Heavy Band 010: WHITE ZOMBIE

Exploding onto the highway like a slug from a '45 fired by a post-apocalyptic Ed Roth Rat Fink character, White Zombie warped a whole generation who came of age in the '90s. White Zombie combined samples of horror, porn, and B movies with overdrive muted string guitar, funk bass, and heavy amounts of psychedelia. Rob Zombie's earthy grunting voice growled and howled atop the eclectic mix.
Like Gwar and the Talking Heads, White Zombie was started by art school students. In 1985 Rob Cummings founded White Zombie with his then girlfriend Shauna Reynolds. Previously they published a horror zine together. They soon took on the names Rob Zombie and Sean Yseult and created a dark blend of sounds.
White Zombie, when they were just starting out a sounded more like old Butthole Surfers than '90s White Zombies. Their Debut album was 1987's Soul-Crusher, which featured the hard noise rock tracks Ratmouth and Scum Kill. Shack of Hate sounds like it belongs on a Mudhoney album.
Lacking in sampling, Soul-Crusher's follow up in 1989 Make Them Die Slowly has a much more pure metal vibe than their first album. Tracks like Demonspeed and Disaster Blaster give the big four of thrash metal a run for their money. Murderworld is much more slowed down, creating an eerie sick sound that is more sludgy than any other song that they recorded. The album's closing song Godslayer begins as slow and sludgy as a Melvins track. The tempo speeds up towards the middle, but every time that you think they will achieve super speed the tempo switches again slowing down to a sludgy tempo. Godslayer ends in a cacophony of wretched guitar wailing.
Combining the sampling of their first album with the metal vibe of their second, White Zombie's third album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 came out in 1992. Mixing Manson Family psychedelia, porn movie samples, and a groovy bass line the intro to the album, Welcome to Planet Motherfucker/Psychoholic Slag contains all of the elements necessary for the awesomeness of a White Zombie song. It begins like a B scifi movie, then transitions into a driving dance metal with sex whines, eventually dying off in a swamp of slow overdriven sludge. Black Sunshine begins with a driving bass line and spoken word by Iggy Pop. It is the quintessential love song to a muscle car. It is one of the songs that make your feet move with its ferocity. Iggy Pop ends the song in a truly creepy tone, that continues into Soul-Crusher. The song has little to do with their initial album. The song begins as pure speed metal, but slowly evolves into something that it can finally be termed is the White Zombie sound. I Am Legend is a haunting, tragic, heavy metal ode to the Richard Matheson novel.
White Zombie's fourth and final album was 1995's Astro-Creep: 2000 - Songs of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Delusions of the Electric Head. Super-Charger Heaven is a devil tune strung together with samples from an eclectic mix of horror films. Alternating between über mellow and savagely intense, Grease Paint and Monkey Brains has a very dub feel to it. More Human than Human is a dance hit devoted to the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner. It almost has a clubby Ministry vibe to it. El Phantasmo and the Chicken-Run Blast-O-Rama set a new speed record for White Zombie. It is very intense and has samples from a demonic horror movie that I can not recall the name. Blur the Technicolor begins a psychedelic vibe that concludes in Blood, Milk, and Sky which seems to me like a combination of the Beatles Within You Without You and a Faces of Death movie.
White Zombie only recorded four albums before splitting up, but in the last half of the '90s 6 EPs were recorded of different remixes. P.M Dawn's remix of Blood, Milk, and Sky on Supersexy Swingin' Sounds is extremely laid back as you would expect, and awesome. Rob Zombie has gone on to make horror movies, while still touring as a solo artist. Sean Yseult has played in numerous bands over the years, including Famous Monsters, who I was able to see in 1998 I think. I would like to see a reunion years down the road, with maybe an album coming out too. Until then I guess that we'll just have to wait.

