New Videos - February 2022!

Yup, it's time to get back into the videos again!  Certainly some interesting melodic metal right out of the gate, going from prog to power and back again.  Turn these up, as they certainly demand it!

This is an interesting piece of mid-tempo power metal.  It's got some good energy, making me think of some of the more anthemic Stratovarius songs like "Hunting High and Low."  Fabio is pretty over-the-top, but doesn't steal the spotlight, and his voice combines well with Giorgia Gueglio's.

Well, I suppose being from the same part of the world as Iron Maiden gives them a bit of authenticity!  This is definitely in the style of older Maiden, as it has a bit of a rock vibe, but the vocalist could easily be mistaken for Dickenson, which is probably intentional.  Still, a solid metal track.

I know the video has the hashtag for prog metal, but I get massive Yes vibes from this, mainly due to the vocalist Damian Wilson being right in Jon Anderson's range.  Getting the guitarist from DGM and the keyboardist from Dream Theater certainly helps lift the prog chops as well.  It's a neat little song, and I'll have to keep an eye out for more from these guys in the future!

Well, this is a solid piece of power metal.  Not really innovating anything, but it has good energy, and some interesting use of synthesizers, making me think of Twilightning, actually.  While this is just for an EP, I'll have to keep an eye on this band, going forward.

Now this sounds like classic HammerFall!  The extended guitar noodling makes me think of their early albums like Glory to the Brave and Legacy of Kings.  While "Hammer of Dawn" was decent, this one certainly has the band's various trademarks all at once!

Last Played - February 2022 Part Two!

Now that I've got 1972 out of the way, I spent some time focusing on some other classic albums.  Of course, these all match up with future anniversary articles, but they were largely on my radar anyway.  Here's what I've been checking out lately!

Meat Loaf - Bat Out of Hell

So, despite being a massive fan of classic rock, I never really got around to Meat Loaf.  When he passed away earlier this year, I figured I should at least give a listen to his most iconic album.  While I was vaguely aware that Meat Loaf has a pretty melodramatic style, I certainly wasn't expecting the wall-to-wall Broadway cheese that dominates the album.  However, I can tell it's that very bombastic tone that has helped this album become the cultural touchstone of its era.

Trying to find comparisons leaves me with a very peculiar mix.  My first thought was that this felt like an American Queen, with a dash of Bruce Springsteen and 50s rock 'n' roll, writing nothing but epic power ballads.  While the Broadway-style approach to these songs makes sense given the songs' origins and the creators' backgrounds, it's this blend of rock and symphonic styles that really makes this album feel strangely unique.  The song structure seems to meander about, but it's hard to not get caught up in the high emotion of it all.  This is certainly not a subtle album!

The title track is probably the best one, as it has a solid chorus and great energy.  The rest of the album still holds up, though, as long as you adjust your mindset to the sheer romanticism.  Meat Loaf certainly gives his all, and the rest of the instruments back him up all the way.  You certainly couldn't make an album like this with any half-baked effort.  I don't know if this is something I'll come back to often, but I do think it's a fun album that aims high and largely succeeds.

Accept - Restless and Wild

Just like the previous two years, it's time to put on some more Accept.  At this point, the band really has their straight-ahead metal sound worked out, easily comparable to contemporaries like Judas Priest and Saxon.  However, this is definitely an improvement over Breaker, as I think the tracks are meaner and heavier.

Right out of the gate, we get "Fast as a Shark."  After a jaunty folk tune, it turns into high-speed heavy metal fury.  It's likely one of the fastest tracks for its time, and it's easy to hear a kind of proto-power metal vibe in it, especially with the neo-classical solo.  As for the rest of the album, it mainly stays in a mid-tempo metal range, but at least there aren't any ballads this time.  "Get Ready" goes for a bit of "Living After Midnight" rocking, and "Flash Rockin' Man" feels like a sequel to "Burning," though, without the iconic crowd chant.  "Demon's Night" is probably the darkest track they've done up to this point.  However, the other big shift is some longer songs.  "Neon Nights" has this ominous, cinematic tone with some great solos, and "Princess of the Dawn" goes for epicness with a kind of marching riff that carries through its six-minute runtime full of fantasy motifs and more solos.

