Quick Update Regarding Sonata Reviews

OK, I said I'd get back to everyone on this, so here I am!

Details of the new Sonata Arctica album have been revealed and, from the sound of things, the album (titled Pariah's Child) should be released on the 28th of March (which is likely to mean the 31st where I live: the UK gets new albums on Mondays, while the 28th is a Friday). Since this isn't really enough time to sit and analyse the record properly, I shall be doing the review of it in early April. Since I still want to review Sonata's other stuff (as I had to order Unia and The Days Of Greys in the mail in preparation for it), I'll be reviewing them over the course of March.

Let's hope it's a good one! I'm currently blasting the new Iced Earth album and, at least to my ears, 2014 has got off to a pretty good start, both personally (the read through for the play yesterday was a lot of fun, although I think me getting picked to read out the stage directions resulted in it sounding more like an audiobook than an actual play...) and musically!

(As a random question: anyone reckon Sonata Arctica and Iced Earth should do a tour together if they haven't already? Or even a supergroup should be formed with Tim Schaffer and Tony Kakko? Seriously, Kakko on keyboards and backing vocals and Schaffer on rhythm guitars and backing vocals sounds like a solid start to a good supergroup to me! Don't know who I'd put in the other positions if I had to pick, though...if you have any ideas of who you'd like to see in that hypothetical supergroup, feel free to suggest in the comments!)

(Also, the review of Jackson C. Frank's album should be out before this time next week. That said, judging from my previous comments based on a schedule, I seem to be operating on Valve time, so I can only apologise if I turn out to be wrong!)

Reviews Planned For 2014 + Aborted Reviews

Well, 2014 is going to be hitting the world in less than 48 hours. So, here we go with the rejected reviews I promised, along with a detailed explanation of why I cancelled them.

Aborted Operation: Mindcrime Review:

Ah, Queensryche...

Ever since I've started writing this blog, I've been wanting to write something about Queensryche. Before I wrote my review of Iced Earth's DVD, I wanted to do a post on all the stuff Tate had been up to since he'd been fired from the band which I ended up not posting due to losing the internet and, while we didn't have it, my anger had boiled itself away into a general apathy regarding him. Back during my month of silence, I considered doing a review of their self-titled EP to start off a month of reviewing some of my favourite albums which I ended up dropping because I felt it wasn't worth taking on (which, if you're curious, was NOT the spark which lead to my upcoming Judas Priest reviews: I literally only decided it was worth taking that on the night before I posted the schedule). Back in July, I wanted to do a review of their self-titled album from this year which I did actually write, but ended up not posting it because my opinion changed so much regarding it that I felt I couldn't stand behind my own review (although I still like the album, so rest assured that a review of that album may still be posted on the blog some time in the future). And, even a fortnight ago, I was planning on reviewing Journey's most recent studio album "Eclipse" which featured a section regarding my views on replacement singers that ended up descending into a rant about Tate recently getting an extension in the band's court case because he basically hadn't done anything for ten months despite being the plaintiff.

Suffice to say, I've got words regarding Geoff Tate's antics after he was fired, very little of which is particularly polite. But I'm not going to go into that today (as much as I want to). Today, I'm going to be talking about one of Queensrche's most beloved albums, Operation: Mindcrime. This album means a lot to me, because it was the first Queensryche album I ever purchased (and, if I remember correctly, is also the second prog metal album I ever purchased: the first was Dream Theater's Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory, which I didn't like much at the time, but am slowly starting to warm up to it), setting into motion a fondness for their pre-Hear in the Now Frontier albums that I attribute to two things: hearing the song "Redemption" that the Todd La Torre version of the band released back in March and hearing Seventh Wonder's album Mercy Falls (which I did consider reviewing for this month, but opted to save it for a special occasion: I attribute that album to me giving prog metal as a whole a second chance, so I can't really do a standard review of it just to fill up a schedule). And yet, funnily enough, I didn't like it when I first heard it! To me on my first listen, it fell apart after the title track and didn't really recover, since I fell asleep before I even made it to "I Don't Believe In Love". I gave it two or three more listens, but it didn't click with me at all. So I thought it simply wasn't for me and left it on my shelf gathering dust, although I never sold my copy for some reason.

