Posts Tagged ‘heavy metal’
Megadeth – Endgame (2009) – CD Review
I like Megadeth…really, I love Megadeth. But I’m no fanboy. I really stopped listening to them when Countdown To 
Extinction came out. I even had a little trouble listening to Rust In Peace, but it’s pretty tolerable now. I’ll also be at the front of the line to say that I prefer Megadeth’s first 3 albums over Metallica’s. Dave is a riffmaster and I am sure there are a lot of good songs on the albums between Countdown and The World Needs a Hero, but I just can’t care.
Those first 2 are simply incredible. The perfect combination of power, sweet riffage, great solos, drumming and heroin. Even So Far So Good has some really high points.
But they whimped out after Rust In Peace. Other than Friendman’s Dragon’s Kiss album, his playing never did much for me, so I stayed away from his era of ‘Deth.
Then The System Has Failed came out with Chris Poland back in the ban for the album! I had to hear it…Loved it! His trademark sound was all over the album. I got to see Gigantour and finally got to meet Dave. It was a memorable experience. That guy is pretty smart and a phenomenal guitarist. I also like United Abominations a lot.
So here we are in 2009. Another Megadeth album. Endgame. I’m impressed. Dave has always hired good guitarists and Chris Broderick (Jag Panzer) is a worthy member. He’s got some great solos on Endgame as does Dave. It’s pretty easy to tell who is who. Dave’s style is pretty unique. I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves as a guitarist, especially as a soloist.
Endgame is pretty good all the way through. The opening track is an instrumental and it does remind me of Set The World Afire in a few spots, but it doesn’t detract from the great solos. I’ve listened to this about 6 times now and I think my least favorite track is Bite The Hand. I was a little nervous when I heard about the ballad, but it’s not bad at all. My favorite tracks would be This Day We Fight, The Hardest Part of Letting Go, Endgame and 44 Minutes. Shawn Drover and James Lomenzo do a great job of holding down the rhythm.
Now I do have a few criticisms. Dave’s vocals have never been great by any stretch of the imagination. He’s certainly lost a step in his vocals over the last 2 albums. It’s natural really. He’s no spring chicken these days. They’re not bad, but he sounds a little weaker. That guy used to have one of the greatest wails in metal! I’ll also make a small complaint about the lyrics. Sure, metal has always had a bit of silliness and Megadeth sliced their share of the cheese. But it doesn’t really detract from the record. The record is good. Really good. Very rarely do I buy albums on their release day, but for modern era Megadeth, I make the exception.
Nice work, Dave. 8.5/10.
Sorry, no free download here. Go buy it, slacker.
http://www.myspace.com/megadeth is streaming it for free right now as well.
Skullview – Legends of Valor (1997)
A song from this was on one of the many compilation tapes that Kelz sent me over the years. It was the song Blood on 
the Blade from Skullview‘s debut CD. I bought this CD and the followup and have enjoyed them both over the years but there was always something missing and I still can’t put my fingers on it. They vocals were fine, the riffs were fine…these guys were a good traditional American metal band but something always seemed to be lacking. I always thought the drummer was a bit boring and a tad sloppy. I don’t know. But nonetheless, this album is certainly worth putting ears to a few times.
They did play one of the Keep It True fests and I am sure some of the other US metal festivals. I used to correspond with the guitarist quite a bit in the days of the old usenet metal forums. Great dude, fine guitarist. Wonder what he’s up to these days?
I guess I could compare them to Armored Saint and Early Jag Panzer…a little anyway.
You know as I sit here and listen to this album again, I blame it on the drummer. He definitely had some meter problems which translated to the rest of the band.
Purgatory – Tied To The Trax (1986)
Not sure who I first heard this through and it really doesn’t matter. I do know that they weren’t my discovery within 
my circle of friends but it was one of those albums that everyone seemed to love. It was really too bad that they didn’t do a follow-up to this one. I was happy to finally get a CD copy from Sentinel Steel Records about 15 years ago.
This is 80s speed/thrash metal at its finest. It’s a great album front to back and was only officially released on CD via SPV/Steamhammer forever and a day ago. Bill at Auburn Reocrds has said that he wants to re-release it but to date it hasn’t happened. Auburn Records had a few good bands on it like Shok Paris, Breaker, Purgatory and Black Death. Pity their bands pretty much wavered around in the underground.
But as I was saying, there’s not a bad song on this album. The singer, Jeff Hatrix, ended up in Mushroomhead as J.Man I believe. Shame, the dude had a phenomenal metal voice.
I highly recommend that you download and listen to it…over and over.
Lord – Second Coming (1988)
This is one that I only picked up within the last year or so off of eBay. When I saw that it had Bloodlust’s singer I had to 
check it out. How did I not know about this one before? WTF? But here we are…Lord’s Second Coming CD rereleased (aka bootlegged) on HOT METAL RECORDS. This label put out a bunch of obscure stuff like Hammeron, Satan’s Host, Killen, SA Slayer…but of course all as bootlegs and they sound like they were recorded straight from the vinyl. But I kind of like that on some things. Takes me back to the old days of listening to metal in my bedroom on my POS record player.
This is a good metal find though and oddly enough this is the first CD I ever loaded into my iTunes that it didn’t recognize. I am a bit surprised.
Second Coming starts out a bit odd in that there’s a ballad as the opening track. You do hear a side of Guy Lord’s voice that you don’t hear so much on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin LP. It picks up from here on the song Burnin’ but in more of a NWOBHM style. His vocals are clean and the riffs and well crafted IMHO. I’ve probably spun this 20 times since I picked it up last year. Some of the stuff has a 70s hard rock feel ala Pentagram’s more upbeat early stuff. There’s a variation of different hard rock/metal styles on here. I’m not much of a fan of The Doors but they do a pretty cool cover of The End.
So if you liked the vocals on Bloodlust’s Guilty As Sin, I recommend that you download this. It’s worth a few spins for some old metal listening.
Many Have Tried and Many Have Died…
Omen never really got their due. Three brilliant albums and one EP between 84 and 86 and when you hear people talk 
about classic metal, especially when mentioning the early Metal Blade stuff, it seems that so few people talk about them. It’s a bit of a shame. It was nice to see that metal Blade did do the Omen box set a few years ago. The live footage is enjoyable.
Omen had a very unique style and sound, especially in the vocal department. There was something in the way that JD Kimball could wail…like you could really hear the desperation in his voice. I remember the first time I heard them. Daniel had ordered Battle Cry through Metal Blade. I was blown away by the whole band. Kelz had made me a dub tape of Battle Cry and Warning of Danger. I can still see that tape sitting on the seat of my old Nova. I believe there was some Metal Church at the end of one of the sides.
But there was something special about Omen but I don’t think it was just any one thing. The sum of the parts just made them perfect. The music was great, the vocals were great and overall they had good lyrics. That was difficult to do back in those days. Even Be My Wench and Bring Out the Beast are great.
For as much as I love Battle Cry and Warning of Danger, in recent years I find myself listening to the Curse more often than the other 2. Teeth of the Hydra is one of my favorite songs of all time by any band.
Then 2 years after The Curse they released Escape To Nowhere with Coburn Pharr (Annihilator). My god what an awful album that was. I revisited it a few years ago and it still sucked.
All in all, you can’t go wrong with any of the first 3 albums. I listened to Reopening the Gates when it came out as well…it just didn’t work for me. Omen was more about JD’s vocals than anything else for me. RIP.
The Metal Files 
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