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Heavy Band 009: ACID BATH

Most weeks I have to fit analyses of a lot of albums on a pretty good band, but this week there are only 2 studio albums created by an AWESOME band.
Acid Bath combined the warp of Alice in Chains, the blues of Leadbelly, the progressive vibe of Voivod, the folk of Woody Guthrie, the sinister nature of Slayer, the Psychedelic vibe of Pink Floyd, the wickedness of Dimebag Darrell, the sludge of the Melvins, tons of tempo changes, the hardcore of the Misfits, and lyrics only fitting for Aleister Crowley. I discovered Acid Bath in 1996, after my best friend bought When the Kite String Pops at a garage sale. Soon after we clambered for more, and he ended up buying Paegan Terrorism Tactics at full price. Late the next year we discovered that Acid Bath had disbanded due to the death of their Geezer Butleresque bassist Audie Pitre at the hands of a drunk driver. We were devastated. The most amazing band that we'd encountered had come to an end after only two albums. We'd never see them in concert. My wife and I danced to The Bones of Baby Dolls and Dead Girl at our wedding. The two albums that they released are so intense that I still discover new things to love after listening to them for 14 years. I don't like to swear in my writings, but this band is THE SHIT.
Founded in Morgan City and Houma Louisiana in 1991, Acid Bath formed Phoenix-like from the ashes of two bands, Golgotha and Dark Karnival. Dax Riggs' on lead vocals wails, is almost operatic baritone at times, can growl, and at times moans like Woody Guthrie. Jimmy Kyle's drumming is akin to Dave Lombardo's. Mike Sanchez and Sammy Duet on guitars provide everything from thrash, to folky acoustic, to sludgy warped riffs. Audie Pitre provided the rumbling dark bass. Their demo Hymns of the Needle Freak got them a deal with Rotten Records, thus they recorded 1994's
When the Kite String Pops. Featuring a cover with a self portrait of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy
The album begins with The Blue, which is part Alice in Chains and part Electric Wizard with a little Iggy Pop thrown in. WTKSP features the pure thrash metal song Cheap Vodka. At a little over two minutes, Cheap Vodka is one of the fastest and shortest of Acid Bath's songs. The song is equally at home pumping heavy weights at the gym and huffing rush. The album takes its name from lyrics in a different song, The Bones of Baby Dolls. Though Bones of Baby Dolls is an acoustic ballad, it still has quite a bit of twist and warp in it. I believe it was this song that I heard was inspired by an acid trip on a beach in Florida. I also believe that the bones of baby dolls refers to an exceptionally large joint. Dope Fiend features wailing guitar, barking vocals, many tempo shifts, and heavy bass petal, which created a song that sounds truly wicked. Scream of the Butterfly has a very prog metal feel with trembling vocals. Cassie Eats Cockroaches is a dark, fast, industrial anthem with some of the sickest lyrics and a terrifying sampling of Dennis Hopper from Blue Velvet.
When the Kite String Pops was followed in 1996 with Paegan Terrorism Tactics. PTT's Bleed Me an Ocean opens slow and sludgy like the Melvin's, has six or more tempo changes, and primarily focuses on minor chords. Dax' baritone is perfect for this song, which features both him barking and singing with excellent tone, also in minor chords. The amazing part of that song is that the whole band made all of the tempo changes. Graveflower is a truly psychedelic song. It is extremely driving. The mid section features some of the sickest sounding guitar riff's ever recorded. It also features multiple tempo changes. I was once in a band with two bassists, who went nowhere called Graveflower. Locust Spawning is an entirely evil assault on the gypsy scale. It has a guitar chiming like an air raid alarm reminiscent of Bauhaus' Spy in the Cab. It is part thrash metal and part industrial with tremendous speed. New Death Sensation begins as a mournful acoustic dirge. It swells in the middle to sound almost like Queen. It is an extremely aethereal anthem. Venus Blue begins just as mellow as New Death Sensation, but it alternates between mellow and extremely heavy. Dead Girl is a romantic song for my wife and me. It features extremely bluesy acoustic guitar and vocals.
I believe that Acid Bath broke up not only because of Audie's death, but also because all of the members were extremely talented and pulling the band their own way. They used enough licks that most of their songs could have been divided thrice or quadruple into other songs. I would like to see a reunion of the surviving members, and for them to record an album today now that their styles have changed. Dax and Mike formed the bluesy doom metal act Agents of Oblivion, then Dax moved on to the indie rock Deadboy and the Elephantmen. Sammy moved into a further darker place with his demonic metal band Goatwhore, and he also has played with the sludge metal band Crowbar. If you have or haven't listened to Acid bath GO LISTEN TO SOME NOW.

