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Katie Melua - Pictures
Katie Melua clearly owes Mike Batt a lot. Without him, there's no doubt that she wouldn't be where she is today. However, there comes a time when the pupil must shrug off the shackles of their mentor and for Melua, that really should have been with this third album. On debut Call Off The Search, he wrote half the songs and she wrote two. On follow-up Piece By Piece, they both contributed four each, and Melua was already clearly outshining Batt as a songwriter. However, Pictures arrives with just one track written by her on her own and five credited to Batt, and this is a definite problem. Why? Because he writes awful, fussy and pedantic lyrics that just don't sound natural even when sung by someone with as sweet a voice as Melua. This was obvious on Piece By Piece, where the hit single Nine Million Bicycles had lyrics that made you want to scream after you'd heard it a couple of times, and on Pictures he has taken it even further and contributed some absolutely dreadful songs. Things start badly with Mary Pickford, a song about the Canadian actress from the early days of cinema, who was a co-founder of movie studio United Artists, and Batt's lyrics include this gem: "Charlie Chaplin, he was invited, when these artists became united." Get it? That he also dresses Melua up as Chaplin in a slightly freaky photo in the album's booklet only makes this even more of a strange song. And it gets worse with another song having the chorus: "Ain't gonna lose now, such a lot to win, 'cause I will always know you're just what it says on the tin." That's right, Batt has written a love song based on the Ronseal Quick Dry and Woodstain advert. How romantic is that? Well, still probably more romantic than this line: "Zombies marching through the mist make me think of being kissed." Seriously. Recent single If You Were A Sailboat also has terrible, pedantic lyrics that are just like those in Nine Million Bicycles, but with less memorable music behind it. The real problem here is that while Batt can write this nonsense, it's Melua who has to try and sing it, and she never sounds particularly comfortable with any of it, and that almost cripples Pictures before it begins. Quite why Batt has seemed to take so much more control of this album than he did with the last one, we'll never know, but Melua's songs are the best things here, with What I Miss About You having a nice little twist in its lyrics, while Perfect Circle is probably the best song on here. If it's a lack of songwriting confidence that means she lets Batt dominate, then it's certainly misplaced, because while she is hardly Leonard Cohen (who she covers with In My Secret Life) her songs are more than good enough to shunt the man who wrote Remember You're A Womble out of the picture. If she doesn't do that, then it's hard to see how she can progress as an artist, because Pictures is a backwards step on every level from Piece By Piece.
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Radio 1 - Established 1967
Radio 1 is 40
years old and if that's not worth
celebrating, what is? Just think of
all the wonderful, safe, completely
obvious and tedious music that has
been churned out to the masses in
those four decades. Actually, you
don't need to think of it, because
they have decided to release a two-disc
album with a 'hit' from each year
of Radio 1's existence, with the twist
being that they are all performed
by the kind of people who get played
on the station nowadays. In theory,
this is quite a nice idea and certainly
throws up some interesting cover versions
(The Streets doing Your Song?!), but
of course the choice of songs and
artists often leaves a little to be
desired. For example, couldn't they
think of something better than Flowers
In The Rain by The Move for 1967 (one
of rock music's classic years)? Sure, it was 'the first song ever played on Radio 1', but it's hardly a great or memorable tune otherwise. Was
Ronan Keating's own cover of Father
And Son by Cat Stevens really the
only song from 2005 that they could
think of? Including cover of covers
also messes up the chronology somewhat,
which surely kind of defies the theme
of the album, even when it works quite
well, like Sam Cooke's Cupid being
done by Amy Winehouse in the reggae
version released by Johnny Nash in
1969. The idea of Robbie Williams
doing Lola by The Kinks might seem
horrible, but as with his performance
of The Only One I Know on Mark Ronson's
album, Williams reins in his own personality
to do a pretty straight rendition,
which is both fine and pointless at
the same time, but is at least less
downright creepy than Mike Skinner's
performance of Your Song, which sounds
like a toned-down version of Sid Vicious
singing My Way or a slightly classier
version of someone from Eastenders
singing karaoke. But at least it is
interesting, because it takes the
modern-day artist out of their comfort
zone, and there's a few of those,
which have mixed results but do make
the exercise worthwhile. Kylie does
a suitably sultry version of Roxy
Music's Love Is The Drug, while Beth
Ditto wraps her pipes around Careless
Whisper which doesn't really work
as a speeded-up new wave song. Stereophonics
haven't always been known for their
sense of humour, so you've got to
wonder how long it took to convince
them to do You Sexy Thing, but Kelly
Jones' throaty voice works perfectly
and they aren't afraid to go for it,
so it is one of the best versions
on the album, while Klaxons do very
well with Blackstreet's classic blues-gospel-hip-hop
tune No Diggity. Girls Aloud provide one of the surprises of the whole exercise with their really well-produced rendition of Teenage Dirtbag (though we doubt that they really would listen to Iron Maiden) that actually is probably better than the original, which can't be said for Hard-Fi's attempt at Toxic or Corinne Bailey Rae's Steady As She Goes. But this is all what you'd expect from 40 cover versions, nobody is going to like them all, it depends on whether you like the originals or the artists redoing them, and most of the tracks here are pointless at best. This kind of album is what downloads are for, because that option gives the chance to listen to the tracks first and only cherrypick the ones you really want.