And then the two factors I mentioned happened.

Mercy Falls originally got the same fate as Operation: Mindcrime and was ignored, but, for some reason, I ended up rotating it onto and off of my iPod, which is odd in itself as most stuff I take off my iPod  goes off because I can't stand listening to it any more and I want to put something else on. There was just something about the album I couldn't ignore and, after a while, it all clicked. But I still didn't think much of Queensryche until I heard "Redemption". Two days later, after having listened to "Redemption" pretty much non-stop, I decided to drag Opation Mindcrime out of the pile of albums I had and give it another listen, feeling I'd been too harsh on it the first time. It definitely clicked then! It's now just over six months later and I now have copies of all of the stuff with the classic line up of Queensryche, Operation: Mindcrime 2 (which I have no intention of ever reviewing. Too many curses...) and their recent self-titled album and, with the exception of Hear in the Now Frontier (which I found boring, although I'm not a big alternative rock fan to begin with) and Operation: Mindcrime 2 (which I really don't like: I only got it because I found it alongside the original Operation: Mindcrime and didn't bother to listen to it until I found myself liking the original. I only needed one listen to know it wasn't worth the money I paid for it...), enjoy all of them. But Operation: Mindcrime has always seemed to me to be their greatest album and is an album that I would comfortably claim to be one of my favourite albums.

So, now you know why I hold Operation: Mindcrime so close to my heart, let's start with the actual review. I'm going to skip the usual long winded description of Queensryche's history for this review, since most people who are interested in the band likely have been reading the court documents involving their split (if you haven't been and want to read them, can be found and downloaded for free from this link: http://www.anybodylistening.net/breakdownroom/index.php?PHPSESSID=2730906a589a9d0626b361117dec82a4&topic=2906.0), so it's not worth me boring everyone with details of their history when most people are likely to be more than familiar with it due to the high profile nature of the split. If you do want to receive the usual long winded history of Queensryche, let me know and I'll post another blog entry in November detailing everything.

We start off this album with "I Remember Now", which sounds like something right out of a radio programme, as a nurse goes to see Nikki and provide him with a shot. It also includes a monologue from Nikki saying that he remembers every little thing as if it happened only...wait, that's Meat Loaf. Ah well, he finishes by saying he only remembers doing that they told him, leading into the second instrumental, "Anarchy-X". I've heard that this was written as part of a title track for Queensryche's previous album, Rage For Order, and, honestly, I could believe that, as it has that sound which made that album such an interesting listen. Scott Rockenfield demonstrates some pretty cool drumming here, but all of this build up might seem overly dramatic on first listen. Trust me, by the time it's finished building up to the first actual song on the album, "Revolution Calling", you'll be ready for it to kick into action. And boy, does it kick into action! After the slight atmospheric moment, the guitars truly kick into gear, with a nice little solo before Tate himself finally sings the first lines on the album:

For a price, I'd do about anything

Except pull the trigger

For that I'd need a pretty good cause

Sorry, I just love that build up to the opening of the album! Critical mindset back on. Well, Tate's voice in his prime could be summed up as sounding very similar to Bruce Dickinson, but it's an actual operatic voice instead. While he can reach noticeably lower than Bruce can (although he doesn't reach to his extreme lows: for a display of that, I recommend "Silent Lucidity" off of Empire), he can't really reach that much higher than Bruce (and, when he does, it's more out of the Rob Halford school of screams than anything else), so you can expect him to sound slightly similar to Bruce a good amount of the time. Musically, it's...well, Maiden influenced, but with a Priest touch to it (which makes sense: Queensryche originally started out doing Iron Maiden and Judas Priest covers under the name The Mob). There's a more original element in the music on this album that quite hard to place as well, as they seem to have taken on some of the sounds that they toyed about with on Rage For Order, but in such a way that it downplays the Maiden/Priest sound as opposed to sounding like Maiden/Priest with odd sounds attached to it. That pretty much sums up the instruments in general across the whole album: Iron Maiden and Judas Priest influenced, with a few other influences that flavour it enough that you can miss them if you're not looking for them. After a good guitar solo from Chris DeGarmo, we get a repeat of the first bridge:

