0 [FROM THE CRATES #27] The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette (1979)

The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
(Chiswick - 1979)

I'm a late bloomer for The Damned. Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing, but whatever. People talk so much shit about so many bands that it's hard to always check them all out. Then you finally get a hold of a Roxy Music album, throw it on and scratch your head wondering what the big fucking deal is. Plus a lot of "critically acclaimed" music is really, really terrible. Just look at Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all time, I think at least five of the top ten are Beatles albums. What the fuck is that all about? I respect The Beatles, but I also fucking hate The Beatles. After a while you start ignoring what people are hot about and lo and behold you totally miss out on a sweet band like The Damned.

There are so many ways an album can go horribly wrong and become shit. Bands can get lucky on chance events as well. Intentional or not, they create those crazy quirks that give way to esoteric rock words like vibe, soul, funk, feel, balls, heavy et cetera ad infinitum.

'Machine Gun Etiquette' is what I would describe as a "perfect" album. It sounds good, it has sound elements particular to its time that don't come off as nostalgic or dated, the mix is good, the variety and composition of songs keeps it interesting throughout, the performance is neither sterile nor sloppy, it represents its influences without biting, it stands on its own out of context, and MOST IMPORTANTLY I could drink, fuck, drive or chill to it. Not all at the same time, of course.

Is it one of the greatest albums ever? No. But it is a perfect album. The two are vastly different yet not mutually exclusive and I hold both in very high regard. Catch my drift?

It's got more of an old-school rock vibe than a punk vibe throughout, with touches of The Doors and British acts from the 60's. I'll go as far as to say 'Machine Gun Etiquette' is a rock album before it is a punk album. Now that I really think about it, this one's quite reminiscent of another album I've featured in this column, TSOL's 'Beneath the Shadows.' It’s got attitude and introspection, but above all it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Being fun without being over the top or cheesy is way harder than one would think and The Damned pull it off. Again though, was it intentional? Who knows? Even if ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ is the greatest happy accident in the history of rock I will be spinning it again and again, with gusto, in the future.

0 [FROM THE CRATES #24] Frank Zappa - Hot Rats (1969)

Words by Matt Abramson

Frank Zappa - Hot Rats
(Reprise - 1969)

When I get a serious hankering for some serious guitar shit, there are only a couple of guys I go to. Frank Zappa is one of those guys. It's an understatement to say that Zappa's style was unique. He can peel off flurries of notes without breaking a sweat, yet there is a really vocal quality to his playing and you always feel like you are being taken somewhere as opposed to just listening to another jack ass jack off. The dude was wicked fucking smart. He had a penchant for fucking with the absolute nuts and bolts of guitar technique and sound rivaled only by Jimi Hendrix or maybe Adrian Belew. A guitarist becomes dangerous when his technical ability can keep up with his imagination, and Zappa was that guy.

'Hot Rats' is a wicked guitar album, there is no argument about that, but it is not wanky and boring like most instrumental guitar albums by "guitar greats" (read: wankers) like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Don't even give me that shit about Steve Vai getting his break with Zappa (side note: It's true, legend has it that Vai, a young Berklee Boston student, was the only guitar player who could pull off one of Zappa's "Black Page" compositions [double side note: a black page is a piece of transcribed music so insane and dense that the notes appear to turn the page black] and thus got his break), his albums blow and you know it. On a Zappa album you get killer soloing, but it's part of an elegant composition that prominently features other lead instruments and musicians as well. To see what I'm talking about, dig on "The Gumbo Variations", seventeen minutes (apparently only twelve minutes on the original vinyl, I have yet to confirm this) of sax heavy jamming punctuated frequently by Zappa guitar solos. Frank gets so modal on your ass that you don't have a clue what the hell continent you're on anymore.

'Hot Rats' is fabled to be the first album recorded on a sixteen track tape machine. In 1969, an eight track was industry standard, sixteen was completely fucking unheard of. Having a stereo mix of drums, which 'Hot Rats' did, was a recording breakthrough. Zappa also went nuts with varying tape speeds and cutting tape together in wild assed song collages, which became an important trait throughout his career. Hot Rats also preceded Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' (the token album the people who know little or nothing about music cite in reference to complicated and experimental recording maneuvers, to which I can only reply, "Well, sort of.") by four years. For real. I did the math and shit.

