Amph What Album Did You Just Hear?

I have to agree.

 

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Gawd I love that album...

 

Yes, I know it's not Soundgarden but it's still appropriate. I mean I wasn't exactly going to pay tribute by randomly picking another band which featured a lead singer named Chris, now was I?

 

So now the least talented Seatle band of that era are the ones left standing. Tops.

 

Ok, i'm hopping on. Make room.



I like it a lot. A more 'organic' moroseness than PJ or Nirvana, possibly the result of the abundance of blues and metal influences. I love the tappings of psychedelia, they suit Chris' vocals perfectly. I really like it. I'll order it off JB's website to avoid awkward stares at the store.

 

New Sgt. Pepper mix. Sounds massive and loud. Very detailed, sometimes really deep, occasionally jumbled. Heard things I've never heard before. Good Morning Good Morning sounds absolutely huge. Eh, I don't want to spoil things with particulars.

Another remix: totally missed the recent reissue of Ultramega OK, but recent events, etc. Not as tinny and narrow as it used to be.

 

I just happened to be listening to this last night.

 

Their concert in Kelvingrove Bandstand here in Glasgow is next week so I've been listening to Foreverland again today by The Divine Comedy.

http://thedivinecomedy.com/music/foreverland

 

Figured I'd do a full discography review of this band starting today. Been binging a lot of stuff and I thought I'd finally use some of this free time in the summer to start somewhere.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mix Vol. 2

 

Fates Warning is heard
runs shivers up and down the spine
of those who believe.


Fates Warning - Night on Bröcken (1984)



Personnel:

• John Arch - vocals
• Jim Matheos - guitars
• Victor Arduini - guitars
• Joe DiBiase - bass
• Steve Zimmerman - drums

Originally formed in 1982 under the name "Misfit" in Hartford, Connecticut, Fates Warning is a progressive metal band that have had 12 studio albums released since their formation. However, Fates Warning didn't start out that way. As was the case in 1984, Fates Warning established itself as a power metal band first with their full-length debut, Night on Bröcken. A nine-track LP released under Metal Blade Records.

1984 was an extremely important year in metal. It marked the releases of many albums that grew to define and/or innovate in new subgenres whether it be power metal (Walls of Jericho, Battle Cry, And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun..., The Dungeons Are Calling, Ample Destruction, The Warning, Hail to Enand, etc.), thrash metal (Metal Church, Ride the Lightning, War and Pain, Haunting the Chapel, etc.), doom metal (Saint Vitus, Psalm 9) or black metal (Bathory, In the Sign of Evil, Morbid Tales, etc.) or just plain ol' heavy metal (Powerslave, Defenders of the Faith, W.A.S.P., Don't Break the Oath, King of the Dead, Rising Force). With such daunting competition, how does Night on Bröcken hold up? Well, when it comes to presenting something new sonically, not quite. The band's sound, at this point is VERY reminiscent of Iron Maiden, Queensryche and others at this point. Considering that those bands were already somewhat established, it made Fates Warning blend in somewhat. This leads to Night on Bröcken being somewhat forgotten in comparison to their later albums. When hearing about it in conversation, you're most likely to hear it described as a "growing pains" period for the band. While this is true in some cases like the song structures not being as fleshed out or complex, this does not mean that the album itself is bad. It isn't. Far from it.

The first thing that will immediately hit you is the flooring vocal performance by John Arch. He is often the source of the Maiden comparisons. While it is limited to this album, he still shows INCREDIBLE levels of skill and dexterity. He's very much in the same level as Bruce Dickinson or Geoff Tate would be. What makes his performance compelling on this album is that he begins to diversify somewhat. There are hints at his own inflection beginning to form on tracks like The Calling, the title track, and Damnation. Some slight experimentation with more complex vocal melodies. However, what I found to be a great thing about Arch (as he was the sole lyricist of the band during this period) was his lyrics. They tackle all kinds of subjects from Walpurgis Night to the futile nature of warfare and it is done with sophistication. He understands how to make captivating lyricism and that would be a strength that would carry him through his future records, which is a great sign for a debut record.

But what about the rest of the band? Well, while the song structures aren't as progressive, there isn't a slouch in attendance. Jim Matheos and Joe DiBiase, especially. The most obvious example of their skill is the instrumental, Shadowfax, an exciting interlude between Misfit and Damnation. The performances on the title track and Misfit really suit the more fantastical elements of the album and offer some real standout moments. The ability for the band as a whole to deftly switch between crushing metal shredfests like the aforementioned instrumental, immersive tales of witchcraft and epic songs of heroism while also showcasing some amazing melodies early on speaks greatly to the potential and chemistry of everyone involved.

