Mortification - "Relentless"

Mortification - Relentless
2002/2013 Soundmass

1. Intro
2. Web of Fire
3. God Shaped Void
4. Priests of the Underground
5. Bring Release
6. Syncretize
7. The Other Side of the Coin
8. Altar of God
9. Sorrow
10. 3 of a Kind
11. Arm the Anointed
12. New York Skies
13. Apocalyptic Terror

If you're looking for one of the best albums of the post-EnVision era, this is it. The jump in quality versus what I've heard so far is amazing. This is the first album with Terrorphobia's Mick Jelinic. I thought maybe he was maybe the main songwriter here. But, nope. It's actually Steve Rowe and second guitarist Jeff Lewis. Relentless is a thrash album for the most part. It's filled with tasty, infectious riffs and a lot of attitude. "Sorrow" is a doom metal track and I'm not usually one for doom metal, but this one rocks. Again, largely due to some stellar riffing and guitar work. "Apocalyptic Terror" is full on death metal - reminding me of the old B-side "Butchered Mutilation." Steve is using his clean thrash vocals, but they're not annoying. Though I do think that if he did the whole album in growls it would be better. Also, there are a couple tracks that I could do without. "Bring Release" and "Arm the Anointed" come to mind. They're not bad but the rest of the tracks are so good these bring down the vibe a little bit. Despite my minor complaints, Relentless is just as good as stuff from the early era. I wished this quality would have continued...

Also, I can't tell if the cover art is awesome or cheesy. Both, maybe? I do like it, I can tell you that.

Useless Fact: This is the only time in the band's history to have four people (two guitar players) in the line-up.

Bowie, David - "Hunky Dory"

Bowie, David - Hunky Dory
1971, Parlophone

1. Changes
2. Oh! You Pretty Things
3. Eight Line Poem
4. Life On Mars?
5. Kooks
6. Quicksand
7. Fill Your Heart
8. Andy Warhol
9. Song For Bob Dylan
10. Queen Bitch
11. The Bewlay Brothers

Uvulapie:  Hunky Dory was released back in 1971, before David Bowie was DAVID BOWIE and one year before Ziggy Stardust obliterated the minds of youth the world over.  It was his fourth album and I’m fairly certain his only hit up to that time was “Space Oddity” from his second album.  This album starts with his second hit, “Changes”, which still sounds amazingly fresh and invigorating despite it being drawn from 50's pop nostalgia and nightclub noir.  Another song which immediately caught my fancy is the lighthearted “Kooks” in which he asks his newborn son if he wants to stay and be raised by a couple of kooks.  The music is upbeat with strings, a plucky piano in the verse, and an unusual arrangement.  It sounds sentimental and sweet, almost kitschy, and certainly not something I was expecting from the experimental, gender-bending DAVID BOWIE.

Old Man:  I won't belabor the point here - I like Hunky Dory more than Scary Monsters. It seems a lot more unified that's for sure. It's also nice to hear Bowie just sing the dang songs instead of yowl all over them. Wow... that was a lot more critical of Bowie than I thought I'd be, but there it is. "Andy Warhol" is great and it's one of my favorite Bowie songs ever already. I also really enjoyed "Oh! You Pretty Things," "Kooks," and "Queen Bitch." The last one sounds like a sort of proto-"Suffragette City." "Kooks" also vaguely reminds me of Daniel Amos' "Props." Not really sure why, though. I'm probably not as wild about "Fill Your Heart" because it seems a little goofy and cheesy but without the familial grounding of "Kooks." However, unlike Scary Monsters, there's not one song on here that I don't like.

Uvulapie: I just re-listened to both “Queen Bitch” and “Suffragette City” so that I could properly tear your comparison to shreds (purely for readership entertainment value, of course) and daggonit Old Man, you’re right.  Whatever.  Good catch.  I’ll respectfully disagree on the “Props”/”Kooks” comparison, however, though you get points for working in a Daniel Amos reference.  One song neither of us mentioned is the gorgeous “Life On Mars?”  It’s a dramatic yet forlorn piano song (in fact, most of the songs on this album are either based on piano or feature it in some way) that builds in an orchestral string section and a big, reaching vocal melody in the chorus.  And if I may work in one final digression, and I will unless you edit it out, this song reminds me of the first two Alice Cooper solo albums in its lofty rock/orchestra arrangement.

