Blasphemy – Fallen Angel Of Doom…. (Wild Rags – 1990)
Fallen Angel Of Doom…. is the seminal 1990 debut album from a notorious band whose beer you most definitely do not want to spill: Canada’s Blasphemy. In addition to their much-imitated image and imagery, these graveyard-bothering powerlifters mixed the guttural brutality of death metal and grindcore with the satanic primitivism of old Sodom and Bathory and shrouded it in a sepulchral, occult atmosphere to create a distinctive brand of black metal so bestial and ritualistic it spawned a micro-genre of its own. And even after decades of all sorts of black metal innovation and antics Fallen Angel Of Doom…. still sounds like the evil, intimidating real deal.
I finally got my hands on the new Blood Incantation album Absolute Elsewhere yesterday. I had ordered the deluxe box set and the supplier I used kept putting the shipping date back so had to cancel and get one on eBay before they all vanished.
First few listens and it’s a pretty stupendous mix of Morbid Angel style death and spacey, melodic prog. And the production is wonderfully warm and natural. It’s also got the Luminescent Bridge EP, a documentary, the soundtrack to the documentary and a cool book too. Could be an album of the year contender although it would be up against another recent purchase: Doedsmaghird’s Omniverse Consciousness. An offshoot of avant black metallers Dødheimsgard, this is like a grimmer companion piece to that band’s excellent 2023 album Black Medium Current. But also quite similar too, so if you loved that album then you need this.
Ermaghird!
While I’m on the topic of album of the year contenders I have to mention Deep Purple’s =1 which continues the band’s remarkably creative and fresh late stage. It’s a bit overlong but emotionally it’s been the standout of the year and kicked off a huge Deep Purple binge and a reappraisal of some of their later albums that I’d not given enough time to. Now What?! in particular has become a new favourite, up there with the band’s very best work.
-1 for the artwork though
And I can’t sign off without saluting ex-Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno who has passed away aged 66. I never followed his career post-Maiden to be honest, but his work on those indispensable first two albums is more than enough to put him in the HMO Hall Of Fame.
Deep Purple’s 1968 debut Shades Of Deep Purple has only a hint of the explosive contribution that Purple would make to metal’s birth a couple of years later but it can be heard clearly and excitingly on the album’s Side-B opener Mandrake Root. It’s a great, funky rocker that makes sterling use of the E7#9 “Hendrix” chord and some raunchy crooning from the band’s normally mild-mannered original singer Rod Evans. But it’s when the band launch into a short bass-propelled instrumental freak out that sparks start to fly. In their live sets the band would use this track to launch into huge jamming extravaganzas. Here, it’s kept fairly brief but it still allows the band to tap into the sonic danger that they would become known for. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, a tentative presence on the rest of the album, blasts out some violent, noisy tremolo abuse that is the record’s strongest shade of the Deep Purple we all know and love.
I adore Alice Cooper’s School’s Out album and listen to it a lot. But the majority of the time I skip its opening title track. It’s such an overplayed song that you can end up taking it for granted and I like to keep it fresh so that, when I do listen to it, I hear it for the timeless rock ‘n’ roll classic it is. It’s such a great idea, perfectly executed. The genius main riff is like a clarion call to party, Dennis Dunaway excels with his bouncy basslines, and Alice’s threatening voice is the perfect vehicle for the witty and anarchic lyrics. The band set out to capture the joy and energy of that last day of school and with School’s Out they get a snotty, rebellious and jubilant A+.
I’m all for humour and wit in music but actual comedy bands or records have limited appeal for me. They might make me chuckle but I’m not going to need many repeat listens. Infamous intergalactic metallers GWAR are a rare instance where a band ventures well into the “comedy” zone while still coming up with enough good music and songs to make me want more. Here’s Maggots from their breakthrough 1990 album Scumdogs Of The Universe. Of course, GWAR can’t resist a joke about boogers but that’s the only bit of Maggots that bugs me. It’s a snotty, shlock-horror thrasher with great riffs, Oderus Urungus’ charismatic gurgle and an extremely catchy chorus where a buzzing fly provides a surprisingly inventive and infectious hook.
Ted had been yanking and cranking his Gibson Byrdland guitar so hard that by the fifth song on his 1978 live album Double Live Gonzo!, it had gone out of tune. But a mangled D chord isn’t enough to spoil the fun. If anything, it adds to the raw, honest vibe of this great performance. Great White Buffalo is a red-blooded garage rocker with vocals that make you feel like you’re round a camp fire as The Nuge relates the tale of the wasteful killing of the buffalo and the rousing climax where the Great White Buffalo returns to save the battered herd. The tone from that out-of-tune and out-of-control Byrdland is something else: guaranteed by Ted to “blow the balls off a charging rhino”. Presumably they would be put to good use?
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love (Polydor/Track – 1967)
I went through a period of being obsessed with Axis: Bold As Love when I was a teenager, listening to it nearly every night. I don’t listen to it anywhere near that much now but it’s still my favourite studio album from The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mainly due to the wonderful sonic tapestries Hendrix creates on colourful psychedelic tracks like Bold As Love, One Rainy Wish, Castles Made Of Sand and the timeless Little Wing. They’re all masterpieces and, as a budding guitar player, I found Hendrix’s playing and guitar tones fascinating and inspiring. If all that wasn’t enough there’s also the essential proto-metal of Spanish Castle Magic and If Six Was Nine: two of Hendrix’s, and therefore 1967’s, heaviest tracks.
On The Cry Of Mankind, Yorkshire’s My Dying Bride take an extremely simple but eerie guitar motif and build a monumentally dark, symphonic beast of a song out of it. It’s a masterpiece that manages to remain refined and elegant while still filling you with existential dread. And, as if the song proper wasn’t already crushing enough, The Cry Of Mankind‘s final minutes just let that six-note motif run on. But this time overlaying it with a haunting choir and the bellow of a foghorn so unsettling and otherworldly it feels like the last thing you might ever hear.
I’ve been listening to Rush quite a bit recently and you can’t have a Rush kick without taking in a live album or two. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to the excellent Grace Under Pressure Tour, recorded in 1984 but released as a bonus CD with their 2006 DVD set Replay x 3. The album they were touring, Grace Under Pressure, is right up there as one of my favourite Rush studio albums so it’s great to have some live tracks from the era. The guitar solo in Red Sector A is breathtaking and the lively, pumping take on the The Enemy Within is far superior to the studio version. The recording is taken from one of the DVDs from the box set and isn’t a whole show unfortunately, but it’s still a great listen with some excellent performances. And, given the band’s fashion crimes of the era, the audio-only option is very welcome.
You want riffs. And they don’t get much better than the angular, thrashy guitar intro that kicks off Darkthrone’s Blacksmith Of The North (Keep That Ancient Fire). Taken from 2008’s Dark Thrones And Black Flags, it’s easily one of my Top 10 favourite riffs since the turn of the millennium and I love the frost-bitten, crusty sound and Nocturno Culto’s echoing, gravelly vocals. It’s a flaming triumph and a cool, apt title for a band that has kept the ancient fire burning, hammering out quality metal with impressive regularity to this day.
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