While Udo brings his trademark wails and croons, I really feel like Wolf Hoffmann is the real stand out on this album.  Doing all of the guitars, we get from him plenty of crunchy riffs and solid solos, both of the shredding and melodic variety.  Overall, it's a pretty solid album, and the best one I've heard so far from the classic era.  I suppose we'll see how it compares to their next one when I review it next year!

Magnum - Chase the Dragon

So Magnum is another band that've heard little about, largely due to them being more successful outside of the US.  Though I've heard a few of their recent singles, and Catley's cameos on Avantasia albums, this is my first time really listening to the band.  I had read that this might be a good album to start with, as they finally establish their sound here, and it's a pretty unique one, blending the AOR of Styx and Asia with pretty crunchy, Saxon-like riffs.

The synthesizers are very up front, but they really match the NWOBHM riffing pretty well, with the fusion giving the songs an epic touch without feeling too floaty. Kicking off with some ambience, the album establishes this fused tone with the opener "Soldier on the Line," and carries it on with songs like "On the Edge of the World," "Sacred Hour," and "We All Play the Game."  They also have some proggy elements, as they aren't afraid to have a small section here and there to shake things up.  "Sacred Hour" does this really well, giving me Queen vibes.  Meanwhile, "Walking the Straight Line" definitely feels like a Foreigner track, though it isn't bad.

I admit I liked quite a bit of this, as it definitely has an interesting variety of sounds, between the hard rock guitar work and early 80s keyboards.  Vocalist Bob Catley definitely stands out, as his voice soars over everything, but it's full-throat, gritty kind of voice that really gives these songs a meaty and rich feel.  I can easily imagine their songs filling stadiums.  After such a solid first impression, I'll have to check out more from this band!

Asia - Aqua

Speaking of Asia, after doing their weird Then and Now album, I checked out their next one, which is the first in a long line of albums with John Payne as the vocalist and bassist.  While Steve Howe and Carl Palmer show up here and there on the album,  it's Al Pitrelli (later of Savatage, TSO, and Megadeth) who picks up a lot of the slack, resulting an album that has an interesting, stadium-friendly, soft rock style.

That's not to say that we've wandered far from the classic Asia formula.  Geoff Downes still brings is array of synthesizers to bear, and there are touches here and there of the old sound.  However, Pitrelli's chugging and occasionally shreddy solo feel like a continuation of Astra's push into AOR territory.  John Payne definitely as a more straight-forward rock voice compared to Wetton's, but I found it quite solid for what they're going for, as he sings with confidence.  The songs reminded me of some of the later Alan Parsons Project albums, or even Parsons's first solo album Try Anything Once quite a bit, as they also have that synth-heavy, AOR-plus kind of style.

The thing is, I actually quite liked it.  I felt the synths added a lot of atmosphere to the tracks, and more than once, the song would just ease into a middle section where the band just kinda go.  Not a jam or a solo, but just letting the atmosphere sink in.  The stand outs for me were "Lay Down Your Arms," "Heaven on Earth," "A Far Cry," and "Love Under Fire", but it's all relatively solid.  Even the two title tracks make for some interesting instrumental book-ends.  I admit I wasn't sure what to expect with a poppier form of Asia, but I'm pleasantly surprised by what I heard.

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Well, that wraps up another one of these.  I promise I'll focus on some current stuff again soon, as I've got a New Videos article lined up for the end of the month.  Until then, rock on! \m/

Anniversary Series - 1972!

A new year means a new batch of Anniversary articles!  Starting with 1972, we've got some pretty big albums reaching 50.  Rock was definitely expanding at this time, with progressive rock really starting to peak.  However, we also see some early evolutions of metal and hard rock as well.  Let's get into it.

Starting the year is actually a handful debut albums.  Blue Oyster Cult, Scorpions, and Styx would start their storied careers in the first quarter of 1972, with very little fanfare.  Scorpions and BOC were deep in the psychedelic rock style, and Styx was also very proggy, much like an American ELP, even featuring their own version of "Fanfare of the Common Man," which was used as part of a longer track.  However, all three had some of the hard rock crunch these bands would be known for later on.

That being said, the big album for the early part of the year was Deep Purple's Machine Head, which I reviewed nearly three years ago (where does the time go?).  Featuring their future hit "Smoke on the Water," the jam friendly "Space Truckin'," and proto-metal stomper "Highway Star," this album would celebrated years later as very influential for rockers around the world.

