Retro Review: Black Sabbath - Headless Cross

After pulling out and listening to TYR I had to go back and listen to Headless Cross again and so this review appears.

The instrumental opening "The Gates Of Hell" fairly typical for the time but the excellent title track kicks this album and made my ears perk right up as I missed the previous Tony Martin fronted album. After the lengthy title cut the Sabbath gallop appears in a more accessible way as it is produced for a very much commercial audience who were at this point in love with the MTv Headbangers Ball program. Tony does a great job in the RJD forum of vocal styling on the excellent "When Death Calls". Listening to this again post Ronnie's passing is eerie. Still a great track and now I think I like it just a little bit more.

One of my favorites from this album is the monstrously good "Kill In The Spirit World" with the creepy breakdown before the excellent solo by Iommi. This song is probably the closest you can get to merging RJD and Ian Gillan into one voice. Martin does at many times sound a little like the brilliant Gillan and that only does justice to the album. Here and there are hints that Iommi is moving into the power metal genre to a more epic sound. "Call Of The Wild" does a good job of blending the genre's together in a manner that keeps them commercial enough. I have to admit a really great re-master that adds some more punch to the guitars would be welcomed because a song like "Black Moon" would sound so much better.

Some of the balding generation still think the outdated sound they grew up with can't be done any better, no matter what they hear, they reject the new sounds of their favorite bands.This is a terrible because in this case they are really missing out on some great heavy metal/hard rock. I'm a Black Sabbath fan and I can ebb and flow between their singers easily but I can't get into the last two Osbourne album at all and don't like the Gillan fronted album much at all. This is one of the Black Sabbath everyone who's a fan should own for sure.

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10 Songs That Should Be On Your I-Pod

The Weezer Edition:

10. Let It All Hangout by Weezer
09. The Odd Couple by Weezer
08. Island In The Sun by Weezer
07. Hash Pipe by Weezer
06. (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To by Weezer
05. Keep Fishing by Weezer
04. Photograph by Weezer
03. Autopilot by Weezer

02. We Are All On Drugs by Weezer
01. Buddy Holly by Weezer

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Retro Review: Black Sabbath - TYR

As far as I'm concerned Tony Martin did a fine job as fronting the band from the stand point of replace RJD. Now for the Osbourne fans maybe not so much as the music is definitely more inspired by RJD's epic-ness. TYR kicks off with the grinding groove of "Anno Mundi" showing a power metal direction has been taken in full-force after hinting a lot on Headless Cross. The album continues to deliver with "The Law Maker" one of the many good tracks TYR has to offer.

This album is given little credit as the band has been just a solo project for Toni for too many years and too many vocalist. The rhythm secton is Neil Murray of Whitesnake fame on bass guitar  and his onetime Whitesnake cohort Cozy Powell swing sticks on the drums. Both of these seasoned metal veterans do more than adequate work bringing Toni's vision to light. You can definitely hear their sound and influence bleeding through on "Jerusalem". But that's about as snake bitten as you get.

The excellent "Valhalla" is a very good addition to the Sabbath catalog of songs and shouldn't be dismissed as not Sabbath or ignored because of Toni's inability to move on from his band name. Any fan of Dio will love this song and be thankful after hearing it. The album ends with two numbers that aren't terrible just aren't standouts and that's fine considering this album is a much better listen than the current Sabbath album with Geezer and Ozzy back in the fold. Underrated and forgotten by most but not I. Horns Up!

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Check Out: Lighthouse & The Whaler

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The 20 Worst Bands Of All-Time

So let's have a go at the absolute worst bands to have ever existed but I'm only putting popular bands that most people know not those obscure weird ones.

20. Phish - this band is so overrated and loved for something called being a jam band. I don't anyone that could listen to this tripe sobre so stoned and drunk hipsters and college kids being their fan base makes sense.

19. Dave Mathews Band - I don't know nor do I understand why this shit was ever popular. They are one of the most boring and lame bands I've ever heard in my life. None of the songs make me want to listen to them a second time and Dave is a far better actor than a songwriter or musician.

18.  Pearl Jam - Here is a band that hasn't written a good song for years. Actually have they ever written a good song? Well yes they have but if you take the girth of their work and pull out the two or three tunes that don't suck donkey dick you'd be in the 97th percentile of sewage.

17. Black Veil Brides - I've listened to these posers enough to know that this is nothing but fake popsters trying to emulate bands like Motley Crue and Kiss but with even less musicianship and more goofy emo techniques than anyone should have to suffer through.

16. Animal Collective - Their brand of twee is cloying and grating like an attention-starved, sugar-crashing eight-year-old who wants you to admire his finger painting, while you're trying to wash the dishes.

15. NSYNC - They do not need additional information added to backup why they made the list.

14. Korn - There has never been any reason to put a Korn album unless you wanted to clear the room of anyone cool, intelligent or that has taste in music.

13. Blink-182 As far as the pop punk revival bands this one is terrible in comparrison to all the rest. They are like a cheap paper-machete version of Green Day that have nothing good to offer.

12. Lady Antebellum -  You can polish a turd and this band comes about as close to a polished turd as you can get. They have championed placid drivel their entire career and if they could ever record a song that wasn't over produced to the point that any and all character has been removed I'd be surprised. This band has no heart or depth and is the epitome of vanilla.

11. Incubus - It's not that this band shouldn't be on this list it is where should they sit. They are fucking terrible and it is very easy to hear just randomly pick an album and a track and the suckage will present themselves immediately. Anna Molly anyone?

10. Hootie & The Blowfish - You can't find a band more blah and vanilla that this one.  The pseudo country pop of this band is cringe worthy. There hit singles were hits in the worst period of music history the grunge era. 

