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.
Cathedral – The Carnival Bizarre (Earache Records – 1995)
Cathedral sound like they’re having a blast on 1995’s The Carnival Bizarre which is remarkable because a) you don’t normally associate bowel-loosening doom with good times and b) the band were just coming out of a frustrating stint as a major label act that resulted in the departure of talented guitarist Adam Lehan. But the band’s remaining guitarist Gaz Jennings takes up the slack on Cathedral’s third album, delivering a masterclass in doom riffing Sab-otage. The opening three tracks Vampire Sun, Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) and Utopian Blaster are Cathedral at their most entertaining and crushing but the rest of the album is thoroughly enjoyable with a playful array of superb deep cuts like the eerie Night Of The Seagulls and the tuneful Inertia’s Cave. And fans of Lee Dorrian’s exuberant and irreverent vocal interjections will not be disappointed either. Huggy Bear? Ohhh yeah.
It wouldn’t score a podium place in my list of favourite Rush songs but Marathon is definitely a standout from the band’s 80s era. Taken from 1985’s Power Windows, this is Rush at the peak of their pop-prog powers with funky basslines, enormodome guitar chords and a rousing chorus that builds to a climax of Olympian grandeur with the addition of a 25 piece choir. As always with Rush, this is high-performance stuff but Marathon is also uplifting and accessible. I never get tired of it.
I’m cranking the hi-fi high today for my favourite Judas Priest album: 1978’s Killing Machine. Alternatively titled Hell Bent For Leather in some countries, Killing Machine continued the band’s impossibly superb run of metal-defining 70s albums and was their most red-blooded and raunchy release to date. Alongside megaton leviathans like the resolute Delivering The Goods, the turbo-charged Hell Bent For Leather and tough, direct rockers like Running Wild are songs like the glam stomper Take On The World and the wonderfully wistful Evening Star that managed to simultaneously evolve and simplify Priest’s style without diluting their lethal state-of-the-art metal godliness.
It’s rare for a band to arrive as fully formed as Queensrÿche did on their self-titled debut EP. They sound absolutely world-beating, and in a year as strong as 1983 that was no mean feat. But, of the four songs on Queensrÿche, the one that sounds most like the ‘rÿche of the future is the closing track The Lady Wore Black. Geoff Tate’s high-flying yet melodic vocals and the tastefully restrained, emotive guitar solo are the stuff of metal legends and the gothic clean guitar and attacking, angular, textured riffing bear the hallmarks of the band’s best material yet to come. It’s hard to imagine a more attention-grabbing, anticipation-building career launchpad than The Lady Wore Black.
Blue Öyster Cult – Spectres (Columbia Records – 1977)
The main feature here is Godzilla, one of Blue Öyster Cult’s most classic and fun tunes with its lumbering monster riff and witty lyrics but the songs I love most on Spectres are the ones that evoke hot, summer nights. Hells Angels ride out in the desert to a backdrop of ethereal harmonies on the elegaic Golden Age Of Leather, Death Valley Nights is sozzled noir, Fireworks is full of innocence and wonder and the vampiric masterpiece I Love The Night is dreamy and seductive. On a sweltering night, like it is tonight here in Scotland, Spectres is the perfect soundtrack. Now if only the backs of my knees weren’t so sweaty.
The big news at HMO Mission Control recently is that, at the tender age of 48, I got my first car! At the moment I’m too busy trying to figure out what gear I’m in to want the added distraction of music but I can’t wait to get some Yngwie on.
Bon (and on and on) Jovi
Last weekend I binge-watched Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story. It was a bit like their career: really good fun in the early stages but then increasingly dull as it wore on. It doesn’t help that, with the possible exception of Richie Sambora, nobody in the band seems particularly compelling. Top marks for being so thorough and candid though.
HMO Charts
Darkthrone move up 666 places on the strength of their excellent new album It Beckons Us All…
Coffin Storm are a new entry with their debut album Arcana Rising. Quality doom-laden cult metal.
