have a collaborative effort such as the band did back in their glory days together, now it was not so much a band as four individuals who appeared on stage together.
Would this album have been better if they had played and written as the band? It’s difficult to say. Tommy Thayer is a skilled guitarist as he has shown in the past two decades as the band’s lead player, but he is also different. When you listen to “Into the Void” you immediately know it is Ace playing guitar as it is so distinctive, but that doesn’t make Thayer’s guitaring on the other songs less excellent, it’s just that it isn’t Ace, which sort of defeats the purpose of labelling this a Kiss album. And Ace does write some terrific songs, so surely at least one other of his tracks could have been used?
The album itself has its highs and lows. The ballad “I Finally Found My Way” does nothing for me, while songs such as “Journey of 1000 Years” and “We Are One” and “Dreamin’” are in that average section of Kiss songs that are inoffensive easy listening portions. Ace’s “Into the Void” is one of the better tracks here, as is the title lead off track “Psycho Circus”, a perfect concert opening song that gets the masses on their feet and first pumping from the very start. Why then it hasn’t been utilised as this opening song at their concerts for the last 20-odd years for me is very strange. This holds its own as one the bands best songs since the original foursomes demise. Of the rest, “You Wanted the Best”, that utilises all four members both instrumentally and vocally, reminds you most of the way these four used to be regarded.

Over the years this hasn’t been an album that I have given a great deal of listening to. I didn’t buy it on its release, judging at the time that it was a money grab from a band who were using the gimmick of going back to their original line up and donning the make up again. I don’t think that observation was far off the mark. I heard it a couple of times before I saw the band on their first farewell tour in 2001, where the only song they played was the title track, which did indeed sound great. From that point, it wasn’t for another decade that I heard it again, when I went on my mission to acquire all of the Kiss back catalogue that I didn’t have, and give it all a fair listen. And then we come to the last 12 months, where I saw the band again on their latest farewell tour, along with my son Josh. And it was Josh’s growing love of Kiss in the last six years that convinced me to delve deeper into the albums I didn’t know as well. Which then led me to a new appreciation of “Psycho Circus”.
The more I listen to this album, the more I think it was a missed opportunity. There are some terrific songs here, ones I still sing along to whenever I put the album on. And some great moments. My ears honestly still prick up on the two songs that Ace Frehley plays lead guitar on, because the two solos in those songs remind me of that early material so much, and it really triggers something when I listen to it. And like I’ve said, Thayer is a good guitarist... but he isn’t Ace Frehley. Whatever the reason was to exclude Ace and Peter from the recording of this album, I still think it was a mistake. It didn’t matter when it came to selling the album, because it was still Kiss and the Reunion, even if it really wasn’t in the long run. The “Revenge” album actually stands out more because it had both Vinnie Vincent and Bruce Kulick writing songs, and Kulick’s stand out guitaring. Here, Thayer is actually the hired gun, but is not significantly outstanding in his lead work to command the songs like any of those other three guitarists would have. Along with the other two dozen albums I have spent the last month listening to, this has received plenty of airplay, and I probably enjoy the album more now than I did when I started. The good is great, the average is average. In many ways, that sums up almost every Kiss album in existence.

1211. Anthrax / Volume 8 - The Threat is Real. 1998. 2.5/5

For all of the success Anthrax had had during the back half of the 1980’s as they rode at the forefront of the thrash metal scene, and then into the beginning of the 1990’s, the troubles away from the stage into the mid to late 1990’s was just as difficult for the band to negotiate as the changes in the music scene itself. They had released the album “Stomp 442” in 1995 on the back of this, but it had been the changes at the top of Elektra Records that created the most problems, with the new head of the company openly telling the band in a meeting that she would never have signed them to the contract they did if she had been in charge at the time. The result of this hostility was that “Stomp 442” received practically zero promotion by the record company, which contributed to it being far less commercially successful that their previous album, and eventually led to the band leaving the label.
Anthrax instead signed with an independent label, and went about writing and recording their new album. As with the previous album, Charlie Benante wrote the majority of the music, and played most of the lead guitar, as well as his main job with the band, playing the drums. Paul Crook, who was the touring guitarist for the band at that time, contributed solos to three songs, while Dimebag Darrell from Pantera again contributed solos to two songs.
As an ‘old school’ metal band, Anthrax was well aware of the changes within the music world. It was a tough gig out there for those bands. Some had altered their sound to mix in with the change of era, others had toughed it out, and many had ceased to exist. For Anthrax, with a new record deal and a shrinking live audience, the challenge was to ensure that their product continued to reflect what their fans wanted, and to keep them excited in their work and to push to regain the lost ground that had occurred with the lack of support of their previous album.

The opening two tracks are the best examples of the then-current day Anthrax tunes. Heavy rolling drums, heavy guitars and John Bush’s hardcore vocals overlaying throughout. “Crush” delivers as a solid opening track, while “Catharsis” is probably the better song, bringing better energy and delivery. In the Bush era of Anthrax, when he is going hard at the vocals the songs are at their peak, and both of these songs have those best moments about them.
“Inside Out” has a mood and tempo typical of the age, heavy guitars and hard hitting drums in a slow mid tempo grind and groove with vocals growling rather than soaring with a Dimebag solo tying it all together. While Scott Ian likes to suggest Anthrax stayed true to type during this album, this song, the first single released from the album, offers something that is not that. The song is a good one, but it most definitely brings the era into the album. I guess I should just say it – it sounds like a Pantera song. I wonder why. “P & V” or “Piss and Vinegar” which is what the title actually is, typifies the Bush era with those same hard guitars but at a better tempo and with Bush rallying the troops in a better vocal style that does the song justice.
It has to be said here that, for me at least, a part of this album feels as though it is a cross between an S.O.D album and an “Attack of the Killer B’s” album. “604” and “Cupajoe” are both short and to the point in a similar frame that Charlie and Scott created for Stormtroopers of Death in the 1980’s and seem to have been revived here for this album. On the other hand, “Toast to the Extras” is an “Attack of the Killer B’s kind of song, because of the song lyrics and the style of music written and played for the song. In fact, when you listen to it, even now, the instant reaction is ‘what the fuck is this?!’ For me, none of these three songs fit the concept of what I think of as an Anthrax album, at least an Anthrax mainstream type album. Those songs had their place in the past, but to me it feels as though they are wildly out of place here.
“Born Again Idiot”, “Killing Box” and “Alpha Male” are all much more like it, energetic in a much more positive fashion, and providing a better selection of riffs and solos as well as Bush’s vocals at their best. Offsetting that though is the song “Harms Way”, which starts off as a borderline country western song on steel guitar, and while the song does ‘harden up’ as it progresses, it still sounds like Nashville based song than New York. On the back of that, “Hog Tied” and “Big Fat” are back to the average song style, somehow trapped from being either classic Anthrax or mildly unnecessary.
“Stealing From a Thief” is the album’s closing song, which contains “Pieces” as a hidden track to actually finish the album. Frankie Bello wrote “Pieces” about his brother who was murdered outside his girlfriend’s house two years prior to this, and which Frankie also sings. It is fine, but is it not out of place here? The acoustic guitar and remorseful reflective tone of the song again seems like it is placed here because it was important to the band that it be acknowledged, but the style is all wrong for the departure to the album.
Earlier I mentioned part of this album being like an offshoot of SOD and Attack. Now is the part where I mention that the style associated with the majority of the rest of the album is very much influenced by the sound that Pantera had brought to the scene during the 1990’s. And we know the band admired what Pantera was doing at the time, and the fact that Dimebag Darrell was involved in pieces of this album, and that both Phil Anselmo and Vinnie Paul were present on the album as well, really brings that home to roost. It is in no way a Pantera album, but the sound and the format of the songs here have a definite trend towards that style. “Stealing From a Thief” absolutely trends this way. So the influence of Pantera appears obvious, but the album also lacks cohesion, it appears that in places there is too much going on, and in others not enough. Some fans complain that it sounds too much like nu-metal, and I can hear and understand those thoughts. I’m more of the opinion that they ride the wave of nu-metal (or at least attempt to) without actually getting their feet wet, but others would disagree.

