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.

1250. Alcatrazz / Live Sentence. 1984. 3.5/5

Alcatrazz as a band came together not long after lead singer Graham Bonnet was dismissed from the Michael Schenker Group, which had come not long after his dismissal from Rainbow. The initial line up of the band, with Bonnet alongside guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, bass guitarist Gary Shea, keyboardist Jimmy Waldo and drummer Jan Uvena, had released their debut album “No Parole from Rock and Roll” in October 1983, the episode of which you can hear in Season 5 of this podcast.
On the back of this album the band toured extensively through the US and Europe, along with Japan, where the band’s song "Hiroshima Mon Amour" had become popular. This had led to the band deciding to record the concerts that they performed at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on January 28 of 1984, with the intention to release a live recording to showcase what the band could do in a live setting. When they listened to the tapes on playback, Yngwie Malmsteen was particularly unhappy with the quality of the recordings and fought hard to prevent them being released as an album. He failed in his efforts, which just added to the list of grievances that he had been having with the band and in particular Graham Bonnet himself. The resulting album was then released less than three months after the concert had been played, and as a play on words of the name of the band was titled “Live Sentence”

The original release of the live album had nine tracks, four of which came from the band’s debut studio album. The double A-side single “Island in the Sun” which gained the band popularity in Japan because of the song “Hiroshima Mon Amour” attached to it has both songs on this album, and both do sound better here in the live environment than on their studio versions. Bonnet’s vocals especially on “Hiroshima on Amour” are fantastic and showcase what a terrific voice he does have. The old man youth anthem of “Too Young to Die, Too Drunk to Live” (or perhaps it’s just a Bonnet autobiographical song) opens up the album here and gets the energy flowing from the outset. And the final of those four tracks is “Kree Nakoorie” which opens up side two of the album, and again translates well to the live environment.
This left more than half of the album filled with songs that weren’t by the band themselves, which seems strange even in an environment where with only one studio album having been released it would have necessitated bringing in songs from the outside. “Night Games” came from Bonnet’s third solo album, released after his short stint with Rainbow. This single had reached number six in the UK on its release, so acts as a track that some fans at least would have recognised. Speaking of Rainbow, two of the songs from Bonnet’s album with that band are also featured here, the two singles released from that band’s “Down to Earth” album “Since You Been Gone” and “All Night Long”. One assumes this would have appeased Malmsteen as well as he was such a Ritchie Blackmore fan, and listening to him playing guitar on both these tracks you can tell he is ecstatic at the prospect. The other two tracks are down to Malmsteen himself, soloing on a track simply called “Coming Bach” which has a popular and well known tune from the famous composer, and “Evil Eye”, an instrumental song written by Yngwie here, that eventually also showed up on his debut studio album “Rising Force” later that year, and became one of his signature pieces.
The 2016 remastered edition of the album contains the whole setlist and the track list is restored to the concert running order, and includes other tracks from the debut album in “Big Foot” and “Suffer Me”, along with the brilliant Michael Schenker Group song “Desert Song” and another Rainbow song in “Lost in Hollywood”. If you were indeed to wish to buy the album, this would be the version to hunt down, as it also contains a DVD of the performance.
Throughout the album, the band sounds fine, but the dominating factors are Graham Bonnet’s vocals and Yngwie Malmsteen’s guitaring. Both are just amazing on every song, and it is unfortunate that the two of them couldn’t find a way to work together longer, as their combination is truly something worth listening to.

Having come across Alcatrazz at the end of the 1980’s, essentially through the names Graham Bonnet and Yngwie Malmsteen, I have always found them to be a band that has all the ability in the world, but for the most part their albums fell short of what I expected, or at least what I was hoping for. Let’s face it, both characters named here have been known for their volatile natures, and neither can seem to hold a place down in a band for longer than one or two albums at most. In this case Yngwie lasted one, before striking out on his own with his Rising Force solo project, where he still seems to be unable to retain a solid band around himself, but at least he is in charge of the hiring and firing. Bonnet’s previous history and litany of bands is well known, and would continue beyond this album and band.
And yet, as I always say when it comes to a live album, it should be a highly rated album, as it contains all of the band’s best songs, in their best environment. And that certainly occurs here. And even if you are a little ambivalent about the band’s debut album, what you do get here is those songs energetically performed live, surrounded by a host of other great tracks from Bonnet’s other bands, and some Malmsteen composed acoustic songs where he showcases all of his guitaring talents.
While I have listened to this album in the past, it has never really been with wholehearted interest. It comes up next in the rotation, and I have shrugged my shoulders and let it run. So when it came around to review for this podcast, I put it on and thought, ‘well, if it isn’t very good, perhaps I’ll just skip it’. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, I’ve had it running for over two weeks, at least once a day in that time period, and have found it most enjoyable. And yes, it is for Bonnet’s amazing vocals, and every magical Malmsteen guitaring moment. Both are hard to ignore, and both have been terrific. If you are a fan of either, then I would suggest you grab this and have a listen, if only to experience this era of the two main conspirators. If you aren’t a fan of these two... then I’m sure you’ve already decided that this podcast episode will suffice for you ever having to track the album down.