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will.i.am
- Songs About Girls
As a music
reviewer, you have to give every
CD a fair chance, no matter
what you think of the artist
and the music they've made before.
So, just because will.i.am is
the man behind Black Eyed Peas,
My Humps, Don't Phunk With My
Heart and all kinds of things
like that, it doesn't mean that
his third solo album is going
to be a wretched load of hideous
trash. But then again, you hear
I Got It From My Mama, which
sounds like My Humps Pt.2. will.i.am's
bizarre concept of sexy talk
has gone through Black Eyed
Peas songs, Pussycat Dolls songs
and now this one, which sounds
almost exactly like Fergie is
singing the female parts, and
the lyrics are just awful. What
kind of man gets involved in
chatting up a lady that leads
to him eyeing up her mum as
well? The kind of man who asks
ladies what they are going to
do with all that junk in their
trunk, that's who. And it gets
worse, unsurprisingly, when
Snoop Dogg gets involved. I
know and you know (ok, we're
both lying to try and sound
cool) that 'donque' is a street
slang term for 'a fine bottom',
but when the chorus to a song
is 'She got the donque (yeah...),
She got the donque (uh...)'
and it sounds like 'She got
the donkey (yeah...), She got
the donkey (yeah...)' something
is very wrong. Telling a girl
that her rear end looks like
a donkey isn't going to cut
it, frankly. And that's just
when he's singing about sex,
just get him started on global
warming. 'When the eskimo gets
bit by a mosquito, Somebody
in Miami will get swept by a
tsunami, Rastas in Jamaica will
get hit by a quake that, Registers
something like 8.8.' Seriously?
Yes. Honestly. Al Gore mustn't
have known whether to laugh
or cry when he heard that at
Live Earth. SOS (Mother Nature)
is just incredible, and not
in a good way. And the annoying
thing is that will.i.am does
have talent as a producer and
there's lots of pretty decent
electro-pop like Over (which
has a sample from ELO!), Heartbreaker
and Invisible. However, there's
also too much mediocre material
(like Impatient, which has you
impatiently waiting for it to
end as soon as it starts) and
those songs that just make you
want to destroy everything in
the whole world just so that
you never hear them again.
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The Puppini Sisters - The Rise And Fall Of Ruby Woo
When you've had a decent hit with a fairly novely-style debut album the question is always 'where do you go from there?' The Puppini Sisters certainly stood out when Betcha Bottom Dollar emerged last year with its cover versions of great pop songs done in the style of The Andrew Sisters and other swinging girl groups from the 40s. Doing this meant that they got lots of attention, but there's only so long you can go on doing this before you get labelled as one-trick ponies, so The Rise And Fall Of Ruby Woo had to be something slightly different. And it is only SLIGHTLY different, starting off with Dusty Springfield's Spooky, The Bangles' Walk Like An Egyptian and Patti Page's Old Cape Cod. Three cover versions reworked in the Puppini style, they all work very well, but don't exactly stretch the formula much, and they also do their own versions of It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, Could It Be Magic, Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree, Crazy In Love (yes, the Beyonce song) and We Have All The Time In The World. They have mixed results with them again, but the key part of the album is where the Sisters themselves (they're not sisters) flex their own creative muscles, with five original tracks. Marcella Puppini explained the importance of these: "With the release of our first album, we captured people's imagination but when we started thinking about this album we knew that we wanted to move on from being a close harmony 'Andrews Sisters tribute act' to creating our own distinctive sound." Again, the results are a little mixed, with Puppini's I Can't Believe I'm Not A Millionaire and Jilted both a bit laboured and sounding a bit too separate from the sound of the rest of the album. Soho Nights is a bit better, while It's Not Over (Death Or The Toy Piano) is pretty good, but it's still difficult to see how The Puppini Sisters would be able to ditch the covers altogether and function as a proper group in their own right on the strength of songs like these. For now, the mixture works ok and The Rise And Fall Of Ruby Woo still sounds fresh enough to stand up, but where they go from here is still a question that has to be asked.
