CD Odyssey Disc 434: Black Sabbath

The CD Odyssey has been stalled due to a whole slew of after work events this week, including going to the opening of a new pub/restaurant space (upstairs at Smith's pub in downtown Victoria - and quite nice, go check it out) and then to see my friend Missy's spoken word poetry performance "Where's My Flying Car?" which by the way, is funny, insightful, and only in town until Saturday (but heading to Vancouver for my readers over there).  

In any event this review was written whenever I had fifteen minutes to spare because I needed to get it done and move on to something different.

Disc 434 is…Born Again

Artist: Black Sabbath

Year of Release: 1983

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s a horrible, clawed demon baby.  This cover always reminds me of that awful 1974 movie “It’s Alive” about a monstrous baby with giant claws.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve known this album since it came out, and my brother bought it on vinyl.  I actually came to really know Black Sabbath around 1980 and so, “Born Again” was the third album that I heard.  At thirteen, I was blissfully unaware of the whole “Deep Sabbath” controversy.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eleven Black Sabbath albums, including one live record.  Sadly, “Born Again” resides at the bottom of that illustrious pile.

Rating:  2 stars

This album had me thinking of George Lazenby.  You know – that guy who played James Bond for the one movie, and that we’d all just as soon forget.  It wasn’t that George was terrible at being Bond but he just doesn’t feature during Roger Moore/Sean Connery debates apart other than as an aside.

When it comes to Black Sabbath that same debate is the Ozzie Osbourne/Ronnie James Dio debate.  Ozzie was the classic original, like Connery.  Dio was the guy who put a new spin on the band and still managed to keep it awesome, like Moore.  The lead singer for Born Again is Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, and he is the George Lazenby of this story.  He appears for one record only, isn’t terrible but still falls far short of the other two guys.  We’d all wish we could forget him.

Except, as I’ve stated above, when I was thirteen I didn’t give a fig about the Black Sabbath/Deep Purple controversy – I just knew I liked heavy metal music and wanted to hear more of it.  “Born Again” delivered for me at the time.

That said, even at thirteen I knew this record was a step down from the two by Dio that preceded it (“Mob Rules”and “Heaven and Hell”).  It isn’t all Gillan’s fault, although he does try a little too hard, with many a maniacal rock n’ roll scream (although on songs like “Disturbing the Priest” he tries way too hard, and comes off sounding like a hippy having a bad trip).  Gillan is actually pretty good on the album’s two really good songs, “Trashed” and “Zero the Hero.”  He connects Deep Purple’s proggy rock sound to Tony Iommi’s guitar licks and the combination is essentially quality mid-eighties metal.

“Trashed” is a cautionary tale of drinking and driving – a party that gets out of hand early, and ends with an inebriated car wreck.  My favourite line is:

“So we went back to the bar and hit the bottle again

But there was no tequila.

Then we started on the whisky just to steady our brains

Because there was no tequila.”

Because as we all know, what you need to steady your nerves when you’ve finished off the tequila is more hard liquor.  Yikes.

“Zero the Hero” is basically a nasty attack on the rich and indigent.  Society’s most privileged are a common target in metal music, and I admit hearing Gillan deliver an attack on a do-nothing silver spoon type suited me well in the day.  What really makes “Zero the Hero” so amazing is the heavy-assed Iommi riff that drives it along, sluggish and deep, just like the river that the heroes of the song sit down by while they eat raw liver (hey – it’s what they do).

According to the liner notes, this riff is heavily borrowed for Guns n’ Roses “Paradise City” which I kind of heard, in the same way you can hear secret messages on a record played backward after someone tells you what to listen for.  However, on the subject of the liner notes, the ones for “Born Again” are excellent, discussing many fans’ dislike this album openly, including the odd fit of singer Gillan in the mix, but also giving the record fair praise where deserved.  If only all liner notes were so even-handed, rather than the empty toadying that is usually featured.  But I digress…

Back to the album which apart from “Trashed” and “Zero the Hero” is mostly forgettable.  The other songs are pedestrian eighties metal fare.  It isn’t awful, but I expect more from Black Sabbath than that.

Worst of all is the production, which is painfully fuzzy.  Over the last few days, I’ve played this album both in the car and on headphones, and I enjoyed it much more in the car.  I think one of the reasons for that is that in traffic the fuzziness of the production is drowned out by background noise.  On headphones I could really hear the shortcomings of this record.  The fuzziness works on “Zero the Hero” giving it a proto-grunge sound that was well ahead of its time.  “Trashed” sounds tinny, but the song is strong enough to rise above it.  The other songs aren’t good enough to poke their heads out of the sludge.

Almost thirty years later, I still don’t care about the controversy around this album.  I like Deep Purple just fine (although they’re no Sabbath), and as I noted earlier, there are a couple of songs on this record that are well worth your time.  I might only listen to it selectively these days, but it brings back good memories of my heavy metal meat-head youth, so for that I’ll give it a reserved two stars.

Best tracks:  Trashed, Zero the Hero

CD Odyssey Disc 433: Metallica

After a fairly restful weekend, it was back to work today.  On the plus side, back to work means getting to listen to music on my walk to and from the office.  Life is full of positives if you look for them, my friends.

Disc 433 is……And Justice for All

Artist: Metallica

Year of Release: 1988

What’s up with the Cover?  Lady Justice’s statue is being torn down, presumably by her lessers (that’s who usually attacks justice).  Or maybe, since Ms. Justice’s scales are full of filthy lucre, we are to assume that she’s gone astray and it is the good folks tearing her down.  I can’t say for sure.  What I can say is that she was apparently torn down on a cold day.

How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I did my first Metallica review way back at Disc 93, my good friend and former room-mate Greg put me on to Metallica.  “…And Justice for All” was a favourite of mine back then, and so it was an easy decision to purchase it.  I think this was the first Metallica album I bought after I no longer had access to Greg’s CD collection.

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Metallica albums (all the good stuff, minus “Garage Days.”)  It is a tight competition among the top four albums, but I really like “…And Justice for All” so I’ll say it is second.  “Master of Puppets” might challenge it for the silver medal on the right day.

Rating:  4 stars

In 1969 Three Dog Night taught us that “One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.”  U2 decided years later that “One” should remind us that we’re not alone and that we need to carry each other (twice, in fact).  Metallica’s approaches to the same issues of solitariness on their own song called “One” lead them to contemplate the life of a wounded war veteran with no arms, legs, eyes, ears or mouth lying in a hospital bed forever.  Yeah, they’re kind of hard core.

Metallica’s “One” is an amazing mix of hard and soft, shifting riffs, mournful solos and the beauty that is Lars Ulrich’s double-bass drum, which has spawned so much heavy music that followed, for good or ill.  The song is brilliantly constructed, and as art has long ago surpassed its initial inspiration – the 1971 anti-war film “Johnny Got His Gun” – for both skillful delivery and emotional impact.

