Why I Don't Think "13" By Black Sabbath Is As Good As It Could Have Been...

...You read the title. You know what's coming.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of heavy metal music knows that Black Sabbath, the legendary band who most consider to be one of the grandfathers of heavy metal, released an album back in June this year. It had a HUGE legacy to live up to: their last album with Ozzy was released about 35 years ago (and that was the commonly ignored album "Never Say Die") and their last album (if you only count albums under the Sabbath name) was released about 18 years ago (and that was the commonly ignored album "Forbidden": spotting a slight pattern here?). There was some life in the Sabbath camp with the Heaven & Hell release "The Devil You Know" in 2010, but, for the most part, Black Sabbath had been relatively quiet until their reunion back in November, which also promised a new album.

I'll admit, I was curious to hear the new album. Not because I worshiped Black Sabbath (I'm probably one of the few metal fans who doesn't), but because I wanted to see what the guys who brought us "Paranoid" could deliver now. Bill Ward's departure didn't put me off too much, as I'd never been particularly interested in his drumming anyway (sorry, Sabbath fans...): all I was hoping for was a good album. Not a genre defining one (be honest: how many musicians can you honestly say are/were putting out their best music in their 60's?), just one that wasn't embarrassing. I didn't like "God Is Dead?" much, so I was quietly expecting the worst.

And you know what? It isn't a bad album. But it could have been SO much better.

To explain why I don't think this album works on the level it should do, I'm going to have to compare it to their original albums, Orchid's second album (which I honestly think is closer to what "13" should have been than Black Sabbath did, but I'm getting ahead of myself here...) and "The Devil You Know".

So I'm going to say this now: if you like "13", you are entitled to do so. Like I said, it's not a bad album. I just don't necessarily think that it's a good album BECAUSE it's not a bad album. So, with that said, let me look at the main things which harm this album so much that I cannot get swept up with the hype so many have about it.

The first issue is Ozzy. Now, don't get me wrong: the guy does a good job when you consider his age and just how long he's been singing. I wasn't expecting a lot from him on this album and he met my expectations, so I can't complain too much about that. However, the issue is that he just doesn't sound that energetic in his performance. Take Dio on "The Devil You Know" (and I'm probably going to piss off a lot of Sabbath fans with this): on that album, you could hear that age had caught up with him, as his voice wasn't that great. But, on that album, he sang with so much energy that I could forgive that flaw and love the album. You could tell he was having a lot of fun making the album and that helped make the album fun to listen to. Ozzy, however, just sounds like he's going through the motions on "13". He does have a few moments of energy, I'll admit, but, for a good amount of the run time, he doesn't sound like he's having fun making the album. He almost sounds bored at points. And that drags the whole thing down, as it's tough to really enjoy something when even the people making it sound like it's a chore for them to put it together.

The second issue is that the band seem to have forgotten their blues roots with this album. Some people will immediately wonder what I'm talking about, so I will put it like this: when you listen to Black Sabbath's early stuff, you can hear a strong blues influence underneath the heavily downtuned guitar riffs. Part of the reason Ozzy-era Sabbath sounds so interesting is because they didn't only write heavy stuff designed to crush the opposition: they had their moments when what they were playing just sounded like blues stuff that was heavily downtuned. And that's what is missing on this album, for the most part: the songs that aren't just trying to outdo everyone else in distortion. Do you want to know what made me realise this little detail? Orchid's second album, "The Mouths Of Madness". I'm guessing this first detail, but I believe Orchid originally started out as a Black Sabbath cover band (because...come on, they picked their name after a Black Sabbath track most people aren't likely to recognise!), so it's fair to say that they know their stuff pretty well. The second track on their album is "Marching Dogs Of War", which I'll let you listen to before I continue (you might need to be on a computer to see the video):

Do you hear what I'm on about now? And here's the thing: that album was released about two months before "13" was and, to me, it sounds more like Black Sabbath than "13" does. Let that sink in...

