CD Odyssey Disc 1529: Frank Turner

Another snow day leads to another long commute without my car, but it also means I got in some quality music listening time. I love the commute!

Disc 1529 is….  Obviously

Artist: Frank Turner

Year of Release: 2019

What’s up with the Cover? I used to know two fellas back when I was a kid. One was an accomplished martial artist and would sometimes decide out of the blue to aggressively practice his kung fu moves. The other (much smaller) fella would sometimes get very excited by this and throw himself into the whirling limbs only to be dashed violently to the side. He never seemed to mind this outcome and would just pick himself up and do it all over again. No one ever knew the reason. I’ve always assumed…adventure?

That is not what is happening on this album cover, but I would caution anyone who encountered a goddess/superhero posing powerfully in front of an eclipse like this to not throw yourself into whatever is going on. First of all it is rude, and second of all you might get a bloody lip for your trouble.

But I digress…

How I Came To Know It: I’m a big Frank Turner fan. Not “follow him to all 40 shows” kind of level, but definitely “follow him to 2 or 3 shows as part of a holiday” kind of level. This was just me buying his latest release. His next is due out this February, and I’m looking forward to it. If I’m lucky and the pandemic relents, maybe there’ll even be a tour date later in the year.

How It Stacks Up: I have eight Frank Turner albums. I like them all but one of them has to be last, and this is it. So…#8.

Ratings: 3 stars

Frank Turner’s “No Man’s Land” had me thinking about Swedish metal band Sabaton. Not because Turner’s traded in his folk-rock guitar stylings for European power metal, although that would be interesting to hear. Rather, it is because Sabaton loves a good theme. In their case, they sing almost exclusively about warfare, but sometimes they’re so committed to accurately telling the story, they lose the song for the theme.

“No Man’s Land” suffers a similar fate. Turner’s chosen theme is remarkable women. Some heroes, some villains and some in-between, but all remarkable. I love a record with a theme, and this is a good one, but while Turner is one of rock and roll’s great storytellers the quality here is not as consistent as his previous efforts.

There are still some gems, most notably the album’s single, “Sister Rosetta.” This tells the story of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who recorded gospel music in the thirties and forties while playing blues guitar. Her choice of instrument, the way she played, and the host of people influenced by her sound helped create what know today as rock and roll. As they say in rock and roll speak, ‘that’s fucking cool.’ So is the song, that has a rhythm and groove that pays homage to Tharpe, while staying within Frank Turner’s folk-rock wheelhouse. The song is inspirational and catchy in equal measure.

“A Perfect Wife” is another standout, a light-hearted birdsong of a tune, that belies the fact it is about serial killer Nannie Doss. The juxtaposition of the happy delivery of the chorus of “oh, oh, oh, I haven’t been a perfect wife” with the broader story in the verses is inspired.

My last favourite is “Eye of the Day” which tells the story of Mata Hari. Turner’s tune is a mournful and introspective first-person exploration of the character, painting colour, meaning and nuance into someone that is often relegated to nothing more than “German spy” in the annals of history. Her life and the circumstances of her conviction are both worthy of greater attention, and Frank brings out complexity and tragedy of the tale without being excessively explanatory.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case on “No Man’s Land”. A number of songs feel too crammed with detail, and while the stories of the various women are universally interesting to explore, the same can’t be true for the songs Turner honours them with. None are terrible, but many could benefit from stronger melodies or fewer facts.

I was also disappointed with Turner’s new recording of “Silent Key”. The song is the story of Christa McAuliffe’s death in the Challenger disaster and is one of my favourites from his 2015 album “Positive Songs for Negative People” (reviewed back at Disc 791). The original album had two versions (electric and acoustic) and both are heartbreaking and beautiful. Turner opts for a softer more hopeful delivery on “No Man’s Land” and the lack of all the underlying pain takes away from what should be one of the record’s best.

Despite my criticisms, Frank Turner remains one of my favourite artists of all time. I’ve seen him live more than any other band, and when concerts are allowed I’ll see him again. I am equally enamoured of his discography, which is chock full of brilliance. In some respects, “No Man’s Land” suffers by comparison to these other records, but don’t assume that means it is bad. It may not be my favourite, but I still like it plenty. Moreover it will have you scouring the internet and bookstores for more stories about these remarkable women. That’s an outcome I expect Frank would have preferred over a gushing review anyway.

Best tracks: Sister Rosetta, A Perfect Wife, Eye of the Day

CD Odyssey Disc 1389: Steve Earle

I spent some of my free time going through Paste Magazine’s “Top 25 albums of 1980. It is fair to say I disagreed with a lot of the choices, but I did find five new albums that I hadn’t previously heard and really enjoyed. If you’re interested in finding some new music from forty years ago, these are worth your time:

• Prince, “Dirty Mind”
• Devo, “Freedom of Choice”
• Pylons, “Gyrate”
• The Cramps, “Songs the Lord Taught Us”

Disc 1389 is…. Ghosts of West Virginia

Artist: Steve Earle

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover? Welcome back, Tony Fitzpatrick. I did not miss you. This cover appears to be an homage to all the people lost in mining accidents in West Virginia. Which is an important and affecting topic. I only wish I wasn’t so profoundly uninspired by Fitzpatrick’s painting style.   

How I Came To Know It: There was a time when I would just buy Steve Earle albums as they came out, but I’ve become more wary in recent years. When this one came out I gave it a listen on Youtube first and realized it was time to rejoin the ranks of the believers.

How It Stacks Up: I have 16 studio albums by Steve Earle (not counting his collaborations, nor his homages to Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt). Of those 16, I put “Ghosts of West Virginia” at #10. Since this once again concludes my full Steve Earle collection, here’s an updated recap:

1. I Feel Alright: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 14)
2. Exit 0: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 423)
3. Guitar Town: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 616)
4. El Corazon:  4 stars (reviewed at Disc 395)
5. Jerusalem: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1153)
6. Copperhead Road: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 398)
7. Train A Comin’:  4 stars (reviewed at Disc 127)
8. The Revolution Starts Now: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 359)
9. Sidetracks: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 851)
10. Ghosts of West Virginia: 4 stars (reviewed right here)
11. I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 718)
12. The Low Highway: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 633)
13. The Hard Way: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 179)
14. Washington Square Serenade: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 226)
15. The Mountain: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 332)
16. Transcendental Blues: 3 stars (reviewed at Disc 438)
17. Terraplane: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 980)

Ratings: 4 stars

“Ghosts of West Virginia” is Steve Earle’s best album in a decade. It is the kind of record I’ve been waiting on (sometimes impatiently) through underwhelming efforts like “Terraplane” and “So You Wanna Be An Outlaw”. With “Ghosts…” Earle reminds us that even if an aging artist doesn’t knock you off your feet every time, they still have a few good swings left in them, and you should keep giving them a chance to let one land.

