Category Archives: Unsung Heroes

A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

No Fucking Regrets Episode 77: Brian Tatler from Diamond Head

Here is the link.

Legendary New Wave Of British Heavy Metal guitarist Brian Tatler sat down with Robb Flynn from Machine Head for an in-depth chat.

The first 20 minutes, Flynn talks about his friendship with vocalist LG Petrov, the frontman for Swedish metal bands Entombed, Entombed A.D. and Firespawn who had just passed away. LG was diagnosed with bile duct cancer and doctors couldn’t remove it. They tried to treat it with “chemotherapy” to prolong his life.

Flynn mentions how he got turned on to Diamond Head by Metallica covering their songs. Before Metallica got signed, people even thought the Diamond Head covers were Metallica originals.

Their debut album in 1980 was called “Lightning To The Nations”. There are seven songs on the album and Metallica covered five of em, throughout their career.

Diamond Head re-recorded their debut album a few years ago and in a great twist, covered a Metallica track, “No Remorse” for the album as it had “DH qualities” according to Tatler.

There is an awesome cover of “Sinner” from Judas Priest as well and Tatler talks about how Priest was a band they looked up to, how Priest influenced em and how he’s “pretty sure” he nicked bits from “Sinner” and “Victims Of Changes” for Diamond Head songs.

He stole the name from a Roxy Music album called “Diamond Head”. Funny how Robb Flynn also took the name “Machine Head” from Deep Purple.

For one weeks studio time, they signed away 15 years of publishing. They were young and they had no idea what publishing was. So when Metallica covered their songs, the publishing was going elsewhere and finally in the late 80’s Tatler went all legal, to get the publishing back.

They didn’t know about the other young bands in the UK at the time like Def Lep, Saxon, Maiden, Angelwitch until Sounds started writing about em. And then so many other bands started coming out, all looking for a record deal.

Geoff Barton from Kerrang was a massive fan of the band and he did a massive write up in Kerrang. They saw that Maiden, Leppard, Saxon and Angelwitch got signed and people wondered why no one signed Diamond Head. So they went the independent route.

Sean Harris (their singer) mom managed the band, which ended up being a bad idea.

Diamond Head never toured the US in the 80s and Robb mentioned how he just presumed that Diamond Head was super huge and that they toured relentlessly in the US.

They finally got a deal with MCA, did two albums, did one tour of Europe and got dropped.

He talks about writing a pop rock song for their first MCA album “Borrowed Time” called “Call Me” because of label pressure, so they could get on to “Top Of The Pops” and they’ll sell a lot of records because of it. But they didn’t. And MCA was not the label for metal bands to be on.

They started touring the US in the 2000s and it was Dave Mustaine from Megadeth that made it happen. Mustaine offered them his crew to help em with set up, sound checks and everything else.

Because Tatler mentioned that DH doesn’t have the pulling power to get crew and buses, so they do their own set up, pack up and their own driving in a van.

He talks about how a 17 year old Lars Ulrich heard “It’s Electric” from a magazine sampler and he then wrote to the fan club, and he said he’s coming over to the UK to watch em play live. And Lars Ulrich ended up sleeping on Tatler’s floor in a sleeping bag in Tatler’s parents house. Lars slept for a week at the Tatler’s and three weeks at vocalist Sean Harris’s parents place.

And my favorite quote from Tatler is “Not everyone gets to make it.”

But he’s okay with it and where he’s at. He’s still doing what he loves. Playing guitar in a band.

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The Record Vault: Coheed and Cambria – No World For Tomorrow

Released in 2007.

I know the album as “No World For Tomorrow” (from here on in, it will be referred as “NWFT”) but its official title is “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow”. Another serious challenge to the length of Meatloaf’s song titles.

“NWFT” is the album that brought the story of Coheed and Cambria and their son Claudio to an end. Well that is what we as fans suspect, as no official story book or comic has been released, but in May 2020, Claude Sanchez announced that a story release for “NWFT” is in the works.

From a legacy perspective, after the “NWFT” album, we got a prequel story of how Wilhelm became the Emperor, an origin story of Sirius discovering “The Keywork”, an album not tied to the story at all and a new story post “NWFT”.

