Oddworld Inhabitants "Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD" Review

I figured I'd try something a little different. See, I quite enjoy writing about music, but I do find that not having other stuff to talk about does mean that it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm, especially when I have half a dozen albums which I keep making vague motions towards reviewing and have to look at my collection of albums to review which is now covering my armchair and bed. But I don't have a large collection of books with me (...well, I do, but not where I currently live!), my knowledge of films is rather poor (which is kind of ironic, when you consider that I'm an unofficially retired actor...although I am still interested in acting and would happily act in something if a request came my way which would require me to, not to mention that I do want to do internet work which requires me to portray a character, so my retirement is more like "I'm not actively looking for acting work, but I will consider doing it if directly requested by someone and, if I come up with a character who I feel would be worth including in one of my projects, I will portray the character unless I have a valid reason not to"...I know, that's not really an effective retirement, hence why I said "unofficially retired"!), I don't watch a lot of TV at the minute and I try to avoid talking about serious topics like politics, religion and various industries because I know that kind of stuff is usually a hot topic for a lot of people and I would prefer to let people live and live on that one without having to read my speculations on this kind of stuff, especially considering I'm not hugely interested in those topics myself.

So, due to having nothing else I can really talk about, here's my first ever video game review!

Oddworld Inhabitants are probably one of the first companies I ever remember seeing a game by. Back when I was a young kid, I vaguely remembered seeing a section of a cutscene from a game that I thought looked interesting. For some reason, I never made a note of what the game was and I went on my merry way. Yet I never forgot that cutscene and it was nearly fifteen years later (specifically, earlier this year) when I finally found out what game the cutscene was from: Abe's Exoddus. I was happy to find that out, but I figured that I'd never see the game again, as I didn't have a PS1 and I didn't have a lot of spare cash at the time to pay what I assumed was going to be a huge amount to get the game, but then PSN came to the rescue and I happily downloaded the Oddboxx, which contains all of the Oddworld games, and started playing the first game in the series, Abe's Oddysse.

And proceeded to get my ass handed to me.

Brutally.

Repeatedly.

After a few hours of playing, however, I got accustomed to the difficulty spike and was fine...up until the next zone, where it felt like I'd gone back to square one.

I've still not finished Abe's Oddysse now, to be honest. I suspect I must be somewhere past the halfway mark, as I've been through both temples and am currently on my way back into the factory, but, at the moment, I just don't know. I was originally going to go through Abe's Exoddus, then go through Munch's Oddysse and finally finish with Stranger's Wrath, but I got so tired of dying that I opted to skip forward to Munch's Oddysse to spare my controller from getting thrown through a window.

And I was kind of bored by it.

It isn't a bad game, but, at the time of writing, I'm about halfway through the game and I can't help feeling like the game is lacking some of the charm that made Abe's Oddysse so good. While the addition of Munch is a good idea on paper and he's not really a bad character in and of himself, his slow movement speed just makes playing him a chore (although, I will be fair, he does get better whenever he gets a wheelchair) and he's not really added a lot to the game so far. Maybe he becomes a much better character later on in the game, but, so far, he just leaves me unimpressed.

By contrast, I've adored Stranger's Wrath since I first started playing it.

Let me start by discussing the flaws of the game first. Firstly, The Oddworld games' habit of setting the difficulty dial up higher than they really should do is more reasonably handled than usual, but there are still a few moments where you will be getting frustrated at the challenge of the game. One bounty in particular (I won't say which one, but those of you who have played the game probably know which one I'm thinking of) will hand your ass to you quite easily if you only have Zappflies with you (although I wasn't in that position: I just didn't want to use them because I was trying to capture the target alive), so you are strongly advised to keep your more interesting types of ammo as full as you can before you get to the actual target and to not be shy about using them when you get to the battle if it will make things easier. This isn't the only instance with really high difficulty, but this is the one which I felt overdid it so much that I really have to bring it up as a warning for potential interested gamers. The difficulty, for the most part, is otherwise fine, if still high enough to challenge you throughout the game and encourage you to heal up whenever you can (which isn't a big problem, thanks to Stranger's ability to recover health by LITERALLY SHAKING IT OFF).

Secondly, while the story is well handled for the most part, I have to say that a lot of the first half of the game will have you wondering where the plot went. You start out delivering an outlaw that you've captured to a town and then you go and do some bounties while the plot basically waits for you to do that. After that, the plot does pick up, but you still spend a lot of time doing bounties up until about the middle part of the game (which, for the benefit of those who have not played the game, I will not spoil for you). After that, the game continues to gather even more momentum, to the extent that you'd be forgiven for wondering why the game opted to wait so long to start bring this story out. Maybe I just took too long to get to that point, I don't know...

The third is the voice acting. While, for the most part, it is very good (which is all the more impressive when you realise that a large amount of the voice acting is done by one man: Lorne Lanning, who is one of the co-founders of Oddworld Inhabitants), I cannot help saying that I find the voice acting on the Grubbs rather grating to listen to. It's not necessarily bad, but I can't help turning up the music I usually have on in the background whenever they start to speak. Luckily, they don't talk a huge amount over the course of the game, so you can call this a nitpick pretty comfortably!

Fourth, as much as I enjoy the game, there's not a lot of reasons to replay it once you beat it for the first time. To be fair, this is a problem with a lot of single player games that focus on telling a story and don't have multiple paths to take the story down to encourage replays, but you basically have no reason to play this game again once you beat it unless you really want to experience the story. Which isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but, when you know what the twist is and then realise you have to spend about half of the game just to get back to it, you will probably have to fall back on the story of that half to get you there. And...well, you only need to read my second complaint to know that it isn't going to carry you back to the second part.

That's really about the only real issues I have with the game. Apart from that, you get a lot that is good at minimum!

First of all, the art style of the game is just wonderful to behold! If you're ever played an Oddworld game before now, you already know what to expect, but, if you haven't, then let me sum it up for you: highly creative character designs, a somewhat dark industrial look to the city buildings (mixed with a bit of what you might expect to see in a old Western film for this game) and beautiful open landscapes! Oddworld Inhabitants are probably best known for their great art style for their games (which makes it a huge shame that they've only released four original games since they were formed...), and this game certainly does not disappoint on that line!

Secondly, I really like the way the game combines play styles. By default, the game plays like a more typical third person action-adventure game, but, when you want to use Stranger's crossbow, it goes to a first person perspective rather like that of a FPS. Speaking as someone who is rather fond of these two types of games, I have to say that both styles are done very well indeed, to the extent that I'd actually say that it would be possible (if not a good idea: you can't run or punch in FPS mode and you can't shoot in default mode) to play the game in just one style if you really wanted to.

Thirdly, despite my complaint about the story taking more time than it really should to start coming together, I have to say that it's actually a pretty good story! I can't really talk about it much without spoiling some big twists, but I will say that, once the game starts picking, the story is easily one of the best stories I've seen in a game. True, it isn't necessarily an especially original story, but it's very well told and the twists will catch you off guard (which is why I'm not spoiling them in this review).

Fourthly, Stranger, while not the best protagonist the Oddworld series has provided us so far (that would be Abe), is a brilliant main character. He has a great design in general (although you might have a few questions post-first spoiler) and his catchphrase when he meets his bounties ("Dead 'r alive, yer ass is comin' with me") just reeks of the guy being a badass. And that's not covering the fact that he can literally shake off injuries to heal himself. If you want to get a good idea how to do a badass main character well, Stranger would be a good character to look at. It's honestly a shame that this is the only game he has appeared in so far, as I would be interested in seeing more of the character in the future...although, to be fair, his game WAS the last original game Oddworld Inhabitants released before basically bowing out of the gaming industry for a few years, so you can't exactly say he's been written out of canon yet!

They have me surrounded -- the poor bastards!

Moving on to the lesser details that I think really help to make the game, I really like the creative nature of the different ammo types. It would be easy to just make the crossbow fire a bunch of arrows or something which Stranger can buy from shops or something boring like that, but what this game does is makes the ammo be creatures which you can find and hunt for in the wild. While this is probably not a major thing for a lot of people, I really like it, as it shows a creativeness in the development that goes above and beyond the call of duty (pun not intended).

