1130. Gamma Ray / Sigh No More. 1991. 5/5

It would be impossible to convey just how blown away I was when I discovered Helloween back in 1987, and how brilliant I believe those first four albums are. It is also hard to express how much I came to love Kai Hansen as an artist because of it, and then how difficult it was to take when he left the band in 1989. Fear not though! As he went on to form his own new group called Gamma Ray, and the band released their debut album the following year, the quite brilliant Heading for Tomorrow, an album that mixed together everything that had made Helloween as brilliant they had been with a new set of members. Lead vocalist Ralf Scheepers had provided the voice, and an inspired friendship that proved to be. Uwe Wessel on bass and Mathis Burchardt on drums had completed the recording band, while for the tour that followed Dirk Schlachter came on board as second guitarist.After a successful first tour, the band came together to write and record the follow up, soon to be known as Sigh No More. Burchardt had moved on at this point, and in his place came a young drummer by the name of Uli Kusch, a quite brilliant instrumentalist who eventually went on to a storied career in Kai’s former band Helloween. Also for Sigh No More, Dirk joined the band as a permanent member, slotting in as second guitarist.

As excellent as the first album had been, it had been almost a solo effort, as Kai had written all but one of the songs by himself. Here on Sigh No More however, the writing was shared by all members of the band apart from Uli, which given the songs he went on to write for Helloween and Masterplan, it is quite amazing that he didn’t get a chance to offer some material here. Not that the final product needed any more brilliant material than it eventually held. Kai wrote the music for 8 of the 10 tracks, four of those in collaboration with Uwe Wessel, With Uwe going solo on the track “Start Running” and Dirk doing likewise on “Father and Son”. The lyrics were shared by all four on different tracks with Ralf contributing on four tracks with Kai. The result is this did become a real band effort rather than just one individual contributing all of the material, and in many ways you can hear that closeness and collaborative factor in the songs that make up this terrific album.

On Gamma Ray’s first album Heading for Tomorrow what was most noticeable was the positiveness of the songs and lyrics, and the way that Kai’s ‘happy guitar’ that punctuated Helloween songs was prevalent again. Songs such as “Lust for Life”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “Free Time” and “Heading for Tomorrow” all showed a positive outlook on life and sounded upbeat both due to the lyrics and music.
There has been a noticeable progression in both musical style and lyrical outlook here on Sigh No More, not to the point of morbidity but the subject matter is much more serious and worldly that the debut album. It is something that Kai purposely pushed the writing towards. He felt that the first album had had too many elements similar to Helloween, and with the coming tsunami of grunge he felt that the next Gamma Ray album had to be more ‘grown up’.
Top of the list for subject matter is war, something that had taken up the news cycle again in 1991 with the onset of the Gulf War. None of the songs here correlate directly to that or any other conflict, but the war images are there, and while the songs are great the message is somewhat bleak. The songs “As Time Goes By”, “We Won’t Stop the War” and “Start Running” in particular discuss those issues. It is interesting that all of those three songs have four different people writing the lyrics, so it was obviously a subject that was close to the heart of all of the band rather than just one member.
Dirk’s “Father and Son” is a heartfelt tome to his relationship with his own father over his own dreams to make it in the music business, with the lines “You wanted the best for me, somehow things went wrong, and I tore us apart.” best describing that it didn’t end well, and “Rich and Famous” is the closest any songs on this album come to replicating those on the first album, with a tongue-in-cheek discussion about the way some choose fame and fortune over love and happiness.

Then there are the songs which are deep and reflective – lyrically rather than musically – and looking at the world in a different way. The opening track “Changes” is about the challenges of mental health from the writer’s perspective, with the lines “Hard to enjoy the good times, decay is what I feel, God, it's making me porous, vanish in haze, I wonder - wonder if I'm real.” giving a good indication of the way the song describes the mental state. “One With the World” tries to turn around those feelings and project a positive outlook on working through problems and coming up with a positive frame of mind at the end. “Countdown” is Kai’s song about the pressure of trying to get the album finished, and what may not be surprising is that it wouldn’t be his last song about running late for record companies! The final two songs of the album are more uplifting, with “Dream Healer” all about getting the best out of your dreams, and “The Spirit” another positive spin song lyrically on hoping for the best for the world going forward.

Everything here is top shelf. Ralf’s vocals are perfect throughout, with the right amount of emotion and power in the singing depending on the mood. I don’t think his vocals ever sounded better than they do on this album. Uli Kusch’s drumming is brilliant, and though he left to join Helloween after this album and was terrific in the time he was there, it was a shame he left the band. Uwe Wessel on bass again does a great job, but it was also his time to move on after this, apparently from a disagreement that he an Uli both had with the other members of the band. Dirk is great on guitar, despite it being only his second instrumental love, while Kai again tops the charts both in song writing and on lead guitar, leading the way in every way possible.

I’m not going to lie to you – whenever I review a Gamma Ray album over the next few months or years for this podcast, you are going to hear me rave about it. Because out of their whole catalogue, there is only one album I think might be a little bit dodgy. And it isn’t this one.
I was hooked from the very first. I love every song on this album, from the opening of “Changes” and “Rich and Famous”, through “One With the World” and to the conclusion of “Dream Healer” and “The Spirit”. When I got this album I was reading Stephen King’s “Four Past Midnight” collection, and in particular the first novella “The Langoliers”. And now, I can’t listen to this album without thinking about that book. Somehow, the songs perfectly fit the story as it plays out, and for me the two are now entwined forever.

Whatever YOU might feel about German heavy metal, as far as I am concerned this album is absolutely killer. This is the style of music I love the best, the duelling harmony guitars, the double kick drums at speed, the blazing bass guitar, and the vocals that can hit the heights. And Kai Hansen and his band of warriors are at the top of that tree. Apart from Ronnie James Dio, no one has had a greater influence on my love of music than Kai Hansen, and the Godfather delivers here in spades. You may not feel the same way about this album or band – and that’s fine. But for me, I could listen to nothing but Gamma Ray for the rest of my days and die a happy man. And this album is right up there with their greatest.

1129. Ozzy Osbourne / No More Tears. 1991. 5/5

Through the 1980’s Ozzy Osbourne had taken all before him, forging out a career apart from Black Sabbath that eventually outstripped his former band in both popularity and album sales during that decade, thanks to some fortuitous meetings with musicians such as Randy Rhoads, Jake E. Lee and Bob Daisley. Though there were obvious behind the scenes things that went on that were not as wonderful, including a consistent attempt to not give those who helped compose the songs that made him famous the credit they deserved before casting them aside, along with his own alcohol and drug problems, Ozzy marched through the decade of the 1980’s as a hero to the kids and with a string of brilliant albums.

For his previous album No Rest for the Wicked Ozzy had procured a brash young brilliant guitarist named Zakk Wylde, whose signature wailing created the kind of sound that he wanted to continue moving forward and improving the material that was being produced.

When it came to writing and recording this album, No More Tears, there was still plenty happening inside and outside the band. Not for the first time, but in essence probably the last time, Bob Daisley was the musician who was required when it came to putting it all together. The history between Ozzy and Bob is better left to other sources, and the story is both euphoric and inherently sad, but Daisley was brought in again to help with the recording of the album and to find the heart within the songs that were written. Alongside Randy Castillo on drums, these four recorded an album that for its time was just amazing. The 1980’s had been drained away, and in its place was a polished and mature album for the new decade, one that not only sounded like the most well-rounded album Ozzy had ever put his name to, but one which looked like it could push the foursome to even greater heights than they had ever known.

No More Tears takes some interesting paths, ones that wind off onto different parts of the forest of musical styles that the band has drawn from. Opening with “Mr Tinkertrain”, it’s a subject that lyrically at least makes you wonder if this song could be written in this day and age. You get the feeling that the ‘cancel culture’ of today’s protesters may see it as ‘inappropriate’. Despite this it is a great opening to the album, one where all four musicians come at you from the outset.
Lemmy Kilmister has writing credits on four of the songs of the album, and they are a diverse set of tracks. The second song “I Don’t Want to Change the World” is the first with Lemmy’s input, with a rocking track and thoughtful vocals over the top. Lemmy’s influence in the lyrics to both “Hellraiser” and “Desire” especially seem obvious. As it turn out his band Motorhead eventually did their own versions of both these songs, with “Hellraiser” not only appearing on Motorhead’s March ör Die album in 1992 but in the movie and on the soundtrack to Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - Movie Soundtrack, while Lemmy’s version of “Desire” appeared on the Ozzy Osbourne tribute album A Tribute to Ozzy: Bat Head Soup.
The final song with Lemmy involved is “Mama I’m Coming Home” which was not only the main power ballad on the album and the second single, it also became one of the biggest selling singles of Ozzy’s career.