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.

1248. Yngwie Malmsteen / The Seventh Sign. 1994. 3/5

The career of Yngwie Malmsteen as we reached the middle years of the 90’s decade had seen the extreme highs of playing to sold out crowds around the world and seeing his music videos plastered all over music programs across the globe, and posters of himself being pinned up in bedrooms everywhere. As a guitarist he was considered one of the best, one of the main influences and purveyors of the instrument in the modern age, and with good reason. He had a solo career with albums that were the envy of other musicians, showcasing not only his amazing guitar skills on these songs but an ability to write songs that were also catchy enough to make an impression on the charts, which was something that he had strived for over a long period of time.
The end of the 1980’s decade had seen four masterful solo albums and a live album and video to match, and it appeared that he was trending upward in every respect. The 1990’s however didn’t quite work out the way that he had hoped, with the advent of grunge and alternative music putting a big hole through his fan base. In the US especially this genre of music was sucking the life out of every other pursuit, including guitar gods who specialised in neo-classical guitar riffing and the power ballad in particular. The two albums Yngwie released in the 1990’s with new vocalist Goran Edman, “Eclipse” and “Fire and Ice”, were still popular, but trended down on the success that his initial albums had produced. And while the US and to a lesser extent the UK was moving away from his style of guitar and synth based music, it was Japan and Europe that continued to fly the flag for this style, and it found Yngwie retreating into their territory as the safe haven that his music required, where he could still retain his popularity without having to compromise to what was occurring elsewhere in the music world. It meant that his albums through the 1990’s were generally only released in Japan and Europe, something that probably did affect sales elsewhere in the world, but to what extent will never really be known.

It does take a special person to want to go out and buy every Yngwie Malmsteen album. There is a penchant for the song structures to become very similar throughout, a trend that really only started from the “Odyssey” album onwards.
This album, unlike most of the albums up to this point in time in the Malmsteen catalogue, does have what I consider to be three clearly defined sections when it comes to the type of songs produced. Michael Vescera, the new vocalist on this album following the release of Edman, has contributed lyrics to three songs on the album, and they strike out at you immediately. All three tracks have a different structure and are sung in a very different way. For instance, “I Don’t Know” has the sort of lyrics and vocals that are aimed at the audience the band is trying to attract. The fast double kick drum has gone and is replaced with a much harder rock hammering 4/4 timing, and the vocals are the hard rock standard as well, not soaring or screaming, but just at you in an almost conversational way. “Bad Blood” and “Crash and Burn” have the same tempo as this, completely different from what you would usually expect. Did Vescera take on these particular tracks to contribute to deliberately? It’s an interesting overview, that his lyrical writing came on the three songs that have this same style.
Beyond these tracks, we have the tracks penned entirely by Malmsteen himself which as always have his two usual styles coming at you – the fast paced guitar/synth based power metal that is punctuated by his amazing solo pieces that are the real reason we all come to listen to a Yngwie Malmsteen album, and then the power ballad slower tracks where he tries to suck us in to believing he could be a popular commercial success.
The former styled songs such as the opening track “Never Die”, “Hairtrigger”, the excellent title track “Seventh Sign” and “Pyramid of Cheops” which are the more immediately enjoyable, with the faster pace, backed by Yngwie’s great guitar riffing and solid harder styled vocals from Vescera that make the journey a far more enjoyable one. “Pyramid of Cheops” is certainly the heaviest song on the album, with a real driving beat and moody tempo that defies what Yngwie usually offers on his albums.
The other style is highlighted by songs such as “Meant to Be” and “Forever One” that drag out into infinity with the ballad vocals and Yngwie’s classical-styled guitar that is able to be appreciated for its intricacy but perhaps not loved for its output. “Prisoner of Your Love” in particular is extraordinarily painful, and yes, awful. With lyrics composed by Yngwie’s then wife Amberdawn, it is just the kind of track that should be thrown away in post-production or assigned as a last-minute bonus track to the Japanese release if at all. Yngwie also has two of his instrumental pieces here, “Brothers” and the closing track “Sorrow”, which as always hark back to his earliest work, though without the real originality that those songs and albums contain.