Fourth of nine tracks, “One” anchors this record, but it doesn’t stand alone; it is surrounded by heavy waters filled with unrelenting doom.  Metallica likes their topics raw and real, and for all the ferociousness of their proto-speed metal (and it is as ferocious as anything alive today) they have a lot to say as well on subjects as varied as censorship, war, mental illness and the permanent destruction of the earth.

They mostly say it with music.  The lyrics have emotional truth, and James Hetfield sings them with the right mix of strength and frustration.  That said, without the music they lose their impact and read a bit grade school.  The best lines are from “To Live is to Die” which is an almost ten minute track that is largely instrumental.  However, disappointingly the first two lines in the song -

“When a man lies he murders some part of the world.

These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives”

-  are both lifted from somewhere else.  The first line Merlin says to Arthur in the 1981 movie “Excalibur.”  The second is from a poem in the 1977 Stephen R. Donaldson fantasy novel, “Lord Foul’s Bane.”  Fortunately I love both of the source works (and apparently so does Hetfield) but unfortunately Metallica does not credit them in the liner notes.  I guess 1988 was the time rap was sampling the hell out of everything for free though, so why not metal?  Still, the writer in me would’ve appreciated a footnote.

When it comes to the music, Metallica takes a back seat to no one.  “…And Justice” came out in 1988, a time when much of the metal scene was starting to implode into hair metal and the beginning of grunge.  Metallica demonstrates that true heavy metal is alive and well, delivering song after song driven by heavy, headbanging riffs that are surprisingly melodic.

There are only nine songs, all of which are long, ranging from slightly over five minutes to almost a full ten.  Of all nine tracks, only “To Live is to Die” had me glancing at my MP3 player to see if it was over yet, and even it has its moments of symphonic greatness.  The other songs are exactly as long as they need to be throughout.

At 9:44, the title track, “…And Justice for All” is every bit as long as it needs to be.  With competing but equally compelling guitar lines, it compared favourably to Black Sabbath at their best.  The equally glorious “Harvester of Sorrow” has a Kirk Hammett guitar solo that reminded me of Blue Oyster Cult’s Buck Dharma (for those who don’t know me, this is a high compliment).  And when Hetfield goes for the low note on the chorus it feels like he is actually harvesting sorrow.  I’m not sure what farm tool you’d use for that, but I’m confident it would be made out of metal.

With all of these pounding guitars and furious drums pedestrian lyrics like Anger/Misery/You’ll suffer unto me” take on a strange depth that they have no business having.  On the “Frayed Edge of Sanity” they even work in what I think is an homage to the mining song the seven dwarfs sing in “Snow White” and pull it off.

This album isn’t perfect, but if you want some energizing heavy metal that takes no prisoners and eschews having you think about important issues in favour of having you feel about them, then this album is for you.  I certainly enjoyed it.

Best tracks:  …And Justice for All, Eye of the Beholder, One, Harvester of Sorrow

CD Odyssey Disc 432: Radiohead

At last the weekend has arrived!  I am hopeful for a very uneventful one, in the same way I am hoping my next record is better than this one was.

Disc 432 is…Amnesiac

Artist: Radiohead

Year of Release: 2001

What’s up with the Cover?  A child has apparently doodles on a frayed piece of fabric.  This cover is uninspiring, pointlessly obtuse and overwhelmingly awful.  The CD booklet inside is filled with 26 more pages of equally gag-worthy deconstructionist crap.

How I Came To Know It: As I’ve noted in previous Radiohead reviews, I’ve known this band since the beginning but Sheila is more into them than I am.  “Amnesiac” is either her drilling through their collection or (more likely) me buying it for her because I know she likes Radiohead and assume that, like me, when someone likes a band they want to have every album by that band.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven Radiohead albums and when I reviewed “Hail to the Thief” back at Disc 214 I said I’d be optimistic and say it was the worst.  Sadly, my optimism was misplaced.  “Amnesiac” is the worst Radiohead album I have heard.  With three still to review, I sincerely hope this is as low as the bar goes.

Rating:  1 star

Thom Yorke and Radiohead, you are so clever with sound – so why does this album make me want you to take a long walk off a short pier?  Because being clever with sound doesn’t mean making listenable music.

Music is for listening, guys, not for demonstrating how niftily you can use the sound of some object striking an empty oil drum.  Or whatever the hell that sound is that starts this album off with the exceptionally poorly spelled track, “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box.”  Get it the words are crushed, like the sardines!  Yeah, I get it, and it is stupid.  Use your words, gentlemen.  Not that it matters what this song (or most of these songs) is called, since the title bears little resemblance to what they’re about.

“Packt…” goes on into a strange and pointless journey into sound, with Thom Yorke’s alien voice singing “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case” over and over again.  It came maddeningly close to a song at that point, but instead of developing it into something we were treated to a wide array of sounds – some computer generated, some sampled, none of which go anywhere.  I’m a reasonable man, Radiohead, but seriously, get off my case.

And that is pretty much a microcosm of this whole record.  Full of half-started songs that are fully developed into some 21^st century incarnation of the Art of Noise, only completely stripped of any opportunity for the listener to say “oh, yeah!” in a deep voice, and devoid of any breathy chick-a-chick-aaah!s.

I have a great deal of respect for Radiohead as a band.  They are clearly chock-full of talent, and their first two albums (“Pablo Honey” and “The Bends”) are excellent.  They even have a few in later years that are worth your time.  On “Amnesiac” I could only find one song worth my time, “I Might Be Wrong,” which has a groovy guitar riff (I suspect sampled, but so what?) and Thom’s ‘falsetto in water’ sounding voice fitting in with a strange beauty that is the band at their best.  Radiohead at their best is pretty good, too.

However, as a record “Amnesiac” is not Radiohead at their best.  This record is self-indulgent sound-making.  It is like electronica jazz, without the soul that jazz brings even the most obtuse songs of that genre.

Songs like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” made me feel like I was intercepting signals from an alien spacecraft on my short wave radio.  I guess I should’ve expected that, with a title like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” – yes “pulk” is not a typo.  In addition to being pointless, this song has a rolling bass line that on headphones makes it feel like your ears are popping from an elevation descent.  How clever, Radiohead – you really recreated that unpleasant sensation!  Now how about some music?

There are those among you that will simply say that I don’t get this stuff, or that my musical knowledge is too limited to give a meaningful review of it.  You may be right on both counts, but I’m not a classically trained musician, nor am I a computer technician.  I’m just a guy who likes music, and listens to a lot of it, giving my opinion.

However, desperate for understanding I broke my usual self-imposed Modernist approach to music reviews and looked the record up on Wikipedia, where, unsurprisingly, the album had received reams of critical attention.  For the above mentioned “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” there is even some background on how they made the song on a Roland MC505 sequencer.  Band member Colin Greenwood is quoted as saying

"You give the machine a key and then you just talk into it. It desperately tries to search for the music in your speech, and produces notes at random. If you've assigned it a key, you've got music."

Um…not in my world you don’t.  You’ve got a science experiment; maybe you’ve even got an interesting exploration of new sounds that could one day become music.  But the proof in what you’ve got is how listenable it is, how emotionally evocative it is, how it speaks to your soul.  Most of the songs on “Amnesiac” speak to my soul about as much as a phone ringing, or the buzzer that tells me when my laundry is done.