I used to trust the media

To tell me the truth, tell us the truth

But now I've seen the payoffs

Everywhere I look

Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?

Still love those lyrics! Sorry, keep forgetting I'm supposed to be a critic here. Well, the chorus isn't that complex (most of it is made up of the title of the song), but it's very catchy and, I'm not gonna lie, it does make me want to start a revolution! Or was that The Beatles...sorry, keeping focused! Yeah, this is a really strong start to the album and pretty much holds you in thrall to the album from the start.

After that track, we start "Operation: Mindcrime" by hearing a phone ringing as Nikki picks it up and hears the word "mindcrime" whispered to him. The song itself is a somewhat darker song compared to "Revolution Calling", although don't worry: Queensryche don't go thrash on us! It's more that there's a darker, more sinister tone to the song. In the song, Dr. X (oh yeah, he was mentioned in "Revolution Calling", being described as "the man with the cure") is recruiting Nikkin into Operation: Mindcrime, who are "an underground revolution working overtime" (I used to think that line was "working on the ground, revolution working overtime" until I finally looked up the lyrics. I actually prefer my mishearing, as it sounds more like a recruiting tool to encourage people to join up than the actual lyrics, but hey, the actual lyrics are the actual lyrics, so I can't complain) before finally encouraging Nikki to let him. This is another highlight of the album, as the sinister nature of the song is a great contrast to "Revolution Calling".

Next up is "Speak". To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the song is suppose to represent, but I like to think that it's what is going through Nikki's head whenever he's under Dr. X's control. With a fairly interesting riff to open the song

This review got cancelled in part because of being so close to the deadline that I knew I couldn't get it finished in time, although I also thought that the review was really immaturely written and, as such, not worth going back over to redo it.

Aborted American Idiot Review:

Ah, Green Day...

This is one of the few albums I'm ever going to review that actually pre-dates my fondness for metal. Most of my album collection comes from after I became a metalhead, including some choices that will be really bizarre to most people, like Belinda Carlisle's second album, Heaven On Earth. I am not making that up, here's a picture of the CD for proof:

It's a guilty pleasure, I swear...

Now that everyone in the metal community who reads this blog has a good reason not to trust my opinion ever again, I can comfortably get back to talking about Green Day. I heard about the band thanks to a friend who was very fond of this album, who played me a few tracks off of it. I liked it, but I never got myself a copy of the album until sometime in 2007, alongside Paramore's second album, Riot. Both albums were really enjoyable, but I always found them interesting to listen to for different reasons: Paramore's album was a fun album that contained a lot of good songs. Green Day's album demanded focused listens, but was made up of so many good songs that it wasn't a chore to sit through. I'd probably say I listened to both of them equally up until I got into metal, but, of the two, Green Day's album stands out to me more these days than Paramore's does.

This review got aborted because I simply couldn't think of a way to continue the review from here. Also, after revealing I own a Belinda Carlisle album, there was no way I could possibly recover this review, but I felt I had to reveal it, so there was really no way I could make this review work.

I've also just discovered that I actually deleted my previous two attempts to start up reviews, so I can't provide them for you to read. The reviews were going to be reviews of "The Horn" by The Darkness and "Badaboom" by Van Canto, but, in both cases, I found that I was getting ridiculously critical at them for reasons that I knew were being horribly unfair to the bands (as in, "This song is generic, but that's nothing new from these guys, as they're generic incarnate" levels of unfair. That's not a direct quote, but it should give you an idea of what the reviews ended up looking like...), so I get the feeling I wasn't in the best state of mind when I was writing them.

