Archive for July 2009
Hittman – S/T (1988)
Now here’s a closet classic! I first heard the track Dead On Arrival on The Metal Shop in 1988 and I am pretty sure I 
taped the song, if not the whole show (wish I still had those tapes!). I let Kelz hear it the next day or so and he hated it. Doofus. Of course today he’s all about it, or so he says. He’s such a liar sometimes. hahaha. Kidding. Ok, not so much.
Anyway, I promptly went to the Music Man and picked up the cassette. I loved it! Mainly the dude’s vocals. He had a cool range. Good riffs on the album and some smooth drumming. Unfortunately the drums were severely under-produced much like the drums on Megadeth’s Peace Sells or Sanctuary’s Refuge Denied. Very muddy. I loved that tape. This album was just good classy US metal with some Geoff Tate type vocals but music not as progressive at Queensryche.
Lyrically this album could be better but I can overlook it. The one track I don’t dig is their version of Secret Agent Man (Secret Asian Man!). I never liked the original so I didn’t want to hear a cover version of it either. We jammed on this album a lot. We always cracked jokes about the song “Backstreet Rebels”; usually make jokes about some chick…”Backstreet Nikki” or whoever. Silly dumbasses we were, but the lyrics needed to be joked on. All in all this was a fun album to play drums to. The double bass work was straightforward enough that my feet could keep up with it.
In 1991 or 1992 I went to Cleveland to see my friend Bronwyn and hit a great string of record stores up there. One of which had this CD import for $3! This one store had a ton of metal for cheap on vinyl and CD. The manager said “I don’t like metal and just want to see this stuff out of here.” I easily dropped $200 in that place on some cheap metal. Glad to be of service, sir!
So, I highly recommend this to you as some really good 80s US Metal. Again, very out of print so I don’t mind uploading it. I do not recommend their followup album, Vivas Machinas. It was pretty bad.
Cemetery – Reborn (Japan)
This is another Kelz turned me on to as he is the king of Japanese metal. These guys weren’t of the typical Japanese 
metal caliber. They are a little more anthemic style. While I still prefer classic Loudness and some other bands as far as Japanese metal goes, this album and their subsequent EP are really good.
I used to correspond with one of the guys quite often and he was always very excited that someone in the USA knew who they were and liked their music. I think it was their bassist, Yoshi, but my memory has faded as it was about 10 years ago. I think he died shortly after the subsequent EP “MRI” came out. I was pretty sad when I read the news about his passing.
It was so very cool as one day I came home from work and there was a small package from Japan in my mailbox. They had sent me a copy of the MRI EP. To my surprise both Kelz and I were thanked on the back cover. That was pretty cool.
The song Reach For The Sky is absolutely incredible. It has a great feel and it’s pretty sad.
hold my head up high, i will be alright
my soul will fly higher and reach for the sky
always i’m looking for the answer
never seem that i find what i am looking for
i was walking on the empty land
i could not recollect my reason to live
This CD is way out of print and I doubt there were more than a few hundred of them pressed to start with. It’s worth sharing and worth you checking out.
Custard? WTF? There is a band named Custard?
Yep. Kelz made for me a compilation tape around 1997 that had some cool stuffs on it like Custard, Tension, 
Skullview(!) and some other stuff that escapes me right now. I listened to that tape all the friggin’ time until I got a car in 2000 that didn’t have a cassette player. So I saw that Sentinel Steel Records had Kingdoms of Your Life on CD and picked it up promptly. He always has cool stuff and I recommend you checking it out if you’re even mildly into Power Metal.
Custard hails from Germany and are apparently still together but I am pretty suer that this CD is out of print, that’s why I am posting it here. Fading Memories is the only song I can’t get into. This is good straight up power metal. The singer’s range isn’t that great but it’s very listenable. Failed Mission is easily my favorite. They have little bit of Maiden, Helloween, Accept etc in their sound.
I never bothered to check out their other albums, likely out of fear of disappointment.
On a scale of 1-5, this gets an easy 3.75.
Enjoy it!
Vis Vires – Inside the Hate
Odd little band that I found through Denis Gulbey of Sentinel Steel Records. They hail from somewhere in Georgia but 
don’t really have an American sound. The album is mildly progressive ala Fates Warning (middle Alder era), euro thrashy and gothy in other spots. Occasional screamo vocals which normally turn me off, but they seem to work in this instance. There are some tasty guitar and drums parts and I really dig the singer. The album is a little sloppy in places but it doesn’t really detract from the sum of the whole.
Based on the lyrics, the singer is pretty unhappy with stuff, mainly God. “It doesn’t matter if you rise again cuz you are dead in me forever.” Ouch. His vocal style is very loose and even out of pitch here and there but it works.
If you’re into metal I recommend giving this a listen. Such a pity they split up after this. Another album would have been interesting.
And sorry, no personal quip with this one, just an album that I like.
If the download expires, leave me a note and I’ll upload it again.
Rapeman – Two Nuns and a Pack Mule
In 1992 I went to visit Kelz at JMU during his junior year there. I drove my sweet 82 Trans Am up there. It was a total blast, at least what I remember of it. 
Actually, there are only a few memories of that weekend in tact in my brain. We drank a lot of beer, mostly at some bar called JM’s. We played the video bowling game there and seemed to get better the more we drank. We went to some guy’s house and listened to Dwight Yoakam. I met some girl named Ursula. I was extremely hungover that Saturday morning. Somewhere there’s a photo of me dead on his couch in so much pain. But the main thing I do remember from that weekend was the music I was introduced to…Foetus, Rapeman, Iron Prostate and Motorpsycho (USA band) and even Motorhead to a lesser degree. I was also introduced to the Spawn comic book that weekend. That was a great series fro about 50 issues. But more on the other bands some other time, today is about the Rapeman album. I liked it the 2-3 times I listened to it while up at JMU that weekend and never bothered much with it again.
Flash forward to July 4, 2009. Jason McMaster and I rode down to San Antonio to check out a legendary record store called Hog Wild Records. The place has been there since the 70s and I always like seeing the independent shops that are still around, even if they are making it by the skin of their teeth. It is a cool shop and I dropped $60 easily in there. One of the things I picked up was Rapeman’s Two Nuns and a Pack Mule CD used for $5 in mint condition. I hadn’t thought about that album in years and had to buy it. I was hoping I’d still like it. There have been a few purchases of “back in the day” albums that I loved then and don’t care for now. Fortunately for me, this one still sits well in my listening palette. I’ve spun it at least 10 times since last weekend and I like it more and more each time I hear it.
I’ve seen it classified as post-hardcore. To me it sounds like a live Foetus album in some ways. A little frantic yet controlled…and without the digital samples. The guy’s voice even resembles Thirwell’s in places. The version I am posting has the BUDD EP include as well.
The Metal Files 
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