...And Justice For All

Metallica's epic concept album about the loss
of the American Dream & societal decay,
...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Yet another new feature in the neverending depth of my mind, I'm going to start a CD review archive. I'm not going to review any & all cds b/c frankly I'm not as cool as the dudes in the music biz or magazine biz that get advanced copies of whatever. Nay! I am going to review CDs that are in my CD library & hope maybe it'll wake some people up to the beautiful brutal chaos that is:

METAL

Now, not all CDs I have are metal but most of them are. So I'm starting with the metal CD that forever changed my musical world, Metallica's 1988 epic, ...And Justice For All.

...And Justice For All was released by Metallica in 1988 when they were at the pinnacle of the metal music world & the rulers of a kingdom which they had built themselves the old-fashioned way: on strictly word of mouth, bootleg tape swapping (oh the irony there for current Metallica!) & non-stop touring & high-energy live sets.

Metallica had always dabbled in the epic song structures of 5-6 minute songs starting with Ride The Lightning, expanded it on Master Of Puppets & then coming out with an album full of 6, 7, even 9-minute plus epics. This album introduced me to the concept of "the long song" & how a song can "change in the middle of it." Little layman's terms from back in the 13 yr. old days.

Metallica even scored a Top 40 hit off this album with the antiwar metal classic with the famous several minute machine gun jam outro, One, which was the first real metal song I had ever heard & I was instantly hooked the 1st listen. Audio heroin, if you will.

This album has it all, all the obligatory guitar licks, memorable riffs, solos, tempo changes, differing time signatures, complex song structures, bridge & interlude laden tracks, you name it. A true air guitarists' dream this album is. Nothing overly complex but enough licks to make your buddies' go, "Whoooooa, dude... do you like... play guitar & stuff?"

Great album lyrically as well with songs ranging from death of the planet, the corruption of government & the justice system, societal decay, all the usual metal topics but well written.

The only drawback of the album is the thin production. The guitars sound "hollow" compared to today's metal sound production (to be fair most 80s metal does though) & then there's the infamous lack of audible bass sound on the album.

If this album had come out say 10 years later when metal sound production had really developed to get all the nuances of layers of a band's compositions to be able to be discerned, it'd be the best overall metal album of all-time, IMO. As it is, I still easily put in my personal top 5 albums of of all-time just on song compositions alone.

Not a dull moment on the album, IMO & the music on this album does a really good job of relaying the dark & depressing & sometimes reflective somberness of the songs' themes. My favorite tracks on the album are the title track ...And Justice For All & the almost-instrumental, To Live Is To Die, which is one of my favorite songs of all-time.

This was also the full album debut for bassist Jason Newsted replacing the legendary Cliff Burton who had died a couple years prior. And of course there was the infamous Jethro Tull winning the inaugural metal grammy over this album... f*cking ridiculous...


...And Justice For All (1988) Elektra Records

1. Blackened
2. ...And Justice For All
3. Eye Of The Beholder
4. One
5. The Shortest Straw
6. Harvester Of Sorrow
7. The Frayed Ends Of Sanity
8. To Live Is To Die
9. Dyers Eve

Overall rating: 10 Angry Wolves! (out of 10):

Congratulations, Steven & Amy!

Steven and Amy Naul

A good friend of mine got married last friday in an absolutely beautiful resort named El Dorado Royale on the Riviera Maya in Mexico. People if you have chance to go to this place at some point- GO! You'll thank me later!

Made some new friends too...

DJs Creamy Smooth & Vaquero Madero

Amy & Steven enjoy their 1st post-nuptial smooch

Amy & Steven in a hurry to consummate the marriage

Rare appearance of Led Zeppelin with 5th member, Angry Wolf (kneeling)

Female hard rockers, L7, also made an appearance

Guns 'N' Roses showed as well, seen here waiting on Axl per usual

Oasis with new Jewish singer, Seamus O'Rosenberg (2nd from left)

Even the President of NBC made a brief appearance

World's 1st All-Girl Gangsta Group, Charleez AK-Angelz
wowed the crowd with their handgun filled stage show

Royal Couple of Liechtenstein, Lord Kyle Du Discount
& Lady Andrea Du Room Service

Kid Rock & entourage chilling at the Casitas pool


Steven confronts a paparazzi

Kings beds... where the magic happens

And... the star of the show... Whitney, the Wedding Donkey

Isis, Torche & Intronaut Show At The Common Grounds

After the Sparta show selling out on saturday night debacle, I purchased my ticket for the Isis show online monday night & picked it up at will call. As it was my 1st foray to The Common Grounds, technically 2nd foray; ok, 1st foray IN The Common Grounds & my 1st metal show in Gainesville, I didn't know what to expect. While The Common Grounds has a name reminiscent of a low level horse racing track in Manitoba or something, it actually is quaint little setup for music shows and pretty decently CLEAN bathrooms. Hooray for that! Couple this with arriving early enough to find a parking spot free of charge on the street a block over & the night had started out much better than saturday's turd of a day. On to the show...

1st band was Intronaut hailing from Los Angeles. I had only heard of them before & was unaware of what type of metal they play. Deadtide.com's (http://www.deadtide.com/index.php) 2 reviews for Intronaut describe them as a mathy Isis or a cross between Meshuggah & Neurosis (http://www.deadtide.com/reviews/albums/page.php?id=3014, http://www.deadtide.com/reviews/albums/page.php?id=3473). I didn't really catch that but then again, the lack of clearer sounds at a live metal show (and the beers!) might be blamed for that. Anyway, I couldn't really pinpoint their brand although there seemed to be elements of grind & groove forms of metal. However, I couldn't really get into too many of their riffs but I will say their drummer was pretty kick ass with the double bass (biddle-biddle-pap-pap! biddle-biddle-pap-pap!). Growling vocals, check. Double bass drums, check. At least one member with long hair, check. Loud, roaring guitar, check. Bobbing heads when band members play, check. Short on pompous & annoying dialogue with the crowd, check. Yep, these guys were full metal. Overall, though I'd only give them a slight above average grade, b/c as stated before, I just couldn't get into most of their riffs apart from a couple groovier things they did.