So, now that I've provided you with the aborted reviews and probably provided a odd look or two, where can I go in 2014?

...Well, the pub wouldn't be a bad start...OK, I'm joking! Yes, much to my own surprise, I actually have something vaguely resembling a plan for 2014's reviews! Champagne for everyone!

Well, I figured that I might as well get the Priest reviews done, as I did promise them for before the end of 2013 before my personal life got in the way of getting them done, so expect to see that before the end of January. However, I shall make two detours before I get that done. For the first, I have one album that I feel is THE MOST UNDERRATED ALBUM OF ALL TIME (he said in a ridiculously deep voice...so, he just said it normally) that I really want to talk about: Jackson C. Frank's debut album from 1965. Who is he, you may ask? Well, let's put it this way: he was an influence on Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel), Sandy Denny (of Fairport Convention) and Nick Drake, to name the biggest names you might recognise, yet I would honestly say that he was a better singer-songwriter than all of them. The second is my previously promised article examining why critics and fans of bands seem to end up at war with each other when they disagree with each other. Now, this one was started a fair while ago, but it's been lying untouched for a good while now, so this might need some rewriting before I can say it's ready to be posted.

After that, things will really depend on how hectic my life is (probably not very, but I thought that nothing would happen for the rest of 2013 back in November and...well, I was very wrong indeed!), but I do want to talk about Iced Earth's upcoming album (since it's out in about a week where I live and, for once, I'll be able to get a copy on release day, as I'm in Newcastle on that day anyway: doing a read through of the script for the play I mentioned last time on the 6th of January), so I might use February to talk about Iced Earth's whole career and ultimately decide where to place the album in their discography, although I might just settle for a review of just the album if I find my free time isn't sufficient to review all eleven of their albums. I'm not expecting to place it on the same level as Night Of The Stormrider, but, as long as it's above the Something Wicked duo of albums and The Glorious Burden, I'll be really happy! What I've heard from it sounds fairly promising, though, so expect me to be gushing about the album when I finally get to review it!

March is probably going to be a quiet month for me, as I can't think of anything I particularly want to review and I've got the play on, so I'm likely to be busy for a fair bit of that month. I may use this time to discuss Boston's discography, as it's tough to ignore their sixth album was such a disappointment that I think it's worth examining just what doesn't work about it, from the perspective of a person familiar with their stuff, but not necessarily a fan of it. After all, I didn't have to wait eleven years for the disappointment to hit me: I had to wait about a year and a half for it.

April will be when Sonata Arctica will be releasing their eighth album, so expect to see a review of their discography and where their new album falls in it. It is likely that this is going to be done at the end of the month, as I've no idea when the album will actually be released, but I'll update you guys on this one when I know more.

For now, that's all I have planned. There are a few other bands releasing albums I'm interested in reviewing, but I can't plan for them yet, as I don't know when they're going to be out.

To finish off, I'll give you a list of some of my favourite albums of 2013. Now, I've not listened to a huge amount of albums that came out this year and I have skipped a few albums that I did want to listen to, so this should not be taken to mean "These are the best albums of the year": these are just the albums that I enjoyed the most this year that I purchased. In no particular order:

1) Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies

2) Avantasia - The Mystery Of Time

3) Heaven's Basement - Filthy Empire

4) Queensryche - Queensryche

5) Black Star Riders - All Hell Breaks Loose

6) Timo Tolkki's Avalon - The Land Of New Hope

7) Battle Beast - Battle Beast

8) Reckless Love - Spirit

9) Stryper - No More Hell To Pay

Honourable mentions go to Dream Theater (who really surprised me with their album (I have a huge dislike of Dream Theater in general, although it's wearing down now) and only missed the list because of "Illumination Theory" being unnecessarily long), Fates Warning (who produced a rather addictive listen that only missed the list because the music just wasn't up to the level of the other guys I mentioned), Hardcore Superstar (who produced a really strong sleaze metal album that only missed the list because it falters a bit at the end) and James LaBrie (who proved to me that he can sing stuff that isn't especially technical incredibly well and only missed the list because the album had too many skippable tracks). Consider these guys fighting for the equivalent of tenth place, as their albums were really good, but I put the albums I did on the list because, to me, they had no tracks I disliked, while the other ones did have at least one track I didn't like.

