Today’s post will be particularly short. Not only was my day quite heavily punctuated by interruptions, I encountered a rather colossal set of music.
Despite the brevity of today’s post, the music was, in a word, fantastic.

Saigon Kick - The Lizard

If you were alive in the early 90s, you probably remember Saigon Kick as the one-hit-wonders who did Love is On the Way. While technically correct, this doesn’t properly represent the band that was Saigon Kick.
Saigon Kick was, despite the power ballad that everybody knew, a hard rock/heavy metal band with a bizarre sense of humor. Songs like My Dog and Peppermint Tribe will attest to that (as will the silly Peppermint Tribe dance that my friends and I came up with). In all seriousness, though - you truly do owe it to yourself to check this out - there’s probably a lot here that you’ve been missing out on.

Metallica - Load

I remember when this album came out - ie was surrounded by controversy. While some of it legitimately surrounded the band’s expanded musical direction and different sound, I was very surprised at the vitriol surrounding their new haircuts.
Seriously. People were pissed because they got haircuts.
Moving on to the actual music, “Load” did indeed represent a shift in Metallica’s sound. They experimented more with different styles of music and different sounds. For many people, this was high sacrilege. For me, it was just another good album from Metallica. It would be a few more albums before they’d make me say “WTF?”

Howard Shore- Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This beastie was extremely long. 53 tracks long. Not that I’m complaining, but this soundtrack bloody well dominated my day.
Howard Shore did an excellent job throughout the trilogy. This particular episode, being the denouement, features some of the most hugely dramatic music of them all, with particularly heavy use of horns and operatic vocals.
Well worth the time. Well worth it, indeed.

Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus

If, perchance, your entire Amorphis experience to date has been through this blog, you’re in for a bit of a surprise. All of the Amorphis that I’ve listened to so far has been music of a distinctly goth/progressive variety. That’s about to change.
“The Karelian Isthmus” was the first album released by Amorphis…back when they were a death metal band. This ain’t your daddy’s death metal, though - Never satisfied with simply filling a genre, Amorphis took death metal in a different direction. Although not as obvious as they would be on later albums, you can still hear progressive elements in the music on this album.

Metallica - Kill ‘Em All

Looking at the liner notes on this album, it’s hard to believe that those four kids in the picture are the same four people who would go on to become one of the most important metal bands in history, defining thrash in the process. It’s funny how life works.
The music on “Kill ‘Em All” is interesting - doubly so when looked at through the lens of the two and a half decades that have passed since its release. As with many first albums, especially those released on “minor” labels (Kill “Em All was released on Megaforce records), the sound is a bit rough. Metallica managed to make that work for them. Probably because of their roots as a garage band, they took that raw sound and used it.
The staccato riffs, blistering solos (take a close listen to Seek and Destroy), and vocals that ride the fine line between “wail” and “scream”…Metallica’s early New Wave Of British Heavy Metal influences are quite apparent. Some of the songs may have been fairly silly in the lyric department (Phantom Lord? Really?), but they more than made up for that with their delivery. There’s a reason Seek and Destroy is a concert staple to this day, and it’s not the deep, insightful lyrics.
I could go on at some length about this album (there was a time when I studied Metallica history in detail), but that would soon become needlessly pedantic.

Megadeth - Killing is My Business…and Business is Good

This is an interesting yin/yang we have here - right after Metallica’s debut we get Megadeth’s debut. The fact that these albums sound similar should come as no surprise; both pull from the same pool of inspiration, and Dave Mustaine was involved in the songwriting process for most of the songs on “Kill ‘Em All.”
Megadeth’s debut, however, has a much harder, angrier edge to its sound. This is largely due to Dave Mustaine’s anger over being fired from Metallica. He was out for blood, and it shows.
Particularly notable on this album is The Mechanix. Written when Mustaine was still a member of Metallica, this is the original version of the song that would be released on “Kill ‘Em All” As The Four Horsemen. The Mechanix is faster and shorter, and its lyrics considerably less occult (and more adolescent). The first time I bought this album, it was specifically for The Mechanix, as the only other way to hear it was to track down a copy of Metallica’s demo (which I have since done - more on that later).
This particular edition of “Killing is My Business” also includes Megadeth’s three-track demo, featuring raw, (and blindingly fast) versions of Last Rites/Loved To Deth, Mechanix and Skull Beneath the Skin.

Queen - A Kind of Magic

This isn’t your ordinary Queen album. No sir, this is more than that - it’s also the soundtrack from the movie Highlander. In other words, this album has more refined awesome than a single album should be able to hold. I imagine that Queen had to invent some kind of groundbreaking awesomeness compression technology to fit it all in. Take a good look at the tracklist for this album - half of it is in the Greatest Hits collection, and for good reason. Wait…did I start this review by using “ordinary” and “queen” in the same sentence? Oh dear, oh dear… I’m going to have to do penance for that…

Faith No More - King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime

It’s funny, I was just going to say that this album sounded “more rock and less funk,” when Evidence came on, with the funky wah pedal thing happening…
Still, this album (Faith No More’s last, as I recall) is more rock/metal that their previous releases. It does, however, dip its feet into the strange, avant-garde world of Fantomas - just listen to Cuckoo for Caca. Wow, that’s a gross song title.