So is 'Hot Rats' a rock album? Jazz album? Guitar album? Fuck it. 'Hot Rats' is part of the only genre that really matters - "good" albums. Albums that have "it". If we could ever define what makes a lot of shit truly "good", if we could put our finger on "it", then I reckon that shit would hardly be worth talking about in the first place. "Good" music exists far outside the bounds of mortal description. I'm damn set on trying to describe it anyway.

0 [FROM THE CRATES #21] Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999)

From the Crates by Matt Abramson

Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory
(Elektra 1999)

"I keep having this recurring dream where I'm picking so fast that it just becomes one note." -John Petrucci (Systematic Chaos DVD)

Often times I wax poetic about the difference between shredding and wanking. They sound exactly the same to the untrained ear, yet are worlds apart in reality. The difference? Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci. Dude is possibly the most blazing fast shredder on the Earth, but he's primarily famous for being IN A BAND AND WRITING SONGS. GOOD SONGS. WITH A BAND. WITH WORDS. Catch my drift? The other "name" guitar wankers do not hold a candle to Petrucci in tandem with the mighty Dream Theater. As a musician, the only thing left to do after a Dream Theater album is quit. I reckon you might be starting to get it. To be continued.

Anyway, I love the shit out of Dream Theater. I make judgments about how much I really like people based on their opinion of Dream Theater. They are the only band I can think of that is relentlessly heavy yet uplifting at the same time, and where I would normally find myself critical of their glossy crystal-clear sound I'm instead in awe of their studio precision. The musicianship, on the other hand, speaks for itself. One Dream Theater track is enough to make graduate level music scholars completely fucking crosseyed.

Enough ass kissing and tangental asides. 'Scenes from a Memory' is the mother of all concept albums, and it stands out amongst the vast catalog of Dream Theater concept albums. Actually, pretty much every Dream Theater album is a concept album, part of their unquestionable awesomeness. I won't get into specifics and literary criticism-type shit about the story itself (there is a lengthy Wikipedia article if you are so inclined) but I will say that I wish I could have seen the tour that followed the album, which was a full live production complete with actors and extra musicians. The 'Live Scenes from New York' triple live CD will have to do.

The things to pay attention to on this disc are recurring musical themes and the idea of present and future versus perception. Pay close attention to the second track, it introduces every musical theme on the album. By the time you get to the fifth track, "Beyond this Life", you should be completely unaware that it is in fact the fifth track. "Home" is a personal favorite. It's built on a heavy handed harmonic minor (read: Middle Eastern sounding) riff with a massive chorus that builds into an avalanche of brilliant solos and clocks in at nearly thirteen minutes. And yeah, fuckin' sitar (secretly, I think it's the work of keyboard maestro Jordan Rudess).

'Scenes' is as musically dense as it gets. I would advise against listening to it in the car, as you may well crash your shit into a tree. Also, resist the temptation to skip tracks! I know, sometimes you just need to hear your jam, but listening to the album as a whole on a reasonable sound system at an unreasonable volume undistracted is a hell of a trip, no chemical augmentation required. This column may be about the nary heard gems out there, but it's about listenable, do-not-press-stop-or-I-will-beat-your-fuckin'-ass albums first and foremost. And 'Scenes from a Memory' is about as awesome an album as anyone could ever find.

0 [FROM THE CRATES #21] Kill Sadie - Experiments in Expectation (2001)

Words by Matt Abramson

Kill Sadie – Experiments in Expectation
(2001 Dim Mak Records)

"Emo" is a pretty touchy word for a lot of folks. Legend has it that it was first used at a Fugazi concert, and it went on to represent exactly what Fugazi did - the next evolution of punk rock. Punk rock with more careful musicianship, more light and shade but the same ferocity and the same DIY ethic. Somewhere during the late 1990's Dashboard Confessional, who were a shitty band with horrible music and stupid fans, got tagged as "emo" and it was all downhill from there. Now when someone utters the word "emo", one imagines some tween wearing purple skinny jeans and a Twilight t-shirt (because an obsession with vampire cheesemo isn't exclusive to fat chicks, you know, the only sizes that Twilight shirts come in are XS and 4XL) with a ridiculous haircut listening to Circa Survive. It's fucking shameful.