However, there are some flaws. As stated previously, the record doesn't differentiate itself that well from some its more well-known contemporaries with many parts being more reminiscent of other New Wave of British Heavy Metal and U.S. Power Metal acts. The production is rough around the edges (and will continue to be for some time, more on that later), the song structures are a somewhat simpler and some of the leads are sloppy. Matheos has often expressed contempt for the album due to these things. It is understandable that he would, considering the standards he would prove to have pursued with the band in the future.

All that being said, despite its faults, I believe that Night on Bröcken stands alongside many other releases from bands like Omen as a good addition to the American power metal scene and a bedrock-solid foundation for what was to come.

After all, they were yet to discover The Spectre Within...

 

Trying everyone's patience with a super-long review, but this is just a super-complicated album. Ramza tom harpuah




Sheik Yerbouti (1979) – Frank Zappa

Oh God, I am the American dream

I was struggling with Sheik Yerbouti for about the first half of the album. It’s, like a lot of Zappa’s double album, a weird, somewhat sloppy mix of weird instrumentals/collages and songs that veer from high quality to forgettable. But then, quite suddenly, I came upon the song Bobby Brown. And everything became clear.

Sheik Yerbouti isn’t Zappa’s best album, not even close, but it is, I think, his most ambitious artistic effort. The album is, at base, a dissection of the excesses of the eighties. If the album had come out in 1989, it would have been incredibly obvious. But Zappa never does the obvious; the album instead comes out in 1979, but it remains incredibly on-point. We often call our favorite musical artists ‘prophets,’ but nothing throws us for a loop more than when they literally are. This album was upon release, and I think is still, very misunderstood. But it feels like Zappa is dead on point with so much of his commentary here. More on that later.

But first, let’s talk about the central moment of this record. I could spend a whole page discussing just Bobby Brown. It’s a masterpiece of song-craft, marrying intense lyrics to a beautiful, catchy background to create a song that is funny, disturbing and, ultimately, deeply sad. It begins as a witty takedown of an alpha male that very quickly morphs into a disturbing portrait of a society gone wrong. It’s damning enough to conflate arrogance, superficiality and wealth with the American Dream; but Zappa doesn’t stop there – it is, in Zappa’s vision, power that creates the Dream. There are few moments in music as shocking and perfect as the turn from the verse into the chorus: Got a cheerleader here wants to help with my paper/let her do all the work, maybe later I’ll rape her/oh God I am the American Dream. As the song progresses, it takes on an even deeper sadness as our titular character drifts further and further into irrelevance; he’s peaked, in power, influence and quality of life, too early and his post college life isn’t what he wishes it was. The lyrics here are easily Zappa’s best. I went out & bought me a leisure suit/I jingle my change, but I’m still kinda cute; this is a heartwrenching, absolutely real portrait of a pathetic man – there’s a joke in there, but the visceral sadness hits harder than the humor. By the end of the song, none of the jocks can even tell he’s a homo. Hiding a central part of himself out of shame; this too speaks directly the American Dream. It’s easy to see the humor in the later passages of the song, but there are double meanings here; “I can take about an hour on the Tower of Power,” is about more than sexual degradation, but the thing that ties all the meanings together is that loss of power, whether it’s sexual, social, economic or anything else you want to think about. By the end of that verse, Bobby Brown has learned to love S&M, but he gets there the same way he gets everywhere in his life these days: “One day me & a friend sorta drifted along . . .” The melancholy melody and restrained, beautiful backing to the words adds immeasurably to the emotional heft of the song. Zappa claimed to be flabbergasted by the fact that the song was a number one hit in some places in the world and became something of a favorite among his fan base; I think he was being disingenuous. The reasons this song is a masterpiece are obvious on its very face and it gets more complicated the farther down you dig. Bobby Brown is perhaps Zappa’s masterwork, a three minute emotional & incisive summation of the destruction of the American Dream or, more accurately, the corruption of that Dream, which never, after all dies; it stays around to the end of the song, but by the time Bobby Brown finally admits he’s on his way down, what does it even mean.

