Thank You

Steve Harris - Iron Maiden (c) Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Well, chums, I'm afraid it's come to that point where I must wind down The Metal Minute.

I've had to step aside once before, but I've reached an impasse where my familial obligations and new avenues of opportunity have forced me into this decision. I'm not trying to pull a Brett Favre here, folks. I simply lack the personal time as a working man, father and husband and I find myself with continued pressure to find compensating work in order to protect my family and nurture my growth as a writer.

I have multiple projects in progress and a couple of decent leads to hopefully push me forward in what I love doing. At the same time, I must continue to hunt for extra income in order to scratch out a living. Those who've read me a long time know the past few years have presented more challenge than reward and this year is no exception. Sorry, but the starving artist method doesn't work for me. The bills need paid and my son is growing so quickly as kids do. I have to be his father on top of a writer and therein lies the rub. I love music and I've cherished the opportunity to be a rock journalist all these years, but I love my family more and they must come first. Thus The Metal Minute must take an indefinite nap.

The site will remain live, of course, but as mentioned last week, I do have a new blog I would like to coax you over to, The Crash Pad of Ray Van Horn, Jr. Simply click here:
The Crash Pad of Ray Van Horn, Jr.

The Crash Pad of Ray Van Horn, Jr. will be updated regularly. In fact, there's plenty of material there for you to gnaw on right now, so please visit and bookmark the site as you have so generously with this one. I will gladly trade links with you. The tone of the new blog will be less regimented but I'll still talk about film, music, books and life. Its primary purpose will serve as a homebase for all of my writing projects and announcements, plus whatever's lurking inside my twisted cranium. As support for the site grows, I could foresee throwing up archive excerpts of a few old interviews I've done and perhaps new ones. For instance, I have chats with Jaz Coleman of Killing Joke, Laura Pleasants of Kylesa and Viveca Hawkins and Thomas Pridgen of The Memorials that I've had stashed, two for Retaliate #2 before said venture was derailed.

I will remain connected to the entertainment industry. If anything, I've only just begun to grow with it. I welcome any proposed assignments, gigs, collaborations and grant opportunities. Please contact me using the email address noted here at the site and pitch away! Or simply let me know what you folks are up to and bounce on over to The Crash Pad.

As always, I thank each and every one of you for making this site a success. All of the bands, labels, video distributors and publicists have kept me fired up when coffee doesn't necessarily cut it in the mornings. Thanks to Devin Walsh, Alex Gilbert and those donating their writing talents to give me a break now and then when I needed one. Special thanks to Sheila Eggenberger for more than a year's worth of off-site camaraderie. Her social network cheerleading of this site was mega. Thanks to my regular commentators and playlist playmates. The Negative Nancies and potshot artists were thankfully kept to a minimum here at The Metal Minute, always a good thing when you're building your rep. I'm honored to have all of you in my stable of friends. To the thundering tune of Black Tusk and Chthonic this morning, I'm with you always.

I'll see you when I see you.


Visit me at: The Crash Pad of Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Album/DVD Review: Doro - 25 Years in Rock

Doro - 25 Years in Rock
2011 Nuclear Blast Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Gads, can Doro Pesch throw a party. No doubt the memories of her 25th anniversary bash are still fresh in Doro's mind, to which she must be clinging in the aftershock of losing her Long Island home from the remnants Hurricane Irene. Hopefully at this point, the metal queen is licking her wounds watching the playback of her CD/DVD combo pack, 25 Years in Rock, because it was one hell of a show. As if her 20th anniversary concert wasn't memorable enough.

Five years have swept by since Doro's famous double decade gala (i.e. 20 Years a Warrior Soul) in her hometown of Dusseldorf, Germany. That outrageous revelry included guest appearances by Lemmy and Mikkey Dee of Motorhead, Udo Dirkschneider, Saxon, Blaze Bailey, Jean Beauvoir and a stint with her old Warlock running mates. It was a metal gig for the ages, yet for her quarter century celebration, Doro ups the ante with a major league stage set, pyro tech, metalhead cheerleaders, backing vocalists dressed like monks and an unbelievable cavalcade of guests.

Back to Dusseldorf we go for 25 Years in Rock and this is one of the loudest crowds you'll ever witness in a near-capacity-filled auditorium which Doro and her band pummels with tenacity. Even better that the two-and-a-half hour, 27 song set comprising 25 Years in Rock is loaded nearly halfway with Warlock songs on top of some of Doro Pesch's mightier solo cuts, including some from her most recent album, Fear No Evil. A generous portion of the Warlock tunes are fielded by Doro's current ensemble featuring Johnny Dee (drums), Oli Polatai (keys and guitars), Luca Princiotta (guitars and keys), Nick Douglas (bass) and Joe Taylor (guitars). While these guys are well-versed in the Warlock catalog having played with Doro for so long, it's still a giddy thing they whip out "Earthshaker Rock" and "Hellraiser" from Hellbound on top of the usual round of Triumph and Agony cuts "East Meets West," "Metal Tango," "I Rule the Ruins," "Fur Immer" and of course, Doro's perpetual rally cry, "All We Are."

Even better the True as Steel lineup of Warlock joins Doro onstage once again for a blistering mini set of "Burning the Witches," "True as Steel" and "Fight For Rock." Peter Szigeti and Niko Arvanitis are demonic shredders as ever, while Frank Rittel and Michael Eurich haven't lost a step either. This Warlock quasi-reunion is nothing short of spectacular, even more so than they were for Doro's 20th anniversary set. Next time, though, we want to hear "Mr. Gold," chums.

Speaking of spectacular, Doro's guest list for 25 Years in Rock is going to remain amongst her finest moments onstage. You have Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth joining Doro for a rocking duet on "Always Live to Win," Jean Beauvoir making a second shindig appearance on "Burn it Up," Chris Boltendahl and Axel Rudi Pell riding shotgun on "East Meets West" and even Warrel Dane steps up to the plate during the Warlock set on "True as Steel." The centerpieces of Doro's guests are of course, her femme rocker vocal section on "Celebrate," including Sabina Classen of Holy Moses, Floor Jansen of After Forever, Jackie Chambers and Enid Williams from Girlschool, Liv Kristine Espenaes Krull of Leaves' Eyes, Liv Jagrell from Sister Sin and Ji-In Cho of Krypteria. Doro unintentionally overpowers her party-down backing section, but you can chalk that up to Doro's enthusiasm and her guests' graciousness to keep the spotlight where it needs to be. As it is, Doro and Tarja Turunen just about bring Dusseldorf to its knees on their duet for "Walking With the Angels."

All pretty incredible stuff, but nothing compared to Klaus Meine and Rudy Schenker coming onstage with Doro's band to rip out a pair of Scorpions covers, "Big City Nights" and "Rock You Like a Hurricane." This suddenly-iconic joining of forces ignites 25 Years in Rock with profound intensity. Meine and Schenker escalate the show with their mere presence and while Doro gags in a couple of spots (no doubt due to the unbelievable pressure set before her to throw down with the kingly Klaus), she soon revs it up along with her band and without a doubt, this will go down as a watermark in Doro's prolific career.

Happier still is how thunderous Doro's Fear No Evil selections sound live. The frequently tinny final cut of the studio album robbed much of its power, now retained in a live capacity. "Night of the Warlock," "Herzblut," "Celebrate" and "Walking With the Angels" are punchy, occasionally rowdy and perfectly punctuated.

25 Years in Rock comes as a triple pack with the live DVD, a hefty behind-the-scenes film (not to mention a huge gaggle of extra live video from Doro's 2,500th concert, Wacken 2009 and more) and a 40 minute audio accompaniment of selections from the show. All-told, one massive replay of a metal fiesta for the ages. Once the stage fills with more metal personalities than you count (Lemmy Kilmister, Tom Angelripper and Alexander Krull amongst them) during "All We Are," it's sheer evidence of how treasured Doro Pesch is to this scene. God bless Doro for as long as she can rock us with her majesty.

Rating: ****1/2

Album Review: Death - Individual Thought Patterns Reissue

Death - Individual Thought Patterns 3CD reissue
2011 Relapse Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



1993 was when I graduated college and entered a crummy, recession-driven job market not altogether unlike the one we're in now. In some ways, I find irony that Death's outrageously memorable Individual Thought Patterns surfaces in both markets. This year, Relapse Records brings us Chuck Schuldiner's fifth album under the Death moniker in a special three-disc reissue featuring live material, a studio outtake of "The Exorcist" and four track demos amidst the bonus features.

Wish I'd tripped across Individual Thought Patterns in 1993 instead of later in life, but you see, the American metal market had been driven underground by apathy and an effective determination to rid the world of hairball heaven. I had already drifted away from metal to explore other genres, though still keeping an ear out for exciting things in the heavy underground. Too bad this one missed my radar initially. As rash a statement as this will be, I now find little in the grunge movement (except for maybe Mudhoney and early Soundgarden) which killed American metal that stands up from a craftsmanship standpoint to Individual Thought Patterns, not to mention Schuldiner's work surrounding this pivotal release. Had the metal world embraced Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic--not to mention the likewise brilliant Sound of Perseverence from 1998--would the genre have gone down so easily? There's plenty of excuses to dismiss metal and hard rock with Slaughter and Firehouse as its facemen. No excuse whatsoever when you had music as powerful as Death still chugging along beneath the fluff and the glitz.

