Archive for the ‘record reviews’ Category
Satan “Atom By Atom” Album Review (2015)
Satan have returned again with a new offering for 2015 on Listenable Records entitled “Atom By Atom” and it’s everything you’d expect after 2013’s Life Sentence.
This album rolls hard from beginning to end and proves once again that the guitar duo of Steve Ramsey and Russ Tippins is damn near untouchable. Brian Ross’ vocals are on point and his patented high wails are ever prominent in all the right places. After their Richmond, VA show in 2013, my friend asked Brian how he’s maintained his voice so well since “Court In the Act”. Brian simply replied with, “It’s my job.” And he still does it well.
“Atom By Atom” features 10 tracks and one thing I’ve noticed is that this album seems a bit darker lyrically than their last album and even “Court In the Act”.
Let’s go track by track:
- Farewell Evolution – The album opens with Brian’s falsetto, and lyrically tackles the lack of critical thinking in modern society.
- Fallen Saviour – “Some still believed that he’d return to save them”. I think you can figure out the rest of the sentiment here. I love the guitar solos in this one.
- Ruination – This is one of my favorites on the album so far. The combination of the riffs and rhythm section matched with Ross’ descending vocal pattern just makes for a clean song.
- The Devil’s Infantry – Sean Taylor and Graeme English open this one with a marching pattern. Lyrically what you’d think based on the title. It all works so perfectly. The breakdown/transition mid-song is killer.
- Atom By Atom – The opening riff on this gives me chills. “Out to get you, atom by atom.” You can hear Russ’ distinctive vocals in that part and it just sounds wonderful. The solos are both crushing as well.
- In Contempt – What Satan album would be complete with a song dealing with judgement? No worries here. You got it and shan’t be disappointed!
- My Own God – Brian lays it out in this one with, “I am my own God, I made myself, broke the mold, life is what I make it, I will not be told.”
- Ahriman – Lyrically dealing with Zoroastrianism, of which I am not too familiar. Great song though. Love the backing vocals in the chorus.
- Bound In Enmity – This is a total fist pumper. Riffs and licks for days.
- The Fall of Persephone – Final track on the record. A bit of a slow roller and took a few extra listens to warm up to completely. English has some great bass licks that really stand out. This one clocks in at almost 7 minutes and has several parts. The dueling guitar solos are perfect.
I really cannot praise this album enough. It’s everything I expected and more and I can’t wait to get a physical copy in my hands and especially can’t wait to catch them live again. If I could give only one critical opinion about this album, it would be in the drum production, mainly the snare. On much of the album it’s just a bit too bright but really doesn’t detract from Sean’s solid playing or from the album itself.
Long live Satan and thanks to Listenable Records for letting me review this!
10/10!
Satan are:
Brian Ross
Russ Tippins
Steve Ramsey
Graeme English
Sean Taylor
l-r: English, Taylor, Tippins, Ramsey, Ross
Motorhead – Rock ‘n’ Roll
Admittedly I’m a latecomer fan when it comes to Motorhead. The first album of theirs I ever owned was 1916 and had really only heard a few songs 
by them throughout the 80s, Ace of Spades being the main one and a few friends of mine and I used to joke on it pretty hard. It wasn’t until getting exposed to them in the early 2000s that I really decided to give them a chance, mainly because a band that I was in decided to play Cradle to the Grave. I had seen them live prior to this, but mainly just to see Mikkey Dee.
In 2004 when I decided to put together a Motorhead tribute band, I was listening to a lot of their 80s material and I think it’s a pretty strong decade for them, much stronger than the 90s and 2000s for sure. The early version of the tribute band did 2 songs from 1987’s Rock ‘n’ Roll, the title track and Eat The Rich. We only played them in a few shows and they fell by the wayside. I’d like to add Rock ‘n’ Roll back to the set. I really dig the mid-80s era stuff as it seems to be more melodic on a lot of levels than the 70s era. For me, there’s not really a bad song on here. Blackheart and Stone Deaf In The USA are 2 big highlights for this album.
I also love the album cover, one of their best for sure.