So, at this point, I have only one more thing to say: have a happy remainder of 2013 (if it's still 2013 when you're reading this) and may 2014 be a great year for everyone.

Quick update regarding 2014 and remainder of 2013

So, some of you are probably wondering when I'm going to be back to writing stuff on the blog. Well, I have some good news, some bad news and some news that would only be bad if I was sticking to a schedule.

The good news is that I have been working on some stuff for the blog! However, the bad news is that, possibly as a result of the news I got (which I will not share, as it's something I'm doing my best not to think about at the minute), whenever I've been writing, I've noticed my writing has been incredibly negative, even for stuff which I've started with the intention of being fairly light hearted, so I'm still taking time off from writing until I feel I can get back to writing without suddenly going into territory that is far more critical than I feel is my usual standard (since I was being horribly unfair to the bands I was writing about, which is not how I try to be when writing stuff: after all, to get signed in the first place does require some luck at the least and recording an album can be a tough process. I did it once when I was part of a folk music band and, let me tell you, if you think you can just go in, play and then walk out, you're horribly mistaken: even if a producer just wants the best take and doesn't demand a perfect performance, you still have to do multiple takes and be doing your best throughout the whole recording!).

So, what is the other bit of news? Well, I mentioned back in my semi-review of Day Of The Doctor (which I honestly wish I hadn't published now, as I didn't really go into the level of detail a review of any level required, but that's another matter entirely) that I have some acting training. Well, on Wednesday, I went to an audition for a piece of theatre being done by a friend of mine and I've just discovered that I have got a part (a small one, it must be admitted) in it! While I don't know the exact schedule for it yet (I'm guessing I'm getting that sometime after Christmas), it does mean that some of my normally bounteous (overly bounteous, truth be told...) free time is going to be cut down while I'm learning lines and attending rehearsals, so I may be posting less than I would like to. Still, considering I originally started this blog to give myself something to do in my free time (and barely used it...), it's good that I'm finally doing something. Plus, who knows? If I do a good job, I might well find I have a chance to start an acting career, which I'd been considering giving up the possibility of doing due to limited contacts and preferring to write (and sing) instead...

So, that's the situation as things stand. I'm working on writing stuff for the blog, but most of it feels like it's being too harsh for me to feel comfortable that I've truly got over the news I got last week. I'm sorry to say this (and I really didn't want to do this), but this does mean that the Judas Priest review I was wanting to do is going to have to be pushed back to sometime in 2014. As a consolation, I shall post the unfinished reviews I was doing for "Operation: Mindcrime", "American Idiot" and the two singles reviews I started on the last day of 2013, completely unedited from their current state (including a picture that I took for the "American Idiot" review that you might as well have a laugh at). It's not really making up for everything, but it should give you an idea of why I pulled the plug on the first two reviews and why I'm not confident in returning to writing before 2014.

Hopefully, I should be back to writing stuff in January. I do want to do a review of Ed Sheeran's song for The Hobbit soundtrack, as I've loved listening to it, so you might find that that's what I'll be returning with! As with last time, I wish everyone reading this a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, as well as offer a thank you to anyone who has read this. I might not have been particularly good at getting stuff out, but I do my best to put stuff up that I feel I can stand behind. And knowing there are people who read it (whether it's because people find it genuinely interesting or because it's a good time killer is something I've not been able to determine. Probably a bit of both...) does at least make me feel that it's been worth all the time I've put into it (which isn't just how much time I've sat behind the laptop writing it: I often spend a good period of time before I start writing considering the issue I'm going to discuss). I hope I can get something resembling a schedule sorted for 2014, but, either way, I do have some stuff planned which I'd like to do, including a review of Boston's recent album to explain just why it doesn't stand up to the level of their debut...although I'll need to actually buy a copy of it first, so that might not happen until February!