I loved all of Yngwie’s first four albums. His debut album was actually one of the first albums that I bought on CD when I first got my stereo with a CD player on it, and it was played a lot as a result. And I first got to see Yngwie live at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney on the Eclipse Tour, which was amazing.
It was the “Eclipse” album that I felt things started to turn for Yngwie, and the commercialisation that he was looking for at that time changed my perception of his music. When “Fire and Ice” followed and was in a similar ilk, I moved away from his music for about a decade, as other music genres and bands began to take a precedence over what I perceived to be Yngwie’s obsession.
A decade later, and in a different period of my life, and I decided to go back in time, and check out what the maestro had been doing over that period, and on the back of what I considered two very good albums at the turn of the century, I also went in to check out exactly what this album was like. And though there had been a change in personnel since I had last heard him, my ears were still biased against what he was producing here. I enjoy a few of the tracks, but overall I wasn’t amazed by the output. I thought Michael Vescera had a good sounding voice, but without the amount of amazing guitar work that Yngwie had always inserted into his earliest work, it didn’t grab me enough to really push forward.
Another two decades later, and I am once again revisiting this album. And it would be fair to say that if I wasn’t doing this podcast I very probably may never have listened to this album again. But I have, and I’m glad I have. Over a number of weeks, I have now listened to this album many times more than I have in the previous 30 years, and while this still has many flaws that would make it very difficult for it to be on a listening rotation with me, I’ve grown to enjoy it far more than I ever have. It’s still obvious that Yngwie at this time was still looking for a commercial success that had well and truly passed him by at this stage of his career, and was still not utilising his guitar enough. But there are some good moments here, and if you have it tracking in the background while you are pottering around the house or at work, then there is enough here to catch your attention along the way. It will never be one that I grab off the shelves when I want to listen to a Yngwie Malmsteen album. And there is now every chance that given this episode is almost over, I may never listen to it again. That in itself is perhaps the most incisive review I could offer you on just how engaging “The Seventh Sign” is.

1247. Live / Throwing Copper. 1994. 4/5

How many people can truly say that they knew of the band Live prior to the release of their 3rd studio album? I posed this same question about The Offspring on the recent episode on this podcast about their album “Smash”, and I use the same analogy – if someone tells you they did, they are either a purveyor of random bands, or they are a liar.
Live had been together as a band since their high school days, and having completed their high school years they put out a cassette with their own songs titled “The Death of a Dictionary”. They continued to gig around for the next two years before landing a record contract with Radioactive Records in 1991. This allowed them to head into the studio to record a four track EP initially, and then later that year record and release the album “Mental Jewelry”. The major benefit of both of these recordings was the acquisition of Talking Heads guitarist and keyboardist Jerry Harrison as producer, something that the band acknowledged was a benefit to their songwriting in particular, as that was a craft they were still coming to grips with.
With their stock rising, the band entered the studio again in the back half of 1993 to record the follow up, with Harrison still on board as producer. While their previous album had charted in the US, reaching as high as 73 on the Billboard 200 chart, the band was basically unknown outside of the US at that time. All of that was about to change considerably with the release of this album, which was titled “Throwing Copper”.

The moodiness of this album flows upwards and downwards throughout the entire track listing, from quiet lulls to raucous overtones and mid range feelings as well. It’s quite an achievement as you wander down the hills and valleys of the songs, each pulling in its own individuality and yet comprising a part of the whole.
The subtle lows and valleys are a mix of the moody slow flowing water in a peaceful creek and the person sitting under the tree with their hat tilted over their eyes. This is what some of these songs remind me of, or at least have me thinking about listening to them in this setting. The opening track “The Dam at Otter Creek” (no pun intended to the set up to this track) sets the album up in this style from the outset, with Ed’s vocals in a PJ Harvey phasing technique building in intensity along with the drums while the music remains in its calm setting. This then segues in to “Selling the Drama” returning to that softer start again, building up through to the chorus and riding the wave before rising and falling on the swell. Further along the album the third single released “Lightning Crashes” moves along the same lines, with the quiet acoustic first half of the song providing the base of the track and building to middle ground by the end of the track itself. “T.B.D” does the same but for much longer, only breaking out in the back quarter of the song for a 30 second burst, but for the remainder just quietly moving along, while “Pillar of Davidson” settles into the same tempo and calming mood.
The peaks of the hills show a more forceful vocal output both in volume and passion, and the harder element of the band coming to the fore as well. “I Alone” was the second single released from the album and mixes the swell along the way, but this is a bigger more energetic output than the songs already mentioned. The hard core emblazoning of the bridge and chorus are what tags this as a great singalong classic of the era, and one of the songs that the band built their reputation on. The same comes alive in “All Over You”, the fourth single release, which in its more energetic and jaunty approach is the perfect song to showcase the band on radio, getting the attention that the band would have hoped for by this stage of the album.
Along with these well known tracks are the ones that help build the album above the average. “Iris” is a beauty in this regard, with the drumming of Chad Gracey in particular working overtime on this song, driving the song along with Ed’s vocals to the harder element that the album works at its best. “Top” is also one of my favourites in this regard because the whole band sounds engaged throughout which doesn’t always happen on those softer acoustic songs. Here, Chad Taylor on guitar and Patrick Dahlheimer on bass best showcase their skills, and its a great number. Add to this “Shit Towne” which is classic small town belligerence, a song with more than a little frustration coming out in the vocals and lyrics. Along with “Stage” and “Waitress”, all of these songs in particular help build the album to its peaks, and showcase the fact that this album is not built on its single releases alone.