Cordell Klier - Kingdom

Technically, this is part of the “Netlabel Invasion.” However, I’m not considering it to be an actual part of said invasion, as I was already aware of Cordell Klier as an artist prior to receiving the Netlabel DVD.
Kingdom is a one-track album - 18:22 of ambient sound. It starts out with a few quiet sounds, then POW! About half a minute in, a loud drone kicks in, filling your head with a slightly electronic sound. Personally, I think it has a bit of a science fiction feel to it - as I listen to it, my mind’s eye sees a black hole, with a research station just beyond the event horizon…or maybe there’s some kind of anomaly, like V’ger…
Ok, I really like this one.

The FuMP (compilation - sorta)

This isn’t really a compilation as much as it is a handful of songs that I’ve “captured” from the FuMP (Funny Music podcast). I’ve only grabbed a few songs so far, most notably Blow Me Down (a pirate themed parody of the Thompson Twins’ Hold Me Now) and New Song (a parody of the fact that all Nickelback songs sound the same).
“Blow me down!
Avast ye swabs!
Arr matey!
Wench fetch me grog, wench fetch me grog…”

Bobby Gaylor - Fuzzatonic Scream

There’s only one downside to this album: the fact that Bobby Gaylor has never released another.
You may remember hearing his song suicide back a the turn of the century. The “spoken word plus really cool music” concept continues throughout the remainder of this album, with songs that range from the disturbing (Tommy the Frog Killer) to the wonderfully nostalgic (Smelt).
Really, there’s not a lot to say here that I haven’t already said on The Geek’s Grimoire.

Gaelic Storm - Gaelic Storm

This album, Gaelic Storm’s first, is comprised almost entirely of “traditional” Irish music. Right from the start, this is a very upbeat album that makes it very difficult for the listener to sit still.
Filled with energetic Irish standards like Hills of Connemara and (my personal favorite)Johnny Jump Up, this album is sure to make you thirsty for a pint o’ Guinness. Of course, merely being awake makes me thirsty for a good pint…

Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery

This is an older Dark Tranquillity album, apparently recorded before they recruited a keyboard player. As a result, this album is less melodic than the others that I’ve listened to so far, with more of an extreme thrash/black metal sound.
This is a good album, and if you listen carefully, you can hear Dark Tranquillity’s progression toward a more melodic sound The title track is a particularly good illustration of this movement, with flowing, melodic guitar solos and female vocal passages providing an excellent counterpoint to the overall heaviness of the song.

Queen - The Game

Maybe this album title doesn’t really mean anything to you. If that’s the case, I think I can enlighten you regarding the album’s awesomeness in five words. Another. One. Bites. The. Dust. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Of course, the mere fact that this is a Queen album should have screamed “AWESOMENESS!!” directly at your brain. Seriously - it’s Queen! Only one of the greatest rock bands ever…
I just had a thought.
An awesome thought.
A thought of truly epic proportions.
Queen Rock Band.

Coolio - Gangsta’s Paradise

One of these albums is not like the others…
I remember when I bought this album. I’d heard Gangsta’s Paradise (who hadn’t?), and I liked it. I don’t often run out and buy an album on the strength of a single track (I learned that lesson from the Gin Blossoms), but I’d also heard and enjoyed Fantastic Voyage. Two good songs indicates a good probability of consistently enjoyable music, so I bought this album.
This is definitely a ballsy album. In a genre that’s known for glorifying gang violence, “Gangsta’s Paradise” delivers a much different message. The title track, for example, criticizes the “gangsta” life rather than glorifying it.

Beatallica - A Garage Dayz Nite

This is the first album from the Beatles/Metallica hybrid. These songs are bloody hilarious - I have no idea what possessed them to combine these two bands, but it was clearly an ingenious decision.
This album has my personal favorite Beatallica track - The Thing That Should Not Let it Be. I love the combination of Metallica’s creeping horror and The Beatles’ laid back song.

Metallica - Garage, Inc.

The compleat Metallica covers collection. Yeah, that about sums this up. Disc one is full of new covers, while disc two features older covers. The music covered here is an interesting cross section of groups that inspired members of Metallica, from the obvious (Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Queen) to the ones that make you go “Hmm…really!” (Nick Cave, Thin Lizzy, Budgie).
OK, now it’s story time. If you already know the significance of the word “Garage” in the title (or if you don’t care), thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week. Otherwise, read on…
The “Garage” title is a sort of Metallica tradition when they record covers. It all started in 1984 when Metallica released their Creeping Death single. The b-side of this single was two covers (Diamond Head’s Am I Evil? and Blitzkrieg’s Blitzkrieg), on which little post-recording production work was done. The resulting tracks were referred to as “Garage Days Revisited” because of their raw, garage band feel.
Fast forward to 1987, when Metallica released a 5-track EP to “break in” their new bassist. Titled “The $5.98 EP Garage Days Re-Revisited,” this EP was as sparsely produced as the Creeping Death B-sides. Thus was born a Metallica Tradition.