The third issue is that a lot of the songs on "13" just sound like rewritten versions of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath songs. Now, this one isn't as big an issue for me as it is for some people, as I accept that it's very hard to be completely original in music these days and Sabbath couldn't exactly afford to risk releasing an album that experimented too much with their usual sound. People knew what to expect of this period from the band and they got just what they expected, so I can't complain about that. What I CAN complain about, however, is the fact that they're not very subtle about the rewriting. I'm usually not too picky about this kind of thing, but "Zeitgeist" is such a clear rip off of "Planet Caravan" that the only reason I'm not saying "Sabbath should call their lawyers" is because it's Sabbath doing it. Rick Rubin (who has been on my hit list of producers from the moment I heard "Death Magnetic". Trust me, we'll get to him in a minute...) reportedly made the band listen to their first four albums and told them to write an album like them and, frankly, I can believe it. The thing is, Black Sabbath had moved on from that sound even while Ozzy was in the band ("Technical Ecstasy" and "Never Say Die", anyone?), so doing this is effectively regression on a scale that is almost insulting to fans of the post-Ozzy material. It's even (possibly unintentionally) acknowledged in the title, for goodness sake! If you count only the Ozzy and Dio eras of Black Sabbath (and the Heaven & Hell album), you get 13 albums. Yet, if you actually count how many albums have been released by Black Sabbath (and, again, count the Heaven & Hell album), you actually get 20 albums. So, nobody wants to remember the album Ian Gillian made with them, "Born Again" (admittedly, the art work is horrible, so I wouldn't entirely blame them for wanting to forget it...)? Nobody wants to remember Glenn Hughes singing with the band for "Seventh Star" (admittedly, that was intended to be a solo album by Tony Iommi...)? Nobody wants to remember the five albums Tony Martin did with Sabbath? OK...that's a bit of a middle finger to the fans who support Sabbath during those difficult times, isn't it? Seven albums effectively being treated as if they don't exist just to win over the casual fans who ignored the band during their times without Ozzy or Dio. A wonderful decision, I'm sure...

The fourth (and this is the thing that pisses me off the most and is the real nail in the coffin for me regarding this album) is the production. Yeah, you guys knew this one was coming even when it was announced he would be producing the album. Rick Rubin is a fine example of how not to produce an album, so I'm astonished that he still gets work with high profile bands like Metallica, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Black Sabbath (just to name a few). I'm going by what people say involving the loudness war phenomenon here (if you don't know what it is, go look it up), but most of what Rick Rubin has done since the 2000's hit has been overly compressed, headache inducing and sounds like shit. Even if it's not his fault that everything ends up the way it does, it's his name on the producer credit, which means that he is responsible for the final result being approved for release. If it sounds the way it does with everything he's done, I can only conclude that either he or someone connected to him (and a lot of fingers point to mastering engineer Vlado Meller, although I know he's not responsible this time, as he wasn't involved in this album) is doing a terrible job at making sure the final result sounds good. I can barely make myself want to listen to this album, which is a mark of just how badly Rick Rubin did with this. The guitars are far too loud as well (although, admittedly, with Tony Ionni on guitars, are you really going to make him too quiet?).

So, with all of this in mind, why did I say that this isn't a bad album before I started all of this? Because, if you can ignore all of the flaws, it really isn't that bad! It's just not the Black Sabbath album it could have been. That is the thing that breaks my heart whenever I listen to this album more than anything else and is the only reason why I've written this article. Not to tell people to not listen to this album, because I don't want to tell anyone to do that (plus, it's a bit late to want to do that now). It's because I wanted this to be better than it is. The potential for an amazing album was there and, due to the things I've pointed out, it isn't.

Apologies

Well, most of you who've been looking here have probably been thinking "What happened to the Queensryche, Green Day and Alice Cooper reviews you said you were going to do?" Honestly, I did try to write them. I really did. I've still got the drafts from my attempt to write the Queensryche and Green Day reviews. However, I just didn't think they were good enough to put on this blog. I was writing them and could only think "This is crap" when I glanced back over them, which isn't something I feel I should put on the blog. I want to put stuff on this blog that I feel I can stand behind, not something terrible that I'm just writing to fill up a schedule.