The songs here vary from the instrumentally technical and heavy in nature to the power ballad styles of “Mama I’m Coming Home” and “Road to Nowhere” and “Time After Time”. These songs still seem to be able to slip into the usual Ozzy narrative without appearing overtly as though they are looking for commercial success. The fact that “Mama I’m Coming Home” was so successful in this perhaps shone a focus on those three songs more heavily than would otherwise have been the case. I get the feeling that it proved to influence the way future albums were written in a way, but this may well just have been because Bob Daisley was not utilised in any fashion beyond this album, and that Zakk Wylde was not always involved in the writing process after this album as much as he had been. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always enjoyed all three of those songs, and indeed quite love “Mama I’m Coming Home” - I think it just fits so smoothly into the concept of the album and its positioning in the track list works best in its favour. It’s interesting though that this style of song finds its way back into the mix, and both “Road to Nowhere” and “Time after Time” as well. I think the length of the album works in its favour. At almost an hour it is the longest of Ozzy’s albums to this point, and that allows these songs to sit within the mix without dominating the album.
Pack this alongside the fast tempo songs that are still what drives the album, and you can hear what makes this version of the band one of its best. "Won't Be Coming Home (S.I.N.)" is a great track where I still have no idea what the SIN stands for. “Desire”, “Hellraiser”, “Zombie Stomp”, “A.V.H”... they are all just fantastic. Indeed, that is definitely done with the songs that have the harder drums and utilise the brilliance of Zakk Wylde’s guitar. “Hellraiser” in particular is a gem, with great lyrics and Zakk’s guitar that dominates.
“No More Tears” is the epic, the track that binds the whole album together, and perfectly showcases the still brilliant sound and skill of Bob Daisley on bass guitar, the thrumming drum timing of Randy Castillo and that brutal and precision perfect guitar playing of Zakk Wylde, topped off by Ozzy’s still wonderful vocals over the top of it all. Of all the tracks that have appeared on Ozzy’s albums with his name on the cover – and there have been plenty – this track perhaps still showcases the best of everything that the band and the writing can offer.

When this was released in 1991, it was huge. As I have mentioned of the other albums I have reviewed that were released in that year, grunge had begun to squeeze its tentacles around the music industry, with its leading album just a few days away from being released itself. That this album still sold so well within this environment is perhaps somewhat remarkable, but it does truly show the high esteem that Ozzy Osbourne himself was held in, and his ability to cross genres was probably perfectly shown because of “No More Tears”.
I adored this album when it was released. Even amongst the plethora of albums that seemed to come out around this time, “No More Tears” still managed to take up a fair amount of my music listening time. For quite some time I even rated this as my favourite Ozzy Osbourne album, such was the overall standard of the songs and musicianship and song writing. Further contemplation beyond that period led me to re-evaluate and come back to the conclusion that those albums of the ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ band, the Rhoads-Daisley-Kerslake days, are quite special, but this album continues to rank barely behind them.

This was arguably Ozzy’s last great moment in music. The following album Ozzmosis was on a hiding to nothing in following this but still has some great material, but the lack of inspiration beyond that release has been quite noticeable. The tour that supported this album was called “No More Tours” as it was going to be the final time Ozzy went out and played live. There is good and bad in the fact that it proved not to be the case. The live album recorded on the tour, Live & Loud, is a cracker. It also meant that in 1998 Ozzy toured Australia on a greatest hits setlist that was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. And of course at the final two nights of this ‘supposed’ last tours he played two songs as an encore with the original Black Sabbath band, which... eventually.... led them to further tours and a final album some 20 years later.

No More Tears sometimes doesn’t get the credit and kudos it deserves. I think it is a brilliant album, one that everyone should own.

1128. System of a Down / Toxicity. 2001. 4/5

It’s hard to take in sometimes that System of a Down was first formed way back in 1994, generally before all the changes that happened to heavy metal and alternative music had really taken shape. But it didn’t take them long to find their feet and their standing in the music world, and with a style that was very much their own. After releasing their eponymous first album in 1998, the band comprising Serj Tankian on vocals, Daron Malakian on guitars, Shavo Odadjian on bass and John Dolmayan on drums moved back into the studio to produce their follow up, titled Toxicity. Also returning to produce the album was Rick Rubin, which only augured well for the final product.

Without a doubt, Toxicity is one of the most significant albums to come out since the turn of the century, and for many teenagers in particular at the time it was a defining album . And there are plenty of reasons for that. The album comes with riffs and lots of them, they're loud, they've got cool rhythm patterns (very much an underrated aspect of SOAD), the songs contain abstract and 'intellectual' lyrics, shouted vocals and more. It was one of those albums where you would allow people to try and attack you for being a fan of the band because the music was so different and out there, and that they obviously just ranted on about abstract things – and then you could have the sheer joy of actually telling these people what it was that the lyrics were talking about, and well and truly take the moral and intellectual high ground.
Toxicity copped a fair barrage on its release, especially as it occurred just a week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US. The heavily politically motivated lyrics on several songs caused a stir, and this then led to several songs being banned from their airwaves, in particular “Chop Suey” whose lyric of “I cry when angels deserve to die” was taken somewhat out of context during the hysteria following those attacks – even though the song and album were recorded and released well before the actual events. This didn’t stop the song being nominated for awards or selling huge numbers of copies as a single release.
After the attack, Tankian published an essay exploring 9/11’s fallout from multiple angles. “If we carry out bombings on Afghanistan or elsewhere to appease public demand, and very likely kill innocent civilians along the way, we’d be creating many more martyrs going to their deaths in retaliation against the retaliation,” he wrote. “As shown from yesterday’s events, you cannot stop a person who’s ready to die.” Given recent events in Afghanistan, he was shown to be bang on.

Describing this album's musical content isn't easy. What you have here with Toxicity is an alternative album that transcends genre labels and many musical conventions, tying in an amazing range of genres with an incredibly diverse array of (generally) short tracks. There's thrash metal, hardcore punk, Greek and Middle Eastern music, folk, jazz, progressive rock, nu metal, art rock, and probably a dozen others in the mix. Listing here the bands that SOAD have at different times cited as their musical influences would take longer than these podcast episodes usually come out to. It all feels like the ingredients to a primordial soup, but this album sounds surprisingly fresh, creative and original even 20 years after its release by an alt-metal band. It is certainly no sophomore slump. The songs are generally pretty short and rock hard at high tempos, which can be a blessing and a curse; the fast tempo helps them fit in uncommon time signatures and gives them flexibility in structure, but this also becomes somewhat predictable and uniform as the album goes on, and many songs sound underdeveloped because of how short they are. One aspect of this album that I'm not sure many people talk about is how progressive it is, and this is probably one of the few albums that could be called both progressive metal and hardcore punk. In these short songs, the band fits in various structures and completely ignores the concept of a normal song structure. Even on the lead hit “Chop Suey!”, the band fits in various, diverse segments and abandons any transitions, but it works really, really well. The melody and catchiness also really helps, but it's an oddball song that somehow still became their biggest hit. And, even though the songs are structurally similar, they don't sound much like each other. There isn't one song here that you would think, "gee this sounds just like the last one".

Even for music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, given all of the ways heavy metal had evolved and broken off and formed new extensions of themselves, this was DIFFERENT. This was frantic yet serene. It was angry yet intellectual. It was madness wrapped in a cocoon of sanity. It was strictly formed lyrical and musical tomes smashed by a sledgehammer and thrown at you from a distance of ten paces. Noting about it actually seemed to fit together, and yet it made perfect sense. It was never designed to be sat down and listened to in your armchair with a nice hot cup of tea, though 20 years on their would be youth of that generation who now do exactly that.
It’s possible I may never have truly discovered this album if I wasn’t involved with younger people at the time of its release through the cricket club I played in. The album first came to me from one of my best friends on one of his sojourns down from the big city, and I was pressed to listen to it more by the youngsters I then played cricket with on weekends. I didn’t take much convincing. Everything about it was a part of what I had listened to in music for 15 years or more before its release, it’s just that I didn’t always get all of that on one album, or in this case in a 30 second period of each song on the album.

Is it a surprise that five albums came about really quickly... and then the band went on a hiatus that has produced almost zero new music since? No, probably not, and that isn’t always a bad thing. Some things are hard to both reproduce and also to follow up. Toxicity is a product of its time, tied to it by the fact that it reflects so many different styles of music in one 14 song album that all more or less came into being in that same era. Everyone hopes for a new album from the band, much like they did after the same hiatus periods taken by bands like Faith No More and Soundgarden, and yet when they returned with new albums so many years after their previous ones, there was the general feeling of disappointment.

20 years on, Toxicity still brings out the same feelings of joy and amazement that it did on its release, and for an album like that, that is quite an achievement.