09. Dimmu Borgir - Never have I heard a band so over the top and pretentious than this one. Their music is all pomp with astoundingly stupid lyrics. The entire black metal genre is ridiculous but this band is easily the worst in the genre of dumb.

08. Red Hot Chili Peppers - I can't explain how terrible this band is and how much suckage takes place on their awful albums. The lead singer can't stay in tune, actually, he's always flat and monotone. Flea is by far the most annoying bass player in all of rock. Their heroine addict guitar player is too sporadic and well if you like the same 3 or 4 drum patterns repeated over and over then you are in heaven with this shit.

07. Jonas Brothers - Do I need to say more?

06. The Arcade Fire - I'm still waiting to hear something attractive to my ears. In a way, they're like the over-processed food our generation consumed as children; with color and nutrients added after the fact, they almost smell and look like something that's good for us. But they're not. Arcade Fire is not good for us.
 
05. Talking Heads - David Byrne can't sing the band can't write a good song and they are way too artsy in a bad way. This band makes shit music and creates nothing memorable.

04. Radiohead - The hipsters wet dream band but I can't agree with anyone who thinks the music this band makes is anything but awful. They have nothing going on when it comes to melody and the one time they wrote a passable song (Creep) they still managed to fuck it up by swearing on the original version that needed to be re-recorded without the F-bomb. There are really bad bands out there raking in the cash and moving units but not many that stink like this one.

03. Eagles - When it comes to pathetic this band brings a whole new meaning to the word. Sure they are popular and it proves that popularity doesn't mean good. Song after song of fecal matter is spewed out of the speakers with each and every album.

02. Insane Clown Posse - Garbage flow, terrible lyrics, nonsensical rambling, violent on a 12 year old level, cheesy as cheesy gets and never had a hit single this shit shouldn't be allowed to record music ever again and save the world from their stupid image.

01. Tragically Hip - Sure they are overrated and have some of the worst lyrics in music history and maybe the most annoying front man to ever grace the position. This band is by far and I mean miles and miles the worst band that has found success that I've ever heard.

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Five Finger Death Punch - The Wrong Side Of Heaven & The Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 1

After the long winded title of this album and the so A typical bullshit topic of it we get to the music which is completely worth a listen. The band are like a metal version of a hip-hop on this release with all the guests that include Rob Halford, Jamey Jasta, Maria Brink, Tech N9ne & Max Cavelera. The band do drop some fine heavy metal numbers here like the brain crushing "I.M.Sin" that Cavelera does his level best to rip your head off with his vocals.

As this album is presented as a part one it does sound incomplete even at the girth of 14 tracks. The band do a great cover of LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out" with Tech N9ne and it is totally worth a listen. The devastation of the lyrics are much more believable here than they were on the original. The album has some really good tracks like "Dot Your Eyes" and "Burn MF" but they just don't make it to the level of the best from American Capitalist.

The albums best track is the first single and lead off number "Lift Me Up" with the legendary Rob Halford. The album never comes close to matching that song again even though I don't dislike anything on Volume 1. I have to say the candidate for second single/video should be "Watch You Bleed" this song is a beast and at major ear shattering volume sounds even better. The song "You" is also worth a mention because it takes their heavy sound and mixes their commercial sound together enough to create another excellent song. The only song on this album that I'm not too impressed with is "Wrong Side Of Heaven". The song just doesn't capture any energy or emotion and comes off really lame especially when lyrics like "I heard from god today she sounded just like me" and then the same basic line but the devil and looked like him. Stupid lyrics like this have no place in good metal and just make me roll my eyes with disdain.

I can only hope that the band works more of this sound into their second volume along with the superior song writing of "Lift Me Up" as I'd prefer this more dynamic sound over too much of the overtly aggressive tracks that can come to blur together. As far as it goes though Five Finger Death Punch do not disappoint and released an album worth heading down to your favorite record store to purchase a copy.

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Trouble - The Distortion Field

The sludge rock meets doom metal is ever present on The Distortion Field and the lead vocal debut of Kyle Thomas filling some very big shoes is decent. Musically the band do not disappoint at all but Kyle doesn't have enough bottom end to his voice to raise this album to the lofty heights some might expect. On the opening cut the band seem to be inspired but the song isn't as good as one would expect the introduction to the album to be. 

The band hit their Black Sabbath groove on "Paranoia Conspiracy" and now we are officially off on the journey. As the album unfolds I wish that it was produced in the same manner as the latest Sabbath album 13 because with that production this album is 10X better. The music here stands up in the writing and on the very doom paced "One Life" screams for serious thunder from the production. Then Trouble gets into just that with "Have I Told You" a really dreadful ballad that misses the mark.

Founding guitarists Rick Wartrell and Bruce Franklin pile on the riffs, the tempo's range from slow to a medium pace and new vocalist Thomas does have enough dynamics in his deeper gruff voice to deliver the goods. “Hunters Of Doom” perhaps the heaviest song on the album is also one of the major standout tracks. The very Ronnie James Dio "Butterflies" comes off more like a Dio tribute than a Trouble song which isn't a bad thing just really sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the album.

When Kyle hits the tone he really nails the classic sound of yesteryear as "The Greying Chill Of Autumn" shows. This is one of the best songs on this album and if you are a huge fan of this band shouldn't disappoint you at all. At the albums end is "Your Reflection" which easily makes all that disappointment from Black Sabbath's pretty weak swan song effort 13 go away for a little while anyway. Trouble does what they do best on The Distortion Field and that is add to the Sabbath sound they so vigorously borrow. I enjoyed this album and will do so for the rest of the summer of 2013.

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