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Heavy Band 008: Kittie

With a name like Kittie one might expect a mellow girls group or pop rock, in 1999 Kittie unleashed a maelstrom of noise that went by the name Spit. Formed in 1996 in London, Ontario, at the core of Kittie are a pair of sisters. Morgan Lander on rhythm guitar and lead vocals alternates between clear classic rock vocals and a sinister growl. Mercedes Lander's drumming is pure undiluted thrash metal. Kittie's lead guitar and bassist positions are in constant rotation. Though Kittie's lyrics are par for the course for a metal band, they are nothing special. Focusing on dark content akin to a slasher movie, their lyrics fail to evoke real terror. They are still one of the heaviest bands playing today, and what they are missing in lyrical content they more than make up for with their hellish wave of sound.
Kittie's debut album Spit featured nu metal thrashing on Charlotte and Brackish. Do You Think I'm a Whore? has the grooving drive of an old Deftones song. The album's self titled track is pure heavy metal fire.
Kittie followed up the success of Spit in 2001 with Oracle. Featuring a much heavier cover of Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell and the sludgy single What I Always Wanted Kittie continued their full force assault on any critic that relegated them to the realm of girl group. The album's title track is a driving anthem which initiates the listener and prepares them for the heaviness to come.
Kittie followed Oracle with their 2004 release Until the End, a more melodic album than their previous two. It is also a tad slower than the previous two, and seems to lack some passion of their other albums. The single Into the Darkness is the most mainstream of any Kittie single. Into the Darkness could have benefited from some guitar tremolo. I have visions of a version of this song that is extremely sick with some Dimebag Darrell I'm Broken style guitar. It would make it a truly heavy masterpiece.
Kittie's came back with Funeral for Yesterday, which has much in common with early Judas Priest. The rhythms of the title track and Breathe and Summer Dies are extremely pulsing. While Morgan does not summon ghosts of Rob Halford's past, the instrumentation on the album could easily be confused for rocking Priest. The pumping, heavy, rocking Funeral for Yesterday makes up for any mediocrity that was laid down with Until the End.
Kittie's most recent album In the Black has a refreshingly evil sound. Tracks like My Plague, Die My Darling, and Ready Aim Riot have a truly sick sound with speed, thrash and tremolo in the right proportions. This album is easily one of the heaviest of the new millennium, and it gives me hope for what Kittie has yet to come.

Heavy Band 007: the PIXIES

Though the Pixies have come into some popularity in recent years, they were not always seen as cool. When they broke up they had few fans, but it seems that every fan made a band. Their break up was sealed with the release of their last album Trompe le Monde, released the day before Nevermind and the "Alternative" music explosion that would follow it. But instead of talking of the end of the pixies, I should probably start at the beginning.
Formed in 1986 in Boston, the Pixies created music that wasn't being heard at the time. It defied classification. It was soft at points, but wasn't pop. It was incredibly heavy in other areas, but wasn't metal. Their music is simple yet complex. The Pixies have a deceptive sound, urging you to turn up the stereo to understand the quiet mumbling only to blast out your eardrums when the chorus comes in.
Black Francis'' vocals were smooth and quiet at times, yet at other times, screaming and electrified. His rhythm guitar adds to the soft and the loud elements.
Joey Santiago's lead guitar lurks around corners like a flasher waiting for his moment to wail free. When he did thrash it was so much heavier than mainstream metal at the time.
Kim Deal's chugging bass line, kept it simple, but was capable of incredible speed.
David Lovering on drums provided the base from which they could mosey or launch off of. He was the only member of the band to actually have traditional training. Playing drums in high school band.
The Pixies sound incorporated elements of pop, blues, bluegrass, hardcore, and at times hip hop.
The Pixies first full length album was Surfer Rosa, and it was released in 1988. It featured the throbbing post punk anthem Cactus. The song has the feel of a track by T. Rex. The tracks Gigantic and Where is my Mind? make the template for what would be alternative music in the 1990s.
1989's Doolittle had 15 tracks equally ready to be singles, provided that they would see no airplay on mainstream radio. Particularly heavy songs on the album include Debaser, Dead, and Monkey Gone to Heaven. Monkey Gone to Heaven climaxes with belting shouts of "...THEN GOD IS SEVEN!" over a jangly screeching guitars and fierce bass and drums.
The Pixies followed up Doolittle with Bossanova. Bossanova featured the post punk thrashing of Is She Weird? a tune which is reminiscent of Bauhaus' Stigmata Martyr. Bossanova also featured the poppy Dig for Fire and the haunting Blown Away. On this album Santiago's guitar playing came to the forefront with more fuzzy wailing than any of their previous albums.
Their final studio album Trompe le Monde featured one of the heaviest songs ever. Planet of Sound featured Black Francis screaming, Joe Santiago's guitar thrashing, Kim Deal's bass chugging, and Dave Lovering's drums pounding. The song is about an extraterrestrial searching for rock music. IT IS A LOUD SONG. Much of the rest of the album is loud as well, including the songs Head On and Space. Overall Trompe le Monde is the Pixies heaviest album. It features a lot of punk and metal riffs.
Normally I don't mention any live albums for the Heavy Band of the Week, but I have to make the exception with Pixies at the BBC. This album features much harder renditions of There Goes My Gun, Is She Weird? Monkey Gone to Heaven and Wave of Mutilation. Released in 1998 Pixies at the BBC has since gone on to become a heavy college rock staple at stations everywhere. When I was married in 2003 I had the whole album on my playlist at the reception. It is one of my favorite albums of all time, even though it is not a studio album.

