Children Of The Korn

Last time out I wrote about the idea of selling out and transferring this concept to the radio; well as ever in the slack time since the last I have bothered to angrily hammer on a keyboard about music, my good friend c has taken the opportunity on the radio to secure himself a fortnightly gig on Phonic.fm running the Mid Week Alternative.
I have to say the boy done good - the more practise the easier it will be for him, but he is playing some cool tunes and I'm pleased for him.
This week I quested on the show to try and pitch an idea he has an issue with.
Due to time and language restraints on the radio I thought as a rehearsal I'd get the full version off my chest in the comfort of the 'Towers.
Being occasionally technologically stunted I have not yet linked up any music to the site - I hope to remedy this later, but I thought I'd get the text down first and you can pick up the tracks from Spotify if you haven't downloaded them illegally already or shock horror actually bought them.

So I would like you to pull up your baggy jeans and sit down, raise the sun visor/baseball cap/beanie from over your face as I tell you how Korn's 1994 anonymous debut album is one of the most influential albums on mainstream metal in the 90's.

It goes to say that I have covered the impact of Grunge and Pop Punk on the decline in popularity of metal in the early part of the nineties, but modern popular culture also played it's part.
Beavis & Butthead portrayed metalheads as retarded; The Word (crap late night TV magazine show) had Sepultura fans in a cage for their appearance and Wayne's World and the Bill & Ted franchise, for all the positives to come about for the titular heroes, still had us a knuckle dragging, badly dressed infants… somethings never change I guess.


But the bigger fact is that outside of our scene something ugly was awakening, thanks in large part to the new rising genre of 'RnB', Soul/Rap music started to out sell Rock music in the States by a considerable margin with artists like Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, TLC, Michael & Janet Jackson, Sean Combs, R Kelly and so on. I'm not going to get drawn into a debate about white youth assimilating black culture because frankly I don't care and it's one minefield I would shy away from, but long hair, tight jeans, leather and heading were no longer cool by approximately 1993.

Despite this back drop in Bakersfield, California a band called L.A.P.D consisting of 'Sausage Fingers' Reggy Arvizu, James 'Munky' Shaffer and David 'Surprisingly Good' Silveria were beginning to hone their craft releasing two albums of little note and broke up having relocated to Los Angeles.
Here they would meet 'Future Mexican Pimp' Jonathan Davis and Brian 'Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam' Welch and formed a band which they christen Corn in a hurry. Eventually screwing with the name, so as to not appear extremely massive douchebags, Korn recorded a demo album called Neidermeyer's Mind in 1993 and distributed it at gigs they played with House Of Pain and Biohazard.
Korn gained a reputation on the local scene and were eventually spotted by Paul Pontius of Epic/Immortal Records who claimed they were a new genre of metal.

They were packed off to Indigo Ranch in Malibu with a young producer called Ross Robinson to record their debut.

Here enters a curious fact.
Korn and Fear Factory were both rival bands at the time with residencies at various clubs and there was already bad blood between them. Robinson had a few years earlier recorded what would have been Fear Factory's debut and is now available as the album Concrete which was scrapped in favour of a few rerecords and a couple of new songs for the Colin Richardson produced Soul Of A New Machine.


Upon hearing Korn Dino Cazares, multi string plucking, as wide as he is high pornstar wannabe and FF guitarist, claimed Korn were ripping off their sound.
Interestingly enough Brian 'Head' Welch was already using a 7 string guitar which Cazares would switch to on their follow up and stone cold Classic 'Demanufacture' and further more change his tuning on 'Obsolete' the next follow up to match Korn's.
It is probably churlish to start talking about who ripped off who, but Ibanez themselves credit it firstly Welch, then Cazares with the resurgence in sales of seven string axes…

Regardless 1994 saw the release of Korn and toured fairly extensively on the back of first single 'Blind' - the opening salvo of a new genre of metal for sure and then the 1995 Grammy award winning 'Shoots & Ladders' before going on to record the follow up Life Is Peachy in 1995.
The eponymous album featured lyrics that read as a shocking insight into a troubled mind as Davis pours his heart and soul into tracks about bullying, alienation and sexual abuse. Whilst some of it is down right pathetic, the closing track Daddy saw Davis actually break down and cry in the mic booth. To this day it is still harrowing,
And there I will stop - I'm not doing the history of Korn, I'm not trying to persuade you to like them, this is about acknowledging the impact of their debut.