Changes in personnel happened for this album as well, with the previous drummer Josh Eppard departing and replaced by Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters for the album recording.

“The Reaping”

An ominous acoustic guitar arpeggio riff with an emotive vocal kicks off the album.

Purge these days
Will we accept the things we must?
The world will now learn of change to come, or no world

From reading about the story, Claudio has accepted that he is The Crowing, and as The Writer said on the previous album, all things must burn. Sort of like the Mad King in “Game Of Thrones”, “Burn em all”.

Accept the change, or there will be no world.

After 80 seconds the song ends.

“No World For Tomorrow”

And the iconic riff of NWFT starts. It’s a leaner and heavier “Welcome Home”.

“Bye, bye world, or will our hope still hold on?”

It’s dark as it deals with the end of the main character’s world.

“The Hound (of Blood and Rank)”

It starts off with a “Baba O’Reily” meets “Pinball Wizard” synth.

“Feathers”

I know CoCa fans will hate it when I say this, but the start of this song reminds me of “Fallen Angel” from Poison.

It’s one of their most underrated and forgotten tracks.

“The Running Free”

It’s those major key pop punk songs that Coheed and Cambria do so well.

“Mother Superior”

The single note acoustic guitar riff with ringing notes kicks off this ballad like song. It was actually a piano riff to begin with.

How good is the emotional vocal melody especially in the Chorus?

“Gravemakers and Gunslingers”

This one is hard rock all the way with the guitars smacking you awake.

“Justice in Murder”

The harmony guitars to kick off the song. Stick around for the interlude/solo section from 3 minutes in.

Then begins the highlight of the album, “The End Complete”, divided into five sections with a total running time of around 24 minutes.

“The Fall of House Atlantic”

The first is a short orchestral song built on a Spanish Flamenco guitar riff and syncopated drums/vocals chants, coming across as an orchestral hit.

“Radio Bye Bye”

The second is a short pop rock song, more Queen like.

“The End Complete”

The third has it all, heavy riffs, a great hook, some mellow moments, and the whoas from “In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth” come back in.

“The Road and the Damned”

The fourth is a short one. More Coldplay and The Verve like with the violin synths.

And that Guitar melody in the Chorus. Classic Rock Pentatonic perfection.

“On The Brink”

The fifth ends the album. It begins soft, with backwards music playing and a Dave Gilmour like lead.

And then it gets heavy.

The vocals are chanting “Hail” and all of this is followed by an ear piercing scream. This one is more Pink Floyd like, like a forgotten track from “The Wall”

Check it out.

P.S. In a tragedy of epic proportions, I cannot locate my CD of NWFT. Too many House moves and too many misplaced boxes. I’m hoping the book release they have planned will be packaged nicely with the album included.

I also haven’t mentioned the debut album “The Second Stage Turbine Blade” so far, because I don’t have it and have been waiting for a definitive edition to come out so I can purchase.

Onto “The Year Of The Black Rainbow” next.

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Rev Theory

I was listening to “The Rev Theory” today.

I got into em with their 2008 release “Light It Up”. I thought it was their debut album but that happened in 2005 with “Truth Is Currency” which I just heard recently.

Check out the songs “Hell Yeah” (currently at 76 million streams on Spotify), “Broken Bones”, “Wanted Man”, “Ten Years” and “Far From Over”.

Then came the “Justice” album in 2011, a couple of hit and miss EP’s/singles and an album in “The Revelation” in 2016. Some connected and some didn’t, so I sort of lost them afterwards.

It’s just how it is these days. We fall in and out of liking artists who are also competing with the history of music, plus their old hits for our attention.

For me, the 2008 album is what stands the test of time and because of it, I am interested to see what the comes next.

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The Week In Destroyer Of Harmony History – March 8 to March 14

4 Years Ago (2017)

I was writing about 1983.

“Frontiers” from Journey is the response from a band at the top of the charts as the “Don’t Stop Believin” and Jonathan Cain era was in full swing.

“Separate Ways” is the piece d resistance. How good is the opening keyboard lick?

“Faithfully” inspired “Purple Rain”. In This Moment also use this song as an influence for the outro of their song “World In Flames”.

