8-bit Slayer
February 22nd, 2009
For Mike and Jim:
8-bit Slayer. I love the scream.
Dark Tranquility: Monochromatic Stains
February 20th, 2009
Dark Tranquility has a video showing what’s it like to grow up in Europe:
Amon Amarth - The Pursuit of Vikings
February 15th, 2009
What’s the purpose of having a blog if you don’t share things no one cares about, such as your personal rankings of all nine Metallica Albums?
Music video of the week: The Pursuit of Vikings, by our docile Swedish friends, Amon Amarth.
Music Video Code by Metal Video
My favorite kind of metal: hard-driving riffs coupled with a recognizable beat. The only thing that could make this song better would be if Timo Koltipelto from Stratovarius (or a similarly melodic singer) covered the vocals. It would be the perfect combination of raw and haunting. But that’s just my opinion.
p.s. It’s kind of funny how their heads spin throughout the entire video.
Oh, and here’s my Metallica list, excluding albums full of cover songs (Garage, Inc.), and glorified live albums (S + M)
1. Master of Puppets. A powerful first three songs, including Battery, give it a very short leg up on #2.
2. Ride The Lightning. A remarkably polished second album, especially for 1984. Fade to Black may be the group’s best song ever.
3. Metallica (The Black Album). Overplayed, for sure. If you listen to a rock station in Iowa for a few hours, you’re all but guaranteed to hear something from their 1991 masterpiece. I know a lot of Metallica purists despise the album because the band deviated from their roots here (read: it was a commercial success) but there are just too many good songs on the album to rank it any lower. All by itself, Enter Sandman would have made an obscure metal band a huge one-hit wonder. Instead, it’s just one more notch on Metallica’s belt. A side note: I would like to burn the opening stanza of My Friend of Misery in every liberal’s brain at birth.
4. Kill ‘em All. Motorbreath and Phantom Lord are greatly underappreciated tunes.
5. …And Justice for All. Something is off about this album. One would think songs like Blackened, One, and the title track would put this in the top three. But there are two huge drawbacks to Metallica’s 1988 effort. One, it sounds like it was recorded on a Furby in someone’s kitchen. Two, perhaps because of the terrible production, the second half is barely tolerable. Maybe this is the reason the following “Black Album” sounded so smooth.
6. Death Magnetic. It’s surprising how low this sits on the list, considering that it was well-received by most of the Metallica fans I know. I think I loved it for a short time because it suggests Metallica is becoming a metal band again. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Anthrax’s We’ve Come for You All, which was also a much-appreciated, if not exactly great ninth studio album from a band which released a few duds after 1991.
7. Re-Load. The Memory Remains and The Unforgiven II redeem an otherwise forgettable experiment.
8. Load. This one has three good songs. Hero of the Day, Bleeding Me, and King Nothing. With the exception of HOTD, none of them hold a candle to Re-load’s two gems.
9. St. Anger. Word is Metallica rubbed a Mexican drug cartel the wrong way, and they were forced to record this piece of garbage lest their entire families be raped and beheaded on public access television.
On that note, have a nice day!