Turns out all it took was a return to subject matter that never fails to inspire Earle; blue collar heroes struggling to carve out a life of honour for themselves and their families. In the case of “Ghosts of West Virginia,” it is about coal miners for the most part. Seven of the ten songs are about coal mining, and together form the bulk of the album. They are also featured in the stage play “Coal Country” about the 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that claimed the lives of 29 workers. If you think that having so many songs about a single topic (coal mining) would get tiresome, you’d be wrong. Instead you get a deep, multifaceted look at the lives and history of the people who work in some of the most dangerous conditions of any job in North America.

In delivering their stories, Earle draws on multiple influences he’s picked up over the years. The result is a mix of the manic rock-country vitriol Earle displayed on Jerusalem, sitting alongside the homespun mountain heartbreak of “The Mountain” (which Earle recorded alongside the Del McCoury bluegrass band. The two styles sit easily with one another, each complementing the other and adding to the record’s dynamics.

There’s no Del McCoury this time, but Earle is joined by the most recent incarnation of the Dukes, who are accomplished players equally adept at anger and tenderness, as the individual song demands. An extra shout-out to Eleanor Whitmore, who not only plays some energetic fiddle, but takes lead vocals on “If I Could See Your Face Again,” a song about a woman mourning the loss of her man that will be sure to put a coal-sized lump in your throat.

Sometimes Earle takes a wider lens, such as on “Union, God and Country” where he paints a picture of mining life through time, and sometimes he gets personal and visceral, as he does on “It’s About Blood” which ends with Earle naming the victims of the Upper Big Branch disaster.

My favourite song on the record is the last one. “The Mine” is a story anyone who has grown up in a resource town knows; the allure of the big money offered by a company job. In Earle’s version a young man is excited at the prospect of all the money he’s going to spend now that his brother has got him a position at the local mine:

“Well, my brother drives a brand new Ram truck with a hemi

And a satellite radio too

Well, I reckon, that’s the first thing I’m a gonna get me

And a baby blue Camaro for you.”

Hell, even I want that Camaro, but coming as the song does after songs about black lung, dead miners, lost jobs, and mourning widows you hear the narrator’s excitement with considerably more circumspection. The work is good, but it is also risky, and the song may sound relatively carefree on the surface, but Earle is clearly honouring the inherent bravery of the people who live a large part of their life down below it.

Best tracks: Union God and Country, Devil Put the Coal in the Ground, Time Is Never On Our Side, It’s About Blood, If I Could See Your Face Again, The Mine

CD Odyssey Disc 1189: Lindi Ortega

It’s been a long day filled with ups and downs but here I sit at the end of it with my old friends: a keyboard and an album full of music.

Disc 1189 is… Liberty

Artist: Lindi Ortega

Year of Release: 2018

What’s up with the Cover? Lindi Ortega rides out as a bandit, signature red boots high in the stirrups.

How I Came To Know It: I am a big fan of Lindi Ortega so when I heard she had a new album coming out I added it to my list. I waited impatiently for several months for it to be released. It was on my “to buy” list without a release date so I probably checked the stands three or four times before it was even out. Anyway, eventually it arrived at the local record store and I grabbed a copy.

How It Stacks Up:  I have five Lindi Ortega albums. Of those, I put “Liberty” in at the bottom of that list – so fifth.

Ratings: 3 stars

When you release a concept album you live or die by the theme – sometimes you do both. So it is with Lindi Ortega’s 2018 release “Liberty.”

Up to this point in her career Ortega has explored bad, sassy, sexy and more than a few dissertations on the elusive nature of both love and fame. On “Liberty” she takes a new tack, embracing traditional western themes and music, and fusing them with her seductive alt-country sound.

Ortega goes all in on these notions, with references to tornados, lonely plains, gunfights the love of a good man, and the equally important love of a good horse. The album features an early attempted murder (and maybe some kind of resurrection from the dead), some revenge before closing with what I think is a happy ending and a ride off into the sunset.

Musically, Ortega’s smoky, sultry vocals remain and she sings many of the songs in a half-whisper that makes them feel conspiratorial – like a death-bed confession laced with just the right amount of sin. There are places where I wanted Ortega to belt it out a bit (she comes close on “In the Clear,” but stays restrained and slightly layered in heavy guitar reverb).

That reverb is ever-present on the record and although it creates a cohesive sound it also serves to water down a lot of the great old-time spaghetti western feel the songs have. All the trappings of old school westerns are there: trumpet flourishes, trail-riding harmonica and the ominous strains of the steel guitar played low and mournful, like a prairie haunting. I would have liked her to explore the combination of traditional western and her own more modern alt-country style from a few more angles, different angles, although that might have disrupted the mood of mystery she’s trying to establish.

Ortega divides the album into movements, separated by the instrumental “Through the Dust” divided into three sections. These short interludes sound like Ennio Morricone on Quaaludes which is trippy, but at times take away the record’s momentum.

In its darker moments, “Liberty” reminded me of Handsome Family murder ballads, but with less obvious violence. Instead, Ortega tends to cleave more toward dark romance, playing both the wounded lover and then the femme fatale depending on where you are at in the story.

The record is bass-heavy, and would have benefited from a bit less boom at the bottome end. I think the intent was to create a heavy foreboding, but a little lightness might make key moments sink in that much deeper when they’re needed.

“Lovers in Love” feels like an old seventies croon-fest, and has a timeless quality that would have done Dolly Parton or Linda Ronstadt proud. There is an anthemic quality to songs like this and the inspirational “In the Clear” that leave you feeling like you are standing heroically on a wood-plank deck looking out at a Monument Valley sunset in a John Ford picture. Lindi’s wearing a cowboy hat and there’s a slight breeze but it doesn’t threaten the hat; it just makes her hair blow majestically.

“The Comeback Kid” is the radio-friendly single, and features the mix of blues and country that I’ve come to expect from earlier releases. It may be a familiar sound but I liked it – it even has hand claps, and what song isn’t made better by hand claps?

All the songs work thematically, and most of them would also stand alone as pieces about a jilted lover; no gunfights required. The double meaning of the songs as both high-plains revenge and straight up romance works well overall.

I would have liked a little less murk and ambience and a bit more of the sparseness of a trail song in the Marty Robbins style, but the mix of styles Ortega is going for is a fragile balance and it isn’t easy to maintain the sweet spot. For the most part she lands it.

Best tracks: Afraid of the Dark, The Comeback Kid, In the Clear, Lovers in Love, Liberty

CD Odyssey Disc 1124: King Diamond

It’s appropriate this next album is about restless spirits because it feels like it is haunting me. I rolled it back in January, but decided starting my King Diamond journey with the sequel to an earlier album didn’t make much sense. Instead, I invoked Rule #5 and chose the first “Abigail” album, since it was also in the “new to me” section of the collection.

But like the ghost of Abigail herself, this album stalked me down to be reborn, more terrible than before.

Disc 1124 is… Abigail II: The Revenge

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 2002

What’s up with the Cover? In days of yore, before the time of hair product, a creepy woman accepts a lantern from an even creepier toddler. I’m not one for creepy baby lantern-bearers, and with all that dry grass around their feet it looks like an accident waiting to happen. If I were this woman I’d take a pass on the lantern and just find my way by the glowing ghost light emanating from the mansion. Yes, that would be better.