The game also plays wonderfully. The controls respond very well and, although I'm not keen on the fog effect that makes seeing a particularly far distance impossible, I can let that go due to the fact that this was originally an XBOX game and the HD version is basically a slightly spruced up port of it.

So, would I say the game is worth picking up? Well, I'll let Twilight Sparkle say it for me:

For the benefit of those who aren't interested in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and, as such, didn't click on the video: YES! YES! A MILLION TIMES, YES!

Seriously, though, this game is really worth checking out. It isn't a flawless game, but the sheer creativity of the game is impressive and the flaws in it aren't especially serious on your first play through (although they do become more of an issue if you want to play it more than once). If you're been out of gaming for a while now and want a valid reason to get back into it, then this might well be that reason! I would personally recommend getting it along with the rest of the games in the form of the Oddboxx if you can, as you get four games for less than £20 if you do that, but this game is definitely worth picking up on its own if you can get it and you don't especially want to pick up the other games...although you'd be missing out on two brilliant games that are classic video games of the 90's (and Munch's Oddysse) if you go for that option!

Final rating: 8 Out Of 10

A very good game that, had it been the swan song to Oddworld Inhabitants if their departure from the video games industry in 2005 had been permanent, would have ended the whole franchise on a really strong note! Since it isn't, it leaves you a strong starting point to speculate into what the future of the franchise could be...and, if Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty is any indication, it looks like it's going to be absolutely amazing! It might look a bit outdated now, as it's been over nine years since the game originally came out (and over three since it first got a re-release onto relatively modern platforms: on PSN, it took until late December 2011!) and the story isn't really strong enough to justify more than one playthrough, but, if you aren't put off by that and this sounds like your kind of game, then go get a copy now! Trust me, it's worth picking up!

Tim Ripper Owens "Play My Game" Review

...I'm going to have to be completely honest with you guys, I really want to like Tim Owens as a musician. It's not an easy job to replace Rob Halford in Judas Priest or Matt Barlow in Iced Earth, but he was able to do a decent job at it. From what I've heard about the guy, he's a really friendly and humble guy, which is sadly not as common as it really should be when it comes to vocalists in iconic bands. And, while I might not be a huge fan of his natural singing voice (I'm not fond of the tone of his voice), I can't deny that he has a strong voice and a pretty good range. I'd really love to be able to say something like "Owens is one of the most underrated vocalists in the metal scene", because he really is once you look at him as a vocalist in his own right and don't compare him to the sky high standards of the people who he replaced in Judas Priest and Iced Earth. Yeah, he didn't match up to them...but, really, who could? The fact he did as well as he did is genuinely an impressive feat, when you think about it...

But I can't say all of that without having something to work with involving the guy's music.

At the end of the day, I have to be a critic. And, speaking as a critic, nothing Owens has done has really won me over on the guy as a musician. I will be fair, he wasn't really to blame for his work with Judas Priest and Iced Earth, as he barely wrote anything for those bands, but I never really liked the first Charred Walls Of The Damned album (it just wasn't my kind of thing) and, while I do really like "Scream Machine" off of the Beyond Fear album, the rest of the stuff I've heard from that album just left me going "Meh" at best. It's honestly rather frustrating and kind of sad that I can't give the guy the credit he deserves, but I can't triumph the guy if I don't feel like he's giving me something to triumph. Being a nice guy in the music industry doesn't mean anything if your music isn't worth listening to.

This album arguably cements that fact. There are a ridiculous number of guest performers on this album, which at least shows that Owens has a lot of connections in the industry, but the record itself...well, I'll break it down more in the actual review, but I will say that this isn't going to be an especially positive review. So, if you're a fan of Owens as a vocalist and want me to triumph the guy...I'm really sorry, but I can't do that. So I wouldn't blame you for closing this page down on your web browser right here and not reading the rest of this review.

...Anyone still reading this?

Good.

Let's start with the artwork. I'm going to let you look at the artwork before I give my thoughts on it, as I think you will be able to spot a lot of the issues I'm going to point out.

So, let's start with that sticker. You might be thinking that's something that someone forgot to remove from the cover before taking the picture, but you'd be wrong: I can assure you that it is actually part of the artwork for the album. Yes, they actually want you to know that Doug Aldrich (ex-Dio and ex-Whitesnake guitarist), Chris Caffery (ex-Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra guitarist), Rudy Sarzo (ex-Ozzy Osbourne, ex-Quiet Riot and ex-Whitesnake bassist...and was also part of Geoff Tate's version of Queensryche, but I'm trying to forget that one ever happened!), Steve Stevens (guitarist for Billy Idol), Billy Sheeran (ex-David Lee Roth, Mr. Big and The Winery Dogs bassist), Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore guitarist) and Michael Wilson (Queensryche and Soulbender guitarist), to name the ones on the sticker, played on the album. Here's where problem number one comes up: for a solo album by Tim Owens, there's a distressingly large amount of star power on here which could easily outstrip that of Owens' own. While singing for Judas Priest is a pretty impressive task, there's so much star power on here that it's very possible to forget that Owens is meant to be the main attraction, and advertising everyone else on the cover seems to be a very poor way to keep that focus on him. It'd be roughly the same thing that you'd expect to see happen if Kai Hansen (to pick a name that power metal fans will recognise, but most mainstream music fans won't) decided to release a solo album, got Maroon 5 to be his backing band and then put on the cover "With backing from Maroon 5". I know, extreme example that would never happen, but you see the point I'm making? If you're making a solo album under your own name and you're not the most recognisable name on the album, then something is terribly wrong.

The second issue is the art style. I get that it's going for a retro style like what you see on flyers back in the 80's or some interestingly shaded comics, but it just looks crap on the cover art for a metal album. It's fairly distinctive in terms of the style, but I just don't think it works very well for what Owens is trying to do. The background colour combination of red and...I think it is meant to be either dark red or brown? Anyway, it just doesn't work very well and makes things look kind of lazy. I will give credit for one thing, though: I like the little touches in the artwork which you can see if you look closely. I just think a better colour combination would have made it a bit better.

So, that's the artwork. But what about the music?

Well, before I start actually providing my thoughts on the music, let me provide you with the line up for every track. This might seem like padding, as most of the guys don't give performances that live up to their names, but I want to highlight just how criminally underused some of these musicians are.

Track 1: "Starting Over"

• Guitar: Bob Kulick
• Bass: Rudy Sarzo
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 2: "Believe"

• Lead Guitar: Craig Goldy
• Rhythm Guitar: John Comprix
• Bass: Rudy Sarzo
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 3: "The Cover Up"

• Lead Guitar: Jeff Loomis
• Rhythm Guitar: John Comprix
• Bass: James Lomenzo
• Drums: Brett Chassen

Track 4: "Pick Yourself Up"

• Lead Guitar: Steve Stevens
• Rhythm Guitar: Bob Kulick
• Rhythm Guitar: Mike Callahan
• Bass: Dennis Hayes
• Drums: Ray Luzier

Track 5: "It Is Me"

• Lead Guitar: Carlos Cavazo
• Rhythm Guitar: Mike Callahan
• Bass: Rudy Sarzo
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 6: "No Good Goodbyes"

• Lead Guitar: Bruce Kulick
• Rhythm Guitar: Bob Kulick
• Bass: Billy Sheeran
• Drums: Brett Chassen

Track 7: "The World Is Blind"

• Lead Guitar: Doug Aldrich
• Rhythm Guitar: John Comprix
• Bass: Billy Sheeran
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 8: "To Live Again"

• Rhythm & Lead Guitar: Michael Wilton
• Rhythm Guitar: Bob Kulick
• Bass: David Ellefson
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 9: "The Light"

• Rhythm Guitar: Bob Kulick
• Bass: Tony Franklin
• Drums: Bobby Jarzombek

Track 10: "Play My Game"

• Lead Guitar: Neil Zaza
• Rhythm Guitar: John Comprix
• Bass: Rudy Sarzo
• Drums: Simon Wright

Track 11: "Death Race"

• Guitar: John Comprix
• Bass: James Lomenzo
• Drums: Brett Chassen

Track 12: "The Shadows Are Alive"

• Guitar: Chris Caffery
• Bass: Marco Mendoza
• Drums: Simon Wright

There's also a bonus track on iTunes which adds Vinny Appice (on drums) to the list of names I've provided.

