1306. Black Sabbath / Sabotage. 1975. 4.5/5

Five albums into their career, and while Black Sabbath the band seemed to be going from strength to strength musically, off the stage they had come across some problems. They had played at the California Jam in January 1974 in front of 200,000 people, but had received barely a pittance as payment for the gig. Eventually they realised that the band, through manager Patrick Meehan, had been paid $US250,000 for their performance, but had only received $1,000 each as their share of the proceeds. This then led to more outrageous discoveries for the four bandmates, including that all of their property including their houses and cars were all owned by Meehan, and that they literally owned nothing themselves. This revelation saw the band decide to sack Meehan and hire Don Arden as their new manager, something that created a two year battle through the courts to not only try and sever their previous arrangement but also try and recoup lost royalties and payments. This album was written and recorded in the midst of this legal battle, with Meehan suing the band for unlawful dismissal. It was during this period that the band began to question if there was any point to recording albums and touring endlessly "just to pay the lawyers". All of this was obviously putting enormous strain and pressure on the band, and eventually inspired the title of the album “Sabotage” as they felt that these issues were creating a detrimental effect on trying to put together the album and tour.
In regards to the production of the album itself, it was co-produced by guitarist Tony Iommi and Mike Butcher. Iommi wrote in his autobiography about the time: “We produced “Sabotage” ourselves. The band disappeared most of the time so it was sort of left to me and the engineer. I got more and more involved with the production side of things, but it wasn’t like I would sit there and tell the other guys what to do, because they knew what to play, they put their parts to it. I just spent a lot more time in the studio because, when it came to doing the guitar bits or mixing, it would take longer and I’d be more into it than they were. I didn’t mind so much. I’d be there to the death”.
In the book “The Story of Black Sabbath: Wheels of Confusion”, Iommi again reflected, "We could've continued and gone on and on, getting more technical, using orchestras and everything else, which we didn't particularly want to. We took a look at ourselves, and we wanted to do a rock album – “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” wasn't a rock album, really”. And while both Iommi and drummer Bill Ward appeared to enjoy the recording sessions for the album, Ozzy Osbourne was obviously growing frustrated with how long Black Sabbath albums were taking to record, as quoted in his autobiography, "Sabotage took about four thousand years”.
Under all of this stress and strain, the band managed to find a way to get the album together, and to release their sixth album, the aforementioned “Sabotage”.

From the opening bars of the opening track, you can tell something is going on here with Black Sabbath. Because although they have had dozens of great songs up to this point of their career when they recorded “Sabotage”, and they had had songs with attitude and heavy riffs and amazing stylistic bass riffs through them – nothing quite prepares you for the opening of “Hole in the Sky”. Yes, that opening riff is a beauty, great tones from Iommi once again, and Geezer’s bassline immediately bounds to the front of the mix to hammer home that initial heavy interaction. But my word Bill Ward is hitting those drums and cymbals BLOODY HARD! He has done some remarkable things on previous albums, but this is a John Bonham styled attack on his instrument early on. The brilliance of the ‘go your own way’ style of guitar and bass during the chorus is amazingly composed and played. How do you come up with those two different riffing's and yet make it sound so awesome? The tempo holds together throughout the track, and Ward’s drum skin and cymbals must have had to have been replaced following the recording of the song. Anyone who doubted the direction this album was heading in knows full well at the conclusion of the first song.
And yet, even after all of these years, I question the decision to insert the 49 seconds of “Don’t Start (Too Late)” between the opening track and the one that is listed at number three on Side A of the album. The instrumental interlude, in the context of what has come and what is to follow, just doesn’t make any sense. Sure, let’s listen to Tony twiddle away on his guitar in a quite interlude that is nothing more than an interruption to the magnificence that is coming forth out of the speakers. It is not the first time the band has offered us these little nooks between tracks. Some work OK though the albums would be better off without them. Here on “Sabotage”, “Don’t Start (Too Late)” actually does sabotage what should have been a great abrupt ending to the opening track that then hit straight into what should have been the follow up track. That song, is “Symptom of the Universe”. And if they had done that, this album may well have been untouchable.
I still get the same feeling listening to the start of “Symptom of the Universe” as I did when I first heard it, all those years ago. That opening riff from Tony is so simple and yet so incredible. From the outset, it is what you expect that heavy metal is. And then the bass and drums join in to drive the power even further. But come on – that rolling drum solo from Bill Ward that comes in... have you ever tried to play that the same way Bill does? I suspect Bill was never able to play it the same way twice when it came to recording it either, but when you listen carefully to it, it is so incredibly unobtainable it just makes this song unique. It almost sounds out of time, and yet he pulls it back at the right moment to kick back into that hard hitting 2/4 time where, like he did on the opening track, he is hitting those damn things so hard. The drumming on this song once again highlights how important Bill Ward was on these early Black Sabbath albums. And then Ozzy chimes in, in that higher than high tone that sadly disqualified him from singing it in later years when he couldn’t reach those heights. In his autobiography, Iommi has this to say: “Sabotage has a couple of unusual tracks, like ‘Symptom of the Universe’. That has been described as the first progressive metal song, and I won’t disagree with that. It starts with an acoustic bit, then it goes into the up-tempo stuff to give it that dynamic, and it does have a lot of changes to it, including the jam at the end. That last bit was made up in the studio. We did the track and after that finished, we just started jamming. I started playing this riff, the others joined in, we kept it going and we ended up keeping it. Then I overdubbed it with acoustic guitar. A few things we’ve recorded came from jams like that. We’d just keep going on the thing and so the end of the song sometimes became longer than the song itself”. This is one of the great songs, to me one of five that I would suggest a person unfamiliar with this era of Sabbath has to listen to if they want to know what the band was like.
(War Pigs, Children of the Grave, After Forever, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Symptom of the Universe)
And then, to complete side one of the album we have “Megalomania”, perhaps and underrated song or a slightly forgotten song of this era of Sabbath. It doesn’t often get brought up in conversation, it rarely appears in best-of compilations, and it is a mystery as to why this occurs. The sprawling almost-ten minute journey is the true beginning of the journey to progressive metal. The 3 minute slow burn to open the track, with Ozzy’s sinister vocals along with piano and synth adding in underneath, then bursts forth with Iommi’s great riff and Ozzy’s vocals shattering into the highest echelons of his range, chanting and pontificating as the song grows into the powerful beast it becomes, with Geezer’s bass riffing under the chorus running up and down the fretboard, and Tony’s solo offering as surprising as it is brilliant. It is a wonderful track which really does showcase Ozzy’s vocals at their best. Iommi's final thoughts on the song in his autobiography were: “A lot of our songs tended to be long anyway. Like ‘Megalomania’: we carried on and on with that until we just faded it out. Some of those tracks were probably twice as long as you hear on the album, but we had to fade them out”.
Side 2 opens with “The Thrill of it All”, and Geezer lyrics are really throwing curveballs during this track. “Inclination of direction, walk the turned and twisted drift,
with the children of creation, futuristic dreams we sift
Clutching violently we whisper with a liquefying cry
Any identify the answers that are surely doomed to die”
One of the things that has always struck me about some of Ozzy’s vocals in this song is that they have a real Lennon/McCartney vibe about them, especially in the ‘oh yeah... OH YEAH!” part of the song. Ozzy has always professed to have loved The Beatles and while it was unlikely to be his intention that familiarity always strikes me here. This is followed by the mostly instrumental track “Supertzar”, that has the backing of an English choir to create the atmosphere that the band was looking for. Iommi commented in his autobiography: “I wrote ‘Supertzar’ at home with a Mellotron, to create choir sounds. I put heavy guitar to that and it really blended well. I thought, I’d love to try this in the studio, it would be great if we could use a real choir”.
The album’s only single release was “Am I Going Insane (Radio)”, probably the only track here that had any chance of getting airplay given the wonderful heaviness of the rest of the collected tracks. It’s a simple song with some synth thrown in that may help it sound a bit more commercial from what has come before it on the album. There is no outstanding drum fills of bass line, and Tony’s guitar for the most part is quite muted. Reportedly Ozzy was disappointed with both of these songs, and there is a certain amount of truth to the fact that they are completely different to the rest of the songs on the album.
The album concludes with “The Writ”, one of only a handful of Black Sabbath songs to feature lyrics composed by Ozzy, who typically relied on Geezer for lyrics. As will be obvious to those that knew of what was happening around the band at the time, the song was inspired by the frustrations Ozzy felt at the time over their court problems with their former manager. Ozzy noted in his autobiography: "I wrote most of the lyrics myself, which felt a bit like seeing a shrink. All the anger I felt towards Meehan came pouring out”. Thematically, "The Writ" and "Megalomania" are intertwined, according to Bill Ward, as they both deal with the same tensions arising from these ongoing legal troubles. “The Writ” is long tome venting the bands feelings about how their ordeal had been affecting them during this whole time, and interesting change from topics that the band had usually focused on in their songwriting. It is an openly sore wound that finishes off this album in the style that you would hope for an album that deserves its status as one of the band’s best.

