The Album Review Club - Week #195 (page 1310) - A New World Record - ELO

FogBlueInSanFran said:
Yes, I'm quite selective as well -- I love "Enter Sandman" and "Sad But True" and a few other Big M songs, and Anthrax did some good stuff, but I have tended much more toward Helmet and Filter and bands that were nu-metal I guess (?) -- I just find them as fast but hookier but punkier or alt-ier.

I know I told the stories about Hetfield -- his kids went to my kids' school and he was on campus a lot -- I met him a few times (in groups; I never had a long convo with him) but he was a super-nice fellow -- just another dad at school. At the annual school fundraiser he auctioned off two signed guitars (some rich guys bought them) and played an acoustic version of The Beatles' "In My Life" with baby pictures of the graduating 8th-graders on screen behind him -- it was brilliant; people were weeping and just throwing money. My lawyer also had seats to Oakland Raiders games right behind his and I saw him and Lars and their buddies a few times there (back when they were drinking up a storm) when I got to go.
Click to expand...
My wife once ‘high fived’ Hetfield at a gig in Manchester… not as cool as your connection though ;)
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Yes, I'm quite selective as well -- I love "Enter Sandman" and "Sad But True" and a few other Big M songs, and Anthrax did some good stuff, but I have tended much more toward Helmet and Filter and bands that were nu-metal I guess (?) -- I just find them as fast but hookier but punkier or alt-ier.

I know I told the stories about Hetfield -- his kids went to my kids' school and he was on campus a lot -- I met him a few times (in groups; I never had a long convo with him) but he was a super-nice fellow -- just another dad at school. At the annual school fundraiser he auctioned off two signed guitars (some rich guys bought them) and played an acoustic version of The Beatles' "In My Life" with baby pictures of the graduating 8th-graders on screen behind him -- it was brilliant; people were weeping and just throwing money. My lawyer also had seats to Oakland Raiders games right behind his and I saw him and Lars and their buddies a few times there (back when they were drinking up a storm) when I got to go.
Click to expand...
You've got a lawyer?
 
GornikDaze said:
I usually feel pretty inept with my reviews, especially since Mr Belfry joined us and puts everyone to same with his rambling eloquence!
Last weeks offering from Coatigan left me in two minds with my pick. I’m always conscious of ‘putting down’ other nominations, but in truth there is quite a lot of music that really doesn’t float my boat.
As I’ve documented a few times I love my rock and blues, but I do have my metal streak which probably bucks the trend for most on here. Therefore in an effort to generate some different discussion my pick is a metal ‘classic’.
This week I give you Rust In Peace (great name) by the mighty Megadeth. I first heard this around the time of its release. It is a hard fast riffing album - Kerrang magazine dubbing it one of the finest thrash metal albums of all time.
The arrival of kids, work and other life nonesense meant I deviated from the metal path for a many years. However I was drawn back to this album by my guitar teacher last year when discussing the use of arpeggios during an improv session. In his view Marty Friedman is one of the finest guitarists (he is a lot younger than most of us on here!). There was a recent thread comparing Marty Friedman and Ritchie Blackmore - I’ll leave you to make your own comparisons. This was Friedman’s first Megadeth outing and for me it showcases some of his finest work. Tornado of Souls is (I believe) testament to this. There are some belting tunes which I’ll leave you all to dissect - for me Holy Wars (with its North African influences), Hangar 18, Lucretia and the aforementioned ToS are the stand out tracks, but the whole album is just brilliant.
For those not familiar with Dave Mustaine’s vocals this might be a struggle! He has the voice of a choirboy…. Or maybe not!
I had a few other choices which were safer picks this week. However, I opted for something more ‘interesting’ just to spice things up a little. I think I may be plumbing the depths score wise, but who cares!
Turn the the dial to loud and nod those heads folks :)


Ps - apologies as ever for the lack of clues. Maybe someone could retrofit some for me
Click to expand...
I have a copy of RIP on picture disk. It was certainly a more polished production than their previous offerings but still maintained that Death Metal drive and energy that the band were originally built on. I think that's partly to do with the album featuring a new guitarist and drummer, but the songs held their own. Not a bad track on the album
 