ON PAPER, that's a brilliant line up of musicians, with a huge amount of star power to take Owens to the next level.

But, unfortunately, Owens is the one in the driving seat: he wrote or co-wrote every song on this album. While he did not produce the album (Brett Chassen and Bob Kulick did), you can safely assume that all of the musicians were just playing what Owens wrote.

And there's no way to sugarcoat this: he's not a great songwriter and doesn't play to his strengths.

You remember me mentioning earlier that I'm not fond of the tone of Owens' natural singing voice? Well, that is what he mostly sticks with for this album. He rarely goes for his falsetto, so you don't get to hear him screaming like a motherfucker as he really should be doing, but trying to sing in a natural singing voice that I find grating to listen to. Some people say he sounds like Dio on steroids, but I think that saying that is an insult to the memory of one of the greatest metal singers of all time: Owens does not sound ANYTHING like Dio, and even DARING to imply that Owens can do what Dio did better than Dio did is practically sacri-fucking-legious!

...Well, OK, I'll be fair, Owens does clearly have some influence from Dio in his natural singing voice. But no fucking way is he Dio on steroids: Dio could sing songs with a conviction and in a way that made you engaged in what he was singing, in a way that was somewhat theatrical. Owens can't do that: he mostly approaches the song from the same perspective. And that perspective is just singing it without the conviction or theatrically of Dio. Even if the material on this album was better, I would still be unimpressed with Owens' singing voice on this, as he doesn't leave me convinced by his performance in the slightest. The best way I can put it is that I would expect unengaged singing on the demos of songs that are still being worked out, not on the final project that's meant to be listened to and enjoyed! I would let it go in that case, because it was obvious that the songs were still being tinkered about with and the vocals are just there to check how it sounds. Here, though...no. I expect to hear a much better performance than this.

Now here's when the album gets worse: the material, for the most part, is dull as fuck. Owens claims that he's aiming for songwriting that is in the vein of Judas Priest and Dio-era Black Sabbath on the back of my copy: straight to the throat, fist pumping metal that goes right for the bloodstream. Erm...hate to break it to you, dude, but this does not sound like it's in the vein of Judas Priest and Dio-era Black Sabbath. For a start, Dio-era Black Sabbath had lyrics that leaned towards a fantasy concept that was delivered by a vocalist who gave every word the importance it deserved without oversinging it and Judas Priest had a strong falsetto screamer who was leading a band playing rather quick heavy metal with high quality riffs. What you have, Mr. Owens, is mid paced boredom which you are delivering without any consideration of how important what you are singing is and without engaging lyrical concepts while also wasting the talents of some amazing musicians who might as well have not appeared on this album due to how unimpressive their performances. I know you know Judas Priest very well, as you sung for them, and you must know Dio's stuff well, as you're currently singing for Dio Disciples, so what I want to know is how the hell you messed THAT up?

The production...eh, it's not bad. Bass is too quiet, mastering is a bit too loud...if you've read this blog before now, you know the drill, I'm sure.

So, final thoughts? Well...no, I don't think I need to repeat what I think of this album, for there is NOTHING that needs to be said about it. I'll be fair, for all of my anger probably indicating otherwise, the album mostly sticks to being dull, so it's not an outright horrible album and definitely not as bad as my final rating is going to make it out to be. But the criminal misuse of the guest performers is something I just cannot ignore and, as such, I'm going to have to give one of the lowest scores I've given an album to date. If you can ignore the misuse of the guest performers, then add two points onto my final score.

Final Rating: 3 Out Of 10

A very dull album that criminally misuses the talents of the guest performers AND the guy who is supposed to be doing the solo project. If you can approach this without the expectations of what the guests can provide, you might find this a passable album, but not anything worth getting excited about. If you're a die hard fan of Ripper as a vocalist, you might find this enjoyable, but I doubt this is going to be one of his projects that you'll listen to a lot. Basically, I don't recommend this album to anyone UNLESS you can cope with Owens not doing what he does best, the guest performers not bringing their usual impressive performances to the table and material that is mostly very dull.

Personal Favourite Tracks: "favourite" might not be the right word here, but I found "Death Race" to be the most tolerable song on the album.

The Deadstation. "Episode One: Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss." Review

...OK, I'll admit, I usually don't go for stuff on bandcamp. I usually prefer to just listen to stuff that I like and don't especially care to dig into the realm of bandcamp.

But that changed recently. See, I was working on something and I found myself wondering about something which I'd downloaded a while ago. So, I went back to bandcamp, downloaded it again and, while I was there, decided to glance around to see what I could find. And, while one project got my interest very quickly, I didn't find anything at first that I was definitely wanting to get.

So I decided to give it another, more detailed search. And this EP popped up in that search. Being curious and noticing it was available on a pay what you want basis, I decided to pick this up!

And boy, was I in for a surprise!

The Deadstation. are a progressive metal band from Boston, Massachusetts who are made up of three musicians: lead vocalist and drummer Greg Murphy, guitarist Ryan Mattheu and bassist/guitarist (he provides both on this EP) Shjon Thomas. I'll admit, I don't know a huge amount about the band (I've not found a lot of information about them beyond what I've just told you), but I don't think I need to say a lot more about them anyway, as this is only their debut EP and, from what I've heard, they have only really been around since 2011 (although I'm sure someone will be able to correct me on that one if I'm wrong). The band describe themselves as dystopian progressive metal (I don't think that's actually a thing, but sure, whatever you want to believe...) and, on their Facebook page, mention influences of 90's Dream Theater, post-rock, Metallica's first five albums (Kill 'Em All to Metallica), the effects done by The Edge (the guitarist of U2), the vocal harmonies of Layne Stanley and Jerry Cantrell (from Alice In Chains), depressing Radiohead videos, Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen, nerdy prog rock (which I'm GUESSING includes early Muse and Spock's Beard, but don't quote me on that one!) and Yngwie Malmsteen.

So, a surprisingly varied range of influences, dystopian themes and progressive metal? Consider me intrigued...but is it actually any good in practice? Well, let's see!

First up, the cover art. I have to admit, I actually really like it! It's got a feeling of being cold and emotionless which is actually really quite appropriate for the band's style of metal, but there's a human element to it that helps you to realise that there's something more underneath it all which shows that it's not all it seems to be at first glance. Maybe I'm reading too much into this and finding a bit of optimism which the band did not intend, but I personally find that what makes a dystopian future so interesting is not necessarily the hopelessness of the future, but how humanity copes with this dystopian future and strives to overcome the worst of it. Even when they fail, you start to notice the flaws in this future system and realise that there will eventually be a revolution to topple the corrupted system that has been put in place, even if it's not created by the characters we know from the story. I feel that The Deadstation, whether intentionally or just through me reading far more into it than I should have, have managed to capture this perfectly.

(Incidentally, random thought for you: how come there have been so few stories from the perspective of someone who is actually trying to protect the dystopian society they are part of? You know, a story from the perspective of one of those government agents who we always see getting overthrown in these types of stories and giving a viewpoint of it from the side of the oppressors as opposed to the oppressed? After all, we see enough stories where the rebels are always shown in the right, so why not tell a story where the viewpoint is actually from a person who is on the wrong side and is only fighting to defend what they know? Any writers who are reading this, get onto that, I'd really like to see more stories like that myself!)

Anyway, onto the music!