Of course, the one song I liked is “I Might Be Wrong,” and the title is a fitting reminder that art is different for everyone.  Some people must love this record – it went #1 in Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, and #2 in the United States.  It is also a companion piece to “Kid A” a critical darling of a record that I’ve yet to review.  After listening to “Amnesiac” I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

Best tracks:  I Might Be Wrong

CD Odyssey Disc 431: Cake

A second day in a row with a workout!  A second day in a row with a CD review!  How shall we celebrate such an outpouring of good experiences?  Let’s go with cake.

Disc 431 is…Pressure Chief

Artist: Cake

Year of Release: 2004

What’s up with the Cover?  Cake likes their covers very simple.  Here we have a symbolic hand shake, presumably between two ‘pressure chiefs’ – which I assume to be world leaders.  At least they’re shaking hands and not fists.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila originally introduced me to Cake back in the late nineties, and this particular album is just me drilling through the collection.

How It Stacks Up:  We now have seven Cake albums, and I like all of them.  That said, Pressure Chief is on the lower end.  I’ll rank it 5^th out of 7, just behind “Prolonging the Magic” reviewed way back at Disc 101.

Rating:  3 stars

“Pressure Chief” is Cake’s fifth studio album, and by this point they’ve got their sound pretty well mastered.  California pop, insightful indie lyrics, funk guitar, a horn section and just a slight air of country.  They don’t mess with this formula and why should they?  It works, and “Pressure Chief” has more than a few gems to offer.

The album opens with “Wheels” which combines the lilting rise and fall of a folk song with funk guitar and horn sections.  When I hear Cake mash up styles like this, I never question why they did it, but I always wonder why someone didn’t do it sooner.  Maybe someone did, but just not to the same degree of mastery.

The melody of “Wheels” is a long, deliberate rise and fall that lends itself to intricate lyrics and word play.  A song about travel and the strange disconnect when we’re on the road.  My favourite section goes:

“In a seedy karaoke bar

By the banks of the mighty Bosphorus

Is a Japanese man in a business suit singing 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes'

And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians

While the overweight Americans wear their patriotic jumpsuits.”

Ah, the mixed bag of cultures found at any tourist attraction.  This section makes me want to book a flight and go sing karaoke in Istanbul.  Mind you, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” is not my song – I’m more of a “Summer Wind” or “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” kind of guy.  I’ll even tackle “When Doves Cry” once I’m good and warmed up.  But I digress.

Back to the album.  Equally entertaining, but less light-hearted is “Take It All Away” a nasty break up song that really captures the angry exchange on the sidewalk as one person is moved/kicked out of the house by the other.  The song’s groove has a menacing finality to it, but strangely it still makes you want to dance as our narrator sings:

“Take your economy car and your suitcase

Take your psycho little dogs

Take it all away”

These lines speak to a long period of frustration finally boiling over, and with just three specifics, let our minds fill in the rest of the picture.  I see a pink-ribbon wearing diva standing on the sidewalk in a large hat, designer sunglasses and impractical heels waiting for a cab to come, her Shiatsus jumping and barking at the passing traffic.  You can paint a lot with only a few brush strokes, if you pick the right strokes.

That goes for Cake’s production choices as well, which always leave a lot of empty space for the intricate layers of sound to spread into.  There are a lot of instruments going on in most of these songs, but the instruments serve the melody, rather than distract from it.  They know how to be sparse with the layering, and never noodle.  None of the songs even come in over four minutes, and they mostly leave you wanting more in a good way.

There are places that the band gets a bit too obsessed with the simple.  Songs like “Dime” that follow the life of a forgotten dime in a street, or under an overpass (Cake is big on freeway imagery) or “No Phone” which is supposed to be a serious song about the need to get away from it all, but really is about leaving your cell phone at home, come off as cutesy.  Maybe it’s just that I value ten cents a lot more than a mobile phone and the idea of leaving the latter at home seems like a default position, rather than some grand expression of weariness.

“Pressure Chief” is Cake’s fourth consecutive album with a song about cars or driving.  They are usually quite negative on the whole driving experience, and “Carbon Monoxide” is no exception, focusing on what it’s like to be a pedestrian trapped in a car culture.  It’s also one of the best driving songs on the record. Irony, you are a harsh mistress.

The song that stood out for me on this listen though, was “End of the Movie.”  This is a very stripped down track, mostly just a guitar, some kind of hand-held drum and lead singer John McRea reminding us that despite all of life’s twists and turns, there’s something in us that makes us want to carry on and see it through to the end.

“People you love

Will turn their backs on you

You'll lose your hair

Your teeth

Your knife will fall out of its sheath

But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie”

It’s dark, but it’s also uplifting in a strange way.  After all, the album ends with “Tougher than it is,” a song about the need to relax and not create unnecessary drama in your life.  That song is a bit clunky and too sing-songy, but it sets the mood nicely for “End of the Movie”.  Age, heartache and disappointment may be ahead, but there’s a glory in getting through the challenges.  At least that’s what I take from it.  It’s kind of like seeing this crazy CD Odyssey through to the end, only a lot more important.  At least I hope so.

Best tracks:  Wheels, Take It All Away, Carbon Monoxide, The Guitar Man, End of the Movie

CD Odyssey Disc 430: Dio

My apologies for the time that has passed since my last review.  I’ve been out of town all weekend visiting my folks in Powell River and when I got back on Monday, I had to renew my passport.  After all of the travel and then queue sitting, I didn’t feel up to anything beyond video games and TV.

Then last night, we had company over and after they left it was late and I was too tired to write a review, which is a bad situation when you’ve already heard a mediocre record five times over.

So now I am now motivated to get this done, mostly because I want a new album to walk to work with tomorrow.

Disc 430 is…The Last in Line

Artist: Dio

Year of Release: 1984

What’s up with the Cover?  Dio delivers some fine album covers.  This one is some terrifying vision of one of the layers of Hell, throngs of lost souls gathering under a demonic presence flashing Dio’s trademark two finger salute.  These covers use to scare me just a little as a teenager.

How I Came To Know It: I was already a Dio fan from his earlier album, and was very happy when my brother (who was making good money at the time and buying a lot of eighties metal records) bought this one when it came out.  I bought it on CD years later, and I’ve had it for a while.

How It Stacks Up:  Since my last Dio review (“Holy Diver” reviewed way back at Disc 68) I’ve made good on my promise to get “Sacred Heart” and now have three Dio albums.  “The Last in Line” is the weakest of the three.

Rating:  2 stars

While I fulfilled the CD Odyssey rules no problem, over the last two days, other albums started sneaking their way into my daily walks replacing this one.  Yesterday, I listened to Billy Bragg’s “Don’t Try This At Home” on the walk to work, but reverted to “Last in Line” on the way home.  Today, I listened to Hayes Carll’s “Trouble in Mind” in both directions, although I did muster up the courage to return to Dio for my drive to and from the gym.  In short, my attention span has been noticeably slipping.