It would be easy to list the bands that followed in Korn's wake as the 'Nu Metal' genre burgeoned. Korn themselves claimed not to like Metal and so the new moniker was born and lets face it the bands from America that owe a debt to their support, friendship or just sound is huge - Deftones, Coal Chamber (their debut featured a song called Loco that is essentially Blind), Limp Bizkit (name checks Korn and Fwed goes mental at the end of a song and sings a lot about how no one loves him), (Hed) PE, Orgy, Incubus, System Of A Down, Slipknot, Snot, Human Waste Project, Adema, Sevendust and so on.
All the new bands taking a piece of the sound for themselves and a large proportion of that list was recorded at Indigo Ranch by one R.Robinson - the 'Godfather Of Nu Metal', not too mention the shift in lyrics to poor woe is me type psychiatry.
The surprising part comes when you look what happened to established metal acts…

Sepultura had struck big with Arise and Chaos AD. Both were huge albums and allowed them to compete for the first time on the same level as bands like Slayer. Chaos AD in particular saw them all over MTV with 'Nomad' and upsetting the slim, haristute and in no way shit tattooed Kerry King who claimed that by using Andy Wallace to mix their album the Seps had stolen their sound… but we'll come back to Kerry….


Clearly sensing a sea change in the way the genre was going the Sepultribe/nation/whaddafuckever decamped to, yes you guessed it; Indigo Ranch and pieced together their new album under the watchful eye of…. right again, a certain flavour of the month Robinson.
In fact so deep was the connection between Sepultura's new found muse that Davis and Silveria both guest on the 1996 National Geographic's Metal album of the year 'Roots'.
As can be heard on 'Roots Bloody Roots' there are the downtuned crunch riffs rather than notes, the high hat breakdown, stop-start dynamics...
Incorporating world music and Nu Metal, Cavelera took huge leaps away from the sound that had previously defined them and took them to greater heights commercially whilst also alienating a lot of older fans.
Sadly we'll never know which direction they intended to go after that as Max left the band and formed Soulfly, proving that neither side won.

Still one established act had clearly been drinking the Kool Aid…

As traditional metal faltered and spluttered acts like SOAD became the new big thing and I remember everyone going batshit crazy over their debut album back in 1998, not too mention on the back of their second album Korn embarked on their first Family Values Tour with acts like Rammstien, Incubus, Limp and Orgy all owing a debt to them for the boost.
Somewhere in a darker part of California Slayer were scratching their heads.
Having not produced a good album since 1990's Seasons In The Abyss and reeling from the (deserved) kicking they got over shit punk cover album 'Undisputed Attitude' the unthinkable happened.


I have to break off here for a moment and say that in 2011 we hear how Slayer stayed true, Christ at the time Kerry King has bleated how Megadeth and Metallica made pop music, Anthrax lost it, Machine Head sold out blah, blah, blah… well not strictly true Mr King....

In 1998 Slayer changed their tuning to the 'Diabolus In Musica' chord, tuning down and adopting characteristics of Nu Metal. I remember being massively psyched to get a new Slayer song on a Kerrang! sampler before the album came out. To this day the Korn style riffing on 'Stain Of Mind' still grips my shit as does the rubbish production and the lack of lead work (even if all Slayer solos sound like a stallion on point of ejaculation).
The album was, and still is, poorly received and all suggestions of Slayer ever having felt the need to pander to the mainstream seems to have been Men In Blacked from King's mind.


Next up for a crisis of confidence were former Slayer favourites Machine Head who despite releasing the excellent 'The More Things Change' sophomore fell victim to the crime of not pleasing King. With the winds of change definitely a blowin Roadrunner packed our heroes off to… do I really need to tell you where and with whom at this point?
Yes 1999's 'The Burning Red saw Machine Head abandon the crisp production of Colin Richardson in favour of the muddy sounds of Ross Robinson, staccato up their riffing and incorporate rap elements into their songs.
Just listen to the song 'From This Day' and you'll see what I mean.
Not to mention Flynn's previous hard man, hard talking attitude and lyrical content had been jettisoned in favour of a more confessional, personal nature.
The song 'Five' talks of his sexual abuse as a child and featured an uncanny and uncharacteristic freak out at the end, not too mention adopting the breathy whispered stylings of 'Blind' throughout the album and subsequent releases.
Naturally it gave them their biggest sales to date, but would cut so deep with their fan base that by the time 2001's dreadful Supercharger had landed Robb Flynn had lost credibility with more than just Kerry King.

In fairness to Machine Head they also fell victim of the growing backlash against the scene, admittedly it would take a few more years to land, but with the world enthralled to Korn, Limp Bizkit, Staind and all kinds of other shit the first counter Nu Metal blow to be struck was by Robinson himself, rounding on Machine Head for the concessions they made (at his behest) and attacking the Korn's and Bizkit's of the world (although co-incidentally this was after Korn decided to utilise Steve Thompson and Toby Wright to produce their mainstream breakthrough Follow The Leader).