Anthrax is another band that I have supported since my discovery of them in the 1980's, and another of whom I own all of their released albums. This was another of those ‘purchase on love of the past’ albums that I went with in 1998, mostly on the continued belief that they couldn’t put out a poor album, and that I would more than get my money’s worth from it. And it must be said, I was certainly in my phase of European power metal when this was released, mostly in order to avoid the oncoming charge of nu-metal and industrial metal which didn’t sit great with me.
So I bought this album, and I taped it to cassette, and put it in my car to listen to on the way to work and back... and it got the mandatory listens before being swapped out for the next album in line. And it is fair to say that it suffered from what a lot of albums did at the end of the 1990’s, which was me going back to albums a decade earlier and enjoying reminiscing about them rather than giving the new material a fair listen. You can blame “Load and “Reload” for that! They really killed off a lot of new album listening at the end of the 90’s decade!
It wasn’t that I disliked the album that made me stop listening to it at the time, but it was a fact that I would listen to it, and then listen to “Among the Living” or “Persistence of Time” again and roll in the joy and ecstasy of those albums instead. And when it comes to pulling out an Anthrax album from the collection to listen to, there is no doubt that “Volume 8: The Threat is Real” is not high on the list. In fact, as the record company that released this album went bust not long after its release, it was out of print for about 20 years, which at least made this album somewhat valuable before its re-release in the past couple of years.
For the past four weeks I have listened to this album at least once a day, and this is what I have learned from that – most of my initial instincts on the album remain today as they did 25 years ago. There are some good songs on here, but none I would categorise as great. There are some songs on here that just don’t belong in the mix and I think probably harm the flow of the album. And that Pantera influence is undeniable, and the fact that Charlie is now drumming for the ‘band in name only’ as they tour the world probably nails down why this album sounds like it does. Some Anthrax fans like to dislike the Bush era albums because they aren’t the 80’s era albums. There is still enough goodness here for the everyday fan to enjoy. And it still kills “Load” and “Reload”, so it at least has that going for it as well. Final word – good, not great, but not terrible. How’s THAT for sitting on the fence?!

1197. Blind Guardian / Night-Fall in Middle Earth. 1998. 4.5/5

Blind Guardian’s profile as a band had been steadily building over the years, and along that path was also a redefining of their sound and the way they were writing and recording their albums. Their early albums were definitely heralded by a speed metal sound that came from their love of the band Helloween, and in many ways were certainly inspired by them. Over the course of their previous three albums, the band had begun to incorporate a lot more changes in their output, beginning to forgo the out and out speed and writing more complicated pieces, also injecting other instruments and styles within their basic framework. In particular, they had begun to sew in influences such as a folk rock sound into pieces of both the “Somewhere Far Beyond” album (which has an episode dedicated to it back in Season 3 of this podcast) and “Imaginations from the Other Side” album, bringing acoustic instruments and clear voiced vocals to include in songs that were of a ballad variety, but without the lyrical content that would normally signify such a connotation. Indeed, Hansi Kursch, lead singer and lyric writer, continued to delve deeply into mysticism and novels for his inspiration, which allowed Blind Guardian to avoid any comparisons with ballad-seeking bands for the sake of commercialisation.
For the new album, the band pushed things to a new limit. What they decided on was a concept album, based on the J.R.R Tolkien novel “The Silmarillion”, which was posthumously put together by his son Christopher. Piecing together the story through both song and short spoken words interludes between the tracks, it is a labour of love that once again stretched the way the band composed their music. There is a defined and conscious effort to have the music on the album try to have you feeling as though the events are set in that Middle-Earth setting, with the use of folk instruments including flutes and violin, along with heavily chorused vocals, mixed with the band’s usual hard riffing and fast paced playing, creating the atmosphere that gives the impression that you have been transported to this age, but without losing the integrity that Blind Guardian had built up over a decade in the business.

Now the thing to take into consideration from the very start is that this album is telling a story, but the album can work with or without that when you are listening to it. Indeed I don’t take that into account whenever I listen to this album. There are many people out there who are annoyed about the spoken word pieces that come between most of the tracks that help to gel the story together. And that is fine. Most probably, if it had been in the age of cassettes when this was released (and yes scarily that appears to be returning in some form) I would probably have gone through when recording it for the car and cut out all of those interludes and just left the main tracks. Skipping them when listening to this on CD does make a difference but not in all places. It is just easier to accept it as it is – a performance piece.
So as an album itself, it has many rises and falls, peaks and troughs, depending on where the story is going at that point of the album. And the album has songs that are standouts, ones that lift the album each time they come around. And as already mentioned, the morphing of the band’s sound from its original roots to a more orchestral style involving layered vocals and more interesting instruments filling out the songs makes this an album that is the fulcrum of the maturing of Blind Guardian.
In regards to what would be regarded as the ‘songs’ of the album, it opens in style with “Into the Storm” in a classic Blind Guardian fury of riff and vocals. This is followed by “Nightfall”, one of the more recent age styled song, showing a different side to the band than they had previously done a lot of. "The Curse of Fëanor" again channels the roots of the band, showcasing in the main the amazing ability Hansi Kursh has of going for the high range and pitch in his singing to the calm and melodic as well, helped along with great riffing from André Olbrich and Marcus Siepen and the incomparable drumming of Thomas Stauch. “Blood Tears” is a more reflective and powerful song, which is followed by one of the band’s masterpieces, “Mirror, Mirror”, which 25 years later is still as awesome as it was on its release.
"Noldor (Dead Winter Reigns)" is of the then modern age of Blind Guardian, with lots of choral vocals mixing with an atmospheric background. It is followed by the return of the old with a scintillating performance in “Time Stands Still (at the Iron Hill)”, with Hansi’s vocal range tested throughout and some great guitar riffs flying in throughout. This still finds its way into live set lists and is a crowd favourite. “Thorn”s stirring vocal soaring from Hansi is its starring role, his vocals here are incredible. “When Sorrow Sang” is another beauty, rampaging through the back half of the storyline like the Blind Guardian of old, while “A Dark Passage” brings the album and the story to a close in a pleasing fashion, being both anthemic and reflective in the same breath.

I don’t mind admitting that my favourite era of Blind Guardian is the early albums, where they barely had time to draw breath given the pace they played the songs. But I do enjoy almost all of their albums throughout their career... probably just three where I have a real problem with the content. And this isn’t one of those.
I didn’t come across Blind Guardian until their next album, “A Night at the Opera”, one that, for me at least, went a bit too far in the direction they had been striving for. And so it was not until a couple of years later when I began to really discover the European power metal bands such as Stratovarius, Sonata Arctica, Primal Fear and the like, that I gave Blind Guardian a second chance. And this album was one of the two I discovered, along with “Tales from the Twilight World”. And once I was invested in Hansi’s amazing vocals, and the wonderful guitaring and drums through the track list, I was hooked.
Like I have already mentioned when it comes to “Nightfall in Middle-Earth", I have never invested myself in the story, and I too was often annoyed by the interludes between songs. While I know they served their purpose of the concept album, to me it felt as though they were blocking the flow of the album, managing to make it stall along the way. Over the years that has become less of a problem for me, but I understand when others suggest it to still be the case.
There are some great songs here, some of the band’s best. When they toured Australia for the first time and played in Sydney, they were forced to start late because of sound problems, which meant the show ran late, and because of the venue’s noise restrictions, they couldn’t perform the encore. That encore, as it has been for 20+ years, was “Mirror, Mirror”, a song that everyone in attendance of course had been gunning to hear live for 20 years. The scene was one of massive disappointment. Hansi apologised profusely, and promised that when they NEXT toured and played Sydney, they would play “Mirror, Mirror” twice. Four years later... it didn’t happen... but to hear it once live was still reward enough.