For anyone who has not already done so, the podcast titled And Volume for All, hosted by the outrageously talented Quinn, did several episodes on the original iteration of Black Sabbath in season one of said podcast back at the end of 2022, including talking about the album “Sabotage”. I highly recommend that you listen to those if you love amazing podcasts and especially on heavy metal. It is the best music podcast on the planet, and if you aren’t listening, then start now. You can thank me later.
I actually came to Black Sabbath AFTER I had first discovered both Ozzy Osbourne and Dio, and worked my way backwards through the Dio helmed albums “Heaven and Hell” and “Mob Rules”. It wasn’t a deliberate thing, just all a part of my own journey in discovering heavy metal music, which if you are interested, I outline on bonus Patreon only episodes available on that platform. You can find the link in the show notes.
On that journey, “Sabotage” arrived. I don’t really remember in what order I originally heard the eight albums of the band's original formation, but they were all within several months of each other. And as most of you listening to this album would know, there is a wonderful mixture and changes of style and substance about the songs on each album. The way that this foursome continued to try and change the wheel as they moved from album to album, adding and subtracting to the pieces they composed, is what made them the innovators they were during the 1970’s. They weren’t afraid of composing in jam sessions and changing course within a song or a slew of songs. And that is no different here on “Sabotage”. You can feel the aggression that comes on songs such as “Hole in the Sky” and “Symptom of the Universe” and “The Writ”. You can sense the desire to try new things on songs such as “Supertzar”, and the freeforming way they came up with ideas such as on “Megalomania”. In what must have been the most difficult circumstances to try and get in a headspace to write and record an album with everything swirling around them – they came up with this album. The first side of the album in particular for me is immense, amazing, incredible. Those songs – ignoring the 49 seconds between the opening tracks – contains everything wonderful about this band, and for me certainly some of Bill Ward’s finest work.
I have had the album out for the past couple of weeks – indeed, as we have just seen a few weeks ago the final concert appearance of the original Black Sabbath, I have had all eight of those original albums out over the course of the past few weeks again. And they are all amazing. But listening more closely to “Sabotage” because of this podcast episode, it again has struck me just what an amazing album this is.
Changes of substance came over the next two releases, ones that sometimes create conversations over their content, and it remains obvious that tensions created over the issues that were faced here eventually contributed to the parting of this foursome. But on this particular album, everything was running at full steam, and creating some of their best material of all.

1273. Deep Purple / Stormbringer. 1974. 4.5/5

Following the demise of the Mark II lineup of the band, Deep Purple had moved onward with their new recruits and released the album “Burn” in February 1974 to critical acclaim and fan delight. You can hear all about that album on the episode featured in Season 6 of this podcast. After its release the band had embarked on a US tour that included co-headlining the California Jam festival at Ontario Motor Speedway in southern California in April 1974. Attracting over 250,000 fans, this festival also included 1970s giants such as Black Sabbath, Eagles, Seals & Crofts and Earth, Wind & Fire. Portions of the show were telecast in the US, exposing the band to a wider audience and showcasing the new lineup with David Coverdale on lead vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass and backing vocals. During the show, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore doused his amplifiers with petrol and set them on fire, which ended up blowing a hole in the stage.
One of the reasons for the break up of the Mark II era of the band was that they had no time off whatsoever. Constantly on tour, they even had to resort to writing and recording albums on two week layovers from tour dates. It all proved too much, and eventually the tensions between certain bandmates created rifts that meant members were moved on. And yet, despite all of those signs, and the obvious need to set out their calendar better in order to have time off, Deep Purple returned to the studio in August 1974 (just 6 months after “Burn” had been released) in order to star writing and recording the follow up album. It was a grinding schedule, and surely it must have been questioned why the band needed to release an album less than nine months after their previous effort, especially one that had done well in sales, and of the further exposure the band had been receiving because of its live schedule. Or, indeed, is this the reason the band was pushed to the studio, to back it up with another album in order to cash in on this all? Whatever the actual reason was, the band spent two months in studios in Germany and then Los Angeles putting together the follow up to “Burn”, a time that would bring further desperation to the future of the band, but also give the world some of their best songs, in the form of the album “Stormbringer”.