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Ani DiFranco
- Canon
There's
not many artists as singular
and defiantly independent as
Ani DiFranco, the archetypcal
hippie folkie singer-songwriter
of the 1990s. Who else would
set up their own record label
(Righteous Records, which soon
turned into Righteous Babe Records)
before releasing their debut
album, as well as glory over
the years in turning down big
money offers to take her music
to the mainstream? This has
meant that her entire career
has come from word of mouth
PR, and this compilation of
her music is utterly lacking
in hits. While the likes of
Alanis and Sheryl have sold
millions and appeared on MTV
countless times, DiFranco has
ploughed her own furrow, and
the appropriately-titled Canon
perfectly sums up the most accessible
side of her ouevre, though it's
still hardly commercial fare,
with most of it finding her
accompanying herself on acoustic
guitar, and even her style of
playing that is quite unique
to her. At 36 tracks, Canon
isn't for the lighthearted,
but considering she has released
16 albums in almost as many
years, you wouldn't expect her
compilation to be anything but
profilic, and there is virtually
no filler here, apart from a
couple of 'link' tracks here
and there. DiFranco's back catalogue
can be overwhelming for newcomers,
particularly as there are some
albums out there that are almost
impossible to penetrate (like
the sprawling narrative of double-album
Revelling: Reckoning for example,
this reviewer's first taste
of her music), so Canon is an
excellent place to start. Even
for dedicated fans, there is
still some merit in it bringing
together all the loose threads
of her catalogue into one cohesive
mixture, while the re-recordings
of a few tracks all work pretty
well. Of all the compilation
albums that will inevitably
come out between now and Christmas,
it's hard to imagine any of
them being as worth investigating
as this one.
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Felix Da Housecat - Virgo Blaktro & The Movie Disco
20 years after he made his recording debut at the tender age of 15, Felix Da Housecat is still going strong, even if he arguably isn't at the forefront of his genre anymore. Still as one of the prime movers in the second wave of the Chicago house scene, as a DJ, performer and record label owner, Felix is certainly someone for whom a new album release is something to stand up and take note of. Virgo Blaktro and the Movie Disco is certainly one of his most intruiging releases too, with his trademark house style being infiltrated by pop, soul and funk influences, as he explains: "This is the first record I've done with black folks, but to me it's not a colour thing, it's more like a roots thing. This record has a black, soulful groove, it's more like Sly & the Family Stone. With this album I wanted to go Parliament, I wanted to go Prince, and at the same time I wanted to go like George Michael and Pet Shop Boys, only them being black. This stuff is all black-influenced." Not many people can claim to have been influenced by both Parliament and George Michael at the same time, but the description does fit Vigo Blaktro quite well, with Felix creating a kalaidoscope of sounds on funky, dancey tracks like the cracking single Like Something For Porno (has there been a better single title this year?) and Radio. The pop influences do at times make this sound like a Royksopp album, but given the debt they owe to Felix in the first place, they can't exactly complain. If anything, Virgo Blaktro suffers from not quite going as far as he seems to want it to go into his black roots, and it would have been interesting to hear some more Prince or Sly thrown in. As it is, it's still a great, fun dance album and a welcome return for this Housecat after six years.