1191. Iron Maiden / Virtual XI. 1998. 3.5/5

To look upon the band Iron Maiden in the year 1998, compared to where they were five years earlier, is quite an interesting affair. For those of you who listened to the recent episode for the Maiden live album “A Real Live One” from 1993, the Maiden ship was taking on water, with Bruce Dickinson leaving the band and the future of the band up in the air. Eventually, Blaze Bayley, lead singer of the British band Wolfsbane was brought in as his replacement, and the album “The X Factor” was released, and the band toured on the back of it. The album received mixed reviews from the fans. While Bayley’s performance was intially well received, the album itself was, in some quarters, thought to be very un-Maiden, with the songs and issues much darker than the band usually tackled, and the tempo of the album lacking the gallop that the 1980’s Maiden albums thrived on. There was also concern on tour for Bayley’s vocals which struggled with the older material, and also under the constant touring regime that Iron Maiden kept.
Coming together again to compose the follow up, two events came together to help inspire the album cover and the name of the album. The band was in the process of creating a video game which eventually became “Ed Hunter”, starring Eddie the Head, which brought about the ‘virtual’ part of the album concept, with the advent of virtual reality. It was also the year for the football World Cup, and the band’s members were all football fans. As a part of the tour to promote this album, the band decided to organise football matches against teams in the cities they played in, also roping in celebrities along the way. And as such the name “Virtual XI” came into being. The 11 fitting nicely with the 11 members of a football team, and the fact that it would be Iron Maiden’s 11th studio album.
Even by this stage however, Iron Maiden was on a hiding to nothing. The loss of Smith and Dickinson, along with the changing music landscape, meant that holding onto fans who were both more interested in the music the band had released a decade ago as well being drawn into the new music being produced that was of a much different style of heavy metal than Iron Maiden would ever produce, meant it was difficult to retain the fans popularity that they had cultivated over the previous 20 years. Falling album sales, falling concert ticket sales... it was a time when you imagine that Iron Maiden as a band probably felt they needed to produce an album that was going to change that course and get them back in the spotlight for all the right reasons. It would be something easier said than achieved.

The album contains eight songs, and while they are not as dark and moody as those on the predeceasing album, there is still a less jaunty mood about them than on the albums from the 1980’s. This had been a growing and creeping part of the Iron Maiden sound since “No Prayer for the Dying”, and one that prevailed in all four albums released in the 1990’s. It could be argued that this came about because of the change in personnel and thus the change in the writers contributing to the songs of those albums. It was certainly a contributing factor to some of the fan base, who blamed Blaze’s contributions as the cause of this. But overall this isn’t the case. The main songwriter continued to be Steve Harris, who had his fingers over most aspects of those albums, so the direction the music was heading in most definitely had to have been orchestrated by him. This has always been my biggest concern over the albums of this period. I just don’t think the right people – or person – has been attributed with the way the songs are, and therefore where that disappointment, if it existed, should have been directed.
Despite all of this, the album opens with a classic. “Futureal” is a terrific song and atypical of most opening tracks on Iron Maiden albums. It gallops along, the guitars and drums are great, and Blaze gives it all with his vocals over the top. If Dickinson had recorded it, it would still be played in set lists to today. Unfortunately because it wasn’t, it has been confined to Blaze’s own shows ever since.
“The Angel and the Gambler” follows, and was also released as the first single from the album. Not only that, the single release was heavily edited to get it down to a length that radio stations would play, and had a video-game-like music video made for it as well. And I will never understand that decision. Because “The Angel and the Gambler” is a pretty average song. It’s almost ten minutes in length, it has too much keys and synth in the mix in places, and has too much of the same lyrics being repeated ad nauseum, something that haunts many of the songs on this album. There has never been anything much to write home about this track, and it remains one of the greatest mysteries of the band’s history as to how it got through meetings to actually appear on this album.
To me, there are two songs on this album that are like twins, and not because they sound like each, but because they seem to be on the same wavelength. “Lightning Strikes Twice” is the first of those songs, a nice twist of lyrics with dual meanings, and a great performance from Blaze where he really emotes the song terrifically, backed by the drums and guitars which also kick in at the right time to emphasise it. I still really love this song, which is only pulled back slightly by the repeating of the song title for the second half of the song. Great solos by both Dave and Jannick punctuate the back half of the song as well. Another great song under utilised in set lists since this tour.
The other twin is “When Two Worlds Collide”, which seems as though it may have been inspired by two films released in 1998 - “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”, except that both of those films were released well after this album came out. But the scenario is the same, and again, like “Lightning Strikes Twice”, the important lyrics of the song are sung with great gusto and force by Blaze, with the other members also providing the appropriate backing. And, again, the over repeating of the chorus through to the end of the song just overplays itself, taking away a part of the impact the song makes.
The outstanding song on the album is “The Clansman”, arguably the best Maiden song of the 1990’s decade. Based around the events of the movie “Braveheart”, this Steve Harris gem perfectly gets the mood right throughout the whole track, and Blaze’s war cry of “Freeeeedoooom!” makes crowd participation when played live easy. It is the song that could have sold this album on its own if it had been marketed that way. Someone missed a trick there, without doubt.
The back half of the album is perhaps the most maligned, and not without some cause. “The Educated Fool” trundles along in second gear for much of the track, before the solo section brightens things up a little. Of all the tracks here, this is the one that sounds most like it came from the previous album in style. “Don’t Look to the Eyes of a Stranger” again tends to over repeat certain lines, and at over 8 minutes in length is again probably too long to retain interest all the way through. Then the closing track, “Como Estais Amigos”, whose loose translation is “how are you, friends”, is written as a tribute to the fallen on both sides of the Falklands War. I know these have proven lacklustre over the years, and when listening to the album it does prove to be the case. Up until the end of “When Two Worlds Collide” the album still holds its own, but the finale does eventually become something that feels a little less exciting.