So Fear Factory, Sepultura, Slayer and Machine Head all felt the pressure to change their sound over the late nineties.
By 2000 the second generation of Nu Metal bands had landed in the form of ultra saccharine Linkin Park, Papa Roach and Disturbed - the genre was waning - Korn's third album had landed in the form of Follow The Leader in 1998 and spawned hit singles, fantastic videos, but was the first sign of their decline as the album is below par and the follow up 'Issues' was universally panned.
By 2003 the world was ready for the next genre which would prove to be the Killswitch Engage led Metalcore.
Nu Metal was dead, right?

Sadly there are two asides to this.
Firstly have you listened to Chinese Democracy by Axehole's Roses by any chance?
Did it strike you as someone trying to recreate late nineties Industrial Music - like he'd heard The Downward Spiral or Filter and thought 'That's the cool new sound for me!' and then taken long enough to record it that it became an anachronism?
This next point is controversial even by my standards but in 2003, enter St Anger by Metallica.


Now it has been well documented about the troubles surrounding 'Tallica; James not allowing gunning metal fan Jason Newkid the chance to play with Sepultura, whilst himself guesting on Corrosion Of Conformity's Wiseblood, recording for the South Park movie, Newkid's departure and Echobrain; Some Kind Of Monster, the rehab, 10k a week therapists etc… so it is no secret that the band who went into the recording studio were fractured, all out of confidence and suffering an identity crisis, but after years of rubbing shoulders with the new guard of metal St Anger was stll a surprise, not least for featuring Lars playing on kitchen pots and pans instead of a drumkit.
Metallica's 8th studio album featured a distinct lack of solos, a trademark of the Nu Metal era and dreadful production as a perceived choice rather than just because Bob 'I'm A PinkToothbrush' Rock spent most of his time believing he was in the band as bassist.
The songs are stodgy, simplestic, repetitive and more importantly Hetfield's lyrics that had actually flourished in the Load/Reload era regressed to whining therapy style bleating.
Don't believe me?
Listen to rubbish like Invisible Kid, the screaming at the end of All Within My Hands, Shoot Me Again, God most of it is wincingly painful from all angles.
That's right, the biggest rock/metal band in the world, Metallica updated their sound to include elements of Nu Metal in an attempt to win back their 'metal' audience.

Proof alone to me that the resonance of Korn's debut had gone deeper into the psyche of metal than most during this time, yet alone there is a band at the moment from Exeter who pedal what can only be described as Nu Metal and are somehow making their way as a success.

The second aside comes in the fact that we have now reached a point where we have come full circle. Last year saw Korn release an album that people are proclaiming is them back to their best and gives them license to continue to bore audiences around the world. This year has seen the release of a new Limp Bizkit album and the world not even bat an eye or call it for the shit it is, no doubt Stinkin Park have some thing to wow us with soon and Staind are about to drop a new album… it's like the zombie at the end of a movie that rises again needing that double tap to the brain.


Let me say this - I don't hate Nu Metal.
The nineties were my school years, a time of discovery, forging my own way, university, dating, gigs and I listened to all the bands listed here and had to play more than was listed when DJing. Sure not all of them were to my taste, but you go with what's about at the time.
I believe that there was a crisis amongst record companies over the longevity of the genre and they signed fewer bands - Roadrunner jettisoned all their hardcore bands and yet now one of their biggest acts is the (former Victory records signing) Hatebreed.
Amongst this period of doubt there was a vacuum - like there is now - and this was filled by Nu Metal. I realise that makes it sound like it was the Third Reich of music, but I reserve that for Emo…
Nu Metal attempted to marry rap, rock and all kinds of cultures together into something edgy and mass appealing, of course that is precisely what I rail against, but the end result of the bland and universal appeal of Linkin Park is the dilution of something rawer and more singular.
Whilst they have become a fat, bloated joke of a band long past their sell by date, I believe Korn's debut was used as the fulcrum of that idea.

Selling out for the sucker

I have been building a new kitchen now for what seems like forever. I have been doing it so long it seems to have permeated every aspect of my life (as evidenced here) - granted a lot of this is down to my insistence on largely doing it solo and an anally retentive attention to detail; but last night whilst I was engaged in my latest task my phone rang.
I must have answered in a pretty testy manner as my friend on the other end remarked that it was the sound of a bad day.
In truth it was merely the fact that with DIY there is a process:
Identify job.
Buy materials
Allocate time.
Start task.
At this point something will go wrong due to the seemingly inconsistent nature of walls, doors, floors, materials, instructions, human error etc and that time allocated slips away and suddenly you've spent the whole day producing the sum total of fuck all but a headache and a bad mood. I went from being super smug and ahead of schedule the day before to cursing injustice and screaming at now being behind schedule over something simple.
So in this mood I answered the phone (Sorry c.).