This is because “Last in Line” is simply not a very strong album.  Sure, all of the Dio basics are there; soaring operatic vocals, power chords and cleverly crafted melodies (the back of the album proudly notes in large font, “all lyrics and melodies written by Ronnie James Dio.”)  It is just that this is a weaker effort than I expect from a man who delivered such amazing work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his first solo effort.  “Last in Line” is just derivative of the first album, but without the same consistent quality of work.

Even one of my guilty pleasures, “Mystery” is little more than Dio ripping his own sound off, and then glamming it up a bit (incidentally, I liked the glam-up, which is what makes the pleasure so guilty for me).

It starts off well enough, though, and if you were to judge the record by the first two songs, you’d have to hold it every bit the equal of “Holy Diver.” The opening track, “We Rock” indeed rocks, with its vintage mid-eighties proto-speed metal sound, this was the music later, and heavier rock acts grew up listening to (even if nowadays far too few in metal circles will admit Dio’s influence).

The second (and title) track is why I bought this album, even though I remembered not thinking much of it when I first heard it back in 1984.  “The Last in Line” is one part-fantasy novel, one part post-Armageddon judgment day and all parts awesome.

Starting off with a solo guitar gently plucking, Dio sings the first few lines like he’s channeling some British folk singer from the sixties.  But this is mid-eighties metal my friends, and such pleasantries do not last for long on many metal records at this time.  Dio quickly reverts to form, launching into the song good and properly with a full-throated roar, singing:

“We're off to the witch

We may never never never come home

But the magic that we'll feel

Is worth a lifetime”

In case you’re keeping track, that’s three whole ‘nevers.’  Accompanied by power guitar, playing a few notes, then pausing dramatically, it is “I Love Rock and Roll” – now with more wizards.  By the time the fourth stanza is out, Dio is in fine ‘what the hell does he mean?’ form with his lyrics:

“We don't come alone

We are fire we are stone

We're the hand that writes

Then quickly moves away”

It doesn’t mean much, but when I was fourteen the idea of a hand that writes and then quickly moves away seemed oddly cool.  OK, I admit it – it still seems pretty cool.  The song itself is about judgment day, and if you want to know what Dio’s on about, go take another look at the cover.  The song is about nothing less than the salvation or damnation of the human race, and Dio’s tiny frame has a voice big enough to sing about such weighty topics and make them seem imminent.

Not so, most of the songs that follow.  Most have lyrics that are equally obscure but missing all the mystical weight of the title track.  Of course, if all you want are more references to rainbows, Dio doesn’t fail to deliver.  This album has nine songs, and three of them feature frickin’ rainbows:

From “Breathless”:

“Living inside your mind

Who knows the things you'll find

There could be hell or rainbows”

From “Evil Eyes”:

“Oh do you ever think about the way

I caught the rainbow

I'll be there when fire makes you dance”

And from the ‘space men visited us once, opus, “Egypt”:

“You've seen them walkin' on the water

You've seen flyin' through the sky

They were frightening in the darkness

They had rainbows in their eyes”

I know you’re wondering what the hell these songs are about but I think what’s important right now is – rainbows! That’s all you need to know.  In Dio’s world, no topic is so dark, and no music so heavy, that it can’t benefit from a little bit of rainbow magic.  Rainbow magic might be wrong for most metal artists, but I think we can all agree it is right for Dio.

There was a lot of bad eighties metal coming out at this time, and I shouldn’t pick on Dio so much, since this was one of his few clunkers amidst a lot of magic.  Also, the title track for “Last in Line” is one of the finest metal songs of its era, and worth every penny I paid for this record.  If the other songs are a bit pedestrian, I think I can forgive them for it.  Mind you, after five listens, I am not feeling particularly charitable beyond that.  Of the three Dio records I have, this one is indeed the last in line.  Two stars, Dio.

Best tracks:  We Rock, The Last in Line, Mystery

CD Odyssey Disc 429: Alice Cooper

In my last review I bemoaned that Gene Simmons didn’t descend into the depths of the human psyche for the sake of his art.  So naturally the dice gods rewarded me with someone who did.

Disc 429 is…Killer

Artist: Alice Cooper

Year of Release: 1971

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s a snake, and some bad handwriting.  Alice loves snakes – they also feature on the cover of 1986’s “Constrictor”, 1991’s “Hey Stoopid” the British import cover for 2000’s “Brutal Planet” and if you count just the skin, 1973’s “Billion Dollar Babies”.

How I Came To Know It: I first fell in love with a lot of these songs as a kid listening to my brother’s greatest hits record.  I bought “Killer” on CD in about 1995, when I found it ridiculously cheap at the short-lived used section of A&B Sound.  I think they were trying to undercut Lyle’s Place for business, but it was ultimately A&B Sound that went out of business, not Lyle’s.  Score one for local business.

How It Stacks Up:  I have all twenty-six of Alice Cooper’s studio albums.  “Killer” is one of the best.  I think I’m going to put it 4^th or 5^th, in a statistical tie with the very different, but also brilliant “Welcome to My Nightmare.”

Rating:  4 stars (close to 5 - corrected)

Certain albums are beloved by fans and critics alike, and “Killer” is one of those albums for Alice Cooper.  Few casual fans own this record, which is a great pity, because it is a hell of a fine rock album.

It came out in 1971, following only ten months after his masterpiece “Love it to Death,” and built on that record’s well balanced combination of hard seventies shock rock, psychedelic sixties-inspired organ, and progressive opuses about a host of troubling topics.

The album screeches to a start with a guitar shriek that is reminiscent car breaks applied at high speed, as the band launches into “Under My Wheels.”  Not content with the subtle, Alice proceeds to gleefully sing about running someone over.  Starting as half rock song, half-spastic threat, it then morphs into big-band like trumpets.  Then it combines all three elements, with a bit of in tune yelling from master vocalist Cooper.  It does all of this craziness in just under three minutes.

From here we’re treated to the lascivious “Be My Lover” a song that takes more than a hint of sexual tension, and turns it into a song about identity crisis.  This is one of my favourite songs and to this day the best expression of the struggle with the ‘real’ life of Vincent Furnier, and the psychopathic front man that he created in Alice Cooper.  As ‘Alice’ sings to his potential date:

“I told her that I came from Detroit City

And I played guitar in a long-haired rock and roll band.

She asked me why the singer’s name was Alice

I said 'listen, babe, you really wouldn’t understand.'”

Musically the sweet, sweet guitar riff in this song connects to a series of brilliant, off-kilter drum rolls, plus Alice’s lyrics and finally a slowed tempo that is entirely designed to sound like the over-sexualized end of burlesque show.

How will such a story end?  Remember, this is Alice Cooper we’re talking about, so when I tell you it cuts out abruptly into the prog masterpiece “Halo of Flies,” a song about Satan himself (I think), we shouldn’t be at all surprised.