Other tracks on the record are less obvious in their glimpses of the oncoming excesses of the eighties, but they’re there. Jewish Princess explores anti-Semitic stereotypes. Flakes models something of a culture war as the affable hippies of the sixties and seventies become annoyingly unmoored (and one might even make the case that Flakes also predicts a dire decade for Bob Dylan!). Dancin’ Fool & I Have Been In You both parody the increasingly sterile music scene that is beginning to develop. Some of these are stretches more than others, but with Bobby Brown as the beating heart of this album it’s easy to make these connections.

So, is this album great? No, I don’t think so. Despite the extreme ambitions of it, it’s yet another great single album downgraded by being stretched to a double. Essentially every instrumental needs to go, even Rat Tomago, based on The Torture Never Stops, a song I absolutely love. Especially nonsense like Rubber Shirt; that one seems a holdover from Weasels Ripped My Flesh – Zappa edits together the bass line from one song with the drum track from another in order to produce . . . something no one wants to hear. There is genuinely a brilliant forty-five minute album in here that has eleven tracks, not eighteen. That album would have a shot at being Zappa’s best album; as this album stands, even all the brilliance on display and all the artistic ambition in the world can’t keep it from slipping down a bit. But Sheik Yerbouti stands as a unique entry in Zappa’s discography and an exciting one; Zappa’s reach continues to exceed his grasp. But this is a blessed reach still. 3 stars.

tl;dr – Zappa’s most ambitious artistic statement is buried under a lot of annoying trivia; too long, sloppy & very flawed, this album still contains some of Zappa’s most breathtaking work. 3 stars.

 

I must admit, while we might disagree a lot about the early stuff, you line up pretty well with my opinions on Zappa's mid-period output.

 

Lullaby Renditions of Star Wars by Baby Rockstar

Starting the baby early.

 

I'll be interested to hear how we match up on this next stuff. I've got two more albums from the seventies (no points for guessing which ones) and then I'm doing two from the eighties & two from the nineties. I'm curious to see how you feel about the late-period stuff.

 

Joe’s Garage: Act I (1979) – Frank Zappa

It wasn’t very large
There was just enough room to cram the drums
In the corner over by the Dodge
It was a fifty-four

With a mashed up door
And a cheesy little amp
With a sign on the front said
Fender Champ
And a second-hand guitar
It was a Stratocaster with a whammy bar

We could jam in Joe’s garage

In Joe’s Garage, Zappa tells the story of a guitar player who starts in a garage band and is slowly brought to destruction by a heartless society that doesn’t value music or art. I didn’t take to Joe’s Garage the way I was hoping I would, but one thing I can say is that Zappa isn’t about to imbue this story with any particularly mythic or self-serious overtones; he’s having, I might say, as much fun here as he’s ever had on a studio record. The song is narrated by a sarcastic, mean-spirited figure known as the Central Scrutinizer and he returns throughout the album to fill in details of the story. The Scrutinizer was maybe the most pleasant surprise of the album; it seems like exactly the kind of Zappa gimmick that I would hate, but I warmed up to him and found Zappa’s performance as the Scrutinizer is genuinely one of the very best things on this record. The songs are mostly pretty bland as far as I’m concerned and, for all the pleasure I got from the Scrutinizer, the story didn’t do anything for me, outside of the title track, which is a blissful, nostalgic ode to being in a band that plays for no other reason than the love of music. It’s one of Zappa’s best lyrics, a concise ballad that tells a full story and it even feels sincerely emotional, something you rarely get from Zappa. All the snippets of extra songs and cheesy saxophone solos are welcome, for once, as they add to the atmosphere of the song as it builds to a really wonderful climax. The other song that absolutely kills here is Crew Slut, a song dedicated to the night that Joe’s sweet girlfriend Mary became a groupie. Zappa’s vocal here is one of the sleaziest he’s ever done and the central riff of the song is a non-stop groove like Zappa only rarely produced. There’s a sense of genuine menace at times: “The guys in the crew have got a present for you,” just lands like a ton of bricks. And once again the Scrutinizer proves his worth; the entire rock opera concept is almost entirely justified when that central Crew Slut groove fades up under the Scrutinizer as he snarls, “One night . . . Mary didn’t show up. She was SUCKING **** backstage at the Armory.” There was a lot of controversy over the vulgarity and profanity on display on this album, but when you can do it that perfectly, you get to do it, as far as I’m concerned. (Acts II & III . . . well, they might not get the same pass). Joe’s Garage: Act I is a real mixed bag; thankfully it isn’t a double album, so it does sail by at a nice clip, but some of the songs, like Lucille & Catholic Girls, are just big ol’ whiffs. Two masterpieces and an endearingly vicious narrator can only elevate this album so far. 2 ½ stars.

tl;dr – a couple of great songs and a surprisingly well-executed central conceit can’t totally compensate for the bulk of the album being forgettable at best. 2 ½ stars.

