Iron Maiden - "The Book of Souls"

Iron Maiden - The Book of Souls
2015, BMG

DISC ONE
1. If Eternity Should Fail
2. Speed of Light
3. The Great Unknown
4. The Red and the Black
5. When the River Runs Deep
6. The Book of Souls

DISC TWO
1. Death or Glory
2. Shadows of the Valley
3. Tears of a Clown
4. The Man of Sorrows
5. Empire in the Clouds

I didn't really know too much about The Book of Souls other than that I'd seen it around for sale. Naturally, I bought it one day while getting groceries. I mean, it's friggin' Iron Maiden. How bad could it be? Seemed like a pretty low-risk investment. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a double album with some truly epic tracks. Quite a few here are over the ten-minute mark, not to mention "Empire of the Clouds" which is a whopping eighteen minute opus. I'm pretty impressed that a band that has been around as long as these guys can sound so alive and energetic. You could group this album in with Number of the Beast or Powerslave and no one would be the wiser. Bottom line, if you like Iron Maiden, you will dig these discs.

I do have a couple of complaints though. First, the production seems a little dated here. When I said you put this next to those other albums I meant it... unfortunately that seems to include some dated production. I also think a couple of tracks could have been trimmed a bit. I love the rollicking "The Red and the Black" but there's an extended galloping session near the end that I think could have been trimmed a bit. Also, Bruce Dickinson seems a big strained here. Though, considering he was battling cancer at the time I think I can give him a pass. That's how tough that man is. "Oh, I've got cancer? Let's record a double album! What do you think about that, cancer?!" As of this writing, he did beat that cancer.

Useless Fact: "Tears of a Clown" is a tribute to Robin Williams and I understand "The Man of Sorrows" is about Aleister Crowley.

Nash, Leigh - "The State I'm In"

Nash, Leigh - The State I'm In
2015, One Son

1. Spider and the Moth
2. Cruel Heart
3. Chicago
4. Mountain
5. What's Behind Me
6. Somebody's Yesterday
7. The Promise Break
8. Dreaming Out Loud
9. The State I'm In
10. High Is Better
11. Tell Me Now Tennessee
12. Doing It Wrong

I pretty much hate country music. Let's get that out of the way right now. Especially the insipid "Bro Country" which mostly involves girls, beer, and trucks... and rap somehow. Anyway, Leigh Nash's little country album caught my attention because, being a longtime Sixpence fan, I've known she's wanted to do country stuff for a long time. Like... she was talking about it in interviews for This Beautiful Mess... i.e. a LONG time. So this isn't some cash-in-desperate-grab-at-fame record. Nope, this is an album she's wanted to do. And... I like it. Quite a lot actually. I guess it helps that it's less Florida-Georgia Line and more Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard. I was raised on country - Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, Alabama, The Oak Ridge Boys... my parents would take rides through the hills of upstate New York and those folks were the soundtrack to many of those rides. Despite my intense dislike for country, there were a lot of songs by those artists that I liked. I think that's why I like The State I'm In because it definitely reminds me of those songs. This may surprise you but some of my favorite tracks here are the more honky-tonk ones like the title track, "High is Better" and "Doing It Wrong." I also like "Mountain" and "What's Behind Me" - both tracks could have been Sixpence tracks (though a little more countrified Sixpence).

I do have some small gripes about this album. First, I don't like the song "Chicago." Part of it is that it's the third slower paced song and by that point I think the album's momentum would have done better with a peppier song. I also don't care for the lyrics which is just the singer pining over some dude, begging him to tell her more about Chicago. I just don't like it. Second, the packaging is really flimsy - it's a thin cardboard digipack that's easily damaged. It does come with liner notes with lyrics, though, so that's good. Despite these minor gripes I enjoyed The State I'm In way more than I thought I would. It's definitely worth checking out even if you don't like country.

Spock's Beard - "The Oblivion Particle"

Spock's Beard - The Oblivion Particle
2015, Inside Out

1. Tides of Time
2. Minion
3. Hell's Not Enough
4. Bennett Built a Time Machine
5. Get Out While You Can
6. A Better Way to Fly
7. The Center Line
8. To Be Free Again
9. Disappear
Bonus Track:
10. Iron Man

The You Tube robot plopped the "Bennett Built a Time Machine" lyric video in my feed awhile back. I was instantly hooked. I love that song. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite progressive songs of all time. No I'm not lying. The rest of the album is good too. I like how the band mixes plenty of progressive virtuoso playing with good hooks and melodies. This is especially apparent on songs like "The Center Line" and "Disappear." The latter is another song I love to death. I'm not sure if this is a concept album or not because the liner notes feature a story about "Bennett"...as in... the one who built the time machine, but the other songs don't seem to make reference to it, so I don't know. It's a good album and I may have to get into more Spock's Beard in the future.