Unless I somehow die between now and the 31st (which is not especially likely, but you never know, I might get abducted by killer potato men or something like that before then...), I'll be back in 2014.

Bands Using Gimmicks: A Disguise For A Lack Of Talent?

Apologies for the second detour from my mini-schedule (next one will be the Critics VS Fans article: I'm part of the way through it as I type this), but this is an issue that I felt was somewhat more interesting to talk about, as it is generally something I tend to spot getting used as a reason to dislike a band, even among people who normally would give a band a fair chance. In part, this is motived by an argument I happened to read on a forum which I visit (which I will not name) and by a review of an album, both of which involve the A Cappella power metal band (I swear I didn't make that up) Van Canto. Basically, these guys perform power metal music, but they do it pretty much completely A Cappella (they do have a normal drummer, but that's only because they couldn't find someone capable of beatboxing double bass without passing out). And quite a few people seem to believe that it's a gimmick which they only use because they can't perform their music in the "tradition" way you hear in metal. And this got me thinking: is a band that uses a gimmick necessarily a worse band than one who doesn't? After all, death metal and black metal bands tend to have rather limited ranges of topics to cover in their songs, so could it be argued that they use a gimmick by singing about stuff in this limited range of topics? And is metal being too limited by having the required typical set up we have come to associate with metal? That is what I aim to look at and, hopefully, provide some answers to those questions.

So, first of all, let's look at what can be considered a gimmick in music. And, surprisingly, it covers a wide range of things. Some bands generally write about certain topics and don't touch anything else, but are otherwise completely serious (for example, you could consider Running Wild to be a gimmick band because they are mostly known for writing about pirates, although it should be noted that their early albums didn't actually cover pirates and they have covered other topics over the course of their career) while some go far enough as to wear costumes on stage (such as Alestorm, although their keyboardist's side project, Gloryhammer, go slightly further than this). So, obviously, the line between what can be fairly considered "gimmicky" is very much down to how much fun you want to have with music: if it's something which has to be serious at all times, then everything I've just listed should be a gimmick to you (key word being "should": there are a depressingly large number of extreme metal fans who don't appreciate the irony of saying a band is gimmicky, yet have no issue with extreme metal bands covering a rather narrow range of topics...but, then again, a depressingly large number of extreme metal fans consider anything with clean vocals to be close to mainstream, so their opinion there could probably be taken with a pinch of salt), while, if you don't mind bands doing stuff if it's all just for fun, everything else should be fine with a lot of people. Many people like to use the fact the band does have a gimmick as a reason just to dislike the band without stopping to consider the actual quality of their material, but it's very rare that you'll find someone who DOES like an act with a gimmick commenting on it, which leads me to suspect that a lot of people will only complain about a gimmick when it comes to bands they do not like. If you will, when they are looking for a reason to dislike a band, the gimmick is the big neon sign they can easily point out. Personally, I actually find that the more gimmicky bands are what I prefer whenever a band has a gimmick, as the more serious bands tend to be far more arrogant. Take Manowar, for example: you could fairly argue that they have a gimmick of basically singing about vikings and being ridiculously over the top, yet they take it incredibly seriously (a shining example being a comment they made early in their career about only Black Sabbath being a true metal band, possibly also including Judas Priest). This means that it's hard for me to look at them and not consider them (or, at least, their bassist) to be arrogant bastards. I could excuse this if I actually liked their music, but...well, I generally don't! By contrast, Alestorm are generally disliked for basically taking pirate metal a bit too far, but I find them to be a lot of fun because they do that and aren't arrogant about it. This is where you can see the dividing line kicking in for me: if  a band is very serious about their gimmick, I tend to not be impressed with them, but, if a band is clearly just having fun with it, I can get behind them because they're not taking themselves too seriously. I guess Van Canto (to return back to the band I first mentioned) could fall somewhere between the two extremes, as it's rather hard to not be serious about being able to perform metal A Cappella, but they include a lot of covers of metal songs that are a lot of fun to listen to and they're not arrogant about their ability to do with only voices (and a drummer) what most bands need instruments to do.