Anyway the point of my good friend phoning was to float the idea of possibly taking  the idea of educating pork, sorry The Masses, onto a radio platform due to the local radio crying out for a midweek late night rock slot. 
Rather than the 'play this contemporary shit' stance of say a Friday nigh slot (apologies if one exists, that was merely an example) it would be a chance to put my shelf furniture, sorry CDs and my mine of useless information to good use.

I loved it - the idea of putting a more palatable version of A Brief History Of Metal across to the world, maybe less of the narrow minded ranting and swearing that I have claimed as the corner stone of this blog (a teacher friend of mine lamented recently that he thought it was interesting, some times well written and informative, but sadly a little too racy to use with his students), but maybe enough to provoke debate and still give a decent account of rock music.
Topics swirled around my head for a fair while after that - things I have written here, things I have yet to write, all with a slightly more presentable version and less calling Fred Durst a cunt (gratuitously jamming that one in there to emphasise the point!).

The it occurred to me, if I did this would I in turn be doing something I have viciously attacked some bands for? In seeking a larger platform for my voice would I effectively be compromising what I set out to achieve here? Would I, guardian of the 'Towers, be selling out?

So it got me thinking, what is selling out and why is it such a crime?



Rock and roll and in particular it's uglier younger offspring has always been about rebellion and catharsis; Johnny Cash sang about kicking against the pricks and punk was about smashing a brick in their face.

Punk is a good place to begin really as the sell out accusation probably cuts deepest in this genre.
Punk was formed with the notion of not conforming; your dress, your attitude was about not fitting in, not wanting to fit. The scene became the great exponent of the Do It Yourself ethos - don't like our music enough to produce it on your big shiny corporation?
Well fuck you, we'll record it in a dank rehearsal room on a shitty 8 track and release it on our own label on a blank tape with a photocopied handmade cover.
Of course the irony is the more popular something gets, the more people buy into it the further away from it's core aesthetic. 
This was apparent by the time the Sex Pistols exploded back in 1977. 
The were everything that punk represented, but in a marketable version.
Both simultaneously a genius act of scene affirmation and exploitation - Rotten and co were basically encouraged to go out and be as obnoxious and anti establishment as they could be (and boy could they), yet at the same time they were creating a look and defining the commercial sound of punk.
Cue a million bands trying to bring about Anarchy in the UK.
This of course is the tip of the iceberg really and the whole evolution of punk would cause myself and the aforementioned friend to grow heated over much red wine. He of course knows far more than I do about the true gritty nature of crust punk that would come to spit in the face of 'pretty boys' like the 'Pistols, the Damned etc - the DRI's, Discharges and Black Flags of this world who came harder and later and I in turn could bore the tits off you about the light, poppy Southern Californian punk that was pioneered by Bad Religion.
My case in point example for this scene is that before Blink 182 were a huge pop chart bothering behemoth they were a NOFX/Bad Religion style band and I liked them. Genuinely.
Then they released that album with 'All The Small Things' on and were massively played to death on the radio. Now not only was this a softening in style but on tour when I saw them, it was like they hadn't existed before that album and weren't playing to please the people that had, until that point given them a career, but to those fair weather fans who would buy their stuff because of the new single.

Metal and rock was a dinosaur by the time punk spat in it's face at the end of the seventies and as a result it mutated, often adopting the DIY approach, Iron Maiden and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (from here on out NWOBHM) would record their own records (Maiden's first EP is the much sought after Soundhouse Tapes) until they were signed and this approach is almost de rigour in todays digital age with platforms like Myspace helping to break acts far beyond the confines of their towns and cities.
The problem is that this creates a mentality where people in a scene identify with the musicians; they share backgrounds and tastes, they sing about the same issues that effect the people who turn up at shows - there is a connection and an underdog mentality to metal.
When a band expands beyond this and gets famous there is a thin line between staying 'true' to their roots but maintaining success and whoring themselves for the almighty dollar.

Take the biggest sell outs in metal: Metallica.
Now I still love them, but you have to admit that they are a pale shadow of their former selves.
They started out as a hungry young band with a hardcore sound, didn't make videos, dressed like everyone else and were very much in touch with their fan base.
This year they released Metallica Monopoly...
RRP $42.99



I appreciate that in the age of digital piracy bands don't make any money from CD sales anymore; the irony of an artist being in the position where they have more control over every aspect of their careers than ever before, is now there is no money to be had. Therefore bands that would have survived are now forced to tour the globe hawking ugly black t-shirts, wrist bands, thongs, bottle openers, belts, shoes etc to earn a living, but honestly... Monopoly?
How do you win? - Do you sell out?

