Judas Priest - Sin After Sin

Ahh, Heavy Metal...
Back when I was a teenager, I was obsessed with heavy metal, it kinda struck a chord with my geekyness and shyness, but looking back on it, I can barely listen to most of it as it just seems rather pointless and pathetic. Like an audio version of Dungeons & Dragons. It seems to get all the geekyness and wrap it in a cloak of manufactured malice, which ends up coming across all futile. However Judas Priest are one of the true exceptions. Formed in the industrial city of Birmingham, Priest started off as a kinda post-psychedelic heavy blues band, their first album, Rocka Rolla, a total delight. It's utterly bleak, without veering into the pseudo-gothic pretentions of which the genre is now associated. By their second album, Sad Wings Of Destiny, Priest had refined their sound into a chugging behemoth, not of the Hawkwind/Motorhead style, but more streamlined, more angry. By this, their third album, the blues element had faded, and what we're left with is kinda like metal's 'year zero', in it's new and fresh sound. But was Sin After Sin the first of the new fast metal, or the end of the post-psychedelic heavies?

The album opens up with Sinner, an epic fast paced monster of a track featuring searing vocals, a steady beat and chugging riffage. The signature Priest sound. Halford's voice still has those bluesy influences during the verses, but when it hits the chorus he's screeching in splendid falsetto form. The song features religious imagery presented in a sci-fi way, while musically it's total heavy metal featuring loads of different sections building up an epic feel, with tremendous playing featuring the kind of energy that left Zeppelin and Sabbath choking in their dust. The middle break features a delicious Hendrix take by the now sadly retired K. K. Downing. This however is not the summer of love, this is ghostly and alien, with Halford over the top with menacing imagery before returning to standard form and a more standard approach guitar solo. The track just then builds up to it's climactic... climax, where Rob Halford's voice just gets higher and punchier. Ouch. It's a killer track and one of heavy metal's defining statements. The next track, a cover of Joan Baez's Diamonds And Rust just kicks right off, with a KISS-like riff. It's a more poppier metal, but it's actually good! It doesn't carry the weight of Joan's original, and so feels rather synthetic, and if done by lesser bands, would come off cheap. Here though it just works and just feels right. It's absurd, but it works as a metal song. Also some of Tipton's lead breaks lay the groundwork for their next album, Stained Class. The third track, Starbreaker is kinda the album's let down. It's really average and just kinda plods along in comparison. It's not that it's a bad track, but it lacks any real energy, and the science fiction themes just float above the track in a sub-moorecock fashion. It kinda shows that this album is solid when a track that is merely 'good' is the let down. Side 1 finishes off with The Last Rose Of Summer. See, even these leather clad bastards have a sensitive side. Unlike say, Poison's 'Every Rose has It's Thorn', this track does not feel like plastic emotions sung in order to get into the girl's (or boy's) trousers. There's a distinct post-psychedelic feel to it, which harks back to my theory, that Priest were really the last of the sixties style bands. It's not a great track here, and lyrically it's kinda clunky, but it's a superb ending to the first side of the record, closing it nicely and not giving you any hint at the barbarism that lays ahead. If the first side of this record is the closing swansong of an ageing music, then the second side is the blueprint for metal.

We start off with an instrumental break, Let Us Prey, pseudo-church guitar harmonies which bleed into Call For The Priest,  a balls-to-the-wall proto speed metal headbanging moshpitting slobberknocker of a track. It's fast, it's heavy, it's aggressive, it's got that steady fast beat. It's just a total fun track, played by superb musicians who must've surely known that they were treading new ground. The Let us Prey harmony returns with Halford now inventing power metal with his warrior-like chants before we get into a lovely duelling guitar section leading into another harmonised part just totally down and to the point. The track races to it's climax, leading to the bluesy depression-soaked rock of Raw Deal, describing Halford's experience in a famous gay bar,. The bass pounds through, the music taking various turns throughout, always coming across as bitterness personified as music. It's not bitterness against homosexuals, as Halford himself is gay, but bitterness at how it had to be kept in the dark, hidden. After describing the act of sex, the track then leads into it's climax, with Rob's screams coming through and then slamming into a post coital disregard for what has happened, in total spite. After the frank openness of Raw Deal, we're taken into Here Come The Tears Taking that psychedelic feeling of The Last Rose Of Summer, but taking it to an emotional nadir. There's no optimism here, no pretence, just unrelenting misery and Halford at his most emotive, whilst it builds up into one of the most soul crushing guitar breaks in the whole genre. Soaked in the damp fluids of the blues without sounding fake like Clapton, this just carries the track through dragging us into a resolution. Through the murky waters of despair into an explosion of emotion, which ends it all... until the next track starts to trickle in, Vague watery dots of music which give no hint at the pure anger and hatred present in Dissident Aggressor, the track that has yet to be supassed interms of metal's barbaric intent. The aggressive outlet of all the emotion that has gone on before it. Halford does not sing so much as shoot the words at you, while the rhythm chuggs along propelling us further forward, the solo not much of a solo as a mess of deliciously sharp noise which penetrates the ears before building up struggling and fighting to survive, building up to a sudden end.