Devil horns for Intronaut: \m/\m/\m/ (3 out of 5)

Middle band was Torche. Whom I knew absolutely nothing about. After seeing them play, with good reason. Doom-laced Stoner Metal. Ok, now for anybody who reads this & is a Doom or a Stoner Metal fan, don't get all in a tizzy b/c it's just not my cup of tea for a number of reasons: Stoner Metal just always sounds like I could do it pretty easily myself as it tends to sound like one big jam session of power chord progressions & hammer-on riffs. Which isn't to say it's bad, it's just a little too simplistic for my musical taste & if I am going to listen to that kind of stuff I'm going to listen to the great bands of it such as Black Sabbath, High On Fire, Cathedral, etc. They certainly had the most energy of the 3 bands & they definitely hopped up & down & bobbed their heads like they were on angel dust rather than pot! Bwaha!

Devil horns for Torche: \m/ 1/2

Finally, the headliner, Isis, and their interesting brand of almost otherworldy, atmospheric but with still pummeling heavy guitar parts metal. While I only got into Isis about 4 or 5 months ago, if even that long, they are quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. However, personally, this kind of metal is in my opinion better listened to in the quiet, dark where all it's layers & nuances can unravel themselves properly instead of getting lost in the shuffle of live sounds & acoustics. However, Isis on a few occasions last night in a live setting was still able to invoke those sad but slightly hopeful introspective moments that their occasional melodic passages can do on their cds but just not as strongly or with as much conviction as when you're alone & in the aforementioned quiet... Honestly, I was slightly disappointed with Isis, however, I admittedly had pretty high expectations & a disappointing Isis is like winning a silver medal in the Olympics- still pretty damn good.

Devil horns for Isis: \m/\m/\m/\m/

Notes: Very pleased with the # of good looking chicks (albeit of the metal & alternative persuasion) at such a small show. There was at least a dozen in attendance last night counting the gorgeous in a morose metal kind of way chick working the ticket counter & the perky-for-an-emo-or-metal-chick bartender (thanks for the freebie extra bottled water, Angel!)... No mosh pit! Interesting! Either these bands' fans do not mosh or Gainesville has a pretty knowledgeable metal scene where the devotees are more into the music & less into how much de facto fighting they can do in a mosh pit! Or... just a case of lucky happenstance... d'oh (TBD)!... There was a guy in attendance hobbling around on crutches! Either he's a hockey player or he's full fucking metal! How awesome is that? A guy hobbling around on crutches (and drinking!)! You ain't gonna see that at some teenie bopper show, baby!... As always- where does all the money in your pocket go? How can 8 beers & a bottled water cost $50?? 7 Miller lites on special at $2 a pop plus tip every other one is $17. One Blue Moon plus tip was $5. One Wetelgeize,l or whatever the hell that good (albeit too sweet for beer #8) Belgian beer was suggested by Angel, plus tip was $5. Bottled water plus $3 tip for the freebie one puts us up to $32. Stupid idiot move of buying a pack of cigarettes in the hopes it may spark one of the chicks to bum one was $5, I think. I came home with $2 in my pocket which leaves $11 unaccounted for! Damn government accountants and/or pork belly spending! Where'd that $11 go??...

Notable attendees of the show included: Scraggly-Haired Metal Alan, Metal Lindsay, Dreadlocks And Tatted To The Max But Still Strangely Hot Chick, Young Might Be Out Of Place Raquel Welch Look-A-Like, Token Pissed Off Because He Feels He Has To Be Metal Guy, Obligatory Jesus Look-A-Like Metal Dude, Token Quasi-Gay Metalcore Haircut Weenie, and of course, as always, Crazy Fake Hair Color Chick.

Best Metal Album of 2006- Mastodon's Blood Mountain

I'll jump on the Mastodon bandwagon (which I've already been riding for about 2 months, anway) & bestow upon them my pick for Metal's Best Album of 2006 for their release, Blood Mountain.

I particularly like the tracks The Wolf Is Loose- for obvious reasons- & Sleeping Giants with its building intro particularly the slow, melodic piece beginning at 1:09 which is reprised as a bridge later in the song. Also, Capillarian Crest with it's zany, technical interlude jam session which gives way to a Sabbath sounding groove part which devolves into a pummeling Death Metal outro & the odd the vocals & slower grooving parts of Colony of Birchmen are also highlights on the album for me. Brilliant shit again from the boys in Mastodon.

Overall, I don't like it as much as their 1st two releases, Remission & Leviathan, but that is due to the fact that those had more double blast beats & pummeling riffage which I really dig now where as the newer release is definitely more musically diverse- not that that is a bad thing by any means b/c Mastodon is by far better than 99% of the crap that passes for "metal" on the radio & definitely one of the more interesting bands out there right now.

Track Listing:
1. The Wolf Is Loose
2. Crystal Skull
3. Sleeping Giant
4. Capillarian Crest
5. Circle Of Cysquatch
6. Bladecatcher
7. Colony of Birchmen
8. Hunters Of The Sky
9. Hand Of Stone
10. This Mortal Soil
11. Siberian Divide
12. Pendulous Skin