Which leads me to the second question I want to answer: is metal being too limited because of the typical expectations regarding instruments? Now, before I start this, I'm well aware that folk metal and symphonic metal generally include instruments that aren't typically seen in a metal band, but you can still find at least one guitarist, one bassist and one drummer in the band: what I'm talking about is metal being made without at least one of those instruments. And this is a somewhat tricky topic to cover: after all, it's the downtuned and distorted riffs of the guitar and bass that help place a band in the metal genre, so what happens when you take them out of the song? Can you still say that a band is a metal band just because it doesn't use them? Well, I'm going to have to side with the people who say that a band is less metal because it doesn't use guitar and bass, if only because it does make it harder to fairly place them into the metal genre of music. If, however, the material they produce would sound like metal if it were played on typical instruments, I think they should still be placed in the metal genre. It is this that, I think, more metal fans need to bear in mind when they listen to a band who plays metal music on different instruments: at the end of the day, it's not the instruments the music is performed on that is important, but the music itself. Does this mean metal is being too limited because of this reliance on those instruments? Possibly, but I think that the boundaries are starting to break down a bit thanks to symphonic and folk metal, so I don't think these limits are going to be a huge issue twenty years from now (although I rather doubt metal will go through a synth period on the same level as pop did during the 80's...mind you, not having a huge issue with 80's pop, I wouldn't object to a band trying this!)

So this brings to my final point: is a band with a gimmick necessarily worse than a band without one? I would say it depends on how strong their music is if you view it purely on it's own merits: if it's not great music, it's not gonna become great music if you perform it while a one legged dwarf is dancing the tango to it. If it's a great song, then it's a great song and nothing more needs to be said. I know this is a bit of an anticlimax, but, really, what more can I say?

So I guess the best way to view bands with a gimmick is not to evaluate the band's gimmick, but to evaluate the band itself the same way you would evaluate a band without a gimmick: judge the skills of the members and the quality of their music. A gimmick might impact your initial opinion of a band, but it shouldn't be your only reason to dislike them, just as you shouldn't hate a band only because they are popular.

(...As a side note relating to remaining posts over the course of 2013, I will be taking a small break from working on posts over the next few days, as I have a lot I need to do on Monday (and possibly Tuesday, if I don't finish the work on Monday) relating to a bunch of short stories I'm working on and, based on a bit of news I got while finishing this off, I'm likely to be receiving some pretty serious news on Wednesday. As such, it's possible that I might not feel up to writing stuff for a while. If this happens, I can only apologise if this means the posts I said I'd be doing get pushed back to 2014. I don't like failing to do stuff, but...well, this is likely to be news that is going to put me in a pretty bad emotional state for a bit of time, so I'll not be in the frame of mind I prefer to be in while writing these posts. Thank you for your patience and, on the off chance I don't return to the blog this year, I wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!)

On a completely unrelated note, here's a song by a band I've recently started listening to. Genuinely no reason for posting this, just really like it and want to share it with more people!

Day Of The Doctor Semi-Review (SPOILER WARNING)

Well, I'm sure everyone who is even vaguely interested in the science fiction genre has been glued to their screens to see the 50th Anniversary special of Doctor Who. So, for once, I'm going to attempt to review a television episode, rather than anything music related. Now, of course, I'm not a professional critic, so I recommend people who haven't seen the episode and don't want spoilers to come back after you've seen it. This is just my opinion of the episode.