Useless Fact: Um... Neal Morse was in this band? Yeah, I know everyone knows that but I don't know the band well enough for a really good fact.

Lifesavers - "Heaven High"

Lifesavers - Heaven High
2014, Retroactive

1. Heaven High
2. All Fall Down
3. Bark Bite
4. Offed My Head
5. I Love It When
6. Dog Days of an Indian Summer
7. Oh Baby
8. Stereo Radio
9. Ocean View Lane
10. Last Spring

I've never been a huge Lifesavers-type person. My most vivid memory of them is seeing Poplife around the Christian bookstores back in the day. Recently, Michael Knott was on the Frontline Rewind podcast and he played "Heaven High" and I quite enjoyed it, so I decided to check out the album proper. It's pretty good. I guess you would kind of call it surf/pop/punk... I guess. It's pretty light and fun and while I don't come back to it over and over again it's a satisfying listen nonetheless. It's also pretty short at under a half an hour. I burn through the whole thing on the way to and from work.

Useless Fact: The picture on the cover is of St. Clare of Assisi. Her story helped influence the album.

Worldview - "The Chosen Few"

Worldview - The Chosen Few

2015, M24

1. Mortality

2. Illusion of Love

3. Back in Time

4. The Mirror

5. Why?

6. Prisoner of Pain

7. Two Wonders

8. Walk Through Fire

9. The Chosen Few

10. The Last Cry

I put off buying Worldview for quite a while after it came out. I listened to the few songs available and, despite the talent, was that impressed. However, a little bit later I started checking out the album as a whole and discovered I really did like it after all. Worldview is a project of former Deliverance/Recon guitarist George Ochoa and former Sacred Warrior vocalist Rey Perra. It sounds exactly how you might expect. It's metal that's a throwback to the heyday of Christian metal - though the modern production helps fill out the sound. It's really nice to hear Rey Perra singing again. I still don't know why he wasn't on the last Sacred Warrior album. His inclusion really makes Worldview sound a lot more like Sacred Warrior than Waiting in Darkness did. The band puts together some distinctly 80's sounding hooks in songs like "Back in Time" and "Walk Through Fire." This is not a bad thing. There are also some eastern musical influences tracks like "Mortality" and "The Last Cry." Basically, if you're a fan of late 80's/early 90's Christian metal (like I am) then Worldview is right up your alley. If not you can still enjoy Rey Perra's pipes which still sound good after all these years and Ochoa's guitar which is also stellar. So I guess you have no excuse but to buy it.

Useless Fact: Originally Rick Macias, who was the keyboardist for Sacred Warrior was supposed to be involved but tragically passed away before the project got off the ground.

Projects and Plans

Hey everyone! As you might have noticed reviews have slowed down a bit. My goal used to be to do five per month. I'm going to have to slow that down to three. Mostly because the disposable income isn't there for me to just buy CDs with. I know... I'm sad too. There's at least three albums coming out soon that I'll be reviewing: the Leigh Nash solo country album, the new Coheed & Cambria, and the new Queensryche. On deck are Worldview, Lifesavers, and Spock's Beard.

Another reason the blog has slowed down is because I've been working on more Let's Plays. For the uninitiated, a "Let's Play" is a series of videos where someone plays a game and makes commentary as he goes. Visit my You Tube channel - like, comment, and subscribe! I'll be doing this for at least a year, maybe more. Right now I've been posting videos of Monster Part and Vice Project Doom. Watch and enjoy!

Symphony X - "Underworld"

Symphony X - Underworld
2015, Nuclear Blast

1. Overture
2. Nevermore
3. Underworld
4. Without You
5. Kiss of Fire
6. Charon
7. To Hell and Back
8. In My Darkest Hour
9. Run With the Devil
10. Swan Song
11. Legend

So yeah... remember when I bought Iconoclast twice a couple years ago? I've slowly become a Symphony X die-hard - so much so that I pre-ordered Underworld to make sure I'd have it whether or not we had money in the house. Is it the non-stop metal freight train the last album was? No, it's not, but that's okay. This disc is a little more progressive than the last. They've backed off a little on the throttle and let in more of the progressive elements that have been part of the band's sound. There's a little bit more of The Odyssey in here than on Iconoclast. However, they've kept a lot of the "fist in the air" metal from that album, only backing it off enough to let some more melody seep into the songs. What you have is an album that is at once very heavy and progressive, but a times dang near commercial with its hooks. So far, every listen has been a treat and it only gets better with subsequent listens. Underworld will almost certainly make it on my picks of the year list.

Useless Fact: The theme for this album, not surprisingly, is hell. Specifically Dante's vision of it but also it includes the general concept of an underworld as seen in Greek myths.