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Heavy Band 006: Sepultura

In 1984 one of the heaviest metal bands ever was formed in the southeastern Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. Sepultura was formed by 14 and 15 year-olds, who had a desire to create some of the heaviest music ever. The classical lineup had Max Cavalera, Igor Cavalera, Andreas Kisser, and Paulo Jr. Taking their name from the Portuguese word for grave.
Max Cavalera's singing has been much imitated. Most metal singers with cookie monster vocals want to be singing like him. My message to them, "You are not Max Cavalera. Stop trying so hard or your vocal chords will fall out." Akin to industrial machinery yet somehow organic, Max's voice is truly terrifying. When you add his minor chord rhythm guitar, you get music that sounds truly chthonic.
Max's brother Igor's drumming started out like a traditional thrash drummer's Tommy gun push, but it evolved elements of modern symphonic music and traditional tribal rhythms until his playing became a multibranched tree capable of incorporating any style of drumming.
Paulo Jr. is the only member of the original lineup still touring with the reconstituted band. His down tuned 5 string bass has applied an apocalyptic rumble since the bands early recordings.
Andreas Kisser joined the band in time for their second album 1987's Schizophrenia. His lead guitar's warped shredding has obviously influenced many nu metal bands like KoЯn and Kittie. Andreas and Paulo Jr. are the only two members of the classic lineup to still record and tour with Sepultura.
Sepultura has recorded eleven studio albums, but I will be focusing primarily on the five albums which contained the classic lineup.
Sepultura's second album Schizophrenia was the first to feature what would be the classic lineup. It primarily featured a sound that would come to be called Death Metal. Andreas' relentless shredding can be heard in the instrumental track Inquisition Symphony, as well as the songs To the Wall and Septic Schizo. Max's raw vocals are best seen on Screams Behind the Shadows and Escape to the Void. His singing had not evolved into the roaring growl that would define the voice of Sepultura, and so more variety is seen in his vocals on this album than any other. The song From The Past Comes The Storms is one of the truly great speed metal songs, defining a moment in time. Igor's drumming and Paulo Jr's bass roar throughout, but on From The Past Comes The Storms we hear amazing speed and precision difficult to accomplish with down tuned distorted bass and echoing drums.
Beneath the Remains came out in 1989 and stands as a testament to the power of thrash metal with Slayer's Reign in Blood and Megadeth's Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good. The intro to the title track is mournful and poignant, lulling you into a comfortable place until the song comes crashing through with more speed and adrenaline than a 2000 foot free fall. The tracks Slaves of Pain and Hungry are blisteringly fast and dangerously aggressive. Overall this album is one of the fastest, most pounding metal albums ever.
With 1991's Arise came the solidification of what would be Max's vocal style. His grizzly, dark growl is seen on the tracks Under Siege and Arise. While the album is pretty fast overall, tracks like Under Siege are slower yet louder. It was a harbinger of what was to come with their next two albums.
Chaos A.D. was released in 1993 and it featured more experimentation than any of their previous albums. Paulo Jr's bass playing was slowed down and featured elements of funk and blues. In addition tribal drumming was introduced at points on several songs. The instrumental track Kaiowas featured Andreas' classic acoustic guitar abilities. Max's vocal style further solidified itself on this album. It seemed that the band was ready to transcend all categories and stereotypes of what it meant to play heavy metal.
Sepultura released Roots in 1996. It is one of the most experimental albums in the history of heavy metal. It featured even more tribal drumming and chanting, slackened guitar strings, more funk elements, and occasional creepy whispering. The song Roots Bloody Roots featured almost all of these elements, along with slowed down sickening tremolo guitar. This album also featured more collaborators than any other, including Mike Patton and Jonathan Davis. There were elements of hardcore and the Xavate tribe from the Amazon basin were recorded singing and drumming in their traditional style. All of these seemingly conflicting elements fused into one of the best albums of all time. The album was one of the few that was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
Max Cavalera left Sepultura after Roots and the band hired a sound alike singer. The album Against released after Max's departure is okay, but lacks some of the magic that Sepultura had before. The song Choke is cool, but seems more like it was recorded by a Sepultura cover band. Max's new band Soulfly is also missing some of the magic that the classic lineup had. Estranged from his brother after his departure, Igor left Sepultura a decade later and has since patched up his relationship with Max. The classic lineup of Sepultura has influenced the shape of 21st century heavy metal greatly, and we can always hope for a reunion of the lineup in the future.