Consider the superpower lineup flanking Chuck Schuldiner in '93 to record Individual Thought Patterns: Andy LaRoque, Steve DiGiorgio and Gene Hoglan. Of this triumvirate, only LaRoque was a metal household name at the time for his stature as King Diamond's six string impresario. Set against a shredding god like Chuck Schuldiner? Criminey, that's worth your ticket alone. While DiGiorgio and Sadus had farmed a cult audience, the hotshot story of the Individual Thought Patterns ensemble is naturally Gene Hoglan, today one of the hottest drummers on the planet.

If you're reading this, you're more than likely well-acquainted with Individual Thought Patterns, but the quick skinny on this album is that it remains one of Schuldiner's most supreme efforts--and metal's, by attrition. The logical evolution stemmed from 1990's Spiritual Healing and '91's Human, Individual Thought Patterns cultivates an intricate and effortless mash between death metal, thrash and power punch. This is undoubtedly what Schuldiner envisioned before there was ever such a thing as 1987's Scream Bloody Gore.

While Schuldiner has his share of critics (namely those he'd shown the gate over the constant fluctuation of his creative designs), this is one of his statement pieces as a music writer. Even if you don't have the constitution to roll with such ferocity and careening speed, you have to admire Schuldiner's fearless outlining on Individual Thought Patterns. He was one of the first metal freaks aside from Voivod to allow for prog and jazz elements amidst the careening speed, which Individual Thought Patterns well embraces. "Destiny" is a prime example, but you hear it all over the place on this album, thanks in large portion to Steve DiGiorgio's subliminal funk-a-matics.

You still get plenty of velocity throughout this album along with a then-strange musicality. It's so much you understand Schuldiner's ralphing and permissive signature veers which invite periods of scale-driven harmonies on "Out of Touch," "In Human Form," "Nothing is Everything" and "Mentally Blind." Let's not forget "Trapped in a Corner" and "The Philosopher," the latter of which actually made the cut at MTV. "Trapped in a Corner" features some insane jazzy bass from Steve DiGiorgio, even while the song bursts with faster thrash than most anyone playing metal in 1993--though Napalm Death and Morbid Angel would soon change those rules. "The Philosopher" may be the slowest cut on this album (you know MTV wasn't going to take one for "Overactive Imagination" if Schuldiner had cut a video), but it's an ornate distortion bomb dashed by heavy riffs and more of DiGiorgio's say what? Herbie Hancock-esque note plunks.

Of course, the most savory details of Individual Thought Patterns are shared between Chuck Schuldiner and Andy LaRoque, yet the collective efforts thrown into this album are why it is now revered--if not back in 1993. MTV was cool enough to throw Death into its confused rotation, though they disrespectfully served "The Philosopher" up for Beavis and Butthead's verbal cannonade after the cartoon rejects find out that's not the kid from Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" video. As if. No disrespect intended to Pearl Jam, but they couldn't light one of Chuck Schuldiner's farts in the technicality department, though no doubt Beavis and Butthead would welcome such a prospect with maniacal huffing and hawing.

This edition of Individual Thought Patterns is remastered by the illustrious Steve Douches and comes with two CDs of bonus material including a live set from 1993 in Germany. Amongst the live tracks are "Leprosy," "Lack of Comprehension," "Zombie Ritual," "Flattening of Emotions," "Suicide Machine" and "Living Monstrosity," along with "Overactive Imagination," "In Human Form" and "Trapped In a Corner" from Individual Thought Patterns. The third disc contains Individual Thought Patterns demos noodled by Chuck and Gene Hoglan on a four track in December, 1992.

We may living in a recession again, but the times have changed for metal. It's still underground but there's an unspoken respect factor from artists playing other styles, while the late Chuck Schuldiner is now one of the most respected musicians of his time. He may have invited bad karma unto himself by naming his band Death, but his music has become immortal. Individual Thought Patterns is but one chapter in his massive legacy.

Rating: ****1/2

Van of the Dead DVD Review: The Howling Reborn

The Howling Reborn
2011 Anchor Bay Entertainment
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Of all the franchises to reboot, they just hadda go to the turd cutting Howling series...

Never mind the fact Joe Dante's original film The Howling in 1981 is mostly considered a genre classic, even though it veered away from Gary Brandner's original novel. Howling IV: The Original Nightmare is the closest to Brandner's vision, yet the six sequels following Dante's began a chain of abysmal wretchedness beginning with Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf, one of the most despicable movies ever shot, pick your genre. Not even the heavenly rack of Sybil Danning nor the appearance of Christopher Lee could rescue that turkey. It never really got any better along the way, festering to pointlessness by the time 1995's cruddy Howling VII: New Moon Rising hit the video shelves. Even the interminable Witchcraft series was slightly better than those Howling sequels, and that's saying very little.

Yet here we are again in 2011 with The Howling Reborn, another attempt to breathe honor into a miserable slew of horror dreck. For the second time, Gary Brandner's The Howling II novel is consulted and promptly abandoned. Howling II the film resembled almost nothing of Brandner's vision and while it's a surprisingly decent entry for the first hour anyway, The Howling Reborn takes inspiration from Brandner in the slightest sense and creates its own contemporary stamp upon this series.

Starring Landon Liboiron (Terra Nova), Lindsey Shaw (10 Things I Hate About You) and Ivana Milicevic (Casino Royale), The Howling Reborn offers nothing in tribute to any of its predecessors. It is its own beast, pun intended. For awhile, The Howling Reborn plays like a teen angst Twilight vehicle for werewolves, but ultimately it falls to pieces in a slipshod finale with lame-o wolf digs and a Nowheresville battle resembling the hopeless ending of The Wolf Man remake.

Landon Liboiron plays Will Kidman, a pencil thin high school senior whom, we learn immediately, has a serious problem. He's a freakin' werewolf, borne from a mother who's supposedly killed in an attack from a lycanthrope. As Will nears graduation, he finally bonds with Lindsey Shaw's edgy punkette, Eliana Wynter--whom Will has maintained a longtime crush on. He's sketched her numerous times but has never had the nerve to approach her. Of course, the big reason for that is Eliana has a mad dog Russian boyfriend who routinely kicks the crap out of Will. Will, however, soon flips out and kills the boyfriend en route to the discovery he carries tainted blood.

The Howling Reborn tricks its audience into thinking Eliana is allied with the creepy teen wolf pack skulking around an urban parochial-esque school--one heavily guarded with steel doors. Really, her dark jaggedness is a ruse to push Will into finding his confidence and making his move in her direction. Eliana happens to be falling for him from a distance. Despite a couple of continuity flubs, the bottom line is Eliana's vampish tough girl persona is an act as her refusal to commit body and soul to a man is held in check in wait of the purest form of love. Naturally Will represents this higher love, even as a werewolf. Consequently, Eliana becomes so dedicated to Will she offers him a pact to let him transform her into a werewolf so they can be together eternally. Never mind Eliana never really grieves for her ex-boyfriend, whom Will has shredded. None of it matters after Will puts himself on the line for her once challenged by the werewolf pack hell-bent on recruiting him into their throng. Eliana will face Hell itself with Will at this point.

It's when Will's mother Catherine (Ivana Milicevic) resurfaces in a slinkier image and as the alpha leader of this werewolf clique where Will is forced to make the choice between Eliana or surrendering to the wolfsbane summoning him to the next phase of evolution.

Again, the first hour of The Howling Reborn is relatively well-crafted and for the most part, intriguing. A plus, the acting is tight, the occasional humor (mostly provided by Will's best friend Sachin) is spot-on and for awhile anyway, it seems like director Joe Nimziki has his act together. You allow him the suspension of disbelief hall pass because Nimziki really does seem to want to give horror fans a memorable werewolf flick. With Will videotaping his transformation as evidence lycanthropes exist, all set to go viral as a global warning, this is a pleasant twist upon a beat-to-death genre.

Will is somewhat sympathetic, his widower father is reasonably tragic (later getting picked up and pummeled by his own wife in an unrecognizable form) and Eliana is a plain Jane with an attitude who rocks a plaid skirt and you actually believe she's in love with Will. You're disappointed she doesn't shag him in the library once breathlessly testing his limits, not so much for the nudity scorned, but because you actually care. Point to Nimziki, also one of the film's principal writers. Even though the rave scene where Eliana coaxes Will out to finally meet her face-to-face is unstable due to some overly shifty maneuvers where Nimziki clouds who is who in the werewolf underground lurking at the dance party, we still want to see these kids together...at that point, anyway.

It's when Catherine and her werewolf brood entraps her son and Eliana inside the school with the graduation ceremony going down outside when this film takes a downward spiral. The creatures are bland and unexciting, while the edits of the werewolf attacks are choppy and dizzying. You can tell this is low budget horror by the quick and annoying framing of those ho-hum werewolves. It has nothing to do with establishing fear and paranoia. It's because the costumes stink. God, for the awesome dinner party scene from The Company of Wolves... Strange, though, how the brief but effective slivers of CGI-aided transformations of Catherine's lycanthrope army come long after the hokey showdown. A case of being too much, too late once they come. We needed them far earlier in the film instead of being part of a rush job in an uninspired deneumont.