This album is perhaps the only metal album you'll find that I'll mark as a 'MUST HAVE'. Because quite simply, if you've heard this album, then you've heard everything the genre has to offer. Like literally, the genre hasn't really progressed since Sin After Sin's release in 1977. Whilst Iron Maiden may have streamlined the music to it's purest form, they never take it further, and likewise the more 'extreme' areas of metal, such as black and death, are essentially Deep Purple with extra shouting.
This LP is also an example of how clever track positions make an album. the whole of the second side is set up to just bring you to an emotional peak, with anger, bitterness and sadness leading into sheer brutality. Whilst metal is seen as something of an embarassment in the music world, I have no problem admitting that I just really enjoy this record.

Twisted Sister - I Am(I'm Me)

Twisted Sister... well known for prettymuch being the extreme arse-end of eighties heavy metal, with drag makeup so thick that even KISS would think twice. It was a deliberate image, to seperate themselves from the prettyboy feel of Motley Crue and Poison, though musically they remain forever locked in the halls of eighties genericness. Though I Wanna Rock, is actually alright.

The A Side, I Am Me(I'm Me) opens up with typical power chord and throbbing rhythm, getting more heavier at the chorus, but it's ultimately weak and un-threatening. Like an old style Andrew WK but without his ironic party themes. there's something soft and Brian Adams-y about the music on this. The solo continues with a very out of tune play on the melody but doesn't help the track at all, Twisted Sister are terrible. When you make Slade seem as threatening of Judas Priest, you know you've messed up.

Talking about the Priest, this single's B-Side, Sin After Sin, takes it's title from their third album (and easily one of the best metal albums ever released), Sin After Sin. Just here we lack the class of Let Us Pray or the sheer anger of Dissident Aggression, it's a live heavy track, and yeah it is heavier than the A Side, but is still ultimately cheesy as camembert. Faux-thrash metal mixed in with eighties arena rock to produce just a very VERY FUCKING ANNOYING track, like, imagine The Damned trying to play Led Zepplin. It's that bad.

Ultimately, Twisted Sister are best forgotten, a guff of anal vapour on the stairway of musical history. It's not a good single, not by a long shot.

Iron Maiden - Women In Uniform

Like most nerdy/geeky teenagers, I was a massive Iron Maiden fan, having brought all of their albums (until around 2006/2007 when I stopped dead). What finally hit the nail on the head for me was after their fiftieth live album sounding exactly the same as their studio albums (all of their live albums do, thus negating the point of them). And After Rock In Rio, there's simply no need for any other versions of The Trooper. Iron Maiden though, really were a one-band revolution, combining the DIY punk ethos with galloping riffs, fast solos, complex song structures and operatic and aggressive vocals. Like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath before them, Maiden changed the musical landscape. Their early stuff with Paul Di'Anno is now often overlooked, the focus always on their Dickenson stuff. This is a fucking tragedy, as Di'Anno's punky rasp is what initially set Iron Maiden apart from the other NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal) bands at the time, giving them a very sexual predatory edge. Their first two albums are easily amongst their best, it shows a band taking risks and experimenting to find their sound, Something they wouldn't do again until 1995's The X Factor, featuring Blaze Bailey on vocals.

First up is Women In Uniform. A slow menacing march starts us up before jumping into fast paced metal. The verse sings over that slow beat, punching up with the very very punky active chorus, I think they really do like their women in uniform. we get a galloping march ending each segment with a harmonised little lick from our guitarists and then all melts into a nice fast section. During a very hyperactive reprise of the chorus, we get a solo being played underneith it, this goes on for like a minute before fading. This is a pretty decent track, nothing fantastic but is a damn good solid metal track.

The B Side, Invasion, is of a long tradition of Iron Maiden battle songs,  fast paced energetic tracks about previous wars, potential wars or fantasy wars. Steve Harris has a WW2 obsession (like most brits!). It jumps straight into the hyperactive riff, Di'Anno bouncing in his voice, then we get to this little break, which is fast yet stands out from the rest before returning to verse and guitar wailing solos. I'm sure someone will correct me, but sounds like Adrian Smith (EDIT: No, It wasn't). The track just carries on this fast pace, it's proper heavy metal of the Maiden variety.