“Halo of Flies” is one of those perfectly constructed songs.  It changes its tune constantly, now featuring guitar, now organ, now drum, now bass, and never feeling like it is just giving the instruments their turn at a solo, like the ending of a bad concert would do.  At one point, Cooper even works in a riff from the Sound of Music's “These are a Few of My Favourite Things.”  What’s more, when it ends over eight minutes later you realize the band has made it all work, at times without you even noticing.

To round off Side One we have “Desperado” a song about a vicious gunfighter in the old west, confronting his own disturbed morality even as he revels in it.  The song features half the verses sung in in a slow, western style deep pitch, and half in a high, fast rock rasp.  It epitomizes the internal and external qualities of an interesting, but morally suspect individual.  Just the way Furnier imagines the Alice Cooper character, but only brought fully to life with the genius of the playing of his band mates (remember this is still when ‘Alice Cooper’ referred to both the lead singer and the band as a whole).  Every line of this song is fantastic, but today this section appeals:

I wear lace and I wear black leather

My hands are lightning upon my gun

My shots are clean and my shots are final

My shots are deadly and when it’s done

You’re as stiff as my smoking barrel

You’re as dead as a desert night

You’re a notch and I’m a legend

You’re at peace and I must hide.”

When Cooper sings these lines, I feel like the killer in the song is not only hiding physically from his crimes, but mentally rebelling against the very nature of what he’s become.  His own perverse performance is summed up in the song’s final two lines:

I’m a killer, I’m a clown

I’m a priestess gone to town.”

All these great songs and it is only Side One.  Side Two features more of the same, but the highlight is “Dead Babies.”  If the title track to “Billion Dollar Babies” is an indictment of children growing up surrounded by empty materialism, then “Dead Babies” is an indictment of parenting so bad that the kids don’t even make it out of infancy.

Starting with a discordant bass lick, the song slowly builds from there, Cooper’s voice a mournful half-moan as he enumerates the perils of an open bottle of aspirin, with Daddy absent in Texas and Mommy frittering away her nights at the local pub, knocking them back unawares.

I was reading an article about Cooper from 2008, and over twenty-five years later, “Dead Babies” was still eliciting outrage in the community.  Admittedly I saw Cooper’s stage show that year, and it was more than a little graphic during this song.  Although mostly old degenerate rockers like me filled the seats, here and there I spied some shockingly young children.  As the song and accompanying bloody visuals played across their faces, I wondered if their parents were aware of the irony of the situation.  I’m sure Alice did.

Alice Cooper is often thought of as nothing more than the founder of shock theatre in rock concerts.  Yes, he pioneered the genre (no Gene, it wasn’t you) and yes over the years he’s remained the master of it, but albums like “Killer” remind me that he is a lot more than that.  His music is thoughtful, dynamic and – particularly when accompanied by the full Alice Cooper Band – played with a grotesque brilliance.

Yes, I love Alice Cooper, but I’d like to think I’m fair and honest when I review him.  So far, I’ve reviewed fifteen previous albums of his, and I’ve assigned two stars five times, three or four stars four times each and the coveted five stars only twice.  This album came very close to being the third.

Best tracks:  Be My Lover, Halo of Flies, Desperado, Dead Babies

CD Odyssey Disc 428: KISS

Juggling work and volunteer duties has me sapped this week, but I’m determined to get this next review written, if only to get the damned thing off my MP3 player.

Disc 428 is…KISS:  Gene Simmons

Artist: Gene Simmons

Year of Release: 1978

What’s up with the Cover?  Each of these KISS solo albums features the head of the featured band member, limned in some coloured light.  Gene’s light is unsurprisingly red.  Also he’s the only KISS cover of the four to feature an ‘action’ pose – he’s got blood dripping from his mouth.

How I Came To Know It: I have known KISS since the first record I ever bought (1976’s “Destroyer”)  and these solo albums held considerable fascination for me as a child.  I wanted them all, but as an adult I’ve only ever got two on CD.  I reviewed Ace Frehley’s entry way back at Disc 94.  Gene Simmons’ effort was encouraged by my friend Joel, who said that while it wasn’t as good as the Frehley record, it was OK.

How It Stacks Up:  I have ten regular KISS studio albums plus two of the four solo albums.  Of the two solo albums, the Ace Frehley one is far superior.  Against the KISS records, Gene also comes up short, maybe better than one or two of those only.

Rating: 2 stars.

Prepare to be shocked, reality TV fans; there was a time when Gene Simmons was a legitimate rock star.  Yes, before he made money creating drama out of whether or not he would  marry Shannon Tweed, or if he did what colour they’d paint the foyer of their mansion, he had a real job.  He was the bass player and head visionary for the monster rock band KISS.  A band so big that to this day, when you spell it you use all capitals.

So what happened to Gene along the road of rock and roll glory?  Who took him out of this rock and roll hell we music lovers preferred him in?  The answer is the same thing that keeps this record from being anything but mediocre; his own ego.

But first, the good parts of this solo effort, and there are some.  Firstly, backed up by such strong voices as Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielson, Cher, Donna Summer and (most importantly) The Azusa Citrus College Choir, Simmons voice is surprisingly competent.

OK, admittedly that was an unkind way to start the positive part of the commentary.  Gene was never the greatest singer in KISS – he was tied for a distant third with Peter Criss.  Given that, he actually accounts for himself well on this solo album.  He stays wisely within his limited range and lets the guest vocalists flesh out the edges of the tune.

Also, the record has an old-school KISS sound on many of the songs which I appreciated at a time when the band as a whole were turning in a new direction.  Not that I minded the disco-influenced sounds of “Dynasty” – I actually liked Dynasty – but Simmons’ love for old style sixties rock and roll is evident on his solo record in a very heartwarming way.

In fact, many of these songs would have been better served in the early sixties pop format; two to two and a half minute tracks that are heavy on a single melodic hook, and light on content beyond that.  Instead, they tend to have one or two stilted verses, and then an overlong fade out of the chorus.  It is like Simmons could think of a hook, but couldn’t develop the song into anything more dynamic without a helping hand from Paul or Ace.  Even his bass solo on “Living In Sin” is boring, and he is a bass player by trade.

Coming from a man who is famous for never touching alcohol, the songs are strangely constructed like a bad night out drinking; they ramp up too quickly, stumble around without going anywhere for a while and eventually just fade away.

The one notable exception is “Always Near You/Nowhere to Hide” which actually develops into something interesting by the end, although it takes giving the song two full names to inspire Simmons to actually build in some musical progression.

Subject-wise, the music is too wrapped up in Simmons’ obsession with himself, or more accurately, his obsession with his image.  The album features songs about groupies seeking him out for hotel sex (“Living in Sin”) but without the lascivious charm that Paul Stanley brings to the material.  In other places, Simmons pontificates about how great a chameleon he is as an entertainer, (“Man of 1,000 Faces”, “Mr. Make Believe”).

When Ace Frehley sings about the party lifestyle on his solo record, it sounds both hard core and tragic at the same time.  Simmons’ struggles with his own awareness of himself as an entertainer don’t translate as well into art.  They mostly come off as self-absorbed, rather than insightful, which is what I think he was going for.