One of the things that strikes me is that the band were not kidding about their influence from Dream Theater. I am strongly reminded of the band when I hear this, but I wouldn't say The Deadstation. are necessarily ripping off Dream Theater or actively trying to sound like Dream Theater in the same way a lot of progressive metal bands do: they have their own twist on progressive metal that happens to have a healthy dose of Dream Theater's sound in it. I'll admit, I would prefer more progressive metal bands to take cues from Queensryche and Crimson Glory when it comes to progressive metal (if you will, do a more tasteful type of progressive metal where the focus is not on instrumental virtuosity, but on writing strong songs that are complex in a subtle way that is actually part of the songs), but I cannot deny the talent of progressive metal musicians who do the more typical approach to progressive metal and, well, there is always a part of my grumpy heart that wants to hear a band show off what they can do...although I wouldn't want them to do it to the extent of harming a song in the same way a lot of progressive metal bands do! The thing that I think gives The Deadstation. an advantage is that they seem to understand that less is more: the songs might be busy and rather complex, but they don't pack that into songs that are really long, focusing instead of keeping the songs to a length that doesn't feel excessive. The ONLY song that I think might have overdone it a bit is "Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss: Drugs For Pain Inside.", a near eight minutes long song that, while still good, goes on just long enough enough that I cannot help finding myself being surprised to notice it is still going when I put it on in the background. However, it still works nicely, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh there. For the most part, the only thing that I think the band could have worked upon with their sound is to maybe add a few more different influences to their sound, as the strong focus on Dream Theater's sound will be off-putting to a lot of people who aren't fond of Dream Theater: other than that, I have no real complaints about the band's sound! Great work, guys, now you just need to work on making your own twist on the DT sound a bit more noticeable...

Moving to the performances...well, it's all technically very good, I have to say! However...yeah, you knew the words "Dream Theater" were coming up again, didn't you? The drumming, despite being good, does still seem a bit too influenced by Dream Theater: you have rather complex drumming along the same line as that of Mike Portnoy for most of the album, which is nice to listen to, but does feel a bit like it could have done with the occasional bit of dialling back due to how present the drums are throughout the album. The guitar manages to avoid sounding too much like Petrucci's playing style (although does still contain some influence from him), which is a rather good sign due to the fact that it indicates that the band are making steps towards find their own sound. The bass feels suspiciously quiet across the album, for some reason, but that could my ears failing to pick it up. Regardless, a bit more bass presence in the mix would be much appreciated! Greg Murphy's voice, while surprisingly reminiscent of that of James LaBrie, also manages to remind me a bit of that of a pop punk vocalist at points, although it's more a case that his voice just happens to have that same kind of tone than out of any presumed real influence. So, you have some great performances on this album as well!

Moving to the production, ignoring my previous comment about the bass mix, I think the EP might be a tiny bit loud with the mastering at points (and, ironically, too quiet in others: I literally have to put my speakers on maximum to hear some of the stuff properly, which is concerning when you consider that I can hear the rest of the EP fine on less than half volume on these same speakers!). It's not exactly badly done (it's mostly fine if you ignore the mixing issue), but I would have preferred a slightly more even mastering job due to the fact that might have improved the EP a bit (yes, I am actually saying that I would have liked a less dynamic master for this album for once: the quieter parts of the album are too quiet and the loudest parts of the mastering are a bit too loud, so I feel a more even mastering job might have benefitted the EP more!).

So, my thoughts? Well, one song overreaches itself a bit too much, the bass feels suspiciously quiet in the mix, the mastering is a bit loud at points (and too quiet in others) and the influence from Dream Theater can be overwhelming at points if you don't like Dream Theater much...and that's all that I really have to complain about! I kid you not, I have very little with this EP that I can complain about! Technically brilliant performances, great songs, great vocals, mostly good production...heck, the lyrics are pretty good as well! Frankly, I'm surprised this is available to potentially download for free: I'd have happily paid full price for this EP if they'd been charging a minimum price for it, as it's just that good! I would honestly say that, if you have ANY interest in more technical styles of metal music (not even necessarily progressive metal: power metal will do fine!), you should go and check this out! If you're not into more technical brands of metal, then you should still give this a go, as you'll probably still find something really good on this EP (most likely "Substance Defined."). If you aren't interested in metal at all...erm, I don't think this'll be your cup of tea at all, but, if you want to listen to this, then, by all means, give it a go!

Final Rating: 9 Out Of 10

A flat out brilliant EP with a few minor flaws that stop it from reaching the heights it really should. If you are a metal fan with some appreciation for more technical brands of heavy metal, then you have no excuse for not picking this up: it's available on a pay what you want basis on bandcamp, for crying out loud, you could pick it up for free if you have no money to spare!

Personal Favourite Tracks: all of them, but my highlight is "Substance Defined.".

(Link to the band's bandcamp page, if you wish to download the EP: http://thedeadstation.bandcamp.com/)

The Singles Collection: "Maps" by Maroon 5

So, we return to the realm of pop rock, in part because I didn't feel up to taking on the new DragonForce. Shame, as I had a really good gif I wanted to include in the review...actually, it would kind of work here, so I'll include it anyway. Can I have a chance to do a second intro?

...I can? Cheers!

*Clears throat*

Now, I'm sure a lot of people will be thinking "Really? You're doing this crap again?" Well, I did have something else that I wanted to look at (DragonForce's "The Game", which was released yesterday), but, uh...I think the badger sums up my thoughts on the song nicely.

Yeah...I wasn't especially fond of it.

So, rather than try to look at that, I figured it was time to give my ears a slightly less metallic listening experience. And, as luck would have it, Maroon 5 happened to step up to fill that spot very quickly indeed!

...Well, OK, "luck" might not be the best choice of word, considering my less-than-impressed reaction to Overexposed in my review of it (which you can read here, if you want to refresh your memory of it). But I was surprisingly curious to see where the band went after that album: after all, Overexposed was a commercial success despite the change in sound and generally mixed-to-negative reaction it got, so I figured it would actually be worth putting in the effort to see whether the band opted to continue with the sound of Overexposed or went back to their original sound.

Which option did they go? Well...neither and both, if that makes sense!

Anyway, let's dig in to this single.

As per usual, I'll allow you guys listen to this song before you jump into my thoughts on the song. So, here you go!

The first thing you'll notice is that the sound, as I mentioned earlier, is a mix of the band's more pop focused sound from Overexposed and their earlier sound. It's not got the darker vibes of stuff from Songs About Jane, but it otherwise could be fairly considered a middle ground between the two eras of the band. And, surprisingly, I actually kind of like this sound! Sure, it's undeniably more pop than rock when you compare it to, say, "She Will Be Loved", but I think they manage to balance the two sounds well enough that it's hard to really draw any major dislike of the song for that reason. It has a strong hook to it, which is really important for pop music, and builds up to sounding like a strong pop single, but the verses are not too far to the band's brand of pop rock. I could have done with more rock influence in the verses, but that's just my personal preference, being a bigger rock and metal fan than a pop fan: what the song does is still fine in itself. The song does have three credited outside writers, but I think that is more like what the band should have aimed to do with Overexposed, as the outside writers manage to help the band to find a great match for their two sounds without making the song sound like it was stitched together from two different songs. To reference my review of Overexposed for a few seconds, while Overexposed suffered from outside writers forcing their sound upon the band's music and not giving them space to really work around it, these outside writers complement Maroon 5's sound and let it grow while giving it the added pop touch to help make it...I hesitate to say "better", as that's ultimately a subjective point, but I think that the added pop touch in the chorus works rather well! It still doesn't completely sound like a band effort in the same way that their first three records did (it arguably still sounds like an Adam Levine solo record, just one with more of Maroon 5's sound in it), but you could feasibly imagine this as being something that is actually on a Maroon 5 album.

Lyrically, I think the song is OK. I'm not convinced that the sentiment behind the song is as strong as everyone else did while writing it (a map that leads directly to your lover? Erm...hate to point this out, but maps don't allow you to track people, they just give you an idea of the sounding area! Unless you have a huge X on top of the house where your lover lives on your map, there's no point in reading a map while trying to find your lover unless you're lost...in which case, I think that finding yourself would probably be a wiser idea than trying to find someone else!), but it's handled well enough that, aside from the obvious point I've raised, I have no real issues with them.

...What? There's really nothing else I can say without repeating myself: I still don't like Levine's singing voice much, everyone still doesn't sound like they're doing anything really distinctive outside of Levine (although their performances are definitely good), the production is fine (if still lacking a bit in the bass guitar)...I think most of what I've said in the past about Maroon 5 is still pretty much the same as I'd said in the Overexposed review, so, if you've read that, you know what I'm going to say already! If not...well, I've summed it up already for you!