If you were wanting to see them and were coming back in the hope they were going to be published late, then I'm sorry to have to disappoint you. I'll admit, I'm not great at keeping to schedules, so that is probably the last time I'm going to try to come up with one. Basically, expect my blog to run on Valve time from this point on.

I'm NOT cancelling the Judas Priest reviews, but expect it to be a mega review that will be uploaded on the last day of the year (I'm running on UK time, so apologies if this means it ends up later or earlier than that date), not my previous plan of one review every two days.

I do plan to do those reviews I've not uploaded to the schedule I wanted to do, but expect them to be uploaded sometime next year. I do have two other posts I would like to do either before the end of the year or just after the start of it, one being a list of the best albums of 2013 I've purchased (which is about 35 albums at the minute, most of which is metal related and some of which is probably stuff that's flown under the radars of quite a few people...) and one being an analysis of fans not liking negative (or, at least, less-than-positive) reviews of things they do like. You probably know this from comments such as "This reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about" and "This reviewer isn't qualified to criticise this". This isn't something I've suffered from yet, but it's an attitude that I feel I need to examine in detail to explain just why this isn't the best response to criticism.

Thank you to everyone who has been visiting this blog and I can only hope I don't disappoint you with the Judas Priest reviews!

(I also have a short horror story written in the style of H P Lovecraft which I might share sometime over the next few weeks...)

Boston Are Back! Well, Hopefully...

OK, I might be jumping the gun here, as it's not been confirmed by the band or the label in question, but I figured I might as well throw this bit of news out for people who have missed it: Boston are set to return with a new album (titled Life, Love & Hope) in December this year. There hasn't been a cover art or tracklist provided yet, so this is purely running on what I've seen around the web.

Some people may be wondering whether it can really be called Boston without Brad Delp (who died in 2007). Well, it is true that Delp's voice helped make the band, but I would safely argue that, since Walk On didn't have his vocals, you could get away with saying that Brad's absence is more a shame than a reason to expect this album to automatically be bad. It is Tom Scholz's band at the end of the day, so I think asking whether this album can be considered a Boston one or not, while a reasonable question, is not without precedent.

The better question is this: will the album meet up to the hype? Bear in mind, these guys are legendary for their first album, so there will be an expectation of a good album, but, after an eleven years wait, the expectations will be noticeably higher. From what I've heard, a lot of fans aren't fond of Corporate America (their last album, released in 2002: interestingly, you have to really look to find a decently priced copy of that album, which suggests it didn't get a large pressing to me...) and, from what I've gathered, they've not really been on the same level since their third album (released in 1986), although that and the follow up (Walk On, released in 1994) were still decent. So, I'm sadly going to have to be pessimistic and say that I'm not expecting the record to be that great. They could pull off an amazing record, but I think the odds of that happening aren't in their favour.

So yeah, classic rock fans, be prepared for a new Boston album to hopefully hit stores in December. Just don't expect a classic: you're not likely to get that. I'll keep my ears open for any more news regarding the album.

Oh, and if you're wondering where the Green Day and/or Queensryche review is: I'm hoping to have one uploaded on Friday. Been slightly sidetracked recently, but I do have both reviews started and should be able to get them finished before the 16th, barring a personal crisis. Apologies for those of your who've been checking back hoping to see the reviews, since the sidetrack shouldn't have happened in the first place: got a bit too excited about the news relating to the upcoming XCOM and Assassin's Creed games and some other music related news (Lostprophet's breakup, the Queensryche lawsuit, catching up on Grim Reaper in preparation for their new album, new Hell track, White Wizzard's messy departure of their fifth singer, new Nightwish vocalist announced, new Boston album confirmed...that's just the high points of what has been eating into my time!) to focus on writing the reviews. I'll try not to start suffering from Valve time with the Judas Priest reviews and hope you're still looking forward to the reviews I've lined up for this month!