That aside, there are a handful of albums that I still proudly call emo. 'Experiments in Expectation' is one of them. Kill Sadie was a short-lived yet highly influential band with roots in Minneapolis who ended up in Seattle. As things things often go, they have a pretty concise discography and imploded into several other bands. Most notably, Steve Snere went on to sing in These Arms Are Snakes and Erin Tate ended up in Minus The Bear, both are fantastic bands that need no introduction. It's such widespread influence that makes the album instantly familiar.

0 [From the Crates #9] Burnt By The Sun - The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good (2004)

Review by Matt Abramson

Burnt By the Sun – The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good

(Relapse - 2004)

This one is high on the list of greatest album titles of all time. I suppose album titles really mean very little. I suppose you can have an awesome album title attached to a complete shit album (also known as ‘Ultra Beatdown’ by Dragonforce) or a really crappy title attached to a completely epic album (‘Blue Record’ by Baroness. I mean, come on. They should have called it ‘Cover the Walls as Your Head Shall Explode Now’), but when the two variables operate in tandem it’s just pure ass kickery overload. Case in point is BBTS’s 2004 masterwork. For those keeping score at home, the title comes from Voltaire.

I’m not a huge fan of categorizing shit. There are really only two genres: good music and crappy music. But the million other names for the million angles of those genres are a necessary evil to effectively talk about or describe anything. So get out your “metal subgenre” score sheet. I reckon we’ll place this album between grindcore and metalcore, but leaning very heavily toward grindcore. It’s seriously heavy, double-kick pummeling, screaming vocal type shit (which is why I love it), but BBTS incorporates chopped up samples and atmospherics, a grindcore thing for sure, and a heavy middle-Eastern modal bent on the riffs (which is why I love it more) that put it between these categories into its own little niche of awesome metal.

The idea of light and shade in music has been beaten into the ground, mostly because of The Pixies and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, but it remains a key element in the albums that I find genuinely good. BBTS kicks a whole lot of ass when they set their phasers to ‘kill’, so to speak, but they also get that you need to put the listener into a different headspace and give him a second to gather the scattered remains of his skull after a serious bashing. To hear what I’m getting at, listen to how the second untitled interlude leads into “Spinner Dunn” – that’s about as well executed as it gets. Ever. Easily the high point of the album, which concludes with thirty-five minutes of a test signal tone followed by a final six minutes of edited media samples – a sonic picture of the smoldering remains left in its wake.

‘The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good’. Words to live by. Perfection does not exist and is therefore irrelevant. True value only exists in imperfection. And grindcore fucking owns.

0 [From the Crates #8] Colour Haze - Periscope (1999)

Review by Nik Christofferson

Thanks to Matt for letting me guest on his baby this week. His idea for this column is pure genius, and I am stoked that he lends his sharp skills to SRG each week. Matt is recovering from some minor surgery, so lets all wish him a speedy recovery so he can get back to the metal asap.

Colour Haze - Periscope

(1999 - Toaster Records)

In the spirit of this column, I discovered Colour Haze’s “Periscope” while sifting through the glorious metal vinyl section at Capitol Hill’s Zion Gate. Seattle's Zion’s Gate is a great independent record store, that specializes in mostly underground genres of music such as metal, reggae, techno etc. I have found some truly awesome treasures there over the years including my copy of Tad’s Inhaler and of course the record being spotlighted today.

Colour Haze is a psychedelic/stoner rock band from Munich Germany; they have been making awesomely groovy and tripped out music since 1994. In my opinion, 1999’s “Periscope” is their finest record to date, as it best conveys the signature sound that they are known for today. Their first two records were more on the experimental and complex side, where as “Periscope” is instead a simplified blissful menagerie of Kyuss, Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd. Actually, you'd think Colour Haze was born in the Californian desert due to the guitar tones on "Periscope". They're an uncanny likeness to Josh Homme's signature sound of old. For that reason this record sits beside Kyuss' "Welcome to Sky Valley" as a defining moment in pure desert stoner rock awesomeness, it just so happens they hail from Deutschland instead and the record came out 5 years later but who's counting.