How I Came To Know It: As part of my recent return to heavy metal I discovered a lot of King Diamond. I liked the original “Abigail” (reviewed back at Disc 1093) so getting the sequel just made sense. Well, it did at the time.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eight King Diamond albums. I now realize that this is too many King Diamond albums. “Abigail II: The Revenge” is in last place, and will soon be departing the hallowed stacks of my CD library.

Ratings: 2 stars

What is there to say about King Diamond that I haven’t said already – and recently. He’s a crazy face-painting Danish metal star who sings in a high falsetto and writes concept albums that would make great plots for cheesy seventies horror movies.

I love cheesy seventies horror movies, but having listened to so much King Diamond lately, I think I’ve worn myself out. It felt like I was on the final flick of a Hallowe’en marathon at three in the morning when everyone else had already gone to bed. All those crunchy rock riffs were still there, and King Diamond was still going all in to inspire me with his grotesqueries, but I just felt dehydrated and a little tired.

It wasn’t terrible - I was just kind of bored. It was the musical equivalent of falling asleep for twenty minutes of the movie but when you wake up you managing to piece together enough of what is happening that you don’t bother backing it up to see what you missed.

The tale this time revolves around the character of Abigail, who we last saw as a possessed baby eating a corpse before being nailed into some enchanted coffin. Like any bad sequel, “Abigail II” takes all kinds of liberties with the first story to allow all your favourite (?) characters to return. Abigail instead grows up, and the guy who supposedly dies falling down the stairs in the first album is now alive as a creepy middle-aged invalid. Rape and murder ensue, including a guy getting his throat slit by the necklace featured on the 1990 album “The Eye” because - why not? “Abigail II” has more implausible plot twists than Jaws IV.

For all this bat-shittery, there was a fair bit to like about “Abigail II” - mostly the music. Andy LaRocque lays down some badass guitar riffs and wails on some of the better solos. He is the Randy Rhodes to King Diamond’s Ozzy and his skillful playing provides the album the grounding it desperately needs. While a lot of the songs blend into one long conceptual metal soup (which I think is intentional) there are moments where LaRocque will not be denied, crunching along as his lead vocalist gleefully belts out his tale of mayhem and terror.

Unfortunately, the lyrics are hackneyed and obvious and very hard to overlook, with a lot of awkward phrasing and forced rhyme. King Diamond albums always teeter on the edge of overdoing it as they take you on their bizarre carnival experience. Maybe it was playing with fire once too often, or maybe I just got my fill of King Diamond on earlier, better records, but this time I had a harder time enjoying the ride.

Best tracks: Miriam

CD Odyssey Disc 1104: King Diamond

On the walk home today I had a musical accident when my MP3 player slipped through a hole in my pocket into the lining of my coat. I stayed cool under pressure, though, playing out headphone wire until it went slack so I could just let it keep playing. At first, that is.

About a block from the house I couldn’t resist futzing with it any longer, and in attempting to recover the player managed to unplug the headphone jack and plunge it even deeper into the lining. I spent the last few steps on the journey in horrific silence, the terrible realization that the player continued to play from the bowels of my overcoat, with no one to hear its screams.

Why was it screaming, you ask? Well…to understand that you have to know what I was listening to.

Disc 1104 is… The Spider’s Lullabye

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1995

What’s up with the Cover? I’m not familiar with this species of spider. The King Diamond Widow? The Danish Recluse?

How I Came To Know It: I went a little crazy recently and bought a whole bunch of King Diamond albums. This was one of them.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eight King Diamond albums. Of those eight, I put the Spider’s Lullabye at sixth.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

Well here we go again…more King Diamond  - the Danish metal band that shrieks, freaks and goes all out in its quest for metal glory. It may have come out in 1995, almost ten years into King Diamond’s career, but their commitment to playing traditional symphonic heavy metal, fast and furious and grandiose, remains undiminished.

Yeah, but is it any good? The answer to that is complicated, because there are moments on “Spider’s Lullabye” that are great and had me convinced that it would be remaining in my collection for many years to come. Then I’d hear something that just felt like a tired reworking of stuff I’d heard them do on earlier records and want to turf it.

A lot of King Diamond albums are concept albums, but “Spider’s Lullabye” is a hodgepodge of horror topics. Along the way the band tells the story of out-of-body experiences, ghosts, serial killers, nightmares and a disturbing sanitarium that tortures people with spiders and calls it “therapy.” As a horror writer myself I like this sort of creepy stuff, even if King Diamond handles it with varying degrees of skill.

The album starts on a strong note, with “From the Other Side” describing someone floating above their own body and then realizing to their horror it has been reanimated, but is now possessed by a demon. The music is a galloping Iron Maiden-esque drumbeat and a charging guitar riff that adds urgency to the dreamer’s efforts to return to the world – alas, too late. Such is horror. If you wanted it to end with a bunch of laughs and a wedding, try comedy.

There follows some forgettable songs that feature a combination of amazing guitar work from master Andy Laroque but also Laroque just playing fast without purpose. It can be technically impressive, but on songs like “Dreams” detracts from the churning energy he builds with his riffs. The solos vary between inspired and integral to just tacked on and unnecessary.

Like King Diamond’s scream-style vocals, Laroque’s guitar is an acquired taste and for those who have acquired it will have no problems with some of the musical choices that gave a newbie like me pause.

As on other albums, the lyrics on “The Spider’s Lullabye” can feel a bit forced and literal, but I was impressed with “Six Feet Under,” featuring a man buried in a coffin made of glass. Best line: “My hands are turning blue while my nails are turning red.” Basic stuff, but it does a great job of capturing both the victim’s asphyxiation, and the damage he does to himself as he desperately tries to claw his way out.

The album’s final four songs tell a mini-epic of a man afraid of spiders and gets a lot more than he bargained for from the aversion therapy of the crazy Dr. Eastmann. The eight minute torture sequence in “Room 17” goes on a bit long but otherwise this is a pretty solid short story ending…spoiler alert…in a morgue full of corpses and spiders.

The record benefits from a strong remastering effort by guitarist Larocque. It sounds crisp and loud, but not shouty. Except of course for King Diamond’s vocals, those are a bit shouty, but they are supposed to be.

This was my third King Diamond review in the last eleven albums and at first I was prepared to get rid of it due to fatigue alone. It is a lot of new music to grok in a short period of time, particularly music this dense and complex. However, by the end of my second listen “Spider’s Lullabye” had won me over just enough for me to decide to keep it around…for now.

Best tracks: From the Other Side, Six Feet Under, Eastmann’s Cure

CD Odyssey Disc 1095: King Diamond

I did warn you a couple reviews ago that I overdid it on the King Diamond purchases last year. Now that decision is coming home to roost.

Disc 1095 is… “The Eye”

No I don’t know why the title is in quotation marks.

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1990

What’s up with the Cover? It’s a spooky necklace. Could this be “The Eye”? Spoiler alert - this necklace is cursed! I would totally wear it anyway, because it is totally bitchin’!

