Conquering Dystopia

From the YouTube video of the bassist Hugo Doyon-Karout, I "discovered" another band Conquering Dystopia. To my surprise, it is an instrumental death metal band (which has released their album via crowdfunding!) I suppose guitarist Jeff Loomis is probably the most famous musicians in the band 'coz he also played guitar in Arch Enemy and Nevermore. Bassist Alex Webster is from Cannibal Corpse, who really showed off his chops. Check out their album on Spotify. Kinda reminded me of the good old days (late 80s) that shredding was popular.

Beyond Creation

I think it has been a while since I last recommended metal bands. I listened to way too much Canto/Mandopop lately so I have to balance with some metal. Spotify recommended a track by "Beyond Creation" based on the Death song I just listened to. Like Death, the band is very technical, lots of opportunities for the instrumentalists to shine, even including the bassist (Hugo Doyon-Karout) The band has released two albums so far. The latest was "Earthborn Evolution" from 2014. Really looking forward to their upcoming release. In the mean time, ​check out this YouTube playlist with lots of awesome bass playing:

New metal from old bands

I read an interview of the founding father of death metal, Obituary, from the Rolling Stone magazine yesterday and listened to their new single from the upcoming album (to be released later this month) I guess that's why I subconsciously tuned into the Music Choice Metal channel today. And surprisingly I listened to a couple of (relatively) new releases from several of my old favorite metal bands, including:

• Overkill, The Grinding Wheel
• Dark Tranquiliity, Atoma
• In Flames, Battles
• Kreator, Gods of Violence

The channel promoted itself as programmed by a real person instead of an algorithm. I guess there's really something to it hearing all of the above within 30 min. My first impressions of these albums range from "above average" to "excellent" I am going to listen to all of them multiple times on Spotify until the verdict is out.

Top metal 2016

It's that time of the year so a "rock (but also tons of pop and other genres)" publication like the Rolling Stone magazine of course has to write about their 20 best metal albums. I might not agree with their choices (as my taste of metal is kinda narrow) but still appreciate the effort. It's always good to learn about the new bands/albums out there. And several well-established bands have released albums in 2016 that I wasn't aware of, like Megadeth's Dystopia and Meshuggah's The Violent Sleep of Reason. Both are at their usual high standards with great guitar parts. Of course, the biggest release has to be from the biggest metal band in the history of music: Metallica! The first single was actually quite enjoyable. The rest are actually not bad too but the vocal still reminded me too much of the black album and thus do not measure up to their best (Master of Puppet, And Justice for All)

Not all "big enough" bands that had new release in 2016 made the list though, e.g., Death Angel's "The Evil Divide" and Testament's "Brotherhood of the Snake" (even though I am a huge fan, gotta admit this is not among their strongest works)

There are surely plenty of thrash metal diehards like me. This article talked about all of the above thrash bands' new albums. I learned quite a few things. I also learned that T-shirt with 80's Thrash band logo and album designs have become some sort of retro fashion trend this Summer while visiting the H&M store in Hong Kong. Testament's Alex Skolnick wrote a post to ridicule Kanye wearing one. Yeah, wearing tee of bands that you don't listen to is kinda lame.

Metal Mayham

Once upon a time you could listen to and watch great metal music video on TV. That's the late 80s and early 90s when MTV was still about music instead of reality shows all day. The best segment of video came from "Triple Thrash Threat" during the show "Headbanger's ball" Of course that's a long gone era. Still, I have been able to watch some good old metal videos from the show "Metal Mania" on VH1 Classic. I guess that reflected the revival of interest in metal this decade. I haven't been channel-surfing for a long time but I just did last night and found VH1 Classic has become MTV Classic with special focus on the 90s. And the "new" channel has a show called "Metal Mayham" (with an 'a') I couldn't find any info about the show on the net. That "episode" started with Metallica's "Fade to Black" (Not a bad choice!) Then Testament's "Practice What You Preach" (I've listened to the song a thousand times but have never seen its MV!) Followed by Anthrax's "Time"! I guess the channel paid a tribute to "Triple Thrash Threat"! After that, it's hair metal with MV from Twisted Sisters, Quiet Riot, Ratt and White Lion. Then a very unusual choice from Living Colours (Vernon Reid's guitar never disappoints) And also a real "Classic" moment with a track from the Dio-era of Black Sabbath. Looking forward to other episodes.