Plan for next few months

It's hard to believe I've been blogging since June. I'm not saying that because it's dramatic or anything: I look back on some of my old stuff and go "That's what I was writing back in June?"

I figured it was time to update you guys on my plans for the next few months leading up to 2014, since I've got an interesting idea for December that will have an impact on my writing for the next two months.

Throughout December, I'm going to review every single Judas Priest album that has been released so far. The Tim Owens stuff, Turbo, Nostradamus...all of them will get their turn in the spotlight and evaluated to see just what annoys the fanbase regarding them and whether such issues are warranted. Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith, Painkiller, Sad Wings of Destiny...all of them will get reviews on whether they are the masterpieces the fanbase holds them to be. Everything else in between...they'll get reviewed to see whether any of them are classics that are awaiting rediscovery or albums that should be quietly forgotten about.

Now, most people will be thinking "That's great, but how does that impact the blog?" Well, considering that Judas Priest have released a not unimpressive sixteen albums (and one of them is a double album), it's going to take me a while to sit down and get everything sorted in preparation for December, so I'm going to be posting less than I would like to in the build up to it. This doesn't mean I won't be posting anything until December, though: I'm planning on reviewing Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime and Green Day's American Idiot over the course of October and, for Halloween, Alice Cooper shall be welcoming us into his nightmare, with a double review of Welcome To My Nightmare and the sequel, Welcome 2 My Nightmare (yes, I think that's a dumb title as well) gracing this blog. I don't have anything planned for November, but, considering that I've got sixteen albums to prepare to review, I think it's fair to say that I'll not be doing a lot. I've not got a schedule planned for the Priest reviews yet, but I'm toying with the possibility of doing an album every two days...

So, that's my plans up to New Year for the blog. Hope you enjoy what I put up and that you're looking forward to the Priest reviews! I know I'm looking forward to writing them: Judas Priest are one of my favourite bands and it's a great opportunity to look in more depth at their history while I'm at it, so I'm eager to get started and examine the evolution of the Metal Gods!

Crimson Glory "In Dark Places... 1986 - 2010" Review: Life In The Attic

Before I begin this article, I would like to apologise for not posting for about a month. I've had a lot of my free time cut into for the last few weeks and today has been the first day I've really found to write something. To make up for it, I'm going to review the boxset that helped introduce me to a band that I now hold dear to my heart: Crimson Glory.

If you aren't already familiar with Crimson Glory, here's their basic history: they formed in 1979 as Pierced Arrow (which was later changed to Beowulf and, finally, Crimson Glory). The line up of what would become Crimson Glory came together in 1983, when their vocalist, lead guitarist and bassist quit, although John Patrick McDonald (better known by the fans as Midnight) joined after the band's second vocalist (Mark Ormes) quit. The only members of the Pierced Arrow/Beowulf line up to make it into Crimson Glory are rhythm guitarist Ben Jackson and drummer Dana Burnell (although bassist Jeff Lords did play with the pre-Crimson Glory line up for a period of time before returning). After that, they rehearsed for a few years before releasing their debut self-titled album in October 1986, the tour for which caused a bit of interest due to the band's habit of wearing silver masks onstage. They cut these down to Phantom Of The Opera style ones for their second album, Transcendence, which was released in November 1988, before doing away with them completely for their third album, Strange and Beautiful, which was released in June 1991. This third album is commonly considered to be more like a Midnight solo album than a Crimson Glory album, since it featured a noticeable stylistic change and a cover that would probably make more sense if you were higher than a helium-propelled kite. They did have a different drummer on the Strange and Beautiful album, as he and Ben Jackson had quit after the Transcendence tour, forcing lead guitarist Jon Drenning to do the guitars for the album. Before they could tour for the album, however, Midnight left the band and retired for a decade. Although a replacement was found in the form of David Van Landing (I'm presuming that's a stage name: feel free to correct me if that's his actual name), they only did a short lived tour of the US before officially breaking up in 1992.