It is long documented and debated about when Metallica sold out - most people will say The Black album and at 20 million sales and still climbing you could argue why. They took their honed thrash metal and dulled it, made it more accessible, shorter, more hit based (they released six, yes six singles from it).
However I would argue they sold out as a result of this album - it gave them everything they could have ever dreamed of, including the idea that they were 'done with metal'. They created an incredibly heavy album, kicked in the door of the mainstream and decided they had beaten metal itself.
The next two albums saw country, blues, self indulgence and more importantly entropy.
Sure the fire of youth is replaced by the consideration of age and if anything Hetfield's lyrics benefited from moving from the musings of sixth form poetry to the wisdom of the bar stool, but anyone who has seen Some Kind Of Monster saw the selfish, spoilt whiny posers they had become.
How can you identify with a man who sells a painting (pissed on a sofa) for more than most of us will ever see?
This is a band who came from tape trading and shut down Napster with Lars threatening to come round peoples houses and confiscate their hard drives - I had never downloaded their stuff, but at this point I queued up the whole catalogue in the hope the tubby tub thumper would come round so I could smash him in his gurning little face for the hypocrisy.
But downloading is not an issue I want to get into (again) here today.

The fact is that Metallica's last truly good album was probably The Black album. Since then they have become a marketing, merchandising vehicle - the first time I saw them was at Donington 95 and they were arrogant, self indulgent, took the piss out of the other bands, declared metal was dead and fucked around with their own songs. They may have gotten back some of that fire live and made a heavy record again but the fact is they just aren't as good as they were or the myth that what they are now is as good as people say it is just because they are not churning out shit like that fucking song with the Hurdy Gurdy... Low Man's Lyrics that the one, you know the mock Irish crap from Reload?
Ultimately Metallica don't care anymore - 'Sold out? We sell out most nights' - James Hetfield. 
To me this is the equivalent of hearing about Ashley Cole (alleged beard needing, philandering pisspot and English left back) recalling how he trembled with rage because Arsenal 'only offered him £55k a week'.
Only! Oh, Poor fucking you - I'd like to make that in two years fuckface.
See some of us hated Cashley way before he cheated on warbling Geordie rascist and new national sweetheart Cheryl Tweedie.
But honestly as I said a while back Metallica could release a turd in a box with their logo on it and someone out there would buy it. Given that I buy anything with an Iron Maiden logo on what's the difference?
Maiden still care, Maiden still make challenging music, Maiden never sneered at everything that put them where they are or pretended to be something they weren't.




Music is art in the end and people will argue that in order to bring it to an audience you have to compromise a little - be it with band mates, yourself, the club owner, the record label etc - as fruit loop, wine making, stalling tactician Maynard James Keenan of Tool said on Hooker With A Penis
Dumb shit I sold out long before you ever knew my name,
I sold my soul to make a record and dipshit you bought one.

But the idea that your art panders to a commercialisation first before serving it's purpose is wrong, it creates a banal version of what has gone before - going back to the mad baldy from Tool at least he said this about the music industry:

I write these songs to move through some pain or work out some issues. and if I'm successful in my art and my expression I shouldn't feel the same way I did when I wrote those songs anymore and there should be a logical progression. But if as an artist I can express myself in someway that ends up helping someone else get through some hard time I guess that's great for everybody, that helps other people. The problem with the music industry in general is that artists get into it be use they have a desire to be desired and they have a desire to scream their heads off for whatever issue happened to them in the past, they weren't armed with the proper tools to move through any trauma or their childhood divorce or loss of parents and what  they do is end up screaming their heads off and at some point they get popular now they are part of an industry that is run by people who are uneducated emotional people, in a way it's kind of a dead end and in this society we expect those artists to continue screaming to the end of their days..

Spot on in my book - look at suicide inducing, three chord wonders Nirvana. Cobain actually admitted to selling out to make money with Nevermind, of course once on that train he couldn't take it, like it or live with himself.
If we wanted to listen to jangling three chord repetitive bollocks, we would listen to the radio.

Talking of which:
Metal is an expression, sure it varies in degrees, Linkin Park's Hybrid theory was so universally transcendent that I know three different people who reckoned 'it was about their life' - Crap. It was just so non committal that the themes could be applied, but it was still good. Fast forward and they started making the same by the numbers bullshit again and again because it was on the Transformers movie soundtrack.

