Mordy's Metal Listening Club - New Albums Every Monday

I do like that he's like "we were always metal," instead of "oh, we were classic rock" or something.

yeah no doubt--you get the sense that he loved it too much more than anything

Re: Cirith Ungol, it reminds me of how dearly I miss the days when a metal singer would go all-out in trying to sing, even if he had no absolutely melodic vocal ability whatsoever.

Doro sounds like a cross between Hansi Kürsch and Geddy Lee!

Thought that Cirith Ungol album was pretty bad when I reviewed it (on 2-for-1 reissue) in 1995. Probably haven't heard it since, so that'll be interesting.

Had the Warlock record on LP, and several later Doro records, though I didn't have much good to say about her last couple. Happy to have an excuse to hear T&A again.

Have not liked Sigh, but haven't heard this one.

Excellent!

even if you don't like Hangman's Hymn (I don't) or other Sigh, Imaginary Sonicscape is really worth your time. It's its own thing.

haw, i like the Cirinth Ungol lots (never heard anything by 'em before, i don't think)...including the dude's decidedly unique singing style, i gotta say...and most definitely the absurdly dry and trebly, yet bizarrely appealing bass tone. unfortunately, i found the Warlock record to be damn near insufferable on the first listen--mainly thanx to the vocals; get ye back o wretched screeching harpy from hell (or the UK, i suppose [there's a difference?]). back i say! still need to listen to Sigh. definitely very cool picks tho.

man I'm listening to the sound samples of this warlock album and thinking about buying it. like a lot of people, I think, I was turned off to this sort of thing early on; then, after I became addicted to KNAC, I listened to it with my tongue planted in my cheek; and then as usually happens I ended up thinking, after the whole thing was over, "wtf is wrong with you, this kind of music is awesome."

listening to cirith ungol now. this guy's voice is really, uh, something.

I didn't realize that when I was choosing the albums, but I guess I picked stuff with very unique vocalists. I think that's actually one of the big things I look for with metal. I'd rather hear someone with a crazy voice than yet another slickly produced Europower metal singer.

are you a fellow mercyful fate fiend jt?

'cause if so you need to get these chozzen fate & genocide records, they are the hotness. I too love pretty much anything where the vocalist is unafraid to sound completely ridiculous as long as he gets to carve out an area that belongs entirely to him.

I'm listening to the Sigh album now. Or else there's an incredibly annoying person who's been up for 27 hours drinking bad coffee in the office next to mine, shuffling through his terrible iTunes library really loudly without the patience to listen to any one thing for more than a minute.

Wow, I stopped listening to that and instantly felt a lot better.

I like the Cirith Ungol better now than I did 15 years ago. I'm with J3ff and Smitty on vocal enthusiasm. Plus I always liked Geddy Lee, anyway.

Warlock were great, and I'm glad Doro didn't fall apart completely like Lita Ford, but I definitely think she's been bringing up the rear of the power-metal parade for a while now.

I'm actually surprised you didn't like the Sigh, Glenn. they didn't strike me as all that far from some of your picks. The thing I love about Japanese metal, and the reason I wanted to choose a Japanese metal band, is that they don't feel restricted by genre boundaries, at least when it comes to Western music. They seem to look at it as a whole, go "that sounds cool," and then throw it in.

I'm actually not as familiar with Merciful Fate as I probably should be. I have 9 and a couple King Diamond solo records, but I don't have any of their classics. Probably something I should rectify.

oh my God seek out w/o delay the first two Fate albums (Melissa & Don't Break the Oath) plus the outstanding Time & the King Diamond solo premiere, Fatal Portrait

imo

Maybe I should include some Fate here in two weeks!

yeah, those first couple of Fate albums are pretty undeniable (even if you mostly hate pseudo-operatic vocals as much as i do).

Yeah Melissa and Don't Break the Oath are beyond essential. Get those today.

