I had me a real good time recently, getting 2025 off to fun start by listening to lots of The Faces and Van Halen.
The Faces At The BBC is one of the best box sets I’ve bought for a while, I’ve been enjoying it immensely. The fact that The Faces were ace live isn’t exactly news because the Five Guys Walk Into A Bar… box set already did a great job of documenting that, but these BBC recordings are a soulful, rocking revelation all the same.
You don’t need me to tell you how good the first two Van Halen albums are, but I’ve been listening to them cause I’ve been enjoying Alex Van Halen’s Brothers book. Actually it’s the audiobook I’ve been enjoying because I liked the idea of hearing him reading it. It’s a thoughtful, detailed and moving memoir and Alex hasn’t been an outspoken figure for many years so it’s a treat to hear him reading the story.
I’ve not had my typical run up to Christmas this year. Usually I’d be enjoying wintery walks to and from work while listening to all my favourite Christmassy rock: 80s stuff from bands like KISS, Whitesnake, Magnum, Van Halen etc… but my knee has been knackered for a couple of weeks so I’ve been using the car. This has disrupted my Christmas listening mojo quite dramatically and I’ve ended up more in the mood to revisit my favourites of 2024. Great stuff, but not very Christmassy! Bah humbug.
It seems like I buy more box sets these days than anything else. Especially as we get nearer to Christmas there seems to be a tempting set or two released every week. Just yesterday I got the new box set reissue of Porcupine Tree’s 2007 career-peak Fear Of A Blank Planet. Loads to take in here: the album, documentary, bonus tracks, radio sessions, live stuff etc… So far, I can say that the album sounds superb, the documentary is very interesting and the packaging is very deluxe.
But all this box set activity has got me casting my mind back to a time when a box set purchase was just an annual treat, if that, and what my earliest box set purchases were.
Might as well start at the beginning so I looked out the oldest one I’ve got: Iron Maiden’s The First Ten Years. Released in 1990, my copy is not much to look at any more as it’s missing the lid but it’s still a worthwhile 10CD set of the band’s classic singles. And as a bonus it has the entertaining Listen With Nicko spoken word series from the band’s drummer Nicko McBrain. Possibly the first metal podcast ever? Anyway, I stuck on the first disc which features the Running Free and Sanctuary singles, the highlight of which was a barnstorming live version of Drifter.
The Maiden set is sadly bereft of any reading material which is a shame as one of my favourite features of a box set is a good book. That got me rummaging around for my copy of Free’s Songs Of Yesterday box from 2000. This was a very good box set for the time, comprised almost entirely of unreleased recordings and alternate versions. But it sprang to mind because it also had a particularly good book and I’ve had a great time today reading that and listening to the first two discs of the set. Phil Sutcliffe had written an excellent history of the band for Mojo magazine in the late 90s and expanded it here for the box set. It’s a fascinating read about a talented, tortured band.
It’s been a fun weekend of listening and reading with a wee bit of nostalgia too. I think I’ll be giving Cheap Trick’s Sex, America, Cheap Trick from 1996 a whirl next. Got any recent box set purchases or any memories of your first ones? Pandora’s Box? Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B? The Misfits? All belters.
Recently the onset of winter’s grim permafrost has put me in a right old black metal mood. So I’ve been mainly listening to Mayhem’s Live At Leipzig and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, which are two of the most indispensable and definitive albums of the whole genre.
In the Mayhem mode, I also watched the 2020 Norwegian TV documentary Helvete: The History Of Norwegian Black Metal. It was pretty enjoyable and fairly comprehensive in terms of the Mayhem story which meant it spent a bit more time than necessary on Mayhem’s Deathcrush era but had lengthy, compassionate coverage of Per “Dead” Ohlin’s story and a welcome focus on Snorre Ruch’s vital and often overlooked contribution. And it had a good overview of all the sensational stuff too. Be warned that the subtitles are a bit of a mess – hopefully someone will sort that out at some point.
Now we’re at the weekend and I’ve had to cancel a trip to the west coast of Scotland due to the arrival of Storm Bert. Sorry, Mum. So there’s nothing for it but to coorie in for a good blasting black metal session.
First up is Ulver’s Bergtatt: one of my absolute black metal favourites, it’s got all the hallmarks of the genre but is uniquely gentle and pastoral with wonderful monk-like vocals. After that I went back to the genre’s roots for Bathory’s hugely influential The Return….. which is a staggeringly primitive, caustic and evil classic. Emperor’s self-titled EP continues that mood but with a more musical and orchestral element lurking beneath the cacophony. I have a break for a shower and a toastie before bringing things up-to-date with Winterfylleth’s excellent new album The Imperious Horizon which finds the British band sounding vital and intense as well as including a show-stealing guest vocal from Primordial’s Alan Nemtheanga.
And that’s it for just now. I’ve been buying lots of box sets lately so I might report back on those once I’ve spent more time with them. But I’ve now realised I have lovely mince pies in the cupboard but no cream to put on them! An unacceptable state of affairs which means I must venture out and endure Bert’s windy passage.
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.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 