All in all, this is hardely essential buying, but if you like a bit of loud rock, then you can go much more wrong. This is solid Maiden, which means it's a cut above most contemporaries.

Various - Transformers The Movie OST

In 'The Real Frank Zappa Book', Frank makes the observation that the world will not end by war or global disaster, but by Nostalgia. Death by nostalgia, culturally, really is a serious issue. It's only 2012, yet people are already nostalgic for 90's entertainment, 12 years! This kinda of nostalgic sentiment provides a major problem, as it inspires people to copy what has gone on before and to avoid making anything new or exciting. Sometimes an initial nostalgic sentiment really pays off (such as 2005's relaunch of Doctor Who, which updates the classic series and modernises/simplifies it for a new audience) while others result in Status Quo continuing to drag their zombie corpse asses around on yet another bland tour of contentless music, because their fans are too stubborn to admit that new music can be good, and too stubborn to admit that Quo have never been good.
ANYWAYS... This is about a movie soundtrack, A Transformers movie soundtrack. No, not the movie with Linkin Park and over-abundant racism, the original 1986 animated movie. Like many shy/geeky children, I loved Transformers and still find it at times interesting (particularly the 1980's british comics), but however I cannot allow myself to talk about that here! This is about music! The Transformers brand is half held-up by nostalgia and half held-up by new fans, the nostalgia crew however seem rather single minded with an almost religious zeal. The singer Stan Bush's career is pretty solidly secure solely because of the aging Transformers fandom, and his role in the music for this movie.

Every film in the eighties had a feel good hair anthem, and Transformers The Movie is no exception. The soundtrack kicks it off with Stan Bush' famous (or in-famous) The Touch. All the cheese in France could not come close to even making this song's opening keyboard riff, it's terrible. Bush does his best 80's rock, yelling our dreary lines with an amazing faux-passion which makes it seem like he kinda pretends to care (though now, since this song is all he's known for, he prettymuch has to care, but being an eighties singer, you can never tell). This song is prettymuch the best example of a guilty pleasure ever. It's terrible, but makes you smile. We hear a crash, a menacing guitar line and now N.R.G join in the soundtrack with their heavy metal track Instruments Of Destruction. It must have been had being a metal band in the eighties, you kinda have the Judas Priest influence but then the ever increasing pop influence. This song sounds like it's on that crossroads, trying to souond menacing but not really getting it. Generic solos not really doing much over an 80's echoed snare beat, and the predictable falsetto vocals to end on, but the guy ain't no Rob halford, though he gives it his best shot.We next get the first of three (well if we include the next track, four) Vince DiCola tracks, Death Of Optimus Prime(gee, I wonder what scene this music is played over), it's fantastic. A soft piano piece over ghostly synths, a subtle bounce on the bass notes propells the music at a slow pace, the synthy swells move us, then the percussive section signals the final moment of the great Autobot. An arped section comes on with an optimistic softness, and a horn section, there is hope for them after all? The sad melody of a synth guitar sound kicks in, and an ominous sound emerges. To counteract that track, we are jumped right into Dare. Another Stan Bush track, literally made of a thousand cows worth of cheese, but this is kept fully in place by what is a realy decent synth sound provided by Vince DiCola. It's upbeat, go gett'em kinda music, perhaps suitable for joggers? the track breaks out into an amazing synth break, built on layers of synths bass and drums that just works so well, and sounds so cool that it makes the track itself. It must be said that Vince DiCola is fantastic throughout the film, and a convention exclusive score is avaliable at high price on the second hand market. With more of that guy's music, it's well worth a purchase!

Spectre General come in with the Twisted Sister style Nothin's Gonna Stand In Our Way, it's eighties heavy metal, it's fun fluff, nothing really noticable though, it's really really average. The guitar solo does a good job at keeping the main melody going and playing around with the heavy metal guitar cliches, but that's all. Next up however is the crowning glory of the metal part of thsi soundtrack, Lion's rendition of The Transformers (Theme). We have a steady beat comming up, then Doug Aldrich's(yes, The Doug Aldrich, modern day Whitesnake guitar hero) guitar bulds up into the the first verse, actually heavier guitars than other 'metal' tracks on the soundtrack. The chorus really jumps out with ther hair metal vocals and heavy metal guitars, it's a guilty pleasure for sure, but when Aldrich jumps in with the solo, it's really really good, it's better than this soundtrack deserves. The verses are prettymuch standard power/battle metal, and kinda suit a franchise/movie based on war. The guitar solo and licks though are just really good. Next we have another amazing DiCola track, Escape. A soft spacey playful quiet section takes us into space, broken up with a beat, a gentle melancholic melody and then we get into the track, it's eighties action track music, with the joy of Vince DiCola's synth sound and playful sense of melody. A reprise of the melody found in the Death of Optimus Prime is featured, it's a recurring motiff throughout the film. This track manages to be both playful and yet dramatic/menacing at the same time while still sounding totally synthy. Little flourishes like the 60's organ sound playing around the 80's synth and guitar sound create a different texture than you'd expect. And the rythm changes throughout reflecting the action on the screen, rather than staying on one constant stream of music. The main motiff returns and is played with before fading.