To the hardcore “Aces of Spades-on-back” crew, I know this is blasphemy. And I’m ok with that. In general I prefer that stuff too, but this is a quality album.
White Witch – S/T 1972
Here’s an odd one from my old vinyl collection. Danile and I were at Electric Smiles Records in Virginia 
Beach about 15 or so years ago rummaging through their $1 bins and I ran across both LPs from White Witch. They were automatically interesting for 2 reasons…band name and imagery. I bought them without hearing them. Why not? They were only $1 each. I think that was the same day we saw Pantera’s first 4 albums on LP as well, but they were like $15 each and I wasn’t into spending that kind of cash that day.
I had no idea what to expect from this band. Seeing that they were an early 70s band, I expected something sort of Sabbath-esque and maybe a little proggy like YES. Instead it’s a little more psychedelic with a few flashes of prog rock. Maybe a little Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash thrown in for good measure. Overall this first eponymous album is pretty good with some catchy chorus and musical hooks here and there. I bought the CDs for these several years ago and they apparently sell for decent cash on eBay these days. I sold their 2nd CD on eBay a year or so ago for $40. I preferred the debut album so I kept it. Now it’s in the stack to be sold with much of my CD collection and I am making the transition to going almost completely digital. Interesting that they toured with Alice Cooper. That would have been a cool show to see for sure.
So if you’re into the trippy 70s rock, I highly recommend that you download this. It’s been out of print for a few years. Read up more on the band here.
I really dig the guy’s vocals. He has a Barry Gibb tenor thing sans the falsetto. Favorite tracks are You’re the One, Don’t Close Your Mind, And I’m Leaving, Illusion (double bass!) and Help Me Lord. I do tend to skip over Home Grown Girl and It’s So Nice To Be Stoned. They’re both a bit goofy but pretty normal for the time they were written.
Iron Maiden – No Prayer For The Dying (post facto review)
I used to be a collector of all vinyl Iron Maiden. I had a ton of stuff. I didn’t have every pressing of every album or EP, but I had most of them. It was crazy. My OCD always had me looking for Iron Maiden records the minute I’d hit a record store. Then No Prayer For The Dying came out 
and it seemed that Maiden had gone on marketing steroids. Sure, they were the kings of releasing stuff since day 1, but it seemed to get crazy in 1990. It was just too much. I did buy a lot of the related EPs and such but decided to end it. One reason was that the album, as I saw it at the time, wasn’t that good.
I saw that tour as well and had a good time although seeing Gers prance around on stage was utterly annoying. Anthrax opened up on their Persistence of Time Tour. They got pissed at the crowd for sitting down during their set. It was a former friend from high school, Rogerson and myself at the patriot Center near Washington, DC.
Last night I decided to listen to this album again. In a previous review I dogged it out pretty badly. Listening to this again last night I really only cringed a few times. I think I detested it so much back then because Adrian wasn’t on it, even though he gets partial credit for writing the worst song on the album, Hooks in You. Musically it’s fine but the lyrics are silly. Most likely they were written by Bruce Bruce. I blame him. The song sounds like it could have been on Tattooed Millionaire.
Overall I found listening to No Prayer rather enjoyable. It was a nice trip down memory lane and there are a lot of songs on here that I actually like…a lot! But Holy Smoke, Hooks In You and Bring Your Daughter are just dumb songs. Absolutely horrible. My absolute favorites would be The Assassin, Public Enema Number One, Run Silent Run Deep and even Mother Russia. Tailgunner is just a mediocre track.
One thing that was blatantly apparent on here was the differences in the guitar solos. There are no doubts as to who is soloing in each song. To put is in simple terms, all of Jannick’s solos suck. Seriously. All of them. I still think he sucks and still wish that he’d just go away.
In my original review I gave this album 2/10. I am going to change it to a 6/10. It’s energetic and Steve Harris was still a prominent feature in their sound. Nowadays he’s just in the background. What a pity.
If you were like me and hated this album back then, give it a new chance, especially after hearing how much they have changed in the last decade.
My ticket stub and a sticker that Maiden dropped from the ceiling at the end of their opening song, Tailgunner. (click to enlarge)
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!
The Metal Files 
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