As I have already mentioned on a couple of occasions in this season of “Music from a Lifetime”, 1994 was a year that I bought very few albums due to several circumstances, including moving to the city and not having work for some months, and with money tight there was no opportunity to buy new music. Then came the year of 1995, also already mentioned on previous episodes, where much of my life went to... excrement. And I have also mentioned how albums such as Therapy’s “Troublegum” and The Offspring’s “Smash” became albums from 1994 that helped me survive the obliteration of 1995. Add to that list Live’s “Throwing Copper”.
Once again, I knew of the singles from the radio, as they received massive airplay throughout 1994. What finally tipped me into buying this album was getting to see the band play live at the Alternative Nation festival in April 1995 at Eastern Creek outside Sydney, the same day I first saw the band Therapy? It rained pretty much all day and night, the festival became a mud bath, and the conditions were generally miserable. Live had pulled a good crowd because of their popularity, but because there was so much mud, some of the less discernible fans watching decided to throw mud at each other, and then the band. The band soldiered on, but at the end of the set, Ed Kowalczyk crankily and without warning threw his guitar at the perpetrators at the front of the stage, and made to come off the stage and start pummelling them. Security made its belated way into the throng to stop the carnage and find the guitar, all the while as the crowd cheered the band and egged them on. How could you not follow a band after that?
So I bought the album, and it went into serious rotation. And like those other bands and their albums, what I was pleased to discover was that while the singles were good songs, the remainder of the album also held its own, and indeed for me some of the songs were stronger than the songs I knew. In particular, songs like “Iris”, “Top”, “Stage” and “Shit Towne” came with an intensity and passion that helped the album rise above the average, and prove to be a reward for all of those fans who had indeed made the dive into buying the album rather than just the singles. And, although I was a year behind the actual release date of the album, I became one of those fortunate people. The other endearing memory of this album is of spending a long weekend at Hill End in desolate NSW making an amateur western film, and this album being on the listening list of an evening as we sat back on the balcony of the old hotel we stayed at drinking cold beer at the end of the day.
This album still comes out onto the CD player on a regular basis, and it still as enjoyable as it was when I first bought it. Over the past three weeks it has been on the playlist for this episode, and it has built up a strong following once again. The band plays here in Wollongong in a couple of weeks as of the recording of this episode. I feel I may just pop along once again, if only to see if Ed throws his guitar at the audience at every gig, or if it is just when he has mud thrown at him.

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…’

1244. The Offspring / Smash. 1994. 4/5

If you meet anyone who said that they knew of The Offspring prior to the release of their third studio album “Smash", then they would fit into one of two groups. Either this person stumbled across one of their earlier releases through an obscure occasional acquaintance who only listened to bands that no one knew about until they got big, at which point they disowned them and moved on to some even more outrageously obscure speck of a band... or they are a liar. Because there is no way that you could have imagined that anyone would have COULD HAVE COME ACROSS a copy of either their self-titled debut album or the follow up “Ignition” prior to hearing and probably buying and digesting “Smash” for months on end, and then really wanting more of the band to experience. Absolutely, I was one of those people – not the ones who claimed to know the band before this album, just the one that bought the other two albums on the back of buying this. So I say again, my contention is that no one knew The Offspring before this album, and certainly not in Australia. Then the first single was released from this album, it got played for months on just about every radio station across the nation, and the beginning of the tsunami wave had begun.
The riders of the wave were the new punk-inspired bands like The Offspring. Green Day had released their seminal album “Dookie” just two months prior, and between them these two bands began to dominate the airwaves with their post-grunge reanimated punk pop music that grabbed the attention and the minds of the youth of the time. Add to this bands such as Hole with their album “Live Through This”, Bad Religion with “Stranger Than Fiction”, and Rancid with “Let’s Go”, the teenagers that had been hypnotised by grunge were now becoming the twenty-somethings that wanted something with a bit more rebellion, something they could jump around to and pump their fist at, something that could be the outlet for the rage rather than a railing for their moodiness. Each of these bands were able to harness that through these particular albums at this time. Arguably however, it was “Smash” that grabbed that attention the most fiercely, and through the airplay of the three singles directed that into album sales, where those same people found an even greater barrel of riches awaiting them.