So, let's start with the characters (I'll save the story for later). The return of the Zygons after their only onscreen appearance in "Terror of the Zygons" (there is some stuff where they have appeared since then, but I'm only running by TV appearances here) was a really cool touch, but I feel that they were somewhat underused in this episode. While they were the driving force of the story, I expected to see them appear more in the story than they did. That said, when they were onscreen, they were enjoyable to watch. I suspect that sales of "Terror of the Zygons" is going to increase pretty quickly, so I'd recommend picking up a copy as soon as possible if you've been debating doing it for a while now (it's been out on DVD since the 30th of September this year). John Hurt's version of the Doctor was a really cool character, falling somewhere between the dark and brooding nature of Eccleston's Doctor and the more light hearted Doctors of the original run (which makes sense, considering he's the Doctor that turned into Eccleston's Doctor. Did mention there was spoilers, didn't I?). The other Doctors (Tenth and Eleventh) were their usual selves, but you can tell that their actors (David Tennant and Matt Smith, respectably) have both upped their games for this episode, delivering some of the best performances I've seen from both of them (which is no small feat for David Tennant: I've held him to be my favourite Doctor, with Christopher Eccleston's probably being my second or third favourite depending on whether you ask about ranking reboot Doctors or all Doctors. My second favourite, by the way, would probably be Peter Davison, but I'm getting off topic...). I was disappointed that the only other Doctor who returned was Tom Baker's Doctor, but I don't know whether you can really count him in this one, as his appearance is mostly restricted to a small part at the end which is ambiguous as to whether he is the Doctor or not. Either way, I was surprised that more of them didn't return, but I guess "Night of the Doctor" (the prequel episode to this one) did make up for that by allowing Paul McGann to finally get an onscreen death, so I can let that slide. I'm aware I'm skimming here, but I'm trying to pick out only highlights and weaknesses, so I'll say that everyone else did a good job, as I didn't have any issues on the acting side of things (which is more impressive when you consider I've had some acting training myself. Might do a video review sometime in the future...I'm getting off topic again).

The story (and I'm not going into detail to minimise spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the episode yet) was mostly very good, although I do have to question the decision to bring the Zygons in and then underuse them. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, as they didn't stop the story in any way, but it feels like they were more there to keep the minor characters busy as opposed to being a serious threat in their own right. I also think that the absence of a ship for the Zygons to hold their captives was a gross oversight, since, if what I've read is true (I'm going by the book "Sting of the Zygons" here, as I've not seen "Terror of the Zygons"), they need to store their captives on one of their own ships to maintain the illusion. I also have to ask why the Zygons were affected by the memory erasing thing and the Doctors (and Clara, now i think on it...) weren't, but I think that might be nitpicking. What might also be nitpicking is that the negotiations with the humans and Zygon lookalikes would probably end with the Zygons losing control of their disguises or with the Zygon disguised as Osgood revealing itself shortly after negotiations are complete due to her giving the lookalike her inhaler, although I feel that one is a more valid one to bring up when you consider how well such a scene would probably go in real life. The way that The War Doctor integrated with the other two was quite interesting and his being accepted as worthy of the Doctor's name was genuinely quite touching when you remember what he went through during the episode. Aside from my complaints regarding the Zygons, I'd say that the story was solid enough.

The episode as a whole probably had some issues maintaining focus, but I would still say that it's essential viewing if you like Doctor Who. If you don't, this probably won't change your mind.

(A personal note to finish up: after having skipped a decent amount of series 7 (I skipped "Angels of Manhattan" and the three episodes between "Cold War" and "Nightmare In Silver", which is still the most episodes I've skipped in a single series of the show since the reboot happened), I was starting to think that Doctor Who wasn't interesting me any more, but I have to say that this has won me back to the series. I'm slightly disappointed it had to happen after Matt Smith announced his departure from the show, but I'm sure his last appearance (which is going to be the Christmas special) will be great.)

If you think I should do more things like this on the blog, let me know.

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...)