The film's messy closing finds Eliana emphatically coaxing Will to make love to her and turn her into a werewolf. He does surrender and rakes her back with his claws in partial transformation. By this time, we no longer care about watching them hump, because it's all so clumsy and dumb--especially with a handful of lycanthropes circulating about the school on their trails. Even though Nimziki takes precaution by having Will and Eliana throw discarded pieces of clothing to "throw off" their scents, you just don't buy into it any longer. This is supposed to be looked upon as Eliana's penultimate sacrifice and there's a noble offscreen narrative from Will while he plunges his face into her breasts (sorry fellas, they don't come out) about his generation having no concept of what true love is. Unfortunately, its placement within a high tension moment is just out of rhythm. We needed this revelation in a more intimate setting for us to give a damn.

Eliana naturally later arrives in the nick of time, herself a werewolf, to save Will an inglorious dispatching at the paws of Mommy Wolfie. Meanwhile, the graduation ceremonies are ensuing outside the school in a downpour while all of this stupid carnage ensues. Say what? It's a real shame, this implausibility, because the majority of Joe Nimziki's storyline inside the school is plenty plausible, save for the fact nobody (along with Eliana) seems to give a rat's ass the Russian boyfriend bit it in the stairwell. Even though you suspect there's something awry with Ivana Milicevic when she briefly soothes Will outside school, there's something promising in her prediction of his revenge that doesn't get capitalized on. Yeah, a later scene of Will being served the finger of Eliana's ex on a hot dog roll by one of the clandestine werewolves in the school cafeteria is hilarious, but it's also indication this film is going straight downhill from there.

The Howling Reborn becomes so much of a cheat you don't even care about the epilogue snippets within the end credits. Will's video goes viral across the planet, the world prepares to stand down against a werewolf invasion, electricity goes out to the tune of a...you know what. Whatever.

Seriously, The Howling Reborn might've stood a better chance directly remaking Dante's film, even if it deserves props for trying to roll on its own merits. The merits keep your attention for awhile, but in the end, we want Dee Wallace Stone to show up and rain havoc with a spray of silver-tipped ammunition to lay the whole enterprise to rest, permanently. We'll never get that lucky, though.

Book Review: The Armageddon Chord by Jeremy Wagner

The Armageddon Chord by Jeremy Wagner
2011 kNight Romance Publishing
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



You might know Jeremy Wagner, guitarist from Broken Hope and Lupara. Over the years, you might've read Wagner in the pages of Rip, Terrorizer and Metal Edge. The guy's a metalhead and he has some cred, suffice it to say. He has the qualifications to pen a novel about a metal shredder pit against the forces of evil in a guitar throwdown for the end of days.

The Armageddon Chord is Wagner's debut novel and therein lies the caveat. Wagner's expertise on guitar gear and stage and studio mechanics are par excellence. Also sharp is his knowledge on Egyptian and biblical history. These collide in a quirky R-rated Tales From the Darkside episode, The Armageddon Chord, a story where an unsympathetic guitar wizard is forced by a slimy corporate villain and his deformed Nazi sidekick into opening the gates of Hell.

Wagner's lead, Kirk Vaisto, is considered in this novel's cosmos, the God of Guitar. Kirk, former guitarist of a sleaze rock band, Cardinal Slynn, is running the ruts of a prolific solo career. The most we know of Kirk Vaisto is he rose to fame as a teenage prodigy and currently lives in swank without someone to love, save for his one night stands. Vaisto is relatively comfortable as a loner despite his fame, which leaves him ripe for the wooing by a pair of satanists, conglomerate overlord Festus Baustone and his Hitler-worshipping Egyptologist, Helmut Hartkopff. Helmut has unearthed a lost papyrus of music, the key to raising the devil from his underworld chamber. Helmut's hated financier Baustone simply craves immortality and considers no monetary figure high enough to achieve eternal life, even if life consists of a wasteland thereafter. As we learn, Baustone is so depraved he'll sell out his own offspring to get what he wants. The powermad partners in sin thus seek out Vaisto as a musical medium to finish the translations into playable music form and to expound them as a death sentence against mankind.

The plot of The Armageddon Chord is as nutty as it sounds. Vaisto unwittingly discovers the evil powers lurking behind the music once he scorches them from his bleeding fingers. His studio fries after playing it the first time and possessed by the music, Vaisto is introduced to horrific visions of death orgies, demon armies scalding the earth and his own carcass strapped to a giant guitar. Though he wants nothing to do with the music after learning its destructive capacities, Vaisto is coerced by Baustone and Hartkopff into fulfilling his contractual obligations and worse, extending them to their devious whims. Like Vader to Lando Calrissian, the deal just gets worse.

Along the way, Vaisto finds his former bandmate, Jack Slynn, who was reported to have died, though we learn Slynn has gone underground in fear of of his life. Slynn attracted Baustone's undivided attention after getting his daughter Mona, pregnant, then using her like a piece of trash, going so far as to kick her the gut while carrying their child. Wagner's introduction of Slynn is more the excuse to bring Mona Baustone into the picture. Mona oversees Kirk's translation progress and, go figure, they do the hump-dee-hump and fall in in love. Their bond is "cemented" when Daddy Baustone treats her like a pawn, worse than Jack Slynn ever did.

Vaisto is also confronted by a strange old priest, Father Zacharelli, who brings Kirk a guitar made of fragments from the sacred cross and nails used to crucify Jesus Christ. Though Vaisto is dubious of it all, Zacharelli convinces Vaisto enough to accept the holy guitar, which becomes an instrument of salvation once Kirk has unleashed Hell in a concert spectacle that rattles the entire planet.

To Wagner's credit, he has the guts to show Satan as pure evil and he, better than Stryper ever did, shows the glory of God in the name of metal. As Lucifer really is just a mascot of heavy metal, The Armaggedon Chord taps into the deceiver's vile propensities and exploits them for his story almost as effectively as Mercyful Fate's Don't Break the Oath. A lot of folks reading this story are going to chuckle when Helmut turns into a demon and literally pisses on the dismembered remains of his former benefactor. They're also likely to squint when Wagner has Satan declare himself the brother of Christ and morphs his image into a like representation of Jesus in the attempt to manipulate Kirk.

On the other hand, however, Wagner's novel is full of faults, the sign of a developing writer. You don't really buy into the romance between Kirk and Mona because there's not much glue between them before they skin it and shag one another. You would think Kirk is dubious of Mona, reported by Jack Slynn to be a stalker extreme, albeit the argument could be made Kirk has a soft side for the troubles she'd endured by Jack. Yes, people meet and are smitten by instant attraction, but to have Kirk suddenly cave in to Mona just because they got vertical? There could've been more potatoes with the meat to make us understand why they fell for one another. Love at first fuck? Only in Bon Scott's microcosm.

Worse, you have to wonder how a non-believer suddenly converted after God has chosen him to eradicate the devil has the wherewithal to continue his filthy conduct of speak after all he's been through. Vaisto is literally saved in the story's climax and embraces God's will to act as His channel. There's something virtuous God saw in Kirk Vaisto that Wagner implies but doesn't follow up on. We're to assume Vaisto's God-given gift of virtuosity was bestowed upon him as God's future knight specifically for this showdown. Okay, so we don't expect Vaisto to go puritan afterwards, but all of the excessive profanity in the final chapter tells us Vaisto isn't better off whatsoever for his traumas. Sure, he's reaming out his scuzbag manager for getting him into this mess, but you would think Vaisto learned a little humility.

A lot of the names of things, people and events are schlocky, as if Wagner subconciously mashed Mad and Hustler magazines with Hit Parader in his brain stew. Those, and Spawn comics. Consider band names like Korncobb, Snothole and Armored Darlings, a singer named Dizzy Letchfield and a guitarist named Bag 'O Shit Boggs. Seriously? At one point, the devil speaks like an old woman as he badgers Vaisto. Umm, does anyone else start saying "Why you do this to me, Dami?" in their heads? That's from The Exorcist, in case you miss the reference. While The Armageddon Chord has been compared to Joe Lansdale by one reviewer, Writer of the Purple Sage and Bubba Ho-Tep this is not. Wagner has a minute touch of Lansdale's bizarre hands, but they still need mucho mojo refinement.

Though The Armageddon Chord is a stealthy 253 pages in large print, there are times when Wagner smothers us with more tekkie information than needs be in order to keep things rolling. Wagner is astute in creating a rock 'n roll hell and in many spots he writes compelling passages that turns the book into a steamrolling juggernaut. Unfortunately, there are many cliches and skids that are the mark of a beginner. Aside from Mona, we don't really care too much about any of these people, and many of her lines are just the stuff of male fantasy. When Wagner explicitly describes the sex between Kirk and Mona, it's juicy but it's also Penthouse Forum. Flashing her tits at Kirk when they are separated from one another in trailers prior to the big hellraising concert? Yeah, you get why Wagner uses it as a tension breaker, but would people under such duress really act that way? What happens backstage doesn't always remain there, as Wagner implies in his writing.

Suffice it to say, The Armageddon Chord is absolutely silly, but Jeremy Wagner does demonstrate the ability to pen a start-to-finish concept with enough historical and technical decoration to flesh the venture out. Left with its bawdy elements intact, The Armageddon Chord would make a riotous episode in a Masters of Horror-themed cable anthology.

Not to rip on Wagner too much, because we want to encourage him as an author. Musicians today aren't allowed the luxury of artist development as they flub and flaw on the voyage towards their ultimate voice. Wagner as an individual artist is engaging himself and his audience on the same flux as his associated bands. Let's see what he dishes out next before further tattooing his work or praising it.