So, would I say this is worth checking out? Well, if you like pop music, then it is worth a look at least, although you don't have to do this as you're probably going to be hearing it on the radio for the next few weeks anyway! If you like Maroon 5...I'd say it depends on whether you just want them to do the darker Songs About Jane sound or are happy with their other stuff: if you're the former, this won't appeal much, if you're the latter, this should be fine with you! If you don't like Maroon 5 or pop music, then this isn't going to win you over in the slightest, so you should stay clear.

Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10

A nice mixture of the band's well known sound and Overexposed, backed up with a strong chorus, but not really offering anything that will win over people who aren't fond of Maroon 5. This should be worth checking out if you're into pop music or Maroon 5's less dark sounding stuff. People who aren't interested in Maroon 5 and pop music won't be won over by this, though.

(Also, I would like to correct a mistake that I made in my review of Overexposed: it turns out that Jesse Carmichael was not actually involved in the recording of the album. Since I got rather annoyed about the keyboards and synths in my review of that and pointed some blame towards him, despite acknowledging that he might not have actually been on the album, I still feel I own Jesse an apology, as I was unfair towards him. So, if Jesse is reading this, please accept my apologies for being so rude about you in that review: I made a critical research failure and, through it, I unfairly pinned blame for my issues with the album on an innocent person. I would pass on the blame to PJ Morton, who DID play keyboards on the album, but I feel that I should be fair and let him off the hook on the grounds that he did not actually contribute to the songwriting for the album and, as such, was likely just playing what he was given to play.)

New Queen Album & Why I Fear It Is A Mistake

Well, the news that most rock fans in general have been wondering about is confirmed: there will be a new Queen (not a Queen + album: just Queen) album. It's currently intended for release in late 2014 and will be titled Queen Forever.

...I am honestly REALLY concerned about this album, speaking as a critic and having grown up listening to Queen's music for a lot of my life. And I think I should give my thoughts on the issues that I spot this album suffering from and why I fear this album, no matter how good it actually is, will crash and burn among most Queen fans.

Let me first start with the obvious one: the last Queen album was 1995's Made In Heaven, which was released almost four years after Freddy death. If you ignore "No One But You" (which was a track on the 1997 compilation album Queen Rocks) and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album (2008's The Cosmos Rocks: I personally don't count it as a Queen album, although more because I would argue that the fact it was released as Queen + Paul Rogers instead of just Queen means that it shouldn't be considered as an official Queen album), that was the last original material released by Queen as a group. In the time since the album was released, the band have become one of the most loved rock bands in the world, so it's understandable that Queen fans would expect this album to both be worth waiting 19 years for AND will live up to the high standards of Queen's previous albums (and yes, I am saying that 1982's Hot Space was a good album. It's not necessarily a good Queen album, but it's certainly not as bad as a lot of Queen fans would make it out to be...). Which, when you think about it, is a set of expectations that is probably even higher than what Chinese Democracy by Guns N Roses had to live up to! Now, on paper, that's not a huge problem: we have Brian May and Roger Taylor working on this, so surely it's going to be amazing, right? Well...that's where issue number two comes up.

Looking at the band's songwriting credits on their albums, you'll probably noticed that certain members wrote certain styles of songs. This isn't necessarily the rule, but, in general, the band's more experimental songs was written by Freddy, the band's most soul and Motown influenced stuff was written by John Deacon and the band's more rock focused stuff was written by May and/or Taylor. So, you can kind of spot why this album might start to fall apart already: the perfect balance between flamboyant theatricality, hard rock and Motown pop with a fondness for experimenting that helped to make up the traditional Queen sound won't be there to the same extent as the band's other albums. We're likely to get the hard rock bit and, to some extent, the flamboyant theatricality, but not the Motown pop and the experimenting that helped make Queen so interesting to listen to. Could they pull it off? Probably (let's not forget that some of the band's ballads were also wrote by May), but I cannot help being concerned that, unless they have sheet music of all of the songs and are sticking to what was on the sheet music, it won't sound right at all to hardcore Queen fans and even the casual Queen fans who only know the band for their Greatest Hits albums will notice that something is missing from the band's sound.

The third issue is probably a subjective one, but it's ultimately the thing that makes me question whether we really need another Queen album: the band's last album while Freddy was alive (1991's Innuendo) ended with the song "The Show Must Go On", which, at the risk of unnecessary vulgarity, was a fucking amazing way to end the band's recording career while Freddy was alive. It was a powerful way to acknowledge that, even without Freddy, the band would carry on, whether it was intended as that or not. And, if the band had wanted to, they could have ended their discography there, as it would have been a way to basically bow out while the band were still strong. But they returned with 1995's Made In Heaven (which I've not actually heard all of the way through, but I like what I've heard of it), using vocals recorded by Freddy before his death. Now, I can understand why the band released this album, as Freddy himself apparently wanted the band to continue releasing material after his death, so I have no problems with it. Then we got "No One But You", which, to me, has always been, and always will be, the point when the band's recording career had finally ended. It was just a beautiful epitaph for Queen's recording career in general (and a good way to acknowledge the loss of one of the greatest frontmen in rock music as well) and there was nothing more the band could do without ruining that moment. I've already given my opinion on the Queen + Paul Rodgers album, so I'll not beat that into the ground, but the fact it wasn't released as a Queen album means that, although I've not heard it, I can't really develop any dislike for it and I can accept that the band weren't trying to use the album to replace Freddy. The tours with the other vocalists were, to me, just the band paying tribute to their legacy and nothing more. And (at the risk of inviting a huge amount of scorn from the Queen fans), although I never saw Queen live with Paul Rodgers or Adam Lambert, I was happily argue that the band deserve to be able to play their songs live and, since these vocalists are not official members of the band, there's nothing really wrong with them as live replacements for Freddy: the only other options to allow the band to perform live would be to stick with Queen songs that Freddy didn't sing on, which strikes me as an option which isn't really a good idea for casual Queen fans (if you want proof, go look up which Queen songs did not have Freddy as the lead vocalist and then look up the tracklist for the band's Greatest Hits albums. See how many of those songs are on those albums!), or do the shows completely instrumental, which, while not necessarily a bad idea, isn't as valid an idea as having a frontman for the band. In a way, the band were in the same situation as Thin Lizzy were: they were a tribute to themselves, as much as they probably would deny it, and I honestly would not have any problem with the band doing that.

But, like Thin Lizzy, the band have decided that they want to put out another album.

Now, with Thin Lizzy, I completely understand the fan's resistance to the idea of the band releasing another album, and even finding myself agreeing with the people who didn't want it to happen: at the end of the day, Thin Lizzy was pretty much Phil Lynott's band, due to him doing just about all of the songwriting for the band and being one of the two consistent members of the band (the other being drummer Brian Downey) and, without him, the band couldn't really justify releasing an album under the band's name. And, while I will freely admit to loving what the band did as Black Star Riders (heck, All Hell Breaks Loose was one of my favourite albums of 2013!), I cannot help also adding in the same breath that the band did the right thing by not releasing the album under the Thin Lizzy name, as it allowed the band's legacy to remain untouched. Do I think that All Hell Breaks Loose would have been an embarrassment had it been released under the Thin Lizzy name? Not really, but it wouldn't have felt right to do it, in my honest opinion. Queen aren't QUITE in the same situation, as Brian May and Roger Taylor were always part of Queen and were always songwriters for the band, but I think just about everyone would agree that Freddy was part of what made Queen so brilliant, as he helped tie everything together in a way that made the band's material work as a cohesive whole and, as such, it feels kind of wrong to do this album. This is ESPECIALLY important when you remember the point I made regarding Innuendo and "No One But You": both of those could have comfortably closed the band's studio career and left nothing else to say quite well.

But Queen Forever...the best analogy I can give is this: you decide to attend a performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (you know, the one with the "Ode To Joy" section) and it's the most beautiful performance of the song you've ever heard: everything is played to perfection, the emotion is beautifully done and even the resident grumpy person looking for nitpicks to complain about is so enraptured by the performance that he cannot force himself to say anything negative about the performance. You know you'll never hear the song this well done for the rest of your life. The bows are done, everyone walks off, you grab your coat and are about to leave...when the conductor comes on stage with a kazoo and starts doing the famous part to the "Ode To Joy". You'd be rather pissed off at the conductor for doing that and ruining an amazing evening, even if his performance on the kazoo turns out to actually be very good. That is kind of what this feels like: the conductor has come back onstage and is preparing to do a kazoo solo. At the moment, we don't know how good the performance is going to be, but there's no way it's going to outdo what a whole symphony orchestra could do.