Oh, it's the kind of thing I might like. I certainly approve of experimentation and stylstic adventurousness and Japanese lots-of-things. But this particular one was just not doing anything good to my mood.

ok, giving the Warlock album another chance now, and lo and behold, it's sounding WAY better to these floppy old ears than it did previously. hell, i'm actually digging the shrieking even (so maybe it was her Germanic accent that threw me off initially? i dunno). let that be a lesson to me: "never ever ever listen to two oddball metal (or otherwise) vocalists you've never heard before back to back in one sitting."

yow, really digging this Sigh record here! man, leave it to the Japanese to take the throw-in-everything (and please to incl. kitchen sink, k, thanx) approach and get ever-so more interesting (not to mention listenable) results from it than just about anyone else i can think of in the wonderful nether-world of metal. i humbly prostrate myself in the general direction of girly-warrior Jeff; hosannas in the highest, dude!

Like Ioannis said upthread, the bass tone on the Cirith Ungol is appealingly different. Just as Armstrong's vocals are different from the prevailing trends of their day, the rhythm section is it's own beast. Dry bass and drums that sound like drums - hard to believe it was a late 80s record. It's aged really well; I'd be hard pressed to tell you when after 1978 that came out.

The Sigh didn't work for me at all. Just couldn't find a way in - element after element (though mainly the keys) pushed me away whenever I thought I was warming to the idea.

The Warlock is good, honestly much better than I expected. Their are some serious high points ("All We Are" - a friend's band covered this back in the day but I'd never heard the original. Way better than I would have guessed from the sad cover he played) and the filler doesn't seem to egregious. I, too, had some trouble with her accent at the beginning ("Three Minute Warning" in particular as the speed makes it more prominent) but was totally on board with it by the end of "East Meets West." Really fun album.

Thanks J3ff - loved revisiting Cirith Ungol and discovering Warlock.

yeah, "East Meets West" was the track that first made me go "aha, what's this about then?"

I just cant listen to the warlock, just not my thing, sorry. Her videos shown on raw power and noisy mothers were fun though

Am I up this coming Monday?

05/7 aldo
12/7 A. Begrand.
19/7 Call All Destroyer
26/7 pfunkboy
02/8 mordy

I'll add myself to the rotation again, and switch to a date-format everybody can understand.

5 July - aldo
12 July - A. Begrand.
19 July - Call All Destroyer
26 July - pfunkboy
2 August - mordy
9 August - glenn

haha

can I get another week? promise I'll catch up by then and start talking on this thread again. (probably)

well add yourself to the rota then anyone who wants in

coincidentally, AA Nemtheanga (Primordial) and Brian Slagel discuss Cirith Ungol here:

http://www.metalblade.tv/tv/exclusives/primordials-aa-nemtheanga-talks-classic-metal-with-brian-slagel-cirith-ungol/

good stuff!

xpost - ok.

5 July - aldo
12 July - A. Begrand.
19 July - Call All Destroyer
26 July - pfunkboy
2 August - mordy
9 August - glenn
16 August - alan n

OK, it's near enough Monday.

This weeks' theme:

The album after the canonical vocalist has left

#1 Iron Maiden - The X Factor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iron_Maiden_-_The_X_Factor.jpg

I'll lay my cards on the table, I LOVED Wolfsbane. I don't know how many times I saw them but they formed a massive part of my life. On that basis, therefore, how could Maiden + Blaze fail? Even god speed! you black emperor took the piss out of them for it. Only a secret Maiden show at the gy!be ATP can make up for this album.

#2 Candlemass - Chapter VI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CandlemassChaptervi.jpg

If Messiah Marcolin had even the vaguest sense the band would end up sounding like this, then you can't forgive him for bowing out, can you? Second shit album out of two, be ready to assail me.

#3 Napalm Death - Harmony Corruption

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Harmony_Corruption.jpg

Fuck you, Barney boosters. Lee Dorrian is the singer of Napalm Death period. Although this leads to a whole new era of ND (AND A BLOODY GOOD ONE) they never got as good again, but gave us Cathedral so it was a fair swap. Lee was the one that washed the dishes when he stayed round mine, so in my mind is better than Mick or Shane whatever. Great, but I'd rather listen to From Eslavement.. any day.

If anybody can be arsed to provide Spotify (or non-Spotify links) then please do, but I'm sure most of you own these.