(Side note: I am writing this at a tire shop waiting for service. The classic rock channel is on. Rocking with ZZ Top right now. \m/ )

Best metal of 2015

收到The Rolling Stones雜誌的Newsletter電郵，有連結到本年20大重金屬唱片榜，也是時候重溫或認識一下今年的佳作。榜上有好些老字號：Iron Maiden, Slayer, Napalm Death, Faith No More及Lamb of God;其他聽過的名字還有Marilyn Manson, Killing Joke及Ghost。

Lamb of God的新作512(還以為是area code，原來是他在捷克的監倉號碼）早已欣賞過，由第一首Still Echoes的第一分鐘已感到一如以往的壓迫感，到Overlord一曲開始慢下來及靜下來，起初聽略感沉悶，但多聽幾次才發現該6分鐘長之曲的深度，由2分鐘起慢慢推向高潮。全碟結他solo不多但皆有畫龍點睛之效。

至於Iron Maiden的新作，一聽主打歌曲Speed of Light及10分鐘長的大碟同名epic歌曲The Book of Souls，就感到他們延續了80年代重金屬正宗的精神。

Slayer自結他手Jeff Hanneman過身再加上原鼓手Dave Lombardo離隊後首次推出新作Repentless，事前不被看好，皆因餘下的結他手Kerry King似乎遠不及Hanneman及Lombardo受死硬派擁躉歡迎，（讀了此文才知原來歌手Tom Araya也是和Hanneman比較交心，King的人緣真是...）事實上新碟的結他聲稍為不同，卻不是壞的轉變，死忠們即管給他們機會吧。

作為The Mephistopheles（SPS舊名）of Hong Kong的成員，當然要聽聽包括一曲名為The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles的Marilyn Manson新作The Pale Emperor，其實Manson的音樂水平一向不低，只是很諷刺地被其刻意誇張的形象所遮蔽。除了以上一曲夠catchy，其餘作品頗有goth另類金屬味。

聲音更另類更goth/post-punk的則是Killing Joke，今年新作總共有15首歌，每首皆份量十足。像我一樣喜歡Fields of the Nephilim及Sister of Mercy等goth band的朋友不容錯過，絕對是2015重型音樂top choices之一。

榜上無名但也要一提的有Huntress今年的新作Static，基本上風格相當統一（負面講法則是有點千篇一律），不過憑著Static及Sorrow兩首catchy作品，再加上有點Neoclassical味道的結他，此碟還是值得一聽。

Hair metal power ballad

One of the biggest clichés of the late 80s hair metal scene is that every album has to have a power ballad. It was dissed by the critics a lot. Well, it happened for a reason: fans like them. That's my guilty pleasure too. I was reading the 50 Greatest Hair Metal albums from the Rolling Stone magazine and came across this song:
Man, Alice Cooper sounded so much like Aerosmith (Well, Steven Tyler was indeed featured on it)! Liked the video because of the gal.

Strange radio experience

For those who drive a lot like I do, there are plenty of interesting experiences with different radio broadcasts for sure, like hearing the same songs back to back on different stations. Or hearing music from a CD you just played at home before you leave. What happened last Sat was kinda unusual: we were on our way to the Math show at Foothill College and my son said he enjoyed rock and roll so I switch from my "default" Jazz station to the next preset, which is rock, and the DJ played Guns'N Roses' "Patience." It is an interesting single, the first one off "Lies," an half-fake-live and half-acoustic album as the followup to the hugely successful "Appetite for Destruction," a metal instant-classic. The racial message in the song "One in a million" from the same album caused a great deal of controversy back in the days. When we came back to the car from the show, guess what was playing on the radio? "I Used to Love Her" from "Lies!" And it's another controversial song from the album. The reason was pretty obvious: the next line after the song title was: "... but I have to kill her" :P Anyway, I don't think it happens too much all these times I listen to the radio.

Music discovery

I wrote a post about Podcasts recently. That got me interested in subscribing to a few and started listening to them, which I haven't done for a while. The Cool Jazz Countdown has a good combination of smooth jazz and traditional jazz. I have many sources on the latter (e.g., Downbeat magazine, KCSM radio) but not the former. It really experienced a sharp decline. I discovered Eric Darius (who played a sax version of the mega-hit song "Happy" on his album "Retro Forward")

The metal podcast MSRCast introduced me to these 2 bands:
Triosphere

The melodic death band Mors Principium Est has a name that no one can pronounce on the podcast. It's actually Latin for "death is the beginning."