Album Review: Wayne Static - Pighammer

Wayne Static - Pighammer
2011 Dirthouse Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



So now we have something we might subtitle "Otsego Solo," the debut album from Wayne Static as an individual artist. Pighammer is the album in question and if your main question is how much different this album is from Static-X, well, not much, honestly. That ends up being a good thing since Static-X is one of the few bands from the long-dead "nu metal" explosion that still carries any weight.

In a concept stewed beneath his electro-shocked tower coif, Wayne Static masterminds a humping 42 minute groove metal album that (on the front) comes off as a ripping merge between Motel Hell, Autopsy, The Human Centipede and Bride of Frankenstein. Pighammer is Wayne Static's intentionally demented quasi concept album about a fetish-oriented plastic surgeon who likes to sew pig snouts to beautiful ladies. For the disarming artwork of Pighammer, it's no surprise Wayne Static utilized his wife, ex-porn star Tera Wray Static.

There's no love dumping on this album, only random bits of Wray Static's sex panting ("Static Killer") and her other haunted vocal plants, while Wayne engineers the guitars, bass, programming, synths and beats. Though this brings the Pighammer enterprise down to a more singular, rawer method of attack, Wayne Static's capacity for hip-shaking furrows does him favor. Start a War and Shadow Zone began an age of stripped for Static-X, so it's only natural Wayne Static follows suit on his own. He keeps the album on a throb for much of the ride before slinking to the finish line on an intentional drag. In other words, very much like a Static-X record.

While the contributions of Koichi Fukuda and Nick Oshiro (and before he split for Soulfly, Tony Campos) create more depth in tone and tempo, at least Wayne Static proves on Pighammer he can assemble a largely entertaining "evil disco" record on his own. The whole pig hammer ethos is a metaphoric smoke screen for Static's actual underlying message: his getting off of drugs.

Sometimes the message is blunt, such as "Get it Together," which you can get the gist in title alone. No doubt Tera has helped Wayne Static do just that, and though the insinuation of a solo record hints possible dischord within the main band, there's no doubt Pighammer is Static's personal purge. He's got it together on the driving "Around the Turn," "Chrome Nation," "Assasins of Youth" and the double-tripped "Thunder Invader," all worthy of a Static-X album, much less this one. Wayne Static's rhythmic scat-huffed vocals are as sharp as ever on these cuts, as are his riffs and electro washes.

Even though Static is relegated more to drum machines on this album, you don't mind it so much since there's still a swing to Pighammer that separates it from industrial and commercial metal, two tags forever heaped upon Static-X but not wholly accurate. Pighammer might've stood better to carry some extra momentum into the final third of the album, once "Shifter" turns the speed knob and sequencers backwards. Still, Wayne Static pours out some nasty riffage and wallowing vocals (drifting into Jonathan Davis territory on "Shifter's" bridges) along with a heaving bob that would steer other bands directly onto FM hard rock radio. "Slave" could have no problem banging out on today's FM next to Nick Oshiro's former band, Seether, while Wayne's chilly synths give the track a trippy shake.

As Koichi Fukuda is romping around with Drugstore Fanatics in the duration of Static-X's hiatus, Wayne Static throws a pretty cool rip 'n rave on Pighammer. It's been 12 years since Static-X's Wisconsin Death Trip, and much of that album's (and Machine's, for that matter) scorching density has been traded away for leaner drives. Pighammer is no different in mentality and is overall impressive as a one-man-jam. Wayne Static has kicked his assassins of youth to the curb through his marriage and his music and that's the bigger picture.

Rating: ***1/12

Whattya Listenin' to Wednesday - 10/5/11

Literally late for the road, so a quick howdy, everybody.

Adding the new Wayne Static solo record and possibly The Howling Reborn to the master list of stuff coming up.

I have a new blog, The Crash Pad of Ray Van Horn, Jr. which I invite you to jump over at http://rayvanhornjr2.blogspot.com/ More later on what the new blog stands for.

Be true, gang...




Mastodon - The Hunter
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Opeth - Deliverance
Opeth - Damnation
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Opeth - Heritage
Wayne Static - Pighammer
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Deep Purple - The Shades of Deep Purple
Deep Purple - Come Taste the Band
Alice in Chains - Facelift
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Orange Goblin - Frequencies From Planet Ten
Bitches Sin - The Rapture
War - Anthology 1970 - 1994
Steve Miller Band - Young Hearts: Complete Greatest Hits
Grateful Dead - Wake of the Flood
Janis Joplin with Big Brother - Live at Winterland '68
The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love
Run-DMC - s/t
Run-DMC - Tougher Than Leather
Run-DMC - Raising Hell
Givers - In Light

Van of the Dead Blu Ray/DVD Review: Scre4m

Scre4m
Anchor Bay Entertainment/Dimension Films
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



The arrival of Scre4m (or Scream 4, if you prefer) last year was met with mixed reviews and fewer box office returns than Dimension Films and The Weinstein Company had hoped for. After all, Rob Zombie's Halloween cookouts brought them enough duckets to count on a Scream revival. We are living in harsh times where the economy dictates film attendance, yet the critical element to a movie prospering or floundering is what it has to offer jaded, video-addicted audiences stubborn to part with ten bucks a pop.

The thing with Wes Craven's decision to once again helm the horror franchise he began in 1996 is Scre4m knows precisely where we're at as a society. The key is matching up its trademark villain to a world more technologically advanced and more desensitized than when Scream first haunted theaters. By now there's very little jolt and juice behind Ghostface. He/she shows up so frequently in a Scream film the audience is even more benumbed to the Edvard Munch-inspired death persona than a Jason Voorhees romp.

You'd think everything Ghostface has to offer us has been exercised to full elasticity through the first three Scream films. Really, there's very little dynamic to Ghostface. Some young neurotic soul dons the shroud and the ghoul mask, calls all of the victims ahead of time and badgers the piss out them via a voice scrambler. The running gag since Drew Barrymore immortalized frame one of the original Scream has been to query victims about their favorite horror flicks before carving them up.

Suffice it to say, this is exactly what you're going to get in Scre4m, yet the banner phrase "New Decade, New Rules" applies not only the techno dweeb overhauling to bring the series into modern times. It specifically applies to the running farce throughout the Scream series. In the spirit of Scream 2 and large chunks of the original film, Scre4m roasts today's horror realm which is dictated by remakes, reboots and recycling. Indeed, Scre4m deliberately recycles itself in the interest of satirizing itself.

While Scre4m doesn't wholly deliver the impact of its predecessors, you do have to give it props for a blaster cast of refugees from the first three films, i.e. Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette, mingled with current generation teen sex symbol Emma Roberts and a game gaggle of newer names: Hayden Panettier, Rory Culkin and Adam Brody. Moreover, you have to give Scre4m further props for having the moxy to declare itself a reboot within a reboot. In other words, Ghostface is going old school by recreating the events of the first Scream, only this time, ol' pale puss gets to do it through the world of 4G smart phones, webcams and the internet. Remember, the worldwide web was still relegated to mostly dial-up when the first Scream hit theaters and this film was in danger of similar antiquity by association. At least Generation Tech was around to upgrade it. Otherwise, why bother?

In Scre4m, Neve Campbell's enduring lead Sidney Prescott has done well for herself in the world as author to a non-fiction recount of the traumas she's faced at the multiple hands comprising Ghostface. Why in the world she'd ever want to return to Woodsboro where the previous carnage has ensued is left to the realm of suspension of disbelief, but Sidney's homecoming for a book signing kicks Ghostie back into action. As mentioned, Ghostface's rampaging is designed to mimic the original slayings as a twisted tribute and revamp.

Scre4m begins with a nutty sequence of fakeout intros as part of the ongoing Stab film series which inflates Ghostface's gory macro world. As you'll remember, the spoofy Stab movies within the Scream series were created out of Sidney's bloody encounters with Ghostface. As of Scre4m, we've now come up to Stab 7 (a blatant nyuk nyuk, of course) and a group of horror film geeks at Woodsboro High throw a Stab franchise party which does and doesn't become a focal point for Ghostface's hack 'em manuevers.

Instead of going for the obvious slice up at the party, however, Ghostie shows up in other spots designed to mirror scenes specific to the original film. Always keep in mind with this film that it is intentionally spoofing the whole enterprise even down to the more minute details.

Emma Roberts plays Jill, Sidney's distant cousin who has never met her until Sidney's arrival in Woodsboro. David Arquette's bumbling cop hero Dewey is now the town sheriff, while the sizzling Courtney Cox reprises her reporter with a 'tude lead, Gale. Whatever reported personal problems Arquette and Cox may have had in the time between Scream 3 and Scre4m are professionally put to the back burner. They're nearly as chemically sharp as the previous films, though Dewey takes everything serious to the point of critical mass while Gale just wants him to respect her investigative prowess. After all, she too has written books about the Woodsboro murders and both are put into action in apposite directions while Ghostie does what he does.

While Scre4m tries to fake you out with Jill's hyper-obsessive ex-boyfriend, Trevor (Nico Tortorella), you can pretty much figure out who Ghostface is and who the partner in crime is, since once again, this film is a pointed provocation of the original film. There isn't much amplitude to Scre4m's finale, though you do find yourself shaking your head at how long it takes to wrap up business.