Rust in Peace by Megadeth

I’m getting this review out quick because ultimately I don’t want to spend the rest of the week listening to this. I have done the required 3 listens minimum mainly by accident. I was listening and thinking “gosh this is a long album” and checked Spotify to see how many more tracks were left before realising the album was on repeat and I was already halfway through my second listen. It’s an album to me that is similar to hearing a foreign language - it all sounds the same and I can’t hear the spaces in-between the words that help you pick up on what is being communicated.

In many ways I feel many of the same things about this pick as I did last weeks. It’s a highly rated album in a genre I know little about but whereas last week we were shredding on violin this week we are shredding on guitar. Like last week there are moments I enjoy but they are mainly when Dave Mustaine isn’t singing and Friedman calms down a little.

I spent a little bit of time trying to figure out how I feel about metal. This album came out in 1990 just as I hit high school. In those days you taped songs off the radio. Big at the time was Killer by Adamski and Seal, Dub Be Good To Me and Strawberry Fields For Ever by Candyflip. There was a bunch of Madchester stuff hitting that I was deaf too mainly because my older sister was too young to go clubbing at the time. I remember having To The Extreme by Vanilla Ice, Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Them by MC Hammer and The Simpsons Sings The Blues. My parents listened to Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Leonard Cohen so metal wasn’t on my radar.

At some point we got a snide sky box so instead of taping songs off the radio we taped songs off MTV. From memory the best way to do this was to wait until your dad fell asleep watching crown green bowling and then turn to MTV, hit record on the vcr and go to bed. For a teenage boy you either hoped you’d record a Madonna video or your dad would wake up and turn over to one of the saucy channels not realising his every move was recorded. Typically you got Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul and Bad by Michael Jackson.

Eventually Waynes World came out and you got Beavis and Butthead appearing on your mix tapes from the middle of the night. I think the first time I heard Creep by Radiohead and maybe even Smells Like Spirit by Nirvana was on Beavis and Butthead. My first real exposure to metal was filtered through the gentle mockery of Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butthead and even before grunge hit big there were plenty of post metal bands like Henry Rollins and Primus also on B&B that poisoned the well and made stuff like Rust in Peace by Megadeth super uncool. It’s for these reasons I just find this kind of music too sincere and I can’t take it seriously.

There are moments to enjoy but they tend to be when the music swings like in Hanger 18 where it gets a little Led Zeppelin or when it’s a little punkier like the intro to Tornado of Souls. Rust in Peace has a little satisfying groove and I also like the intro to Poison Was The Cure although I’m not typically a fan of those super bright slack bass strings (when I played bass a little more I had 10 year old flatwounds so almost the complete opposite).

Lyrically we are covering lots of areas - aliens conspiracies, war in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, World War 2, Dave Mustaines career and black magic. There are spots of humour BUT the delivery is always very straight and I just don’t really like the cadence and poetry of them even just whilst reading them.

Metal is a very technical style of music so there is probably a lot to enjoy I’m just too dumb to understand. I know a metal guitarist and a violin player in the BBC Philharmonic. When they get together they talk about modes, borrowed chords, lydian etc They are pretty nerdy and I don’t understand enough to really appreciate what they are talking about so again like last week I’m scoring this out of ignorance. It’s a super highly regarded album by people who know what they are talking about but I’m Cornholio and this is a 6 and forget.

Edit: was just getting on with my evening and snippets of one of the riffs came back to my memory. A quick relisten and the song is Rust in Peace....Polaris. This is my favourite track but also possibly the one that is least representative of the album as a whole. Quite enjoy the first 4 minutes of this
 
Last edited:
mrbelfry said:
Rust in Peace by Megadeth

I’m getting this review out quick because ultimately I don’t want to spend the rest of the week listening to this. I have done the required 3 listens minimum mainly by accident. I was listening and thinking “gosh this is a long album” and checked Spotify to see how many more tracks were left before realising the album was on repeat and I was already halfway through my second listen. It’s an album to me that is similar to hearing a foreign language - it all sounds the same and I can’t hear the spaces in-between the words that help you pick up on what is being communicated.