The songs on this record are undoubtedly heavy, but in rule breaking fashion – beautiful as well. From the beginning bass rumble and huge fuzz of “Always Me” to the driving rocker “Pulse” to the jazzier “Sun” expect to fall in love with this record if you are someone who enjoys intense groove and supersized stoney riffage in your rock. The vocals are minimal at best, taking a back seat to the monstrosity of sound etched between its grooves. "Periscope" is also heavy on the prog as well. The 9.5 minute “Antenna” builds from ambient beginnings to mammoth climax, while “Transmitter”, clocking in at 12 minutes, brings the record to a blazing and epic stoner jam session close. Colour Haze’s “Periscope” is the perfect combination of all that’s heavy and good in music, and the fact that a trio makes this magnificent noise is even more mind blowing.

There are certain albums possibly even certain genres of music that were meant to be pressed on vinyl and played on a turntable. While not possessing audiophile ears beyond good taste in music, what I do know is that the warm tones of records by heavy bands like Sabbath, Melvins, Kyuss, as well as Colour Haze's "Periscope" sound unbelievable on the medium.

On a German side note: Just saw "Inglorious Basterds" last weekend. Fucking stupendous, watched it twice. See it now!

0 [FROM THE CRATES #7] Enemymine - The Ice in Me (2000)

Review by Matt Abramson

Enemymine - The Ice in Me
(Up Records - 2000)

Chances are, I am going to be friends with a record by any post-rock, alternative, metal, whatever you want to call it type band that features bass, bass, and drums. It only sweetens the deal to find that said band credited the dude who built their amps in the liner notes. When a band gives shout outs to the dude or dudes who built their equipment, it means that record is going to sound fucking awesome. It's the kind of thing that would make me buy an album sight unseen.

Luckily, I knew Enemymine was kick ass prior to buying this album. The band was a fairly short-lived collaboration between Mike Kunka of godheadSilo and Zak Sally of Low. They came from the Botch era of Seattle math metal, and their eponymous EP from 1999 was pretty rad. This one was a no brainer to pick up.

'The Ice in Me' is a clinic on atonal sonic demolition and pants-shitting bass annihilation. The dissonant stop-start jerk of tracks like "Inverted Circle" and "Setting the Traps" offer bursts of aggression that would still rhythmically confuse your garden variety mosh pit patron. Sprinkled amongst the chaos are quieter, more contemplative moments that sound exactly like a couple dudes sitting in a practice space on a rainy day with bass guitars, killer amps and a twack of Rainier.

But what exactly is meant by the phrase "pants-shitting bass annihilation", you ask? Simple. Listen to the track "Passive Equalizer", which meanders about with subtlety for the first minute or so and suddenly hits you with a single note "BWAAAAAAH!!!!" that resonates for a good ten seconds. That is it. It's the kind of shit that can only come from a band that has two bass players and a dude who builds their amps. It’s the kind of tone that every person who has taken an instrument even slightly seriously has dreamt of, and the casual music enthusiast can mutter “holy shit… maybe that’s what all them dudes were talking about...” And that tone, excuse me, THAT TONE is ever present and unrelenting throughout ‘The Ice in Me’. You will be friends with it and you will try to destroy speakers with it, and I bid you god speed in this task.

0 From the Crates #6: Darkest Hour - Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation (2003)

Review by Matt Abramson

Darkest Hour – Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation
(Victory 2003)

For the most part, I’m always going to side with speed metal. Or death metal, or black metal, or whatever the fuck adjective gets attached to metal to describe its more traditional path of evolution throughout the ages. The flip side of this is –core music, which can maybe be argued as developing from punk (hardcore, to be exact, but that’s beside the point) but lots of metal gets tagged as shit like horrorcore, mathcore, and other silly names. This metal, I have found, is not usually as good.