As the year goes on, we see many of the major prog rock releases.  Jethro Tull decided to pull a bit of a prank with their satirical concept album Thick as a Brick, which ended up becoming a celebrated masterpiece, despite (or, perhaps because of) the joke.  Pink Floyd would release Obscured by Clouds, a selection of songs the composed for a film that has pretty much since been forgotten if not for the Floyd connection.  I think it's a bit of an overlooked gem, with some neat little songs and spacy hammond organs.

However, the big prog releases came later, with ELP giving us Trilogy, Genesis dancing a Foxtrot, and Yes's titanic Close to the Edge.  Here, we see bands really pushing their song-writing limits, often writing epics that go over the 18 minute range.  I'm sure prog heads have their favorites, but for me, it's all about Close to the Edge and its masterful melodies and arrangements.  An incredible album from start to finish.

From here, the year gives us a few more highlights.  Eagles would also debut this year with their self-titled album providing several big hits with "Take It Easy," "Witchy Woman," and "Peaceful Easy Feeling."  In harder rock, Alice Cooper would let us know that "School's Out," and Black Sabbath would carry on with drug-addled Vol. 4.  Uriah Heep would release two albums this year, with Demons & Wizards and The Magician's Birthday, streamlining their own sound into a hard rocking outfit (and those Roger Dean covers are nice, too!).

Finally, the year would end with Deep Purple coming back with Made In Japan, a live album that wasn't even supposed to be released outside of it's titular country, but found itself in record players all over the world, with the band's improvisations extending their classic songs far beyond their original track lengths.  I enjoyed this one quite a bit myself when I reviewed it two years ago.

As you can see, this was quite the year for longer rock songs.  Fortunately, they're worth their runtime.  As always, I've got a playlist that has even more, and if you think I've missed something, let me know!  Until then, rock on! \m/

Last Played - February 2022!

I know I said I was going to get to 2022 stuff, but part of that are the upcoming anniversary articles, and in preparation of the first one, I'm going to do four albums from 1972!  These are all bands that I've been eager to learn more about and explore their discographies, so I was going to get to these eventually.  Still, these are some fascinating releases, even if some of them didn't really make major waves at the time.

Scorpions - Lonesome Crow

It's kind of weird to think that one of the biggest bands of the 80s had such an early start.  Brought together in the 60s by Rudolf Schenker and playing in a Merseybeat-style, the band would eventually bring in Rudolf's brother Michael and Klaus Meine in 1970 and start shifting toward a hard blues-rock sound.

Right off, this is a definitely far cry from the stadium-filling anthems the band would be known for, as it has a strong psychedelic sound.  Over the course of the album, I got vibes making me think of all kinds of bands from the era, like Cream, Grand Funk Railroad, Led Zeppelin, and some of that early bluesy Black Sabbath.  The songs drift from spacey to rockin' to jazzy and back without too much trouble.  However, the one thing that stands out is Klaus's vocals.  He really belts out some of these lines, showing that he was a great singer right from the start.  I don't know if anything really stood out to me from the album, but it grooves along quite nicely from beginning to end, especially the title track at the end, which is quite a neat jazz-fusion jam that goes for 13 minutes.

Of course, this version of the band would not last long.  Michael would get picked up by UFO, and the band then broke up.  Rudolf and Klaus would join Uli Jon Roth's band Dawn Road, only to change their name to Scorpions, as the name did have some recognition by then, and they figured they could build on it.  Still, it's a decent start for them, and hasn't aged that badly, honestly.

Blue Öyster Cult - Blue Öyster Cult

Blue Öyster Cult is another one of those bands where I know the two big songs, but haven't really dig into their catalog much.  I did listen to Agents of Fortune once, and was surprised to get a variety of songs instead of stuff more like "Don't Fear the Reaper."  Since then, I've learned to expand my expectations with this band.  I tried to keep this in mind as I listened to their debut, which certainly has some different moods throughout.

Drawing comparisons (as I usually do), it felt like a mix of Grand Funk Railroad, early Eagles, and some Deep Purple, all flavored with a song sense of psychedelic mysticism.  Sometimes it would be more rockin', such as "Transmaniacon MC," "Stairway to the Stars," and "Workshop of the Telescopes."  But other times, it would back into more moody territory, with "Before the Kiss, a Redcap" and "Screams."  Then you have "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll" which has a stronger Sabbath vibe with some King Crimson thrown in.  And then "Redeemed" feels like CCR, with a bit of a folky twang.  However, through it all are some pretty decent performances.  Buck does a lot of great noodly leads on guitar, and Albert Bouchard has some fascinating jazzy style drumming.