“Troubled Child” is one of those underrated gems on an album.

“Bent Out Of Shape” from Rainbow is how far MTV changed the way bands wrote albums. Suddenly experimentation, longer guitar solos or longer songs in general went out the window. Every band was trying to make that arena rock song.

But the single here should have been “Stranded” instead of “Street of Dreams”.

“Flick Of The Switch” from AC/DC is a solid album.

The producer of their holy trinity albums, Mutt Lange was also out. Their manager Peter Mensch was also out. Angus and Malcolm stepped up to give the world a live and raw version of AC/DC.

There is a lot of groove and swagger. The slower tempo’s make it sound HEAVY. But the songs don’t get played live, and the album remains largely forgotten to the masses.

“Never Surrender” from Truimph showed a band that could write ambitious and melodic tracks along with metal and rock tracks as well.

Yngwie Malmsteen was involved with Alcatrazz and “No Parole from Rock N’ Roll” with Graham Bonnet on vocals and “Steeler” with Ron Keel on vocals.

8 Years Ago (2013)

I listened to Bon Jovi’s new album “What About Now” and had a rant over it. And then I heard “That’s What the Water Made Me”.

Cause devils in heaven
There’s angels in hell

We live in a world of fakes, a world of avatars and the lines between good and evil are blurred these days.  

1994 (27 Years Ago)

“Superunknown” from Soundgarden and “The Downward Spiral” from Nine Inch Nails are released.

1987 (34 Years Ago)

U2 started their world domination era with the release of their fifth studio album, “The Joshua Tree”.

1986 (35 Years Ago)

Rick Rubin got Steven Tyler and Joe Perry to record parts of “Walk This Way” so that he and Run DMC could transform it into a hip-hop jam.

Both acts weren’t enthusiastic about the collaboration but money talks and the track resurrected Aerosmith’s career and pushed Run DMC’s name to a whole new audience as well.

1984 (37 Years Ago)

Ian Gillan’s days in Black Sabbath came to an end, just as Mark II of Deep Purple reformed.

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Australian Method Series – Karnivool

“Sound Awake” was released in 2009 and it peaked at Number 2 on the Australian Charts.

Karnivool is an Australian progressive band formed in Perth, Western Australia in 1997, with an interesting set list of Nirvana and Carcass songs.

The group currently consists of Ian Kenny on vocals, Drew Goddard and Mark Hosking on guitar, Jon Stockman on bass, and Steve Judd on drums.

The last album they did was “Asymmetry” released in 2013. Vocalist, Ian Kenny is also the lead singer in the highly successful pop rock act, “Birds Of Tokyo” which started off as a side project for him and I’m pretty sure it is now his main project as the Gold and Platinum and Multi-Platinum certifications mount up for em.

So, after touring in the US on the “Themata” album, Karnivool returned to Australia in 2008 and entered the studio to write their follow-up. While writing the album, they still toured around Australia, testing out some of the new songs in the live arena.

While “Themata” was written mostly by guitarist Drew Goodard, “Sound Awake” was much more of a collaborative effort from everyone.

“Simple Boy” and Goliath” show an influence from The Mars Volta and pack a one two punch to kick off the album.

“New Day” at 8 minutes long, is a must listen, with its melodic vocals and progressive structures and how it just keeps building. If you want to hear how Birds Of Tokyo sound then this is the bastard child of their sound. It even has a Live feel.

“Set Fire To The Hive” is a nod to Soundgarden’s “Badmotorfinger” days, a bit of modern “System Of A Down” and their Alternative Rock style from the first album.

“Umbra” has a catchy hook to start the song. The ending is excellent, stick around for it.

“All I Know” has an odd riff and a Tool like rhythm.

“The Caudal Lure” is the most progressive track, moving between time signatures and feels.

“Illumine” is a metal cut.

And the last two tracks are the piece d resistance with guitarists Drew Goddard and Mark Hosking shining.

“Deadman” just keeps building up and the song ends around 10 minutes, with some ambient noise and then a re-recorded version of “Change (Part 1)”, starts. But when this song was on “Themata” it built and when we expected it to blast off, it ended. Now we finally hear what comes after the build-up.