But that wasn't the end of the Crimson Glory story. In between the break up of Crimson Glory and their reforming in 1998, there were three bands out there which will be of interest to fans of the band: Parish (which included departed guitarist Ben Jackson), the oddly named Erotic Liquid Culture (I'm not making that up), which was the last line up of Crimson Glory, and Crush, which was pretty much the same band, but with Billy Martinez on vocals instead of Landing. They released albums in 1995 (Parish's Envision), 1996 (Erotic Liquid Culture's self-titled album) and 1995 (Crush's self-titled album) and...well, I've listened to one track by Erotic Liquid Culture and I heard a more hard rock sound to the song than the prog metal of Crimson Glory, which isn't bad in and of itself, but I felt disappointed by it. I've heard good things about the Parish album, though, so I might review it sometime in the future. Still, none of those albums really made an impact anywhere and you'd probably be lucky to find copies of those albums anywhere, so I recommend giving them a listen online before you consider purchasing them if you find them for sale anywhere.

Anyway, in late 1996, plans for a reunion of Crimson Glory were being made by Drenning and Lords. They did contact Midnight, but he wasn't up to recording an album the band's standards and he wasn't interested, so Wade Black (then of Lucian Blaque) was called up, as was ex-Savatage drummer Steve Wacholz (although he didn't play on the final album, 1999's Astronomica). Ben Jackson rejoined before the album was recorded, as Parish had broken up. The album master tapes were stolen at one point, so the band had to re-record the entire album before it was finally released in August 1999. To say the album is somewhat like the Judas Priest albums with Tim Owens on vocals would be a good way to put it, since quite a few fans did not like Wade Black's performance on the album. However, the band did do a tour for the album alongside Kamelot and Evergrey. Issues came up during a tour and the band went on another hiatus in 2000.

The next five years didn't really see a lot of interesting stuff beyond a few solo albums (two from Ben Jackson, two from Midnight, who also made a guest appearance on Genius: A Rock Opera and Ben Jackson's second solo album) and a few other things by various other members of the band (a guest appearance by Steve Wacholz on Jon Oliva's Pain's 2004 album Tage Mahal, three albums with different bands by Wade Black (2002's Xiled to Infinity and One by Seven Witches, 2003's Until the Bitter End by Rick Renstrom and 2004's Dogface by Leash Law, as well as a guest appearance on Ben Jackson's first solo album) and 1989 live keyboardist (who returned to Crimson Glory in 2011)  John Zahner's two albums (the aforementioned Tage Mahal and 2003's Watching in Silence by Circle II Circle). There was a lot of talk about a potential reunion with the original line up, but, until their official reunion in March 2005, there wasn't a lot of confirmed reunion signs until July 2003, when Ben Jackson posted on his website that they were waiting for a sign from Midnight about a reunion to be ready to happen. This was before the guest appearance by Midnight on Ben's second solo album happened. The two of them also did an acoustic show together in July 2004 and were invited to do a meet and greet at ProgPower V.

So, when the reunion happened in 2005, there were plans to write their fifth album (intended to be titled Metatron, Lucifer and the Divine Chaos: later shortened to Divine Chaos"), re-record Astronomica with Midnight on vocals, release a DVD of their 1989 show in Bradenton and re-release their first two albums in the form of a boxset. However, disaster struck in May 2006, when their label closed down, meaning that these things never came to pass. Still, things were still going reasonably well for the line up until January 2007, when Midnight was arrested for driving under the influence. The band parted with Midnight because of his state putting the band at risk (it is possible there is more to this story than I know) and Wade Black rejoined the band. They played two more shows before fading into the shadows again.