Scre4m is more or less a popcorn horror film in which its characters laugh all the way through Shaun of the Dead and of course, the snarky Stab series. A hilarious jibe from the script comes when the kids at the Stab party are reciting every line in unison. Scre4m wants to be from-the-hip clever like Scream 2 and its genre in-jokes are admirable but not overly riotous. Sometimes Ghostface lingers too long in the midst of a killing, in full pause as if waiting for Craven to yell cut. Somehow, you don't imagine that was part of the intended humor. Still, Scre4m has fun with itself and if you're old school, you have to laugh at the film's torching of contemporary horror "rules," one of which includes using CGI-aided gutting sequences.

Hopefully there's no Stab 8 lingering about...

Album Review: Mastodon - The Hunter

Mastodon - The Hunter
2011 Reprise Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Mastodon has now reached a critical point in their careers, not that one would assume it to be the case. Riding high on a major label yet commanding the respect of the underground which gave them flight, Mastodon is still one of the mightiest metal acts of this generation--if not the mightiest.

For a band that has written its own rules, Mastodon finds themselves in a precarious position marketing-wise. Normally no one recording a second indisputable masterpiece as Mastodon did in 2009 with Crack the Skye would have to answer to any powers but their own. Yet, where Mastodon finds themselves as of their fifth album The Hunter is in answer to their label--at least to an extent.

"Curl of the Burl," the first single off of The Hunter, is so atypical of Mastodon one automatically feels the band was compelled to write a straightforward rocking ditty to appease Reprise/Warner Brothers. After all, the megalabel conglomerate has invested a fair chunk into Mastodon and eventually the check comes due. In this case, Mastodon has to pay up with a potential hit single--or at least a sincere attempt at one. "Curl of the Burl" is a rhythmic chugger that takes some getting used to if you're still hung over from the dizzying sludge prog Mastodon has thrown at their listeners from Leviathan on up. "Curl of the Burl" is FM friendly and thus the track has nudged its way through the airwaves. We're happy for Mastodon, but still leery. Motley Crue and Metallica were never the same after FM gobbled them up.

Would we say Mastodon has sold out? Absolutely not. Would we say they've crossed over? Well, at least through the first few tracks of The Hunter we could say they've made a case for mainstream acceptance. Albeit the safe and steady radio hawks are likely going to be tailspun by the time "Stargasm" and "Octopus Has No Friends" start whirling like the Mastodon we know and love.

The sure shot statement about The Hunter, however, is that Mastodon has dipped back into the gargantuan riff structure and prog patterns of Leviathan and replicated them with a veteran's polish. While there's a curious perfection to this Leviathan update, this also permits Mastodon to include occasional sublets of Led Zeppelin (i.e. "Octopus Has No Friends") and Yes ("All the Heavy Lifting"). Hell, we get a blatant though tasty rip on the Steve Miller Band at the beginning of "Creature Lives" with a Lucas-esque THX overhaul of the spacey synth intro to Miller's "Jet Airliner."

While "Black Tongue" retains Mastodon's trademark heavy stamping and note bobbing, there's a hair more musicality to it and therein lies the primary mojo to The Hunter. Hard-edged musicality versus climactic thunder. Safe to say Brent Hinds is snug with his mountain man clean wailing, because The Hunter's songs are tailored for maximum impact yet with enough restraint to let Hinds color them vocally. He is Ozzy-esque on the psychedelic title track, while Hinds, Troy Sanders and Brann Dailor harmonize together on the snakebiting "Dry Gone Valley" to create a gnarly Josh Homme-Layne Staley cadence. Then again, there's no way to describe the band's chuckly yipping on "Creature Lives." Did we honestly foresee this as far back as Remission? Not really.

Speaking of Brann Dailor, the man deserves Drummer of the Year accolades without challenge. Only Dave Lombardo can surpass this cat and yet, Dailor's supreme tommy gun snares, rumbling rolls and perfect floor tom strikes (at double or single beat) offer the metal drumming performance of 2011. Dailor is always money, yet The Hunter might be his comeuppance--as if he already hasn't had it with Leviathan, Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye. No matter how tempered and driven the songs are on The Hunter, be it "Black Tongue," "Blasteroid," "Dry Gone Valley," "Thickening" and "Curl of the Burl," of course, you can count on Brann Dailor to give them all more excitement and flair with his detailed skin work.

If The Hunter has any guilty offenses, it's simply giving their label what they want, which is a shrewdly-focused album still with their massive hooves planted in the scene giving them life. Outside of Slayer, Mastodon is the heaviest act the majors will bank on (almost nobody in the big leagues would sign a band based on the mashing detonation Mastodon dishes on "Spectrelight") but it's to the band's credit they remain progressive artists in the process of keeping their employers happy. They dash "Bedazzled Fingernails" with enough weird electronics to remain heavily quirky, while the gorgeous yet trippy "The Sparrow" still runs as the most accessible tune Mastodon has ever written, "Curl of the Burl" notwithstanding. On "The Sparrow," Mastodon professes to pursue happiness with diligence, and the sludgy guitar solos make their point amidst the song's dreamy swoon.

In the end, The Hunter is another huge success for Mastodon. "Curl of the Burl" is a grower but it is a sign to take note of as Mastodon continues to hammer the metal scene with its prolific might. However, for all the commercial plying Mastodon employs on The Hunter, they respectfully counter it with blazing prog and the occasional bit of nuttiness to prove they still have their metal hearts where they're supposed to be.

Rating: ****

Album Review: Opeth - Heritage

Opeth - Heritage
2011 Roadrunner Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



You have to feel maybe a hair sorry for Opeth. After scoring huge with the metal public on Ghost Reveries, the lords of Goth have been forced by attrition to keep up with their own hype. Not that Opeth are overtly concerned about hype, per se, but when you're reputed as one of the most articulate dark metal acts on the planet, well, it's difficult to top the stream of excellence ranging from Damnation to Blackwater Park to the breakout sensation that was Ghost Reveries.

It's been three years since Opeth released Watershed, an album that was well-received by the press and metal fans alike, however, it was clear that the ethereal mojo of Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries had disippated. Instead, Watershed embarked Opeth upon a new path of rock and prog-driven exploration that allowed for hammering organs and the diving crunch chords of Deep Purple and early years Pink Floyd. In other words, hype be damned, Opeth is doing what they want--get on board if you're of like mind.

On their tenth "observation" (as Opeth likes to refer to their records) Heritage, the same motifs are embraced, only this time Opeth really goes for the gusto by hailing some Jethro Tull into their arcane music world. The rowdy flutes akin to Tull's Ian Anderson play a heavy hand in the later songs amidst Opeth's acoustic-laden, Mellotron-splashed and growl-removed Heritage. Hard to consider them death metal or even Goth metal, at least for this round. Instead, Opeth re-emerges with their classical training doing them much service along with their King Crimson affinities to create a hybrid of whispery prog-gloom that still reverberates. Opeth's reknowned signature swaps of the past are less the story on Heritage as the emphasis is more on modified textures and candlelit mood scapes.

Exchanging their thunderclapped climaxes for a more sensual attack to their songwriting on Heritage, Opeth proves yet again they're fearless artisans. The quietus woven by the piano-led intro piece, "Heritage" carries a subliminal jazz splash ala Vince Guaraldi, even in the midst of its melancholic crawl. You already know by instinct Opeth is branching for something beyond even their own studious capabilities. Though Opeth shakes out their limbs on "The Devil's Orchard" straight from "Heritage's" haunting apoplexy, stand ready for dips into Mellotron atmospherics and King Crimson progression in "The Devil's Orchard's" final stanza.

The thing with this album even more than any Opeth has written is that there is a commanding sway into classic prog ala King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, Spock's Beard and of course, the more elaborate hoists of Deep Purple. Opeth more or less summons the subvert power of their acoustic dementia splayed out on Damnation and they accent, accent, accent all over Heritage. They climax in spurts, opting more for canvassing their Swedish fugue with the might of slow-rolling titania, but only after extensive periods of decorative sedation.

"I Feel the Dark" rides on a large caress of acoustics and Moogs while Mikael Akerfeldt courageously relies on the oomph of his clean vocals here and throughout the entire album. "Slither" afterwards merges its devil-may-care gust with a wildly-appropriate Deep Purple thrum, complete with rockout organs from Per Wiberg (who strangely left the band after recording this album) and guitar riffs that unabashedly attempt to mirror Ritchie Blackmore. All the juicier Opeth closes "Slither" with a Renaissance-flavored outro that even Blackmore himself would smirk at. At 4:03, "Slither" is a quickly-realized foray into pattern variance which feels complete yet strangely barren at the end.

Said barrenness is retained in the ghostly "Nepenthe," where the acoustics and keys are barely audible, creating a paranoid expectancy swirling lightly in a tempered jazz-rock mode ala Steely Dan. The pace abruptly shifts to quick outbursts of King Crimson prog detonations before settling again, resuming this methodology a few bars until wandering back into the ether from which the track began.

Hence, Heritage does require more patience and understanding for what Opeth is trying to achieve. This album is even more territorial than anything Opeth has recorded in the past and Akerfeldt's gutsy decision to throw out all demonic ralphs even in an album dedicated to the telling of good and evil will alienate a few people. The strength of his cleans, however, make Heritage more of a forceful enterprise, considering the vibe is well-stripped and luxuriant. The alluring details on "Haxprocess" would be cheated if Akerfeldt began chuffing at the expected pauses and tone shifts. Instead, "Haxprocess" relies more on reserved tapestries of acoustic, synth and reeled-in distortion to make a bold statement.

