As the year comes to a close, I'm realizing that there are a lot of albums I want to catch up on! While I won't go as overboard as I did last year in try to listen to as many albums as possible, I foresee at least a few more Last Played articles before 2022 finishes, starting with this one. Featuring a decent mix of rock and metal, here's what I've been listening to lately.
While I don't cover thrash metal too often, there are a few bands that I feel qualify for this blog, and this is certainly one of the biggest ones. While Megadeth can be kind of hit-and-miss for me, I did like their last album Dystopia quite a bit. So was I certainly curious when their follow up would be, all these years later. Of course, between now and then, they certainly hit some setbacks, including Dave's cancer and a scandal that caused a quick change in bassists (otherwise known as a Tuesday in Megadeth's chaotic history), but they still came out swinging.
Right off, you get another slab of good guitar riffs, melodies, and solos, but you knew that by looking at the name on the cover. This album definitely brings back in some of the classic experimentation, though, with shifts in tempo and tone halfway through some of these songs, "Dogs of Chernobyl" and "Mission to Mars" being prime examples. The lyrics are the typical Mustaine topics of social commentary and personal struggles, so those familiar with the band's catalog won't find many surprises, overall. Even when Ice-T shows up on "Night Stalkers," it almost feels like an afterthought than any kind of true change-up.
I'm sure the fans will be (and have been) pleased with the band's newest effort, but if you haven't caught the Megadeth bug, this album won't change your mind. While I think it's about as good as Dystopia, that one was very straight-forward and streamlined. The Sick, The Dying... and the Dead broadens the songwriting out much like some of their classic 80s material, making it probably the more interesting than the last one. I quite liked the title track, the thrashy "Life In Hell," and the sarcastic "Célebutante." Overall, it's a decent collection of melodic thrash that carries on the band's legacy well, but doesn't really do much more than that.
I think I stumbled across this band watching some old 80s music videos, and came across their video for "F.T.W." from their first album, Metalized. When I dug up the rest of that album, I found it to be a really solid chunk of traditional metal. However, I had neglected their second album, and with their third album on the horizon, I figured I had some catching up to do. As it turns out, this is a very curious and fascinating follow-up to their debut.
Right off, there are a few things that stand out. First is that the production is a little cleaner. While they don't dip into glam territory, you can tell they were able to work with some better equipment. However, their sound is a chunky as every, with plenty of beefy riffs. The next thing I noticed is that, while the Metalized did embrace a lot of metal tropes and mainly stayed in a US power metal style, this album is definitely more diverse, as if the band was searching to broaden their horizons a little. The first half of the album, including the title track opener, is actually slower and doomier, reminiscent of Cirith Ungol. It's not until you get to their fifth and sixth tracks ("Prepare to Die" and "Caught in the Act") do we get anything like the speed and aggression of their first album. Then, after those, things definitely take a divergence as "Until Death Do Us Part" has this 6/8 swing step, with a lot of bluesy licks. "The Threat" sees the band get a little proggy, making me think of early Savatage, and the final track "State of Shock" is more of a punk rock song, with a d-beat stomping out the rhythm. The lyrics also move towards social commentary, not unlike Megadeth (coincidentally enough).
Despite all these shifts in style, though, they definitely still sound like Sword. Rick Hughes is wailing his guts out, and he sounds great. However, the best performance has to go to Mike Plant on guitars. Not only are the riffs interesting and catchy, but the solos are incredible as he shreds his fingers to pieces! Guitar fans will find plenty to like on this, I think.
Overall, I think it's a decent album. I'm not sure it's as good as Metalized, but I probably need to spin this several more times to really decide, as this album has a lot to unpack. The tracks that stood out to me are the title track, "The Trouble Is," "Prepare to Die," and "Caught in the Act." While I think they did lose a bit of the menace from the first album, Sweet Dreams shows a band willing to explore and push their sound into new territory without messing with what worked from the new album, with some interesting and enjoyable results.
Despite enjoying the singles for this album back in 2020, it kinda fell off my radar until they announced a follow up for 2022, so I decided to give this Frontiers-style supergroup a serious listen. With Robin McAuley on vocals and Reb Beach (co-founder of Winger and currently with Whitesnake as well), this album revels in that late 80s hard rock sound, where some of the pop metal bands shifted into bluesier territory.
The album starts off with the singles, with "Shake the World" and "Big Disaster doing a great job of setting the tone, and the rest of the songs carry that through to the end. The rhythm section of Jeff Pilson and Matt Starr perform well, but McAuley definitely steals the show with his soaring vocals. Beach's guitar solos range from bluesy to shreddy, serving the songs quite well. However, one problem that does kind of plague the album is that most of these songs have some pretty long outros. I suppose they give the song some room, as well as some time for Beach to throw in a few more licks, but they mostly seemed to just stretch the songs out. The one exception to that is "The Rock That Rolled Away," which ends up being quite the mini-epic. After the second chorus, the song shifts into a bridge that first throws down a heavy riff, before changing over to a choir of vocals, building the song quite well into an outro that's quite a solid jam.
As always, reviewing these retro rock bands is always tough because they're definitely aiming for a specific target, and they quite often hit their mark. For what it's worth, there are very few keyboards, so those who prefer their hard rock to be more guitar-focused will find a lot to like here. Followers of the individual members of the band will likely enjoy this as being more of their respective catalogs. Perhaps not the most exciting album, it serves up a solid slab of 80s-styled rockers, meant to please the fans, if nothing else.
When this project first came together, I enjoyed their first album quite a bit. However, I wasn't certain if this was going to be a one-off thing or not, so it was with quite some delight when I discovered they were working on a follow-up. While I liked their three singles, much of the album remains in the symphonic metal template they established with the first album.
That's not to say it's a straight-up carbon copy of what the project had done before. First of all, Karlsson's arrangements are certainly broader, really getting some interesting work in the orchestrations and layers, and his guitar work is solid as ever. While his solos alternate nicely between shreddy and melodic, I feel like he upped the game on some of those riffs, giving them quite the Primal Fear crunch. Another interesting difference is that the two singers sing on all the songs this time, instead of having some songs feature only one of the singers, which makes the album feel more whole, I think. In any case, both of them give a great performance, singing with gusto and power, though I do think Allen sometimes gets buried a little among all the layers.
While the first album was certainly a solid start, it definitely felt like a collection of songs, while Army of Dreamers feels more like a cohesive album, where the songs are stronger together. Of course, it remains very comfortably within the symphonic metal genre, with very few surprises for fans, but it's very well executed. Cheesy, bombastic, and making good use of the talents on board, this project demonstrates that it has plenty of power and majesty all the way through Army of Dreamers. Here's hoping for a third album!
To be honest, I don't think I've found my obvious choice for the best of 2022. This might be like 2020 where my Top 5 was quite the struggle to pull together and organize. Still, there are some great albums I haven't gotten to that could be contenders. I've got Dragonland, Disturbed, Iron Allies, Alter Bridge, and plenty of others on my list to check out, so keep an eye out for those in the future. Until then, rock on! \m/