Of all my friends from high school, who had been so enthralled by Iron Maiden as we grew up in the 1980’s, I was the only one who bought a copy of this album on its release. As far as I know, I am still the only one who owns a copy of this album. As it stands, I own two, both the original CD and the remastered double vinyl from a couple of years ago. And I was determined to like this album. I had enjoyed “The X Factor” and Blaze’s contributions, even though the tempo of the songs had come down markedly on that album from the earlier albums. And come on – when you first put on this album and you hear “Futureal” come through the speakers, you can’t be disappointed!
Am I biased? Perhaps somewhat. But that’s the thing. I love Iron Maiden, and I love Blaze Bayley’s solo material he has released since this album. But on repeated listens to the album, the truth of the matter came to pass. In the long run, this is only an average Iron Maiden album. And while that may make it better than most other bands good albums, it really doesn’t hold your interest all the way through. It does for me, because I have had it from the beginning, and I have listened to it a lot over the years, but for the casual listener, it is going to be a difficult album to get anything out of.
I am happy to nominate five of the eight songs as good songs, but most will only feel as though “Futureal” and “The Clansman” have any chance of being held in the same high regard as the great songs of the past.
In 1998, I listened to this album for a while, and then, with no chance of the band touring Australia or of this growing any fonder to me, it was returned to the shelves and only occasionally brought out for a relisten. And I probably didn’t really listen to it much again until five years later when Blaze Bayley released his first live album, which included both “Futureal” and “When Two Worlds Collide” on it, and I went back to “Virtual XI” to see if it had improved for me. And it had, it must be said, though that perhaps was on the back of the fact that Blaze’s first two solo albums “Ghost in the Machine” and “Tenth Dimension” were so good, and I just wanted to hear his stuff with Maiden again. Since that time, I have had the album on sporadically as I work through the Maiden back catalogue along the way over the years, and I enjoy it every time I put it on. No, it isn’t one of their great albums. And Blaze is often held up as the cause. But a couple of things disprove this point. The first is that Steve Harris wrote the songs as well as co-producing the album, and they were arranged the way he wanted them. It isn’t Blaze’s vocals to blame on the studio album. The second is that Blaze’s first two solo albums released after he agreed to leave Iron Maiden in order for Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith to return, are both better than this album. And he wrote all of those.
In the long run, the fans, and probably the band itself, wanted and needed Bruce and Adrian to be back in order for it to be felt as though it was really ‘Iron Maiden’. And this would have been a major reason why it didn’t sell as well, simply because they weren’t there. Their return allowed the next album “Brave New World” to be a monster, and kickstarted Maiden’s return to the top of the heavy metal tree. For “Virtual XI” though, at least it can still hang its hat on one of the band’s best songs of the past 30 years.

1190. Van Halen / Van Halen III. 1998. 2/5

For over 20 years Van Halen had been one of the leading hard rock bands in the US, and with a popularity that had also spread around the world. Even with a change of lead singer halfway through their career, their popularity had never waned, and indeed could be said to have increased as a result.
Following the release of the band’s tenth studio album “Balance”, the growing tensions within members of the band were beginning to overflow. The relationship between lead singer Sammy Hagar and the Van Halen brothers Alex and Eddie was unwinding. Over a period of months, where the band was first writing and recording songs for the film “Twister”, and then over the negotiations over the release of a greatest hits package, where Hagar’s desires for its compilation seemed contrary to what the Van Halen’s were thinking, the working and personal relationship between the two parties deteriorated to the point that Hagar was no longer a member of the band. Depending on which story you choose to believe, Hagar was either fired, or Hagar quit of his own accord. Those stories have never really found a common ground in the years since.
This resulted in a short-term reunion with David Lee Roth, where two songs were written and recorded for the aforementioned greatest hits album, before he too was spurned by the band, and again the story as to what happened in that period of time has two versions.
The band had continued to try out new lead singers, and they eventually decided to hire former Extreme lead vocalist Gary Cherone as Hagar and Roth’s replacement, an interesting choice at the time, but at least someone who was a proven performer and a well-known singer in the rock and pop world, someone who had proven in his former band to be able to sing hard rock sings and rock ballads as well. Now all that needed to be achieved was to have an album to showcase his potential to add to the already known quality of Van Halen, Anthony and Van Halen.

It would be fair to say that when “Van Halen III” came out, it was not especially what everyone was expecting. The music was less intense, less... rock. There was a more acoustic vibe to most of the songs, the energy seemed to have been cast aside. Sure, there are still some good riffs here, and some of the songs have energetic pieces in them, and occasionally you here a bit of the old Eddie Van Halen on guitar. But the album is a world away from what most people got into Van Halen for.
Over the period of time from when the album was released, and the tour to promote it had come and gone, it was Gary Cherone who was the one who copped most of the flak for the performance of the album. Many people dubbed it the Van Halen and Extreme crossover, suggesting that the success of Extreme’s “More Than Words” single a few years earlier had infiltrated the way this album was written. But the things that those critics would never have taken into account is that Cherone would have had almost zero input into the direction of the album. He was the hired gun, the one asked to follow in the footsteps of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, and that was always going to be a thankless task no matter how talented he was.
Cherone himself made the point that he felt that it would have been beneficial for both himself and the band if they had toured together before they went in and recorded the album. This would not only have given him a chance to be seen by the fans as a part of the band, the four band members would have found their way to bond as well and be able to take that into the studio with them.
Still, even if that had been the case, the majority of the writing and performing on the album was by Eddie himself. For whatever reason, he played the bass on almost every track, with Michael Anthony only contributing to three of the tracks, and later on Michael admitted that he had been told exactly what and how to play on those three songs, which was not something that had been a part of his playing in the past. The result of this was that Michael himself, along with others, have seen this album more of an Eddie solo album than a true Van Halen album. Though all the tracks were credited to all four members of the band, in fact the writing and arranging pretty much came down to Eddie, and he played most of it as well.
Importantly, and this is something that probably wasn’t really utilised on the album’s release when it came to album reviews and fans thoughts, it is difficult to separate what you WANT the album to sound like, and the way it is actually written. And in separating that, is it possible to listen to this with an open mind, and try to discern whether it is an average album, or just an album that is so different from what you wanted or expected that you simply categorise it as that as a result.

20 years on from their eponymous debut album crashing the charts and making a scene, as reviewed here on this podcast just a few episodes ago, this album was up against the changing face of hard rock and metal music in the late 1990’s, and Van Halen’s style was one that you suspect could still have fit into that mould of the music scene. But there is little doubt that the change in the music here went beyond even what had occurred on the last couple of Van Halen albums with Hagar on the mic, and that change was something that felt as though it was pulling away from the long-time fans the band had. The back up vocals don’t feel as lively, nor sound as convincing as in the past. Just about everything about this album makes you feel like there is something missing, but also perhaps missing a trick.
I bought this album on its release, mainly because Van Halen were finally going to tour Australia, and I was finally going to see them live. So I did my due diligence, and I listened to it on rotation for the two months leading up to that concert. They played five songs off this album live, and they were fine, but what I got from that gig was how good Gary Cherone was, and how well he sang all eras of Van Halen songs. And I thought at the time, that with a bit more of the traditional Van Halen sound, the NEXT album could be really killer! Of course, that was not to be. Eddie had his hip replacement, and they parted amicably. But it did seem like a missed opportunity. Again.
So I’ve had this album on again over the last couple of weeks, and honestly it hasn’t gotten better with age. It is too long (at over an hour the longest Van Halen album), it is too slow, it is too reflective. It is the most un-Van Halen Van Halen album. I think Cherone was unfairly saddled with the blame for that, but I’m sure Michael Anthony was closer to the truth in that this was more an Eddie solo thing, one that was to be different from what the band usually provided.
Even though there was one more album to come down the track, Van Halen effectively finished at this point. Michael Anthony was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen at that time, and it became a nostalgia based act from then on until Eddie’s passing.

1072. Motörhead / Snake Bite Love. 1998. 2.5/5

If there is one major factor that you can’t take away from this band, it’s that they never stopped producing albums on a regular basis. For the most part, no more than a couple of years ever separated albums being released. That’s a tough thing to do, to keep finding inspiration and ideas on such a scale as to be able to fill the required volume that an album must have. To keep the quality of the product high enough to convince the fans to keep buying them also takes some ability. Somewhere in that, there has to come a time when the product doesn’t quite stack up, and that either more time should have been taken in either writing or recording the album – or both – or that perhaps there needed to be a longer time between releases to ensure everything was right. Maybe, just maybe, this album is one of those points in time for Motörhead.
In several interviews and books, drummer Mikkey Dee has been vehement in his disappointment with the album as a whole, a couple of songs in particular, and the fact that it had all been done so quickly, without any thought of extending. Dee was quoted as saying an extra three weeks would have allowed the band to produce a ‘great’ album instead of a ‘shit’ album.
The previous album “Overnight Sensation” had been the first written and recorded back as a three piece, and so it was hoped that now that the band had settled on this again, that the writing would turn out as solid. Some quarters suggest that the missing piece of Wurzel’s writing may have been an influence in the changing style of the songs. No matter where opinion may lie, there is little doubt that the result is mixed.