For me, the songs on this album can be split into two categories, the fast tracks and the groove tracks, moderated by the tempo at which the songs come out at you. For me, the better songs on this album are the upbeat, up tempo, fast paced tracks, that really lock into that beat that gets people moving, whether physically on the dance floor or violently thrashing around in their chair while drinking their favourite alcoholic beverage. The opening track “Nitro (Youth Energy)”, as the title suggests is definitely one of those tracks. As an opening song, it casts the album in its best light from the outset, letting everyone who has just put on this CD what they are going to get. “Bad Habit” trends in the same direction, with energy rather than out and out speed the best quality of the song. The overt use of language towards the end of the song, which builds to a shout as the music suddenly disappears and is left as the only sound coming out of the speakers, is very effective in both proving the point that the lyrics are taking and for offending anyone who believes that swearing is not an avenue that should be taking in the musical arts. Fuck the lot of them, I say! “Genocide” is perhaps my favourite song of this category, driven by the forceful 2/4 beat of Ron Welty’s terrific drumming, barely halting for breath along the way apart from the steady break in the middle of the song. No mucking around on this song, it flies along with eminently singable lyrics and that fun Dexter implying vocal that often masks the real meaning of the lyrics. The other great example is “Killboy Powerhead”, a great track at top speed, Ron’s drum and cymbal work powering the song and high-octane vocals. Great song. Then there is the out and out punk track “So Alone” that could easily have been performed in the late 1970’s, though with less precision in the instruments and more English accent in the vocals.
The three singles from the album are the best example of the groove element of the album. “Gotta Get Away” settles into a really beautiful riff in the mid-tempo and allowing Dexter’s vocals to croon over the top without a change of either intensity or drive. “Come Out and Play” does the same by following Ron’s hard-hitting drumbeat, groove guitar riff and Dexter’s loudly explored vocals makes this another great and easy song to sing along with the volume turned up to 11. This is then followed by “Self Esteem” which became arguably the most popular single released off the album, one that I still enjoy but for me has been the lesser of the three. That is also possibly from the number of people who grabbed the band from this track, without knowing any other songs on the album. That kind of thing annoyed me as a teenager, and as a twenty-something... and still does today. “It’ll Be a Long Time” pulls along in the same wake, with faster start into the mid-tempo middle and the faster conclusion, while “What Happened to You” and “Not the One” both travel the same trajectory.
The final soaring conclusion of the title track is a perfectly wonderful ending to the album, with Dexter’s soulful vocals soaring along to provide the concluding track that this album deserves.

1995 is not a year that I recall with any fondness whatsoever. It was a fucked up period of my life, one where I didn’t handle the ups and downs of my life with any clear or organised thought processes. As I have mentioned in other episodes, music was one of the only saving graces of that year, and some albums were grafted onto my psyche as a result. “Smash” was one of them. I bought this album along with four or five others in one hit, but it was a year after its release. I knew the singles from the radio, but I had never felt the urge to actually buy the album. The difficulty of my personal circumstances in 1995 changed that and I grabbed onto it like a life preserver. The album grabbed me almost immediately, and much like another album reviewed earlier in this season, Therapy’s “Troublegum”, it became the soother of the raging torrent that was swirling around me. We all have those albums, the ones that are a port in that storm, and “Smash” acted as that for me.
In the years since, I haven’t really pulled it out very often to listen to. The albums that followed, like “Ixnay on the Hombre”, “Americana” and “Conspiracy of One” were The Offspring albums that I listened to a hell of a lot more than this one. Did it being tied to this time of my life make it less accessible for me in the years following? It’s a fair question and not one I have an answer for, beyond the fact that I do love those other three albums a lot. But certainly, having had this back in the rotation for the last three weeks or so, I can assess that I really should have listened to this earlier and more than I have over the years. To me it still stands up, and it is difficult to reconcile that it is 30 years old, because it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I was listening to this often and constantly.
This was the massive breakthrough album for The Offspring, and they have barely looked back since. Commercial success and fan success over the years has often been a bone of contention, but what hasn’t changed is the excellence of their output. Alternative rock, or punk rock, whatever you want to call it, this album was one of the forerunner of the first genres to break out of the dominance grunge had held on the music business for the past three years, and is still as important 30 years later as it was on its release.