In many ways I feel many of the same things about this pick as I did last weeks. It’s a highly rated album in a genre I know little about but whereas last week we were shredding on violin this week we are shredding on guitar. Like last week there are moments I enjoy but they are mainly when Dave Mustaine isn’t singing and Friedman calms down a little.

I spent a little bit of time trying to figure out how I feel about metal. This album came out in 1990 just as I hit high school. In those days you taped songs off the radio. Big at the time was Killer by Adamski and Seal, Dub Be Good To Me and Strawberry Fields For Ever by Candyflip. There was a bunch of Madchester stuff hitting that I was deaf too mainly because my older sister was too young to go clubbing at the time. I remember having To The Extreme by Vanilla Ice, Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Them by MC Hammer and The Simpsons Sings The Blues. My parents listened to Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Leonard Cohen so metal wasn’t on my radar.

At some point we got a snide sky box so instead of taping songs off the radio we taped songs off MTV. From memory the best way to do this was to wait until your dad fell asleep watching crown green bowling and then turn to MTV, hit record on the vcr and go to bed. For a teenage boy you either hoped you’d record a Madonna video or your dad would wake up and turn over to one of the saucy channels not realising his every move was recorded. Typically you got Opposites Attract by Paula Abdul and Bad by Michael Jackson.

Eventually Waynes World came out and you got Beavis and Butthead appearing on your mix tapes from the middle of the night. I think the first time I heard Creep by Radiohead and maybe even Smells Like Spirit by Nirvana was on Beavis and Butthead. My first real exposure to metal was filtered through the gentle mockery of Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butthead and even before grunge hit big there were plenty of post metal bands like Henry Rollins and Primus also on B&B that poisoned the well and made stuff like Rust in Peace by Megadeth super uncool. It’s for these reasons I just find this kind of music too sincere and I can’t take it seriously.

There are moments to enjoy but they tend to be when the music swings like in Hanger 18 where it gets a little Led Zeppelin or when it’s a little punkier like the intro to Tornado of Souls. Rust in Peace has a little satisfying groove and I also like the intro to Poison Was The Cure although I’m not typically a fan of those super bright slack bass strings (when I played bass a little more I had 10 year old flatwounds so almost the complete opposite).

Lyrically we are covering lots of areas - aliens conspiracies, war in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, World War 2, Dave Mustaines career and black magic. There are spots of humour BUT the delivery is always very straight and I just don’t really like the cadence and poetry of them even just whilst reading them.

Metal is a very technical style of music so there is probably a lot to enjoy I’m just too dumb to understand. I know a metal guitarist and a violin player in the BBC Philharmonic. When they get together they talk about modes, borrowed chords, lydian etc They are pretty nerdy and I don’t understand enough to really appreciate what they are talking about so again like last week I’m scoring this out of ignorance. It’s a super highly regarded album by people who know what they are talking about but I’m Cornholio and this is a 6 and forget.

Edit: was just getting on with my evening and snippets of one of the riffs came back to my memory. A quick relisten and the song is Rust in Peace....Polaris. This is my favourite track but also possibly the one that is least representative of the album as a whole. Quite enjoy the first 4 minutes of this
Click to expand...
Mike Judge is a national treasure just due to Office Space, let alone for Beavis & Butthead. The "white privilege" segment from the second B&B movie is one of the funniest five minute stretches ever committed to film. I have never heard my wife laugh so hard and I was right there with her.

And of course PRIMUS SUCKS as everyone knows.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Mike Judge is a national treasure just due to Office Space, let alone for Beavis & Butthead. The "white privilege" segment from their second movie is one of the funniest five minute stretches ever committed to film. I have never heard my wife laugh so hard and I was right there with her.

And of course PRIMUS SUCKS as everyone knows.
Click to expand...

And Silicon Valley.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top