The dog days of summer are now beating us into a humidified little pulp of sweaty human flesh. What better to keep us cool than some smokin' hot tunes ripe off the metal vine? MMMMmmmm yummy delish! Surely everyone can appreciate the assortment of old and new we have for you this month on my crazy, kooky and a lil spooky playlist. There's prog, AOR, power metal, some modern melodic stuffz, a little bit of everything, kind of like a buffet of music. Yea? Yeah! Eat it up! Oh and again, word of warning. Some of this was written after coming in from slumming around in the high heat, and therefore it gets rather.. interesting.. so enjoy!
Virgin Steele - Invictus
VS just has a magic way with their lyrics combined with the music. Such lovely imagery as "My sword is a rainbow, I sever the sky", paints gorgeous, vivid pictures, while the bombastic music raises the temperature of your blood to boiling levels. This was when VS turned to more of a power metal slant and for some reason has returned to my playlist after a five year hiatus.
Darren Smith Band - Keep the Spirit Alive
The spirit's alive... it's just hard to keep in mind when listening to this album. It's breezy and not really too thought provoking, which makes great summer fare. Random people that stop by just think its some modern radio rock band when they aren't really paying attention so it helps keep the regular crappy rock stations from invading the sacred territory.
Masterplan - Aeronautics
Yes, I'm STILL listening to this... although not AS ridiculously frequent as before. "Back For My Life" still has a place in my heart...but I've droned on enough about this in past months. It's an awesome disc, well worth your time and love.
XSavior - Caleidescope
I'm too lazy right now to check the correct spelling on this. Basically this is the most "out there" project that Goran Edman has sung on, to various degrees of success. Extremely progressively bent, this demands hours of attention to fully grasp the scope of what's going on here, just as any good proggy thing should. Full review upcoming sometime in the future to come.
Whitesnake - Slip of the Tongue
Recently I was put through the emotional wringer and left the situation with nothing but question marks over my head. "Now You're Gone" seems to be the song that soothes the soul since it echoes some of what I've been feeling. Add in the blustery heavy bombast of "Wings of A Storm", the gentle "Sailing Ships" that never leaves an eye feeling dry, and the sexually explicit "Kitten's Got Claws" and "Cheap and Nasty" and you have the perfect recipe for 80s excess.
Harem Scarem - Mood Swings
Hell I'm always listening to this on and off. If I said it wasn't being currently played, then there would be issues. I hit up a song or two from it a couple of times a week. It's just one of those albums...
Rainbow - Difficult to Cure/Straight Between the Eyes/Bent Out of Shape
Three for the price of one! Joe Lynn Turner was at the peak of his game here, and it shows with a trio of awesome albums that are of course, given quite the boost from the one and only Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and behind the songwriting. DtC isn't as mindblowing as the other two, but with these discs, it's constantly a rediscovery of greatness. "Magic", "Can't Let You Go", "Desperate Heart", "Fire Dance", "Stranded", and of course, "Stone Cold" and "Street of Dreams"... you can't go wrong really.
Royal Hunt - Paper Blood
RH has kinda gone downhill ever since DC Cooper left the camp. Yeah, I know he wasn't the FIRST vocalist, but he was the one that put RH on the map and made them a band that you just HAD to experience first hand. Dare I say that without DC, people would still be running around going "Royal Who?", as if they aren't back to doing that already. John West is good but he's no DC. This one seems to be a decent disc, just haven't had time to properly dive in yet.
Motley Crue - Red, White, & Crue
All of the Crue's best songs are here, yet then again, they were also all on "Decade of Decadence" released back in 1991 or thereabouts, but I digress. What keeps me hitting this up though is the fantastic new tune, "Sick Love Song", which is about the most fiery, amped, angry, and kickass tune the boys have turned out since the "Dr Feelgood" disc. It reminds me alot of "Dr Feelgood" (the song) in places, and Vince actually holds it together. He's back to being blonde now too. About time. Don't trust VH-1 or their silly makeover shows.
Manowar - Warriors of the World
Here in the US we recently celebrated the 4th of July. I think this had something to do with the United States gaining their Independance way back when in another century, before I or anyone my family remembers even existing was alive. Hell my ancestors were probably still over in Europe somewhere when this was going on but I digress. The truth is, for those of you not in the States to know this, that we Americans don't really give a crap about the reason this day is celebrated. There's little "pride in our country" involved for this. We just care that... we get the day off, it's an excuse to blow things up since for some reason fireworks are involved in our traditions (which these colorful explosives originated from China, so again, I DIGRESS), and also a day to eat Barbeque and sit aorund and drink beer all day in the heat. On the downside, the mail doesn't run so if you are waiting for your Playboy or Hustler you are out of luck. Oh yeah, what does this have to do with Manowar? WELL. For those of us feeling a tad patriotic on this day, and are into metal (and of course we are), their cover of "An American Trilogy" is a moving, waterworks worthy song. Elvis may have done this first, but Manowar, well, they make it awesome.
Moonspell - Irreligious
They make me secretly wish I was a vampiric wolf running by moonlight. The singer warbles in what sounds like a cheesy Count Dracula voice from Traaaaansylvania and I can definitely imagine him sucking maiden fair's blood, and the music is all spooky and goth-like. Makes me wanna go goth too.
Iommi - Fused
For all practical purposes, this SHOULD have been Iommi/Hughes "Fused", and the whole thing would have sounded better. The whole rhyming aspect you see... well the album itself, is pretty darn good. I always liked Iommi's guitar playing and Dio and Tony Martin both did some of their best work with him so why wouldn't Glenn Hughes be the same? A little too modern, but it works.
Northern Light - Northern Light
I wuv Tony Mills. A very cohesive AOR album that even sees Street Talk's Fredrik Bergh getting in on the ivory tickling action. A popular take on making a CD these days perhaps, having a rotating stable of vocalists on one disc, but not a slant that has been shown in this particular genre very often. This makes it seem a bit fresher than it should be. A bit soft in the middle, but so far I like it that way.
Finally... introducing...my Whack CD of the Month.
R Kelly - TP3
This will single handledly ruin my credibility without explanation so here we go... See, I listen to metal most of the time, but occasionally if a co-worker babbles on about a CD long enough I will agree to check it out if they loan it out. I'm not into throwing away money, so it has to be a loaner because really, I'm not going into a record store and buying something like this. So that's what happened here. I heard about this bloody disc every night for several hours after its release and quite a bit even before as it was being anticipated so I was like "what the hell". So I gave it a spin, and you know, for cheesy R&B, it's not bad. "Happy Summertime" is the only song that has any replayability, with a smooth groove and a huge West Coast laid back chorus. With heavy tweaking I think a good AOR band like Frontline could turn that out into something huge. Ah and since most of you will never be exposed to this (and probably for the best, yes?) check out some of these crazy lyrics from "In the Kitchen". You'll thank me later. No, really. "Sex in the kitchen, over by the stove, put you on the counter, by the butter rolls" and "Girl I'm ready to toss your salad, Y We're making love I'll be feastin you" There ya go. You are welcome.
| |