The opening blast of the title track “Stormbringer” is the perfect start to this album, highlighting the vocals of Coverdale and Hughes, the organ of Lord and timekeeping of Paice, that wonderful sounding bass of Hughes and the trademark Blackmore riff and solo. It’s a brilliant song, matching the awesomeness of the opening title track of the previous album “Burn”. From here though, the true new focus of Deep Purple’s progression comes to the fore. “Love Don’t Mean a Thing” is the immediate best focus of this sound, coming after the bombastic nature of the opening title track, moving into that tight blues funk groove which sounds so natural, but of course is so different from what the Mark II lineup had produced. And as much as Coverdale and Hughes’s vocals can sing that earlier stuff, they are made for what they write together here. This has a beautiful combination of their vocal strengths and serene guitar solo that suits the song perfectly from Blackmore which fades out the track. “Holy Man” has Hughes taking on lead vocals, and he just kills this with his vocal chords. One of the most amazing voices in music history, and Blackmore’s guitar is again superb on this track. “Hold On” continues on this musical path, but also almost adds a small taste of gospel in the backing vocals of the chorus, all of it combined together in another perfect session. Apart from the opening track, the first side of the album is such a world apart from what Deep Purple had done previously that it is okay to believe that it is a different band altogether. In fact, the more you listen to the first half of this album, the more you hear the direction that the beginnings of the band Whitesnake took on, and begin to understand where that direction began. Both Hughes and Coverdale had brought elements of other genres with them to the band, Hughes with funk and Coverdale with blues, and that all begins to come more into focus on “Stormbringer” than it did on “Burn”. And as Blackmore himself was not involved in writing either “Holy Man” or “Hold On”, you begin to hear why they sound the way they do, and perhaps why Blackmore’s disillusion with the direction of the band was building.
The second side of the album heads back to a much more upbeat and energetic way with “Lady Double Dealer” coming out of the blocks with a similarity to Led Zeppelin, combining the blues elements with the higher velocity vocals and guitar. Blackmore’s solo also brings back memories of his best days on the guitar and a sectioned off Lord solo as well to remind fans of when they formed that lasting partnership. “You Can’t Do It Right” mirrors what a harder version of an old styled blues track would sound like, but comes across as so much more than that. “High Ball Shooter” continues down this same path, a true Blackmore rocking riff throughout with great vocals again from Coverdale and Hughes that is punched higher with Jon Lord’s first true organ solo of the album after the opening track, one that truly reminds you this IS a Deep Purple album. “The Gypsy” falls back to mirroring the songs on the first side of the album, while the last track on the album, “Soldier of Fortune” is the acoustic ballad written by Blackmore and Coverdale that while never released as a single has become one that has reached folklore status within the Deep Purple fandom. Not only has it been covered in latter years by Coverdale in Whitesnake and Blackmore in Blackmore’s Night, but also by many other bands. Given the way the album had progressed to this point, it feels as though it is a strange choice in which to close out the album, though its overall popularity seems to suggest that the band knew what they were doing, and not this reviewer.

When people think about or have promoted to them the band Deep Purple, it is basically the Mark II lineup that is highlighted, with Blackmore and Gillan as the central pieces of the puzzle. It generally brushes over the first three albums and that Mark I lineup, and often ignores the band of this era with Coverdale and Hughes, and eventually Tommy Bolin. And that is a huge disappointment because the two albums of the Mark III lineup are especially brilliant in the Deep Purple discography.
There is so much different here from those hard rock albums of the Mark II phase of the decade, but this is a transformed band with two main songwriters gone and two more brought in in their place, and with a different focus. But that doesn’t make them any less excellent at what they do. The double change though perhaps brought in a faster incorporation of a different sound than would have been the case if just one of the writers and players had been substituted between albums.
Despite this, what is not to love on this album? Don’t compare it to other albums, just sit there and enjoy the wonderful musicianship, the amazing blending of vocals, the guitar, the organ and the excellent songs.
What interests me most about this album, and the subsequent tour, is Ritchie Blackmore’s involvement. Blackmore publicly disliked most of the album, suggesting in later interviews that it was "shoeshine music" out of his distaste for its funk and soul elements. And of course he was already in the process of preparing to leave Deep Purple to start his own band that would become Rainbow, and band that moved back to a sound that concentrated on... Ritchie Blackmore. But having said that - is this Blackmore’s triumph? It his time in Deep Purple he had gone from the first three albums where he was important but playing second banana to Jon Lord on organ, to being the centre focus with his duels with Lord on keyboards on those seminal Mark II albums, and yet here proves he can still provide an amazing sound on guitar on tracks that provide funk rather than hard rock, and still be as impactful on each song without the bombasticness that he had become renown for. It really is a triumph for his craft, even though he decided to leave because of the direction the music was going in. And certainly, he revived his stature in Rainbow as a result.
I first came across these Mark III and IV albums around 35 years ago, getting all of the Deep Purple Mark II, III and IV albums in a box set on CD from a mail order record club I joined at that time, which for a while was a great source of old albums on the newest format. And I enjoyed all of them. Even then the difference in the music was noticeable from one to the next, but that didn’t deter me in the slightest. And just as “Stormbringer” brought a change from “Burn”, so again did “Come Taste the Band” after this album.
I’ve probably already explained here in this spiel that the style of this album doesn’t bother me. In fact, just a few weeks ago I was at our local record store Music Farmers in Wollongong, buying some albums on my birthday as my own present to myself, and came across an original 1974 Australian vinyl pressing of “Stormbringer”, and bought it immediately. And it has barely left my turntable since. It is remarkable timing given its anniversary and therefore requirement for me to do a podcast episode on it... fate has a funny way of coming around when required... but it has been a joy to sit in the Metal Cavern and have this playing often, and continued to enjoy it each and every time.
Blackmore’s departure almost spelled the end for Deep Purple at that point in time, but a determination to try and make the band work meant that they went on the search for a new guitarist, and then to conjure up another album. That story of course is yet to come, and that further storm was just on the horizon.