1243. Gamma Ray / Power Plant. 1999. 5/5

The 1990’s was a decade of massive change in the music industry, and heavy metal had had its difficult times in adjusting to the changes going on around it. In Europe however, rather than tuning down, getting slower and having vocals go from growls to harsh screams, metal music had gotten faster, utilised more synth to complement the guitars and double kick drums to enhance the speed, and vocalists who hit the heights of the upper spectrum of their vocals.
No band better exemplified this than Gamma Ray, the band helmed by Kai Hansen after his departure from Helloween, and who along with a select few other bands provided the world the counterpoint it needed to the alt, nu and industrial metal that grunge had brought about in other parts of the world.
1995’s “Land of the Free” album was a landmark for the power metal genre, a concept album that not only had Kai return full time to lead vocalist and guitarist, but also brought on board in guest roles vocalists such as Maichael Kiske and Blind Guardian’s Hansi Kursh. This album was then followed by the equally terrific “Somewhere Out in Space” - the episode of which you can find in Season 4 of this podcast - which again pushed the band and the metal genre to greater heights, meshing the fast paced double kick drums with the twin guitars and punishing bass guitar that has formed the base of this band since its inception. The band’s first charted single “Valley of the Kings” showed they could create songs that found prominence in more than just the heavy metal fans bedrooms.
In between, Kai had also been involved in his friend Piet Sielk’s band as a side project. Iron Savior had brought out two albums that he had played on and also co-written some material, and while at this time there was no danger that Kai was going to switch camps away from his own band, some pondered just how full time Gamma Ray could be if he was spending time recording and touring with another band at the same time. Iron Savior’s second album “Unification”, on which both Kai and drummer Dan Zimmermann had played, and the episode on which you can find earlier here in Season 6 of this podcast, had only finished recording when Gamma Ray then went into the studio to write and record this album. It was a double shift that was not to last beyond the next two years, at which time Kai returned to concentrate full time on his number one priority – the glory of Gamma Ray.

“Power Plant” is most power metal of Gamma Ray’s albums. In general Gamma Ray utilise a combination of both speed metal and traditional heavy metal as their main focus, whereas this is more oriented in the power metal genre that Kai himself helped to define in the late 1980’s. But this album is power metal without the dominance of synths that usually comes to mind when you mention that genre of heavy metal, it still focuses on the twin guitars in the music which gives it a more powerful sound than they key and synth based sound that true power metal bands produce.
The opening track is a beauty, “Anywhere in the Galaxy” powering out of the blocks with Zimmermann’s double kick drums hammering through the opening with the guitar riff and Kai’s high-pitched scream crashing out of the speakers. The double kick runs throughout driving the song to the end, and Kai’s vocals at time become very Rob Halford-like in their screaming verses. It’s a brilliant opening track, and sets the album off on the right foot from the very beginning. This segues nicely into “Razorblade Sigh”, another automatic classic, darker in tone, opening with the phased guitar and Kai’s ominous vocals. This is an underrated classic in the Gamma Ray discography, not often thought of when it comes to best songs but is always one that when you listen to it you wonder why it isn’t considered so. The lead out bridge to the song’s conclusion is an emotionally charged highlight. “Send Me a Sign” follows, the song used as the advanced track prior to the album’s release. It has become the band’s signature song to close out their live sets and is a fan favourite to this day.
“Strangers in the Night” just has to be influenced by Judas Priest. Kai’s vocals in the verses here are so very flavoured by Rob Halford, and awesomely so. They sound brilliant. And the guitar melody and double kick drum is very much like a “Painkiller” album sound. The band has always been an influence of both music and vocals for Kai and his bands, and this song is no exception.
From here we move into one of the band’s best ever songs, “Gardens of the Sinner”. Bombastic, melodic, anthemic. Great singalong vocals, driven by the drums and guitars, everything about it screams ‘Gamma Ray classic’. It is amazing that this song did not make initial live set lists, and it wasn’t until the band gave the fans the chance to vote for the songs they wanted to hear live that this came on board, and hasn’t left since. “Short as Hell” is perhaps the most unusual song on the album, sandwiched where it is, an old fashioned jump step drum and guitar riff that bounces along rather than the double kick that dominates most other songs on the album.
The most surprising song on the album is “It’s a Sin”, a cover of the Pet Shop Boys hit single from the 1980’s. It’s a surprise in a couple of ways, firstly that the band chose to cover this particular song, as most of the cover songs they have done have been old NWoBHM bands songs, but secondly that it is done so well. Guitar replaces synth, and Kai sings it terrifically well. It is the best example of slight change in focus of this album compared to the last two that the band has done. It does polarise fans, with many believing that it diminishes the album. Personally, I have always enjoyed it. Following this comes another song that splits the fan base, the openly obvious metal anthem of “Heavy Metal Universe”. Some fans complain that this is such a cliched song looking for a fan reaction that it again lowers the whole expectation of the album. On the other side of the argument, metal bands have written anthem songs to play live forever. Judas Priest – there's that comparison again – made an artform of it in the early 1980’s, as have many other bands. Again, I like the song, I have no problem with it. “Wings of Destiny” ramps up the intensity and emotion with Kai’s harmony vocals and those terrific twin guitars of Kai and Henjo. The lead out bridge vocally is sensational, and sums up the best parts of the song in style. ”Hand of Fate” is backed back to a mid-tempo and is very much in Dirk Schlachter’s style of song, one that differs markedly from the Kai, Dan and Henjo penned tracks.
The closing epic is “Armageddon”, stretching to almost nine minutes and full of platitudes throughout, along with scintillating drumming from Dan again. While not quite on the scale of the title track of the band’s first album “Heading for Tomorrow”, this is where Kai excels, writing songs of magnitude that command your attention and become the types of tracks that drag you in to start the album all over again.