The same can be said of the lengthier "Famine," which at least booms periodically and channels through winding progression and maniacal fluting, all carried to rhythmic perfection on the sucessive shorter track "The Lines In My Hand." The latter song is where Heritage as an album climaxes and it's a loud and busy payoff for all the note-bled treading beforehand. A method to the madness, as the saying goes.

Thus the sweeping passages in the final two minutes of "Folklore" are maddeningly gorgeous. How could a band carry us through so many pastures of volume to crest on a stunning breeze we've expected all the way and yet never see coming in "Folklore?" As brilliant as the acoustic, electric, Moog and organ-hushed finale, "Marrow of the Earth," ending this venture on a jagged beauty even Mike Oldfield would be proud of.

Heritage has been described by a few as a creeper album since it makes the listener work as hard as Opeth themselves did to create it. When all is said and done, however, Heritage is the musical embodiment of a Heironymous Bosch painting where perpetual purgatory reigns with the uncertainty of salvation or perdition.

Heritage is a reflection of human fear and a cautious tread towards the banks of evil. Opeth has never been more seductive in their work and this is one of the most seductive bands in the world. Instead of clouting and routing their audience this time, they strive for high art in the vein of their cherished audile old masters. You may crave more explosions from Heritage, but when they come, you will feel more than elated. The rest of it, you'll be amazed by Opeth's daring craftsmanship, even more than you were the first time you heard Blackwater Park or Orchid long beforehand.

Rating: ****

Whattya Listenin' to Wednesday - 9/28/11

Greetings, folks, still getting my bearings today, so we'll keep the chatter reserved to add the new Opeth album, Heritage and the Scream 4 DVD to The Metal Minute's immediate prospectus.

Likely most of you have already heard the new Mastodon album, The Hunter, while I'm still letting it swim around in my ears before coming to full judgment. What are your thoughts on it, peeps?

As always, your support of this site is more than appreciated.




Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese
Primus - Pork Soda
Primus - Antipop
Primus - Green Naugahyde
Mastodon - The Hunter
Opeth - Heritage
Gary Moore - Live at Montreux 2010
Black Pussy - On Blonde EP
Holy Moses - Queen of Siam
Holy Moses - Finished With the Dogs
Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
Alice Cooper - Welcome to My Nightmare
Alice Cooper - Dada
Alice Cooper - From the Inside
Bitches Sin - The Rapture
Corrosion of Conformity - Wiseblood
Corrision of Conformity - In the Arms of God
Every Time I Die - Hot Damn!
It's Casual - Stop Listening to Bad Music
It's Casual - The New Los Angeles
It's Casual - Buicregl
Joan Jett and The Blackhearts - Greatest Hits
Grateful Dead - The Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah
Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead
Grateful Dead - American Beauty
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Tron: Legacy soundtrack
Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin'
The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

Album Review: Gary Moore - Live at Montreux 2010

Gary Moore - Live at Montreux 2010
2011 Eagle Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Earlier in the year, we were stung with the loss of former Thin Lizzy and journeyman guitar genius, Gary Moore. Even more of a shock to hear of his passing when you consider Moore was reported by everyone who knew him to be musically invigorated and eager to rip away. Moore was said to be in excellent shape by those close to him and working on a Celtic-flavored rock album. If his unfinished studio work reflected even a miniscule shred of his final performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival last year, man, were we robbed as a listening body.

Gary Moore was no stranger to playing (much less attending) Montreux. One of the revered festival's recurring performers, Moore gave Lake Geneva a blistering display of his capabilities in 2010. Though nobody could've seen it coming, Moore had saved his best for last.

While Gary Moore has spent more than a fair chunk of his career slinging blues and jazz in the studio and particularly onstage at Montreux, it's this 2010 set where Moore lowers the boom and summons the loud. Fair to say Moore's reconnection with keyboardist and collborator Neil Carter unlocked some old rock chests that blows this Montreux concert up in a way some fans might've thought would remain locked. Still in cahoots with Primal Scream drummer Darrin Mooney along with former Jethro Tull bassist Jon Noyce, Moore's band gallavanting through last year's European Summer of Rock jaunt did much to elevate his stature.

A recent Thin Lizzy awareness (and reformation) likewise brought Moore back into the rock limelight as one of its most beloved members behind Phil Lynott. Even though Moore's most recent studio album Bad For You Baby was blues-oriented, it's clear as the thundering decibels in this set Moore was set to rock.

The Celtic rock album Moore was reportedly recording fueled his drive to slam and a few songs from that project are premiered on Live at Montreux 2010: "Days of Heroes," "Oh Wild One" and "Where Are You Now." Ranging from gallant to reverential, these new "previews," if you will, haunt happily of Thin Lizzy ("Days of Heroes") and of the experimental nature of his 1973 album Grinding Stone. The gin and the bangers waft about Moore's entire set, and it's clear his Irish pride has never waned. At age 58, Moore was even more the patriot of his motherland than ever. All he needed was some dulcimer and bodhran, but instead his frets did all the marching in this highly inspired performance.

Joyous for veteran fans, the majority of Moore's set is derived from his eighties' post-Lizzy solo work. "Out in the Fields" and "Military Man" check in from 1985's Run For Cover, as well as "Empty Rooms" from 1983's Victims of the Future in a mash medley alongside "So Far Away." Moore continues his revisit to the eighties with a selection from '89's After the War, "Blood of Emeralds." Though Moore's 1987 release Wild Frontier isn't always heralded by critics, the stout, Murphy's-fueled stomper "Over the Hills and Far Away" along with the whispery "Johnny Boy" make appearances. In fact, "Over the Hills and Far Away" leads the set like a mission statement, hauled out with a devastating guitar solo by Moore. Suffice it to say, his solos on Live at Montreux 2010 are some of the most captivating of his live recordings. The longer he wails, the more he bleeds into your ears.

Fitting, however, that Moore closes this spectacular set on an emotional high with an 11-minute extension of "Parisienne Walkways" from 1979's Back On the Streets, a song originally featuring vocal work and a co-writing credit by Phil Lynott. With six extra minutes largely dedicated to sparkling, piercing and adoring solo work, Moore could never know this would be one of his final moments onstage, but assuredly it ranks amongst his finest. This "Parisienne Walkways" just might've served as the parallel bridge to Lynott on the other side, and we can well assume the latter greeted his comrade with a loving embrace and some outrageous corn whiskey from a bottomless bell jar.

Though Moore's out-of-nowhere death is befuddling, he leaves behind a legacy as a face man and proto axe warrior in Thin Lizzy, BBM, Colosseum II, Skid Row (not the one of the Sabo-Bach variety) and his own diverse body of work. Rocker, metalhead, blues man, jazz master, Gary Moore has always been considered underrated by most music writers and deep fans. If you don't believe it, step up to Live at Montreux 2010 and become converted. You will seldom hear a more wrenching display of six-string finesse. Bless you, Gary.

Rating: ****1/2

Album Review: Black Pussy - On Blonde EP

Black Pussy - On Blonde EP
2011 Made in China Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Entering into the sexpot moniker sweepstakes behind Nashville Pussy, Alabama Thunderpussy and Pussy Galore comes Portland's Black Pussy. Also known as Black Pussy (IS GO), you can rest assured this is another gang of garage dwellers who may or may not toke as much as they would have you believe of their "stoner" tagged rawk.

Frankly, the term "stoner" has now become a passe buzz phrase carrying less buzz and more static. While Bongzilla and Weedeater are exactly the stoners they purport themselves to be--particularly in their tone-saturated hallucinogenics--stoner as a music description is now so broad it often hardly carries little of the pot element within its sound. The Mars Volta is considered by some to be stoner on top of mind-melding punk-prog. Such is the weird way of the music world.

Thus it's almost hopeless when a band marches in with a self-placed stamp of "stoner" upon its product, when subliminally you just know there's a marketing ploy behind it. There was a time when stoners were the riff raff of society. Now, thanks to Josh Homme, Fu Manchu, Wolfmother and The Black Keys, there's a strange pride to calling yourself a stoner band. Of course, Steppenwolf was there long ahead of the current crop and a lot of their music really was trippy beneath their blistered protesting. Let's not forget Redd Kross assisted in bridging this generation of young bands to the turbulent days of Hendrix and the Dead.

It's enough to have a provocative name like Black Pussy, but carrying a deliberate stoner sign overtop their heads (going so far as to mock the old sixties and seventies' album audiophile insignias with their coined "Stonersound" jibe) isn't anywhere near as provocative as their name. We could probably trip on the visual of a laidback hump-dee-hump with an afro-coiffed queen, swirling lava lamps, incense and strobes adding to the hazy-moist wet dream Black Pussy insinuates through their very being.

At the end of the day, though, it's the music that counts and Black Pussy makes no shame in plugging through the distorted channels of Kyuss, Fu Manchu and Fireball Ministry. Mastermined by Dustin Hill, who often mimicks Josh Homme vocally to great measures, Black Pussy's debut EP On Blonde shows a hint of promise even while offering the "stoner" genre very little it hasn't already seen.

There's an undeniable Kyuss-Fu kitsch to "Marijuana," "Swim(-A-)," "Ain't Talkin' About Love" and "Indiana" straight down to the lacing power chords, wood block/cowbell tempo taps, swirling sub solos and a drawn back vocal approach you know all too well. While "Can't Take Anymore" and "Blow Some Steam Off" pick up the pace with some gnarly acceleration, the theme of Black Pussy is to just take it easy. More than anything, it's evident Hill spent much time with Fu Manchu's California Crossing and King of the Road along with Josh Homme's entire recorded body.