Something that has always been a bit of a tug-of-war for me is my slight dislike of metal “wankiness”. Wanking is excessive or inappropriate guitar solo work with an unusual amount of high notes and whammy-bar dives or pinch harmonics or other bullshit. Now, you could hold a seven day metal summit to determine the exact definition of wanking versus normal awesome metal soloing, but for me it’s anything that distracts you from the song or sounds like the dude is showing off. Good guitar players (Dimebag, Brent Hines, Jerry Cantrell, Matt Pike, Glen Tipton/KK Downing, Frank Zappa) understand this concept innately.

Why all the discussion about –core and wanking and shit before I’ve even mentioned this week’s pick, ‘Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation’ by Darkest Hour? Simple, because this album is a prime example of complete lack of wanking and is anything but –core and is therefore fucking awesome. The first couple of Darkest Hour albums, coming to a peak with this one, were super badass metal releases and I don’t know why they don’t get mentioned as such. There is nothing missing on this album: pummeling double-kick, huge hi-gain guitars and “dude, my girlfriend just dumped me for a jazz musician” yelling vocals. I wonder if the dude from Darkest Hour has a normal talking voice, or if he just does that gnarly yell all the time. “PASS THE MUSTARD PLEASE!!!”

That would be metal.

If ‘Hidden Hands’ were a cut of meat, it would be the biggest, gnarliest, leanest cut on the whole cow. Listening to the speed and precision present on this album you are fully aware that either guitarist is capable of wanking at any moment – but they never do. There’s one or two (very tasteful) solos on the whole disc and everything else is sheer metal ass kickery. The only chance you have to catch your breath is during the eight-minute “Accessible Losses” and that’s only right before the song goes critical and sends metal shrapnel everywhere. Metal is the working man’s genre, and it’s that kind of straightforward blue-collar attitude that makes ‘Hidden Hands’ a very honest and very fucking kick ass listen.

1 From the Crates #5: Suicidal Tendencies - Lights... Camera... Revolution! (1990)

Review by Matt Abramson

Suicidal Tendencies - Lights… Camera… Revolution!
(Epic – 1990)

All you wanted was a Pepsi, but you got a kick ass thrash album instead.

It seems like I’m getting stuck on a lot of records by punk bands that were made later in their careers after they survived the Big Bang of Punk, so to speak, and got a minute to think about what the hell it was that they dug about music in the first place. Case in point is Suicidal Tendencies, a favorite band of 1980’s L.A. gang members and punks alike. Suicidal made a couple of really sweet hardcore albums, and is a highly revered band in the genre. Their most famous cut, “Institutionalized”, is one of the greatest old-school punk tracks ever put on tape, plus it was odd – a mid-tempo dialog and guitar solo with hardcore breaks, who woulda thunk it? This shit was not “God Save the Queen” by a long shot. Suicidal took a turn toward hard thrash with ‘Lights… Camera… Revolution’ in 1990. What resulted was a really listenable snapshot of a certain time and place in the history of metal.

This album doesn’t fall under the category of ‘legendary’, but it does fall under ‘pretty good’. The technical playing on the album stands up to most metal releases during this era, it’s a lot of air-guitar inducing madness in a world before people could use video games to pretend they play guitar. Mike Muir is a hell of a band leader, what he lacks in vocal ability he makes up for in enthusiasm. Tunes like ‘Send Me Your Money’ have the political and ethical commentary that only legitimate punk music can deliver. Oh, and you know that dude Robert Trujillo? The bass player? The one that saved Metallica from really, really sucking just like Bob Rock was intent on making them really, really suck? (That’s a whole other essay though.) He plays bass on this album. And he shreds.

What makes this album most interesting (and in a strange way, I might add) though, are its elements of 80’s L.A. cock-rock (really glossy production, solos piled on solos, sometimes questionable lyrical content) that are a little corny in retrospect, but corny in an awesome way. You know, like Iron Maiden is corny but you still get stoked every time you put one of their albums or t-shirts on. (Hey, whaddaya know, I’m wearing one right now! It’s got a Viking Eddie on it! Sweet!) Glam was in its death throes when this came out, and power metal was starting to take over. Thrash was gaining steam as a legit genre and one of the best in metal at that. Suicidal took cues from all that shit and incorporated it into an already solid unit of dudes who could kick ass. On one hand, you have a band that is obviously trying to be more commercial. However, on the other hand you have a band that was sticking to their ideals of shred and attitude. It’s an odd mix and it works.