How I Came To Know It: When I blasted through the entire King Diamond discography last year this album was one of the better ones and I was able to get it as part of a cheap 5-disc box-set re-issue.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eight King Diamond albums. Don’t judge me! Anyway, I’ve got a long way to go before I can properly appreciate all eight, but I’m going to take a chance and say “The Eye” is my favourite.

Ratings: 4 stars

It seems like only yesterday that I was going on about the crazy high-voiced metal god that is King Diamond. Actually it was last Wednesday when I reviewed “Abigail”. All the concept album glory of that album is present on “The Eye” but the riffs are tighter, the melodies stronger and the songs more listenable.

This record is a bit more straightforward in its approach to metal, employing a lot of the galloping rhythm of Iron Maiden, crossed with some of the soar of Dio and the crunch of Metallica. I wouldn’t say King Diamond is as good as any of those bands in their prime, but “The Eye” comes close.

The guitar solos occasionally rely too much on pure speed but it is hard to fault Andy Larocque for showing off – the guy can play. He even slows it down on the instrumental “Insanity” and delivers a moody atmospheric song that is just the tonic your ear needs before the album’s final two tracks blast you back into the stratosphere.

This album isn’t quite as focused as “Abigail” in terms of plot, but it is still heavily thematic. In this case the theme is two sets of interconnected stories, the first of which features a cursed necklace called “The Eye”. The album starts with a kind of intro/homage to the necklace, and then gets into what I think is its creation, when a woman is burned as a witch without evidence. Later the Eye pops up in the ashes, promptly killing two children with its evil power. Then we switch gears to follow a nun named Madeleine who is victimized by a creepy priest, goes crazy before we come back to a second song celebrating the necklace.

It's not a single concept album, but rather two stories featuring various innocents suffering fates they don’t deserve at the hands of corrupt authority figures, with a couple bookend tracks loosely holding things together.

The willingness to take even a half step back from full-blown horror musical gives King Diamond the narrative wiggle room to write better lyrics. They aren’t brilliant by any means, but unlike the story-time approach of “Abigail” here we get defined choruses that hold the songs together better.

The opening track is “Eye of the Witch” which is a balls-out riff fest. It is the perfect mix of the crunch of Sabbath, the gallop of Maiden and some kind of doom-laden horror film score.

From there, the album doesn’t let up. The next track, “The Trial (Chambre Ardente)” suffers from a bit too much goofy dialogue, but the chugging riff lets you forgive King Diamond’s excesses and eccentricities.

The third song, “Burn” goes full crazy, with King Diamond exclaiming:

“They say the devil is here tonight

Then let him play his violin so wild”

Followed by some fiendish Bacchanalian style fiddle. Or maybe it is a keyboard – whatever it is, it is the perfect combination of satyr and metal. Generally, the production decisions feel like someone yelled “turn everything up!” but managed to somehow keep it crisp and clean through the excess.

The album has a couple of slower numbers that give the record some variety. Later on there is the aforementioned “Insanity” but before that we get “Two Little Girls” which is the story of two little girls playing the ashes where they burn witches until they find “the Eye” and…promptly die. The song has a genuine creep factor and despite my intellectual dismissal of two kids stupid enough to play in charnel ash I found myself wanting to shout out a warning before it’s too late.

When I reviewed “Abigail” I got a bit nervous about all the King Diamond I’ve bought in the past year, but “The Eye” restored my faith in my former self. This stuff is solid well played power metal. Yes it is a bit over the top, but that’s how metal should be.

Best tracks: Eye of the Witch, Burn, Behind These Walls, The Meetings, Insanity, The Curse

CD Odyssey Disc 1093: King Diamond

Odyssey Rule #5 allows me to choose a “new to me” disc into the reviews without a random roll. Since I have a considerable backlog, I’ve been alternating a random roll out of the “new to me” section. This time I rolled an album by King Diamond from 2002 called “Abigail II: The Revenge”.

It just seemed wrong to review the sequel first, and since “Abigail” the original album was also in the “new to me” I switched to that album, which I now present for your reading pleasure.

Disc 1093 is…Abigail

Artist: King Diamond

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? If you were to ever buy an album just for the cover this would be it. A horse-drawn hearse careening down some road in the dark of night. Yeah! That’s metal, baby!

How I Came To Know It: This album was listed as the best album from 1987 from a list of “top metal albums of the last 50 years” I read recently in an article. I liked it enough to start exploring King Diamond.

How It Stacks Up:  I went a little overboard exploring King Diamond, buying eight of his 12 studio albums in the space of about four months. This is a lot more than I need and way too many for me to accurately rank them at this early stage of our relationship but since we’re here and I can always change my mind later I’ll say…third or fourth best.

Ratings: 3 stars

King Diamond is an acquired taste and despite the eight albums and multiple listens to “Abigail” I’m not sure I’ve fully acquired it. If you’re looking to give it a try “Abigail” is one of their more famous albums but it is also very much a dive into the deep end of what these guys do.

“These guys” are a Danish heavy metal band named after their lead singer, King Diamond, who is a crazy face-painting screecher who models himself after the bizarreness of Alice Cooper and the operatic singer-storyteller of Bruce Dickinson. Is he as good as either of them? No, but some people go for it with such gusto they draw you in for the ride against your better judgment. King Diamond is one of those.

It helps that the band plays fast, furious and crisp which are key to this style of galloping eighties metal. They lay down powerful riffs that make you bob your head creepily on the bus (sorry fellow riders) although they are often a little eager to move on to the next riff before you’re finished enjoying the last one. All that shifting around isn’t a prog situation so much as they are just excited. And by excited, I mean really excited.

As a result the album is a frantic blend of brilliant and overblown struggling for supremacy. There is a campiness to the overblown parts that make them kind of fun as well. Not exactly radio friendly, or lending themselves to a quiet evening of reading or sitting on the deck at the lake house, but undeniably entertaining.

Like most King Diamond albums, this one is heavily thematic, playing out more like a horror story than a metal album. The basic story of “Abigail” is that a young couple move into a haunted house belonging to the husband’s family, only to have the wife possessed by the spirit of a stillborn child whose corpse is in the basement. There are good ghosts, guardian ghosts, evil ghosts. There are prophecies, portents and flashbacks and a lot of people getting pushed down the stairs to their deaths. Hilarity ensures. In the end there is a possessed baby that eats its former body.

There are a lot of characters in this music and most of them have speaking parts, so you might expect multiple vocalists, but no! King Diamond takes on all the roles, his high theatrical vocals ranging from creepy Alice Cooper through to the shriek of a terrified girl. I imagine on stage he just sings in one direction in one voice and then sings in the other direction to respond. He’s a one man dramatis personae, with a metal band providing the soundtrack.

Fortunately there are a few moments here that are just too great to deny. The title track is a powerful riff-driven piece of fury, with a strange organ solo thrown into the middle of it, and King Diamond himself singing a duet between the husband and the ghost of the baby. It should not work but…it kinda does.