And, putting aside the analogy and talking about this seriously for a moment, it's actually a huge shame that, with all of these factors in mind, this album is almost certainly going to not get embraced by Queen fans. The band's legacy has become such that any new material is almost certainly not going to live up to the standards expected by the band. What can the band possibly release that would live up to 19 years of waiting AND their legacy? It would have to be a flawless album, otherwise it would end up being torn to shreds by just about everybody. And even being a flawless album might not be enough for some people, who will despise it just for it being a new Queen album released 22 (maybe 23) years after Freddy's death. The Beach Boys took longer to release That's Why God Made The Radio after their 1992 album Summer In Paradise (if you don't count 1995's Stars And Stripes Vol. 1 due to it technically being self-covers of songs by The Beach Boys with country stars joining in...and yes, those of you who haven't read my blog before now and, as such, missed my review of That's Why God Made The Radio, that actually happened!) and the reception it got was probably best summed up as "Not embarrassing, but definitely not up to their best standards". While I might have been charitable with my original review, with the benefit of hindsight, I will still attest that, if judged as an album in and of itself and without considering the band's legacy, That's Why God Made The Radio is definitely not a bad album. But here's the thing: most people expected more from the album, despite the band's recording output post-M.I.U. Album being rather poorly received by fans of the band! That's because the legacy of The Beach Boys' first twelve albums (which might sound like a lot, but bear in mind that they released those over a seven odd year period between 1960 and 1967: if you look at the band's stuff after that, you'll notice a suspicious lack of well known material by the band!) is so great that, even now, it can continue to inspire musicians. Queen, however, never really had that quality dip. Sure, some people like to pretend Hot Space didn't happen (apart from "Under Pressure") and the band's first two albums (imaginatively titled Queen and Queen II, respectively) don't get a lot of representation on the band's Greatest Hits stuff (you've got "Keep Yourself Alive" from Queen and the full length version of "Seven Seas Of Rhye" from Queen II, but nothing else), but you'll find all of the band's other albums include at least two songs that you'll recognise if you're a casual fan (the only exception being the Flash Gordon soundtrack...and you'd be forgiven for skipping that one if you're not fond of soundtracks anyway, so you can argue that it's not a proper Queen album anyway!) and will always contain at least one underrated track that will have you going "How did THIS not get better known?" Case of point, my personal picks from the Queen albums I've heard are "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" (Sheer Heart Attack), "'39" (A Night At The Opera), "The Millionaire Waltz" (A Day At The Races), "Mustapha" (Jazz), "Staying Power" (Hot Space) and "Machines (Or 'Back To Humans')" (The Works). And that's not necessarily going to be the same as what everyone else will like!

So, as I've spent ages blabbering on about why this album is concerning, some of you might be thinking "Well, what would you have them do? They're a world famous band, so surely they can be allowed to do what they want to?"? Well, I actually agree with you! They should be allowed to do what they want to do. But here's the thing: they have a very talented singer doing their live stuff at the minute in the form of Adam Lambert (and, if you think that's an overstatement, try singing a Queen song properly and you'll see how tough it actually is!), and I'd have said that the band would have probably been better off doing an album with him to actually give him a chance to show off his stuff, or do another album with Paul Rodgers if they want to do that! Sure, it wouldn't be the same as an actual Queen album...and that's EXACTLY the point that I've been trying to make! Queen were irreplaceable, there is no doubt about it. Freddy was irreplaceable, John was irreplaceable, Roger was irreplaceable and Brian was irreplaceable and, without them, Queen isn't the same. But the Queen + name is a potential chance for Brian and Roger to work with great vocalists and do music together with them, which I would really support them doing! The new Queen album might be good (and, if it is, I will genuinely take back all of my concerns that I've voiced here and admit I was wrong to be so judgemental), but let's be honest: how many more Queen albums are we likely to be able to get from those demos with Freddy's voice? I suspect one more album at most. It's time to let that book be officially closed for the last time and maybe let the Queen + name do studio albums like what I've suggested: May and Taylor working with talented vocalists and giving them a chance to bring something to the table that we might not be able to get a chance to hear if the band only sticks to doing live shows with these vocalists. If Taylor and May want to write new material and want to do so under the Queen + name, I would genuinely be happy for them to do that: the band's name might be on it, but, at the same time, the other singer's name shows that it's not an actual Queen album in the sense of the band continuing under that name.

But I feel uncomfortable supporting a new Queen album.

Not a Queen + album.

A new Queen album.

But hey, maybe I'll be wrong. This next Queen album could turn out to be absolutely brilliant, blow away all expectations and show that Queen ultimately still have something to say that we will all want to hear.

But my gut feeling is pointing towards this not being absolutely brilliant.

My gut feeling is pointing towards this being the songs which didn't make it onto Made In Heaven.

...Or it could be that I've not eaten lunch or dinner and it's nearly twenty to eleven at the time of writing, take your pick!

Alice Cooper "Welcome 2 My Nightmare" Review

...Do I really need to talk about the history of Alice fucking Cooper? He's been around since 1969 and fairly well known since 1971, there's nothing I can really say about him that hasn't already been said! The guy's a hard rock legend and, if you haven't heard of him in the slightest, I have to ask what rock you've been living under!

Still, for the benefit of our brothers and sisters from underneath the rocks, I'll sum up Alice Cooper by saying that the guy's been around long enough to remember when rock was young (I never thought I'd get to make an Elton John reference before now...), releasing his first album (as part of a band with the name Alice Cooper: Alice was just a persona that was used by the band's frontman, then called Vincent Damon Furnier) in June 1969 (titled Pretties For You). It wasn't until the band's third album (February 1971's Love It To Death) that they started to resemble the Alice Cooper known today, as their first two albums were more psychedelic in sound and didn't really have a hard rock sound to them. After that, though, the band's style of music swapped to a hard rock sound and, up until Muscle Of Love (released in November 1973), the band stuck together. After that, the band went on what was meant to be a hiatus, but, after Vincent changed his name to legally be Alice Cooper, he opted to continue as a solo project, releasing his first solo album in February 1975.

That album was Welcome To My Nightmare.

And...well, Alice is still around now, so you can safely assume that it was a success! While Alice did go a bit off the rails once the 80's started (and, arguably, a bit before that too), he recovered from that one after taking a break from the music industry and, once he released Trash in July 1989 (and I've just realised that album is now nearly 25 years old...), he cemented a comeback that is still ongoing today.

September 2011 saw the release of a sequel to Welcome To My Nightmare.

And...well, reactions to it were rather mixed among Cooper's fanbase. Some despise it, some like it. About the only thing agreed upon is that it's not as good as the original.

But does that necessarily make it a bad album? Well, let's dig into it and find out!

First of all, the cover art. I have to say, I like the throwback to the artwork of the original! Sure, it's not quite as iconic as the original's artwork, but it's still pretty cool! The digitally generated Alice doesn't quite look right, but I guess you could argue that it makes some degree of sense to have Alice look a bit off, as it makes him look creepy.

So, onto the album!

Now, in the interest of fairness, I've not heard any Alice Cooper stuff post-Trash apart from this album, so I might be about to display my ignorance of something that's been around for a while, but I can't help noticing that there is the use of auto tune on this album, and not necessarily for effect. I can let it slide for "I Am Made Of You", as it makes Alice sound hollow in a way that works for the song (and, I suspect, that's what Alice was going for), but the other appearances of it on the album just don't fit. I've mentioned before that I'm not completely opposed to auto tune on principle alone, but I tend to only let it slide when it's obviously being done for effect (like with "I Am Made Of You"): if you're doing it anywhere else, you've got off on the wrong foot with me from the start. So, pop producers who are reading this (for some odd reasons..why are you reading a blog predominantly focused on rock and metal music, anyway?), dial back on the overuse of auto tune and restrict it only for being used as an effect when it suits the song, please! And, while you're at it, let the guys in charge of mastering know that they don't need to master everything to death (even if you have to tell the label executives to go stuff themselves about creating a less dynamic version of the song: louder doesn't equal better, otherwise we'd be happier to listen to a nuclear bomb going off than we would be to hear "Bohemian Rhapsody"!): dynamics are important to have in music, and I don't mean you should go from "barely audible" to "DEAR GOD, I CAN'T HEAR A THING! I'M DEAF!" in the space of a second.