When I was a young boy KISS was my favourite band.  I was a member of the KISS Army – and remember this was back in the day that you actually had to write away for a package in the mail.  Gene Simmons was far and away my favourite member of the band, breathing fire, spitting blood and sticking his ridiculously long tongue out at every opportunity.  I begged my Mom to make me a Gene Simmons Halloween costume for three straight years (she only balked because I refused to wear makeup.  Looking back, I can see how that prohibition would make the whole thing impossible to pull off).

As an adult, it is a bit disappointing to see behind the makeup, because it wrecks this perfect image I had of Gene as ‘The Demon’.  I really should admire him more for being able to put the makeup on and off so easily without falling down the horrible rabbit hole that Alice Cooper spent years clawing his way out of.  Simmons is a well-balanced guy, and if “Family Jewels” is even remotely true, he’s raised a pretty nice family.  I even kind of enjoy the occasional episode of the show in a guilty pleasure kind of way.  Still, looking at him spend his time on a cell phone with lawyers trying to corner the copyright on the “$” symbol is a little too far on the beaten path for a rock and roll icon.

Listening to his 1978 solo albm was a similar experience musically.  It wasn’t bad, but it smacks of a lot of calculated business decisions – bringing in all kinds of guest musicians, and taking very few risks.  If anything, I felt like I was getting less of the real Gene Simmons instead of more. 

The record ends with an unconscionably bad rendition of “When You Wish upon a Star.”  It is so bad that every time I hear it, it threatens to wreck the whole album for me.  Fortunately, there is enough of Gene the Rock Star earlier to hold this record up at two stars.  I just wish there were a bit more Demon, and a little less Wizard of Oz.

Best tracks:  Burning Up with Fever, Always Near You/Nowhere to Hide, Man of a Thousand Faces

CD Odyssey Disc 427: Cat Stevens

Last night I was at the art gallery and had a chance to view a collection of paintings by William Kurelek.  I was absolutely overwhelmed by this painter’s ability to blend the stark and beautiful landscapes of Canada with apocalyptic visions and genuinely troubled self-exploration.  Go check him out if you get a chance.  And now, back to music.

Disc 427 is…Greatest Hits

Artist: Cat Stevens

Year of Release: 1975, but featuring music from 1970-1975

What’s up with the Cover?  Cat Stevens flies his own flag.  Cat is a tranquil and wise looking guy and it’s easy to see how he could create the hippy music of his day so well.  That splash of colour behind his shoulders makes him look a little bit like a youthful version of comic book hero Dr. Strange – another wise figure from the seventies.

How I Came To Know It: I had heard Cat Stevens on and off on AM radio for years, but I think the first time I heard this album was when my friend Curt brought it over to the house one day in the mid-eighties (it belonged to his parents).  Curt thought Cat was OK, but I loved it, and it wasn’t long after CDs came out that I bought it in that format.

How It Stacks Up:  This is a greatest hits album, and for reasons oft-stated on A Creative Maelstrom, do not stack up.

Rating: n/a.  Greatest hits records don’t get rated!

All you need is love.  The Beatles said it, but Cat Stevens made us believe it.  His songs preach forgiveness and understanding and he sings them with such conviction that you can’t help but take their advice.

Cat’s voice is gentle and natural.  He always sounds like he’s sitting across the fire from you at some outdoor summer party, rather than a record studio.  He sings high and clear like a breeze coming off the shore of the ocean.  When he ‘rocks out’ as he does from time to time, that voice becomes a bit more staccato but even when Cat is barking at you, it is a gentle barking.

As a composer, the songs represented on this record could serve as a handbook on how to write a melody, construct a song, and make all the right instrumentation decisions.  I don’t know how hard Cat Stevens worked at all of these things, but the amazing thing is how easy it seems for him.

Even when the songs are sad, like the famous “Wild World” they are still uplifting.  Cat turns a song about being dumped and turns it into a song about forgiveness and the importance to part on good terms.

“Now that I’ve lost everything to you

You say you want to start something new

And it’s breaking my heart you’re leaving, baby, I’m grieving

But if you wanna leave, take good care

Hope you have a lot of nice things to wear

But then a lot of nice things turn bad out there.”

It would be easy for the cynical to listen to read these lyrics from “Wild World” and see them as very passive aggressive.  But when you listen to Cat sing it is hard to hear that in his voice.  He just sounds grieved and trying to wish someone well through the grief. 

“Wild World” is off the 1970 classic “Tea for the Tillerman.”  That album brings me back to a wonderful woman I met in 4^th year university.  Well, actually she met me – just walking up to me in psych class and introducing herself.  Shortly thereafter we were dating.  One night I remember just sitting with her and her friend in a cramped apartment while she intricately braided the other girl’s hair as we listened to “Tea for the Tillerman” The experience was a lot like Cat Stevens’ music; it sounds a bit hackneyed talking about it, but when you’re immersed in it, your spirit is strangely lifted.  Eventually we broke up (she met a man who shared her love of hiking and had ‘stars in his eyes’).  I’ve never had such a free, easy and blame free break up.  Cat would be proud.

In songs like “Father & Son” and “Can’t Keep It In” Cat tackles the reckless dreams of youth (thank you, Neil Peart).  When you hear these songs at an early age they put a voice to all your burning desires and yearnings to get out into the world and do your part (and in “Father & Son” the cynical but insightful response of experience).  At the age of forty-two, and still chasing a few of those dreams of youth, these songs still speak to me and help put some more gas in the tank for the miles yet to come.

Even songs that seem like they should now be dated for other reasons, like “Peace Train” are still as relevant today as they were in the middle of the Cold War, when I first heard them.  When Cat sings:

“’Cause out on the edge of darkness/There rides the peace train

Oh peace train – take this country/Come take me home again.”

Complete with handclaps and backup singers singing ‘oh wee oh-ooh yaw’ it would be easy to imagine over-reaching hippy schmaltz.  That would be a mistake.  When you listen to Cat Stevens sing about world peace, you can actually envision world peace as a possibility, even if it is for only three minutes and forty four seconds.  It may not seem like much, but world peace is hard to come by.  I’ll take it in segments of 3:44 if that’s all I can get.

Lest I wax over-poetic, I will point out that this album has a couple of genuine stinkers.  “Another Saturday Night” is a gimmick song that is composed like a children’s song and represents all of the worst of ‘office reception radio.’  “Two Fine People” is a sappy love song that trades real emotion for proto-disco emotional emptiness.  Moreover, “Two Fine People” commits the cardinal sin of compilation albums; it was written just for the greatest hits album.

Putting a new song on a greatest hits record to encourage people who already own all the albums to buy it is a despicable soulless record exec practice.  It is tragically common these days, but I expect more from a hippy spirit guide like Cat Stevens.

Fortunately, apart from these two misses this album is indeed a series of hits, and inspirational ones at that.  Cat has an amazing ability to turn a phrase and deliver a wisdom that never seems preachy.  Many of the quotes from his songs have become inspirations for me on that road from youth to experience.  The best of the bunch is from “Sitting”:

“Oh life is like a maze of doors

And they all open from the side you’re on

Just keep on pushing hard boy, try as you may

You’re gonna wind up where you started from.”