Motörhead has always been at its best for me when the tempo is right and the songs have the right mix of heavy guitar and rock ‘n’ roll feel. For the most part there is very little of that balance here. “Love for Sale” and “Dogs of War” start the album off well enough but don’t light any fire like previous Motörhead albums have. The title track “Snake Bite Love” tries to inject a bit of old-fashioned rock ‘n roll into a heavier riff, while “Assassin” changes up the template but doesn’t really work.
“Take the Blame” that follows is probably the best song on the album. It has that fast pace, with blazing drums from Mikkey Dee in particular that dominate the track underneath Phil’s guitar and Lemmy’s bass and vocals, and the attitude that makes the best Motorhead songs.
“Dead and Gone” however is another Motörhead ballad, a style of genre that seems so alien to a band like Motörhead that it continues to be a surprise whenever I find a song like it on their albums. It just doesn’t fit with them, no matter how well written or played it might be. Certainly, Lemmy’s vocals never suit such a song which isn’t a criticism, it’s just a fact. In my opinion at least.
“Night Side” on the other hand just feels like it was thrown together in about five minutes, both musically and lyrically. In many ways it sums up how the whole album comes across, and it comes back to what has been said by the members of the band in the years since. “Don’t Lie to Me” is a typical Motorhead rock n’ roll song, combining that with a fast paced blues guitar progression that is fun enough to listen to, while “Joy of Labour” settles into that slow tempo that reveals the cracks in anything except top shelf Motörhead songs. Listening to Lemmy struggle over the vocals here makes it tough going.
Still, even these songs don’t quite prepare you for what can only be described as the boredom and sameness of the closing two tracks, “Desperate for You” and “Better Off Dead”. Neither of these songs provide even a glimmer of hope for the album. It’s a standard Motörhead progression while Lemmy’s doubled vocals can’t hide the weak lyrical content. It’s not that they are played poorly, just that they are both pulled from the same playbook that has been worn so thin that there is nothing stylish left. The tempo of the tracks is fine, which is at least a positive, but is no magic here that lifts them to a level that is worth getting excited about.

As it turns out, I had never heard this album until more than a decade after its release. Most of Motorhead tended to vanish from the perimeter for a good number of years, and I more or less stuck with the albums that I already knew rather than seeking out their new material when it was released. It wasn’t until around 2010 that I began to go back and find those albums released in that previous 15 years to see just what the band had put up as their offerings, and it is fair to say there was some gems and some wet molten mud. This one was one of the ones that I had problems with overall. The album is just a solid album. It doesn’t really have any highlights, and songs you would pick out to throw on a playlist for the car of a party. And it has a couple of songs that just make you look for the skip button. Which, of course, in the end, is how the damning aspect of an album can be judged.
The continuing changes in the music scene at the turn of the century had affected many long-term bands, with releases by bands like Metallica and Megadeth in particular dividing fans with the changes they had made. The differences here are not through experimentation of changes in taste in the band, but perhaps just through running out of ideas as to how to best bring forth the music that fans of the band loved. They were also battling it out with industrial metal and nu-metal which was the rising force of popularity at the time, which made it all the more difficult to find yourself heard. Whether this albums suffers most from that, or from rushing too much in the writing and recording to really pull out the average songs and replace them with a variant, or if it was simply just a lack of inspiration, this ends up being only an average album in the band’s discography.

1069. Motörhead / Nö Sleep at All. 1988. 4.5/5

The mid-to-late period of the 1980’s decade was a time of rebuilding for Motorhead. Problems with record companies during the time meant that the distribution of the albums they recorded was always hampered, and with the ever-evolving style of music also becoming a factor, the relevance of the band to the next generation was also proving to be a tough call for the band. The band continued to record and tour, and it became the band’s live shows that were their saving grace at this time, as crowds continued to turn up to watch and sing along to the classic songs the band had produced during the late 1970’s and into the early years of the 1980’s.
No matter what fans of the band thought about the material that was being released on the studio albums throughout the majority of the decade of the 1980’s, there was still little doubt that as a live band Motörhead was still the ace in the pack (slightly pun intended). The band’s groundbreaking live album “No Sleep Til Hammersmith” is still regarded as one of the best live albums ever in the heavy metal genre, and it had covered the best of the band’s material up to its release. By the time we had reached 1988 however, there were new albums and newer material that had not received this treatment, and with the band at a crossroads in regards to album sales, there is little doubt that a new live album would have had the accountants eyes spinning. The disagreements between the band and its label continued as a result of this however. The band had wanted to release the song “Traitor” as the live single from the album, whereas their label overruled them and decided to release the money hoarding favourite “Ace of Spades”. The band refused, and thus those singles printed were unable to be released. This, along with several other matters, had the band fighting to get out of its contract for the next three years, something that stalled any further releases from the band in that period. It was not he first nor last time Motorhead had these kinds of problems, and it made for a stressful time for all involved.

Given this version of the band had been mostly responsible for the newer material that the band had recorded, it was only logical that they like to be recorded in the live environment. Motorhead had already done Hammersmith, and most live albums at that time had similar recording locations. Motorhead decided against that, and this album was recorded at the Giants of Rock Festival in Finland in 1988, something that the Finns lapped up by buying the record in large quantities when it was released. The band also made the decision that this album would be 90% new material, songs that had been written and recorded since that first epic live album was released. And for that makes this a much better album than it would have been with a 50/50 mix. Obviously, they had to include a couple of the great songs in their setlist for the concert, and what better ones to include than “Ace of Spades” and “Overkill”, both of which are killer versions here. The remainder of the setlist and therefore the album tracks are songs taken from the recent albums of release at the time.
What is immediately noticeable is that the newer songs all sound immensely better live than on their studio versions, and it made me wonder that perhaps with a little less rush and a bit more time to get the songs in the right framework that perhaps those couple of albums would have been better. Both of those albums where the majority of these songs come from, “Orgasmatron” and “Rock n Roll”, suffered from the short time span allotted to them being written and recorded, and listening to those songs here you get a much better picture of how they SHOULD sound. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and there is no doubt that for me songs such as “Doctor Rock”, “Traitor” and “Dogs” are infinitely better on this release than their original studio release. I really enjoy them here, and the band does a great job in bringing the live interpretation to the stage. I am less impressed with “Just Cos You Got the Power”, song that turned up on the B side to the single release of “Eat the Rich”. It drags on far too long for a Motorhead track and doesn’t have the same energy that the other songs do here. It was misplaced. For me it is on a similar level to “Metropolis” which appears as a bonus track on some editions of the album. It has never been a favourite of mine.
The second half of the album is just as good as the first half, with terrific versions of “Eat the Rich” and the powerful “Built for Speed” leading into a cracking version of “Deaf Forever”. This is the best part of a live album, showcasing not only the older well-known songs but showing that the newer material still stands up great on stage. I feel fortunate that I discovered these songs before hearing them on this live album, as they possibly would have been destroyed for me if I had been used to their live versions before hearing the studio versions. Speaking of older material, the album concludes with brilliant versions of “Killed by Death” and “Overkill”, making for a terrific live album in the process.