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

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

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

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

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…’

1240. Bruce Dickinson / The Mandrake Project. 2024. 4.5/5

It’s not as if Bruce Dickinson doesn’t have enough to do in his life. A pilot who flies planes, a brewer who brews beer, a writer who writes tomes, a DJ who does radio shows, and just as an aside a lead vocalist who has been at the forefront of the music industry for over 40 years. That touches the surface of what Dickinson has done in a life that seems to get busier every year. You can now add on to this creator of yet another solo album, something to tide him over until the next Iron Maiden tour or album or project manifests itself. There is little doubt that Dickinson is a marvel when it comes to what he sets his mind to.
The duo of Dickinson and his frequent collaborator Roy Z last put out an album together in 2005, that being the “Tyranny of Souls” album that came during a break between Iron Maiden releases and tours. Despite the success and general positive reviews of that release, time worked against both men when it came to producing another follow up. Despite this, it is well known that Dickinson had been writing songs with a new solo album in mind at least a decade ago. In fact, Roy Z said in a recent interview that the next Dickinson solo album was prepared to be recorded in 2012 during a break in Maiden proceedings, and that at that time 14 songs had been written, and that many of those songs are still unreleased and that he hoped they would eventually see the light of day. One of those songs of course found its way onto an Iron Maiden album, much like another had done so back in the late 1980’s.
With the onset of the pandemic in recent years, and the delayed release of Maiden’s last album “Senjutsu”, time has been more readily available in order to not only finalise the writing and production of the tracks that make up this album, but the eventual release of the album and even a tour in certain places in the world (not Australia of course) to promote it. Then there is the comic book and the overreaching story of the whole project... but you know, what we are interested in here on this podcast is the album, and if it is any good. It matters not about the story if the songs just don’t hit you in the right places.

The opening track of the album was also the first teaser single release, “Afterglow of Ragnarok”. It’s a different approach from opening tracks on his other solo releases, which have generally been really heavy riffs and hard and fast, whereas this opening track has a more atmospheric feel about it, as though it is setting the scene for what is to come, which of course it is. I must admit I only listened to this a couple of times before the album was released so as not to allow it to dominate my early listening of the album, and I think that worked well. Bruce’s vocals are terrific here, in an easy register to sing along with. It is to become a recurring theme. It’s a really good opening track, that is then immediately crushed by the brilliant follow up “Many Doors to Hell”. Bruce’s dulcet tones on those opening lines... almost sinister in the lower depths of his range... we haven’t heard this for a long time and it is just brilliant, before returning to his more regular register for the bridge and chorus. It has a terrific solo through the middle of the song, and just a great beat about it all the way through. Bruce has said this has nothing to do with the comic – the song tells the story of a female vampire bored with eternity and wanting to find a way back to her humanity – but it sounded good anyway so it made the cut. I agree with him, I think this is a terrific song.
The second single “Rain on the Graves” follows, a song that has its beginnings back in 2008, and continues the same grain that the album has tracked along so far, with another moody musical aspect pulled along by a midtempo range that feels more intense than that description. That is perhaps the best aspect of the opening to the album, the groove is the main drive, but it is more amplified that just a simple midtempo beat, it moves much freer than that.
“Resurrection Man” not only features Bruce on guitar (a real twanging surf-type almost DAD-like guitar too) but is a change in direction musically as well, with this track tying directly to the comic release with the mention of the anti-heroes Doctor Necropolis and Professor Lazarus, and teasing the promise of eternal life. Continuing this change in musical journey, “Fingers in the Wounds” is based around a piano keyboard base with Bruce driving the song with firstly the soaring vocal and then the powerful forceful vocal, through to the middle of the song where keys and synth dominate. It’s an interesting track, one that harks back to earlier solo material Dickinson has done and is one that does take a few listens to dissect given it is so different from his usual pursuits.
The original yet rejigged “Eternity Has Failed” to me is a triumph. Revisiting it after the song was purloined by Mr Harris for his band, this version loses nothing in comparison in my opinion. Some of the lyrics are changed to continue to story of “The Mandrake Project”, and Bruce’s change in the way he sings, along with the slower and more intense sound of the track makes this a joy. I love Maiden’s version, and I find I love this just as much. Then “Mistress of Mercy” cuts in with its heavy opening riff in true Roy Z style, and provides the best straight up heavy song of the album, with Roy given his best opportunity to solo unhindered through the middle of the song.
“Face in the Mirror” drops back out of that mindset and dials everything back as the acoustic guitar and keyboard dominated track brings back “Tears of the Dragon” like tones without replicating the majesty or power of that song. Bruce’s guitar returns, and this track is credited with the first recorded Dickinson guitar solo. “Shadow of the Gods” is almost like a prog metal song, drifting along for the first half like a power ballad, before finally breaking out into a heavy riff and almost a growl in Bruce’s vocals, something that comes as a shock the first time you hear it, and then a grandiose finish with the soaring vocal returning. It could almost be a progressive metal suite. Finally, the album closes out with “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)”, with similar tones to the way the previous two tracks have gone. Stretching to almost ten minutes, here again we are exposed to vocals from Bruce that he rarely uses but obviously has in his repertoire to utilise, the beautiful quiet soar through the mid-range that he used in a song like “Navigate the Seas of the Sun”, but in a more operatic stage musical way, rather than the high range of his pitch. It’s an epic, a slow burner, a song that builds slowly but determinedly over the course of the ten minutes to its eventual conclusion. This song apparently dates to before the release of “Tyranny of Souls”, something that makes you think that it was a project that both Bruce and Roy were passionate about, enabling them to use this as the final chapter of this long awaited new album.