It might sound strange that I "discover" Led Zeppelin just now. Well, my beloved Rhapsody music streaming service just have the entire catalog of Led Zeppelin available! This is huge 'coz I think the band has resisted this for a long time but finally made the deal (must be lucrative) Rhapsody is heavily advertising their latest "crown jewel." This band is definitely among the Top 4 most influential bands (along side the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones) IMO. However, I don't own a lot of their music and only know their biggest hit songs. Why? Here's the story: I became interested in rock ~1988 via hair metal. Believe it or not, some cited Led Zeppelin as their influence. So naturally I bought arguably their most famous album Led Zeppelin IV, which contains their most famous tune "Stairway to Heaven." And guess what? I was hugely disappointed: I expected every tune to be as hard rocking as "Rock and Roll" but the only other tune rock enough was "Black Dog." I barely like Stairway since it took forever to reach the climax, i.e., the electric guitar solo. I couldn't stand the even-more-acoustic "Going to California" at all. It will take a few years until I was actually going to California for good. I finally revisit this album on Rhapsody after more than 25 years, and could appreciate the bluesy and acoustic side of Led Zeppelin. I guess my exposure to acoustic jazz/electric blues and finally acoustic blues during all these years helped. I especially enjoyed the 2 DVD set of live performances titled Led Zeppelin from 2003. Yep, I have definitely become a fan after watching that, even though I still couldn't remember the names of their songs. Now I'm "digging deeper" beyond their greatest hits with Rhapsody's "Deep Cut" playlist and I realized Led Zeppelin's sound was actually closer to the Beatles and the Stones than the harder rocking Deep Purple or Black Sabbath!

A playlist from 10 years ago

I wanted to blog about these 6 in 2005:
[Jazz] Marc Johnson - Shades of Jade. Bassist Marc Johnson is probably best known for his work with the Bill Evans trio. On this CD he worked with some greatest jazz musicians in the current generation : saxophonist Joe Lovano and guitarist John Scofield. Along with Joey Baron on drums and Elaine Elias on piano, this is an all-star lineup any jazz fan can't miss. With Scofield and Baron, I expected some explosive jazz. The album opens with several beautiful ballads instead. What a pleasant surprise!
[Jazz] Dewey Redman - Musics (recommended track: Need to Be)
[Jazz] Ravi Coltrane - In Flux
[Metal] Hed PE - Blackout (recommended: Suck it Up) This rap metal band was unfortunately grouped together with the less talented bands under the Nu-metal umbrella. I completely overlooked them in early 2000. Just found an interesting fact: the band covered Sabbath's Sabbra Cadabra earlier in their career. And they also have a song named "No Rest for the Wicked" from their 2010 release, which is the name of an Ozzy's album (didn't contain a track with the same name though) This tune was a departure from the usual rap metal formula with some bluesy elements. 
[Metal] At All Cost - It's Time to Decide (recommended: Death to Distraction) I have no idea why I wanted to blog about this band at that time. Maybe they sounded kinda like Shadows Fall. Now I find their tunes a bit too pop. This metalcore band hasn't released anything new since 2007.
[Blues rock] Try! John Mayer Trio Live In Concert. This guy looked too mainstream but his music is actually better than what his look/tabloid appearances imply (yes, he dated the awesome Jennifer Aniston. Taylor Swift and Katy Perry too. He allegedly wrote "Paper Doll" on his 2013 album about Swift. His duet with Katy Perry, "Who You Love" also appeared on the same album) Of course this album is more like an exception to his more usual pop offerings.

The GRAMMY Museum Went Metal

I was at the GRAMMY Museum last X'mas. Took my daughter to see the Taylor Swift exhibition on the 2nd floor. It would have been "Golden Gods: The History Of Heavy Metal" if we went in 2012! Well, when "GRAMMY" and "metal" appeared in the same sentence, the first thing I thought of was the inaugural GRAMMY metal award debacle: given to a band (Jethro Tull) that didn't even play metal.

Metal playlist

Now that 2014 is over, I gotta say it was a pretty good year for metal fans. Arch Enemy, At the Gates, Overkill, Exodus and Obituary have all released new albums last year and are definitely my top choices for best of 2014 (you could also see the lists by Loudwire and the Rollingstone. Gotta give credit to Rhapsody for compiling a list "that metal critics embraced in 2014 that were not included" in Rhapsody's own top 25) Why? An album from an established band (i.e., all of the above) that I consider as good either sounds just like what they are at their best or breaking new grounds on par with their best efforts ever. To be honest, the latter is rare and I would be extremely happy when my favorite bands achieve the former, which they all did. It's especially difficult for Arch Enemy, who has replaced their front lady Angela Gossow with the equally amazing Alissa White-Gluz (not only does she has a pretty face but also great voice/capability) and At the Gates, who has not made a new album for 19 years. Tomas Lindberg maintained his unique style of melodic-death vocal with lots of urgency and clarity.