We’ve been over this ground before but let's do it again. When you get a live album, it should almost always be a 5/5 experience, because you should have the band’s best songs in their perfect environment. “No Sleep at All” is no different from that template. The fact that almost every song here has not been released on a live album before makes it a perfect companion piece to the brilliant “No Sleep til Hammersmith” because there are only two repeat tracks, and they are both brilliant anyway. And as I’ve mentioned before, it showcases just how good the material is from those much maligned Motorhead albums “Orgasmatron” and “Rock n Rock”, because all of the versions here (apart from that B side) are sensational. The album showcases this terrific foursome, the version of Motorhead when they had two guitarists, in their best light. Both Wurzel and Phil Campbell play off each other nicely hear and are great to listen to. Phil Taylor still has his best foot forward on drums, and Lemmy is in top form throughout.
I, for some reason or another that I can’t recall now, didn’t listen much to Motorhead live albums, I tended to stick with the studio material that I knew so well, so it wasn’t until later on that I listened to the (now many) live album catalogue. And while everyone agrees “No Sleep til Hammersmith” is their pinnacle, this album really isn’t that far behind. When I first got it, I played it a lot, firstly because the versions of the songs here are awesome, but also because it IS an era that gets passed over, and this album proves that it isn’t anywhere near as ordinary as is sometimes spoken of.
There had been a varying reception for the previous four Motörhead albums prior to this, and given that most of the material on this live album is from those albums, you can expect that its reception would also be varied. I think it is the perfect example where a live album can introduce people who may have only gotten this album for “Ace of Spades” and “Overkill” to newer songs that they mightn’t know, and allow them to discover just how good the new material (some of it at least) is, and perhaps go back and have another listen to it. Apart from my stated hesitation for a couple of tracks I think this is a belting album and is the perfect addition to Motörhead’s discography, given it doesn’t just repeat what had come before on “No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith”, it complements it perfectly.

995. Edguy / Vain Glory Opera. 1998. 3.5/5

After the official/unofficial debut of Savage Poetry and the starting promise of Kingdom of Madness, there is a lot to like about Edguy’s follow up, Vain Glory Opera. The songs are tighter and better recorded, especially the drums which kick along stylishly with session drummer Frank Lindenthal putting in a terrific performance, the production is leaps and bounds ahead of their previous album, and it feels as though the band has found its purpose and drive. For the most part anyway, because as with all power metal releases there will often be the odd quirk which holds it back from being perfect.

There are no qualms about the opening stanza of the album. “Overture” jumps into “Until We Rise Again” which immediately gives you the sense of the updated Edguy product. Along with the following song “How Many Miles”, the pace of the songs are more upbeat that the general tempo of the previous album, Tobi’s vocals are not only of a better quality but are better focused along with the doubling to give them a choir effect. The drumming is miles more impressive, and the fact that the guitars are now turned up in the mix and are also more effective and involved in the songs makes this a whole new chapter and an immediately more enjoyable one.
It’s not all sunshine and roses though. Edguy will forever be a slave to the genre that they are a part of, and as such they do have a tendency towards producing those terrible stains upon the power metal genre, the power ballad. There are two here on Vain Glory Opera, and both are as unbearable as the other. Certainly they are better constructed and produced than “When a Hero Cries” from the previous album, but it will rarely ever be seen by me as a way to enhance an album. “Scarlet Rose” pops into the mix after the opening three tracks, all of which have done an excellent job to getting the album to this point, and I’m afraid all of the momentum is halted at this point because of it. Once again, it isn’t a terrible song, and the band sounds great, but it is a disappointment. “Tomorrow” however does exactly the same thing, killing off the mood of the album in the second half. It sounds like it wants to be like Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” without every getting out of that first gear. My abhorrence of power ballads is well known to those that read my reviews, and the number of albums they have killed is innumerable. This is all keyboard and no guitar and basically no drums. If you want to do these kinds of songs, for goodness sakes do them as B-sides to singles. This is just awful.
The saving grace for “Scarlet Rose” is that it is followed up by the wonderful “Out of Control”. I do think I would enjoy this song without its special guest, as Tobi and the backing vocals sound great and the band really nail down their contribution, with hard hitting double kick drums and great guitar solos by both Jens Ludwig and Dirk Sauer. But what makes this song even better are the guest vocals within from Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kürsch. His energetic and magnificent contribution lifts this song from very good to great. I think this is the first ‘great’ Edguy song. It is lifted again when what is probably the second ‘great’ Edguy song follows it, the title track “Vain Glory Opera”. I guess it sounds a bit “The Final Countdown”-ish in the middle where the pomping keyboards take centre stage and the choiring vocals through the middle of the song, but again the guitar solo section is terrific, along with a contributing guitar solo from Stratovarius’ Timo Tolkki and the contributing vocals again from Hansi Kürsch. This is then followed by the fastest song on the album “Fairytale” which is a welcome addition to these three songs that are the star attraction of the middle of the album. This is the section where you can hear that Edguy have got themselves together and have found their mojo. Great harmony guitars, Tobi’s vocals are beginning to find that air that they needed and the rhythm of the bass and double kick drums that are driving the songs, and not just keeping everyone in time.
After this enjoyable interlude, the mood is dialled back a tad with “Walk on Fighting” which is only an average song in most aspects, before it segues into the aforementioned ballad tripe of “Tomorrow”. This again segues into the infinitely better “No More Foolin’” which returns the album to the fast paced drum and guitar driven antics where Edguy are at their best. This mirrors the best aspects of a band like Accept or Motorhead, with lyrics built to chant along to either at home or in concert. Seriously – why isn’t the album full of songs like this? Is it just me, or would Edguy’s reputation be immensely better regarded if they stuck this frame of the metal industry and withdrew from the power ballad side? Just to emphasise this, to finish the album the band does a rousing cover rendition of Ultravox’s “Hymn” which closes out this opus in style.

This is a 66% album for me. “Scarlet Rose”, “Tomorrow” and even “Walk on Fighting” are in a different league compared to the rest of the album. If you take those songs out it makes it a 38 minute album instead of a 51 minute album. Short, yes, but for me this would be a 4/5 or 4.5/5 album in that instance. Keeping them in does drop the overall rating of the album, and while it is in my opinion still above average it is disappointing that I cannot give it a better rank overall because of the misnomer of three songs.

Rating:  "Help me to gain the crown, here is my fate”.  3.5/5

863. Paul Di'anno's Battlezone / Feel My Pain. 1998. 2.5/5

It had been ten years since the last incarnation of the band Battlezone, and eleven since the last album Children of Madness had been released. In that time Paul Di'anno had formed and disbanded yet another band (Killers), toured as lead singer with Praying Mantis, collaborated with fellow former bandmate Dennis Stratton (The First Iron Men), and generally moved around from project to project showing glimpses of excellence and potential, and then relative obscurity again.