Lyrically all is sacrificed in service to the above noted story. This music could have used a bit more metaphor, or maybe just more chorus, but instead they go all in for narrative. Consider this section from “the Family Ghost”

"Beware of the slippery stairs

You could easily fall and break your neck

Hand me that torch and I will lead the way

To the secret in the dark

Take a look into the vault, the Vault

The sarcophagus...of a child

Abigail has been in here for years and years

stillborn", Born...Born...Born”

It’s an imaginative tale, but not an imaginative telling of it.

Yet for all this batshit craziness, King Diamond draws you in. The lead singer just won’t be denied and seems completely unaware of how nuts it all is. As a result, he gives the whole thing a weird internal logic. This record is overblown, excessive, darkly hilarious and desperately in need of a more disciplined producer, but damn it if it isn’t also a whole lot of fun.

Best tracks: Arrival, Abigail, Black Horsemen

CD Odyssey Disc 1040: Opeth

I’ve had a nice relaxing weekend chilling out with Sheila playing board games and recharging my batteries.

Disc 1040 is…Still Life

Artist: Opeth

Year of Release: 1999

What’s up with the Cover? A sad woman bemoans her fate at the edge of a mire. This cover is awesome and more than a little creepy – just check out the reflection of the cross in the water…

Also of note, this is a reissue on thick cardboard or pressboard, with great finishing details. Metal bands seem to be the only ones still putting out beautiful CD cases (I have another one from Cirith Ungol that’s of similar high quality). Keep it up – I appreciate it!

How I Came To Know It: I first heard Opeth years ago when my buddy Kelly played some for me. While I liked it, it didn’t register enough for me to seek them out. Then I saw them on a list of “Top 50 metal albums since 1970” for their 2005 album “Ghost Reveries”. I really liked “Ghost Reveries” and it caused me to start exploring their other albums. “Still Life” immediately stood out as one of the best.

How It Stacks Up:  Opeth has twelve studio albums, but I only have four of them. Of those four, it is a dead heat between “Still Life” and “Ghost Reveries” for top spot, but I’m going to go with “Still Life” at #1. I reserve the right to change my mind when I review “Ghost Reveries”.

Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5

Over their twenty year career, Opeth has never been afraid to let their sound evolve, starting with balls-out death metal riffs and slowly moving toward complex progressive soundscapes. “Still Life” is right in the middle of this transition, and represents the best of both worlds.

“Still Life” has it all. There are screaming guitar riffs for the traditional and thrash metal fans, double bass and guttural growls for the death metal enthusiasts and haunting, complex guitar picking for the progressive metal fans. It is a lot to pack into a single album, but Opeth has an uncanny knack to know just where to steer a song and not get lost in the process.

The driving force behind the band is singer, guitarist and songwriter Michael Akerfeldt. Akerfeldt. Akerfeldt is the embodiment of rage and fury when he is growl singing, but can also drop down into a normal singing voice that has a rich but haunting tone. When singing like this, he reminds me strongly of Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, only with more range.

When Akerfeldt breaks out the acoustic guitar he reminds me of a British folk singer. With its trilling melody and echoing, stripped down production, “Benighted” sounds like it would be equally at home at a Renaissance fair or the Wacken open air metal festival. It gives way to a gorgeous electric guitar solo that is almost jazz-like in its progressions, without ever crossing the line into wankery. Whether playing soft or hard, the guitar work on the record is exquisite.

“Still Life” is a concept album telling the story of someone returning to some kind of religious cult in order to reunite with his true love. She gets her throat slit and he gets hanged – the end. Hey, it’s a metal album and these things happen. Actually, they happen on folk albums as well.

The journey taking you through this sad tale contains only seven songs, but clocks in at over 60 minutes. Despite the length of both the songs and the overall record, it never drags. The musical shifts are perfectly placed to hold your interest. The record hits hard, then soft, then hard again, usually having multiple movements within each song.

There is a lot going on in “Still Life” and even though I gave it three successive listens over the last four days, I feel like I have only begun to plumb its depths.

For example, the intricate music and arrangements held my attention so completely the lyrics became almost an afterthought. However, a quick look at the (excellently arranged) liner notes had me wanting to delve in all over again and just focus on the words. “The Moor” opens with:

“The sigh of summer upon my return

Fifteen alike since I was here

Bathed in deep fog, blurring my trail

Snuffing the first morning rays.”

Pretty stuff, even more so considering English is their second language. The whole album has this natural narrative quality to it, like you are listening to an audio book as much as a metal album. Lines have strong alliterative qualities and natural caesuras that had me thinking of “Beowulf.” Later, on “Serenity Painted Death,” the lovely Melinda’s death is depicted in stark blood reds, pale white skin and the vacant fading stare of the dying. It is creepy but brilliant.

“Serenity Painted Death” has all the musical elements of the album in one song – shredding traditional metal guitar combines with haunting acoustic playing to capture the narrator’s combination of rage and grief. It isn’t a happy tale, but it is a tale well told.

 I bought a couple more Opeth albums on Friday (“Blackwater Park” and “Watershed”) and while both were good, they seemed to be missing something. Then I realized they were solid records, and just suffering from comparisons to “Still Life”.

Best tracks: Hard to separate individual tracks out of the overall experience, but since you asked…The Moor, Benighted, Face of Melinda, Serenity Painted Death

CD Odyssey Disc 1005: Emmylou Harris

I’m feeling restless today, but I think I’m just eager for a long weekend.

Disc 1005 is…The Ballad of Sally Rose

Artist: Emmylou Harris

Year of Release: 1985

What’s up with the Cover? The tyrannical run of Giant Head covers has ended at five, replaced with this…tiny head cover. This cover features the head of Emmylou Harris, which is lovely at any size, and a tasteful script and floral border. The whole thing looks rather timeless.

Except, of course for the advertisement of “A DIGITAL RECORDING” at the top. On a CD that came out in 1985, this is not a good sign. More on this later.

How I Came To Know It: I recently went through Emmylou Harris’ back catalogue to see if any I didn’t have struck my fancy. Three did, and the other two were both recently reviewed (“Cowgirl’s Prayer” reviewed back at Disc 979, and “Bluebird” reviewed back at Disc 973). "The Ballad of Sally Rose" is the third.

How It Stacks Up:  I am still missing one Emmylou Harris album I want (1990’s “Brand New Dance”). Even without that album I have fourteen of Emmylou’s albums. Of those fourteen, I’m going to bump “Roses in the Snow” down yet another spot to make room for “the Ballad of Sally Rose” at #9.

Ratings: 3 stars

It’s not every day you get a country music concept album but I guess if you’re Emmylou Harris you’ve done everything else, so why not?

On “The Ballad of Sally Rose” Emmylou makes succeeds in making this strange combination work. The album tells the tale of titular songstress Sally Rose who meets her musical soul mate, falls in love and then drifts away from him as he returns to his rakish ways. Even as she translates the inspiration he provided into a music career of her own, she misses him and intends to reconcile, only to find he has died in a car accident. It’s a fairly obvious story (some say is a loose allegory of Harris’ relationship with Gram Parsons) but Emmylou makes it work.