The thing that caused the band to return again was due to the death of Midnight on the 8th of July 2009. At the time, he had his family, friends and bandmates at his side and, at 3:30, he passed away of a stomach aneurysm (the press statement incorrectly said it was total liver and kidney failure). At the time, he was 47 years old. In memory of him, the band did a headlining show at 2009's PowerProg X. The list of guest vocalists at the show is seriously impressive, but one name that will be of much interest to people is the guy who would later become the lead vocalist of Crimson Glory and is now singing for another of my favourite bands: Queensryche's Todd La Torre. He was a somewhat late addition to the show, as Jon Oliva's Pain guitarist Matt LaPorte mentioned him to Jon Drenning a few weeks prior to the show and he was added to the line up. According to some interviews I've read, people backstage already knew he was something special, despite the fact that he had only done backing vocals before then on an album that had not even been released yet (the 2010 Jon Oliva's Pain album Festival) and, in May 2010, he was officially added to the band as their new lead vocalist. He stayed with them until February 2013, when he resigned from the band due to inactivity (specifically, he tried to encourage them to release an album within a window of time, only for them to not work on the album at all beyond the demo track of "Garden of Shadows"). As things currently stand, the band have been looking for a new singer since February 2013, but there has been no more information about that at the time of writing. I personally suspect the band is likely to go on hiatus soon, if they haven't unofficially done that yet, but, as that is not based on any solid fact, I cannot say with any certainty how the band can come back from the loss of Todd. I've actually been tempted to send in a demo tape of myself singing some Crimson Glory stuff, although I am certain I'd never get the actual gig myself, since my voice is a lot more like Matt Barlow than Midnight.

The history behind this boxset is going to be of interest to people who aren't following the history of the band. See, this boxset was not authorised by the members of Crimson Glory: in fact, the band went so far as to encourage their fans not to purchase it, since they would not get paid for any purchases of it. The boxset was put together by the label Metal Mind Productions in 2010, at a limited quantity of 1000 copies (which are numbered: my copy is number 929, if anyone is curious) and with all of the albums remastered. At the time of purchasing the boxset, I was not aware of this bit of information and so was rather surprised to discover this. Considering that Crimson Glory are unlikely to visit the UK on tour at the moment, however, I didn't feel too bad about this. So, with all that history (finally) out of the way, let's examine the boxset itself.

In terms of the packaging, the boxset itself is not that impressive. It's pretty much a square box that's made of cardboard (I think) and is open on the right, if you have the front of the boxset facing you. I do get that it contains four albums (and a CD made up of the War Of The Worlds EP from 2000 and demos from the Astronomica album), but you'd expect better packaging for a boxset that costs a fair bit (I spent nearly £50 on my copy). The front cover is of five masks, Crimson Glory at the top in a fake silver writing and the title of the boxset underneath the masks. Some might consider that lazy, but I think it's a nice acknowledgement of the history of Crimson Glory, so to each their own. The back of the boxset is just the titles of the CDs and the note confirming which number of the limited edition 1000 copies you have. The CDs are fine until you get to the fifth one, which is just labeled Astonomica on the back of the set. On one hand, the original release of Astronomica had a special two disc edition for some live tracks with Midnight on vocals, so that's a fitting reason to name it like that, but it will confuse people who haven't heard of the band, since they'll assume it's a double disc album. I'd personally have put "War Of The Worlds EP" or "Extras" instead to minimise the confusion, since it's pretty much the contents of that EP and the second disc of Astronomica. It's a solid enough package, but you may want to have a backup system in place if you want to take the boxset with you anywhere, as you may find that everything has escaped in your bag when you get there (I would personally recommend putting it in a smaller section of your bag if you have a bag like that, but rubber bands across the open section should be fine).