Spectre General make a return here with their consumption track Hunger, which is not at all about drug abuse/crime. It's really REALLY disturbing to hear this in the context of a children's movie, but I guess it's still not mysogynistic/racist to the point of having a harmful effect on society like the modern transformers movies, and let's face it, the few children who actually watched this film in the cinema are too geeky to have gotten into drugs, but still, it just doesn't feel right. Also it's a very average track, aided by being in one of the best scenes of the film. DiCola's final track on the album is next, Autobot/Decepticon Battle (catchy title!). It plays with the standard rythm found throughout, the main motiff, and a funky synth-bassline, the changes in music keep our ears on their toes, and when it gets into the main action element of the music, the recurring motiff is giving extra eighties guitar menace! Various other elements from the score return, unifying it in a way many composers neglect to do these days. DiCola does keep suprising us with different and exciting synth sounds throughout and interesting ways of interpreting the familiar elements, sometimes adding a more militaristic edge, sometimes drawing from P Funk influences, and constantly chopping it throughout, keeping it fresh and non-repetative despite the use of familiar elements, rythms and melodies. We end with Weird Al's classic Dare To Be Stupid, which is just pure enjoyable randomness. He keeps just listing and playing with the old sayings about being stupid, telling us to make a mountain out of a molehill, and ordering us to bite the hand that feeds us. Like the rest of the songs here, it's fluff, but has a bouncing 80's beat to just raise the corners of your mouth.

Ultimately, the only real tracks worth listening to are the theme by Lion, and the Vince DiCola tracks, however the convention exclusive soundtrack has much much more of his work on it, and I really want to get me a copy of it. He's a much underrated soundtrack composer of the eighties, and is one of the few working in hollywood where his music can be listened to on it's own without visual reference, so I'd recommend getting his score for this film. Just perhaps not the other tracks!

Girlschool - Hit & Run

The Lemmy endorsed band, Girlschool are an all female rock band. Their music is kinda a mix of Motorhead's hard rock, and gurgled down with a glass of JD and heavy metal. They were pretty well known in the 80's and supported many bands, including the previously mentioned Motorhead who would also collaborate with them. What strikes me about Girlschool is that in the male-dominated craze of NWOBHM, they struck out as a successful and quite good band... And that also they all look like my mum.

Ok, so the A side for this little gem is Hit & Run, a fiesty little track in the Heavy Metal Vein. It's remarkably Killing Machine era Priest in it's rythm, the singer, (who, due to having a number of lead singers, I assume to be) Kelly Johnson comes across with a strong pop-y voice over metal's trademark muted powerchords, we get a little bit arena rock with the chorus, a repeating of the simple phrase 'Hit & Run!' and also a neat little solo as average of it's time. While listening to this track, I couldn't help think of Bad News,  the 80's alternative comedy Heavy Metal Band with their songs 'Bad News' and 'Warriors of Ghengis Khan', and this is in no bad way. It's a simple fun rocker with nothing in it other than fist pumping. Quite nice for a change.

The B side, Tonight, continues in the Motorhead-meets-Judas Priest style, but is a much stronger track. It's heavier, faster, chunkier and shows that Girlschool could really keep up in the laughably heterosexual-male world of heavy metal. It really reminds me of British Steel/Point of Entry era Priest. Johnson's(again an assumption) vocals really pierce through the music, and there is a notable groove to this track. Again it's very of it's time, early 80's NWOBHM but really it's a headbanging great. The solo is decent and the fact that it's at times out of tune only adds to the hard rocking not caring about little details attitude.

This is the first time I've sat down and properly listened to Girlschool, and it suprised me. As a teen, I was a geeky white lonely male heavy metal fan, in my dumb teenage fantasies, I saw metal as totally masculine, and not for girls. I think that allowed me to accept my place, and is generally true of many metal fans. However Girlschool really kick that view out of the water with some proper solid 'ard rockin' tunes. If you're into Heavy Metal and/or Hard Rock, give them a try. If you don't like hard rock though, this isn't really going to convert you. Motorhead on the other hand, will.