1127. Helloween / Helloween. 2021. 5/5

So Covid-19 may have delayed the release of this album by about 12 months, and it has certainly put a stop to any touring to promote it, but the album arrived as promised, and that is something I don’t think any fans of the band thought they would ever hear – Hansen and Kiske back in the band that they helped to create the major success of. Along with the initial tour to celebrate their reunion the band released a new single, “Pumpkins United”, that was written by Deris, Weikath and Hansen, and featured all three vocalists in capacities during the song. And when it was announced that a new album was to be recorded, it was announced that it would be helmed by this writing trio. Well, for whatever reason, that isn’t what happened.As it turns out, the writers are pretty much as they have been for the last 17 years for Helloween, with Deris and Gerstner doing the lions share, Weikath adding his 2-3 and Grosskopf 1-2. In fact, the only difference with the writers here is Kai Hansen’s 12+ minute monster “Skyfall” which concludes the album. Of course, that doesn’t mean that band members weren’t involved in the song writing process in other ways, but those being credited with the songs are the same as always. And perhaps that becomes a problem for some fans, as they could suggest that means the songs won’t be any different to what they have produced over recent albums.

But the songs they were writing on this album had lots more variables. Firstly, the addition of an extra guitarist, which opens up how the songs could be constructed. That of course could be done anyway, but with three different guitarists all adding their own flavour or style to the mix it was always going to improve what came out. And of course, the biggest change of all was the addition of not one, but TWO extra vocalists, all with their own style and their own way of interpreting how a song of a portion of the song should be sung, and of course the magnificence of their layered harmony vocals throughout. If for nothing else, that is what people should be coming to this album for.
And this may well beg the question – why would this album be any better than the last half a dozen or so released by the band? Some people either didn’t enjoy them, or didn’t listen to them. My own point of view of those albums is that I liked them all, and consider all of them around 7.5 to 8 out of ten. So musically, even if they were on a similar path I was always going to be okay with it.
I can give you a few reasons as to why this album is probably the best the band has released since Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy back in 2005, but the one, outstanding, fully fledged reason is the one that is the most obvious – from the very first note that is sung by Michael Kiske, this is already a winner. And it is hard to convey the joy of hearing Michael Kiske singing again for Helloween. I do enjoy both of the Unisonic albums, but they don’t match this. This is pure unadulterated Helloween.

And look… I am not taking anything away from either Andi Deris or Kai Hansen, or the great backing vocals of all of the other members of the band. Truly. Because they are tremendous. But it is Kiske that is the star turn. Because – after Keeper 1 and 2 – he was the voice of Helloween. Yes, I LOVE Kai’s singing on those early albums and on everything he has done with Gamma Ray, and I love Andi’s vocals on all of the albums since. But Michael is the pure voice, the one that dominates in different keys, that soars where it needs to, and is still and always will be the major factor in Helloween’s vocals. No matter what other elements have made this the album that it is – and there are, don’t get me wrong – as soon as you hear Michael you know it is Helloween. This reunion would not have worked without him.
But the combination of the three main Helloween vocalists here is superb. In the main it is Michael and Andi who share most of the lines, but Kai has his moments as well, and that is superb that he is. Many people don’t know just how good Gamma Ray is, but they are as awesome a band as Helloween, and Kai has been their lead vocalist for most of their albums, so it is great that he still holds a place in getting his shot here too – obviously along with his guitaring. And Andi Deris is again superb. As the man holding down the number one spot in the band for 25+ years, he had the most to lose by the return of these two former members, and yet he seems to have not only taken it in his stride, but thrived on it. He risked losing his profile, but I think he has only strengthened it because he has been so accommodating in the whole process. When they played live he had to accede those older songs back to Michael and Kai to be the major vocalists, but he did so stylishly. And here, he and Michael combine and mesh seamlessly, each taking their turn on the microphone and making every song a moment in time to remember.

And of course the musicianship is second to none. Drummer Dani Loble is a powerhouse behind the kit and has been a revelation since coming into the band. His drumming here is exceptional, and the sound he has got going is really superb. Part of this amazing experience is the fact that one of the people involved in the band was able to find Ingo Schwichtenberg's drum kit that he used to record the two Keeper album back in the late 1980’s, and that is the kit Dani used to record this album. And to me, his genuine excitement to be using that kit just shows not only how invested he is in the band and also its history. Alongside him as the other latecomer, Sascha Gerstner again delivers. His guitaring has always been great, and his song writing particularly strong. I probably didn’t pay him enough attention until I saw him perform live with the band on two tours of Australia, but seeing him up front just proved to me what a terrific addition to the band he has been since he arrived 20 years ago. “Best Time” and “Angels” are his two tracks on this album and again they have purpose in the lyrics and strength in the music. And as always on bass guitar, the grand old man of the four string, Marcus Grosskopf, who has been there since the very beginning, playing the most immaculate and amazing bass riffs, running those enormous hands all the way along the fretboard. You can only wonder why Marcus has always felt underrated as a musician and a songwriter. He rarely seems to get a mention when it comes to the great bass players, and yet he most definitely is. Just listen carefully to his work on this album again, it is amazing. And his one track on the album that is credited to his writing, is “Indestructible”

It is interesting to look back at the debut EP and first three albums by Helloween - Walls of Jericho, Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I and Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II, and note that all but three songs were written by either Michael Weikath or Kai Hansen – Michael Kiske’s “A Little Time”, “You Always Walk Alone” and “We Got the Right” are the only exceptions. They were the guitarists, the leaders. The guys that drove the band. Take a look at the songs on those four albums. That is an amazingly incredible collection of brilliant material to come from just two people in such a short space of time. What if they had stuck it out, and stayed together in Helloween. Could they have followed that up? History shows that without Hansen the band was not able to, but that is not to say it would have worked if Kai had not gone off to form Gamma Ray and record the brilliant Heading for Tomorrow album. Michael Weikath here is credited with three songs, the wonderful opening track performed so brilliantly by Kiske, “Out for the Glory” along with “Robot King” and “Down in the Dumps”. Kai only has the one writing credit, but it is pure Kai with it being the grandiose 12+ minute closing track “Skyfall”, the hallmark epic Kai Hansen song. There is some suggestion out there that Kai did not write more for the album because it would then become too much like Gamma Ray than Helloween. Whether or not that would be true, and while I would like to have heard more songs from Kai on the album, I also hope it is because he is saving them all up for the next Gamma Ray album... whenever that may be...

I think this album is a triumph. It is everything that could have been expected from this band and this reunion of old and current members. I think they have gone about it in a very sensible and ordered fashion. They finally came together and let bygones be bygones. They then toured together, putting together a great range of hits from the past and form the current day, and not only mixed three guitarists into the setting, but three vocalists as well. And THEN, they wrote and recorded an album together. And all of that has paid off.
The opening salvo of “Out for the Glory” is magnificent, followed by the brilliance of “Fear of the Fallen”. I still get shivers down my back every time I listen to this song, just listening to those harmonic vocals of Michael and Andi. It is a triumph, just fantastic. “Best Time” reminds me of the original Helloween because it is a happy song, just like their happy guitars were the hallmark of the band in its early years. “Indestructible” against soars because of the combined vocals of Andi and Michael. And the closing track on the album, “Skyfall”, is another masterpiece.
But there are others I could quite easily have included as absolute favourites, but that would mean including pretty much the whole album! “Mass Pollution” is a great song, one of Andi’s heavy tunes he likes to pump out every album, and so is “Rise Without Chains”. In all, Andi wrote four songs for the album as well as co-writing “Best Time” with Sascha. So much for ‘reducing his visibility’ with the arrival of the other two, hey!
What comes across best about this album is that it does successfully reintegrate the familiarity and love of the past with the solidity and finely tuned machine that is the band that has been playing for the last 20 years. It is the best of both worlds, but there was no certainty that it would work. But it has, and for all of the right reasons. None of the current five members has been overlooked or pushed out of the way. Indeed, they have retained their place in the structure as main songwriters and as performers. And Michael and Kai have not just been brought in as window shopping and to bring in the money. Michael’s vocal contributions, as I have already gushed over, make this immediately feel like we are back in the Keeper days, and it is both comforting and tremendously exciting to hear. And Kai’s vocal presence is also wonderfully succinct, while hearing his guitar solos in the mix once again also helps to regain that nostalgic presence.

I know not everyone will appreciate it, but for me, this lived up to all the hype, and lived up to everything I could have hoped for and imagined in a reunion of these members. Now let's get this pandemic behind us and get these guys back out on tour and showing us just how good these songs sound live!