Perhaps the best way to give you an idea of how much people were waiting for this album to be released was that it was impossible to find a copy of the standard CD for sale anywhere on the eastern seaboard the day after its release. Everywhere I looked, it was sold out. You have to say that that is a fair indication of the anticipation that was felt about the release of “The Mandrake Project”. Whether or not that knocks off every single Taylor Swift album from the Australian charts – yes, ALL of them take up the first ten or twelve positions on the Australian Albums charts as I record this - remains to be seen.
It was of course available on all streaming platforms, and that was where most people turned to for their initial listens to this album. Including me. And up to the recording of this episode, I have barely listened to anything else. Six days, and I’m up to 45 rotations of the album... or streams in this case. So I feel as though I have enough initial knowledge to render my verdict here.
What Bruce does best on all of his solo albums is put forward songs and music that he could never produce in Iron Maiden. That’s why he does it, and it opens another door from the material he writes and performs for that band. Which is why we all become drawn to it. And it is also the reason that sometimes some of the songs don’t always hit the right spot for everyone.
For me on “The Mandrake Project”, this is true of the closing three tracks, and that is only through my personal preference of music genre. All three of “Face in the Mirror”, “Shadow of the Gods” and “Sonata (Immortal Beloved)” are that style of song that I don’t personally care for a lot. I APPRECIATE the music, massively in fact, because they are composed and performed brilliantly and beautifully. But having gone through the first half of the album, where songs like “Afterglow of Ragnarök”, “Many Doors to Hell”, “Rain on the Graves” and “Eternity Has Failed” have been so powerful and energetic and riff worthy, the back third of the album slows down to a trickle, and softly moves into the distance. It’s a really interesting transition, from the first third of the album, through to several changes in the middle, and then the final third as written and performed. Like I said, I didn’t come here for Iron Maiden, and I expected a range of songs that showcased the differences in the writing collaboration of Dickinson and Z. And that’s exactly what we get. The band is great, and there is probably more keys and synth in places than I expected. That should not have been a surprise overall. This isn’t the “Accident of Birth/Chemical Wedding” era after all.
Is there more of Bruce’s solo music to come? Or is this like a crack in the window, allowing something to sneak through before that pathway is covered over. This is a truly enjoyable album, because it has the voice of Iron Maiden once again performing songs that Iron Maiden never would, and of course this is why Bruce has chosen to do this. Here, he drives the bus, and he is in control of what direction it goes, and it gives him the freedom to express himself in every way he would like to. It is the reason the album has moments that you might feel are a step too far, and others where you get even more than you bargained for.
Personally, I am enjoying this album a lot, probably more than I expected. It may not be all in a style that is my favourite to listen to, but the album as a whole is quite the triumph. There was always an expectation from myself that I would overhype this before its delivery and have it end up being a disappointment. It turns out that exactly the opposite has occurred. I didn’t listen to the early release of tracks, and went into the album more or less clueless as to what was to come. And through this I have discovered a lot of new songs to enjoy, and an album that, when taken as a story in itself, is another musical triumph for a collaborating pair that still know how to please their fans.

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

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

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

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

1183. W.A.S.P. / Live... in the Raw! [Live]. 1987. 4.5/5

It had been a wild ride for the band W.A.S.P. over the course of their five year existence at the point of time that this live album was released. Three landmark albums, chart selling singles, and increasing controversy over their stage antics, as well as having been targeted by the movement dubbed the PMRC, had given the band great publicity and a growing legion of fans.
It was on the tour to promote their third album “Inside the Electric Circus” that the idea came up to record the shows and release a live album from them. An initial recording in London at Hammersmith encouraged the band to do a serious run through once they arrived back in the US. Two nights were recorded in California in March 1987 at the end of the tour, when the band should have been at its best and the songs at their tightest. Which in many ways was the case, but there were also the other touring problems that crept into the recordings.
Tensions within the band were rife as they came to the conclusion of the tour, and throughout the time when this album was recorded. At times drummer Steve Riley and bass guitarist Johnny Rod had to be dragged apart, and fisticuffs ensued on a regular basis. It is interesting that in the linear notes for the remastered version of this album, Blackie Lawless actually suggests that Steve Riley was the one who was under pressure, because he had always had to try and live up to the band’s original drummer, Tony Richards, and that he couldn’t do that. Now, I’ve always thought Riley was a great drummer, which he also proved when he either quit or was sacked by Blackie following this tour, and he went on to join L.A Guns as they released their debut album. To be honest, there always appeared to be tension in W.A.S.P. whether they were on a successful roll or not, but it is interesting that there should have been problems within the band at this time, a time when change did seem to be coming, both in the band and in the style of music they had produced prior to this point in time.

As a representative live tribute to their first three albums, this album covers most of the bases. To be fair it would have been a difficult job in which to whittle down the songs choices available for a touring setlist, let alone then choosing which songs to use on the live album produced from it. In the end the band left out four songs from the shows that were recorded - “Sex Drive”, “Animal - Fuck Like a Beast”, “Widowmaker”, and “Shoot it from the Hip”, although all but “Animal” eventually made their way on to the remastered CD version of the album some years later as bonus tracks.
The coverage of the albums was fairly evenly spread, and contained most of the great hits from the band. “L.O.V.E Machine” and “I Wanna Be Somebody” were the big singles from their eponymous debut and are still live favourites to this day. “Sleeping in the Fire is still an underrated track, and one that also plays out beautifully live. “Wild Child” was the big single from the second album “The Last Command” and is another that still sits in the live set in the present day, and is joined by the other great single from that album “Blind in Texas”. And the best of the “Inside the Electric Circus” album on which the band was touring at the time is featured here too, with the opening title track, “9.5.N.A.S.T.Y” and the wonderful cover version of “I Don’t Need No Doctor”.
What makes this live album unique is that it has two songs specially written for this tour, songs that had not been recorded on a studio release before the tour, and in fact never received the studio treatment. Which means that the only place you can hear the songs “The Manimal” and “Harder Faster” is on this live album. And some people might find that to be unfortunate, but I’ve always enjoyed this fact. Both are your atypical W.A.S.P. songs of the era, and are good fun in the bargain. And, on top of that, make it essential to buy this album if you want to have the entire W.A.S.P. collection of songs, so that probably doesn’t hurt either. Topping it off is the addition of the song “Scream Until You Like It”, the theme songs for the movie “Ghoulies II”. The band didn’t write the song, it was written by those involved in the soundtrack for the movie, but the boys certainly make it their own in the recording process.

In my first year of University in 1988, I used to spend my five hour break between lectures on a Wednesday in town, strolling through the record stores. My favourite was Illawarra Books & Records, where there was plenty of used vinyl on offer at a price that a poor student could almost afford. On one magical day during the first semester, I walked into this shop, and found all three of WA.S.P’s first albums, along with this album, all sitting there, waiting for me to purchase them. And I did. 20 bucks for the lot, worth more back then than it is now, but still so much cheaper than they should have been. And I played them all to death, blunting the needle on my stereo in my bedroom several times. And they all got the same amount of listening, often back to back to back.
I always loved this back in the day, and I still do now in the present. It has a great vibe around it, and it still gives off the energy that I imagine the band did in those live shows of the day. More importantly, there is no backtracking or dubs to be heard, what you hear is what you get, which is not quite true of the band in the modern day. And it is still an interesting piece, because it is surprising how much work goes in to those early W.A.S.P. studio albums, and in some ways how difficult it is to represent them well in the live environment – especially in the vocals. But everything here is good, and it is an enjoyable album to listen to. And as a historical record of the first phase of the W.A.S.P. story it acts as a suitable conclusion. W.A.S.P’s sound began to mature in a different direction following this album, and the band itself blurred in many realities following this. But that’s a story for another day.