However, overall, I don't know if the overall album really hangs together.  I can definitely see the appeal in a rock band that doesn't stick to one thing, but shifts around with different kind of grooves and feels.  But I don't know if I'm quite "converted" to the cult yet.  I'll probably need to listen to more of their stuff (which I plan to, eventually), but for now, this was a decent mix of curious rock songs.

Uriah Heep - Demons and Wizards

Carrying on with my quest of early Uriah Heep, this is just the first of two albums they released in 1972.  It also marks when they finally got their classic lineup together, which would last for the next handful of albums.  Right off, this album is actually pretty different from their previous two, leaving behind a lot of their Purple influences and providing some solid hard rock.

The Vanilla Fudge vibes do remain, though, resulting in songs that feel like a mix of 60s and 70s sounds.  The vocal harmonies are still on point, and Hensley's hammonds are still very much the core of the band's sound, but it does feel like the band is growing into its own now.  "Easy Livin'," is an obvious stand out with its rockin' vibe, but I really liked "Rainbow Demon" with its slower, ominous sound, almost like a 70s doom metal track.  Between the rockers are some ballads with "The Wizard" and "Paradise," which have some singer-songwriter vibes.  I also feel like there's an increase in Pink Floyd influences, with "Paradise" making me think of "Fearless," and "The Spell" having a middle section reminiscent of Floyd's more moody passages, with a very melodic, Gilmour-esque guitar lead.

I can tell they're getting more cohesive in their songwriting, and putting more thought into their songs.  They've also streamlined their style as well, as I felt there wasn't as my jam-friendly moments.  They're definitely talented folks, but I don't know if I was really blown away by anything here.  Still, I'm curious to see where they go from here, and once again, you won't have to wait for long!

Uriah Heep - The Magician's Birthday

Uriah Heep got a Moog!  You can tell because they add all these spacy synths to their songs, like a kid with a new toy.  Seriously, though, this album definitely shows a shift in a spacier direction, as I picked up vibes similar to Pink Floyd and early David Bowie.  Of course, the vocal harmonies from Vanilla Fudge still remain, but I suppose that was relatively standard for 70s rock, by the end.  I still don't know if I feel like this band has their own sound or not, but they still have a knack for some interesting rock songs.

The main thing I noticed with this album (other than the Moog), is even more streamlining in their songwriting.  It really is fascinating how, in three years, their sound went from the jam-friendly Purple sound to this more concise style that feels very FM-radio friendly.  Still, a few tracks stood out.  "Sunrise" is a solid opener with some good dynamics, and "Sweet Lorraine" features more rocking and some interesting sounds from their new toy.  As for the rest, "Blind Eye" had some neat dual guitar leads, and "Tales" reminded me of "Starman" by Bowie.  The big epic title track was also curious, and a bit silly.  It kicked off with a Zeppelin-y riff, threw in a kazoo, had some very awkward transitions, and featured a long middle section that would shift between a guitar solo and chaos.  Probably not their best work, honestly, but the solo had some good moments.  Mick Box certainly has some range in his playing.

However, I think the biggest takeaway I had is just how much of their music made me think of Styx, and I wonder if they were big fans of Uriah Heep as they were starting out, as I can easily see the comparisons: vocal harmonies, hard rock riffs, dramatic lyrics, and dynamic use of keyboards and organs.  As for The Magician's Birthday, I don't think it was as strong as Demons and Wizards or Look At Yourself, but it had some neat moments.

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Well, that was fun.  Uriah Heep is band I knew very little about, so blasting through a handful of their albums has been an interesting experience.  I probably need to listen to them some more to really get a feel for them and their sound, but they clearly had a good thing going, and were very influential on a lot of later bands.

Next will be that 1972 Anniversary article, but then I plan to get back into some new releases, or at least music that isn't 50 years old.  Still, I enjoy digging into the past and checking out these kinds of albums, not only for archeological purposes, but to recognize that there is so much more than what gets played on classic rock stations.  In any case, here's hoping to another year of listening to great rock music, past or present.  Until then, rock on! \m/