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Heavy Band 005: Sleater-Kinney

Last week I featured a band that didn't have a guitarist until recently, and this week I'm going with Sleater-Kinney, a band without a bassist. I didn't believe that a band could be heavy without a low end until I heard Sleater-Kinney. They had the raw energy of a young Iggy and the Stooges, had guitar licks as clean as Fugazi and as dirty as Motörhead, and they constantly evolved, quitting before they could grow stale.
Corin Tucker's pulsing rhythm guitar helped drive their songs. Her vocals a

re truly awesome, at times sweet as dulce de leche and other times shrieking that would put a Banshee's wail to shame. At times her vocals are raw, and at other times almost seem that they are coming from some 1960s R&B group played through an old hand held transistor radio. Tucker's lyrics could be overtly political, subversively personal, or just plain fun.

Carrie Brownstein was on lead guitar summoning ghosts of Pete Townshend's past, teaching a whole new generation what it is to rock. Her guitar playing alternated between the clean staccato sounds of modern pop punk and the fuzzy thrash of an inhalant huffing garage band. Her backing vocals provide a martial push on songs that were often anti-militaristic.
Janet Weiss joined up after their second album, and provided the pumping, heavy, blasting drum line that completed the band's sound.

Tucker and Brownstein formed Sleater-Kinney in 1994 in Olympia. Initially part of the Riot Grrrl movement, Their music evolved from political punk in the style of Dead Kennedys through until they created a style that could only be considered their own.
Their first album, the self titled Sleater-Kinney debuted in 1995. This album was followed by Call the Doctor in 1996. Both of these albums were aggressive punk with political overtones alternating with the alternative ballads that were so popular in the mid 1990s. Sleater-Kinney had the alternative ballad The Day I Went Away and Call the Doctor had Heart Attack. For harder tunes Sleater-Kinney had A Real Man, Call the Doctor had its self titled track.

Their third album, Dig Me Out had the stirrings of what would become the Sleater-Kinney sound. The title track was a pumping anthem full of distorted guitars, slamming drums and Tucker's unbelievably powerful voice. This was the first album with Weiss on drums and it is in part due to this that this is recognized as the solidifying of their sound.

Sleater-Kinney's fourth album The Hot Rock has more of an indie pop feel than any of their other albums. Songs like Hot Rock, God is a Number, and Get Up have a dreamy quality that isn't seen in such a quantity in any of their other albums.
They followed up The Hot Rock with All Hands on the Bad One. Youth Decay from this album could only be created by Sleater-Kinney's unique sound. Ironclad and the album's title track are heavy, yet vulnerable in a way that only they could create.

Sleater-Kinney's heaviest album was One Beat. While the title track, Remainder, and Combat Rock are heavy enough for me to take those songs alone and consider them an extremely heavy band, they slowed down their tempo for Far Away to Black Sabbath time. Far Away has faster portions, but its heaviness is tied to its slow paced parts, its sheer volume, and its unadulterated anger. Far Away stands as a testament to Sleater-Kinney's heaviness.