The story is aided by songs that hold together well, and naturally flow into one another. The eighties were responsible for a lot of country music disasters, but Harris manages to navigate through some of the more artificial aspects of eighties production for the most part unscathed. She even makes it work for her, creating an orchestral feel in contrast to a lot of her more stripped down early work.

One of the reasons the songs are so cohesive is all of them are composed by both Emmylou Harris and then-husband Paul Kennerley (who if this album is about Gram Parsons deserves extra credit for letting art come before ego). Emmylou will often write one or two songs per album and they are always great, leaving me wishing she composed more. With “The Ballad of Sally Rose” I finally get that wish fulfilled.

“Woman Walk the Line” is my favourite track, powerful and perfect, telling the story of a woman being wronged and willing to hit the bars and let herself be tempted by strange men, but still in control of her desires enough to go home alone:

“Tonight I wanna do some drinkin’

I came to listen to the band

Yes I’m as good as what you’re thinkin’

But I don’t wanna hold your hand

And I know I’m lookin’ lonely

But there’s nothin’ here I wanna find

It’s just the way of a woman

When she goes out to walk the line.”

Harris sets it up she makes it clear that she knows how to walk up to the line and not cross it, showing up her partner’s weakness all the more by comparison.  The song is further aided by a majestic two-note guitar flourish that punctuates Sally Rose’s pride. It feels like Neil Diamond dropped by the studio, strummed a few notes to jazz the place up and then left before he drowned the place in too much schmaltz. Of course, that didn't happen. For one thing, Neil Diamond can never have too much schmaltz - his capacity is limitless. For another he wasn't involved on this record.

But I digress...

The album is also aided by Emmylou’s incredible vocals, her signature quaver a little back in the mix at times because of all the business in the production, but forcing itself to the front when called for, such as on the opening track.

Unfortunately hearing Emmylou (and her great songs) is not made easier by the aforementioned DIGITAL RECORDING advertised on the cover. This album was released in 1985 when albums were still made with records and tapes in mind, and CD technology was a distant third. That is very evident here, with song volumes that sounded muddy and distant.

No matter how much I turned it up it still sounded like I was listening to it through the wall. Only unlike most music you hear through a wall (like from a party going on in the suite next door at three in the morning) I wanted to hear more of it, not less. However, I could tell from the production values that if I turned it up any further it would still sound dull and distant, only louder.

This was a major detraction from what is otherwise a solid record, with thoughtful compositions that successfully marries eighties country sensibilities with old school bluegrass and vocal virtuosity. This is a largely forgotten gem in Emmylou’s discography that deserves more love than it gets in the modern era.

Best tracks: The Ballad of Sally Rose, Rhythm Guitar, Woman Walk the Line, Timberline, White Line, Sweet Chariot

CD Odyssey Disc 900: Elton John

Yeehaw! My 900^th review! Hard to believe I’ve come so far – and in only seven short years!

I’ll do a recap of the last 100 shortly, but for now let’s let Disc 900 have its moment.

Disc 900 is….Tumbleweed Connection

Artist: Elton John

Year of Release: 1970

What’s up with the Cover? If England were the old west, I suppose this would be it. Someone needs to move that listless hippie along, though. What’s that? That hippie is the star, you say? Welcome to 1970.

How I Came To Know It: Sheila had a run on a bunch of reissued Elton John CDs a few years ago, and this was one of them.

How It Stacks Up:  We have seven studio albums. Because of a recent purchase a lot of those albums got bumped down a spot, but “Tumbleweed Connection” holds its own at #2 in my heart.

Ratings: 4 stars

If you are expecting Elton John to do country because of this album’s name you’ll be disappointed. “Tumbleweed Connection” is better described as “Elton thinks about country music, while still doing Elton”.

Whatever you call it, it appeals to me. Most Elton John albums have at least one or two songs that sound like they belong on the Muppet Show (and some even ended up there). I like Elton better when he sounds earnest and soulful. Due to the experimentation with some of country music’s forms, “Tumbleweed Connection” has a toned down quality, while still maintaining Elton’s signature warbling voice and trilling piano.

A good example of this is the opening track, “Ballad of a Well-known Gun.” The song still has that boogie woogie swing that is so indicative of many of the Elton John songs that annoy me (“Honky Cat” and “Bennie and the Jets” come to mind). However, the song is restrained enough that you could hear it playing in some old western saloon. The lyrics, about a man trying to escape his violent past as a gunfighter, also helps ground the song in a narrative about something other than a bunch of yeehaw.

Most Elton John albums from his heyday have a signature track, and on “Tumbleweed Connection” it is “My Father’s Gun,” one of a number of songs on the record about a character’s relationship with his father. The album is a concept album, and this song informs just how our character became known as a gunfighter through soldiering in the U.S. Civil War. It is a song full of oath-taking and imagined glory, made tragic because as listeners we know that the narrator’s chosen side (the Confederacy) is destined for defeat. Elton is faithful to the viewpoint of his character, who sees himself fighting for love of family and freedom.

The most country-flavoured song is the appropriately named “Country Comfort” which is pretty solid, but here Elton is too good at mimicking the style, and as a result it is missing the interesting twist he puts on many of the other songs.

“Burn Down the Mission” is innocence lost as the poor storm the local mission to get what little food is available. The song is triumphant in tone, quickly shifting the frenetic in the bridge as the music captures the restless energy of a mob that spills out of control, before slowing again as it returns to the regret of crimes done, and the debt that must be paid.

“Burn Down the Mission” is driven by Elton’s masterful piano playing, but the record benefits from a lot of great musicians. This includes some pretty sweet guitar from Caleb Quaye, who manages to match up with Elton’s piano style but insert a bit southern-flavoured rock ‘n’ roll like you might hear on a Little Feat record.

The album ends with another song about a father (Elton explores serious daddy issues on this record), “Into the Old Man’s Shoes.” Here the character turns his back on the responsibilities left by his dead father, leaving town to what sounds like a dissolute pursuit of fortune, with the judgment of those he leaves behind weighing on his shoulders:

“And all they say is you ain't half the man he used to be

He had strength and he worked his life to feed his family

So if that's the way it has to be, I'll say goodbye to you

I'm not the guy, or so it seems to fill my old man's shoes”

The weight of family on “Tumbleweed Connection” is like a Greek tragedy. No matter whether our characters embrace their duty, or flee from it the resulting narrative leaves us empty and uncertain.

As great a fit as “Into the Old Man’s Shoes” is, it was not part of the original album, but is a bonus track on my remastered edition. It is followed by a bloated nine minute version of “Madman Across the Water” proving that bonus tracks are almost always a mixed blessing.

“Tumbleweed Connection” is probably the best Elton John album that you don’t own (unless you only own a greatest hits package in which case, God help you). This record didn’t chart as well as many other Elton John records of this era, but it is every bit their equal nonetheless. If anything, I like it better than most.

Best tracks:  Ballad of a Well-known Gun, My Father’s Gun, Burn Down the Mission, Into the Old Man’s Shoes

CD Odyssey Disc 838: Blue Oyster Cult

As Kris Kristofferson once wrote, I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt. I thought it was a hangover on Sunday and through the day Monday, but by Monday night I realized the hangover was gone but my head still hurt. Now I’m just sick, which I suppose is an improvement.