Old Man: Dude, I would never edit anything out. What's the fun in that? I didn't think to make the Alice Cooper comparison, but you're right. They were contemporaries on different continents but they tapped into a similar vibe. Though I don't know off-hand when this album was released in comparison with those. Another song we didn't mention was album closer, "The Bewlay Brothers." It's a bit more "Bowie" in that it seems a little more dour, experimental, and more... well Bowie than the rest of the album. It also ends with him singing in a thick accent for theatrical effect. Something Peter Gabriel used to do pretty regularly around the same time in Genesis. Theatrics were big back then...

Hunky Dory seems to be a hit with the both of us. I confess that I would direct someone to this album rather than Scary Monsters to get a sample of the artist.

Useless Fact: The line, "I am a product of Churchill's lies" in "Quicksand" shows up in Jimmy P. Brown's first Fearful Symmetry album as, "I am a product of Church's lies" from "Reinvent the World."

Def Leppard - "Hysteria"

Def Leppard - Hysteria
1987/2017, Mercury

1. Women
2. Rocket
3. Animal
4. Love Bites
5. Pour Some Sugar on Me
6. Armageddon It
7. Gods of War
8. Don't Shoot Shotgun
9. Run Riot
10. Hysteria
11. Exictable
12. Love and Affection

I've mentioned that back in the day, my life consisted of mostly MTV, Nintendo, Nickelodeon and church. My cousin would "babysit" me during the summers and we'd pretty much spend all day watching music videos and going to the store for penny candy. Yeah.... they don't call me "The Old Man" for nuthin'. Anyway, Def Leppard's Hysteria was quite popular at the time with "Rocket," "Love Bites," "Pour Some Sugar On Me," and the title track on regular rotation. I never had this album before but I did have a copy of Vault in college that I never replaced (it got CD rot). Instead of replacing that one I thought I'd just get the album with most of the songs I'd heard. It's pretty good. It hits all the nostalgia buttons in my brain. Though I've heard a lot of fans kind of regard this album as a huge sell-out. I guess they were a lot more metal sounding on their old stuff. This album does have a lot of super shiny, clean production and layered vocals. I had a friend that saw them in concert once and confirmed that they could not replicate those layers live. Anyway, sell-out or no, I dig it and it does make me want to explore their discography a bit.

Useless Fact:  This really isn't a fact to anyone who knows the band, but the drummer is one handed. He lost one of his arms up to the shoulder. Instead of rolling over and quitting, he devised this byzantine system of pedals to compensate and - as far as I know - is still drumming for the band to this day. That's quite a feat!

Grave Robber - "Escaping the Grave"

Grave Robber - Escaping the Grave
2018, Rottweiler

1. Burial Ground
2. Into the Pit
3. The Evil Dead
4. Zombieland
5. The Beast Within
6. Lips of Blood
7. The Conjuring
8. The Swarm
9. The Night Evelyn Came Out From the Grave
10. Jet Black Tears
11. Escaping the Grave
Bonus Track:
12. Curse of the Werewolf (Remix)

Yay! Grave Robber is back! I always loves me some Grave Robber. They are consistently great. I don't think I've ever heard anything bad by them. Escaping the Grave continues this tradition. This release is a little bit faster and harder - a bit more punk and less metal than the previous ones. Though this album seems a little bit light on content. I don't think this is the band's fault. The band has had to endure a lot of crap since the last album - line-up changes, equipment problems, general life problems. So it's not a surprise that this one is shorter than the others with one track being an intro, the bonus track being a remix, and a cover ("Jet Black Tears"). Add to this that many songs are under two minutes in length. So... considering all they've been through we should be glad we got anything at all, let alone something that's just as fun and addictive as usual. Hopefully this means we'll get a more steady stream of material from these guys!

Useless Fact: The album was produced by Tim Bushong of LoveWar and The Bleed (featuring Rex Carroll) fame.

Sardonyx - "Sons of the Kingdom"

Sardonyx - Sons of the Kingdom
2018, Lightshine Music Group

1. Sons of the Kingdom
2. Children of the King
3. Greater Things
4. All That We Are
5. Power and Love
6. Perfected
7. Awake
8. My Bride Beloved
9. Angel Armies

Sardonyx is back again. I always hoped they'd follow up Linear Progression but gave up after years and years went by. Yet, here they are! I've always like Sardonyx because throughout the years they've really stuck to their guns as a "ministry band." They make no bones about this and they pull no punches with their message. Anyway, unlike Linear Progression there is no nu-metal influences here. This is pure progressive/power metal. It fits nicely right after Majestic Serenity in terms of style but the production is way better this time around. If you like Sardonyx, then Sons of the Kingdom will satisfy you. It doesn't really reinvent the wheel but the instrumentation is excellent and Tom sounds as good as he ever has. "Awake" is probably my favorite track because it's basically a psalm set to music. And I mean "psalm" in the sense that it starts out soul-crushingly depressing but ends with worship. The lyrics are also extremely bold and preachy. As a Christian this doesn't bother me at all, though at times I think they're more concerned with a lyric lining up with four or five Scriptures than it making sense. Sons of the Kingdom is definitely worthy of the Sardonyx legacy and I hope it won't be another twelve or so years for the next one.