Sleater-Kinney's seventh and final album was The Woods. It opened with the rocking The Fox, a song that makes me want to go out and commit acts of destruction. Songs like Jumpers and Rollercoaster push this album forth into extremely heavy realms. While I was sad to see that Sleater-Kinney were going into retirement, I would much rather see them go out on a high note as they did, than to slide into mediocrity. I'm pretty sure that they had a few more awesome albums in them, and maybe we will get a listen if they ever have a reunion.

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Heavy Band 004: Big Business

In 2005 while DJing at KBGA (the local college radio station), I came across the sludgiest band that I had heard. Big Business came out with their album Head for the Shallow, an atomic scale assault on clean sounding music. With Coady Willis (the man who gave Murder City Devils their driving, demon exorcising drum beat) on drums they have a forceful beat, the kind of drum beat that you don't want to turn your back on. Coady's screaming in the background adds a punk rock element to their songs, almost someone shouting in opposition to a rally. Jared Warren (formerly of Karp) on bass gives them rumbling bass strings reverberating to their maximum, with lots of overdrive. Jared's bass playing is like getting beaten while you're drunk and throwing up... in a good way. Jared's vocals are soulful yet aggressive, at times screaming past the point that he is horse and pushing it even harder. Initially Big Business started out with just bass and drums, with a friend adding a guitar here or there.
Released in 2005 Head for the Shallow featured the heavy tracks Focus Pocus, Easter Romantic, and Technically Electrified, each demanding to be pushed to the loudest volume possible. This album guaranteed that Big Business would never be played on mainstream radio. The album was too heavy for mass consumption, as has been the rest of their catalog.
In 2006 Big business was deemed so heavy that the godfathers of sludge metal, The Melvins beckoned them to become members of the band. Their next tour had Big Business opening for the Melvins, who then had Big Business as members, including two drummers for the most driving, deafening metal around. Jared grew his hair out into an white man's afro, much akin to Buzz Osbourne's.
In 2007 Big Business released Here Come the Waterworks, proving that their first album wasn't a fluke, they really were that heavy. Here Come the Waterworks featured the heavy hitters Grounds for Divorce, Just as the Day was Dawning, Start Your Digging, and I'll Give You Something to Cry About, which showed that they had a sense of humor in addition to their epic heaviness.
Big Business followed up Here Come the Waterworks with their first album with a formal guitarist. Toshi Kasai was officially announced as a member of Big Business in 2008, and played on the album Mind the Drift, released in 2009. Mind the Drift showed that there is no rest for the wicked, and Big Business is wicked. Track like Gold and Final and Cold Lunch allow Toshi some room to show off his metal chops. The Drift is a slow stoner rock song akin to The Doors Five to One.
Though Big Business has released three of the heaviest albums of all time and are awesome and deafening to see live, their best may still be yet to come. Keep them on your radar, and never turn your back on their drum beat.

Heavy Band 003: Megadeth

The only problem that I'm having selecting bands for the heavy band of the week is determining which of the band that I want to feature each week.

