Wednesday, September 14th, 2011 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.
No, the hook (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.
But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.
Though hard rock has arrived at retirement age, its senior classmen are flourishing on tour. Really, these years are the first in which old metal musicians exist, and 2011′s foundation will be built on someday by geriatric Gojira, decrepit Devin Townsend, crotchety Cave In, et al. Right around 2025, those bands might look to Ronnie James Dio, who played all aces til his final days; to Metallica, who in middle age flagged fast; to Judass Priest’s withdrawal from major touring (or whatever) and to the renaissance of Whitesnake, whose recent face-blasting gig with L.A. Guns and Skid Row was like a survival guide for bands seeking to enjoy fruitful third and fourth decades! I was there and learned a lot! Check it out: Click to read more…
Portnoy (left) with Tom Morello, John goddamn Sykes, That Metal Show host Eddie Trunk, and Doug Pinnick of King’s X
There are days when it seems like ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy is underachieving (cough Adrenaline Mob), but the wider view reveals a hard-working guy who cares greatly about quality music. His mistakes are mistakes (singing on DT records, 12-stepper lyrics, AX7), and his post-DT career so far is basically frantic, low-confidence base-covering, but hey that’s the reality of a messy break-up. You get a little crazy and scared. But with time and patience, Portnoy will land another Images And Words-sized creative success. This is my belief.
So imagine how smugly right I feel about that belief when it was announced Monday that Portnoy is pairing with hungry, mega-talented ace John fucking Sykes (Blue Murder, Whitesnake). Bonerz! Click to read more…
For metal fans over the age of 30, there’s little fresh news to be found on VH1′s That Metal Show; the weekly show functions mostly as a clubhouse for “remember when?” type gab with flabby old-timers. (For metal fans under 30, TMS provides a peek back in time to when the term “metal” meant “heavier than Paul McCartney & Wings.”) So I was one of tens of viewers of the TMS season seven finale, in which former Ozzy drummer Carmine Appice (above, big brother of Heaven & Hell skinsman Vinny Appice) shot ropey jets of great and hilarious news all over the sweaty boobs of the dinosaur metal world.
Wow, that’s a clusterfucked metaphor, but ahem the important thing is that the unconvincingly bewigged Appice addressed the status of Blue Murder to TMS host Eddie Trunk, who along with me makes up about half of the post-Whitesnake John Sykes supergroup’s restless, rabid fanbase. But that was only the happiest news, not the weirdest. According to Appice:
For all the shit we give hair metal bands we once admired around here, not all of them have aged so terribly. Sometimes they even surprise you and release something terrific. Last year, Ratt’s Infestation knocked us on our asses; just recently, Whitesnake caught us off-guard when their new album, Forevermore, actually turned out to be a whole lotta fun. (Extreme’s 2009 release, Saudades de Rock, was also quite good, although they’re not really hair metal.) My point just being that you have listen to these albums with an open mind, because sometimes these bands really pull their shit together and remind you why you ever liked them to begin with.
And sometimes they turn into Warrant.
The band’s new album, Rockaholic, comes out next month, and now they’ve released a video, “Life’s a Song,” to promote it. And the song totally fucking boring, the video so cheesy that Dino Cazares tried to eat it, drummer Steven Sweet apparently invented a time machine, went back in time to the 70s, doped a woman, shaved her bush, and used it as a wig, and — perhaps worst of all — the band has the cojones to use lots and lots of vintage footage — “Hey, remember when you loved us? YOU FUCKING LOVED US!!!” — despite the fact that Jani Lane, their most recognizable member, is no longer in the fold. (And this new dude, Robert Mason, is no Jani Lane. I mean he sounds like he can sing, but his vocals have as much personality as the name “Bob Mason” would suggest.) I think I even saw an old still featuring Jani in there, although my eyes may be playing tricks on me. What a load of crap.
Rockaholic comes out May 17 on Frontiers Records. It features a song called “Sex Ain’t Love,” so I guess we really are a long way away from “Cherry Pie.”
In an alternate universe the world would be genuinely excited for new Anthrax featuring one Dan Nelson from Lawn Guyland, NY. In reality we have Joey Suckadonna ‘Thrax to look forward to on an album that will come out sometime never, and Nelson, a talented vocalist if you ask me, is left on the sidelines working on other things.
“Other things” is his new band Blackgates, also featuring superman-drummer Paul Bostaph (Testament, Exodus, Slayer, etc), guitarist Jeremy Epp and bassist Uriah Duffy (Whitesnake); the “supergroup” of sorts has a propensity to seem ridiculous before even playing a note. But ya know what? The two Blackgates songs I’ve heard so far are damn fine; solid riffing, sharp drumming and powerful vocals a good band makes. Stream via the ReverbNation widget below.
In the absence of any big metal debuts, this week I decided to run with a question posed last week: how does Amon Amarth’s current chart-buster Surtur Rising stack up against their past releases? After the jump, a look at those numbers.