More on Arch Enemy: I saw them at SF in November and was really impressed. Alissa pretty much stuck by Angela Gossow's vocal style and nailed the classic Arch Enemy tunes. I gotta admit fans are really hard to please: I read some criticisms on the band's first album with Alissa that they played it safe instead of taking advantage of her different voice (which she demonstrated with her previous band) I bet there will be tons of naysayer if that was the case. Anyway, the openers for the show were equally awesome, featuring Huntress (another band with a front woman. Jill Janus is my goddess), Kreator (the legendary Thrash band) and Starkill (a up-and-coming melodic death band)
      
More on band with a front woman: the band Flyleaf was probably brought to my attention by one of the "ladies in metal" special from metal mag/sites. I wanted to write about them after listening to their 2012 album "New Horizons" (the post has been in draft status for a long time) The band certainly rocked (with alternative sound instead of traditional metal) but the major talking point about this band was actually them being Christians but kinda resisted to being labelled as a Christian band. Well, I guess there's a reason for such a label. (I mean, there are lots of Americans that are Christians who have formed bands and were not labelled as such) And the label might have helped their career. To be honest, I won't even write about them without this talking point (the current and former front ladies were not hot enough :P)

More on band that I wanted to write about in 2012: Japanese metal pioneer Loudness' "Soldier of Fortune" got a ton of air play in late 80s as I recalled. It was indeed a very catchy tune. A bit too catchy for the rest of the album to "catch up" I must say. I guess that's why they fell off my radar after that album (the cassette cost me HKD40 back in the days which was a lot of money so my expectations were always high.) I think their record company had really high hope for the band to succeed in US during that period with a replacement of the original Japanese vocalist by an American one and hiring Fates Warning's producer to co-produce this hair metal-oriented album. 13 years later I came across an ad of its 2012 release "Eve to Dawn" and got me interested again. The reviews were quite good and I learned that they went back to the original Japanese root (reunited with the original vocalist) In hindsight it's probably bad timing for them to come to US and join the hair metal scene when it was about to end. They are certainly more adapted and capable of playing heavier songs. Another 2012 release titled "2.0.1.2" proved my point.   

Marty Friedman and his career in Japan

Marty Friedman certainly is NOT a household name here in US, his home country. He's definitely more well-known in Japan, according to the Rolling Stone magazine. He's kinda like the 'Ryan Seacrest of Japan.' Long time metal fans like myself are familiar with his guitar work during his shredding days (with Jason Becker in Cacophony on the Shrapnel label) and as a member of Megadeth. Then he left Megadeth and US and started a new career in Japan as a TV celebrity starring in shows like "Mr. Heavy metal" and "Rock Fujiyama." What a move! The linked article also mentioned his insights on Japanese music from the perspective of a session musician playing there. He thinks the pop music there is more complicated than that in US (more chord changes for example) and pointed out interesting new groups like Babymetal, which put a metal twist on top of a girl group.


Looks like he got quite inspired by his experiences in Japan judging by his new album "Inferno" which features quite a bit of twists and turns rather than straight forward rock.

More metal. RIP Robin Williams

I checked out the MyRadio feature on Rhapsody today. So it basically plays tracks that I recently listened to, e.g. Overkill's new 2014 album "White Devil Armory" They never disappoint and always stay true to their thrash metal root. That set me in the mood for more metal: Morgengrau's "Extrinsic Pathway" and Pentacle's "Under the Black Cross" Both captured the classic death metal sound and they will be playing at Thee Parkside this month.

This is kinda metal-related: I read an article about Ozzy Osbourne thanking the late Robin Williams for visiting his wife when she got cancer. Sad to see a great actor leaving us.

Some new (and old music)

Some of the albums mentioned here actually came from a post that I started last year but never finished :P I couldn't believe I missed the SFJAZZ concert by Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood last month (what else better could I have done instead?)Well, there's another funky group featuring guitar and organ called Organissimo that I "discovered" last year. I must have been in the mood of trio when I started that post because I was also listening to the avant-garde Tin Hat Trio's "Book of Silk" (love the instrumentation with violin and accordion) as well as the Steve Kuhn Trio's "Life's Magic" (Very interested in listening to his 2009 release of "Mostly Coltrane" with Joe Lovano on sax)

I have listened to some more old music of the recently passed away blues rock guitar great Johnny Winter. Alex Skolnick from Testament recommended "Nothing but the Blues" while "Live Johnny Winter And" (what an interesting album name!) topped the Guitar Player's Reader Poll.