You can change so violently you alienate people, you can assume that people want to hear the same ideas again and again, you can stop trying to push yourself, stop trying to challenge your audience; instead of strengthening a genre by pushing boundaries you weaken it by settling for mediocrity, labels sign bands who were medicare to start with and the whole thing circles the drain.
A beautiful failure is far more attractive than an emotional flatline in my book, especially as you don't have to buy a CD to hear a band these days.

Of course this is all subjective and I should pull the plug soon on this epic rant.
The rules for selling out are complex, hypocritical and convoluted and in essence:
1. Any band that is popular/profitable
2. Any band that appears to be popular/profitable
3. Any band that you dont like
4. Any band that someone you dont like likes
5. Any band that makes a follow-up CD that isn't identical to the previous
6. Any band that changes their musical style
7. Any band that doesn't represent your style

But you can spot the pretenders a mile away, for every thousand bands barely 5% will have a career and even less than that be any good so it a shame that we are presented with a watered down marketable version of these things by people whose emotional barometer is completely fucked with regard to the 'product' they are putting out.

Now I'm rambling, but I have finished the kitchen and am off for a beer and to listen to c's debut rock show, I may join him next time.

Check it out
www.phonic.fm/listen-online

Nothing Big, Nothing Clever

What it says on the tin.
If you like any of this shit, please check out the excellent Sleeping Shaman website that I also contribute to.
Doom/Sludge/Stoner/etc metal and rock edited with more care and objectivity than here.

It has just been revamped and is dedicated to bringing you the best in doom music.

If you like it slow and heavy or just merely want to hear about some underground shit, get your ass over to www.thesleepingshaman.com

Peace out.
M

Golden Shower

You know I never thought it would actually arrive… sure there was the reunion shows in 2009/2010 and the whole notion that the world was still caught in the throws of some incredibly funny joke - you know the one where you are busting a rib or laughing so hard that it was painful? - but to actually sit down and listen to listen to the concept of 'a new Limp Bizkit album' in 2011 was as bizarre a concept of listening to Motley Crue's 'Saints Of Los Angeles' in 2009 and realising it was actually relevant and credible.
Well here's where the similarity departs because in reality, whereas 'Saints…' was a great, clever piece of post ironic self realisation from a band who were renowned for being as big a joke as they were musically competent, Limp Bizkit's 'Golden Cobra' is as lumpen, meat headed, dumb and well, aurally shite as the concept threatened…
It reminds me of being a kid. I used to have to catch the train from sleepy lil Warminister to Bath every day to go to school. At ten/eleven there was a single white line at the edge of the platform which according to some long lost historical anecdote I read, was because some asshat politician (NOOOOOOO!) on the opening of (a/the) railway stepped across the track to shake hands with some other self grandising asshat and was mowed down by a train. The white line was then instated to make people realise that THE EDGE OF THE PLATFORM WAS DANGEROUS!!!! See, History Towers are concerned with your health and safety too…
Still I digress, at 21 this solitary white line was augmented by a massive yellow stripe 3 feet in from the edge of the platform warning that it was dangerous and accompanied by a safety warring to that effect. What upset me was clearly the fact that in ten years we, as a species have gotten three feet thicker…
Now, stick with me, so imagine the type of individual that would then make music that is three feet thicker… step forward Mr fucking Durst…
and weep because it didn't have to be like this.

I saw one of Limp's first ever UK shows before their album came out over here. They opened for Korn back in 1997 on the 'Life Is Peachy' tour. Just before Korn started down the road to licking balls Limp were supporting them around the globe. Picture this:' Faith' hadn't been released and was a cool novelty, DJ Lethal was normal sized and still riding on House Of Pain cool and a red baseball cap wasn't the sign of a complete cunt.
Halcyon days right?

Nu Metal is a bad word in this day and age, but I will admit it was a time and a place phase that helped put a shot in the arm for metal even if only by inspiring kids to go out and learn to play instruments as a protest against it. I'll probably cop flak for this but the first self titled album is really good; from the opener 'Pollution' (even if Fwed does go a little bit Jon Davis at the end), 'Faith' before it was played to death was great, 'Indigo Flow' oozes cool and the whole thing was a satisfactory, if not slightly juvenile romp - funnily even like most debuts of that era.
By the time the second album 'Significant Other' was released 'Faith' had humped the American airways until it hissed air and Limp Bizkit were on their way to being huge. The sophomore album booted the door down, walked into the mainstream without taking it's sneakers off and sat down in your favourite chair. 'Break Stuff' was an awesome track but personally I thought the album as a whole sucked, there was 'Nookie' and that's about all I could stomach really. Then they became MTV darlings, appeared on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack along side Metallica's 'I Disappear' - neither of which distracted the audience from John Woo phoning it in from behind massive bags of cash and suddenly they were every where; Fred become an A&R man for his record label (or maybe he always was) but suddenly from the banality of Limp Bizkit up shot household names for five minutes like Staind and Puddle of Mudd - boring ass grunge revivalists as turgid as the man himself shortly before Fred became a fully fledged record exec, toted around with celebrity mates like Ben Stiller and finally got round to making another album.