Disc 838 is….Imaginos

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 1988

What’s up with the Cover? Behold the Gothic horror of 19^th century New England! I love everything about this cover. Lightning storms, old mansions on the edges of cliffs and (while you can’t see it) a tall ship parked off a reef at night on the inside of the jacket.

How I Came To Know It: Blue Oyster Cult has always been one of my favourite bands and has become the default house band for me in adulthood. I bought this album soon after leaving home and realizing I could no longer easily borrow my brother’s copy. Like most BOC, I have it on both vinyl and CD.

How It Stacks Up:  I have 11 of Blue Oyster Cult’s studio albums. “Imaginos” is an awesome record, but this is an awesome band and it could only manage ninth place overall.

Ratings: 4 stars

Not unlike the story it tells, “Imaginos” is an album out of step with its time.

For a band that was always masterful at recounting strange tales, Blue Oyster Cult released their heavy concept album “Imaginos,” - full of progressive arrangements and otherworldly fancy - at a time ruled by vacuous hair metal and eighties synth pop. Not surprisingly the world wasn’t ready for it, and it tanked commercially. Well the world can go to hell; I’ve loved this album since the first time I heard it and I still love it.

The album comes on the heels of one of BOC’s worst efforts, the synth driven “Club Ninja” but is unlike that album in almost every way. Where “Club Ninja” is airy and artificial, “Imaginos” has its feet grounded in hard progressive rock that we Blue Oyster Cultists had been longing for.

So what changed? Principally it was the return of drummer and songwriter Albert Bouchard. BOC is one of those bands where all the band members get involved on the songwriting and the resulting creative range is one of the things that makes the band great. They are more than the sum of their parts. Albert Bouchard brings the creepy and weird to the music, and “Imaginos” is his baby, which he began giving birth to in the mid-seventies.

In fact one of the tracks, “Astronomy,” was first released on 1974’s “Secret Treaties” but don’t make the mistake of thinking that makes this record a rehash of old material. If anything, “Astronomy” fits as well here as it does on that classic early album.

The rest of the record is all new material (or at least newly released) worked on while Bouchard was out of Blue Oyster Cult for most of the eighties, and then adding the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired lyrics of producer Sandy Pearlman. The subject always reminds me of the Lovecraft story “Shadow Over Innsmouth” about a small town in league with an evil aquatic race. However, the liner notes for “Imaginos” indicates its own crazy mythology spanning hundreds of years of arcane experiences, creatures from other worlds, time portals and mythical artifacts.

Is Pearlman’s poetry beautiful? Sometimes, such as these lines from “Magna of Illusion”:

“Cornwall and the harbor

Where witches went mad more than once and

Until this day

In dreams at least

The lighthouse at Lost Christabel

Squat and hugely tilts

Upon the strand where Grandad’s house was built”

And other times it is just bizarre like these from “Blue Oyster Cult”:

“Recall the dream of Luxor

How fluids will arrive

As if by call or schedule

Resume through the morning tide

Where entry is by seaweed gate

And plan the plan of dreams

To lose oneself in reverb

In all that is and all that seems”

Yes the song is called the same thing as the band and yes dreaming of Luxor and entering by the seaweed gate is all a bit weird. Nevertheless, when combined with Bouchard’s musical accompaniment and the band’s masterful playing it all makes sense. You will lose yourself in reverb just like the lyrics suggest.

And musically, this album rocks hard. Sure it has song after song that is six to eight minutes long and saddled with titles like “The Seige and Investiture of Baron Von Frankenstein’s Castle at Weisseria” but those songs undeniably rock. “The Seige and (etc.)” even has lead guitar licks from Joe Satriani, although personally I’ll take Buck Dharma’s guitar over Satriani any day.

The sheer crunch on this record on tracks like “I Am The One You Warned Me Of” are worth the price of admission. Couple that with the weird glory of  “Les Invisibles,” “Magna of Illusion” (complete with breathless radio play-like dialogue) and the rock anthem of “Astronomy” that refused to get old, and you’ve got a record that may be crazy, but is also crazy-good.

The title track, “Imaginos” is the only one that truly lets me down, feeling a bit like a show tune or the kind of song that plays over the credits of the movie instead of feeling like it was part of the tale.

Still, you can tell simply from the overflow of guest musicians on this record that BOC was well remembered in 1988, and “Imaginos” shows that they had one more truly great album in them before they embarked on the Tour Without End (where they remain to this day). And no, that is not a euphemism for death (except in the case of Lanier, bless his soul). They are just seriously still on tour. And I’ll go every damn time I can and every time I will live in hope they’ll pull out a track or two from “Imaginos.” It is not their best album but it is one of their bravest and most thoughtful.

Best tracks:  I Am The One You Warned Me Of, Les Invisibles, The Seige and Investiture of Baron Von Frankenstein’s Castle at Weisseria, Astronomy, Magna of Illusion, Blue Oyster Cult

CD Odyssey Disc 785: The Who

When I was five my mom sat me down and told me that life was unfair, and the sooner I understood that the better. A harsh lesson for a five year old for sure, but it has served me well over the years.

This week I encountered an unfairness so profound that all my mother’s wisdom felt suddenly small and useless. I’m not going to talk about it beyond that, because you’ve come here to read a music review not a rant. So here you go.

Disc 785 is….Tommy

Artist: The Who

Year of Release: 1969

What’s up with the Cover? Look deep into my seagulls…Deeper…You are feeling very three dimensional. I always liked this cover, but I’ve never figured out what, if any, significance it has. It just looks kind of cool.

How I Came To Know It: My brother owned this on vinyl but rarely played it. One year for Christmas I wrapped up a satin flag of one of his favourite bands (Venom) inside the album so he thought he was getting “Tommy” again. He looked so sad, but after the joke was realized was happy with the Venom flag. The next year he took vengeance on me by wrapping my present so tightly it took me fifteen minutes to get into it.

As for the Tommy album, I got that on vinyl as a hand-me-down and years later I ended up buying it on CD…and here we are.

How It Stacks Up: I have three of The Who’s studio albums. In any normal trio of albums “Tommy” would easily be first, but not when you’ve got a classic like “Who’s Next” dominating top spot. As a result “Tommy can only manage second place. And since I’ve reviewed all three of them, here’s a recap:

1. Who’s Next: 5 stars (reviewed back at Disc 204)
2. Tommy: 5 stars (reviewed right here)
3. Odds & Sods: 3 stars (reviewed back at Disc 170)

Ratings: 5 stars

Pete Townshend is a musical genius, and “Tommy” is an album that shows what a musical genius is capable of when his band is wise enough to let him do his thing.

Sure, The Who is not The Who without Roger Daltry’s vocals, the drumming of Keith Moon and John Entwistle on bass (one of the reasons I have no interest in seeing them in concert since Moon and Entwistle are both now dead).