“Change (Part 2)” has all the best things of Sabbath, Tool, Radiohead and hard rock.

Musically, Tool, Porcupine Tree and early Muse come to mind. There’s some Deftones and Radiohead there. There’s an Alternative Rock vibe from the debut that’s still there. It’s catchy, has heaps of melody because Ian Kenny is one of Australia’s best singers. The rhythm section of Judd and Stockman is excellent, creative and full of ideas to change it up. And Goddard and Hosking make a wonderful twin guitar outfit.

Check em out.

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To Do What You Love For A Living

The story goes something like this.

A band forms and they play the LA scene. They can’t get a US deal but they end up getting a deal to release albums in the Japanese market. They do two albums on the Japanese deal and then their guitarist leaves to join another project which is just kick starting.

The band calls it quits only to reappear a few years later on a US label “Pasha”, with only the singer left from the original band.

In order to participate in this new scene, the singer signs a deal with the label which gave the bulk of the publishing and royalty payments to the label.

Because when you have nothing, you will sign anything just to have a chance to do what you love for a living. And he wasn’t the only one. Many artists signed deals that benefited the labels a lot more than the artists. And today, these kind of “bad” artist deals still exist.

To everyone’s surprise, the album goes to Number 1, on the back of a cover song, which wasn’t really a hit for the original artist who wrote it, but suddenly, its huge. And all the monies went to the label and the producer and the original song writers. Despite selling millions of physical product throughout the years, the singer died with huge debts and was almost broke.

But as he said once upon a time, “when push comes to shove, I get to do what I love for a living”.

And that my friends, is the brief, short story of Kevin DuBrow. He got to do what he loved and others got wealthy.

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As Daylight Dies

From Killswitch Engage, released in 2006.

It hasn’t stopped selling.

Not bad for an album that Dutkiewicz once said in a Guitar World interview, “had riffs in it, so he could play and drink beer at the same time”.

Last week it moved 2,000 copies on vinyl. It was already certified Gold in 2009 by the RIAA and the song “My Curse,” was certified Platinum in 2020. At the moment it has over 122 million streams on Spotify.

Howard Jones was on lead vocals with the usual crew of Adam Dutkiewicz on lead guitar, vocals, keyboards and Joel Stroetzel on rhythm guitar. Mike D’Antonio on bass and Justin Foley on drums.

“Daylight Dies” (the song) was also certified Gold in 2009 and their cover of “Holy Diver” was certified Gold in 2020 and at the moment it has over 75 million streams on Spotify.

“This Fire” is at 49.2 million streams. It’s basically “Fixation On The Darkness” just shorter. And it’s used as CM Punks theme song in WWE.

Combining all things great from the Swedish Melodic Death Metal scene with the American thrash scene and a nod to hard rock and classic rock bands, “As Daylight Dies” captures it all.

The album kept the band on the road for three years. But it also strained the relationship between Dutkiewicz and Jones, which eventually led to the departure of Jones and the return of original vocalist, Jesse Leach.

If you like your melodic metal then check out tracks like “Arms Of Sorrow” (it has this “Back In The Village” solo section) and “My Curse” (the big radio single) which has aggressive hardcore verses and a massive arena rock Chorus. Make sure you listen to the head banging verse riff.

“For You” moves between some of the darkest, progressive and heaviest riffs in the verses to the most melodic riffs in the Chorus.

Check out the intro to “Break The Silence” and if you’re not a fan of the screaming verses, stick around for the Chorus.

“Reject Yourself” is loaded with a lot of good riffs.

P.S. There is no way you could play the riffs on this album and drink beer at the same time, as there is a lot of LH movement.

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The Record Vault: Coheed and Cambria – Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness

Released in 2005, Claudio Sanchez, Travis Stever, Michael Todd and Josh Eppard are back for “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness”, putting in a serious challenge to Meatloaf on the length of album titles.

I call it “Good Apollo IV”.

“Keeping The Blade”/”Always And Never”

It starts off with violins and an ominous piano riff. After about 90 seconds, a piece of music which is familiar appears.

