The Best Album-Opening Songs In Heavy Metal: Anthrax, "Among The Living"

By MichaelP03 on 8/30/10 10:58pm
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Anthrax had already scored well with 1985's Spreading the Disease, the first album to include long-term bassist Frankie Bello and on-and-off (currently 'on') vocalist Joey Belladonna. But it was on 1987's Among The Living that Anthrax hit it big. Arguably one their best albums, Among The Living catapulted the New Yorkers into the big leagues of trash metal and has remained a favorite of fans through numerous lineup changes and periods of creative inconsistency. The first track is an instant classic, but the follow-up, "Caught In A Mosh", caused enough back damage to prove that neither Anthrax nor Among The Living would be flashes in the pan.

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The Best Album-Opening Songs In Heavy Metal

By MichaelP03 on 8/30/10 10:52pm
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A good music album is like a book, and the individual songs are the chapters that guide and dictate the action. As the chapters of a book introduce you to the story, establish the characters and the plot, brings everything together for the conclusion and then sweeps the debris away, the first couple of songs on an album introduce you to the feel of what the band, or artist, is offering; the middle section settles down a bit, consolidates the tone, and the ending either leaves you with the contented "ahhhhhhhh" that comes from sipping your favorite beverage, or else smacks you over the head with how awesome the music was.

 

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Iron Maiden: The Final Frontier Tour, Auburn, WA (part 1)

By MichaelP03 on 8/24/10 7:59pm
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When a band like Iron Maiden comes to your town, it's a good enough reason to cancel all incoming and outgoing flights. It's just that monumental. It's just that epic. Seattle got a taste of that madness when the sextet brought "The Final Frontier World Tour" to the White River Amphitheater in June, promoting the band's 15th studio album among songs that spanned their impressive 30-year career.

 

For a show of this magnitude, the band got things right by using Gustav Holst's thundering "Mars, the Bringer of War" as the opening music. Red lights flickered from the skies to illuminate the stage, rigged up like the bridge of a space-faring battleship (keeping with the theme of The Final Frontier). Fitting as though "Mars" is, the intro might have stretched a tad too long - but when Adrian Smith struck the first notes of "The Wicker Man", all was forgiven and forgotten. With that, Bruce Dickinson, Dave Murray, Steve Harris and Janick Gers joined Smith and Nicko McBrain to take Auburn to the final frontier.

 

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Iron Maiden: The Final Frontier Tour, Auburn, WA (part 2)

By MichaelP03 on 8/24/10 7:47pm
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Had it been any other band but Iron Maiden leading us from another slow intro to a loud verse and chorus, myriad solo and instrumental sections, and then taking us out with another slow outro (and then repeating the formula for the very next song), I might be a bit more harsh in my judgment - but to see five of the six of them leap and bound across the stage infused the songs with energy and fire that other bands would have struggled to recreate. Dickinson was his usual chatty self, while Janick Gers swung his guitar around so much you were afraid he was going to hit someone with it. Adrian Smith was his usual rock-like self, while Dave Murray waltzed and danced along like he was in his own private rehearsal space. Steve Harris - Mr. Maiden himself - was all of the above (minus Dickinson's chattiness) and more, getting the loudest cheer of the night when Dickinson introduced him at the end of the band's set. How much that one man has influenced heavy metal is beyond all estimation, probably. And even though he and his band were promoting an album entitled "The Final Frontier", you have to think that, based on the strength of the album and the brilliance of their live performance, there's still more gas in Eddie's tank.
"Fear of the Dark" followed, my second time seeing it live, and just as life-changing as the first. It is, really, the perfect Iron Maiden live song: the lights are dimmed, the audience chants and sings along to the guitar lines and Bruce Dickinson's crooning voice, before an explosion of sound and luminescence transported the audience to a musical landscape of nightmares and things that live in the shadows and the dark. True, "Fear of the Dark" continued the formula that we had seen for so much of the evening, but this was the song that started Iron Maiden's journey down the epic songwriting textures that have characterized their musical output recent years (since 1995, anyway). "Iron Maiden" followed, with the evening's only appearance of Eddie, now a grotesque alien - not as cool as Cyborg Eddie from two years ago, but fun to see Maiden become a quadruple-guitar band for a moment. 
When Iron Maiden departed the stage at the end of the song, the cheers and roars for them to return grew louder and louder - until a voice intoned that the devil would send the beast with wrath, at which point the roof of the White River Amphitheater nearly came off. After the build, Maiden took the stage again for "The Number of the Beast", with Bruce Dickinson's scream echoing far and wide beyond Auburn, WA. It's companion from the album of the same name followed, but while "Hallowed By Thy Name" ended the previous Iron Maiden show in these parts, this time it set the crowd up for the true finale. Much as I love "Hallowed Be Thy Name", it never worked for me as the closer for a live show. After its epic conclusion, Nicko McBrain's drum rhythm set up "Running Free", which, along with Dickinson's extensive back-and-forth with the exhausted and hoarse crowd, made for a suitably rousing finish to the evening. 
All things considered, as much as I preferred the music on offer this time, I think Iron Maiden's show in 2008 was better. The songs had much more energy and power to them, whereas what we saw this year lacked that same energy and spark. Cosmetic changes - only one appearance of Eddie, while we saw him two or three times last time, and no pyro at all, only puffs of smoke for "The Number of the Beast" - made the whole show seem a bit more low-key than 2008. That shouldn't take away from the band themselves, who were on-key, on-song and on fire. This is Iron Maiden, and you get every cent of your money's worth. And had it been any other band out there, I may have been more damning in my sentence. But when Messrs. McBrain, Murray, Dickinson, Harris, Smith and Gers take the stage, strap yourself in. It's a hell of a ride. The final frontier looms, and Iron Maiden are the soundtrack. 