1126. Michael Schenker Group / Immortal. 2021. 3/5

If any of you have followed the career of one of the finest axemen ever, the great Michael Schenker, then you’ll know he has rarely stood still over the past fifty years. Starting off with his brother Rudolph in the band Scorpions, through to British legends UFO, and then onto the several projects that bear his own name, Schenker has been releasing music and touring many places in the world – not Australia unfortunately – consistently since he first graced the stages of the world as a teenage guitar prodigy. And while the genre of the music he plays on has tended to gravitate between heavy metal to soft rock, the one saving grace is almost always Schenker’s guitar playing and the riffs and solos he produces that punctuate everything he puts his fingers on. Having spent thirty years in various forms of The Michael Schenker Group and the McAuley Schenker Group, in recent years he has done a supergroup type deal with the Michael Schenker Fest, and those album releases with a multitude of vocalists and other band members have been excellent. Then as Covid-19 gripped the world, as with so many other artists Schenker was forced to change his initial plans, and instead find another project to pass his time. And what came to fruition instead was this album that he brought out once again under the moniker of The Michael Schenker Group, celebrating his 50 years in the music business. Titled Immortal, it is an extension of what he has been doing over the last several years, but it is also a celebration and a chance to not only look back in a way but to mark the anniversary with a release that stands on its own.

Michael Schenker has again utilised several bodies to not only help record the music, but to contribute to the vocals on the songs, something he has made a habit of over the last decade or so. Perhaps it is his method so that he can have several styles of songs on the same album and not be tied to the way one vocalist may interpret it, or maybe he just enjoys having his different style of songs sung by singers who do the most justice to them. Whatever the reason behind it, there are different levels of songs here for fans of the band to listen to, and while there is something here for everyone, it is likely that as a whole package it won’t appeal to everyone’s tastes.

The faster and heavier songs utilise the brutal and electrifying vocal chords of Ralf Scheepers, lead singer of Primal Fear and renowned for his amazing singing style. Scheepers is electrifying alongside the double kick and guitar licks that dominate the songs that he is a part of, “Drilled to Kill” and “Devil’s Daughter”. These are for me the best two songs on the album, partly because of Ralf’s involvement but because they are the fastest songs on the album. Then you have the much more AOR feel that legendary vocalist Joe Lynn Turner brings to his contributions on “Don’t Die on Me Now” and “Sangria Morte”. “Sangria Morte” in particular is a song that is difficult to get your head around. While “Don’t Die on Me Now” is a song you can almost believe could be performed by Rainbow, “Sangria Morte” has a completely different sound and feel to it, and is one that takes some listening to in order to get the most out of it.
As for the remainder (but one) of the songs on the album, they are voiced by Ronnie Romero and Michael Voss. Having already mentioned the Rainbow influence with Joe Lynn Turner’s vocals here, it may come as no surprise to you that Romero has been singing in the reformed touring band of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, and you can hear how he got that gig on his tracks here. On the other hand, Voss has been handed the reigns of the slower tempo and melody songs, the ones that for no other reason than personal taste, I can quite happily skip over. They aren’t bad songs, but for me they are just a tad boring. Schenker finds a way to sneak a couple of these kinds of songs onto almost all of his albums, and for me those albums would be better off without them. But given they always appear you know that Schenker himself must be a fan of them.

The album concludes with a terrific rendition on “In Search of the Peace of Mind”, apparently the first song that Michael Schenker ever wrote – at the kitchen table of his family home when he was 15 years old - and which appeared on the very first Scorpions album “Lonesome Crow” back in 1972. It features vocal contributions from Gary Barden, Robin McAuley and Doogie White, all former lead vocalists for Michael Schenker groups, and also has a new solo written by Schenker for the occasion. It adds to the nostalgia of the occasion of celebrating his 50 years in the industry, and is a nice counterpoint to where it all began for him and where he finds himself now.

On listening to this a few dozen times, there is a lot to enjoy on this album, and Schenker’s ability to draw from so many rock and metal influences over the years has allowed him to remain relevant in an era where similarity can be a curse. What is important is that the songs contain a drive and emotion, that the vocalist, whoever it is, is helping that drive and emotion, and that Schenker himself has his moment on each song to shine, otherwise why are you turning up in the first place? For me it makes songs such as “After the Rain” such a disappointment because they offer none of this, and seem to be here just for the hope that a ballad will draw some fans back again and again. And this is the complete opposite reason why anyone will come to a Schenker-titled album. We are coming for his guitar, to hear his riffing and soloing and enjoying it for the legend that his is. And yet, so often in the past, in on some of the songs here, he is ignorant of that and continues to try and sell up some tripe that is no more than filler material.

The good news here is that on most tracks Michael Schenker dominates, and he is in fine form. He even occasionally duels with the keyboards in a nod to the old Blackmore/Lord days of Deep Purple which is also lots of fun. For those that like me want more guitar from Schenker, the best songs here include “Devil’s Daughter”, “Knight of the Dead”, “Sail the Darkness”, “Come on Over”, and the opening track “Drilled to Kill”.

1125. Alice Cooper / Detroit Stories. 2021. 3.5/5

It was probably time for 73 year old Detroit native Alice Cooper, formerly Vincent Furnier, to start slowing down a little when it came to writing and recording new albums. He had been amazingly productive when it came to this over the years, with new albums coming out sometimes before you had even had a chance to fully digest the previous one. However, slow down he has, and since 2010 Alice has brought out just three new studio releases, 2011’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare, 2017’s Paranormal, and now this year’s Detroit Stories. It marks Alice’s 21st studio album as a solo artist and add to those the seven albums that he did with The Alice Cooper Band before he went out on his own, that is a lot of material to write and record over 50+ year career – and that’s not to mention the live albums or the material done with other acts either!
The album is written about Alice’s origins, and especially the origins of the hard rock music scene of Detroit when he was growing up, and when he came back with The Alice Cooper Band. Here, Alice and his co-writers tried to incorporate those memories of the Detroit music scene into the songs and into every part of the album as a whole. Not only incorporate those sounds into this album, but he also used musicians of that similar ilk, and indeed used songs from Detroit bands of that era, performing his own cover versions of those songs to further intone his Detroit Stories. Alice was making a real attempt to return to the roots of rock and roll, mixing a lot of blues, jazz and soul along with the hard rock and humour that Alice has always been renowned for.
There is a cast of thousands helping out to perform on this album, and in a lot of ways it is an old time Detroit reunion given the people involved. Producer and co-writer Bob Ezrin is back, the man who helmed the desk for most of those Alice Cooper band albums in the early 70’s as well Alice’s first solo pieces, and his recent albums as well. His influence is noteworthy here again. In amongst the tracks that he and Alice co-wrote with other people, there are four cover songs here from other bands tied up in the history of Detroit hard rock. The opening track is a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Rock and Roll”, though the lyrics that paint a picture of New York are morphed here to reflect Detroit instead. The cover of Outrageous Cherry’s “Our Love Will Change the World” has a more Alice-defined rock sound than the original. The cover of MC5’s “Sister Anne” is very much played in an Alice Cooper way, so much so you could believe it really was one of his songs, and the album concludes with a cover of Bob Segar’s “East Side Story”. All have been included to flavour the history that Alice has tried to purvey with this album, to look back at the music that in some ways made him the artist he is today.

Once again there is the return of the surviving members of the original Alice Cooper Band to not only help out in the writing of several tracks, but indeed to perform on two of them. Drummer Neal Smith co-wrote “Social Debris”, and bass guitarist Dennis Dunaway co-wrote “Drunk and in Love” and “I Hate You”, and both of these two and guitarist Michael Bruce joined Alice to record “Social Debris” and “I Hate You”. It has been a nice part of the last three albums to have that history recognised and have these guys come together to still be a part of something special. Others who are prominent in the recording of the album include MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, Grand Funk Railroad’s singer and guitarist Mark Farner, and legendary guitarist Joe Bonamassa.

Alice Cooper often has a theme or indeed a story behind every album he records, and that works really well here again. By looking back and trying to make a record that not only pays tribute to the music that shaped his career fifty years ago, he has also tried to keep it relevant to the music lovers of today without losing its own uniqueness that has Alice Cooper stamped all over it. How he has managed to do this, as well as utilise all of the musicians he has gathered together here, in the middle of a pandemic, is quite amazing. And yes, once again the songs that Alice seems to do best, those ones where he pokes fun at things without changing stride and yet still being able to keep it in a serious mode is amazing.

The great thing about Alice is that every album he releases, you can put on and listen to it from start to finish without any qualms, because it is Alice Cooper. Sometimes it is for the music and the musicians, and sometimes it is just for the stories Alice is telling through his lyrics. Above all, how can you not just enjoy listening to Alice sing? It is almost comforting putting on his albums, just to listen to his dulcet tones coming through the speakers.
What Alice is a genius at is being able to adapt his music not only to the genre rock is following at the time, but still being able to make it so that it doesn’t lose its ‘Alice Cooper’ feeling. What do I mean by that? Well, simply that an Alice Cooper album is always an Alice Cooper album, but they are still different in adapting to the style of the time. Listen to Killer or Welcome to My Nightmare or Constrictor or Trash or Dirty Diamonds or Brutal Planet or this album. Every single one of them is different in musical style based on the era it was written and recorded, and yet each album is still essentially Alice Cooper. He has been a chameleon and a genius in order to be able to do this for 50+ years. Anyone who enjoys Alice Cooper’s music will be able to put on any one of those albums and enjoy it for what it is, because their essence never changes even if the style of music does.