Finally, time for more metal: I found Suicide Silence's brand new 2014 album "You Can't Stop Me" on the top of the Billboard's Hard rock album chart. Definitely doesn't sound like commercial B.S. though. Highly recommended.

Live Metal

After reading so much metal history and hearing my friend talked about his trip to Gothenburg (the birthplace of melodic death metal in Sweden), I started to research where to see live metal, especially in Gothenburg. Well, there has been an annual MetalTown festival but it has been cancelled this year. And there is a more melodeath specific festival called Gothenburg Sound in January. Next year the festival will feature Dark Tranquility (just released a new album "Construct" in 2013) and Dimension Zero (founded by former members of In Flames. I listened to their 2007 release "He Who Shall Not Bleed" and I am impressed) I also found an online Metal Travel Guide that lists some interesting clubs/stores in Gothenburg. And I am curious what places it lists nearby and found Thee Parkside, which seems to feature local hardcore/metal bands regularly. It reminds me of the club Metro in Oakland (both websites are very similar too!), which was surprisingly NOT listed on Metal Travel Guide. Finally, there's nothing under Palo Alto, which is sad. There used to be a good club named The Edge (check out the big names that performed there before) I have been there once or twice in the 90s (forgot who performed) and it was gone while I was away (Summer 2000, the heydays of Nu Metal. Papa Roach played the last show)

Louder than hell: 口述重金屬歷史

作為重金屬fans超過廿年，其歷史算頗為熟悉，由最早期Black Sabbath到今期流行的prog metal band如Mastodon都會留意；讀過相關書籍包括Ian Christe十年前出版的名作Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Chuck Klosterman的Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota等等，亦看過2011年的Metal Evolution系列紀錄片。今次讀這本700頁厚的Louder than Hell又有甚麼特色呢？

其一，全書主要是節錄音樂人口述，相當authentic，只有少量「旁白」作串連，不致欠缺連貫性。

其二，全書大致以時期及風格分章，包括的範圍甚廣，連冷門風格如Industrial metal及hardcore樂隊都有提及。

其三，本書提及不少金屬樂隊荒唐生活的細節，成員之間的恩恩怨怨，很多我都聞所未聞。
希望能在圖書館到期還書前讀完！

Metallica and good sense of humor

Metallica is one of those band that I really really like before they made a huge hit, i.e, the commercial "Black" album. I just don't care for anything they released after "And Justice for all" I did listen to St Anger and Death Magnetic a few times.  While the former didn't sound anything like their original stuff, and the latter did, I don't particularly dislike one way or the other. To quote one of their song title: "nothing else matters." And their hard stance against Napster only made things worse. It is easy to imagine the negative reaction they got from the fans of the UK Glastonbury Fest (traditionally a metal-less event) It IS surprising to me that Metallica responded with selling a T-shirt with quotes from their haters on their own webstore. I guess any opportunity to make money, even off the haters, work for them. Still, I respect them as a hard working band without too much nonsense. 

Shock rock/metal pioneer Alice Cooper will open for Motley Crue's "Final tour"

I heard it on the radio last night and read it on the Rolling Stones just now. First of all, what's deal with signing an agreement not to tour again, ever? That's BS to me. They could probably change one member or the name of the group and get away with touring again, when they run out of money. Second, Alice Cooper should NOT be opening for them. It should be the other way around! A lot of comments here said the same. It's not because I like AC more than the Crue. I actually enjoy the latter's music a bit more but from the grand (musical) scheme of thing Alice Cooper > Motley Crue, period!

New thrash metal from old and new bands

Thrash metal continues to be one of my favorite sub-genre of metal. Many great thrash bands from the 80s are still going strong like Anthrax and Slayer (oh yeah, almost forgot Metallica played thrash metal too) or have come back from hiatus like Testament, who released 2 highly acclaimed albums since then. And I've just listened to 2 pretty good new albums: "The Dream Calls for Blood" by Death Angel and "VI" by Onslaught. Check out the linked reviews! In both cases, there isn't anything really ground breaking. They just stick with the classic sound, i.e, the sound we thrash metal fan enjoy! On the other hand, if you prefer a thrash metal band that's willing to experiment on a new album, I suggest you give Annihilator's "Feast" a listen. Their main man Jeff Water likes to throw the listeners some curve balls. And a vital music scene not only needs new albums from old bands but also new blood. Diamond Plate is one of the latter. They have just released a new one "Pulse." Glad to see the scene is alive and kicking!