But it is Pete Townshend that drives the creative engine of “Tommy.” “Tommy” is a concept album about a deaf, dumb and blind kid who is abused by trusted family members, grows up to find fame for being an amazing pinball player, eventually gets his sight back and becomes some kind of modern messiah. Townshend delivers the whole story as a ‘rock opera.’ Outside of Alexander Pope creating the mock epic with “Rape of the Lock” you would have a hard time finding a more brilliant reimagining of a traditional art form.

Musically, the record is nuanced but powerful. Townsend’s chord choices are clever and perfectly suited to each section of the story, often making subtle changes to the voicing of his guitar for maximum emotional impact.

Just listening to the overture is enough to know how great the music is. Overtures introduce all of a musical’s themes and in just over five minutes the overture of “Tommy” switches gears about 15 times. Every shift sounds amazing.

Although “Tommy” is best heard all at once, there are still many standout songs that are great even on their own. “1921” has a light and optimistic feel, fueled by Daltry’s standout vocals, with an undercurrent of menace of the dark days to come for the main character. “The Acid Queen” and “Pinball Wizard” are both hard rock classics, and the album’s final song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” has a bit of everything and despite being seven minutes long, leaves you wanting more, not less.

Thematically, “Tommy” is a cycle of abuse that “A Clockwork Orange” would be proud of. Tommy is beaten, drugged and abused by a litany of family members, shysters and quacks but once his pinball skills make him a celebrity, his “holiday camp” feels like a giant cult where starry-eyed fans are taken advantage of in turn.

Pete Townshend’s music is always best when he is exorcising some of his many demons (think “Behind Blue Eyes” from “Who’s Next”) and his tortured artistry forges “Tommy” into a modern day masterpiece.

The only time “Tommy” last my interest was during the meandering 10 minute underture in the middle of the album, but even that meandering had purpose and provided a reflection of the album’s musical themes – kind of like the reflection Tommy himself is obsessed with staring at with his blind eyes.

“Tommy” isn’t the kind of album you put on every day. Like “The Wall” it takes a dedicated listen from start to finish to appreciate it. But just because I don’t play it every day doesn’t mean it isn’t one of rock and roll’s great accomplishments. Five stars.

Best tracks:   1921, Christmas, The Acid Queen, Pinball Wizard, Sally Simpson, We’re Not Gonna Take It

CD Odyssey Disc 710: Alice Cooper

Another long day that started early, but I capped it with a good workout and am feeling rather pleased with myself as a result. Also, I enjoyed my latest album – it is almost like this CD Odyssey I am on is filled with albums right out of my own collection…

Disc 710 is…. The Last Temptation

Artist: Alice Cooper

Year of Release: 1994

What’s up with the Cover? A nightmarish collage of temptations and troubled figures, gathered around the master of the macabre himself, Alice Cooper. Alice appears to be casting a spell over some sort of mystical Bunsen burner. Or he could just be trying to get warm – he’s so cold he’s gone blue!

How I Came To Know It: Believe it or not there was a period when I stopped buying Alice Cooper albums. After 1991’s “Hey Stoopid” I was starting to feel like he didn’t have another really great record in him so I moved on. Also, I was really heavily into folk music in the early nineties, and my obsession left little room for other styles.

Then ten years later I was given 2001’s “Dragontown” for my birthday and I discovered I’d just missed a relative renaissance of Cooper’s career. I earnestly began to drill backward until I finally got to “The Last Temptation.”

How It Stacks Up:  I have 26 Alice Cooper albums, which I think is all of them. “The Last Temptation” holds up pretty strong – definitely top half, although probably not top ten. I’ll put it 11^th.

Rating: 4 stars.

For five years from 1986 to 1991 a newly sober Alice Cooper decided he was going to be an eighties metal star. When I was a teenager it made me perfectly happy, but these albums have not aged all that well. “The Last Temptation” is Alice shedding notions of what he ‘should’ do to be successful and getting back to doing what he does best: mixing shock rock with broad and ambitious musical concepts.

The album is the first in a loose trilogy of records which continues with “Brutal Planet” (2000) and “Dragontown” (2001) that explain the fall of man into damnation. The theme becomes progressively broader on the later records, but on “The Last Temptation” it is focused on one man’s temptation.

“The Last Temptation” is almost a sequel to 1976’s “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” except instead of it all happening in a dream sequence, you get the impression that it is happening for real. The circus has come to town, Bradbury style, and the devil’s got an offer you can’t refuse. Cue music.

The first song is “Sideshow” which is a passable track that introduces the titular temptation. Passable except for one thing – it pretty much pulls its melody wholesale out of the Clash’s “Lost in the Supermarket.” I’d like to think it is an homage, given the similar themes of consumer/wish culture, but I can’t deny what I heard and the liner notes don’t have any credits noting the Clash.

With that one sour note out of the way, “The Last Temptation” steps up and delivers an amazing journey through Alice Cooper’s favourite recurring theme – getting dragged to hell. As a recovering alcoholic and born again Christian it isn’t a surprising theme for him, but for all that I don’t know anyone who does it with quite the same panache as he does.

Cooper’s signature take on empty consumer culture is on fine display in “Lost in America” which is one half indictment of the lack of opportunity and one half indictment of the people who use that as an excuse to not move forward. The song opens:

“I can’t get a girl cuz I ain’t got a car

I can’t get a car cuz I ain’t got a job

I can’t get a job cut I ain’t got a car

So I’m looking for a girl with a job and a car.”

It is this kind of logic that’ll get you signing a deal with the devil.

Later the album introduces us to other lost souls in the devil’s playground. My favourite is “Smoky Joe” who appears on the song “Bad Place Alone.” Smoky Joe is described as “thin as a coroner’s needle” shaking like a cold Chihuahua, with a runny nose and a road map on his arm. It is all so delightfully grim.

The album alternates from heavy, crunchy rock to more ballad-like structures and is reminiscent of Cooper’s early records with the Alice Cooper band. The mix shows that Alice has finally synthesized the lessons he learned from eighties metal back into his own style. He’s absorbed it, dissected it and now he can simply add it to his repertoire without letting it rule the entire sound of his record. It is a welcome evolution.

When the songs get stripped down, such as on “Stolen Prayer” and “It’s Me” you can hear Cooper’s vocals, that are still very strong at this stage of his career. He tends to sing a lot of songs in a raspy tone, but on tracks like these you get to see his range, switching from smooth and folksy up into controlled aggression with equal ease.

The album ends with “Cleansed by Fire” a fine - if over-amped - rejection of the devil song. Instead of waking up, as he does at the end of “Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” here Cooper’s character (the ever-present Steven) is awake the whole time and needs simply to apply his wits sufficiently to not sell his soul. Not to worry though, he’s back in 2008 making bad decisions on “Along Came a Spider.”

I don’t typically want to know much about the albums I review, but while looking up some minor detail about “The Last Temptation” I discovered it is also a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman. It shouldn’t influence how I feel about the record, but damn it I love Neil Gaiman, and it makes me enjoy “The Last Temptation” even more.

Best tracks: Lost in America, Stolen Prayer, Unholy War, Lullaby, It’s Me