Then an acoustic guitar riff starts for “Always And Never”, while Sanchez sings a haunting vocal melody. But these tracks are a set up for what is about to come.

“Welcome Home”

This is the big one, at 73.7 million streams on Spotify.

That intro. Listen to it.

Then the Kashmir like feel and riff comes in which ends up being the main riff. Listen to it.

That outro. With the Kashmir riff, the lead break and the whoa, oh chants. Listen to it.

And when the song ends, listen to it again.

“Ten Speed (of God’s Blood & Burial)”

It’s a major key rock song with a funky bass groove. Songs like these keep popping up on their albums and most reviewers call em EMO songs, which never made sense to me. They are just great rock songs.

“Crossing the Frame”

It continues the major key pop rock vibe of “Ten Speed”.

“Apollo I: The Writing Writer”

After some synths, the riff which kicks off the song is excellent, based on palm muted arpeggios and single notes, with a progressive bass groove.

And the major key Chorus, so catchy and poppy.

The song moves between these progressive verses and poppy choruses, never losing my interest.

“Once Upon Your Dead Body”

The song continues some of those major key pop vibes from earlier songs.

“Wake Up”

At 12.2 million streams on Spotify, the song is another star from the album.

It’s a ballad, but with no cliches. And seriously the hook is around the words “Kill anyone for you“.

Take that, pop singles with 15 writers.

“The Suffering“

“The Suffering” is the next high point after “Welcome Home” and at 22 million Spotify streams, it’s also one of the big songs from the album.

The most catchiest, especially the vocal line, “listen well, will you marry me and are you well in the suffering” which sounds like the hook from Three Evils’s, “pull the trigger and the nightmare stops“.

And we like it.

“The Lying Lies & Dirty Secrets of Miss Erica Court”

Nothing really connected with me on this one.

“Mother May I”

It’s probably the best Police song written in the 2000’s, that Sting, Copeland and Summers didn’t write.

The final 4 songs are part of a suite called “The Willing Well”.

“The Willing Well I: Fuel for the Feeding End”

Not one of their best.

“The Willing Well II: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness”

At the 3.15 mark there is this section with whoa oh oh backing vocals that reminds me of Maiden. Musically it’s got all these other little Maiden sections.

“The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth”

The guitar and bass both play unique progressions and it works so good together, all held tight by the unorthodox drumming of Josh Eppard.

“The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut”

“The Final Cut” closes it nicely, more slower, doomy even. There’s a church organ in the background and the guitars sound like they came from the 70s.

And that wah drenched solo needs to be heard. After it goes into a Gilmour like clean tone solo, which again needs to be heard.

Vocally Sanchez is in the zone.

Press repeat on this one as well.

And now for the story, if you’re interested. Plot spoiler warning.

It takes place in the real world of “The Writer”, the person writing the story and it mixes up the reality of The Writer with the fictional story and I’m not a fan of stories that are written like this.

But in the process of the two stories being told, the sci-fi story progresses as the mental health of The Writer regresses. And I will do my best to summarise what it’s all about.

So from the story point of view, Claudio works out that the Keywork is powered by the energy of enslaved souls who want to be set free, and the only way to free them is by destroying Heaven’s Fence.

From The Writer’s point of view, he wants to do bad things to his cheating ex, Erica Court and his mental health deteriorates even further.

Back to the story, a rebel strike team has disabled a generator on a planet, which allows a rebel spaceship to land.

Sound familiar.

Claudio realises he’s “The Crowing” which is sort of like “The Chosen One” to bring peace to the galaxy.

But the bad guys in the story, Wilhelm (aka The Emperor) and his General (aka Darth Vader) have a trap waiting.

Back to The Writer, he has become like Caligula, and is now talking to his bike called “Ten Speed” (Caligula spoke to his horse and made the horse a Senator). Ten Speed tells the Writer not to murder his ex, but to exact his vengeance metaphorically by killing Ambellina, who represents Erica’s good side in the story, and is the love interest for Claudio, which will in turn cause Claudio to accept his destiny as the Crowing and destroy the Keywork.

Back to the story, Claudio and Ambellina arrive at a meeting place, the Willing Well, in which they can see the Writer’s argument with Ten Speed take place.