'Chocolate Starfish' (can't be fucked to give it the full title, I'd rather just crowbar another insult in)… god I can't even be bothered to write about it; you know 'Rollin', 'My Generation' yadda yadda yadda - huge, dumb and fucking everywhere.
Then it all went wrong somewhere - over saturation maybe?
Generation Xtremely fucking stoopid's attention span ran out or something, but Limp fell out spectacularly with Eminem over his Everlast beef and the wheels started to come off.
First up Wes 'the other one with talent' Borland jumped ship citing the fact that Limp were indeed shit and considering he could actually do better making incidental music for kids TV and it be more complicated, he wanted to do something different and made the musically more challenging, mad as a box of frogs and utterly, utterly bollocks Big Dumb Face album 'Duke Lion Fights The Terror' which not even his mum bought (although I know a man who did - not me!).
Limp came roaring back with Less Is More, no sorry Results May Vary. Which was exactly that, varied. Fred was seen screaming at Thora Birch in a video about sniffing her panties and Playlouder magazine called it 'fucking crap'.
The only good song is the last one where he takes a pop at Borland, so we can discard that one for now.
Out on tour supporting Metallica Fred was constantly heckled all summer and even walked off during the set in Chicago, he was in the papers claiming he dated Britney Speares, who bles her was so wacked out even she probably believed it for a few minutes...
And then they were gone….
Well they weren't some when in 2004 rumours grew of Borland playing with the band again (obviously studio time for releasing the sounds of your anus is expensive) and they released a seven track album called 'The Unquestionable Truth: Part 1' which sold slightly better than Borland's solo album - ie I know two people who brought it.
Then they were gone again when John 'Talented one' Otto went into Rehab. Apparently (thanks wikipedia) Fred then directed some movies. Seriously!

2008 and eight they came back to life as the original band - kind of like a reanimated corpse really, not to mention older, balder and fatter - for the none more camp Unicorns & Rainbows tour.
I saw them at Download 2009 on this tour and it was fun - no doubt. It was like a brief step back in time, like watching an episode of Beavis & Butthead, you chuckle and then you are out.


'Golden Cobra' is where the laughter stops for me.
Well not stops, but I just feel I'm no longer laughing with Fred & Co.
Rather at them.
That's right, fat boy, fat boy, fat boy, John Otto and Wes Borland actually released an album that makes the past seem erm, golden.
Not only is it musically shit but the lyrics that actually come from a grown man contain such biting lyrical gems as 'I'm gonna fuck you, fuck you, fuck you up - Douchebag!' On the imaginatively titled Douchebag and on lead single Shotgun apparently, 'Everybody jumps at the sound of a shogun, in my neighbourhood everybody got one'.
Personally when I heard this all I could think of was Hot Fuzz:
'Everyone and their Mum's are packing round ere'
'Like who?'
'Farmers'
'Who else?'
'Farmers Mum's'
Fred, you live in the 'burbs in your big mansion for crying out loud, you are as gangster as I am and I went to Private School.
I mean come on this was after previous efforts by the band had been labelled as 'a frightening insight into the vacuous state of 21st century culture' by Yahoo! Launch, that's right that intellectual tower YAHOO LAUNCH!
I find it incredible and yet unsurprising to find that Kerrang! have inducted Fred Durst into their Hall Of Fame… I expect my invitation in the next cereal packet I buy.
Even more incredulous is that the band have another album just about ready to go… what the fuck is wrong with everyone? Have I gone fucking mad?
I listened to Judas Priest's seminal 'Painkiller' album this week and though man, this is as incredible as the day I brought it and just think next year it'll be ten years old, then it dawned on me that it was release in 1992 - next year it'll be twenty years old! Someone mentioned a 'Nineties Revival Night' to me the other day… the nineties were a long time ago now.
The first Limp Bizkit album was a fun, but dumb experience when it was released in 1997, listening to 'Golden Cobra' fourteen years later the world has gotten considerably thicker than 3 feet in that time.

Flynn In The Face Of Adversity...?

'And Robb Flynn Wept For There Were No More Band Wagons To Conquer...'

I'm in the process of taking a retrospective blog and looking at the future this time out in something that could see me with egg on my face or people nodding sagely and saying the bloke with the ranty blog about shit no one listens to is right.
Presuming someone else finds it, reads it and forwards it on to them of course.