Foo Fighters were #1 and Hollywood Undead were #2 for the third week in a row on the Top Hard Music charts; elsewhere, Otep Shamaya had a nice debut and shitstains on the ass of the universe like Winds of Plague and Asking Alexandria also had solid weeks. Whoopie.
The Foo Fighters are #1 for the 2nd week in a row; I have yet to hear Wasting Light but everything Dave Grohl puts out is quality and the two songs I’ve heard so far are both slam dunks. Conversely, Hollywood Undead are #2 for the second week in a row; can’t win ‘em all, I guess, but at least they’re not #1.
Elsewhere Winds of Plague, Periphery and Loaded had solid debuts, while pretty much any band that was on Revolver’s Golden Gods Awards show experienced a nice little sales bump. Numbers after the fold.
Two days late but not two dollars short, I figure ya’ll might like to know how all the albums that came out last Tuesday (April 12th) fared sales-wise, even though I think we can all agree that album sales aren’t the be-all-end-all measure of a band’s success. So without further ado, here’s how the new Between the Buried and Me, Foo Fighters and Red Fang albums sold last week.
Also, Dave Grohl is a very rich man; in addition to the ginormous debut of his new Foo Fighters album, seemingly every Foo catalog album made a return back onto the charts this past week.
If you’d've told me in 1993 that some Swedish metal band that sings about Viking lore would sell more records than Pearl Jam 18 years later, I’d've called you crazy. Shit, if you’d have told me earlier this year that Amon Amarth would sell more records than Pearl Jam I’d've called you crazy. But that’s exactly what happened this past week. Sure, the Pearl Jam release in question was a reissue, but still; how unlikely is it that Amon Amarth, of all bands, have one of the strongest metal debuts of 2011 so far, strong enough to net them #1 on the Hard Music chart — selling roughly 14x the number of copies The Haunted’s new album did (in the U.S.) — and to beat out the enduring monolith that is Pearl Jam? Pretty fucking unlikely, and pretty fucking awesome too. Slow and steady wins the race, I suppose… 13 years and 8 albums in, Amon Amarth have broken through.
Whitesnake (!), Within Temptation, Cavalera Conspiracy, Becoming the Archetype, Obscura and The Haunted also cracked the Top Hard Music Top 100 in their first week of U.S. release; those releases and other notable charting albums after the jump.
David Coverdale: Powerhouse rock singer. Demanding band leader. Cocksman. These are the facts once, now, and always, each evident immediately in his band Whitesnake’s shocking 11th record, Forevermore. But there is more to Coverdale. He lives in a really tall house in Lake Tahoe that, at the time of our chat, was partially snowbound. He is aggressively friendly. He swears magnificently. Oh, and the dude has paired with Blackmore, Sykes, Vandenberg, Vai, and Page. That’s an Ozzy-sized resume and David Lee Roth-league results. So you get that it’s both fun and stressful to gain entry into CoverdaleLand for a few minutes. Still, it was all laughs as Coverdale entertained my inquiries into the muscular songwriting of Forevermore, the bombast of Slip of the Tongue (as captured live in this summer’s Live At Donington 1990 DVD-CD set), his voice health, and the “snakes” of Whitesnake axemen.
When I was very young, I remember having an intensely heated argument with my mom over who sang, “Wild World.” I insisted it was Mr. Big while she tried in vain to tell me it was a cover of a Cat Stevens song. Of course, she was right. But she should’ve known better than trying to reason with a smart-ass eight-year-old.
My mom has never spoken to Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, and probably never will due to his lifestyle and beliefs. I, however, did get to speak to Eric Martin lead singer of Mr. Big. So I still win.
Though a blockbuster success, Whitesnake’s self-titled (or 1987) record doesn’t really cut it for me. The singles tell the story, with four steps back for each forward: “Still of the Night” is a monster jam, but “Here I Go Again” is only slightly too heavy for Journey, while the lameness of “Is This Love” might offend fans of freaking Kenny G. I won’t even listen to “Crying In The Rain” or “Give Me All Your Love” without double-condoms on my ears.
It’s funny cuz my upturned nose at 1987 is inconsistent with my throbbing, veiny worship of the album creators’ next two albums: the Steve Vai-charged Whitesnake record Slip Of The Tongue (from singer David Coverdale and crew) and the debut effort by Blue Murder (from summarily fired Slide It In/1987 guitarist John Sykes). It seems that most Whitesnake fans — lovers of bluesy tales of heartbreak and handjobs — reject the guitar wiz cacophony of Slip and they have a point: At a glance, its guitar work in general resembles an album-length harmonizer demo (See Strapping Young Lad’s “Satan’s Ice Cream Truck”). The point is that, though Slipcrushes, I understand why it underachieved.