In April of 1983, Dave Mustaine was kicked out of Metallica, he was then determined to create a band even greater than them. Though he hasn't had the commercial success that they have, I believe that he accomplished his goal. Megadeth has had more complex music, more intelligent lyrics, and has a much more sinister sound... but first perhaps we should go back to the beginning. The only other constant member of the band is David Ellefson, though from 2003-9 he wasn't in the band. Ellefson has played some of the most influential bass riffs in metal. Dave Mustaine met David Ellefson in 1983 just a few months after Metallica had left him stranded in New York. The story goes that Ellefson heard Mustaine playing upstairs in their apartment building, he went up to Mustaine's apartment and asked if he could bum a smoke. Mustaine closed the door in his face, and Ellefson returned a few minutes later with some money, asking if Mustaine could buy them some liquor. Mustaine replied something like, "Now you're talking." They bought some booze, he revealed that he could kind of play bass, they got drunk and jammed.
The first album that they released was Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good. This album sounds a lot like Metallica's Kill 'Em All album, due to the fact that Dave developed a lot of the songs for Kill 'Em All and he recycled several of the riffs for Killing Is My Business, but in addition to this he added several other riffs that he had been working on since. The album was speedy and thick with truly sick riffs. There were so many riffs in this album that it could have been expanded into 5 separate albums, each of which would have sounded pretty awesome. Killing Is My Business foreshadows the greatness to come. In addition to the kickass title track, the songs Skull Beneath The Skin introduces the band's mascot Vic Rattlehead, who is featured on the front cover, a skull with a visor nailed to his eyes with meathooks holding shut his mouth. The song Rattlehead is perhaps the heaviest song from 1985. It has a speedy feel of the fastest Judas Priest song.
1986 brought Megadeth's second release Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? The title track was a very cynical take on our society. The intro bass riff to the song is one of the most awesome of all time. The bass riff was used as an intro for MTV News for over a decade. Megadeth's cynicism that began on this album was refreshing in the 1980s when no one was questioning societal norms, everyone was just happy to be sheep. Songs like The Conjuring and Good Mourning/Black Friday showed some of the most metal heavy guitar licks, with lyrics about occult topics.
Megadeth's third album So Far, So Good... So What! featured an occult heavy song by the name of Mary Jane that would be worthy of old school Black Sabbath. Mustaine wrote the song In My Darkest Hour after finding out about the death of his former band mate Metallica's Cliff Burton.
Rust in Peace is an amazing work. Every song is a masterpiece. Holy Wars...The Punishment Due is the first song on it. It is the tale of a man who has lost everything that he has, due to the fact that he worships in the wrong church. "They killed my wife and my baby...tried to enslave me." Hanger 18 delves into US conspiracies, specifically Hanger 18 in Roswell NM. The drum intro to Rust in Peace...Polaris leading into the sick guitar riffing makes it one of the hardest songs of all time. Never to be heard on the radio, in part due to its message about nuclear arms. This album is my all time favorite Megadeth album.
In the early 1990s Megadeth continued with their hard rocking with Countdown to Extinction. Countdown to Extinction is the most commercially successful album released by Megadeth. This is in contrast to it being the most political album to be released in 1992. The songs Symphony of Destruction and Architecture of Aggression are about dictatorships and the buildup of the military industrial complex. Foreclosure of a Dream is about the loss of the family farm, as farms were being gobbled up by ConAgra. This was the first album not to feature Vic Rattlehead on the album cover, and he wouldn't be on another Megadeth album for the 1990s.
The last Megadeth album that I am going to write about is 1994's Youthanasia. Featuring the kickass songs Reckoning Day, Train of Consequences, and A Tout le Monde. Train of Consequences opens with the best opening lines of all time, "I'm doing you a favor, As I'm taking all your money, I guess I should feel sorry, But I don't even trust me."

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Heavy Band 002: OT3P

This is my second installment in my series of examinations of hard rocking bands.