The Writer eventually uses the Willing Well to pass into his own story. The Writer explains to Claudio he must kill Ambellina for his own peace of mind, so that the story may have an ending. Claudio refuses and The Writer (who has God like powers in his own story) kills Ambellina, and walks off into the distance with his bicycle, Ten Speed, leaving Claudio with the message “all worlds from here must burn,” implying that it is the Crowing’s duty to destroy the Keywork.

And the next album “No World For Tomorrow” is set up.

Here is the box set the two albums came in.

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Australian Method Series – Baby Animals

Well, the Australian Summer is over as we move into Autumn. The first day of Autumn was a 33 degree Celsius scorcher and the good folk that is Thunder Bay decided to pack up and leave our shores, taking with em the Australia variant. But the series focusing on Australian artists will not stop. It will continue each week as the Australian Method Series.

The debut Baby Animals album was everywhere in Australia.

Being added to The Angels live show in 1990, when The Angels were the hottest band in Australia, helped build the momentum needed for when the album dropped.

Released in September 1991, the album debuted at number six on the ARIA Album Charts and spent six weeks at number one, eventually going eight times platinum and becoming the highest-selling debut Australian rock album of all time (until the release of Jet’s album, “Get Born” 12 years later).

I saw em live at the Revesby Workers Club on the tour. An up and coming band called Judge Mercy was opening for them, who unfortunately disappeared when the labels started dropping metal and rock acts in a years’ time.

In relation to the live show, the Baby Animals rocked. Drummer Frank Celenza was huge and along with bassist Eddie Parise, they laid a solid foundation for Dave Leslie on guitar and Suze DeMarchi on guitar to shine. Then you had a the bluesy, soulful tones of DeMarchi on vocals.

The album was produced by task master Mike Chapman and engineered by Kevin Shirley, so you know its gonna sound massive.

And my favourite track is “Working For The Enemy”, that whole break down section, lead break and build up is excellent. My second favourite is the metal like “Waste Of Time” with its energetic double kick intro and heavy blues boogie rock riffs.

“One Too Many” is “Rock N Roll Noise Pollution” in spirit and influence, while “Aint Gonna Get” is AC/DC on steroids and highway speed tempos with a Chorus that reminds me of “I Love Rock And Roll”.

And I haven’t even gotten into the singles yet.

How good is the intro to “One Word”?

But DeMarchi didn’t like the song after it was finished and asked the label to keep it off the album. The song went through a transformation, from a country-ish rock feel in the demo (which can be heard on the 25th Anniversary Edition) to the melodic rock beast it became, as Chapman kept asking them to work on it.

Guitarist Dave Leslie is underrated, paying his dues in a Cold Chisel covers band called Swingshift, playing Australian pub rock classics on a nightly basis and he knew what worked with audiences. His chicken finger picked intro to “One Word” is guitar hero worthy.

“Rush You” is the opener as the power chord crashes down and the cymbals ring before it goes into a double time beat and some series riffage and how cool is that “Back in Black” walking chromatic riff just before the verse.

“Early Warning” begins with the drums while a slide guitar plays a rock riff and the music then stops while DeMarchi sings, “Too Young To Know and Too Old To Listen”.

The band kicks in again. Then the verses come and it’s like a Jimi Hendrix song, before it moves into the power of the Chorus.

“Painless” has this funk blues boogie which I like.

If you haven’t heard it, today is a great day for it.

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2000 – The 13th Post

Here we are, the final 2000 post which brings to an end, the tandem 2000, 1985 and 1977 series before I move on to 2001, 1986 and 1976 series.

Motorhead – We Are Motorhead

Its fast and fast and fast. A perfect statement of intent for the 2000’s.

Certain songs had different producers like Bob Kulick, Bruce Bouillet and Duane Baron.

Phil Campbell on the guitar is phenomenal. Very underrated. And of course, Mikkey Dee on the drums is a metronomic machine when he needs to be and sleazy swingy when he needs to be.

Then you have Lemmy.

Heavy as lead, all fuzzed out with his bass lines and throwing his voice into the concrete and still sounding good.