Album covers were linked from Wikipedia there, obviously it hates me as much as you do now.

I was big into Wolfsbane too, they were a highly underrated band.

There's actually a lot to like on The X Factor. "The Sign of the Cross" is as good as any epic Maiden ever did, "Lord of the Flies" is killer, "Man on the Edge" is good in a "Be Quick or Be Dead" way, and "Blood on the World's Hands" is solid too. But by then they'd really painted themselves into a corner, Harris did the bulk of the songwriting and without Adrian Smith's riffs and Dickinson's vocal melodies the music really started to feel stilted, especially on an overlong album as this one. As inconsistent as it is, I still prefer it to No Prayer For the Dying, which in my opinion has no redeeming qualities at all. The 90s were a disaster for Iron Maiden, no question.

What really hammered home how poor a fit Blaze was, was when Bruce sung "Sign of the Cross", "Lord of the Flies", and "Man on the Edge" live and absolutely obliterated the originals.

I hated Wolfsbane.

aldo kills metal club?

I can't help but think that it might have been more productive to suggest post-canonical vocalist albums that were actually pretty good but got overlooked for obvious reasons.

i think this is a pretty good idea: forget what you think you know/remember, re: dudes' more canonical material, and try to listen with fresh ears, basically. but then i haven't actually heard any of the offending platters. yet.

Wouldn't this week be most fun if we try to find the absolute worst musical moments on each album--and offer time code for quick reference? :)

I think this is going to be my favorite week yet. I usually only write really critically when I get assigned something. I'm not into volunteering to tear something apart.

The only one I own is Chapter IV, which does have a few cool songs/riffs. It really is the low point in Candlemass's catalog by quite a lot. I'm a big supporter of the late 90's "Candlemass II" records, as well as the Abstrakt Algebra stuff. Hell, I even own a Zoic CD which just features just the main-era C-mass guitar players while Leif was off trying to write progressive power metal instead of Doom. And I still think Chapter IV is the worst.

Pretty sure I've never heard a note of X-Factor, and I haven't tended to ever care about any Napalm Death after From Enslavement...

Thanks Aldo :) I'll be back to snipe after some further listening.

I hadn't heard any of this week's picks, and now that I have I don't think I've been missing much. That is not to say that these are bad records; for the most part they're just not notable. If it wasn't for the pedigree of the bands I doubt these would be as maligned.

The Candlemass record is the best of the bunch - solid if pedestrian riffing, competent if not particularly interesting vocals and lyrics. I wouldn't pick this over any of the Candlemass records that predated it, but I wouldn't mind hearing it again. It just doesn't sound like what I like about the band. Damning with faint praise I guess, but compared to the other two...

Wow, that Iron Maiden record is so fucking long! And dull! And limp! And lifeless! I'm much less of a Maiden fan than most of the guys here, so the heresy of replacing Dickinson doesn't bother me too much in concept; however, continuing to aim for Dickinsonian vocal heights when you can't do it is just a bad, bad, idea. There are the bones of some good tunes here - as Adrien pointed out, "Sign of the Cross" has good riffs and a good vocal line, but it sounds undercooked here. I wonder if you cut 30 minutes off this if I'd respond differently. Probably not.

Napalm Death. Hmm, not a grind fan; even when Lee was singing I appreciated these guys more than liked them. This version of the band is hard to even appreciate.

Interesting week Aldo. I know I never would have heard these otherwise. Thanks?

I hope someone locks aldo in a room this week and forces him to listen to these albums :)

And Nate OTM about the Candlemass album.

the x factor definitely has some redeeming qualities (and adrien sums them up well), but even after all these years, the first thing that pops into my head when I see that album title is still, "GOD, WAY TOO FREAKIN' LONG."

so, everyone otm.

we need a poll of worst 90s albums by established metal bands.

brutal!

also, I've never heard that candlemass but I kinda dig tales of creation. is chapter vi a big step down?

Post the nominations here then and I'll do it!

metallica, anthrax, megadeth, testament, iron maiden, judas priest, and slayer for starters.