Is this a great album? I wouldn’t say so, but terming any album “great” in the current day always feels a bit wrong. If you like Alice Cooper in every era, then you will enjoy this album. I don’t know how long you will listen to it before you move on to something else, or how often you will pull it off the shelf to listen to in preference to any of the other 27 Alice Cooper albums in the future, but for what it is, in the year we are living, it has all the usual Alice Cooper goodness about it.

1124. Accept / Too Mean to Die. 2021. 3.5/5

Accept feels like they have been around forever, but there are two distinct eras to the band. After sitting in a self-imposed retirement for almost 14 years after the band had gone on to separate projects, original band members guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bass guitarist Peter Baltes got together and found they still had music to write together. With original vocalist Udo Dirkschneider not interested in a return to the band, former vocalist for T.T. Quick Mark Tornillo was recruited to take his place, and the album Blood of the Nations was released, and became was a barnstorming moment, and though many critics felt that after such a lengthy absence and without Dirkschneider that the band should have let good enough be enough and not resurrect the name of Accept, they were shown to be wrong.Three more albums have followed since then, each of them excellent in their own way, and now their fifth studio release since their renaissance has been released, titled Too Mean to Die. It hasn’t been without loss however, with both guitarist Herman Frank and drummer Stefan Schwarzmann leaving the band prior to “The Rise of Chaos” album, and then long time bass guitarist Peter Baltes moving on after that tour. It left Wolf Hoffmann as the last of the original band, but onwards they moved forward. Indeed, Accept has been a strange beast, and as popular as their albums from the 1980’s had been, since their return in 2010 they actually appear to have gotten heavier, shaking off their tag of being an AC/DC type clone in the big selling days. In many ways this has been through the addition of American Tornillo on vocals and as a songwriter, as his background appeared to energize the group and their song output.
Martin Motnik, former bass guitarist for Uli Jon Roth, joined the band for the new album, and alongside newer members Uwe Lewis and Christopher Williams came a third guitarist in Philip Shouse, and even though it may not be the Accept band that everyone remembers from all oof those years ago, it is an Accept that has found a way to produce hard electrifying music.

In many ways, Too Mean to Die is a result of the old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Although the band lost a third of its song writing team with the departure of Baltes, Hoffmann and Tornillo along with Hoffmann’s wife and band manager Deaffy continue on in hard hitting fashion. And while the music still holds that same flavour that Accept has had throughout its existence, it does have a heavier feel about it. Back in the 1980’s on those early albums, it was more of a hard rock feel, but now well into the new century and in the second era of Accept things have progressed. Blazing guitars, plenty of hard hitting and double time drums, and vocals that aren’t that far removed from what Udo provided back in the day. Not only is the song writing terrific, the lyrics are excellent, harping on issues such as addiction to phones and social media, social media influencers, fearmongering by the media, and of course the pandemic that stretches around us. The addition of a third guitarist to the recording band does add to the great sound produced, and in some songs brings out further highlights so differently from the days when Wolf Hoffmann was holding the fort alone.
Even if you haven’t heard any Accept albums before – and really, if you haven’t, you must be living on another planet – you will find plenty to like here. Starting off with the excellent “Zombie Apocalypse” and the title track “Too Mean to Die” the album comes at you with a kick from the beginning. The band still shows its versatility throughout, mixing the straight up metal heaviness of “Sucks to be You” and “Symphony of Pain” and “Not My Problem” with the middle of the road hard rock tidings of songs like “The Undertaker”, and even the (somewhat unfortunate) standard power ballad that European bands still feel they need to poke us with in “The Best is Yet to Come”. I can guarantee you that I would still rather more songs like the former three than like the power ballad. I’m sure they appeal to some of you out there, but honestly if you take out “The Best is Yet to Come” and add in another track similar to “Sucks to be You”, this becomes a ball tearer of an album rather than just another very good entry into the Accept discography.

I don’t mind admitting that I was surprised by how good Accept’s comeback album was back in 2010. Accept’s classic albums have some great songs on them, but they are most definitely tied to the era they were recorded. They are generally hard rock, in an AC/DC fashion that in some ways held them back on their first albums. But their albums over the last decade have been a revelation, finding that extra grunt and excitement and kick that has given them more life than anyone could have expected. And while band leader Wolf Hoffmann must take a lot of the credit for that, Mark Tornillo and his vocals have been a revelation, and continue to be here on Too Mean to Die. No one expected the band to succeed without Udo Dirkschneider on vocals, and yet they have done more than that, they have thrived and gone to another level, and that is something rare in the music industry.
This album continues the band’s upward trend, and given the problems faced by the music industry since the beginning of 2020 this is quite a feat. Having given this album a good workout over the last couple of months I would love to get the chance to hear some of these songs live, because I think that is where they would get to the next level, in that live environment.

1123. Dee Snider / Leave a Scar. 2021. 3/5

Everyone knows Dee Snider... well, that’s probably not necessarily true. But everyone knows Twisted Sister, and if you know Twisted Sister, then you know the big lead singer with make-up and long blond hair as the lead singer, and that is Dee Snider, in his most famous role. But Twisted Sister has been and gone for some years now, and Dee has been out there changing up the course of his life.In the years following Twisted Sister, Dee has done television shows both in guest roles and acting roles, including his family’s own reality show, “Growing Up Twisted”. And he has still been in and around the music industry, appearing live on stage and on other projects, including “Dee Does Broadway”, which as you can imagine was a bit of a stretch. None of those albums made a huge impact, and so it wasn’t until three years ago when Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed came along and suggested putting together a metal album for the current day that things began to come back into focus. That album, For the Love of Metal, was written by Jasta along with his bandmates from Kingdom of Sorrow, Charlie and Nick Bellmore who also performed all the guitars and drums, and included guest performances from other vocalists such as Howard Jones and Alissa White-Gluz. Dee was more or less just the ‘hired gun’ as vocalist, but the album was a success, and it brought Dee back into prominence in the metal community which more than anything else was something he had wanted to achieve.

Coming into this new album, Dee had decided that he wanted to be a part of the writing process again, which is great to see given the success he has had with that during his long career. It also gave him the opportunity to continue to build the new-metal-with-old-metal sound that the previous album had begun. And with the same crew together to record the album, and a pandemic of time to spend the time wisely, Dee Snider has come up with an album that, if nothing else, has the right sound about it to connect with fans old and new.
From the very beginning, you can see that the main reason Dee wanted to be involved in the writing process again, and especially the lyrics, is that he had a fair bit on his mind and he wanted to get it off his chest. Snider has never been backward in coming forward when it comes to his opinions on anything and everything. Indeed he was quoted in interviews about this album as saying “I knew I not only had to get back into the studio, but for the first time since the ’90s, I needed to be a part of the writing process. ‘Leave a Scar’ is filled with messages to and for the silent voices in the world who need someone to speak out on their behalf.” That sentiment is captured from the beginning of the album with his lyric “While my mind is still screaming, I can’t stop” and “You will never feel the same, until we rock again”.
From the outset the album finds the right tempo and balance between aggression and anthem. Dee of course is no stranger to being involved in an anthemic tune, and that is utilised here well, along with fast paced and raucous guitars and drums driving along. There is little left to the imagination in songs named “I Gotta Rock (Again)” and “All or Nothing More” and “Down But Never Out”. For a guy who is now aged in his mid-60's, there is an impressiveness in his vocals on this album, and his subject matter is taken and composed on the positive side of the ledger, looking to inspire and rise the spirits rather than take any morbidity within. Even with “Before I Go” where he sings “your fate depends on who you save” he keeps looking for the light.
There are lots of different subjects covered here, and no doubt the downtime during the 2020 covid pandemic has given him plenty of time for reflection, and a desire to use that in his music. The best songs here are the ones with the drive of the drums and the heavy riffs with Dee chanting hard at the microphone, but even when the band changes things up a bit, such as on songs like “Silent Battles” and the closing track “Stand” they still work. There is even a guest vocal from Cannibal Corpse front man Corpsegrinder on the song “Time to Choose”, which is an interesting confluence of vocal styles. There are times during the album that the same can feel a bit samey, a bit too similar in the backgrounds rhythm, and that they may blend too easily into each other. That may bother some people but it’s more a reflection of preference. I am still confused as to why artists at times choose to close out an album with a power ballad as Dee has done here with “Stand”. With all of the heavy material that has come before it, this does finish the album in a strange way.