1182. Ozzy Osbourne / Speak of the Devil [Live]. 1982. 4.5/5

The fall and rise of Ozzy Osbourne during the years collating the late 1970’s and early 1980’s is one that we have covered a little already on this podcast. There are amazing accounts out there from former bandmates who have documented not only how difficult Ozzy could be to work with due to his vices, and how difficult his management team could be to work with.
Following on from the “Diary of a Madman” album and subsequent tour, the decision had been made by Ozzy and his management (ok, Sharon) that they would do an album focused purely on the songs of Ozzy’s first band, Black Sabbath. There were reasons stated for wanting to do it, which included that the previous publishing deal had now come to an end, which meant that by recording Sabbath songs all of the writers of those songs (which of course included Ozzy) would then reap the profits. It would also serve as a way of getting out of their current record deal in an easier fashion than writing another one or two albums to do so. What to me has always seemed to be the main reason, however, was that the current lineup of Black Sabbath had announced that they were putting together a live album themselves – without Ozzy on it – and there seems little doubt that this had created some angst for the previous lead singer of that band. And it always felt to me that in deciding to go down this path, especially when the band had just released two critically acclaimed albums that they could build upon, that the ONLY reason for it could be ego, and that Ozzy wanted to prove that he was the original and best.
Whichever way you want to look at the reasoning behind it, the tour and album almost didn’t eventuate anyway. When Ozzy announced to his then bandmates about the idea of playing a tour and releasing a live album of completely Black Sabbath material, the band as one revolted. Guitarist Randy Rhoads and drummer Tommy Aldridge both out and out refused to play on it. Both had already expressed their reluctance to play the Sabbath songs that were in their Ozzy sets, as neither felt as though they had anything in common with the style of music those songs sat in. Bass guitarist Rudy Sarzo, though not so adamant about it all, still stuck with his fellow bandmates. This caused Ozzy to go off in a drunken rage, apparently firing all three, but then the next day not remembering that he had done it. Eventually the three agreed to participate, though it is reported that this contributed heavily to Randy making the decision that he would leave the band once it was completed. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, Randy was killed in the accident of the light plane and the bus he was sleeping in, so we will never know what would have happened in that respect.
In order to move forward, Bernie Torme initially took on the guitaring role, but it was Brad Gillis, who was then working on the debut album for his band Night Ranger – an episode posted just recently on this podcast – who came in to take on the role for this live album, one that was still full of problems as they reached the recording phase.

Just to further complicate just how this album came about, imagine being the band – Sarzo, Aldridge and Gillis – and being asked to get together for rehearsals for the upcoming concerts, but being told that the lead singer wouldn’t be attending. I mean, how would you go about processing that? This is what the band was told, that Ozzy wouldn’t be attending rehearsals. They had five days to learn the songs and get them up to speed for a live recording. Which, they then did, apart from three – Iron Man, Children of the Grave and Paranoid – because they were told that earlier recordings of those songs with Randy on guitar would be used on the album. Ozzy didn’t show up until the soundcheck for the first of two shows being recorded, at The Ritz in New York, a club that held up to 1000 people. And, much like Ozzy, even at this point of his career, he had trouble remembering the lyrics. So, for both sold out performances, Ozzy had a chair at the front of the stage, with a book full of lyrics propped up on it, where he planted himself for most of the gigs, reading the lyrics off the pages. The guitarists also had to locate themselves closer to the drum riser to hear the drums as the monitors usually used were not available. And THEN, when they finally reached the time to play the three songs that were not going to be used for the actual album, the band loosened up and showed less care and precision, because they knew that these songs at least would not appear. That was, of course, until the decision was made to retain the Randy live versions for a possible release down the track (the afore-published episode on the “Tribute” album can be heard in season 2 of this podcast) and the band management indeed decided to use these versions, something that displeased Sarzo, Aldridge and Gillis. It was at this time that both Sarzo, who had been recording the Quiet Riot album “Metal Health” in secret at the time, and Gillis, who had been recording “Dawn Patrol” with Night Ranger, left the Osbourne camp to return to their other bands. The band had also recorded an extra day with no audience, to cover all bases in case of any audio trouble form the two gigs done live. All in all, apart from being quite the ordeal, the story seems almost Spinal Tap-ish in retelling. There is even more expansion of these stories, and to know it all it is worth checking out Rudy Sarzo’s autobiography “Off the Rails”, which really lifts the lid on an epic period of music history.

One of the really amazing parts of the Black Sabbath history was the lack of a truly representative live album. Sure, “Live at Last” was released in 1980, but without the band’s input or real knowledge. This was somewhat rectified with the “Past Lives” release in 2002 that utilised that material and other historical live recordings. There was “Cross Purposes Live” in 1995 with Tony Martin. And the “Reunion” live album in 1998 had all but Bill ward back in the saddle, but it was way beyond their prime.
And then we had “Live Evil” which was released a month after this album, with Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice, doing songs of both Mark I and II of the band. And that is a great live album – look out for that episode a very episodes after this one.
What I guess I’m getting around to is that, at the time, this album was your best bet to hear Ozzy singing all these classic Sabbath songs live on an album, and so even despite the torment behind getting it up and running, I always enjoyed it. I enjoyed the addition of Brad Gillis’s iconic guitar sound on these songs, and both Tommy and Rudy are terrific players. These versions sound great, and Ozzy sounds great if not a little unhinged between songs with his banter.
It wasn’t until four years after this was released that I came across it, and ironically also “Live Evil”, so I did the same thing as fans would have done on its release – compared it to each other. And I don’t really favour one against the other. They both have their charms, they both have their very slight downturns. It may have been a strange move at the time given the burgeoning success of his new material after leaving Black Sabbath, but it didn’t seem to upset the fans. To be honest, the retrospective look back of live material in recent years on the Deluxe Edition re-releases of some of Sabbath’s greatest albums, which have entire live gigs from that time, is a much better showcasing of Black Sabbath the band in their live days. But this album showcases Ozzy and his bandmates at their time, in 1982, and in that respect this album is still a fun listen, and worthy of many singalong moments of these great songs.

1178. Joe Satriani / Surfing With the Alien. 1987. 4.5/5

Sometimes I’m not sure what is Joe Satriani’s greatest claim to fame – the fact that he was a guitar teacher and instructor to some of the great guitarists of the last 30–odd years, or his own work in the music he has produced. There is an apocryphal story that he decided to take up playing the guitar at the age of 14, when he heard the news of Jimi Hendrix’s death. Whether true or not, he eventually went on to study and teach in Berkeley California. When it came to students that graduated from his classes, you’d have to say that they have gone on to reasonably bright careers, players such as Steve Vai, Rick Hunolt, Alex Skolnick and Kirk Hammett, just to name a few.
His first album was released in 1985, titled “Not of This Earth”, which tickled the fancy of those in the industry and made some noise in album sales around the world. For his follow up, he again went with drum machine to program all of the drums, except for one song, “Satch Boogie”, where the drums were played by Jeff Campitelli. Also, according to an interview with Satriani in 2017, the only solo that was worked out before beforehand was on “Crushing Day”. The cover art too has its roots in the Marvel Universe, depicting the Silver Surfer in all his glory. I guess if you are going to be a guitar nerd, you may as well be a comic nerd as well.