“See Me Burning” clocks in at 3 minutes as the double kick pattern is relentless from the start to the end. “Wake The Dead” has another fast double kick pattern from Dee. “We Are Motorhead” sounds like it came from the “Ace Of Spades” album. “Stagefreight” and “Heart On Your Sleeve” continue the speed.

“Slow Dance” is the mid-tempo hard rock track and my favourite. The riff is sinister like and I like it. Especially that harmony lead before the lead break.

And my other favourite, is “One More Fucking Time”. At 6 plus minutes it’s the longest song on the album.

Fozzy

I like the idea behind the first Fozzy album and the funny backstory they put into the promo.

They had signed with a record company and moved to Japan to be huge rock stars, but the company went out of business, leaving them stranded in Japan for 20 years, while all their demos were snatched and recorded by other bands. Once they returned to America, they realized that many famous artists had ripped off their songs.

So this album is mostly cover songs (which are like the Fozzy songs that other artists took) however, the album does have two new original songs, so that these thieving bands don’t have enough time or a chance to “rip” off these new songs.

So who is Fozzy.

Well wrestler Chris Jericho (credited as Moongoose McQueen) is on vocals, Rich Ward (credited as Duke LaRüe) on guitars, Dan Dryden (credited as Shawn “Sports” Pop) on bass, Frank Fontsere (credited as KK LaFlame) on drums and Ryan Mallam (credited as The Kidd) on guitar.

Megaforce Records had high commercial hopes for this album, but it disappointed the label heads and they more or less cancelled their support of the album and the band.

One more album would come two years later called “Happenstance” and when it did even less business than the debut, Megaforce ran to the hills.

“Stand Up and Shout” written by Ronnie James Dio and Jimmy Bain and performed by Dio kicks off the album.

“Eat the Rich” is a Krokus cover, written by Butch Stone, Marc Storace, Fernando von Arb and Chris von Rohr.

“Stay Hungry” is a Twisted Sister cover and written by Dee Snider. Less than 3 minutes long, it’s a speed metal cut.

“The Prisoner” is an Iron Maiden, written by Adrian Smith and Steve Harris.

“Live Wire” is a Mötley Crüe cover, written by Nikki Sixx.

“End of Days” is written by Rich Ward and Chris Jericho. It got some fast palm muted picking but it doesn’t have that classic riff like the songs above, but it does have a wicked pre-chorus vocal melody, when Jericho/Moongoose sings “Can you believe in love?”

“Over the Mountain” is an Ozzy Osbourne cover, written by Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake.

“Blackout” is a Scorpions cover, written by Sonja Kittelsen, Klaus Meine, Herman Rarebell and Rudolf Schenker

“Feel the Burn” is another cut written by Rich Ward and Chris Jericho but its forgettable.

“Riding on the Wind” is a Judas Priest cover, written by Glenn Tipton, Rob Halford and K. K. Downing. Like all of the other tracks on the album, they are played with a bit of a pedal to the floor attitude.

The album is basically an 80’s Heavy Metal jukebox under 40 minutes.

Symphony X – V The New Mythology Suite

I read some stuff about this band and how good Michael Romeo is on guitars. But to me, it was Russell Allen on vocals that got me interested, because Romeo was too much like Malmsteen on a lot of the stuff, or maybe he wasn’t like Malmsteen, instead it was the keyboard lines of Michael Pinnella that made it sound like Malmsteen.

Wikipedia tells me it is a concept album dealing with the story of Atlantis, ancient Egyptian mythology, and astrology.

There is a lot of same same here, but “Communion And The Oracle” is a bit different, with its soundtrack like feel and very Kansas feel in certain sections. Its progressive the way I like progressive to be.

Nightwish – Wishmaster

I’m a fan of the riffs. The operatic vocals are hit and miss for me on this album, but they do get better with subsequent releases.

“She Is My Sin” has a kicking intro riff.

“The Kinslayer” has another great riff, but on this one, the vocal line is like that “O Fortuna” vocal line. Brilliant.

If the intro to “Come Cover Me” doesn’t get you playing air guitar then you have no heartbeat.

“Wishmaster” continues that symphonic “O Fortuna” element in the Chorus, when they sing “Mas-ter”, “A-pprent-ice” in that style. Check out the harmony leads as well.