I came into this album on the back of that previous release For the Love of Metal. Dee had toured Australia on that album, indeed recorded some of the tour for a live release and was a gig that I had wanted to get to but for other reasons was unable to attend. There had been things I had enjoyed on that album, and I was interested to hear if this was any different. What I found was an album that I must admit I found much more comfortable, simply because it felt as though it was Dee’s words I was hearing here this time, that it was a personal reflection on the world, rather than just him delivering someone else’s speech. And I think that was important in the context of someone like Dee Snider, because he is looked up to in the music world for what he has done in the past and for what he has stood for since, and I think you need to know that it is his words you are listening to him sing and not those of someone else. There is nothing ground-breaking here, nothing that will have you digging deep for superlatives when it comes to describing the album and what you think about it. Much as I am doing here. It is a good solid album, one where the songs are perhaps a little formulaic, and where at time you may think they have just rolled off a production line. But there are moments where something hits you and you realise that there is something just a little special about hearing this man back behind the microphone. Dee Snider is a legend of the industry, and should the word recover just enough to allow him the chance to get out there and play these songs in a live setting with a big crowd, I think we will see the best of what has been written at that time. Because if one thing is true, Dee Snider is a phenomenon on the stage, and that is where he is at his best.

1122. Bon Jovi / Slippery When Wet. 1986. 4/5

By the time 1986 had come around, Bon Jovi had already been around for a few years, and had released two albums, the eponymous Bon Jovi released in 1984 and the follow up, 7800° Fahrenheit released in 1985. Both albums had been a moderate success and had managed to get themselves noticed by the, again, moderately successful singles, “Runaway” from the debut album and “In and Out of Love” from 7800° Fahrenheit. But the band was ambitious, and in their two main members, lead singer Jon Bon Jovi and guitarist Richie Sambora, they had a pair of song writers who had the ideas to get them there. But they decided that they needed some help to get them started on their next album if it was to achieve what they were hoping. They were looking for a more mainstream sound than they had had on their first two albums – though, from a personal perspective in this instance, what they were actually looking for was material that struck a chord rather than looking to be more commercial. So in putting together their new album, they made some, in retrospect, canny decisions. Bruce Fairbairn was brought in to produce the album, man who had already had success with Loverboy and Aerosmith, and would do so after this with bands such as AC/DC, Scorpions and Van Halen. Bob Rock, who would produce mega albums from bands such as Motley Crue and Metallica following this, was brought in to mix the album. And a phone call was made to the man known as “The Hit-Maker", Desmond Child, to help collaborate with Bon Jovi and Sambora on a few tracks to help them get the kind of sound and appeal that they were looking for. From all reports and interviews, the band put together something like 30 songs in the writing process, and eventually auditioned them to locals to judge which songs would eventually go on the album.Did hiring Desmond Child have an influence? Well, you would have to judge that for yourself I guess. Child co-wrote four songs on the album, the balladesque “Without Love” and rock ballad “I’d Die For You”, and also two other songs you may know, “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer”. So yeah, I’d say he was worth whatever he got paid for helping out in the writing department.

Slippery When Wet became a template for the most commercially successful albums through the second half of the 1980’s, and one that most hair metal bands in particular tried to follow to replicate this album’s success. It is a combined selection of rock tracks and unashamed soft rock ballads, of harder songs that don’t always get the attention of the million selling singles, and of slower tempo tracks. Because of the mega success of the singles released from the album, many people don’t even know half of the songs on the album, even though they probably have a copy of it at home.

The timing of the release of the singles from the album kept Slippery When Wet and Bon Jovi in the music charts and on the stereos of people worldwide for an 18 month period from mid-1986 through to the end of 1987 and beyond. Four singles were released, each spaced roughly four months apart so as not to step on the toes of each other. You know them all, and you know the words to them all as well. “You Give Love a Bad Name” was brought out a few weeks prior to the album’s release and immediately caught on radio and MTV which set up the album’s release perfectly. This was followed by “Livin’ on a Prayer” which is the song everyone still knows Bon Jovi for. It is the anthem that never stops being sung anywhere in the world, by the young and the young at heart. We’re always halfway there. It stayed on rotation on music video shows for a year, and feels as though it has never left radio rotation for the last 35 years. Six months later came “Wanted Dead or Alive”, a completely different tempo song with the acoustic guitars which again caught the attention of the 16-30 years olds and made them swoon over Bon Jovi and Sambora all over again. And the fourth and final single was the rock ballad “Never Say Goodbye”, surely always tagged as being a single and one they would have hoped would be a winner. And it did well but given the amazing success of the album’s first three singles it was probably always on a hiding to nothing.
On the back of these singles, the album was a raging success. Both “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer” went to number one around the world including the US and Australia, while “Wanted Dead or Alive” reached top ten. This meant that Slippery When Wet became to the first album of the metal genre to have three top ten singles on it.

But an album can’t be considered great on the singles alone, and as much as I enjoy those three main singles released from the album, they aren’t what just makes this album terrific – because if you were only putting the album on for those songs you would eventually be sorely disappointed. You have to take a look at the rest of the contributors to realise what makes this album so special. The opening blast of “Let it Rock” actually is the perfect set up for the album, the mid-tempo anthemic chanting draws you in from the start, making you feel a part of the crowd and the experience itself. Once the two multi-million selling singles follow this you have “Social Disease” which is just as important in the scheme of the album and not far behind them regarding great Bon Jovi songs. “Raise Your Hands” is probably still my favourite song from the album, it is the hardest track on the album as far as I’m concerned, and in regard to getting the blood pumping it is the winner here.
For the lovers of the soft rock ballads, the back half of the album is where they are hiding, and if you enjoy that part of the genre then this is the money shot for you. “Without Love” is very much in this category, for me a little whiny on vocals. “I’d Die For You” harks back to the early Bon Jovi years, and indeed reminds me constantly of their first single “Runaway” such is the dominance of the keyboards here. Then the final single “Never Say Goodbye”, where the band goes into full-on soft ballad mode. The album is then concluded by the hard rocking “Wild in the Streets”, concluding the album the way it started on a positive note.

The album spanned musical tastes and the generations. Radio listeners loved it, pop fans loved it, rock fans loved it, metal fans loved it. The album was loved by primary school kids and adults from 20 to 50. Everyone could find something on here to their musical taste, and once the album had that in, it was able to drag them into enjoying the rest of it.
On the other side of the coin, I doubt that the album has the same impact on those that didn’t grow up with it at the time of its release. It’s popularity today is based more on the blanket warmth of memories that it inspires rather than the relevance and timelessness of the songs the album produced. Many from the following generations indeed appear bemused when this album is brought up in conversation as one of the great albums, and you can see why that would be. Not only have parts of this album dated over time, anchored to the decade that it was written and recorded, Bon Jovi’s recession into an almost easy-listening act in recent times does nothing when trying to articulate just how huge and important this album was back when it was released. Perhaps today, on the 35th anniversary of its release, it is a day for reflection on that. Because in its time it was an album that almost every music fan of every genre of music owned a copy of. And that more than anything else showed its importance of its age.

Rating:  "Oooohhhh, we're halfway there..."  4/5

1121. Powerwolf / Call of the Wild. 2021. 3.5/5

Powerwolf has been proficient in releasing albums, with Call of the Wild being their eighth studio album. In amongst that they have had songs that have charted in countries through their native Germany and other parts of Europe, including “We Drink Your Blood”, “Sanctified with Dynamite” and “Demons Are a Girl’s Best Friend”. The lyrics of the band are characterised by the treatment of Christianity and ancient Romanian legends. Indeed, werewolves and vampires are just a part of the Powerwolf lyrical mysticism, with creatures and beasts from legends throughout other parts of the world also being using as the basis of their songs. They also mix in religious overtones, without coming out and specifying what particular side of the divide they may inhabit themselves. Powerwolf, however, do not consider themselves a religious band, but rather call themselves spiritual. In an interview with Metal Hammer in 2019, titled “Too many bands take themselves too seriously”, Matthew Greywolf was asked if he considered himself to be a Christian or a Satanist. His answer was perfect: "I am a metallist, a metal fan. Metal is my religion. Look at all these people, what unites them? I can tell you, it's the fucking metal." Now THAT’S the kind of answer you want to hear from someone in that position!

Powerwolf play a different type of the power metal genre than most bands who get lumped into that faction. While the keyboards are always prevalent and add a lot to the atmospheric sound that the band utilises, they do not dominate in the way that power metal bands usually have them, as a duelling role against the single guitar that most of these bands possess. Here the keyboards are an important component of the music, but in a keyboard/guitar trade off. With two guitarists, they still dominate the main passages of the songs, which is what gives them their edge over those power metal bands that only have a single guitarist.

