heavy metal
Thomas H. Green
September and October see a deluge of new releases. Everybody and their aunt puts out an album as autumn hits, so theartsdesk on Vinyl appears this month (and next) in a slightly expanded edition. As ever, the fare on offer is as diverse as possible, from black metal to Afro-funk via film and TV soundtracks. All musical life is here, ripe and waiting.VINYL OF THE MONTHThe Television Personalities And Don’t The Kids Just Love It + Mummy You’re Not Watching Me + They Could Have Been Bigger Than The Beatles + The Painted Word (Fire)Usually theartsdesk on Vinyl has a rule that the VINYL OF THE Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Foo Fighters are a global superstar act. And why not, as the late film critic Barry Norman used to say. After seeing them at Glastonbury, they strike me as an irresistible proposition; their Sonic Highways TV documentaries, about music in American cities, are superb; and Dave Grohl, even after decades in the spotlight, still seems like a top fellow. Someone said to me recently they didn’t like him because he was “too nice”. That’s stupid, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to share a beer over a barbecue with him?Concrete and Gold involved a lot of barbecuing. Recorded at a studio complex on Sunset Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Duff McKagan is a survivor. He’s a bass player too, from the fledgling Seattle punk/proto-grunge outfit 10 Minute Warning to the stadium-filling behemoth of Guns N’ Roses, but if you were judging by the narrative weight of this 2015 documentary, you’d have to conclude that he’s mostly survivor. Now, it’s true that drugs and booze burst his rock’n’roll bubble – and very nearly his pancreas – but it seemed odd that the film concentrated so heavily on the effect rather than the cause.Part book reading, part documentary, part animation, It’s So Easy… never succeeded in being any one thing well Read more ...
Guy Oddy
The cover of Alice Cooper’s first album in six years shows the erstwhile Vincent Furnier with two heads. This, one assumes, is supposed to provide a neat little illustration of Paranormal’s musical content which is spread over two discs. On the first disc, Alice lays out his theatrical vision over largely alt-rock stylings, while on the second disc he knocks out a couple of tunes with the iconic Alice Cooper Band before treating the listener to half a dozen of his old classics culled from a recent gig in Columbus with his present band.It’s all good fun and there are even a few decent tunes Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
If there’s a downside to the resurgence of vinyl, it’s that all that’s left in most charity shops these days is James Galway and his cursed flute and Max Bygraves medley albums. Then again, there’s always new stuff coming in so it’s down to everybody to get in there quick, before the local record shops hoover up all the gems. And there it is. Many small towns now have local record shops again. That’s surely something to celebrate. There’s even a Vinyl Festival this September in Rotherhithe [Notification 20.7.2017: This event has been cancelled] with a hundred stalls featuring independent Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Boris are a trio of Japanese noise rockers who are masters of all things heavy, and Dear, a double album of superior quality, marks the band’s 25th anniversary as a going concern. Covering a range of bases from doomy slabs of heavy noise to riff-tastic stoner rock, distortion-soaked dream pop and beyond, there is nothing jaded about Dear, and nor is there anything clunky about the band’s subtle genre-skipping. In fact, this album exudes a vitality that many bands which have been around for half as long as this mighty leviathan frequently have difficulty mustering.“DOWN - Domination of Waiting Read more ...
joe.muggs
For over 30 years, Melvins have been flagbearers for a kind of foundational American underground rock. Monstrously psychedelic, heavy as lead, mischievous and angry, they are part of a lineage that connects to squarepeg counterculture forefathers like Beefheart and The Fugs, share swathes of DNA with heavy metal and particularly Black Sabbath, and are particularly impervious to outside cultural shifts. Though they were fleetingly affiliated by the media with grunge, thanks to founder Buzz Osborne's musical and personal relationship to Kurt Cobain, they were something else. And along with Read more ...
caspar.gomez
It’s a Tweet-age Glastonbury aftermath. It’s monsooning grey outside. The real world’s back, consensus reality fast encroaching. Everything’s moved on, spun to the next thing as we A.D.D. onto Wimbledon, Hard Brexit or whatever. Even my 14-year-old daughter knows the “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” chant (to the riff from White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”) that rolled across this year’s Glastonbury crowds like a steady rumble of perturbed destiny. “Jeremy Corbyn isn’t just Jeremy Corbyn, he’s a thing now,” she explained. And I sort of know what she means.I woke up today with Rag’n’Bone Man’s chorus Read more ...
Russ Coffey
It had been a perfect summer's day and around the stadium denim-clad punters sipped ice-cool beer and discussed how this reunion would sound. Everyone knew how Axl had aced it, right here, a year ago, filling in as AC/DC's lead singer. Many hoped it would be just like when the classic line-up last played London in 1992. Except this time the sound quality would be better.Unfortunately, for many, the latter wasn't to be. As the band launched into "It's So Easy" smiles of anticipation turned into looks of disbelief - the acoustic at the back of the venue felt like sludge. The culprit seemed to Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
While the 36 records reviewed below run the gamut of Wreckless Eric to Democratic Republic of the Congo Afro-electronica, this month there’s also a special, one-off section for modern classical. This is due to an ear-pleasing haul of releases reaching theartsdesk on Vinyl lately. Modern classical, often computer-treated, is on the rise, recalling the long ago days when tweedy collectors would have chests of classical to dig into on Sunday afternoons, place on weighty old stereos, and sit quietly, eyes closed, contemplating the eternal verities (well, I knew one older gent who did that, back Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Frankie Goes to Hollywood of “Two Tribes”. Talk Talk. Stadium-era Depeche Mode. Laibach. a-ha’s aural dramas “Stay on These Roads” and “Manhattan Skyline”. “New Year’s Day” by U2. These are the musical building blocks of Ulver’s The Assassination of Julius Caesar.The death of Princess Diana. The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan. The Greek goddess Artemis (Diana, in the Roman myths) and story of Actaeon the hunter who saw her naked body so was killed by dogs. The Bernini statue The Rape of Proserpina, used as the album's cover image. The death of Read more ...
William Green
Apocalyptica are a band that became famous for playing Metallica on cellos. And tonight they’re playing only Metallica covers because it's 20 years since they released Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, their debut album. The quartet formed at Finland’s Sibelius Academy in 1993 and the man responsible for bringing together classical cellists to play metal is Eicca Toppinen. Tonight, referring to their debut album, he admits that they were “expecting to sell 1,000 CDs”. Six million albums later and constantly on tour they return to their roots: without Metallica there would be no Apocalyptica. Read more ...