I still adore the first half of this album to this day. While people try to categorise this into several different genres, in the long run it is a guitar geeks album, and people who love almost any type of music genre can find something to love. My mother-in-law for instance has always been a fan of the quieter, more introspective track “Always with Me, Always with You”, and often played it on the public radio station she used to do a shift on. The lovers of hard rock and metal will tend to side more with tracks such as “Ice 9” and “Crushing Day”, especially in the parts that could be described as the solo breaks, if that is possible on an instrumental track. The title track and opening track “Surfing with the Alien” sets the album off on the right foot in an up-tempo freelance guitar hyperactivity. And “Satch Boogie” has Joe showing all the tricks he has learned over the years.
There are more tricks up the sleeve in the second half of the album, which remains terrific. “Echo” especially is good because we get to hear the bass doing some funky stuff without the focus being taken away by the guitars. Indeed, all of the tracks in this second half of the album have a much different style from the first half, showcasing the various skills that Satriani has. It isn’t as raucous as those first half a dozen tracks but they are enjoyable all the same, because of the magic that Joe has to offer.

I have no recollection when I first heard this album, nor when I first got a copy of it myself. As my own copy, sitting here in front of me as we speak, is the CD version, I can hazard a guess that I didn’t buy this until about 1990. I can dimly recall having this taped on one side of a C90 cassette, and if memory serves it was with Gary Moore’s “Wild Frontier” on the other side, which could well have dated this as not too long after it was released, but having gone through my extensive collection of cassette tapes prior to this episode I couldn’t find it, so it was either lost in time or destroyed by one of my old car’s cassette decks.
My earliest memories that survive of actually listening to this album is of the early days of the band I played in back in those days, and trying to convince our lead guitarist that playing the solo in “Crushing Day” would be a piece of piss, and that he should learn it so that we could play the song live. Being a drummer that only plays basic beats sometimes has its advantages. The playing it live part never eventuated.
This is still a great album to listen to today. The high velocity and energy in the first half of the album pumps you up, and the serenity of the back half allows you to cool off again. I can put it on at any time and enjoy it. I have been fortunate enough to see Joe live a couple of times, the first being on the tour for his next album after this, “Flying in a Blue Dream”, with the brilliant Jonathan Mover on drums and Stu Hamm on bass, so it was a spectacular concert indeed. And when indeed they played “Crushing Day” live, our protestations to Shane to learn the solo to that song started all over again.

1158. Death Angel / The Ultra-Violence. 1987. 4.5/5

What were you doing when you were 19 years of age? Better yet, what were you doing when you were 14 years of age? Or even 10 years of age? Why do I ask? Well, those ages are significant when it comes to the historical timeline of Death Angel. Because when they first formed and began to play together back in 1982 and 1983, the band members were all around the ages of 14 and 15. Except for their drummer of course, because at the time Andy Galeon was 10 years of age.
Is that ridiculous? Well of course it is. But then they put out their first demo tape, titled “Heavy Metal Insanity”, and that brought them more attention. The band, led by lead guitarist Rob Cavestany, rhythm guitar Gus Pepa and bass guitar Dennis Pepa, and Galeon on drums, were soon joined by band roadie Mark Osegueda on vocals, and gigged around for the next two years, writing new songs and supporting such bands as Megadeth, Exodus and Voivod. In 1985 they band recorded and released their demo
Kill As One”, produced by Metallica’s guitarist Kirk Hammett. As a result of the tape trading scene that existed in those days, Death Angel found themselves turning up to gigs, and having the crowds sing their songs along with them, despite the fact they had yet to secure a recording contract. The success of this demo led the band to gaining that contract with Enigma Records, and allowed the band to record and release their debut album, “The Ultra-Violence". And the remarkable thing about that was that, after four years of working for this moment, all of the band members were still under the age of 20 on the day of its release, with Andy Galeon still only 14 years of age. So imagine yourself at that age, not only playing so many high level gigs over so many years, but also writing songs like this.

If you are coming into this album without any reservations, or if you are coming into it having heard some of their more recent releases, then what you discover is going to blow your mind. Because this is a true version of a thrash metal album, from the days when thrash was at its peak in its development, and this is a band that meshed and melded with the greats of the genre at their own inception. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus. And yet these guys were just kids, who by the time this came out had had a wealth of experience that most older musicians could only dream of. So when you listen to the songs, you can pick up those influences of the bands that Death Angel had performed with over that time, and while they are there, they do not dominate. They thrash hard and fast, but have developed their sound, their version of the music that had been dominating the Bay Area over that time, and then they had forcibly pressed it onto vinyl for the world to hear. But there is a progression to this thrash metal, with all of the tracks barring the final one pushing beyond four and five minutes, filled with fast aggressive guitaring and hard hitting drumming.
Dennis Pepa actually leads the vocal assault on the opening track “Thrashers”, while the guitar sound is very Megadeth from their first album in style. “Evil Priest” follows and is another excellent song, fast and furious, and ties in nicely to “Voracious Souls”. Lyrically the band is walking the tightrope, singing about a priest inhabited by an evil spirit and then a cannibalistic tribe. The devil and evil have a central piece in the lyrics on the album, but if you are a thrashing teenager it isn’t likely to bother you too much.
“Kill As One” is just a superb song, combining everything that is brilliant about thrash metal into its five minutes. Great vocals, superb guitaring, and drumming that makes you tired just listening to the energy being expelled in driving the track to its conclusion. “Mistress of Pain”, which the band actually dedicated to one of their old teachers when they played at their high school prior to this album being released, actually has vocals from Mark that remind me heavily of Joey Belladonna on the early Anthrax albums. This is followed by “Final Death” on which I think Mark’s vocals sound the best, a sign of things to come over the course of the next couple of albums. And the album concludes with the short and sharp instrumental “I.P.F.S”.
It is possible that the crowning glory of this album is the title track, “The Ultra-Violence", a ten-and-a-half-minute instrumental that showcases the absolute talent of this band and its members. There have been plenty of great instrumental track from all sorts of bands down the years, but this is the equal of those. Everything about it is spectacular. The guitaring and riffing is magnificent, the bass guitar line throughout is wonderful, and the showcasing of Galeon’s drumming is brilliant, proving what a talent he was at that age. I love this song, it is a beauty, and more than worth the ten and a half minutes of your time.