Ramza tom You know, assuming this post doesn't get truncated.

 

Joe's Garage is weird for me because I started off pretty high on it and it soured over subsequent listens until now I just sort of hit the highlights and go about my business. It's up there with The Smiths' The Queen is Dead for me on very quick about-faces on assessments (although that one went in the opposite direction), which I guess is only notable because usually my snap judgements for albums are where I stay at.

 

An unsung, immaculately-composed classic.

 

Joe’s Garage: Acts II & III (1979) – Frank Zappa

He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer . . . and ultimately, who gives a **** anyway? Who gives a **** anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo . . .

Zappa continues the story of the unlucky Joe on this record and it is, surprise, surprise, yet another double album. There is, perhaps, more justification for being a double than there often is with Zappa’s doubles (no, I still do not consider making Freak Out a double in order to make room for Return of the Son of Monster Magnet to be a legit justification) since Act I was a single and Zappa is here releasing the final two acts as one album. But the material here is even weaker than on Act I. In Act II, Joe falls under the sway of a Scientology-esque religion, starts having sex with robots, goes to prison and is anally raped. This would be the typical second act structure of leaving your hero at a low point. I mean, that is, I suppose a lot of story to get through, but some of these songs just belabor the point. Does Keep It Greasey, a not particularly witty ode to anal rape, really need to be over eight minutes long? Does Sy Borg, a not particularly witty ode to ******* robots, really need to be almost nine minutes long? Act III is about as weak, if not as crass. Packard Goose is almost twelve minutes, He Used to Cut the Grass almost nine and neither make much of an impression. But Zappa finds an odd redemption at the very end of this weak double album with the epic Watermelon in Easter Hay, which concludes Joe’s story with what seems to be real fervor and sincere emotionalism. Zappa is no stranger to beautiful instrumentals, but this one is, for my money, his absolute best, a haunting, melancholy piece that encompasses both real sadness and a beautiful, quiet hope. The Central Scrutinizer proves his worth again with his introduction to this piece. Zappa breaks for a moment on this one and laughs in the middle of the speech, but that somehow adds to the emotional power of the track. The snickering “who gives a **** anyway” overlays the music as it slowly fades up and underlines the sadness of the piece, rather than cheapening it. Zappa has, if nothing else, finally perfected the way to use spoken word snippets to enhance rather than detract from his music. But it’s doubly frustrating when Zappa undercuts his sincere & beautiful climax by tacking on an extra song at the end, A Little Green Rosetta, that doesn’t add anything to Joe’s story. As mediocre as I find a lot of this stuff, if the album had just ended with Watermelon in Easter Hay, it might have jumped up an entire star in my estimation. But Zappa, never comfortable with sincere emotional vulnerability, has to get his ironic distance back and he ruins would could have been a brilliant ending. I feel like Joe’s Garage is kind of a missed opportunity. It turns out to be a triple album, taking the thing as a whole, and for once I find myself actually WISHING Zappa had one a double album. I think you trim a few songs (just dropping Green Rosetta gets almost ten minutes back), shorten a few others and you could tell this whole story across two albums and it would be, if not great, at least a lot, lot better. Watermelon in Easter Hay deserves better than this record. 1 ½ stars.

tl;dr – pretty terrible follow-up to an already middling concept is overlong and inconsistent; does contain one of Zappa’s finest instrumental moments. 1 ½ stars.


On into the eighties! Did I ever tell you which two I'm doing from the eighties, Ramza? I will definitely be curious to see what you think about them, if you've heard them.

 

I think the back half of Joe's Garage is where Zappa's whole lyrical shtick finally backfires and torpedoes the underlying idea. He can't focus on satirizing the "literally every concept album ends like this" music banning thing because he's too worried about making middle school sex jokes. Fittingly I can't think of a single vocal piece composed after that album that I enjoy, although I actually like "A Little Green Rosetta" because the final joke is that, in hindsight, maybe the entire Joe's Garage project was kind of dumb.

And it was.

I don't think you've mentioned the 80s albums but I hope Jazz from Hell is one of them. Though perhaps its brutal "Parental Advisory" requiring lyrics may be too much.

 

Puscifer - V is for Vagina



I certainly like it better than the remix album, and although it's not Tool or APC, Puscifer is and has been for some time now a solid and enjoyable Maynard experience.