Thanks for helping me find some of life’s door handles, Cat, and for continuing to stoke the fires of my hippy heart.

Best tracks:  Wild World, Can’t Keep It In, Hard Headed Woman, Peace Train, Father & Son, Sitting

CD Odyssey Disc 426: Figgy Duff

After many fits and starts, I finally made it back to the gym today, and getting in a workout has helped make a chaotic and busy world seem a little bit slower and more sensible.  It is amazing that the secret to life is really very little more than ‘eat right and exercise.’  You’d think there’d be more to it.

Disc 426 is…Downstream

Artist: Figgy Duff

Year of Release: 1993

What’s up with the Cover?  A close up of singer Figgy Duff singer Pamela Morgan looking kind of like an east coast folk version of actress Leah Thompson.  A google image search revealed this wistful half-smile is Morgan’s preferred pose when cameras are at hand.  This cover suits me well – nothing fancy, but well executed, with a title I can read.  As I noted in the teaser, everything doesn’t have to be complicated.

How I Came To Know It: I bought this album because I went to buy their album with the song “Woman of Labrador” on it (“Weather Out the Storm” reviewed way back at Disc 67).   That album wasn’t in, but this one was so I settled for it and hoped for the best while I waited them to restock the album I really wanted.

How It Stacks Up:  I only have two Figgy Duff albums.  This one is by far the inferior record of the two.

Rating: 2 stars

On my way to and from the gym today I listened to Billy Bragg, a little too loud, and with the top down.  I guess I felt I had earned a break after two full days to and from work with Figgy Duff’s “Downstream.”

In case you're slow on the uptake, this is a sign that I’m not going to have a lot of good things to say about this album, but I’m going to do my best to mute my scorn because despite this record’s many faults, Figgy Duff are earnest in their efforts, and because over their full career they did a lot of good for Newfoundland folk music, for which I’m very thankful.

With this in mind, let’s start with the best track on the record, “Twilight.”  This song is a stark piece of beauty.  From the lonely playing of the lone piano that starts it off to the frail sound of Pamela Morgan’s voice piercing the quickly closing darkness of the song’s theme it delivers an emotional wallop.  This is a song about intolerance that ends in both death and societal disintegration.  Morgan’s vocal chops make it strangely beautiful just ensures you pay close attention despite the rough ride.  It is a song about isolation, and those who get isolated without just cause, and at times it can be a hard listen – hey, it’s called “Twilight” not “Dawn,” people. 

“Twilight” is a fine work of art that has something important to say about human nature, love and at only 3:24 in running time it ends well before you get tired of it.  So, you know, not the movies.

And now, I must turn to some less kind observations.

First, I found the album’s production painfully fuzzy.  I think an effort was made to give the whole album a dreamy quality, with lots of ambient sound.  Instead it comes off indistinct and uninspired.  The musical arrangements are vaguely Celtic, but a lot of the traditional instruments like fiddle show up so far back in the mix you have to strain to hear them at all.

It felt like I was stuck at some boring summer garden party being forced to sip virgin mint juleps and endure easy listening AM radio while the neighbours next door have a kegger in full swing, with everyone dancing.  You strain to hear more of what’s going on over the fence but the damn stereo at your own event – while painfully low – is still too damned loud to let you hear the good stuff right nearby.

Morgan’s voice is as pretty as ever, but the production decisions make it sound very thin in places, and the melodies in the song compositions – with a few exceptions – don’t do her the justice she deserves.  Most of the songs are a maddening mismatch of song construction and singer.

Also, for the most part the writing is overly saccharine.  The anti-war song “Freedom” compared very poorly to classics like Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” or even more modern folk tracks like Capercaillie’s “Black Fields.”  It may seem cruel to compare a relatively small Canadian act like Figgy Duff to folk greats like Dylan or Capercaillie, but the reality is that is the competition that happens every day for space on my CD carousel or MP3 player – and those artists consistently win for good reason.

As I pointed out earlier, Figgy Duff are earnest on this record, and I give them full marks for this.  They clearly work hard to compose songs that are not derivative, which is more than you can say for a lot of acts these days.  That said, topics like bullying (“Allanadh”) or autism (“Song for Paul”) are a delicate balance, and can sound either trite or insincere if they’re mishandled.  I think “Downstream” successfully delivers on sincerity in both cases, but can’t seem to avoid the trite.  Important topics, yes, but they come off feeling like that old Nestle Quik commercial where the Mom comforts the boy with hot chocolate after a tough day at the playground.

There are many lyrical missteps, but here are a couple of lines from “Crown of Thorns” that is particularly painful:

“Well I perceive that you don’t like me much

You don’t want me around

If there’s a thorn in your side

It’s from my crown – crown of thorns.

“Well I perceive that you’re uncomfortable

My presence kind of makes you squirm

It’s cuz I’m not afraid to tell it like it is

And open up a can – can of worms.”

So hard to quickly paint all the ways these lyrics need help.  The  tired expressions (‘can of worms’, ‘crown of thorns’), the sentence structure (no poem should have ‘kind of’ in it just to serve the meter of the line) or the use of an overwrought word like ‘perceive’ when the writer really means ‘see.’  It is too bad, because musically “Crown of Thorns” is one of the better songs on the record, but the lyrics make it really hard to listen to.

When I reviewed “Weather out the Storm” I pointed out that when they stick to traditional Celtic arrangements, Figgy Duff are excellent, but when they try a more modern world music/new age sound they fall flat.  That is true for “Downstream” as well, except that they’ve taken two more steps in the wrong direction on this record.  It makes me want to hear their earlier albums, which I expect would be much more to my liking.

Best tracks:  Twilight

CD Odyssey Disc 425: Tool

After a hard-fought ultimate game, I’ve awakened from a refreshing nap and an equally refreshing shower ready to take on the next review in the CD Odyssey.

Disc 425 is…Opiate

Artist: Tool

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s fun with double exposures!  Here, the result is a creepy six armed priest.  Listen to enough Tool and you’ll quickly discover they’re not too keen on religion.

How I Came To Know It: This was another album that my old roommate Greg put me on to (along with “Undertow” reviewed back at Disc 131).  Greg was in on the whole Tool scene from the ground floor, and brought me along for the ride.

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Tool albums.  “Opiate” is only an EP, so it is hard to compare, but I’ll put it 4^th anyway.

Rating: 4 stars

“Opiate” is only an EP, but in just six songs it captures just as much of Tool’s ferocity as any of their excellent works that would follow.  Here, in 1992 we see the beginning of a musical journey that form legions of dedicated fans, throngs of enthralled critics and more than likely a few sleepless nights for the more squeamish among us.

Tool is a band that gives voice to the underbelly of existence.  Lead singer Maynard James Keenan isn’t interested in sharing his love of puppies with us.  He prefers to explore the mysteries of the universe, usually finding them cold and discomfiting.

When he sings about the human condition, and he finds unexpected kinships in our insecurities.  On “Opiate” this is exemplified by “Cold and Ugly” a song about facades and fears:

“Trembling at the thought of feeling

 Wide awake and keeping distance

 Nothing seems to penetrate her.