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Axel Rudi Pell - Diamonds Unlocked
Cover albums are generally pretty pointless affairs, much like film remakes. They take something you already know, put a slightly different sheen on it and then make you pay for it again. However, the concept of hearing one of Germany's most celebrated hair metal guitarists putting his spin on songs by the likes of Phil Collins and Michael Bolton is certainly worth a go, and Diamonds Unlocked is definitely a different kind of cover album. It starts off with a brief intro track to highlight his guitar-playing, which still sounds locked in the 80s, before a cover of Warrior by Riot that obviously doesn't stray too far from the original. Next up is Beautiful Day by U2, which sounds like U2 would sound if Bono was replaced by Jon Bon Jovi - Johnny Gioeli does the vocals on this album - and The Edge by Pell. That is to say that it's ok, but again a little pointless and plods along rather than exploding into life in the way you might imagine. Much more surprising is Pell's version of Love Gun by Kiss, which he and Gioeli turn into an acoustic power ballad, albeit one with really ridiculous lyrics (which is surely the point of power ballads anyway). Speaking of ridiculous, how about that Michael Bolton cover? Well, he has chosen Fool's Game, which was always a little bit of a rocker anyway, and not just because of the hair. It works alright too as does the rocking version of In The Air Tonight. If you've seen that gorilla advert, you'll already know what an awesome song that was in the first place, and you can imagine just how much fun a heavy metal drummer would have with it (about as much as a man dressed in a gorilla suit, actually). Who would have thought a German rocker would be able to play a Phil Collins song for eight and a half minutes and still make it interesting? Diamonds Unlocked would have worked better if Pell had gone the whole hog and left out stuff like Won't Get Fooled Again in favour of more cheesy stuff, but it's certainly entertaining and his legions of (mostly German) fans will love it.
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Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War
You've sometimes got to be careful when you review music these days, as one hapless reviewer for influential American music website Pitchfork found out when he covered this album and gave it a fairly decent-sounding 7.4 out of 10. Unfortunately, Stars frontman Torquil Campbell wasn't impressed and posted a rant on the band's MySpace page about it: "I thought since every undergraduate geek living in a state of imposed virginity (i.e. Ryan Numballs) is allowed to effect the the critical discourse in this hellish age we call "now", i too would get in on the moronic inferno and have a bit of a go at blogging myself. I'll try to be trite, smarmy and reductive, dismissive, self congratulatory and smug, ill informed, ignorant and overly simplistic. These characteristics seem compulsory in the blogging world and, like all my fellow internet critics, i just want to be part of the club!" Ok then... Sure, he'a got a point about bloggers and the general uselessness of most art criticism (yes, I do mean that) but it's ridiculous for someone in his position to release an album early so that it can be reviewed by the fans and blogs like Pitchfork before the 'professional' media, and then to get all huffy when a reviewer doesn't shower it with unadulturated praise. Make no mistake, In Our Bedroom After The War doesn't deserve unadulturated praise, because it is a sloppy, messy and unfocused record that at times sounds like a compilation of several different bands, from the moody electro of The Beginning After The End to the blatant Morrissey rip-off of Take Me To The Riot, and while Stars - Canadian art-rockers who are part of the vast Broken Social Scene collective - are always an interesting and clearly very talented band, this isn't a great album and no amount of bitching on MySpace is going to change that.
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Oceansize
- Frames
Oceansize
aren't the most
obvious band you
would imagine having
a song in an advert,
but these local
lads were all over
our TVs last year
with their track
Music For A Nurse
used in an Orange
ad. Sure, it wasn't
the kind of song
that leapt from
your speakers and
made you instantly
go and buy an album,
but it must have
won them plenty
of the kind of fans
who appreciate this
kind of thing. Because
Oceansize are an
excellent band,
both completely
different to the
traditional 'Manchester'
scene, but also
summing up the subtle
majesty of our fine
city with their
epic soundscapes.
They've also got
the most perfect
name for their music,
because it really
is ocean-sized and
they certainly haven't
toned down anything
on the back of being
in an advert. If
anything, it is
more adventurous
and individual than
their last album
Everyone Into Position,
starting right from
opener Commemorative____T-Shirt,
with its beautiful
and hypnotic intro.
Mogwai are an obvious
reference point
when it comes to
Oceansize, but they
aren't completely
indebted to the
Scottish post-rockers,
as they bring in
a much more varied
sound to their songs,
which conversely
tend to have more
of a straightforward
structure to them.