Like a majority of the albums that I have reviewed over the last few episodes, Death Angel was a band I came into on a later album, and didn’t discover this until after that. That album was “Act III”, still an amazing album and one that then forced me to check out the two previous releases. Whereas the sophomore release initially disappointed me, this album did not. When I first put it on, it was like going back to when I first discovered Metallica and Megadeth, and the excitement and sheer joy I got when I first heard those bands albums. And for me that is what is so terrific about “The Ultra-Violence". The fact that the band grew up and played in that era of such influential bands from that area, the songs and sounds on this album are naturally also tied to it. And though I may not have picked it up in 1987 – far out, another lost opportunity for those heady days of the final year of school – it still reminds me of that time just from the style of the music on the album.
And, in many ways, this album stands alone in the Death Angel catalogue. By “Act III” there was a certain maturity that came in the music, not being the rough and frenzied output from the debut. The of course it was 14 years before the next album, and as brilliant as it is, it is a different age of metal by then. So “The Ultra-Violence" stands as a testament to the age, both the era of thrash metal and that individual age of those in the band at the time. And because of this, it remains a wonderfully special album that is impossible to ignore whenever it hits the stereo.

1148. The Offspring / Ixnay on the Hombre. 1997. 4.5/5

When Smash had been released and that first single “Come Out and Play” had been released and was tsunamied on radio airplay, it encouraged me to go out and buy the album. And, I loved it. Played it to death. Knew all the words, which even by that time of my life was becoming a novelty time did not always allow. And I think it is significant that the band was not an overnight sensation. Sure, most people who got into the band did so on that Smash album and felt as though they had come out of nowhere, but they had already been together for ten years prior to it, and had also released albums before this, so the sound they came out with was one they had been curating for some time. It was a unique one, with high octane vocals, energetic guitars and drums, and that infusion of a modernised punk and alternative sound that provided a counter punch to the end days of grunge and the beginnings of industrial metal.When it came to the release of their follow up album, because of the success of Smash and having signed for a major label the band not only had a recording studio available to them for a stretch of time they had more time available in which to write and record. Probably the biggest question going into this album, certainly from my own perspective as a one-album fan, was in what direction the new songs would go. Because the music world was still fluxing, and sometimes the success of an album can influence the next one in ways that don’t always work. Given the commercial success would the band look to go further down that lie with their songs, or would they stick to their roots and perhaps further the songs in a modern punk style. It was a three year gap between albums, enough time during the 1990’s for the popular music style to have changed completely. Which it had. And yet the best bands were able to find a way to negotiate that and keep themselves relevant. Ixnay on the Hombre managed to do that.

The Offspring began a trend of theirs with monologues on their albums, and what better way to open an album that to have the legendary Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedy’s fame doing so to open their new album. “Disclaimer” perfectly sums up the attitude of band when it comes to the “Parental Advisory” stickers than some bands were forced to have on their CDs because of some of the language used or the subject matter of the lyrics of certain songs. A perfect riposte delivered by one of the best in the business.
The album then kicks off for real with the brilliant “The Meaning of Life”, setting the tone for the album to come. Now for me, what makes this album is the groove that comes from the track list. The songs come at you at different tempos and somewhat different styles, but it is the groove of the album that connects it all together. The faster tempo of the opening tracks “The Meaning of Life” and “Mota” still flow nicely and uninterrupted into the next level of “Me and My Old Lady” and “Cool to Hate” because of the terrific groove created by Ron Welty’s drums and Greg K’s brilliant bass lines, still for me the absolute highlights of the album. The bass guitar dominates every song, not only creating the base around which each song is constructed but then leading the song’s direction. Most of the attention comes from Dexter Holland’s unique vocal abilities along with Noodles great backing and harmony vocals, and their great partnership on guitars, but for me it is the bass that has been the best aspect of the majority of the songs here since its release. Then the terrific tempo change in the middle of “Cool to Hate”, still one of my favourite Offspring songs, and the lyrics throughout… I wish this song had been written when I was at school, it would have been my anthem. I’m sure it was for so many who were at school when this album was released.
Then you have the two main singles off the album, which although I still enjoy to this day are not really the best songs on the album, and to me that usually coincides with the ultimate strength of the album, the fact that the songs released for radio airplay to garner popularity of the masses are actually not even the best songs of the album itself. “Gone Away” and “All I Want” definitely sit in this bracket, songs that are good to listen to but if I’m gong to watch The Offspring there are probably five other songs on the album I’d rather hear first. And then there is the superb closing track, four and a half minutes long just to prove that they are capable of extending themselves, without losing their intensity and hard core fist pumping and fist shaking at the world.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times here, and probably will again when it comes to other albums released in this era, how music it was a changin’ around this time. The bands that I had grown up with had changed their own style, mostly not for the better, though I continued to listen to them and their albums. But I was also discovering other bands who were coming into their own and releasing albums that became iconic once they had had time to grow on their audience. And I firmly believe that Ixnay on the Hombre is one of those albums. Smash had broken the band worldwide, and future releases Americana and Conspiracy of One perpetuated their popularity and genre hopping ability. But here on Ixnay on the Hombre is where the band really proved that it could cross thread between an alternative styled post modern punk that drew from the fast paced short styled hard hitting lyrical songs with the commercial popularity that saw radio airplay dominated and album sales climb, all the while creating a fan base that crossed over into several different eras.
All of that is a mouthful, and perhaps over-exclaims or complicates just what this album is able to achieve. And, of course, there will be people who will disagree. But I find everything about this album to be top shelf. If you want thoughtful lyrics banging on about topics that were at the hearts of the bands target audience at the time of its release, you’ve got it. C’mon – the meaning of life, hating school, life and death, positive thoughts on being alive…. Its all there in the lyrical outtake. All of this pumped along by terrific music driven by the high velocity guitars and held together by that cranking rhythm of bass and drums, and vocals that encourage you to sing along at the top of your voice.

Everything about this album works. It gets you moving, it gets the blood pumping. You can listen to it at home in your armchair, you can crank it at a party to get it livened up. For me there were some other brilliant albums released in 1997. This one still remains near the top of the list of those releases. It’s the album that to me proved that The Offspring was not a one-hit wonder, it was a band that was here for the long term and had the skill, talent and ability to make it a long term contribution. History has proven that to be the case, and having revisited this album a lot over the past week to celebrate its 25th anniversary, I’m back again for the long haul.