For the fans of Powerwolf they do cover most bases here on Call of the Wild. There is even their power ballad, something they have kept clear of for most of their career, which has been a point I have admired of them to this time. “Alive or Undead” pushes their boundaries in a direction hitherto unexplored, but as you would expect they do a great job of it without resorting to making it overly emotional and (to be honest) boring. If you have to do a power ballad, this is the way to make it work. And as always there is their slightly left of appropriate song, this time the catchy and fun “Undress to Confess”, a song that may draw some negative comments from some on social media, but for me just reinforces the fun that this band has with its music. Because of the grand design of keyboards and even organ on this album that is making its presence felt more on this album, there is a certain symphonic sound to their music which, if you are not a fan of it will probably make it harder to get yourself into this album, given the way the band has been developing over recent albums. Songs such as “Glaubenskraft” and “Blood for Blood” have that congregational feel to them, something that some fans have trouble reconciling. But for others the speed and heavier guitaring from songs like the title track “Call of the Wild”, the opening track “Faster Than the Flame”, “Dancing With the Dead”, “Vercolac”, “Sermon of Swords” and the first single “Beast of Gevaudan” are more likely to be your style. It isn’t hard to pick up the band’s stated influences, certainly in some of the guitar solos where their love of Iron Maiden is obvious, and in their gothic atmosphere their love of Mercyful Fate and Forbidden comes through.

I was surprised just how much I enjoyed this album from the first time I put it on. I initially came across the band the way I generally find new bands in this day and age, by the annual rating charts of albums on the rateyourmusic.com website that I have been a part of for over 15 years. From that I found their covers album and then The Sacrament of Sin album, and from that point I went backwards and checked out their entire discography. But for some reason this album resonated with me immediately. I enjoy all of their other albums, but perhaps not all of them in their entirety. Here on Call of the Wild, I pretty much enjoy the entire album from start to finish, and that includes the power ballad “Alive or Undead”, only the band’s second true power ballad in their existence. As much as I enjoy it, I hope it isn’t something they decide to do more of!

Rating: "And at night we're going wild when we set the world on fire" 3.5/5

1120. Yngwie Malmsteen / Parabellum. 2021. 4/5

Yngwie Malmsteen has had a long and storied career in the music industry. He made his name with his amazing guitar skills, and a slew of albums through the 1980’s including Rising Force, Marching Out, Trilogy and Odyssey that sent his reputation soaring. His desire to become a commercial hit drove him constantly and meant an ever-changing and mass rotation of band members and song styles that often found his star either glowing or waning depending on which stanza you found him at. This was especially true of his lead vocalists, who came and went as though through a revolving door. His reputation for perfection and for being difficult to work with meant that sooner or later you felt that the only way he was going to be able to keep producing albums that he wanted to hear was to actually work on them himself, and write and record them pretty much on his lonesome. And to the great surprise of no one, that is eventually the road he went down. In recent years, and certainly here in the case of Parabellum, Yngwie plays all of the guitars, all of the bass, does all of the drum programming, and where it becomes necessary, provides all of the vocals.
In an interview with Guitar World magazine from May this year, Yngwie was quoted about what went in to recording this new album: “I always try to push myself on every album I do, and attempt things which are more extreme than previously. But what has helped this time is that I wasn't able to go on the road because of the pandemic. It meant I could take much longer in the studio, both to write and record. Because I am usually always on tour, which is great, I haven't had the luxury of spending a lot of time working on new music for more than 20 years. But I suddenly had no pressure at all on that front. And I feel the album has benefited enormously as a result.”

While Yngwie’s albums have generally employed a lead vocalist for a majority of the songs through his career, in his most recent albums and also again here on Parabellum, Yngwie has ditched the lead vocalist, and done all of the vocals himself. This has inevitably led to more songs once again becoming just instrumentals as Yngwie lets his guitar doing the talking instead. Indeed, just four songs on Parabellum have lyrics. And his vocals aren’t bad as such, but they aren’t a strong lead vocal like fans were used to when people like Mark Boals, Joe Lynn Turner, Doogie White and Jeff Scott Soto. Of the four songs that contain vocals, there is a mixture in the quality. “Wolves at the Door”, “Relentless Fury” and “(Fight) The Good Fight” all, for the most part, sound very similar. This comes about because the sections where Yngwie is singing all have the same double time double kick operating underneath a rhythm riff that is basically just filler, allowing him to sing over the top of it. And, to be fair, his vocals as I said are not strong, and also sit in a very narrow range that doesn’t really ever change. So while they aren’t terrible, they just aren’t very interesting either, adding little to those songs. Now, once the songs break out of the vocals part, and Yngwie gets back to doing what he is good at which is playing elaborate guitar solos, then each of these songs is on the improve.
“Eternal Bliss” though is sadly a terrible attempt at the power ballad. Terrible. It is slightly reminiscent of his days in the early 90’s when he hoped to be a commercial success, and for me at least turned me off his music for about a decade. This song is the glaringly awful song on the album, the one that sucks a great deal of the joy one feels about it just by being there.
The remainder of the album is a collection of great instrumental tracks in the best Yngwie Malmsteen method. His guitaring has returned here to his neoclassical roots, and his fingers fly over the fretboard to keep us all entertained. “Presto Vivace in C# minor” - yep, that’s the name of the track – is fantastic, reminding us all how proficient he is at playing classically written music on the guitar. The title track “Parabellum” is another hard packed guitar track, charging to its conclusion with riffs that must have made his fingers bleed. “Toccata” and “Magic Bullet” are also great fast paced songs that will remind you of Yngwie’s heyday. “God Particle” is a slightly different song from the others on the album, mixing the vibe with classical guitar and electrified shredding, while the closing track “Sea of Tranquillity” is another beauty, though perhaps if one is to be slightly picky, it does feel as though it goes on a bit long toward the end of the track.

Maybe Yngwie is right in suggesting that because he had time to sit down and write and record this album because he couldn’t do anything else because of the covid 19 pandemic, that this makes this album the best he has done for some time. Because I really feel that listening to this album. The last Yngwie album I really got excited about and enjoyed was 2005’s Unleash the Fury with Doogie White on vocals. Prior to that you’d probably have to go back to 1988’s Odyssey. In between there have been albums I was excited about, such as 1990’s Eclipse and 2008’s Perpetual Flame, but in both of those cases I felt extremely let down and indeed steered clear of Yngwie for a time after both of those albums.
Here on Parabellum it sounds as though he has the mix right again. The majority of the songs here are just Yngwie banging away on his guitar, producing the amazing sounds that are the reason we all discovered him in the first place. And more importantly, they are brilliant guitar sounds, showcasing his wonderful talent without trying to find a format or written way to express himself. If he just spent his time over this last 12 months just hammering away with licks and riffs, and then found the best way to put them together into songs, then he should be doing that all the time from now on, because this really works terrifically well.

Rating: No need for lyrics, the master is back. 4/5

1119. W.A.S.P. / Unholy Terror. 2001. 4/5

The band W.A.S.P. had had a lot of ups and downs in the decade leading up to the recording of this album. Blackie Lawless remained the only original member of the band to survive throughout the 1990’s, with guitarist and hero to the masses Chris Holmes having first left the band after The Headless Children album, and then having returned following advances from Blackie to do so in 1995, which led to two albums being recorded with the dynamic duo intact in K.F.D. and Helldorado. Both were albums with a completely different focus, with K.F.D. having been a very serious and hardline album, focusing on a more serious nature and a more dour approach to the music and lyrics, while Helldorado had been a return to the early W.A.S.P. form with fun-loving sexual innuendo mixed with high tempo fast paced hard rocking tracks.Then followed a period of two years between 1999 and 2001 where this album was formulated written and then recorded, and by Blackie’s own words was a painful process, as he proclaims most writing periods are for him. The fact that he had taken on the role as sole writer of the songs probably didn’t help this, but it was also the way he was taking the band as a whole.
In the liner notes of the album, Blackie goes into detail on what he was thinking during the writing and recording of this album, and a lot of it lines up with the direction he was heading both spiritually and in his life and career. Having been brought up in a strict religious environment he had more or less shrugged that off in his adulthood – but here he appears to be in conflict with his beliefs, and this time and album appears to be where he was tipping back towards becoming the born again Christian he eventually became. It isn’t as if the whole album is in that direction, but lyrically Blackie seems to be struggling with the concept. He does write that there was much of his upbringing that he was uncomfortable with, the idea that good always triumphed over evil. This rings true in songs such as “Unholy Terror” and “Charisma”, which deal with the madmen of the past two thousand years, and “Loco-motive Man” which is about the gunmen who go into schools and start shooting innocent victims, Blackie’s belief it is all being about their need to be seen and to gain attention to themselves. The senselessness of these things is what is explored in these songs, and Blackie seems to be searching for answers, ones that theoretically he returned to religion to find.