0 From the Crates #4: Rollins Band - Come In and Burn (1997)

Rollins Band – Come in and Burn
(1997 Dreamworks)

It's sad, but Henry Rollins has been marginalized. Most people know him as a super-intelligent spoken word artist, if at all, or as "the dude from Black Flag."

[Lengthy aside regarding Black Flag: I have my suspicions that most of the kids running around in Black Flag t-shirts even own a Black Flag album. I’ve got many a puzzled look after asking folks in Black Flag shirts what their favorite album is. Black Flag, along with the Misfits and the Dead Kennedys, have been degraded into logos that kids can fly to signify their resentment of authority (which sucks, as all those bands are amazingly important) whether or not they can be bothered to download a torrent of "TV Party" in between Halo games. Black Flag made so many great albums in unparalleled bursts of ferocity (namely five releases from 1984-1985, some seriously far out shit there) which helped cement the DIY legacy and went down in history as one of the most insane live bands ever to jam. Anyone who speaks ill of Black Flag has no fucking clue what they are talking about. I recommend administering a swift blow to the testicles if you run into one of these people.]

In reality, Henry Rollins has gone on from his seminal work in Black Flag to write a dozen books, act, host several television shows (most notably IFC’s The Henry Rollins show – worth checking out), do extensive USO and charity work, and – most importantly – release a shit load of kick ass Rollins Band albums.

If anyone has heard anything by Rollins band it is likely “Liar”, which was an MTV buzz clip (remember those?) back in the day. “Liar” was a cool song, but it is not quintessential Rollins Band. To hear the true atomic rock massacre that is Rollins Band we turn to 1997’s ‘Come in and Burn’. This album features the ‘classic’ Rollins Band lineup in top form and completely unwilling to relent or compromise. Rollins is an unstoppable front man and his band plays the fuck out of their instruments. ‘Come in and Burn’ is a clinic on what a solid rock album should sound like.

Rollins’ publishing company, 2.13.61, re-released this album in 2005. This version is way cooler, as are all the 2.13.61 re-releases. It is spread over two discs with plenty of unreleased ass kickery and is available for legit download from all the usual joints. If you need convincing, check out “On My Way to the Cage”, “Inhale Exhale” and one of my all-time favorite Rollins Band songs, “Shame”. I would advise you have some heavy objects nearby to throw around, because you will be stoked. With any luck, the self-described “rock and roll ninja” that is the legendary Henry Rollins will continue to kick the asses of all who are worthy until, well, forever. In the meantime, listen to this – then go start a band and try to come close.

1 From the Crates #4: Deep Purple - Machine Head (1972)

Review by Matt Abramson - @metalcobra

Deep Purple - Machine Head
(EMI - 1972)

It's Thanksgiving and - without getting all Hallmark and shit - even the gnarliest of us need to take a second to think about what we're thankful for. And what would that be? Heavy metal, of course. Don’t be a fucktard. Metal makes everything better. How dreary and intolerable would life be if you lacked the first four Black Sabbath records in junior high or never had the pleasure of structurally damaging a speaker cone using only a SunnO))) record and a large amount of wattage? We must be thankful for metal, and therefore I want to dig on one of the most "famous but not as famous" metal albums this week.

I know what you're thinking, "Dude, this album isn't obscure! I just heard "Smoke on the Water" six fucking times in a row on the radio! What gives?" I concede, 'Machine Head' may not exactly be obscure, but it deserves a listen - cover to cover - because it is a seriously bad ass early metal album chock full of riffs that make you wonder if Deep Purple will sue Clutch or The Sword (both of whom are supreme masters of ass kickery and I mean no disrespect) at some point. Just because they didn’t talk about Satan doesn’t mean it wasn’t metal. The solid musicianship and unreal backbeat throughout this album will freeze your face all squirrelly just like your mom warned you about.