Had it been any other band but Iron Maiden leading us from another slow intro to a loud verse and chorus, myriad solo and instrumental sections, and then taking us out with another slow outro (and then repeating the formula for the very next song), I might be a bit more harsh in my judgment - but to see five of the six of them leap and bound across the stage infused the songs with energy and fire that other bands would have struggled to recreate. Dickinson was his usual chatty self, while Janick Gers swung his guitar around so much you were afraid he was going to hit someone with it. Adrian Smith was his usual rock-like self, while Dave Murray waltzed and danced along like he was in his own private rehearsal space. Steve Harris - Mr. Maiden himself - was all of the above (minus Dickinson's chattiness) and more, getting the loudest cheer of the night when Dickinson introduced him at the end of the band's set. How much that one man has influenced heavy metal is beyond all estimation, probably. And even though he and his band were promoting an album entitled "The Final Frontier", you have to think that, based on the strength of the album and the brilliance of their live performance, there's still more gas in Eddie's tank.



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Slipknot - "Slipknot"

By MichaelP03 on 8/6/10 9:11pm
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I remember listening to Slipknot's debut album when I started getting into heavy metal music. At the time, their blend of aggression, angst, downtuned guitars and weird samples were just what a tender sixteen year old with thin skin needed to get through the injustices of life - uncomprehending parents, merciless teachers and unfathomable girls. 1999 was a long time ago. Now, halfway through 2010, I decided to give the album another try. What would my more mature ears (and brain) hear? The end result is surprisingly pleasing - if a little embarrassing.

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Dueling Fiddles: Back in Black

By lisala on 6/30/10 7:55pm
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Nevermore: "Emptiness Unobstructed" video

By MichaelP03 on 6/16/10 1:51pm
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Seattle metal titans Nevermore have released the first video from their new album The Obsidian Conspiracy. The song is "Emptiness Unobstructed", and the video was filmed by Nigel Crane, incorporating footage from Nevermore's performance of the song from their May 18th show in London. 

"We only performed the song twice that night, so we had to make these takes count," said vocalist Warrel Dane. "So we went all out." 

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The Big Sixteen

By MichaelP03 on 6/16/10 1:41pm
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This picture here is the first one ever taken of the full complement of the Big Four of thrash metal in the same room. Tonight, June 16th, will be the first time that Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica and Megadeth play together, but for those of us not blessed enough to live in Eastern or Central Europe, the most we can do is marvel at the picture and wonder when the stars will align to bring the tour to the rest of the world.

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Slayer: "World Painted Blood" video

By MichaelP03 on 6/16/10 1:17pm
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As thrash metal legends Slayer prepare to play the historic Big Four festivals in Europe (before co-headlining the American and Canadian Carnage tours), fans in the rest of the world can see animated versions of Jeff Hanneman, Dave Lombardo, Kerry King and Tom Araya in the band's latest music video, "World Painted Blood". It's the title track and opening song on World Painted Blood, Slayer's tenth studio album, and the second video after "Beauty Through Order".



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New Iron Maiden song released

By MichaelP03 on 6/8/10 3:58pm
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It's been four years since Iron Maiden's last album, the (naturally) epic A Matter of Life and Death. Since then, Maiden have been busy, playing to over two million fans worldwide on the (naturally) epic "Somewhere Back In Time World Tour". After the engines of Flight 666 cooled down and Maiden took time off, they hit the studio again. Their latest creation is their fifteenth studio album, The Final Frontier, set for August. The tour to support the album (with Dream Theater as openers) kicks off June 9th, in Dallas. To whet the ravenous appetite of their fans, Maiden have released one song off The Final Frontier (which will spearhead the promotion of the album). The song is called "El Dorado".

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