They'll throw in
quiet acoustic moments
and full-on heavy
metal moments and
when it all comes
together, like on
the stunning Savants,
it can be pure genius.
All eight songs
are dark, brooding
and epic and defiantly
Oceansized, and
Frames is an excellent
new stage in their
career. They might
never achieve the
status of other
Manc bands like
Elbow and Doves,
but they certainly
deserve it.
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Les
Savy Fav -
Let's Stay
Friends
It's
been six years
since Les
Savy Fav last
released an
album, but
their 'hiatus'
has turned
out to be
just that,
rather than
anything more
permanent,
as some fans
had feared.
Instead, they
are back with
Let's Stay
Friends, and
it finds them
with open
arms rather
than open
wallets. Indeed,
opening track
Pots And Pans
is semi-autobiographical
and almost
nostalgic
for the old
days as well
as a call
to action
for the new
age: "Let's
tear this
whole place
down and build
it up again/
This band's
a beating
heart and
it's nowhere
near its end."
They're looking
back again
in The Year
Before The
Year 2000,
which is a
kind of indie
rock version
of Prince's
1999 (as you
might have
guessed from
the title.
Let's Stay
Friends finds
Tim Harrington
as Co as skittish
and energetic
as ever, but
the gap between
albums has
mellowed them
slightly and
convinced
them to sugar-coat
their raucous
tunes a bit
more, leading
to tracks
like Patty
Lee sounding
like the mad
soundtrack
to a party
for librarians
who have drunk
too much Coca-Cola.
What Wolves
Do? isn't
a rhetorical
question about
Mick McCarthy's
tactical machinations,
but is a lovely
little understated
tune that
suddenly explodes
into life
with rat-a-tat
drums and
Harrington's
enthusiastic
bellowing
and that pretty
much sets
the pattern
for much of
an album that
is full of
light and
dark, but
definitely
has more of
an ear for
a melody than
its predecessors.
Harrington
is joined
on vocals
by an all-star
indie cast
of supporting
characters,
including
Eleanor Friedberger
(the Fiery
Furnaces),
Toko Yasuda
(Enon), and
Nick Thorburn
(the Unicorns),
but unsurprisingly
none of them
can overshadow
him and he
dominates
even when
keeping his
more out-there
moments under
wraps. Les
Savy Fav have
always been
a band worth
watching out
for, and pretty
much all of
Let's Stay
Friends is
awesome, so
it's great
to have them
back.
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Fauxliage
- Fauxliage
Bill
Leeb and Rhys
Fulber are
two the key
people in
ambient pop
band Delerium
and Leigh
Nash was the
singer in
Sixpence None
The Richer
(remember
them? They
were that
Christian
group who
did that Kiss
Me song) and
together they
are Fauxliage.
Nash had already
worked with
Delerium before,
so this side-project
was hardly
out of the
blue, but
it's very
welcome because
we're fans
of them and,
in particular,
her. She's
got a really
divine (no
pun intended)
voice, as
she showed
on the lovely
Kiss Me, but
in Sixpence
she was constrained
by their often
turgid material.
Much, much
better was
her debut
solo album
Blue On Blue,
where she
was able to
let her voice
shine through
some beautiful
countryish
material,
and it's well
worth checking
out. As is
this Fauxliage
album, which
builds on
the potential
of those Delerium
tracks and
Blue And Blue,
combining
her vocals
with lush
electronic
soundscapes,
summed up
perfectly
by the delightful
Someday The
Wind and the
reflective
and autumnal
Draw My Life.
The whole
mood of the
album is like
that, quite
reflective
and melancholic,
but with Nash's
voice lifting
it up to somewhere
happier and
more peaceful.
"Music always
reflects the
artist's state
of mind otherwise
it's not realistic,"
said Leeb.
"At this particular
moment in
my life I
am feeling
very introspective
and this album
became part
of that persona
and that is
why the album
has a very
moody ambience
to it. And
the lyrics
add to this
mood by 'taking
of stock of
one's personal
life.'" The
highlight
of the album
is certainly
Rafe, a song
written by
Nash for her
cousin: "He
used to be
a very successful
ballet dancer,
that's why
there are
references
to him dancing
under light.