People talk about the origins of metal and immediately bring up Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in the early 70's. Deep Purple was right in the mix with both those bands, and they had something the others didn't - a gnarly organ player. Sure, Iron Butterfly had an organ player, too, but they only had one song worth talking about for maybe a minute, ever. John Lord could shred the shit out of a Hammond and proved organs could be metal too. Hell, the reason "Smoke on the Water" has such a heavy ass legendary riffs isn't because of the guitar. Listen close at 00:18 and 01:25, it's the organ!

Maybe I’m just a sucker for bad ass organ shit. And maybe that’s because dirty Hammonds sound fucking awesome. Any instrument that takes four dudes to lift has to be packing some serious tone.

It kind of breaks my heart to see tracks like "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water" turn into fodder for the zillion cheesy guitar video games that are inescapable these days. I also hope it's exposing a whole new generation of potential metalheads to the real shit, because their parents probably still listen to Bon Jovi and therefore are failing as parents. Again, I have to stress that you go listen to this album start to finish, and by the drum solo during the album closer "Space Truckin'" you will be experiencing peak levels of stokage. Plus, who wouldn't want to go space truckin'?! SIGN ME UP!

0 From the Crates #3: Fight - War of Words (1993)

Review by Metal Matt - @metalcobra

Fight - War of Words
(1993 - Epic)

You would think that Judas Priest would have given up the ghost after releasing 1986's super mediocre 'Turbo' and 1988's complete shit pile 'Ram it Down', but they didn't. In fact, it wasn't until after 1990's 'Painkiller', easily the second or third best Priest album and one of the finest metal albums ever recorded (but I digress, as the level of detail I am prepared to go into concerning the mighty Judas Priest catalog is a whole other article altogether), that the band - and by "the band" I mean singer Rob Halford - decided to call it quits (until 2004 of course, and again I must be forcefully reticent regarding the Tim "Ripper" Owens years and the albums which say "Judas Priest" on them, but are clearly not Judas Priest albums).

Anyhow, Rob Halford was not quite done making kick ass, epic metal records after splitting with Priest in ye olde 1992. As a certified forefather of heavy metal, he was pretty pumped about bands like Pantera who were taking the music to new levels of speed and heaviness. With this in mind, he assembled Fight from some seriously metal hired guns and topped it off with Priest and Racer X drummer Scott Travis, who is in possession of some of the most savage double-kick in all of metal and is thoroughly brutal and unstoppable. Thus, Fight was created and in 1993 they released 'War of Words', and it was good.

From about fifteen seconds into the album opener "Into the Pit", we are assured that Rob Halford never lost a step and has returned to pierce your eardrums with his signature scream while his new band, green and thirsty for blood, pummels the shit out of your entrails. Song after song is classic 1990's power metal, complete with hooky riffs and vast, technical solos that inspire involuntary air guitar freakouts. It was a new direction for Halford, but he still tread on familiar territory with catchy, almost radio-ready tunes like "Little Crazy" and "Nailed to the Gun". The title track gets a little political with its free speech message, but do not be distracted by such trivialities. 'War of Words' is meant to be listened to at maximum volume with minimum brain power.

For what it's worth, there are two other Fight releases. The first was an EP called 'Mutations' which has live tracks and some corny industrial remixes and is worth checking out overall. The live version of "Into the Pit" is worth the price of admission alone. It will make you want to run shit over in a truck. The second full length was called 'A Small Deadly Space', and it is not really worth checking out... frankly, it kind of sucked. However, there is a box set of all three discs, remastered, with a live DVD. If you find it cheap, buy it. Because Rob Halford is just that fucking metal.

1 From the Crates #2: TSOL - Beneath the Shadows (1982)

TSOL - Beneath the Shadows
(Alternative Tentacles - 1982)

TSOL, I think, are most famous for being on a million punk compilations, being covered by Slayer once, being on a t-shirt on Axl Rose in a music video and having a song about necrophilia. They were a part of the late 1970's to early 1980's explosion of punk rock in Southern California (side note: if you haven't already, go watch the documentary 'American Hardcore' - last I checked it is on Google video in its entirety). Without entering the great useless debate about the origins of punk music, I have to say that the early soCal hardcore represents the true essence of punk rock to me.