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 11:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Holy shit, did you know that Whitesnake are still around? It’s true! They’ve even released a new video, for a song called “Love Will Set You Free.” And even though David Coverdale now looks like he should be luring children into the oven in his gingerbread house*, the song is actually not awful, and the video is totally competent! It’s nothing you haven’t seen/heard before, but I’m just shocked that this isn’t embarrassing in every single way.
The band apparently has a new album coming out, called Forevermore, on March 29. Even though this song didn’t make me wanna kill anyone, I’m not going to listen to it — but I think I should be able to convince Leyla or Anso to do so.
-AR
*Seriously, instead of teaching abstinence in certain public schools, they should just re-film the video for “Here I Go Again” with Coverdale and Tawny Kitaen the way they look now. After seeing that, no teenager would ever feel the desire to have sex ever again.
I see a pattern developing in 2011; the only albums selling are old ones. It’s quite startling, in fact; it’s already mid-February and the new release machine is kicking into high gear, but the charts are still dominated by best-of compilations and classic albums from the likes of Metallica, Van Halen, Ozzy, Aerosmith (Idol Effect), and Guns N’ Roses and perennially charting butt-rock bands like Godsmack, Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Theory of a Deadman, Kid Rock, Linkin Park, Nickelsuck, etc etc etc. AKA bands that appeal to people mostly over the age of 30. Will 2011 be the year that folks stop purchasing music en masse? It’s too early to tell, but things are not looking good.
In any case, last week saw a variety of solid new releases in the metal world from Full Blown Chaos, Lazarus A.D., Thomas Giles (of BTBAM) and Abysmal Dawn. Not bands you’d expect chart-busting numbers from, but still, heavy hitters in our world. Sadly, only one of those bands was able to crack the Top 100 in the Top Hard Music Charts. We know better than to claim these numbers as a definitive measure of those bands’ popularity, but as long as record labels are the source of funding to launch these bands’ careers — and until there’s a better ranking system that incorporates record sales, merch sales and touring revenue into one chart — sales numbers will matter to some degree.
Let’s look at how last week’s new releases, and a few others, performed on the Soundscan charts.
In 1968, Gary Moore (above, top left) was just 16 years old when he joined future Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott in the Dublin blues-rock quartet Skid Row*. So, Moore was a charter member of the Society of Overachieving Teen Guitarists that would later include Steve Vai (19, Frank Zappa), Zakk Wylde (19, Ozzy Osbourne), and Devin Townsend (19, Steve Vai). Pretty elite company.
After a pair of short stints in Thin Lizzy, Moore again reunited with Lynott in 1979 for the band’s seminal Black Rose: A Rock Legend (see Axl Rose’s Black Rose-themed tattoo here, upper left). More than twenty solo albums followed, including 2008’s Bad For You Baby.
British tabloid The Sunreports that Moore, 58, was discovered unresponsive by medical staff in a Spain hotel suite where there were “definite signs of alcohol.” The Sun also quotes a source at the hotel who has stated that Moore “seemed fine when he left [the hotel bar] around 11 pm.” A post mortem has been scheduled.
After the jump, check out the MetalSucks round up of tributes to Moore by members of Obituary, Opeth, Black Flag, Testament, Black Sabbath, and mo(o)re.
Friday, January 14th, 2011 at 4:30pm by MetalSucks
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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (sometimes) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.
Last week we asked you, oh beloved readers, to suggest some QOTW, and there were actually a number of good queries posited. So we kinda just picked one at random, and then we’ll do some others in the coming weeks. In the meantime, this week’s question, from Tim, is:
When the Key Club in West Hollywood closed its doors in December 2009, the eight-legged party beast Steel Panther had to find a new hair rock habitat for their weekly shows. At first, it was a relief when Michael Starr and crew cock-strutted a few blocks down Sunset to the House of Whites Blues: admission got cheaper, the room bigger, and sound better. But, for the sleaze of hair rock, a music venue/shopping mall/tourist trap isn’t the preferred setting. So sometime around March, I started to long for a return to the safety of a drug-friendly sweat hole with dark corners and unpolice-able bathrooms. After all, the Key Club was once the site of Ben Gazzari’s eponymous rock club, where the sleaze don once proudly showcased his barely-legal harem and, for VIPs, his somewhat prescient home video skills; meanwhile, HoB has a freakin’ gift shop.
You’d want maximum possible sleaze, too, once you survey the crowd. It’s mostly tourists (literally and figuratively), but filled out with solitary guys like me, unaccompanied and dead serious, fidgeting through extended bouts of boob-flashing (our sighs seem to say “Just show ‘em already and let’s get on with the Whitesnake covers!”) and secretaries-gone-wild sing-alongs (not to be a sandy vagina, but I submit that “Don’t Stop Believin’” is not hair rock). Our visual mating call is a non-ironic hair metal shirt and a general vibe of impatience for the super hits.