Formed in 2000, Otep has been one of the heaviest bands of the past decade. Otep takes its name from its female lead singer Otep Shamaya, who I will hence call "Shamaya" in order to avoid confusion. Most metal bands with a female lead singer tend to play melodic metal. This is not the case with Otep. Shamaya's singing ranges from subtle to overpowering, from vulnerable to vicious, from weak and whimpering to an empowered guttural growl. Her lyrics are at times ironic and comical, at other times horrific and personal.
The only other constant member of the group is "Evil" J. McGuire, whose bass playing can sometimes sound bouncy like Les Claypool's and other times driving and distorted like Geezer Butler's. He occasionally sings on songs, and the combination of his and Shamaya's growls creates an illusion of being swallowed into the bowels of Hell.
Otep's first release, the EP Jihad was released the summer of 2001. It featured five tracks, four of which that would be reworked for their first full length album Sevas Tra (the phrase Art Saves backwards). The song The Lord Is My Weapon features elements of hip hop and death metal with lyrics that call for an end to religious hypocrisies. The songs Possession and Germ sound like incantations to summon spirits.
Otep's second full length album House of Secrets opens with the song Requiem which puts you in the right mindset to listen to the album. Requiem features the sounds of Tibetan style gongs over sounds of horrific torture culminating in the voice of the victim saying an incantation to a dark goddess calling for vengeance. Requiem leads into Warhead, an indictment of the USA's leaders and lifestyle for getting us into a war in Iraq over oil. Warhead ends with a call to "Break Free!" The third song on House of Secrets is Buried Alive, which begins calmly with the lyrics: "I speak in verses, prophecies, and curses." From there the song slowly grows into a testament of rage. The title track of House of Secrets is haunting and bluesy, anchoring the whole album to a liberation for the victims of abuse.
Otep's third full length album The Ascension is somewhat softer and it has more humor in it that the prior two albums. Though the first song Eet the Children evokes the imagery of the victim, it also contains the lyrics: "Operators are standing by, Some restrictions may apply, Side effects could include, We'll steal the life right out of you." The song Crooked Spoons contains the line: "Take me down... Where the baptized drown." The song Perfectly Flawed is almost a ballad. The song Confrontation brings back the pious rage against the wealthy in their high towers sending impoverished pawns to battle. Though The Ascension contains some softer songs, there is still plenty of heavy songs to get your blood pumping.
Otep's latest album Smash the Control Machine opens with the driving Rise, Rebel, Resist. Smash the Control Machine is Otep's most political album. The album's title track is an outright indictment of capitalism and complacent consumerism. It questions why the quality of life divide between wealthy and poor is becoming so great, and it urges us to wake up and rise up against they who would exploit us. The song Kisses and Kerosene again evokes the images of the victim of abuse's wishes to have vengeance upon her abuser.
Otep is definitely one of the heaviest bands in rock today, which is due to the thrash of their instruments, the dark subject matter that they choose to cover, and their charismatic frontwoman who is equally at home singing a ballad as she is shrieking, growling, whimpering, or reciting ominous passages. Long may they continue to rock in the way that I've come to love them, ever changing and uncompromising.


Om SHAnti SHAnti SHAnti

Heavy Band 001: Guns 'N' Roses

I'm going to start trying to post a blog on every Saturday about a Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Band.

The first band that I've chosen to feature is Guns N Roses. Once I started listening to GNR I realized that I could never listen to Bon Jovi again. I saw the commercial for 1988's Dirty Hairy: Dead Pool. It featured GNR's Welcome to the Jungle, one of the heaviest songs of all time. I purchased the album Appetite for Destruction soon after. It's So Easy has perhaps the hardest rocking intro of any songs on the album. The intro is reminiscent of Judas Priest's intro to Rapid Fire with it's driving guitar section. Mister Brownstone is just an awesome track with the raunch of Nazareth (aside from Love Hurts). Far from Nirvana being the end of Hair/Butt Metal, this album made savage wounds that allowed Nevermind to make the killing shot.
Though GNR constantly changed lineups, even in the old days, I cannot bring myself to listen to Axl's new incarnations of what was an awesome band. I like GNR best when Slash, Izzy, and Duff were in the line up.
GNR followed up the huge success that was with Appetite for Destruction with GN'R Lies. The first half of GN'R Lies consisted of a live EP that was released prior to Appetite for Destruction. The album opens with the speedy, driven Reckless Life. Reckless Life is the seminal song for early GNR, showing influences of Aerosmith. This influence is also seen in their cover of Mama Kin on the end of the first side. The second side of the album begins with the acoustic ballad Patience, and ended with perhaps GNR's most controversial song of all time. One in a Million offends so many people with it's xenophobic, racist, and homophobic lyrics. Axl Rose insisted that the song was to be taken ironically, and that he wrote it because of anger that he felt towards specific individuals.
GNR followed Lies with the ambitious double album Use Your Illusion parts 1&2. These albums showed much more blues influence, as is seen in the tracks Dust N' Bones, Shotgun Blues, 14 Years, and Bad Obsession. The album also shows folk music influences on the songs You Ain't the First and Civil War. These albums have the most eclectic sound of any of GNR's, with songs that could be played in a smoky bar, and others that you could only see being played in a packed stadium.
The final GNR album with the classic lineup was The Spaghetti Incident, an album of all cover songs that shows many of their influences. The genres covered on the album include punk, raunchy hard rock, hardcore, glam rock, and even a tune by Charles Manson.
After The Spaghetti Incident, the classic lineup fell apart. Axl Rose took 15 years to write Chinese Democracy, with an indistinguishable band. Most of the other band members united with Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots to form Velvet Revolver. Though all parts make decent music, they have yet to make music that captures the same kind of energy that they were able to capture in the late '80s and early '90s.

Om SHAnti SHAnti SHAnti