...Sorry, I've lost track of where I was going with that.

Anyway, Alice provides a surprisingly large amount of variety on this album. It's fair to say that this isn't a case of Alice just writing the same song again and trying to pass it off as different from some other song he's done (looking at you, extreme metal scene!), and, even better, most of the variety actually works pretty well! Probably the weirdest example on the album is "Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever", which is best summed up as disco meets Alice Cooper. While Cooper is clearly poking fun at the disco scene with this song (and has a quasi-rap delivery to his vocals for the verses of the song), I have to say that I actually quite like this track, as it's VERY different from what he's done on any of his previous album (well...maybe not his New Wave stuff at the start of the 80's, but I've not listened to that, so don't quote me on that one!) and he manages to pull it off very nicely. I can understand why people wouldn't like it, but this kind of dark disco sound just sounds brilliant to me and is something I'd like to hear more people give a go at! Mind you, I actually quite enjoy disco music, so I'd just be happy to hear more people try to give a go at making proper disco music today...and no, I don't count dance music as a spin off of disco music: I want actual disco music, not some crap which thinks that providing a beat and telling people to dance qualifies as music to dance to!

...Sorry, I've gone off track again.

Anyway, the important thing to notice is that Alice still does his usual brand of hard rock at several points on the album, with probably the coolest example that springs to mind being "Caffeine". I guess the big problem is that there's so much variety on display across the album that it's actually a bit of a surprise when the hard rock songs show up, as you've gotten so used to everything else that you can forget you're listening to an album by a hard rock artist. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but it's really weird to go from hearing the vaguely jazzy "Last Man On Earth" to hearing "The Congregation", even when you know it's coming from multiple listens! To be fair, this was something the original album did (go listen to "Black Widow" and then follow that up with "Department Of Youth". Do they even sound like they should be on the same album?), but Cooper had a better mix of hard rock material and everything else on Welcome To My Nightmare compared to this album. Depending on what you define as being hard rock and how much you like to nitpick about genres, you might get as little as three tracks which are undeniably hard rock, which isn't great when you realise that there are fourteen tracks on this album! I personally don't have a huge problem with this (if I think a song's a good song, I just think it's a good song and don't get worked out what genre of music it's in!), but I can imagine some people having a huge issue with this fact. Personally, I think you're getting worked out about nothing if you think a song is bad just because it's not in a certain genre of music, but that's just my opinion.

Unfortunately, this variety does come at a cost: when the variety doesn't work, it highlights the fact that Cooper's career, while built upon writing strong songs, isn't necessarily built upon providing the listener with a really deep listening experience. "What Baby Wants" springs to mind at the moment: while I don't think Ke$ha is the best vocalist to sing alongside Cooper by any measure (and her presence dates the record more than Cooper probably realises it does), the song is fine (although Ke$ha's use of auto tune is very noticeable) until you realise that there's actually not a lot to it. While I don't think the song is bad just for being a relatively simple song (heck, part of the reason I like listening to folk and punk music when not reviewing metal is because I like the styles of music for being fairly simple and unpretentious), it does harm the song more than it really should do. I also have to point out that "Ghouls Gone Wild" (...OK, I actually kind of like that title!) suffers a bit from trying a bit too hard to sound like The Beach Boys, as it only highlights just how hard it is to sound like The Beach Boys when you notice how far off of the mark Cooper actually is. Most of the variety could be fairly put down to personal taste though, as none of the songs are outright bad (although I don't see a lot of Alice Cooper fans liking "Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever" or "What Baby Wants" in the slightest) and only really suffer from a lack of complexity that will make you want to listen to the songs deeper to spot the subtleties that make the songs so enjoyable for more than one listen.

Before I start coming across as a pretentious critic decrying something for a lack of complexity, let me look at the performances across the album. Well, the music is well performed by the musicians (some of whom are the remaining living members of the original Alice Cooper band, incidentally enough: they play on three of the tracks, but I can't remember which ones at the minute, so feel free to google that if you're really interested!), but the question that's going to be the one on most people's minds is how Alice Cooper himself sounds. Well, you can tell his voice is noticeable lower than it was in the 70's and he doesn't have quite the same range or power to his voice, but, apart from that, he's still pretty much how you'd expect him to sound, which is rather impressive for a guy who has been singing pretty much constantly for over 40 years! The use of auto tune does strike me as a bit concerning, as I've mentioned earlier, but not to the extent that I have to wonder how much longer his voice is going to last, as there are songs on the album where I could not pick up a single bit of auto tune on his voice. So, since I've not listened to anything else of Cooper's stuff post-Trash, I'm going to give Cooper the benefit of the doubt regarding whether the use of auto tune is covering his voice having gone downhill for now. If it's still there on his next album, though...well, I'm going to not be impressed.

The production is pretty good, although it does suffer from my usual complaint regarding the bass (luckily, the mastering issue isn't too bad here). Not really a lot more for me to say there: I'd have liked a bit more bass, but that's about all I can really say about it at the minute.

So, final thoughts? Well, as an album in and of itself, Welcome 2 My Nightmare arguably suffers a bit too much from conforming to the necessities of modern popular music through the use of auto tune and the appearance of a then-popular pop singer on the album (I know she's still fairly popular now, but I think it's important to remember that, if Ke$ha does turn out to be a flash in the pan, her appearance will really date this record) and a lack of musical focus that leaves you wondering at points whether Cooper forgot that he's an icon of hard rock and that, as such, he needs to remember to actually perform hard rock music. As a sequel to Welcome To My Nightmare, I can't really say this succeeds, as we don't really get a feeling of this record being a continuation of what Cooper did on that album, but it doesn't completely fail either, as there's still a lot to enjoy on here if you approach it from the perspective of it just being an album and try not to compare it to Welcome To My Nightmare. If you're an Alice Cooper fan, you probably have had this album for a while now and know where you stand on a lot of the stuff already, but, if you're not an Alice Cooper fan, I see no harm in giving this album a listen. The appeal to modern trends isn't exactly something that I'd like to see Cooper doing more of in the future, but he keeps enough of a foot in the past that I can see fans of old school hard rock finding some stuff to enjoy on this album. Basically, if you're not too fussed about the genre of what you're listening to providing it's still a good song, you should really enjoy this album, but everyone else will probably be advised to approach this album with caution, as it probably won't provide you with a completely worthwhile listening experience.

Final Rating: 6 Out Of 10

A fairly enjoyable album that sometimes forgets what it's meant to be and makes a bit of a mistake by sticking one foot into modern popular music trends which mesh poorly with Cooper's old fashioned style, but which should be worth a listen to people who aren't too fussed about genre definitions and whatnot.

Anthrax "Worship Music" Review

When it comes to the Big 4 of thrash metal, Anthrax are probably best described as the underdog. This isn't exactly their fault, it's just that, for a good amount of their career, their appeal was not through them trying to be the most aggressive or technical thrash band. Instead, the band's appeal was more due to them having a sense of humour with their music and, arguably, being the most melodic of the Big 4, factors which, on paper, do not appeal to a lot of thrash metal fans. That's not to say that they didn't appeal to thrash metal fans (they were one of the four more popular thrash metal bands for a reason), but, when you compare them to contemporaries in the thrash scene like Testament, Exodus and Heathen, it's easy to wonder just how Anthrax got that golden ticket into the thrash elite (and relative mainstream attention) that underground legends like Vio-lence, Forbidden and Overkill didn't get.

And, I think, Anthrax's different way of doing thrash was exactly the thing that gave them the push to the thrash elite: they didn't just do what everyone else did to fit in with the scene, they embraced what they did that was different from what everyone else did and focused on doing that well. True, you could make a fair case that their songwriting wasn't as strong as some of their contemporaries due to this, but the fact they made it work is certainly commendable in and of itself.