The song was
written to
be a hand
for him to
hold in what
I thought
might be his
last moments.
Thankfully
he is now
doing well."
That pretty
much sums
Fauxliage
up, sadness
and beauty
brought together
in a safe
and happy
place, with
very nice
ambient music
swirling in
the background
and a beautiful
voice holding
it all together.
If that sounds
wishy-washy,
you should
probably steer
clear, but
you'd be missing
on a very
nice record.
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The
Checks - Hunting
Whales
The
Checks are
a young band
from New Zealand
who play bluesy
'classic rock'
of a Led Zep/Free
nature, but
seem to have
been more
influenced
by the White
Stripes than
either of
those bands,
and that isn't
a good thing.
Jack and Meg
have got the
songs to stand
up to their
very basic
instrumentation
and repetitive
rhythms. The
Checks quite
simply do
not. The end
result is
that Hunting
Whales is
a very dull
album indeed,
despite their
best efforts,
and even though
they've released
a couple of
fairly decent
singles, within
the context
of this, even
they sound
lifeless and
uninteresting.
The real problem
is that even
when songs
like Mercedes
Children start
off with decent
drum beats,
shimmering
guitar riffs
and Chris
Robinson-esque
vocals, instead
of kicking
into something
interesting,
they just
drift along
like an empty
bucket in
a pond, bouncing
off the sides
from time
to time, but
generally
doing nothing.
Ed Knowles
certainly
knows how
to sound like
a classic
rock vocalist,
and perhaps
if he had
anything worth
singing, it
might work,
but instead
he's left
sounding like
he's just
going through
the motions
of being in
a Reef tribute
band. Some
of the guitar
solos are
alright, but
they too feel
like they're
just there
because The
Checks think
that they
probably should
be, rather
than because
they work
in the context
of the song.
Take Me There
is the only
track that
sticks in
the memory
long, and
that is because
it's one of
the only ones
that actually
has a decent
pace to it,
with a bouncy
rhythm and
the kind of
chorus that
The Kooks
or Fratellis
could have
a big hit
with. But
it's very
much the exception
to the rule
and Hunting
Whales is
not much fun.
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mewithoutyou - Brother, Sister
Christian rock isn't always the most subtle of genres, but is it quite possible that you could listen to mewithoutyou without realising that they are Christian. Their music isn't happy-clappy or even overtly religious, and certainly no more obviously 'spiritual' than something like Arcade Fire, whose music is certainly referenced here. They are definitely post-rock rather than Christian rock and Brother, Sister is a very good album indeed, full of great songs with oblique lyrical themes, crunching guitars and soaring choruses. It starts off very well, with Messes Of Men, The Dryness And The Rain and the noisy, colourful and weird Wolf Am I! (And Shadow). It goes off a little bit towards the middle with the pace dropping for too long after the recent single Nice And Blue (pt. Two), and the experimental nature of some of the songs works against them when the album had started with some fairly straightforward post-rock tunes. mewithoutyou do kind of set off wanting to challenge the likes of Arcade Fire, and while they don't quite do that, Brother, Sister is a very good album that certainly has a much broader appeal than just a religious audience.
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Sodom - The Final Sign Of Evil
If you like your thrash metal performed by bands with names like Sodom and musicians with names like Tom Angelripper, Grave Violator and Chris Witchhunter, you probably don't need to be told that The Final Sign of Evil is coming out on Monday. Sodom are one of the originals in the world of very noisy and unsubtle music about death, destruction and, well, death, and this album is a landmark because it is a new version of their seminal debut EP In The Sign Of Evil, dating back to 1984, making it one of the first releases of its kind. To pad it out to full album length, the whole thing has been re-recorded by the original line-up of these German rockers (named above, only Tom Angelripper is in the current band) along with a whole host of tracks that were written in the sessions for the EP. Getting that line-up back together and hearing all the extra tracks from the era make this an essential purchase for any Sodom fan, but is it something that anyone else could enjoy? Not really. The thrash guitars are all very nice and fans of Slayer and early Metallica would certainly be impressed, but Angelripper's throaty growl and lyrics are almost beyond parody, and drag everything down. This slab of death metal is only for the die-hard, and we mean that quite literally...
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