I'm not sure of the reason to resurrect the Battlezone moniker, apart from the fact one other member, guitarist John Wiggins, survives in this adaption of the band. Certainly the majority of the music here has absolutely no similarity to the music that was released on the first two albums by this band. It's a decade later, and music has had some dramatic changes in that time. And somewhat disappointingly, it appears that all of those factors are attempted to be fused together on this album in the hope of achieving success.
"Feel My Pain" immediately shows off the differences between the previous formation of this band and the current one. The riffs are in a heavier direction, there is now a lot of double kick in the drums, and Di'anno has moved his vocals around so that they are not as they once were. Though this is a heavy start to the album, there is a 'modern' metal feel to it, requiring the vocals to lower in register for the majority of the song n a nod to the industrial metal sound that was beginning to become prevalent. "C.O.M '98" is a remake of "Children of Madness" from the album of the same name, but it really doesn't improve much. Though it is attempting to be intensely heavier through both guitars and vocals, it actually doesn't improve on the original. Di'anno tries to sing it in his new modern vocal range, but if you are going to redo one of your own songs, surely you would really try and make it separate from the original, rather than just what they have done here by re-recording it with a slightly edgier feel. Perhaps a wasted opportunity. "Victim" is the one song that really hails back to the roots of the first two albums. It's fast pace and guitars are ably suited to Di'anno's high register singing here. This is where Di'anno - and his band - do their best work. The double kick drumming and enjoyable riff and solo guitaring allow Di'anno to do what he does best. this is direction the band should have continued on for this album.
"The Forgotten Ones" is another attempt at the 'epic' song, much like "Metal Tears" was on Children of Madness. To be honest, it works about as well. It's not terrible, but it doesn't evoke the feelings in me that they were probably looking for when they wrote it. "Push" is a standard heavier song, again using the same template as most of the songs released by this band have been. The riff works fine, the vocals are fine, trying to use a heavier edge by going into a lower register, and the dual solos work fine, but it just isn't hooking me, grabbing me and not letting go. It's an average kind of fare that you don't hate but just don't love either.
"Snake Eyes" is a slower plodder which slides between this and faster thrills, where Di'anno moves from growls to screams with ease, using every extreme of his vocal register all within moments of each other. it's almost like taking two different songs, slicing it up and then throwing it back together again. It works okay, but only by the end.
"Smack" is just an blatant rip off of Alice in Chains. I mean, I can't even find it amusing, because it is so obvious. Di'anno even tries to sing like Layne and Jerry, and it really, REALLY doesn't work. This to me was the biggest shock on the album. I guess you can do what you like when it comes to song writing, but if you are going to do something so dramatically away from what is your normal state of affairs you'd want to make it spectacular. This is not. "The Black" plays a lot like "Snake Eyes", while "Fear Part 1" closes out the album - and Battlezone - with another standard riff-repeating, Di'anno growling, hard rock rendition which has vague similarities to the same era Tim Owens-led Judas Priest.

On the surface, you can see why this album and toured went so well in South America, and why it bombed back home in the UK. This album's sound is geared to the kind of metal that had been coming from that continent for some years, while it was diversified away from what the UK produced in their music. Again, you can make the case that this isn't a bad album, but it is anchored to the time it was recorded in a clichéd way. It's hard to say what could have made it more appealing, but there is definitely something required here to have made it more appeasing to all than it is.

Rating:  You tear me up then kick me down, destroy me with your lies.  2.5/5

781. Symphony X / Twilight in Olympus. 1998. 3.5/5

By the time that Twilight in Olympus came to be released, Symphony X had built up their reputation as a progressive metal outfit that did all of the essentials well. Musically and instrumentally everything was up to speed and performed to a T, while lyrically and vocally they were also well served. There was no reason why this would not continue on their latest album.
There is always a risk with progressive bands that the songs can become, well, predictable and monotonous, especially given that many songs can be of a longer length, filled with sometimes long winded instrumental breaks with various time changes that can appear to overdo what they are trying to achieve. In some ways I feel this a little about this album.

"Smoke and Mirrors" starts the album off on a good note, showcasing everything that make the band as good as it is. It has a very Yngwie Malmsteen feel about the opening, with the guitar being well supported by the keyboards, and vocals that follow that lead in the same way, before breaking back to Symphony X's typical style after the first couple of minutes of the song. Russell Allen sounds like he is having a lot of fun in this song. "Church of the Machine" uses a great heavy riff along with Russell's more passionate vocals, and helps to drive this song along.
"In the Dragon's Den" is one of my favourites on the album, starting off with an up tempo along with a slightly heavier guitar riff. It holds this throughout the whole length of the ride, somewhat unusually. "Through the Looking Glass" moves through three parts in a movement that was popular in this period. Each has their own style that still melds together to include the whole song without being overtly obvious. I think as a progressive movement it is fine, but it is dominated by the keyboards and slower rhythms, but my goodness Russell's voice just soars here. OK - it's not quite metal enough for me. That should make it clearer.
"Orion - The Hunter" has a very strange arrangement, which rather than being progressive appears to be haphazard. Moments of blazing guitar or harder vocals are then pieced together around the lower softer keys and crying vocals. Cut this song in half and I think I would find more to enjoy about it.
Having said this, the closer of the album, "Lady of the Snow", moves too far to that centre pole, incorporating the gentler aspect of the genre with clean guitar and white keyboard, moving towards a power ballad-like progression that doesn't come close to what I like of music. Don't get me wrong, it sounds great, and the band does a great job on the song, but it's a mood sapper, and does not do justice to what has come before. In my opinion.
Most of the songs here have the guitar and keyboard duels through the middle of the songs, with each playing off the other, and usually trying to up the ante on each other. Some duels work better than others, such as in "In the Dragon's Den" where it is great, and "Through the Looking Glass" where it probably does not.

Overall, while the album sounds great and has many great aspects, I find it just a bit too uneven, and not quite to my style. Perhaps it was a transitional period for the band, as there were from this point on beginning to move towards a more traditional metal sound. Whatever the reasons, This is still an enjoyable album to listen to, despite whatever faults I may find in some of the material.

Rating:  Merciless judgement in the Church of the Machine.  3.5/5

Listen to full album here

756. Arch Enemy / Stigmata. 1998. 3.5/5

The advancement of Arch Enemy from side project to full blown band had been a swift one in the mid-1990's, and given that band leader Michael Amott had been a part of the band Carcass at the time they wrote and recorded two of their most influential albums, there always seemed to be an instant energy for the band. Combined with lead singer Johan Liiva from his former band Carnage, and roping in his both Christopher Amott who was studying music at the time, the band released the well heralded “Black Earth” album, and as a result of its success were signed with Century Media who then gave them the ability release their albums worldwide, including the enviable market of the US.
“Black Earth” showed the potential of the band, but with a better distribution deal now having been arranged, there is little doubt that the band would have known they also needed to step things up. The band had already shown their love of traditional metal, having recorded cover versions of two Iron Maiden songs, and Christopher’s preference for that style of metal seemed to be a perfect reference point as to how to create a unique sound going forward. Along with the experience behind them with their first album, the writing and recording sessions for their follow up had the potential to set the band up for a lengthy stint on the world stage.

Look, there is little doubt that the star turn on this album is the dual guitaring skills of the brothers Michael and Christopher Amott. Their influences growing up are obvious from the opening track, and poke their head up every time we come to the solo spots on each song.
The instrumental title track that comes in for the second song on the album is laden with those terrific riffs and melodic play offs that showcase exactly what these two brothers can do, and actually sets up the album well from that point.
And what they successfully do is inject their love of 1980’s traditional heavy metal melodic music into their 1990’s death metal sound, which seems to do two things on this album. Firstly, it creates not a unique sound as such, but an amazing combination of the heavy hard riffing guitars that are such a part of death metal, but then have those melodic dual guitar solos through the middle of the songs that remind you immediately of those great bands of the 1980’s and what they used to do. Secondly, you have the growling ideals of Johan Liiva’s vocals which also do two things – well, for me at least. They initially bring you back to the fac that this is for all intents and purposes a death metal album, and his performance brings that to the fore, and yet it proves to be limiting because there is only one type of vocals here, despite the fact that the music lends itself have to have both harsh vocals and then clear soaring vocals in the mix, as many excellent bands into the next millennium began to do. And, of course, something that Arch Enemy themselves eventually found the band utilising to a degree. But that was down the track a ways.
And so the songs here are a terrific mix of the hard hitting drums with that heavy riffing with Johan’s vocals banging out combined with the fast melodic guitar solos through the middle. And while this was also prevalent on the band’s debut album, it has gone up a notch here on “Stigmata”. The energy throughout is fantastic. And because it combines the best parts of two differing varieties of the heavy metal genre, it becomes more accessible without driving away fans of either. And that is quite a feat given the time it was released and what was occurring in the music world.