I won't go into every single detail about Anthrax's history, but, for the benefit of those who haven't heard of the band, I'll give you a skim read version of their history. Basically, the band released their first album, Fistful Of Metal, in January 1984, but it wasn't until late in that year when the band's classic line up officially came together, when Joey Belladonna was chosen to replace Neil Turbin (during which time, Matt Fallon, who you might remember me mentioning as being the original lead vocalist of Skid Row, filled the vocals spot). This line up would be stable for four albums, October 1985's Spreading The Disease, March 1987's Among The Living, September 1988's State Of Euphoria and August 1990's Persistence Of Time (any other Anthrax fans notice that their most loved album seem to have three words in their titles?). It was in 1992 when the band would start to enter their...difficult years, to put it politely. Joey Belladonna was fired from Anthrax and replaced with John Bush (then of the recently disbanded Armoured Saint). His tenure in the band, at least on the band's original material with him, is rather hit and miss, but the albums that most people tend to say are their best with him on vocals are his first album with the band (Sound Of White Noise, released in May 1993) and his last album with the band (We've Come For You All, released in May 2003): the other two albums he released with the band, Stomp 442 (released in October 1995) and Volume 8: The Threat Is Real (released in July 1998) tend to be considered pretty bad albums, albeit still with good tracks if you're not exclusively into metal. There was a reunion with the classic line up in 2005, but it only lasted until January 2007, when Joey left again. It was in December 2007 that the band got Dan Nelson as their new vocalist and Rob Caggiaro (who had joined the band before We've Come For You All: before that, the band's lead guitarist was Paul Cook) returned to the band. The band were going to release their first album with Dan Nelson on vocals in May 2009, but this did not happen and, to make things worse, Dan Nelson was out of the band (it's not clear whether he was fired or decided to leave) in July 2009. A reunion with John Bush occurred, but he ended up leaving the band in early 2010 after deciding he didn't want to commit to the band full-time (in his defence, Armoured Saint had reunited by that point). The band reunited with Joey Belladonna again and, in September 2011, Worship Music was released...with Joey on vocals. The band's line up was consistent up until January 2013, when Rob Caggiaro left the band (and would later join Volbeat) and was later replaced by Shadows Fall guitarist Jonathan Donis.

So, that's the basic history of Anthrax up until the present day. So let's take a look at Worship Music!

First of all, the cover art. I have to say, I like it! It probably is a bit too heavy on the orange (it's darker on the actual album cover, trust me), but I like the way it all comes together, as the final effect gives the impression of the horde moving towards the light from the sign. Some of the lighting effects probably aren't accurate with how they would be in real life, but that's probably a bit of a nitpick. It's also nice to see a thrash metal band focus on a colour for their cover art that is rather atypical of the scene. So, all told, an eye catching cover that is actually pretty cool to look at! Well played, Anthrax, well played...

So, now we've looked at the cover art, let's look to the music!

Musically, this album is the closest the band have come to thrash since Persistence Of Time...but I wouldn't say the album is especially thrash heavy, either. There's definitely thrash influence on several tracks, but the most thrash heavy songs are at the start of the album ("Earth On Hell" and single "Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't"). So, it's hard to call this a comeback album for this thrash band, as it's not really a thrash metal album so much as it is a heavy metal album that leans towards the thrash spectrum on quite a few levels. HOWEVER, I wouldn't necessarily say that this is a bad thing: the band's sound since 1993 hasn't been especially thrash heavy, so this is a nice way to acknowledge the band's sound post-Persistence Of Time while giving it a bit of 80's influence to mix things up a bit. I'm not hugely familiar with the John Bush years of Anthrax, so I can't say how much this resembles that era of the band, but I will say that, if you're looking at this expecting the band to suddenly sound like they're producing a follow up to Persistence Of Time, you're going to be VERY disappointed. If, however, you aren't opposed to just hearing metal in general and aren't picky about just hearing thrash metal, this album should be a good listen, as most of the songs are very enjoyable to listen to (and even the ones that I'm not so fond of aren't bad songs per se, I just tend to skip them most of the time...), although I will admit that I find the album a bit top heavy in terms of where my favourite songs come from on the album!

I don't normally talk about band's lyrics (well, unless they are particularly bad...which they aren't, before you start reading into this the wrong way!), but I think I should this time: quite a few of the tracks on this album have rather serious messages behind them ("Earth On Hell" and "Revolution Screams" are about democracy in various countries, "The Devil You Know" is about World War II veterans, "In The End" is a tribute to Dimebag Darrell and Ronnie James Dio and "Judas Priest" is about the band, who were about to embark on their Epitaph World Tour, which a lot of people assumed was going to be their retirement tour for a while), which WILL take you by surprise if you're only familiar with the band's reputation for not being especially serious with their song topics. The band's less serious topics for songs are still intact, though: "Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't" is about a zombie apocalypse and "The Constant" is about the episode of the same name from the show Lost.

Moving to the actual performances on the album, the first thing that will strike people is Joey's voice. In a word: WOW! I'll be honest, I wasn't fond of Joey's voice on the band's classic albums (it's still the thing that stops me from loving the band, to be honest...), but I love his voice here! He has developed a very strong lower voice that doesn't grate on me to listen to (although it does bear a surprising resemblance to that of John Bush...) and delivers the songs with a conviction that I wasn't convinced he had the first time around with the band. Sadly, I'm not sold on him singing live (I don't think he did a good job at Wacken 2013), but, on this record, I have no qualms in saying "MORE OF THIS, PLEASE!"

Another member who deserves praise is long time drummer Charlie Benante, who shows a lot of variety in his drumming across the album. A typical problem that plagues a lot of modern thrash bands (and extreme metal in general, come to think of it) is the assumption that constantly playing fast is the only way to do metal drumming, but Benante should be held up as an example of a drummer who gets that, even in a genre known for playing fast like thrash metal, variety is very important, and he provides that in spades! Case of point, check out his drumming on "Earth On Hell", then follow it up with his drumming on "The Devil You Know". The contrast is rather impressive, but his drumming on both songs is still very skilled, just in different ways: "Earth On Hell" is Benante providing a lot of speed and aggressive playing, while "The Devil You Know" is more Benante providing a solid background to support the rest of the song than anything else.

This isn't to say that the rest of the performances are terrible, but I feel that I should highlight Joey Belladonna's vocals and Charlie Benante's drumming, as they are definitely the performances that impressed me the most! Scott Ian and Rob Caggiaro (who also handles production, which I'll talk about in a minute) do great on the guitars and Frank Bello is probably the best bassist in all of the Big 4 at the minute (no offence intended to Rob Trujillo, of course!). However, their performances are always pretty good, so this is not anything new to anyone who is already familiar with Anthrax (mind you, the same could be said of Benante!).

The production on this album, while a bit loudly mastered, deserve mentioning for the mixing of the bass, and for a good reason: it's actually not difficult to hear it! I am not kidding you, the bass on this album is the most audible I've heard the bass guitar on any thrash album I've heard this side of the 2000's, aside from maybe The Dream Calls For Blood by Death Angel! Jay Ruston was the guy who mixed this album, so, to any music producers reading this, please give this guy more work!

So, final thoughts? This is a very enjoyable album, if you look at it without the eight years that built up expectations for it! The songs, for the most part, are all very enjoyable (although most of them are not going to win over the "thrash or nothing" crowd), the music is well performed by the musicians and the production, while still a bit too loudly mastered, gets praise from me for not forgetting what the bass guitar is! Would I say this is a classic album? No, not really. However, I will say that I've enjoyed this album a lot since I first got it and, aside from maybe wanting the band to have thrown in some more speedy material to the album, cutting a few of the songs I'm not so fond of and my usual production complaint when it comes to mastering, there's not a lot that I'd want the band to change about this album! And that, in a way, is an amazing achievement when you consider that this album took nearly four years of hard work from the band to finally get finished and released!

Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10

A very enjoyable album that might not win over the thrashers, but should be a winner for all other Anthrax fans. If you're an Anthrax fan and don't have this, then go pick it up! If you're not an Anthrax fan, then give some of their stuff (both from the Belladonna era and the Bush era) a listen, then, if you like it, go pick this album up! I'm pretty sure you'll not be disappointed!

Personal Favourite Tracks: "Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't", "Earth On Hell", "The Devil You Know", "The Giant"