Mötley Crüe go down, down (and hopefully will just go away) following their wretched new song Dogs Of War.
The only way is up for Bulletboys, as they grant fans the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to invest in classic tracks such as Smooth Up In Ya. Buy, buy, buy!
HMO Salutes
HMO salutes Mike Pinder of The Moody Blues fame who has recently died aged 82 and ex-Scorpions drummer James Kottak who died, aged 61, back in January. I’ve always been a big fan of The Allman Brothers Band so the passing of guitarist/singer Dickey Betts, at the age of 80, was very sad news. But the worst news of all was the death of Magnum founder, the wonderful Tony Clarkin, whose death at the age of 77 basically signals the end of music as we know it.
Recent Purchases
Judas Priest’s Invincible Shield and Saxon’s Hell, Fire And Damnation haven’t particularly blew me away but are both enjoyable late-career outings. Bruce Dickinson’s more creative and revelatory The Mandrake Project fares better. I also picked up a lovely vinyl reissue of Reverend Bizarre’s II: Crush The Insects and a wonderfully compiled NWOBHM set All Systems Go: The Neat Singles Vol One.
You Won’t Get Out Of Here Alive: Waysted Volume One (1983-1986) compiles three albums and two EPS from Waysted’s initial run and UFO’s Lights Out is now more essential than ever, with the addition of a brilliant live show. I haven’t quite got to grips with the (two!) new Ihsahn CDs and Midnight’s Hellish Expectations yet but initial impressions are positive. And the previously mentioned Darkthrone and Coffin Storm albums are two of the year’s best so far.
Upcoming Releases
Anno Domini 1989-1995, the new Tony ‘The Cat’ Martin era Black Sabbath box set is the one I’m looking forward to the most but it looks like it’s been pushed back a bit so that should free up some cash to buy the new John Entwistle The Ox box set and the reissue of Heavy Load’s Metal Conquest instead.
That’s all for this digest. Until next time… mind the roads!
In a tale as old as time, mismanagement and a shite label almost ensured that The Burning Of Rome (Cry For Pompeii) and its parent album, 1988’s Age Of Consent, were lost to history. But, by the Gods and Godesses, Virgin Steele were able to re-release the album in 1997, by which point they were hitting their stride as purveyors of peerless barbaric-romantic metal and their fans could finally rejoice in this mighty masterpiece. Bombastic and grandiose, it’s a totemic moment in the band’s career and frontman David DeFeis delivers the tale of a fallen warrior with heroic levels of nobility and passion. The Burning Of Rome (Cry For Pompeii) is easily one of the best metal songs of all time. I don’t just get goosebumps listening to it, I get them even just thinking about it.
Big Trouble‘s magical “I bet if you asked them, our heroes would say…” hook alone is enough to make it one of my favourite songs ever. But the track, from David Lee Roth’s 1986 album Eat ‘Em And Smile, also has a hypnotically groovy and sexy riff running all the way through it, a dazzling career-peak performance from guitarist Steve Vai, and Dave Lee Roth rapping away at his witty, quirky and evocative best. As always, he ain’t talking ’bout love, but Big Trouble is romantic and profound. Like a glimpse into Diamond Dave’s philosophy of life. Because Roth knows what our heroes would say. Somehow, he knows.
Iron Maiden – Piece Of Mind (1983 – EMI, 2014 Reissue)
When you’re in a “back to basics” metal mood, like I am today, classic Maiden is just a no-brainer. For the first six songs, 1983’s Piece Of Mind is basically metal perfection with rousing boy’s-own stuff like Where Eagles Dare and The Trooper, the soaring Flight Of Icarus and more progressive fare like Still Life and Revelations which lend the album a dark, gothic aspect. Maiden were hitting the tour/record cycle hard in the 80s so, inevitably, the quality starts to get inconsistent towards the end but it would take more than a slightly silly song about cavemen to take down a beast like this.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 