My undying love for this band has perhaps not yet filtered uninterrupted onto this podcast, given the few albums of theirs that I have so far been able to review for episodes here. That will over time be rectified. Suffice to say that from the first time I heard Kai Hansen play and sing on Helloween’s “Walls of Jericho” album I have been slightly obsessed with his music, which transferred completely to Gamma Ray when he formed the band back in 1989.
This resulted in me ensuring that I had this album in my hands on its first week of release. I had spent several years wearing out my copies of the band’s previous two albums, and I was more than ready for new material. When this album came out, I had just relocated from Sydney back to my childhood home in Kiama, living with my parents, and driving my father-in-law's taxi part time as my only source of income. So let me just say that it was a less than satisfactory time of my life. What helped to keep my spirits up was this album. I would drive the taxi around with this album on constant rotation, something that not only annoyed a few people, but also found some ready converts who enquired about who that band was, and what that album is.
For me, Gamma Ray is fun. You sing along, you air guitar, you air drum. This is what heavy metal is supposed to be, remember? Metal is supposed to lighten your mood, bring you to life, lift you above the ground. That’s why we listen to music, to improve our days. Gamma Ray for me has always done that, and this album is no exception. Helloween was known for its ‘happy guitars’ from Kai and Michael Weikath, and Kai has kept this in Gamma Ray. They are the happiest band on the planet – watch them play live. They are all grinning and smiling through the whole gig, it is amazing. And that’s what I do when I listen to this album as well.
“Power Plant” does prove to be that slightly different album in the catalogue though. The previous two albums are very much in the traditional Gamma Ray style, as are the following three albums. This one ventured down a slightly different path, perhaps through the writing being spread between all four members, with Henjo contributing two songs, Dan contributing two songs and Dirk one. Even so, I still love this album. It is an uplifter of my mood, with one particular song doing that more than most. It was also the first song I saw the band play live, on the only time they toured Australia, and it still sticks in my mind as one of the best moments of my life.

1242. Lionheart / The Grace of a Butterfly. 2024. 3.5/5

Lionheart came into being in their first iteration in the early 1980’s. Sometime referred to as a ‘supergroup’, that doesn’t take into account the fact that most of the musicians in that first group had either left or been fired from successful bands of the time. Vocalist Jess Cox had quit Tygers of Pan Tang. Guitarist Dennis Stratton had been moved on by Iron Maiden. Guitarist Steve Mann’s band Liar had just dissolved. Bass guitarist Rocky Newton’s band The Next Band had had no calls. Drummer Frank Noon... well... didn't seem to like staying with any band for any length of time. There were a few revolving doors, but the core of Stratton, Mann and Newton finally got a record deal for Lionheart, and they recorded their debut album “Hot Tonight” in 1984, to a resounding thud. Finally in 1986, they disbanded, and found success in other areas, especially Steve Mann and Rocky Newton who teamed up in the McAuley Schenker Group to be involved in their successful late 80’s early 90’s run of albums and tours.
Flash forward to 2016 – yes, 30 freaking years later – and there was a reunion of the band to play at a three-day Rockingham 2016 melodic/hard rock festival, held in Nottingham. The success of this gig convinced the band, with Stratton, Mann and Newton now joined by lead vocalist Lee Small from the band Shy and Clive Edwards who had performed with UFO, that they should make a go of it once again, which resulted in the album “Second Nature” in 2017. “Second Nature” found a nostalgic audience out there looking for music from a bygone age, and the five piece fitted the bill perfectly. This was then followed by the album “The Reality of Miracles” in 2020, and a renewed touring schedule that saw them getting exposure that surely none of them would have thought possible so many years after their initial foray into the music business.
With the pandemic having halted their momentum slightly, they now have their third reunion album out, and with the promise of more festival dates and tours in the ether, their new album has arrived, titled “The Grace of the Dragonfly”.