Mr. Big - What If...

Mr. Big are perhaps the best example of a heavy metal supergroup there is. Any band which includes Paul Gilbert from Racer-X on guitar and the unstoppable bass guitar juggernaut that is Billy Sheehan, has to be paid attention to. And boy, were they. In typical metal fashion though, they got the hits, then sunk into their groove and after growing tensions, eventually disbanded in 2002, reforming in 2011 and releasing What If... (and yes, that really is a pig flying on the cover...)

I love Paul and Billy's playing, as musicians they strive to just stretch the technical ability of their instruments, and while shred guitar is often written off as self-indulgent wankery, so what? Generally it's the self indulgent musicians who come up with the ideas which inspire everybody else (examples: Miles Davis, Frank Zappa). However with some players this is a valid criticism (hello Yngwie!) and I guess, should be always taken into account. Masturbatory playing is groovy as long as something comes out of it, and so does this album produce the much needed musical jizz, or the painful friction rashes on the metaphorical foreskin?

Track 1, Undertow, 80's style metal riffage takes over, 80's style singing is provided via Eric Martin and there's little else to say really. It's a very very old style track, 80's American heavy metal as it always was. American Beauty kicks things up a notch, still generic as hell. Though there is a notable Queensryche influence really creeping in if you ignore Gilbert's speed metal playing, especially in the solo, where he's really allowed to take flight. Track 3, Stranger In My Life is exactly as the title makes you imagine, a fucking power ballad. After Bruce Dickenson's 90's classic, Tears Of The Dragon, you'd have thought everybody else would have just given up on power ballads, but no. We have this nasty little turd. Skip it.

Nobody Left To Blame however is a much better track, musically more going on, some interesting textures in the sound, and some sweet delicious Paul Gilbert licks. It's very post-Pearl Jam, though I don't think mainstream American rock has really left the 90's yet. Billy Sheehan's ripping bass takes hold with Still Ain't Enough For Me, we are truely back in '89 speed metal territory here, but Sheehan's bass is so godly that we can let it live. Pat Torpey's stable drumming provides a solid groove for Sheehan and Gilbert to enjoy themselves. Best track of the album so far, deserves some headbanging. Once Upon A Time is perhaps best ignored, it's fucking dull.Hopefully, the next track isn't as far as they can see musically, for As Far As I Can See is again very very generic. Torpey's beat still pounds the same, so repetative it reveals the massive amount of variety in Kraftwerk's motorik drum lines. I get the idea that this album would just work better if everything was removed apart from the solos, which remain fun.

All The Way Up is again best ignored. Boring. Starting with a decent interlude, I Won't Get In My Way is a pretty decent if inoffensive arena rock track, I can imagine the crowd singing along at the chorus. So far, Mr. Big have taken no risks with their comeback album, it's all standard fare, Gilbert and Sheehan's improved playing provide some interesting hooks, but with just three tracks left, can they kick it up a gear?
Around The World treats us with a neat speed metal track with a catchy sing-along chorus. It keeps it's pace, it's enjoyable and you can smell the beer and hairspray! Lyrically, it's written by a five year old, but it is a good example of that kinda enjoyable 80's metal, wanking instrumental sections and all, especially at the end. Guitar playing like molten honey. I Get The Feeling is clearly about the feeling of wanting to be David Lee Roth (which naturally we all get from time to time, but the spandex just don't fit). Unforgiven returns to the speed-metal-meets-Queensryche sound to mixed results, the playing is tight, the drums still boring, the track still kinda meh. The solo can't save it.

You'd think I really hate this kinda music judging by my negative review, but it's something of a guilty pleasure, as a guitarist I love listening to players push things as far as they can go, and I think that's why I don't like this album as much as I should. Billy Sheehan has had an amazing time in Steve Vai's band, and to come from something so quirky and interesting as that, to then just providing standard bass lines is a tragedy. Likewise, Gilbert has won the respect of almost every guitarist alive during his solo career, he doesn't need this. Comeback records really are the difficult ones to do, you have to get the balance just right between doing something new and exciting, and also appeasing the fans. Judas Priest hit it perfectly with 2004's Angel Of Retribution, and Hawkwind with 2010's Blood Of the Earth, though Gong's 2032 tried to do too much, with no real substance or support behind it. Here, Mr. Big have just gone to appease the fans, and as a result, done nothing new, exciting or interesting.

Also, I really need to think of a better, quiker and easier way of doing album reviews rather than by a track-by-track breakdown!!