There's nothing inherently wrong with Dustin Hill's songwriting ideology. Nothing wrong with nodding along to the juicy bass rubs oozing out of Black Pussy's amps on "Blow Some Steam Off" like, well...you know, that. It's simply the shaky wherewithal behind the shock value of Black Pussy's name. A stoner band doesn't advertise themselves as such. They often shy away from the tag. A true stoner band just plugs in and lets the waves carry their vibe, not a pre-issued statement.

Rating: ***

Album Review: Primus - Green Naugahyde

Primus - Green Naugahyde
2011 Prawn Song
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Historically there has been a friendly tug-of-war between the metal and alternative sanctions in staking claim to Les Claypool and Primus. While headbangers boast the one-upsmanship of Claypool's involvement in prog thrashers Blind Illusion, Primus is that rare entity where nobody on this planet gets full dibs on claiming them as their own. Indeed, Primus is Martian music crafted beyond the capacity of us mere Earth folk, and it's not just because their eighth album is titled Green Naugahyde.

The Great Gazoo himself, Claypool, might be this generation's Frank Zappa, but it so happens he plays an unworldly bass, and not even the mighty Steve Harris or funk fiend Flea can push themselves into the same nebula Claypool floats in. While Claypool decrees through snaggleteeth that everything is made in China on Green Naugahyde's "Eternal Consumption Engine," really, in his farflung mind, everything is made in a microprocessing plant on Space Station #5--to which only he and his associates have access.

It's been since 1999 that we've had a Primus slab (and truly if a band deserved the term "slab" applied to their recorded work, this is the one) with the frequently brilliant Antipop. Twelve years of inactivity might prove quite the task for many bands to overcome, yet Primus 2011 sounds like nothing was missed through hiatus. Green Naugahyde is the culmination of Frizzle Fry, Pork Soda and Antipop and for their longtime horde of fans, Primus still sucks, but only as an endearment.

Returning back to the fold is early years (and former Sausage) drummer Jack Lane, in place of Tim Alexander. Fortunately for Claypool's demented purposes, Lane is equal to the task of Alexander on Green Naugahyde, thus you'd really have to know coming into this album there was a switch-up behind the skins. Meanwhile, Larry LaLonde continues to drive alongside Claypool's throbbing hip and in some ways, LaLonde has surpassed himself on Antipop and The Brown Album. No doubt it must've been some sitdown with Claypool in the songwriting sessions for Green Naughahyde, since LaLonde not only casts his fly buzzing and wad-chewed twanging. The man surreptitiously decorates beneath Claypool's inhuman bass-o-phonics. Only LaLonde can smartly detail a luminescent series of sparkling notes and outrageous slides underneath Les Claypool's Transformers-esque bass robotics on "Jilly's On Smack." It's testament to both artists' instincts they gel as effectively as they do even after a lengthy layoff.

"Lee Van Cleef" is hilarious with Claypool's comical plying for the whereabouts of the western film legend, while LaLonde's jerkout tugs are well reminiscent of Primus' huckabilly South Park theme, lending to the jokey ambience. While in the process of nodding to their past, there's no denying "Last Salmon Man" rings true of "Here Come the Bastards" from Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Only difference is Claypool and LaLonde are thrice the musicians they were in 1991, particularly during "Last Salmon Man's" jam-spiced solo section. Jack Lane's slip and shuffle tempo behind them and his gut-checking floor tom echoes elevate "Last Salmon Man" into the here and now.

Lane impresses at every turn on Green Naugahyde and his percussion on "Eternal Consumption Engine" turns Les Claypool into even more of a cheery wackadoodle. Surely, Claypool "really likes it" with his tendency to set the song up like "Mr. Krinkle" but more to a carny flavor. Lane is fantabulous on the funkerific "Tragedy's A-Comin'" and "Green Ranger," where his hi-hat tripping is just as groovy as his White Men Can Funk rhythm. Somehow, you get the feeling a cameo by George Clinton or Bootsy Collins might not've been out of line on either of these songs. Further, we would no doubt be in for one hell of a treat to see Sly and the Family Stone's Larry Graham with Claypool in a bass throwdown for the ages.

Other crazy, cosmic trips you can look forward to on this album are "Moron TV," "Green Ranger" and the bombastic, slithering "HOINFODAMAN," the latter being born straight from the Frizzle Fry and Suck On This era of Primus and will no doubt become a huge crowd pleaser. In its own way, the nutty thrusting (and terrific percussion) beneath "Extinction Burst" comes straight out of the same hiss-popped skillet.

While Sailing the Seas of Cheese is widely considered Primus' calling card album, it's a box of chunky punk cereal in comparison to what this band is capable of now. Green Naugahyde is a complicated album but only in the sense that all three components of Primus demand your attention. One of the most rhythmic albums Primus has recorded outside of Antipop, Green Naugahyde serves you toast smeared with apple butter from its great space toaster where metalheads, altheads, progheads and gearheads can come together in strange harmony.

Mars needs women, since they're well-represented by musicians.

Rating: ****

Whattya Listenin' to Wednesday - 9/21/11

Morning, fellow freakazoids! Welcome to another Wednesday check-in of your playlists. At the very least, welcome to the halfway point of the work week--or school week if that applies to you.

Last week began with immense promise as relates to a few personal projects and potential projects, then the week fell on its arse come the end. I lost the second of two Van Horn family members in the span of a month, and I'm still a bit shaken up, but as always, music is my savior and therapist and thus I fight on. Though the Grateful Dead occupied my ears most of the week, that certainly wasn't intended to provoke the karma wheel as my uncle passed away. To my Aunt Maxine and Uncle Carl, may you finally settle your differences in the afterlife and try to excuse whatever you see of me from your new vantage point of existence. I'm proud of who I am, but I know my subscription to life isn't for all tastes.

It doesn't help the following day we got stung with a monster car repair bill on my wife's vehicle that has been the bane of our existence the past few years. Once my wife can get rid of that piece of junk, I'm going to sledge the four-wheeled bitch, assuming it hasn't been traded in. And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes, like Nick Lowe (also figuring into my listening pleasures this week) would wag.

So with that, I'm hungry for a turnaround of fortunes this week and here at The Metal Minute we'll keep the machine rolling for your headbanging edification. Coming up in the immediate future we'll be checking out new joints from Primus, Doro Pesch, Hull, Black Pussy, Gary Moore, Wolves in the Throne Room, Chthonic, DC4, Crash Street Kids and Zeroking, not necessarily in that order.

I've received a ton of correspondence in email and tweeting form and I've been making all efforts to respond to each one of you. If I haven't, please stand by. I'm not ignoring you purposefully. You all are the real beautiful people, so don't change...




X - Under the Big Black Sun
Alice Cooper - Love it to Death
Alice Cooper - Alice Cooper Goes to Hell
Alice Cooper - Along Came a Spider
Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare
Landmine Marathon - Gallows
Saxon - Call to Arms
Primus - Green Naugahyde
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Pussy - s/t EP
Slough Feg - Hardworlder
Grateful Dead - The Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead
Grateful Dead - Aoxomoxoa
Grateful Dead - Wake of the Flood
Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah
Grateful Dead - From the Mars Hotel
Grateful Dead - In the Dark
Ratdog - Evening Moods
Kingfish - s/t
Peter Gabriel - Up
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
Nick Lowe - Quiet Please...The New Best of Nick Lowe

Album Review: Saxon - Call to Arms

Saxon - Call to Arms
2011 Militia Guard Music/UDR/EMI
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



God bless Saxon. For a band once calling themselves Son of a Bitch, the dukes of decibel demolition are striking the lands with their 19th album. Likely nobody ever gave them that much of a chance back in the late seventies before Son of a Bitch switched to their time-honored moniker, Saxon. Still, here we are in 2011 and Saxon continues to survive with a couple of original members, Paul Quinn and the always stout Biff Byford. Call to Arms, Saxon's latest round of aural wreckage, shows a courageous wherewithal to stay true and thus becomes a mandatory grab if you're a power metal fiend.

Whether you've been paying attention or not, Saxon has been on quite a roll through the metal revival, officially starting with 2004's Lionheart, though most fans would give Saxon a mighty fist of approval for 1999's Metalhead. Still, Lionheart seemed to be the necessary oil to moving the re-affirmed juggernaut at full speed. Successive albums The Inner Sanctum and Into the Labyrinth showed the metal world Saxon still has the guts and the glory, while Call to Arms may yet become their proudest moment of the 2000s.

Some folks have been whispering Wheels of Steel and Crusader under their breaths whilst describing Call to Arms, and sure, there's cases to be made on the speedier selections such as "Hammer of the Gods" and "Afterburner." There's more to it than that. though. While Saxon turns a few knobs back to reduce some of the previous albums' beef, Call to Arms finds its groove on a charted throwback course while still maintaining a modern polish.

Saxon are sonic warriors on "Hammer of the Gods," "Chasing the Bullet" and "Call to Arms," making them nearly untouchable lords of loud. Yet they take a humble nod towards Thin Lizzy on "Ballad of the Working Man" on its verses and choruses before rocking the number with some wicked soloing. Thin Lizzy was always a working class rock 'n roll band, while Saxon might be the working class' metallic answer. Either way, "Ballad of the Working Man" is just as heroic for its stomping whiskey in the jar empathy as much Saxon's own will to prosper on "Surviving Against the Odds" and "Back in '79."