“The Grace of a Dragonfly” is a concept album, bathed in the shower of power metal, and both of these proponents of the album should be remembered when listening to the album as a whole. The album’s story centres around World War II and is basically aimed at being an anti-war themed album, the lyrics building up the sentiment at war being futile and other options should always be considered.
The album opens with “Declaration”, which builds from its quiet opening to an anthemic chorus with the declaration being made figuratively and literally, and carrying an energy that kicks off the album satisfactorily. “Flight 19” slows up the pace, settles into the long drawn-out spectacle of the post-ballad. The energy of the opening track isn’t quite maintained here, but then segues into “V is for Victory” which is a much more pleasantly paced track, moving beyond the opening keyboard synth dominated beginning to the soaring vocals of the anthemic chorus, backed by the great harmony of the support vocals, and then the great lead breaks through the middle of the song. “This is a Woman’s War” continues down this path, while “The Longest Night” is arguably the best song on the album, played at a great tempo and showcasing all of the members of the group’s best qualities.
“The Eagle’s Nest” on the other hand, is pure syrup, the power ballad at its best or worst, depending on how you wish to identify it (spoiler alert: at its worst). Look, I know power metal bands have to do power ballads, but gee whiz, just once I would love a power metal band to say “you know what? We’re going to avoid the cliche this time around!” If nothing else, this song puts to bed the question as to whether or not this is a power metal band, because this ties it to that genre for eternity. Kill me now. “Little Ships” and “Just a Man” both have a more keyboard oriented basis with Lee’s vocals soaring in while well supported in harmony by Dennis and Steve. Yes, this is more power ballad than power rock, but it doesn’t quite plumb the depths of the other tune, saved in the most part by the great solo break of Dennis and Steve’s guitars. The biggest problem is the song’s length, it does go on a bit too long at five minutes for such a track to retain the interest all the way through.
“UXB” returns to the band’s 80’s roots, with synth that makes it sound like it is from one of those great 80’s movie soundtracks (yes, start thinking “Together in Electric Dreams”), but when the guitars hit in it has a much better more modern take on that... like... 1990’s power metal I guess... but take a listen to the track. This could honestly have been recorded in the mid-1980's, such is the style of song, the vocals, the guitars. This could have come straight from my 1980’s playlist, and I could put it on that right now and no one who listened to it would bat an eyelid. The album rushes to its climax with the title track “The Grace of a Dragonfly”, the album’s epic conclusion where everything that has been put in place lyrically throughout is brought together with the final push, before “Remembrance: Praying for World Peace” finalises the concept album with its quiet keyboard synth outro.
So, this is for all intents and purposes a power metal album. Sure, the guys in the band may be more for the NWoBHM age or the glam metal age, but while there are specks of both f those metal genres on this album, it is basically tied very much to the power metal genre. However, it is a part of that genre where the keyboards are NOT the dominant instrument, and the drums aren’t hammering along with the double kick for the entirety of the album. Here we have the dual guitars, both playing lead and rhythm, while the keys offer filler underneath for the most part of the album. The drumming is also very much in the traditional hard rock style, much in the 2/4 beat and generally keep time and being the solid backing to wat is happening up front. So it’s a real mixture in the music, which perhaps is what drew me so strongly to this album when I first listened to it, because despite being a power metal fan I do prefer the bands that are guitar heavy not keyboard heavy, and sometime the drums can be a bit over the top, but here Clive Edwards knows what his role is, and he sticks solidly to it.

About 20 years ago, I started making a deep dive into bands that I had always heard about but that I had never listened to any of their material. Mostly it was NWOBHM bands that had come and gone so quickly that by the time I got into heavy metal they had already been non-existent for years. This involved downloads, YouTube searches and rummaging in record stores all over the place. One of those bands that I was searching for, or that I eventually came to search for, was indeed Lionheart, but the best that I could find was a couple of songs off that long-forgotten debut album “Hot Tonight”. They were... ok... but that was the extent of my knowledge. And that had come in essence because it was another of the 4000 bands that Dennis Stratton had played for since that one Iron Maiden album had initially brought him to my attention.
We move to the modern day, and I was as mystified as most others when I eventually discovered that Lionheart still existed, let alone had a new album released. It was only through the posts by a fastidious Iron Maiden fan on her podcast’s Facebook page – thanks Kirsty – that it came to my attention at all, and, given that I only had another half a dozen new albums just released to listen to and give a review on for this podcast, I thought, “What the hell, let’s see what it is like!”
And so you have what I have basically outlined here for you earlier. The themes here are unmistakable lyrically, but it is musically where I am still intrigued. Yes, the power metal genre is heavily represented here, though with the two guitars instead of just keys and one guitar, and without the typical power metal double kick drum. In this aspect, it does hold some similarities to the NWoBHM style of heavy metal, tying those two together. But at times I definitely pick up pieces of tracks that have similar strains to euro metal such as Sonata Arctica and progressive metal such as Symphony X, just not as frantic as those bands can be. And as a fan of all of those bands and their genres, perhaps you can see why this album keeps pulling at me, even after I’ve decided it just isn’t going to work for me. It is true that the very nature of the power ballad, that is a majority shareholder in a number of these songs, will eventually win and have me banishing this album to the shelves, only to see the light of day when I am in a particularly narrowed musical mood... for the moment, I can’t help but still have it on my playlist. And every time it begins, I find myself curious as to whether it is THIS time that I finally forgo it, or finally admit that I like this far more than I could imagine.
That being said, “The Grace of a Dragonfly” is an album that will definitely not be a fence sitter – you will either enjoy the story and the music that this band has created, or you will wonder why this kind of album is still being produced in 2024. Whichever way you turn, you won’t find out unless you give it a go. And my suggestion is that you do exactly that.