In Flames – Clayman

This is the album that put them on the map for me. Thirteen songs at 50 minutes. No fat whatsoever in the songs.

I really like the melody and aggression in the riffs and those European Minor key harmonies and leads.

Case in point, check out the riffs and leads in “Bullet Ride”. Vocally, its more in the vein of acts like “At The Gates” so if you want to hear a more commercial sounding In Flames, then Ghost AD does a pretty good job as the riffs they use are very similar.

Then you get the fast speed metal of “Pinball Map”. But hang around until the 2.20 minute mark, when it breaksdown into a head banging groove. Then the lead break starts, which copies the Chorus vocal melody before it picks up the speed metal.

How good is the intro melodic lead and that chugging staccato riff for the verses in “Only For The Weak”?

Listen to the lead break in the Chorus for “Square Nothing”.

I wanted Metallica to write a song like “Clayman” around this time. But who knew the dramas that Hetfield was going through during this period.

The clean tone arpeggios and harmony lead to kick off “Satellites and Astronauts” always gets me to pick up the guitar and then the madness starts before it goes back to those clean tone arpeggios for the verses.

The riff at 1.30 in “Brush The Dust Away” reminds me of Lynch/Dokken era. And the lead break starts off with some fast legato lines, some melody, then sweeps and harmonies.

“Swim” sounds like a Europe song from the first two albums, but then it moves into a Dream Theater/Petrucci like riff before the Euro melodic riffs kick in.

Finally “Another Day In Quicksand” feels like it’s the younger brother of “The Fire Still Burns” from Twisted Sister.

Children of Bodom – Follow The Reaper

RIP Alexi Laiho.

A Children Of Bodom album has riffs. A lot of fast riffs and a lot of groove rock riffs and a lot of progressive riffs.

And it has leads plus harmony leads with guitars and keyboards and breakdown grooves.

Check out the intro riff to “Follow The Reaper” and those lead breaks in between.

The verse riff in “Bodom After Midnight” is the best Malmsteen riff that he didn’t write.

How good is the intro to “Children of Decadence” and the 80’s melodic pop grooves for the intro to “Mask Of Sanity”?

Killswitch Engage – Killswitch Engage

For the debut album, Adam Dutkiewicz played drums and he moved to guitars on the albums after. Jesse Leach is on vocals, Joel Stroetzel is solely on guitar and Mike D’Antonio is on bass guitar.

The debut album is way too extreme for me, vocally, with every song in that screaming range. But musically, there are a lot of good riffs in this.

“Temple From The Within” opens the album and listen to that riff at the 1.10 minute mark to 1.33 mark. Then the bass kicks in and its heavy when the guitar kicks in. This track was re-released on the follow up album “Alive And Breathing” in 2002.

Check out the acoustic flamenco section from the 3 minute mark in “Irresversal”, an oasis of melody in the chaos of heaviness and aggression. This track was also re-recorded for “The End Of Heartache” album in 2004.

“Prelude” is only 2 minutes, but that’s enough for an instrumental, with head banging riffs and a sing-a-long lead break. “One Last Sunset” is another instrumental, sad and melancholic.

Nonpoint – Statement

The debut album reminds me of “Sevendust” and “Mudvayne” with a bit of “Tool” on this album. I think it’s a big reason why I gravitated to them.

“Mindtrip” has the vocals kick in start right away and that vocal line “trip inside your mind” reminds me of Tool.

“Endure” is the superior track here, combining melody, aggression and powerful riffs into a cohesive 3 minute track.

“Years” is a cross between clean tone arpeggios, busy drumming and aggressive down picking with a melodic Chorus, very Tool like.

Taproot – Gift

Bands classed as Nu-Metal had a lot of promo in Australia.

But Taproot, while classed in that style had a bit of progressive in them, clean tone vocals, hard core vocals with metal and rock overtones.

“Again And Again” has this groove, which people might say is more Disturbed than anything else, but both bands came out the same time, so let’s just say it’s a 2000 groove. Reminds me of Staind.

“I” is a favourite.

And thats it folks, the year that was 2000 comes to an end.

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