Useless Fact: "My Bride Beloved" features some female vocals from Kristen Anselmo-Hertzog. I've never heard of her before but she does a great job.

Metallica - "Load"

Metallica - Load
1996, Blackened

1. Ain't My Bitch
2. 2 x 4
3. The House That Jack Built
4. Until It Sleeps
5. King Nothing
6. Hero of the Day
7. Bleeding Me
8. Cure
9. Poor Twisted Me
10. Wasting My Hate
11. Mama Said
12. Thorn Within
13. Ronnie
14. The Outlaw Torn

I think time has been pretty good to this album. I confess I was one of those that were originally aghast that the band had cut their hair and "sold out." Time has proven that they made the right move here. They'd pretty much done what they could do with thrash as a genre. Where do you go after Justice? Where do you go after the Black album? They had to branch out and do something else and the more hard rock, swagger of Load keeps all the aggression but allows the band do dabble in other sounds. And when that swagger works - man, it WORKS! "King Nothing" and "Bleeding Me" are prime examples. The main strike against this album is the length. At fourteen tracks and almost an hour and twenty minutes of music... well... that's a bit too much swagger for me. I think they could have lost two, three, or even four tracks off this and made a much more compact (and better) album. As it stands I really appreciate and enjoy it now. Though I still hate the cover art. And the title.

Useless Fact: If I remember correctly Load and Reload were supposed to be a double album. Which is WAY too much swagger if you ask me.

Brown II, Jimmy P. - "Eraserhead"

Brown II, Jimmy P. - Eraserhead
2018, Retroactive

1. EGO
2. Stained
3. Indecisive
4. Entertaining Angels
5. The Scales
6. Memoria
7. A Story of Time
8. The Swell Lot of Thieves
9. Digital Postage Stamp
10. The Watchers

*** This review is based on a pre-release version. The album is due in the fall and I don't know if everything from the art to the track list is finalized. ***

As much I loved The Subversive Kind and its return to Deliverance's thrash roots, I've always leaned more towards the "creative years" of the band. Eraserhead has been billed as an album for fans of that era - especially since it features Manny Morales on bass and Jon Knox on drums. However, there's much more to it than that. It's somewhere between the "creative years," a heavier Jupiter VI, and Saviour Machine (along with a helping of David Bowie, naturally). Tracks like "Memoria" and "Digital Postage Stamp" sound like they could have been on an album after Camelot while "Indecisive" and "The Swell Lot of Thieves" recall Back From Mars with a bit more aggression. Speaking of "Indecisive," Manny is absolutely killing it on the bass! Terry Taylor once said of bassist Tim Chandler that he was good at filling in the cracks of songs. I think Manny is playing a similar role. He's given a lot more room to work so you hear so much more variety and melody than you might with a Deliverance album. With the album not needing to conform to any preconceptions, both Manny and Jon are let loose and as a result turn in some of the finest performances I've ever heard from either of them. Oh, and Jimmy covers a Newsboys song, "Entertaining Angels," for some reason. I've never liked the Newsboys. Ever. So when I say "holy crap Jimmy has made me like a Newsboys song" you might not understand how much of a compliment that is. I might get some hassle for saying this but I think I prefer Eraserhead over The Subversive Kind. There's just so much to dig into here and there's so much energy and heart. The album culminates in the phenomenal "The Wachers." This track is one of Jimmy's finest closers bar none. Right up there with "Sanctuary" and "In-U." It's soaring and majestic - reveling in some Saviour Machine-type theatricality. Finally, I do think that long time fans need to adjust their expectations a little. Yes, this has some influences of Deliverance, Jupiter VI, etc. - but, honestly, Eraserhead is truly its own thing meant to be taken that way. It's not River Disturbance II or Learn II so don't expect that. It's Eraserhead - and if you can handle that, you'll be able to enjoy one of the best albums you'll hear this year.

Useless Fact: "Memoria" was originally supposed to be a Deliverance track and later popped up in a different form on Fearful Symmetry's A Loss of Balance.