Tag: metal

628. Testament

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(January 2025) Episode 628 is TESTAMENT. Superlative thrash metal. They’re not listed among the “Big Four” bands because they’re categorized in the second wave. But for sound and skill, I would put them up near the top. Lots in common with fellow Bay Area mates Metallica — vocalist Chuck Billy is close in style to James Hetfield, as well as technical prowess and powerful execution. Their first three albums were classic thrash. In the early 90s they adopted a more alt/groove metal sound, consistent with the time, but by 1999 (and since) they returned to pure thrash form.

Favorite album: The Gathering

Favorite song: Down for Life

Compared to expectations:  ↑

Recommendation: All the albums are good, even that middle period. Try 1988’s The New Order, 1999’s The Gathering and 2016’s Brotherhood of the Snake.

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619. Celtic Frost

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Episode 619 is CELTIC FROST, a Swiss group considered influential on European heavy metal and extreme metal. They emerged in the mid-1980s with a tasty thrash metal approach, and ambitiously shifted on their second full-length album to what we might call gothic and symphonic metal. The next album went glam which lost them a lot of their audience. Celtic Frost reunited and put out a doom metal album in 2006, which I like the best although it is different from the sound that made them influential. The sonic attack is good, but the vocalist’s style keeps me from loving them.

Favorite album: Monotheist

Best album: To Mega Therion

Favorite song:  A Dying God Coming into Human Flesh

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: An interesting band for learning what was influenced, but not my first choice to dip into these subgenres.

607. Bathory

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Episode 607 is BATHORY. A pioneer of Scandinavian black metal and Viking metal, this Swedish outfit’s first four albums laid the groundwork for these genres. However, the recording quality was poor, and it’s like listening to them through several thick curtains. But I sense that this audio inscrutability, combined with the frontman’s anonymity and the Satan-heavy lyrics, succeeded in giving the band the appeal of mystery. The quality did improve, and they moved into a thrash phase before coming back to Viking. I do like understanding bands cited as influences by others. But as a listening experience, I found it wanting.

Favorite album: Blood Fire Death

Favorite song: A Fine Day to Die

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Blood Fire Death is the best of their “black” era, but you can also seek out Requiem which has some good thrash

600. Tengger Cavalry

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(September 2024) Episode 600 is TENGGER CAVALRY. As I wrote in the episode on Nine Treasures, heavy metal seems a natural medium for expression of Mongol culture and mythology, similar in a way as it does for Nordic/Viking. And throat-singing and death growl provide similar vocal textures. Tengger Cavalry is fusion of genres and people: it was formed by a Beijing-born man of Mongol-Chinese heritage while a student in New York, and the band included both Mongols and non-Asians. I enjoyed their first couple albums, but after that it seemed to fall into a pattern of a drop-tuned metal riff followed by a melodic string line, repeated over and over. Thus, overall the fusion feels somewhat artificial rather than transformative. I’m going to try other Mongolian folk metal to see if I can find that.

Favorite album: Sunesu Cavalry

Favorite song: Cavalry Folk

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Sunesu Cavalry is all you need.

598. Possessed

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(August 2024) Episode 598 of the “opus project” is POSSESSED. They combined the hyper-speed of emergent thrash metal with punk rock-style growled vocals to form what, in retrospect, some call the first death metal album and band. Helping shape this legacy were their devil lyrics, which were both a cause of and lovely response to the Satanic Panic lunacy of the mid-1980s. Despite exposure by a college roommate, I was not into this stuff at the time, which is a regret. This is good stuff. They regrouped and issued a long-awaited third album in 2019, which is a quality effort.

Favorite album: Seven Churches

Favorite song: The Exorcist

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: All three albums are good, but try the first as an O.G.

589. Accept

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(July 2024) Episode 589 of the “opus project” is ACCEPT. Accept was my entry into heavy metal, when a high school classmate gave me a mix tape of metal bands (it also included “Whiplash” which was my initiation into Metallica.) The song was “Fast as a Shark.” The children’s song, the record scratch, the scream, the thrash, the double pedals, the hooks, the fills, the lightning guitar solo – that song has EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, that (still) amazing song was the exception, not the rule. While some of their earlier stuff resembled Judas Priest (that’s a good thing), most of the rest is banal headbanging, which bores me. And there’s a lot: 17 albums up to the present year. But their influence on speed and thrash metal will always stand.

Favorite album: Restless and Wild

Favorite song:  Fast as a Shark

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Restless and Wild and Balls to the Wall are the only albums you need to know.

576. Venom

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(June 2024) Episode 576 is VENOM. They emerged late phase of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) and became influential in extreme metal and thrash metal. And their album Black Metal gave the name to that subgenre. Lots of album and song titles featuring “Satan,” “hell,” “devil,” and “death,” and headbanging riffs, as we would expect. But listening from a four-decade distance, it’s hard to separate their music from the metal clichés that they helped create. I prefer the sound on the later (21st century) albums with a cleaner production.

Favorite album: Metal Black

Favorite song:  A Good Day to Die

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Metal fans will want to check out their first couple of albums to hear the influence, but I think there are better places to get your fix for thrash or black metal.

540. Nine Treasures

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(January 2024) Episode 540 is NINE TREASURES, a folk metal group from the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China. Its members are ethnically Mongolian (calling themselves Southern Mongolian), and the music blends heavy metal guitars and drums with traditional Mongolian musical instruments and throat singing. The fusion is quite enjoyable. And maybe there’s a logic to it. Historians have noted parallels between the warrior cultures and civilizational paths of Scandinavians and Mongolians. And since Nordic mythology and imagery seem a natural fit for metal music, as well as offer an explanation for its popularity in Scandinavian countries, perhaps we can see the same with Mongolians. Nine Treasures’ lyrics evoke Mongolian history, landscapes, legends and mythologies.

Favorite album: Wisdom Eyes

Favorite song: Black Heart

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Try it. I dislike most forms of fusion, but this one feels genuine and instinctive.

534. Acid Bath

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(November 2023) Episode 534 is ACID BATH. Continuing my tour of sludge metal bands from the southern USA, we come to Acid Bath from Houma, Louisiana. They were active in the 1990s and didn’t record much before breaking up due to the death of a band member. But what they did is quite good, and it led to a kind of cult following. It’s an unusual (refreshing?) mix of styles for the genre, primarily the low, slow sludge/doom sound, but also speed metal screamers, acoustic heavy mellow, and grooves resembling hard grunge contemporaries Alice in Chains and Soundgarden.

Favorite album: When the Kite String Pops

Favorite song: Dr. Seuss Is Dead

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: If you’re not repelled by heavy metal, give them a listen; the variety makes it more accessible than similarly labeled bands.

528. Buzzov•en

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(October 2023) Episode 528 is BUZZOV•EN, one of the bands from the American South (they’re from North Carolina) that created the sludge metal genre in the 1990s. It combines super-low guitar riffs as in doom and stoner metal with punk-style vocals featuring vicious and violent lyrics (so I’m told, I can’t understand them), along with irreverent dialogue clips appended to the songs. Apparently their live shows were chaotic and violent. I like it but it’s not for everyone.

Favorite album: Sore

Favorite song: Mainline

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Try them out if you like the loud low grind, although it can be uneven and the rage can make it unsettling.