I didn’t come across Arch Enemy until the mid-2000's. In the period prior to this I had spent most of my music chasing time in relentless pursuit of the European power and progressive metal scene and the bands that proliferated it, so the more extreme side of metal was something I wasn’t particularly listening to. It wasn’t until my usual purveyor of music, who has since high school not only been one of my best friends but also the guy who seemed to find a way to discover new bands for me to listen to, had begun his own divergence in his listening habits, and suggested I check out their work. So I did, and found it interesting without blowing my mind. But then I went back, and listened to their first three albums, with Johan on vocals, and then I really found the band and the sound. And yes I enjoy their debut, but it was “Stigmata” that really sold me on Arch Enemy when I first heard it. It was the music of the songs that dragged me in, and I related more to the vocals of Johan than I did of Angela who had taken over by those mid-2000's albums. In many ways it was a confronting change for me musically, with Arch Enemy and Trivium and Killswitch Engage at that time much different from what I had spent many recent years listening to.
I still think this album holds up beautifully. It sounds a lot better on my stereo at home than it does on my tinny speaker at work, but it is still the magical mix in styles that retains the uniqueness of their sound that allows this album to continue to be worth your attention.

694. HammerFall / Legacy of Kings. 1998. 3/5

On the back of their generally heralded debut album “Glory to the Brave”, Hammerfall had toured Europe as support act for many of the continent’s best power metal acts. During this process they had been exposed to many more fans and been spoken of in high terms by those that attended these tours. The story of how the band came together as a side project for musicians from several bands for a music competition and then grew can be found on the episode in Season 3 of this podcast. As the majority of those musicians returned to their full time gigs, Hammerfall led by guitarist Oscar Dronjak and lead vocalist Joacim Cans moved forward with Hammerfall as their number one gig. The success of the album and the tour meant they went into the writing and recording process for the follow up with momentum and positive vibes. Jesper Strömblad, who had been the band’s drummer before he returned to his band In Flames, had co-written most of that first album with both Oscar and Joacim. When it came time to start the follow-up, he returned to do the same job as co-writer for what eventually became “Legacy of Kings”. The thought process behind this was to keep a symmetry between the songs of the two albums, to encourage the fans that they would be following a similar path musically with their sophomore album.
When it came to the band’s debut album, there had been some background criticism of the professionalism of the music as it was played and recorded. Some critics felt it was not played clean enough, that it could have been rehearsed and played better. Others believed that there was not enough diversity in the tracks as written. Whatever the critiquing that had occurred, the band went into their second album with a determination to give the fans what they wanted rather than try and appease the band’s critics in the world music media.

This album tends to cop a lot of flak online both from music listeners and critics alike. Actually, I guess the band itself tends to receive a brunt of criticism. One of the strangest things to me has always been the pile on over the vocals of Joacim Cans, with so many people describing them as weak, and one dimensional, and that he doesn’t have the range required to make the songs varied enough from each other. This has always surprised me, because I’ve always felt that it is Cans’s vocals that have been the leading light of the band, that his singing is what gives HammerFall the power and energy to drive through. Rather than being weak, I feel it is the strength of what he is able to hold in his voice that is the signature of the band’s music. Not everyone can sing with a range in the power metal genre like Michael Kiske or Hansi Kursch. So I am on the other side of the fence from those critics.
This will usually get followed up by the fact that his vocals are unable to differentiate the songs because all the songs have the same beat, the same tempo, the same rhythm, and are drawn from a similar template. Again, that is not so obviously true here on “Legacy of Kings” as perhaps could be argued happens elsewhere. You can hear the band’s influence from the late 1980’s power metal in their songs here, mostly in the solos from Elmgren and Dronjak. But given that I like how they sound that really isn’t a problem for me.
The opening gallop of “Heeding the Call” starts the album off with a bang in the best power metal fashion, followed by “Legacy of Kings” which increases the power of the track with great guitars and terrific vocals. “Let the Hammer Fall” is the chugging, chanting singalong song that power metal has a habit of highlighting and is joined in this respect with “At the End of the Rainbow”, where the slower tempo of the song also draws the choral voices for the chorus. At the other end of the spectrum is the light and airy “Dreamland” that does the same in a brighter and faster tempo. The cover version of the Pretty Maids song “Back to Back” showcases the band’s love of their music, and is followed by the return of the power in tracks such as “Stronger Than All” and “Warriors of Faith”
The power ballads are, as always, where my major problems lie in a euro metal album such as this. “Remember Yesterday” at least tries to retain a little of the power in the song and I am able to forgive it for the most part, but the piano base of “The Fallen One”, which concludes the album, makes it ever so much more difficult. Power ballads are terrible creatures at the best of times, but as the final song on the album, when it should be finding the perfect hard way to conclude so as to draw the listener back in for another listen is, for me, unforgivable.
If you want to be a critic, you can take this album apart song by song and find those parts that you don’t like. Yes, there is a similarity in the template of each track. Sure, Joacim’s vocals, if compared to some of the greats of the genre, don't have the same range or definition. And yes, power metal can be a drag if it isn’t done well. Here on “Legacy of Kings” though, I don’t believe any of those things are accurate. To me, the album is very much on the high side of the line when it comes to albums of this genre.

I was drawn into power metal at about the time that HammerFall started their recording career, and they were one of the bands that started my real journey into this medium of the late 1990’s. Their debut album resonated with me hard – still does actually – and this album followed that same path, which as you have discovered is somewhat how the band wanted it to go. I got all three of their initial albums at around the same time, and it feels as this one may have gotten lost for me amongst the other albums I was discovering at that time. In essence, I had “Glory to the Brave”, and that was my dominant HammerFall listening, along with a bootleg live album from 2001. I enjoyed the album, but I certainly didn’t overplay it.
Come the past month or so where I have pulled it out again for this podcast, and “Legacy of Kings” has been the album that really drew my attention on my playlist of albums I have been listening to in that time. And it’s easy to hear why, because it is perky and upbeat and bright and breezy and fun! It is a quintessential power metal album, maybe not one that is laden with over-the-top vocals or massively fast and intricate guitar solos and amazing drumming time changes, but instead just a really fun and uplifting album to listen to. And we all need music like that, don’t we? Have I been surprised how much I have enjoyed t again? Absolutely. And it again makes me wonder about those that have tried to bring it down. I don’t have a problem with those that don’t enjoy HammerFall or this album because they aren’t fond of the power metal genre, that’s fair enough. But trying to suggest it is poor musicianship or average vocals? Please. Perhaps try again.
It’s interesting how enjoyable I think this album is, and the backlash that it has received in some quarters, considering that I feel as though some of the band’s work in recent years doesn’t reach this same standard. Do people not enjoy this album because they don’t enjoy modern day power metal? Or am I just completely out of whack, and on a different plane from everyone else? There is little doubt that I could well be on the wrong side of the argument. In the long run, who cares as long as you enjoy it. And as for HammerFall’s “Legacy of Kings”, I do certainly still enjoy it.