Beyond the deepening thoughts that Blackie delved into to create the material for this album, the songs themselves stand up well, and any fan of W.A.S.P.’s work will find plenty here to enjoy. Apart from a couple of exceptions, the tracks are the high octane hard rock that W.A.S.P. built its reputation on, uncompromising and fast and furious through to the conclusion. Blackie again handles vocals and guitar duties throughout, Mike Duda returns on bass guitar and supporting vocals, while Frankie Banali and Stet Howland again share drumming duties on different songs throughout the album. As always, Stet’s double kick is prominent and a redeeming feature in the songs he was asked to perform on.
Where there is conjecture is over the contribution of long time W.A.S.P. guitaring legend Chris Holmes himself. Holmes himself still insists he didn't play one note on the album despite being on the liner notes. And listening to the album, this is quite obvious. Because the songs lack his presence to lift this above the standard that it is at. There are no memorable solos or slick licks like you expect from these kinds of songs. Don’t get me wrong, I still love them, but you do notice the absence of his trademark guitar.

This was the maturing of W.A.S.P. the band, and Blackie’s changing persona was probably a huge part of that. But the band had been together for some time now, and the sound that they produce had been drummed in to them like everything else about it. It was regimented, it has formulated, and it works. The music continues to be great. Aside from the Chris Holmes factor, the rhythm guitars always do the job, while the bass and drums stick together like glue. Like all of W.A.S.P throughout their history, the hardest part has been in making the vocals work in a live environment. Here in the studio, Blackie gets them sounding perfect, the harmonies and everything to do with the vocals sound brilliant. It never works as well live because the vocals are so layered on the albums, and he isn’t capable of producing the same on stage even given Duda’s efforts in support.

This album for me is highly underrated, because it is so difficult to compare it to the two previous releases. Here, the balance was restored for me. The music is brilliant, the subject matter of the songs worthy and enjoyable. You could sing these songs without cringing at the over seriousness of the subject matter or shaking your head at the silliness of it. The opening three songs are killer W.A.S.P. songs - “Let it Roar” hot off the plate, “Hate to Love Me’ hard hitting and catchy, and “Loco-Motive Man” straight out of that late 80’s W.A.S.P brilliance. And it really is here that you notice Chris isn’t playing, because his signature is nowhere to be heard, which would have only lifted these songs even higher with brilliance. “Unholy Terror” is the first of the slow acoustic driven tracks, and the sister track “Charisma” works fine as the segue. “Who Slayed Baby Jane” is classic W.A.S.P, and “Ravenheart” is of a similar ilk, but is wedged between the quiet instrumental “Euphoria” and then “Evermore”, where it is obvious that Blackie is trying to recreate the next “Forever Free” – now, you’ve already done “Forever Free”. It’s been done Blackie, don’t try and let history repeat. The rampant closing track “Wasted White Boys” is a beauty, with Roy Z laying waste to the song with a ripping closing guitar solo. He is only listed as playing the solo on this and “Who Slayed Baby Jane”, but given Chris’s information, I imagine that enlisting Roy to make a few additions to a few of the other songs would have also been handy.

When this album first came out I just loved it. Apart from the songs “Unholy Terror”, “Euphoria” and probably “Evermore”, I loved the energy of what had been produced. I loved the way that the different parts of the band’s past had been tinkered and ironed and then brought out on this collection. Yes, the disappointment that Chris Holmes was gone from the band forever was a disappointment, but it still sat in my CD player for that 3-4 months period that the good new albums did. As it turns out, even though I have enjoyed most of the albums the band has released after this, it was probably the last time I felt REALLY good about a new W.A.S.P. album.

Rating: "No love for killer babies, my pain is written on your walls" 4/5

1118. The End Machine / Phase 2. 2021. 3.5/5

Back in the 1980’s, when hair metal was at its peak, US band Dokken had dominated sales and airwaves with albums such as Tooth and Nail, Under Lock and Key and Back for the Attack. While Don Dokken was lead vocalist, they had George Lynch on guitar, Jeff Pilson on bass and Mich Brown on drums, all of whom were also invested in the writing of the material. When the band broke up or went on hiatus or whatever you wish to term their split as being, Lynch and brown went on to form the band Lynch Mob who released two successful albums of their own. For Lynch Mob, they recruited a singer named Oni Logan, who for the second album was replaced by Robert Mason. For all of those years between 1989 and 2018 there were several reunions and disassembling of line ups of both Dokken and Lynch Mob, with varying degrees of success.In 2019, the three band members of Dokken whose surname was not Dokken – ie, Lynch, Pilson and Brown – and three members of Lynch Mob – ie, Lynch and Brown, along with Mason – formed a new band called The End Machine. They released their debut album with the eponymous title in 2019, which received good reviews. When you listen to that album, while the songs are fine and well written, it is only natural to compare them to that bygone era, to subject them to a comparison to the great Dokken and Lynch Mob albums of the past. And as far as that debut album went, it had no semblance of anything from that era. It is a good album but to be fair nothing really stands out as amazing on it.

Here on Phase2, Mick Brown has moved into retirement and has been replaced on drums by his brother Steve, keeping everything nicely in house for The End Machine. And there is an immediately noticeable difference to the songs on Phase2 than there was on the debut album. There is that immediate sound of something Dokkeny going on. But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Dokken and it isn’t Lynch Mob. Recreating a sound from those albums would be a one way ticket to disaster. It isn’t 1987 anymore, and no one wants to hear another The Final Countdown, for instance, do they? But, whereas the first album felt like it was trying to avoid any comparison to that long bygone age, Phase2 doesn’t appear to be doing that. The melodic hard rock sound that was a hallmark of those two bands is definitely here, not with the 80’s poppy vibe perhaps, but in a more mature form that befits the 30 odd years that these gentlemen have since those days of spandex and hairspray and the like.

As you can hear from the opening, Phase2 has a familiar sound to it without trying to recreate that era. From the very beginning it is great to hear the tight combination of Brown and Pilson in the rhythm section, giving Lynch’s guitar the base to make his magic happen, while the vocals from Mason jump straight in and grab you. This is followed up on “We Walk Alone”, another great track where Mason and Pilson’s vocals strike a great anthemic chord to get the listener involved.
“Dark Divide” is perhaps the best example of the mature sound of the past greatness of the band’s previous incarnations. A free-flowing guitar and bass riff held in check by a perfect rolling beat and wonderful vocal melodies from Mason and Pilson. It has a terrific groove and has all of the hallmarks and talents that this foursome bring to the table. There are plenty of what I call ‘comfort songs’ on this album, and what I mean by that is that the songs themselves aren’t frenetic or super guitar driven or have technical drum or bass patterns throughout. They are songs that sit into a comfortable groove, one where you nod your head along in time rather than thrashing hard or crooning in a balladeer way. “Plastic Heroes”, “Shine Your Light”, “Born of Fire” and especially the closing track “Destiny” do this in a most effective way. There is no high speed tempo in these tracks, but they just oooooze along, lulling you in with Mason’s wonderful vocals and the smooth rhythm that folds around everything.
On the other hand there is the ballad that all bands in this style of genre MUST produce for every album, and in this instance it is “Scars”. This actually comes closest to reminding me of a Dokken song, one of their most famous power ballads “Heaven Sent”. This has a very similar tone to that song. This isn’t a poor song but its very makeup makes me want to reach for the skip button immediately.
Of course, then you have a song like “Crack the Sky”, which showcases the style that George Lynch contributes, upping the tempo and energy in Mason’s vocals, and with Lynch’s guitar tricks punctuating throughout the song.

I came across The End Machine completely by accident, actually learning about it on an interview with Jeff Pilson on a podcast where they spoke of, amongst other things, about the imminent release of this album. So I looked it up and checked it out, as well as its predecessor. And while I enjoyed the first album, this is the one that I actually found I had more in common with. It grabbed my attention in a way the debut album did not, and my belief is that it has more to do with the greater influence of their melodic roots of metal than anything else.

Phase2 probably isn’t modern enough to catch the ear of the kids today, but for those of us old enough to remember the heady days of hair metal through the 1980’s, even though this ISN’T that, it is a much more mature version of that, you will feel comfort enough in the song structure and melodic harmony tones of this album.
I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this album. It’s always a difficult thing to find out about a new band or release and come into it with any pre-conceived ideas about how it should sound and what you expect it to be like. With so much music out there in the world now, the ability to come up with something that will appeal to old fans and yet not be just a rehash or copy of the music that they know you for is a pretty difficult balancing act. What I eventually loved most about this album was the fact that it didn’t try to be anything that it wasn’t. It is an album by 55-65 year old guys whose experience allows them to fall comfortably into the music they have written, and perform it so well that you can’t help but like it. It is anything but a hard rock album, but it has songs that fit that profile. It is not an easy listening album, but it has moments that drift into comfort listening. More than anything else, it sounds great, and each of the members of the band do their job wonderfully well, and that makes it great to listen to.

Rating: "We walk alone". 3.5/5