As time wore on, a funny thing happened. Most of the bands in the scene either disintegrated or had members die (and then disintegrated), but a few survived beyond the token seven inch or two, maybe for the mere sake of spiting the naysayers. TSOL was one of those bands. And for a band whose first full length focused on a) hating the government, b) hating everyone else, and c) fucking dead people, 'Beneath the Shadows' demonstrates a remarkable nuance and - dare I say it - sensitivity. Furthermore, it still sounds damn good.

The most shocking element of this album is the dominance of keyboards and piano, a genuine rarity in the lo-fi world of early punk. Most punk bands suck when they try to make 'serious' music, as bad musicianship is a key element of punk. TSOL did it without breaking a sweat. They toned down their overt political attack (TSOL stands for True Sounds of Liberty) and instead wrote some really meaningful songs about life and love and other random existential shit most punk bands would shun. Even better, they did it without being corny.

'Beneath the Shadows' may be punk by default, but it wouldn't be out of place in several other genres. At the very least, the title track is worth a download. It takes me right back to an adolescent malaise that still resounds, as life can still kind of blow in these very strange and very fucked up times. Not that this album is a bum out, songs like 'Soft Focus' and 'She'll Be Saying' have plenty of punk rock get up and go and the album is well paced through its punctual thirty-four minutes. 'Beneath the Shadows' is worth listening to somewhere between one and one thousand times, at least.

Review by Metal Matt ~ @metalcobra

0 From the Crates #1: Hammerhead - Into the Vortex

Every Thursday, Seattle Rock Guy's new contributor Metal Matt will be showcasing his knowledge of some amazing records which have more or less slipped through the cracks over the years. Here's how he explains the premise.

'From the Crates' is all about albums by overlooked and under-heard artists who never got their due, as well as older albums by bands you might have heard of that deserve a second listen. Any music fan will tell you there is only one kind of album worth talking about: the one that you put on whatever music listening apparatus you prefer, press play, and are taken to a different place altogether. The album you've listened to at least twice in a row, the album that is so good you almost can't believe it. This column will try to show you a few of those albums in all genres of music, space and time. And yes, there will be a high level of ass kickery." - Matt

Hammerhead – Into the Vortex
(Amphetamine Reptile – 1994)

If you had to summarize the evolution of rock music during the 1990’s in twenty words or less it would probably look like this: Nirvana and Pearl Jam got huge, glam rock died, and rock music got real serious and real good again. So no matter how overplayed it still is, we must thank our lucky stars that a whole slew of bands were getting inspired by ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and not ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’. Case in point is the mighty Hammerhead, both underrated and overlooked.

I first heard about this album several years ago in an anthology of ‘Burn Collector’, a zine from the 90’s written by a fellow named Al Burian which is well worth checking out. Anyhow, I filed it away in the noggin and didn’t think anything of it until I came across the album this summer and thought ‘why the hell not?’ It turned out to be the best kind of album: the album I unexpectedly can not stop listening to.

‘Into the Vortex’ is a battering ram of 90’s post-rock excellence that makes you a little nostalgic even though it has aged exceptionally well with it’s ass-kickery intact, unlike the many releases from the era. It’s textbook post-rock: not exactly metal, not exactly punk, atonal when it needs to be, heavy as hell and the singer is more like that PE teacher from Beavis and Butthead than a, well, singer.

The record consists of equal parts Black Flag and Helmet, and has the perfect balance of rock demolition and introspection. Where lots of records hit pot holes and faux paus of cheesiness, these guys were dead serious and they pulled it off. The guitars are savage, the bass is like a diesel powered chainsaw, and the drums keep everything right where it needs to be – including your head bobbing up and down making the ‘shit, this is sick made!’ face. You know the one.

For starters, check out album highlights ‘Swallow’ and ‘Empty Angel’, but if you have 45 minutes to kill and want to get amped as hell or just take it back to a time when The Strokes did not exist, crank this up!

Review by Metal Matt ~ @metalcobra