(February 2021) Episode 316 is AMON AMARTH. When you need some Swedish death metal — and who doesn’t? — Amon Amarth amply satisfies. They offer the full package: double-pedal thunder speed, 99% growl vocals, Norse mythology, and doom themes. Consistently fast and loud. Good stuff.
Favorite album: Twilight of the Thunder God
Favorite song: The Last With Pagan Blood
Compared to expectations: same
(December 2020) Episode 303 is WHITE ZOMBIE and ROB ZOMBIE. Nu metal progenitors that started out raw and industrial but gained mass and propulsion to hit their apex with Astro Creep 2000. Rob’s solo work continued his horror metal style to accompany his various artistic horror genre projects.
Favorite album: Astro Creep 2000
Favorite song: Blood, Milk and Sky
Compared to expectations: same
(November 2020) Episode 296 of the “opus project” is MÖTLEY CRÜE. They stood out from the hair metal crowd by pushing all the buttons: a mix of cock rock, double kick pedal thrashers and power ballads, a party/bad boy reputation they more than lived up to, Hollywood glam, theatrics, a devil name-drop, and of course the umlauts.
Favorite album: Shout at the Devil
Favorite song: Looks That Kill
Compared to expectations: same
(October 2020) Episode 289 is ELECTRIC WIZARD. This is what Black Sabbath would/should have become if evolution has been allowed to run its course (after Vol. 4). And that appears to be EW’s mission statement. Heavier, darker, deeper. Even if you’re not into the doom metal ethos, it’s worth the bone-rattling sonic experience of guitars drop-tuned so low that that the wavelengths are more felt that heard. Thus, you should listen in an enclosed space (room or car) to ensure the floorboards shake (headphones won’t do). Just try it.
Favourite album: Dopethrone
Favourite song: Mind Transferral
Compared to expectations: ↑
(September 2020) Episode 285 is BAD BRAINS. Ground-breaking and iconic, a D.C. original. Who would think of combining punk and reggae? Not surprisingly, I like the early punk material best, and the reggae is good, but the metal phase is a mixed affair (for which I find H.R.’s voice ill-fitting, not unlike Dave Mustaine with Megadeth).
Favorite album: Bad Brains (Black Dots, the collection of early singles, is the best, but I can’t count it as it’s a compilation)
Favorite song: Don’t Bother Me
Compared to expectations: same
(October 2018) I have completed episode 184 of my “opus project.” This edition: MOTÖRHEAD. Rock n’ roll to make your eardrums bleed: the way it should be. Lemmy never diverges from the core concept: loud and fast and whisky-fueled, but even over four decades it never got stale. Beauty in its purity. I came late to Motörhead, which was a mistake.*
Favourite album: Overkill
Favourite song: Ace of Spades
Worst album: March ör Die
Best later album: Bastards
Compared to expectations: ↑
* imagine the enhancement of my musical trajectory if, in 1979, I had bought Overkill instead of Van Halen II
(April 2018) I have completed episode 165 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: OPETH. Who doesn’t love a little epic Swedish death metal? At some point they retired the demon howl for a greater focus on progressive metal and heavy mellow, but I prefer the earlier material.
Favorite album: Blackwater Park
Favorite song: Blackwater Park
Least favorite album: Damnation
Compared to expectations: same
(September 2017) I have completed episode 138 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography. This edition: IRON MAIDEN. Out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden has always seemed a cut above, pushing all the headbanger buttons — operatic voice, apocalyptic themes, harmony guitars, thundering riffs.
Favorite album: The Number of the Beast
Favorite song: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Best period: 1980-83 (first four albums)
Worst period: 1996-98 (the two albums without Bruce Dickinson)
Special sauce: Dave Murray
Compared to expectations: same ↓↑
(December 2016) I have completed episode 103 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to an band’s full discography. This edition: JUDAS PRIEST. Good ol’ fashioned heavy metal. And they still bring it (latest album was 2014). Rob Halford: best lungs this side of Freddie Mercury.
Favorite album: British Steel
Favorite song: You Got Another Thing Comin
Favorite period: 1977-1980
Compared to expectations: same
(September 2015) I have competed phase 59 of my “opus project,” in which I listen to a band’s full discography from start to finish. This episode: BLACK SABBATH. Their catalogue can be summarized by one of their album titles, Heaven and Hell. Heaven is the first four albums, Beautiful Heavy stuff that defined and inspired heavy metal music. Hell is all the post-Ozzy albums — just banal metal that comes off as Spinal Tap trying to imitate Black Sabbath. So this was a rather tedious episode. The last effort, “13,” a reunion effort, shows that while Tommy’s thunder chords (and Geezer’s bass) are the foundation of the band’s career arc, Ozzy’s voice is the special sauce that separates the enjoyable from the crap.
Favourite album: Paranoid
Favourite song: War Pigs
Other song I love: Planet Caravan
Best period: 1970-72
Worst period: 1980-1995 (non-Ozzy years)
Worst Album: Forbidden (1995)
Hidden gem: 13 (2013)
Special sauce: Tommy Iommi
Compared to expectations: same
Opus Project 