Maybe "Back in '79" and the two "Call to Arms" selections (the second appearing with orchestral supplementation) may be corny for modern audiences, yet metal has always had its teeth gnashed against a cob. Better the chewing come from the likes of the steel-jawed Saxon, who sells it better than most out there. When Biff Byford plies for you to show him your hands, you're not likely to argue with him. As one of the NWOBHM's eternal figureheads, Biff and Saxon take their roles seriously. "Back in '79" is a mean mutha autobiography of a band we should relish more than we do as a collective metal body.

Tempered by more recent ballads hailing little to no muckity muck such as "Mists of Avalon" on this album, we have long forgiven Saxon for the syrupy and limp noodled Rock the Nations and Destiny from 1986 and 1988 respectively. Saxon today has the system down pat and we're more than happy to oblige an occasional swerve into the slow, particularly when we get to rock out to "Chasing the Bullet," "No Rest for the Wicked," "Afterburner" and "Hammer of the Gods."

No reinventing the wheel of steel here, Saxon keeps the machine calibrated and moving past 3000 rpms. Call to Arms is a rocker and that's as apt a compliment as we can pay them.

Rating: ****

Album Review: Landmine Marathon - Gallows

Landmine Marathon - Gallows
2011 Prosthetic Records
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Grace Perry is to Landmine Marathon what Angela Gossow is to Arch Enemy, Sabina Classen to Holy Moses and Krysta Cameron to Iwrestledabearonce. It just so happens Perry huffs and growls her innards to their straining point in a band that fancies a vibe plunged between Agnostic Front and Napalm Death with scant elbow room for much else.

Some might argue Perry has to work harder in a band demanding such a strenuous task from her, but already through four albums, you know where Landmine Marathon stands musically and Perry does too. She's up to the task, so you'd better be as well. Following last year's Sovereign Descent, Perry and her crashed-up marauders fire up the charges once again on Gallows, an album offering little differentiation than what they've released prior. No doubt exactly what their fans want.

Minus a concentrated effort of guitar soloing on Gallows which was practically remiss on Sovereign Descent, Landmine Marathon still retains the cacaphonous detonation of their namesake, a modus operandi not for the squeamish. Crunk and clunk served in brittle helpings on "Three Snake Leaves," "Liver and Lungs," "Cloaked in Red" and "Cutting Flesh and Bone," Landmine Marathon dishes it brutal and even more brutal--skip the appetizers.

"Knife From My Sleeve" may have a slow-winding intro, but there's little else (minus a few random tempo-skidding breakdowns) on Gallows that doesn't clock in past the shockwaves of a 50-megaton strike in a no-man's land gulch. Those just cozying up with Landmine Marathon for the first time might feel the impatient urge to grab some Madball, Terror and Morbid Angel after their introduction. At least "Cloaked in Red" has a badass punk groove and Slayer-esque death throes (not to mention a blinky King-Hanneman solo yank) to change things up a hair. As for their existing fans, they'll be headbanging on a constant from their media player into the mosh pit once Landmine Marathon hits their towns.

By now, there's no more geek factor to Grace Perry's animalistic yowling at the fore of a 'core-grind hybrid. Perry is the star attraction to Landmine Marathon, sure, but the bigger picture is this group can duke it out with the best of their ilk and God bless 'em, they have the tact to keep their work to a short running time. Smart maneuvering when you have a fairly redundant songwriting scheme. Then again, as the song title on track seven indicates, Landmine Marathon's only creative goal is to leave you beaten and left blind.

You've been served.

Rating: ***1/2

Happy Friday, Readers...

Just because this makes me smile on a day I really need to so I can stay motivated. Happy Friday, all, back to business over the weekend.

Album Review: Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare

Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare
2011 Universal Music Enterprises
Ray Van Horn, Jr.



Uncle Alice is back, not that he ever left. This is still one of the most pliable entertainers still haunting the scene. Alice Cooper may not have been given immediate due for his more recent albums such as The Eyes of Alice Cooper, Dragontown, Dirty Diamonds and 2008's groovy-freaky hedonism jaunt, Along Came a Spider, but the man's legend has surreptitiously risen even more beneath the radar. Recently Alice Cooper has been bestowed with a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction and iconic bestowments from Kerrang! and the Revolver Golden God Awards. Alice remains a king of his domain and best of all, he continuously delivers what his subjects want.

Perhaps all of this just fanfare inspired Alice Cooper to attempt something that almost never fully works: a sequel to his own best-known body of work, Welcome to My Nightmare. It takes a lot of stones to take on the task of writing a connector piece to an album written almost 40 years ago. Yeah, get your head around that a second, if you will. Alice has been on the scene for that long, and while Queensryche found themselves nailed to the cross more often than not for Operation Mindcrime II, Uncle Alice will be a lock not to suffer the same fate with Welcome 2 My Nightmare.

It's the respect for the original work, plus the respect for himself and his fans that allows us to give a cheerful thumbs-up to this project. The highest compliment we can pay to Welcome 2 My Nightmare is that this is its own beast. While there's undertones of the seventies on "I Am Made of You," "When Hell Comes Home" and "The Nightmare Returns," songs with subliminal tubular bells haunting their chiming melodies, this album is thoroughly updated with a powerful punch and an elder statesman's appreciation for what transcends the decades separating these bodies of work.

Alice Cooper best bridges his 1975 masterwork to modern life on "The Congregation," a song with enough Love it to Death era and Gary Glitter struts poofed up to a loud retro kick The Black Keys are no doubt taking strong note of.

"Caffeine" is a slamming bit of rock agitation with a PT Barnum blow-up beneath the cagey humor. Here Uncle Alice gives us a bit of nyuk nyuk explanation as to why he and his alter-alter ego Steven are wracked by this ever-continuing cerebral melodrama. A bad caffeine trip. If you've ever drank enough cups of coffee in succession, the near-paralysis and catatonic head trips left at the end of that java onslaught will toy with your noodle. Said from this writer's personal experience.

Now, are we to insinuate Alice Cooper has sold us a huckstering, nyeh-nyeh, fooled you rock opera, all plugged by the simplistic revelation that drinking too much coffee cooks you rightly? No, of course not. Welcome 2 My Nightmare is more the rock cartoon that Rob Zombie could've had with his Haunted World of El Superbeasto if the latter wasn't more obsessed with tit humor every other frame. It takes a gifted artist to know that hillbilly shakes and oom-pah bandstanding are riotous ways to portray a brain bake, conveyed through "A Runaway Train" and "Last Man On Earth" respectively.

Then there's the hilarious rock roast, "Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever," an intentionally nutty blast which is shrewder than you think. Consider this Alice's torching of the original disco era in which he was forced to tinker with on some of his late seventies' work, not to mention bits of the original Welcome to My Nightmare. It's also an acknowledgement that today's pop scene is lost in a disco revival and it well serves this new nightmare Alice Cooper is spinning for our consumption like the master showman he is. Alice's clownish rapping on "Disco Bloodbath" is nearly as funny as the "disco is hell, that's where we're at" choruses. Only he could get away with such lunacy, along with a hummable toe-tapper like "I'll Bite Your Face Off" that has planted blues and country beneath its twisted rock groove. Wait for the cadelabra-lit piano breakdown on that one. Riot. Nearly as much a riot as Alice's hung ten surfing bird, "Ghouls Gone Wild."

Also, only Alice Cooper could get away with bringing hip hop-pop megastar Ke$ha into his refined carnival of dementia. Their duet on "What Baby Wants" is sketchy on paper but ends up being a fun pop rock jerk-out, as catchy as anything else on Welcome 2 My Nightmare, and the hooks are out all over it.

Part of why this album works so much is due to the rogue's gallery of musicians and collaborators Alice corrals. Cool enough he has past associates such as Dick Wagner, Michael Bruce, Steve Hunter, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith coming by for the party. Welcome 2 My Nightmare is graced with the presence of Bob Ezrin, overseer of the original Nightmare and without a doubt, the alignment of theory and mind pays off dividends once again. Cameos by Vince Gill, John 5 and Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers on top of Ke$ha only add to this album's festivities. Always thinking in the moment, that Alice. No wonder Steven doesn't stand a chance in his three-ring sanguinary world.

While nothing here rings ethereal-eternal like "Cold Ethyl," "The Black Widow", "Steven" and "Only Women Bleed," Welcome 2 My Nightmare is a banging capsule of Alice's long standing in the music industry and for good measure, he sends out a breathy love note to his fans with "Something to Remember Me By." Written as if in 1975, this one has a pretty poison you just know has dastardly designs beneath the sweetness and effervesence. All implied, never stated, make sure you ask Uncle Alice to tip his top hat to make sure there's nothing murderous beneath as he croons "Something to Remember Me By" to you.

Welcome 2 My Nightmare didn't need to be stellar, but it did need to be worthy enough to carry its daunting title. It's more than worthy; it's a huge success and even more inspired than Along Came a Spider, which was damned fun in its own right. This is one is heavier in sound than Welcome to My Nightmare, while the latter is heavier in the classic sense. Put together, they're yin and yan separated by generations. Uncle Alice seems proud the world cares so much about him, because his pride sounds off resplendently on this album.

Run, Steven, run...

Rating: ****


To Buy Welcome 2 My Nightmare, click here:

Buy Welcome 2 My Nightmare