‘cause she's scared as hell.

“I am frightened too

I am frightened”

When Keenan sings “I am frightened too” it comes from a deep an honest place where he sounds genuinely frightened; for himself, for the girl in the song, maybe for all of us.  It isn’t often you’ll hear a metal lyric that admits to being scared, but that is the charm and the horror of Tool.  They scare you into paying attention to the lizard brain inside all of us, and that rarely paints a pretty picture.

When “Opiate” strolls away from the personal experience, it tends to get even darker.  Focusing on the realm of the civilized, Keenan sees only hypocrisy and self-serving power structures.  “Hush” is a guttural scream of defiance against censorship in all its forms, replete with and a torrent of expletives that seem entirely at home within Keenan’s core anger that he can’t say what he wants to, even if he’s not serious.  Everyone has to govern what they say once in a while, of course, but Tool gives a voice to the frustration that can cause.

It is hard to figure what they feel they can’t say on this first record, mind you.  Topics include nightmares, fear, censorship, masturbation (strangely not the song called “Jerk Off”), murder and on the title track, a vicious assault on organized religion.

Most metal songs called “Opiate” would be about drug use, but leave it to Tool to be referencing Karl Marx’s famous quote about religion.  I’ll leave whatever you think of that to you – I blog about music, not politics or religion – but the song itself is a breath stealing five minutes and twenty seconds.  Like a breath, it flows in and out, now slow and troubled, now fast and angry until it ultimately explodes into a minute long drum solo that I can only call a rape of the ears.

After the song ends (it is the final one on the album) we get that annoying habit of early nineties metal albums; the hidden track.  This one comes after about a minute of silence, and is a fairly entertaining little tale of a couple of oddball characters that go a bit crazy.  One takes acid and thinks he’s a fire hose, and another takes ecstasy and has sex with the furniture.  I wish it were a separate track, and if it were I’d still listen to it, but it is a minor qualm on an otherwise great record.

The high degree of musicianship the band would later become famous for is on early display throughout.  Most EPs you will hear from early in a band’s career sound like they were recorded in an oil barrel and only listenable because you can hear the promise of what will come later in the band’s career.  Not so, Tool, who Apollo-like spring fully clothed from the head of rock, playing intricate arrangements as tightly as any ten year veterans.

The album is anchored by the rhythm section of Paul D’Amour’s bass and Danny Carey’s drums.  Carey is always great, and has gone on to have a body of work only matched by Rush’s Neil Peart in terms of its ambition and ability.  D’Amour left the band in 1995 and despite the great bass playing on later records, listening to “Opiate” made me wish he’d been there for their full career. 
 

Like the full-length albums that would follow it, “Opiate” isn’t music for the squeamish, and it doesn’t pull its punches.  If you are easily offended, seek your pleasures elsewhere.  As for me, I think it is yet another classic entry in Tool’s great discography that has only one serious weakness; it’s too short.

Best tracks:  Hush, Cold and Ugly, Opiate.

CD Odyssey Disc 424: Judas Priest

It’s been a long day at the office, and I’m ready to have a little decompression time watching the Olympics with Sheila.  Before I get there though, the CD Odyssey has to exact its usual musical price, however, with the latest randomly selected album to review.

Disc 424 is…Point of Entry

Artist: Judas Priest

Year of Release: 1981

What’s up with the Cover?  It’s the second cover in a row featuring a road.  This one is a bit more high-tech (at least for the time) with that early computer art we’ve all since learned to loathe.  I know I loathe it.

How I Came To Know It: This was just me drilling through the Judas Priest collection in recent years.  I came to “Point of Entry” fairly late – definitely in the last five years or so.

How It Stacks Up:  I have twelve Judas Priest albums, and for the most part they are excellent.  With apologies to my buddy Ross, I’ll put “Point of Entry” at 11^th or 12^th, depending on how charitable I am feeling toward 2008’s rather bloated double album “Nostradamus” at the time.

Rating: 2 stars

There are very few bands that can pump out ten or more records and not deliver at least one weak link.  Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, - hell, even my idols Blue Oyster Cult have done it.  And so it happened to the great Judas Priest as well, with “Point of Entry.”

What is surprising is that “Point of Entry” is chronologically situated between two Priest classics, 1980’s masterpiece “British Steel” and “Screaming for Vengeance” which in addition to being excellent is the first album ever reviewed for the Odyssey (you'll note I was a lot less verbose in those days).

When I reviewed “British Steel” I said it was the perfect melding of melodic classic rock, and pounding metal.  “Point of Entry” is the same blend, but somehow the formula is all wrong.

The record is still inspired, deep down, by proto-blues fifties guitar riffs.  Double lead players Glen Tipton and K.K. Dowling still show their seemingly bottomless talent for writing these things and making it look easy.  Even Rob Halford is still a resplendent vocalist when in full throat.  Despite this, the songs seem patched together, particularly the pedestrian choruses on a lot of these tracks.  “Hot Rockin’” is a prime example, starting off promising with a Chuck Berry-inspired guitar riff (plus steroids) but then descending into a truly forgettable chorus of “I’m gonna go/I wanna go/I’m gonna go/Hot rockin’.”  And it isn’t the lyrics that wreck it (although they are self-evidently awful) the hook just isn’t much of a hook, and even a good guitar riff can’t save the song.

In places, this album’s production and composition had me wondering if Priest had been unduly influenced by the rise in popularity of the hard rock stadium bands of the late seventies and early eighties, particularly on the very forgettable “Don’t Go.”  Priest is better than that, and by descending to that level they lose their unique sound, and instead sound like they’re trying too hard to be like everybody else.

There are still some bright spots on this record.  For example, in the middle of an otherwise pedestrian song like “Turning Circles” there is a fine rock-blues guitar solo that would make Buck Dharma proud.

Also, when they do recapture the alchemy of their sound, it is electrifying as ever.  The opening track, “Heading Out On the Highway” is vintage early Priest, with unison singing, top line guitar riffs and a general sound that says ‘drive fast and live free’ – the message every metal album must deliver well if it wants to be serious.

“Solar Angels” mixes this early sound with the heavy anthemic qualities I’d first learn to love as a fourteen year old on “Defenders of the Faith” and is good to have probably made the cut on that killer record.

Rob Halford’s lyrics are at their dirty best on “All the Way” and “Troubleshooter” although only the latter really inspired me musically.

Unfortunately, the high spots on this album aren’t frequent enough to pull the whole record up.  Even the bonus tracks (a live version of “Desert Plains” and an early composition called “Thunder Road” – no relation to Springsteen) were weak entries on the extra material front.

This isn’t a bad album, and no doubt I’m holding it to a higher standard because of how much I absolutely love Priest’s other works to this point (for proof just read the reviews I've linked to in this review).  Still, I can’t deny that "Point of Entry" left me wanting more.  As Bad Santa teaches us, “they can’t all be winners, kid.

Best tracks:  Heading out on the Highway, Solar Angels, Troubleshooter.