The contents of the boxset are ultimately going to depend on how you like your albums to be stored. The albums are stored in digipacks with replications of the original album art on them (with the exception of the War Of The Worlds EP, which is stored in another copy with the Astronomica artwork) without extras in the digipack, but all the details (with the exception of the details of who recorded the album and whatnot for the debut) are inside the accompanied 60 page booklet (which is, indeed, 60 pages long: I just checked). Personally, I'd say that the addition of the booklet and having the details in that is a good idea for boxsets, since many don't even bother to include them, so you can't check you've heard the lyrics right from the set. However, I don't think it's an idea that's going to become the new standard, since it would be easier to just include them with the album in question most of the time. There are a few spelling errors in the booklet that should have been caught, but, on the whole, it's an enjoyable read. A few strange choices for additional reading material aside (there are some negative things about the band being included and the final two page article isn't even in English), it's a good way to learn more about the band: for instance, the reason Midnight got his nickname was apparently because he was constantly late for rehearsals. I only found out that bit of information from the booklet!

The sound on the albums will ultimately depend on how you like your music to sound. It's been given a digital remaster using a 24-bit process (in other words: it's louder than the originals, so it can stand up to modern albums fairly well), but, to the best of my knowledge, it's tastefully done, as it's not so loud that you'll hurt your ears listening to it. The guy who did the remaster job isn't named (another credit I've just realised is missing: no information about who worked on remastering the set!), but I hope he gets more work, since I think he did a great job! As for the albums themselves, if you liked them before the remaster, you'll only not like them now if you're not fond of remastered albums. I personally would say that the general consensus regarding which are Crimson Glory's best albums is accurate, since their first two albums are really good and are definitely worth picking up. The other two aren't bad and do have some enjoyable tracks (I'm really fond of "Song For Angels" from Strange and Beautiful and "New World Machine" from Astronomica), but, if you skip them, you'd not really be missing too much.

So, if you can get a copy of this boxset relatively cheaply and always wanted to check out Crimson Glory, it's worth picking it up. Just make sure you give their stuff a quick listen first, as it's not going to be something you'll be wanting to purchase and regret later...

Overall rating: 8.5/10

While most fans will not need to get a copy of this, for a person wanting to be introduced to Crimson Glory, this is a great purchase. If the packaging had been improved, I'd struggle to have any complaints to make against this boxset!

Help

Hey guys, if any of you reading this are familiar with the prog rock bands who would take a shot at trying to do pop rock in the 80s (like what Genesis did), I need your help.

Basically, I'm wanting one of my next articles to focus on which of the bands made that jump, examine their outputs during their pop rock period and say which ones were most successful from a musical (not sales) perspective.

So, why am I asking you guys for help when I have the entire internet available to help with research? Put simply, I'm not a prog rock fan. I don't even like Pink Floyd that much, that's how low my opinion of prog rock in general is! I do have a few bands which I'll make a small exception to, but, even then, none of them are my favourite bands by any measure. So, I feel it would be better to ask you guys so that I can get pointed to the bands who I can talk about, rather than missing the big ones which people wants me to talk about or missing some under-appreciated bands who I've simply not come across.

So, if any of you guys (or someone you know) knows a lot about about prog rock (or prog metal) and want to help, please comment here and let me know the bands that fit that description. I'll do my best to critically examine their music and get the final article up as soon as I can.

Since I'd like to have some time to listen to the bands in question, I ask that you provide the names of the bands and the albums that fit the description by midnight (UK time). I'll then make a note of all the bands and albums that appear in the comments, listen to all of them in my free time (which I don't have a lot of at the moment, so this article may take a while to finally appear) and critically evaluate them. While I do know a few bands who went in this direction, I encourage you guys to say even the most obvious choices (like Genesis and Rush), since I might not know about the ones which are obvious to prog fans.

Thanks in advance to every person who provides a band suggestion and I hope you enjoy the article when it's done!

The Big 4: why Exodus/Testament/Overkill/aren't part of it.

