Archive for the ‘album reviews’ Category
Stratovarius – Visions
So at the time that this album came out in 1997 I had already started my little
online record store called Acacia Music that mostly sold stuff on eBay and on my old website. I was buying most of my stuff from metal Blade and Century Media directly as they were able to get good priced metal imports to me at wholesale prices. I got to know these guys pretty well and went to LA in Sept/97 to visit with both companies. It was a wonderful experience and I got turned on to a lot of newer bands via that business.
Stratovarius was one of those bands.
While all of their albums are pretty consistent, Visions is the one for me. I really don’t need anything else by them except maybe the corresponding live album which is also pretty awesome.
There’s nothing that I can really sad negative about Visions. It’s powerful. It’s emotional. It’s heavy. It’s tasteful. I would rank this the best euro-power metal album of the 90s easily with Helloween being the best of the 80s.
The Best of Metal Blade Vol 2
aka “One Of The Greatest Compilations Ever”
Let’s just say that Metal Blade Records really helped shape my metalness during the mid-80s. For the most part up until about 1989, if it was on Metal Blade Records, there was about a 90%+ chance that you were getting quality metal. There were exceptions of course…like Canada’s Sye. Terrible. Really.
But Metal Blade was great at putting out cool compilations like the Metal Massacre series and the Best of Metal Blade series. Today we take an in depth look at the Best of Metal Blade Vol 2.
1. LIZZY BORDEN “Notorious” – Let’s make something clear here…right now. I’m a Lizzy Borden fan and have been since I first heard them. I’m pretty sure the Give ’em the Axe EP was my indoctrination. My interest was first piqued when I saw a little blurb in Circus Magazine about the band and there was Lizzy standing there with the band on a rooftop with this huge double-bladed axe. They looked totally badass. Great albums overall but I’ve always been a little partial to Menace To Society and especially to this song. Great hooks, cool lyrics, nice production. This song has it all.
2. OMEN “Teeth of the Hydra” – Not my introduction to Omen (thanks Daniel!) but one of my favorite songs by them for sure. JD Kimball’s vocals (RIP) really set this band apart from most metal bands. He could add a tone of despair in his voice that I have never heard too many other singers do. Mustaine had that quality on the first 2 Megadeth albums as well. Something about the way they wail, it’s a bit haunting. While not my favorite of the classic 3 Omen albums, this ranks as one of my top songs from them.
3. FATES WARNING “Prelude to Ruin” – John Arch. You are the man. Fates Warning offered us another treat with Awaken the Guardian. As good of a song as this is, it’s certainly not my favorite from this album.
4. HALLOW’S EVE “Lethal Tendencies” – Yes! Great song from a great album. Sure, not the most technically proficient thrash band, but they delivered it well.
5. SLAYER “Black Magic” – (classic) SLAYER! ’nuff said.
6. DESTRUCTION “Eternal Ban” – see below
7. SODOM “Deathlike Silence” – You know, these 2 songs never did much for me. In general, was never much of a fan of either band. I think the production really ruined them for me on this early stuff. One day I’ll revisit their back catalog again…maybe.
8. SENTINEL BEAST “Dogs of War” – Awful.
9. DETENTE “Holy War” – I always dug Detente. One of the few female fronted metal bands that I could tolerate. This album was pretty good as is this song. Dawn Crosby (RIP) was a rough one. My current guitarist lived with some folks from this band back in those days and the stories and video I’ve seen of them is trippy. Talk about drinkers? wow.
10. HIRAX “Criminal Punishment” – Another band I never got into mainly because I never tried. I don’t dislike this song, but I never really paid much attention to the band. I do respect that Caton is still out there proudly flying the flag of metal.
11. FLOTSAM & JETSAM “Der Fuhrer” – Oh man. One of the greatest thrash songs ever. Period. Everything from this album just rules. But this song…oh man.
12. JUGGERNAUT “Slow Death” – Juggernaut was always hit an miss. This song is no exception. Miss!
13. HERETIC “Whitechapel” – But this song is a hit. It’s perfect. It’s mid-paced fist-pounding metal. Nice shrill-style vocals and it was about Jack the Ripper. What more could one want in a metal song?
14. SAVAGE GRACE “Trial By Fire” – Love it!
15. SOUND BARRIER “Gladiator” – I think I am one of the few who actually like these guys. This is a cool song too.
16. CIRITH UNGOL “Blood & Iron” – Ahhhhh…Cirith Ungol. How I have always held a soft spot in my heart for these guys. There were the old men of metal in LA. very unique band, very dark. Plus they had the best album covers (Michael Whelan).