I'm sure everyone who looks up information on the Big 4 of thrash metal has heard people going on about how [X] band is better than the bands who make up the the Big 4 (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) and that the band they like deserve to be in there (usually at the expense of Anthrax). The thing is, most of these people fail to realise is that the Big 4 term isn't actually a name that means "These are the best thrash metal bands, no question asked", but actually means "These are the bands who were the most popular thrash metal bands" (hence the "Big" part of their name) and, with it, came a huge opportunity to influence people which the smaller bands never quite managed (although all of the bands definitely are influential to quite a few retro-thrashers: most of them seem to be huge fans of Overkill, Exodus and Slayer if you sit and listen to their music, but some also seem to swear by a few other thrash bands, including Metallica. You don't hear a lot of people taking the route of Heathen, though...but I digress). However, there are quite a few reasons for many people to hold the belief that certain bands should be in the Big 4 at the expense of some of the bands currently there, so I'm going to try to break down the reasons and see if I can point out why those reasons don't hold water when you look at them hard enough.

One of the first reasons (and, sadly, one of the most common) is the mistaken belief that the big 4 term means "These bands are the best thrash bands out there". I've already pointed this out in my introduction, so I'll not repeat it here, but, needless to say, this is a popular mistake that many people who really should know better seem to make.

The second reason that springs to mind is that these people try to use technicalities to argue why the band they think should be in it should be included (one popular one from Overkill fans is that, since they released a demo the same year Metallica released their debut, they qualify as releasing thrash metal and, as such, were one of the first thrash metal bands and should be included). This is a flawed argument, since most people out there are more likely to purchase and listen to an album than they are to purchase a demo (to stick with the Overkill example), especially if they are not in the local area. Sure, it might be popular in the local area, but high sales in a local area don't necessarily mean high sales across the country, let alone the world. Also, demo sales don't necessarily prove anything to a record executive (and, by extension, the general public), who will be looking at album sales, not sales of a demo which the band likely self recorded in the bedroom of one bandmate. Granted, a high selling demo is likely to result in the band later being offered a contract, but this doesn't mean that the album will achieve the same level of sales when offered to the mainstream (especially among extreme metal fans: some of them consider a band signing to ANY label to be selling out).

The third one is that many people do not like the material that the Big 4 have released since the 90's and start to focus on the underground over the mainstream acts. This isn't a bad thing (there are some amazing underground metal acts out there), but this does mean that many of these people seem to act like these bands have personally offended them by releasing less-than-stellar material. However, what these people forget is that metal as a whole was in a pretty bad place during the 90's. After all, grunge had taken over the limelight, so metal bands were stuck in a catch-22 situation: they could adjust with the times and risk enraging their already established fanbase (as happened to many thrash bands, including Metallica) or they could stick to their guns and risk never being able to release another record again (as happened with many thrash bands). For all they knew, their style of music was dead in the water, never to become popular again and, as such, make them unable to pay their bills because they couldn't earn money to pay them. So many simply quit: they couldn't make themselves change their music, but they also couldn't afford to be unable to pay their bills. The ones who stuck around mostly found themselves receiving flack from fans who didn't like what they heard. I'll admit, I don't like most of what I've heard from the Big 4's 90's material, but I don't blame them for making the decision they did: at that point, they didn't really have much of a choice. For them, it became a case of riding the storm, hoping it would blow over and that they would still be standing later. And, luckily, it did work out for them: the retro-thrash movement sprung up thanks to bands like Evile and Municipal Waste, helping to show that thrash wasn't dead and made it become popular again (and then get a lot of scorn from old thrash fans due to the music not being as distinctive as it was in the 80's. They really can't make up their minds, can they?). Many of the old bands like Exodus, Death Angel and Heathen have made returns since then and, on the whole, I'd say the thrash scene has pretty much rebuilt itself up nicely. But, to me, I think the main reason the scene fell apart the first time was because there wasn't more new blood being pumped into the scene. As odd as it may sound, all the mid tier thrashers giving up was more the death of thrash than the Big 4 deciding not to continue being thrash for the sake of maintaining a career. Without more thrash records coming out, there simply wasn't a real scene left for thrash fans to continue following.

These aren't the only reasons, but these are the reasons that tend to crop up the most. If I've missed anything that you want to bring up, feel free to comment!