17. LIZZY BORDEN “Live & Let Die” – I detest Paul McCartney.
18. CITIES “Burn Forever” – Burn burn burn…burn foreveeeeeeeer! Awesome song. The album was pretty good too. Love the vocals on this.
19. EXXPLORER “Run For Tomorrow” – Again, out of my circle of metal metal head friends, I think I was/am the only one who got into these guys. Great vocals.
20. KRANK “Rented Heat” – This is one of those songs like Crazy Night (Loudness) or Balls To the Wall (Accept) that just makes you nod your head to the mid-paced beat and want to put your fist in the air and sing along. Too bad the album was one of the worst things Metal Blade ever put out.
21. DEAF DEALER “The Fugitive” – I adore this song. One of these days I hope to run across this on CD. Hey Kelz, you still have yours?
If I think about it later, I’ll upload this for your listening pleasure.
The Gathering…a brief retrospective
So let’s go back to about late 1996, maybe early 1997. I was going through a divorce and wasn’t really the happiest guy in the world at the time. To be
truthful, life was pretty shitty for me then, but oh well. If you knew during this time, you saw that I was a mess.
Anyhoo, one day kelz calls me and we’re doing the usual jibber jabber. You know, mom jokes, Iron Maiden, other music etc. He asks me if I had heard of a band called The Gathering. I said no and he played a clip of In Motion from the Mandylion album over the phone. I couldn’t hear it very well but I heard that voice. Oh man, that voice. “I gotta find this ASAP!”
Right around this time I was starting up my personal business (Acacia Music) and started selling CDs on eBay and through my old online store. I need to occupy my time to get my mind off of this stupid divorce. I was dealing with Century Media and Metal Blade at the time as they were handling distro from most other metal labels. So I had ordered Mandylion. I was blown away by it. Not so much because of the music, but because of her voice. It was beautiful. Now, I will be the first to say that I am nto a fan of girls in metal/hard rock bands minus a few exceptions (Leather from Chastain, Betsy from Bitch, Doro from Warlock and Wendy O). I practically listened to this album every day. Like I said earlier, I was going through a rough time in my personal life and music helped get me through it. This album helped get me through it.
The rep I had at Century Media was this super cool guy named John Schultz. I met him in Sept/97 when I went to LA on a buying trip to the Century Media and Metal Blade Records warehouses. John was a cool guy and looked a lot like Mustaine or Joe from the movie Stoned Age. We were both big into The Gathering.
Not long after I
got back from LA, John calls me and the conversation went a little like this:
Me: Hello?
JS: Sean, it’s John from Century, what’s up, man?
Me: Not much, same ol shit.
JS: Sean, hold on a second, there’s someone here you should talk to.
Me: Wha?
Anneke Van Giersbergen (The Gathering): Hello Sean, this is Anneke from The Gathering.
*Imagine the sound of a 220lb bag of sand hitting the floor*
Me: Wha? really?
I really can’t talk much more about the rest of my conversation with her because I’m pretty sure I regressed to elementary school and professed my undying love for her. No, seriously. I remember I felt like Alfalfa talking to Darla. What a doofus. But she was super cool and absolutely charming. I never got to meet her face to face although I had the opportunity more than once, either at Jaxx in Springfield, VA or here in Austin in 2007 at the SxSW festival. Yes, I’m an idiot. I should have gone. But whatever. She sent me an autographed promo photo. Have I mentioned that she is absolutely gorgeous?
Nighttime Birds came out in mid-97. I’m pretty sure I bought this while in LA visiting the record labels and didn’t get to hear it until I got back to VA. It’s another wonderful effort by the band and a little consistent and polished when compared to Mandylion. This album is a little better than Mandylion but I generally grab Mandylion first when i want to hear them.
In late 1998 they released How To Measure a Planet. What a letdown. The music started integrating trance and electronica to their sound. Boo. I think I liked maybe 2 tracks off of this 2CD set. It really was a bore.
By the time that If_Then_Else came out in 2000, I was done with them. The music changed far too much for me. They continued to be more successful on a worldwide level than before but they lost the sound that I liked.
I lost touch with John from Century Media around 2000/01 when he left the company. I’d love to find that guy again. He turned me on to At The Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul when I was in LA and I am eternally grateful to him for that. So, hope you’re doing well wherever you are, man.
I think I’ll listen to Mandylion and Nighttime Birds tonight. Both albums are always a bright spot that shined in a pretty shitty time of my life.
The Metal Files 
You must be logged in to post a comment.