Still this bold move is because I am hoping to be proved wrong this time; in jumping the gun and laying my cards on the table too early I am seeing if I can be surprised again and get the cutlery to eat a large slice of humble pie.
It's not something I do often, I don't like the taste and even if I deserve it I'd usually make up some excuse like I'm allergic or something to avoid eating it.... but in this case I'd happily go back for seconds.

And the reason is that I'm talking about Machine Head here.

I got into metal when I was ten.
Iron Maiden were about to enter their difficult middle years which would cause even me to doubt them, Metallica hadn't yet crushed all before them with the Black album, Soundgarden had gotten round to Louder Than Love, Guns n Roses were actually a band and elsewhere even the Prodigy were still tripping their tits off in a warehouse hoping the bloke they were hugging wasn't a policeman.
So it was all established acts that had been around and were recommendations at that point.... by mid nineties I was out exploring my own music indulgences - Megadeth had given way to the far more superior SLAAAAYYYYYYEEEERRRR, the likes of Atomic Rooster and suggestions of Warrant had been laughed off in favour of Alice In Chains and a new generation of bands started appearing on the radar including Korn, Fear Factory and Machine Head, bands which were now 'mine' as I was there at the start.


In 1994 Machine 'Fucking' Head (as they are affectionately known) released the landmark Burn My Eyes, an album so massively good they managed to ride the shock waves of it's impact still to this day.
The live shows they backed this slab of incredible with saw them blow the aforementioned SLAAAAYYYYYYEEEERRRR off the stage whilst supporting them.
Yes you read that right, whisper it if you have to... SLAAAAYYYYYYEEEERRRR. Off. Stage. Granted they were touring the below par Divine Intervention album but still... impressive.
However problems were swiftly round the corner and the rotund of girth Chris Kontos was having problems remaining on the drum stool. When I saw them at Donington '95 they had to get their drum tech to stand (sit) in as the band member had suffered an allergic reaction to Brown M&Ms or something.


By the time it came to record their sophomore record - 1996's The More Things Change - he had been replaced by the more equipped to function slaphead Dave McClain. In quiet gatherings clandestine groups will mourn the fact that Kontos was a better drummer, but the fact is McClain has ably manned the kit for six of the band's soon to be seven studios albums and done a damn fine job of it live too.
Trouble was never far away for the band though and Pineapple Headed gurner and sometimes guitarist Logan Mader was next for the exit door. The recording process for TMTC had been fraught with problems and the strain on the inter band relationships had taken it's toll with Mader departing stating Flynn was a dictator, himself having crashed into rehearsals late and high as kite on meth insulting and cursing the other band members and wondered why he was given his P45.


Next recruit was the dubious appointment of one Ahrue Luster.
Not only did his arrival coincide with head scratching and a wondering who the guy with the polka dot bandanna was, but also a shift in public tastes. By now Nu Metal had the world in it's grip and the band ditched long term producer Colin Richardson for flavour of the month Ross Robinson (Korn, Limp Bizkit, At The Drive-In and Slipknot).
The Burning Red was an immensely popular album at the time - both critically and fan wise, but featured two songs which in corporate elements of rapping into the verses. Given that Flynn had cut his long thrasher hair off into a peroxide dyed spikey do and was seen wearing what suspiciously looked like Red PVC pimp outfits it was no surprise that mutterings began to take voice that Machine Head were chasing the bucks... the most famous to put voice to these feelings was former champion Kerry King who dismissed everything they had done since Burn My Eyes and it would turn into a petty war of words publicly between him and Flynn on a regular and boring basis.


If the Burning Red dodged this bullet, the follow up Supercharger got it both barrels, the reviews were lack luster, fan reception was underwhelming...
It is the worst thing that Machine Head have ever put their name to with many of the songs featuring rap elements, gay vocal lines and in the case of the god awful American High Flynn singing the riff accapella before the start of the song. Amazingly no pointed out that it sounded like a shit Tarzan cry until after it was released...
The odds weren't good and releasing a single called Crashing Around You accompanied by a video featuring skyscrapers on fire and falling into the earth on September 12th 2001 was just bad luck by any stretch...
Despite still delivering the goods live Machine Head's stock was falling fast.
Ahrue decided he didn't want to make 'heavy' music anymore and jumped ship, but not before taking the customary pop at Flynn's way of running the band.
I'd like to file him under the Where Are They Now rest home for non-descript losers who are a footnote in history, but sadly he joined Ill Nino for their second album and has made a fairly good stab at ensuring they aren't successful or heavy as well.
So actually after the unbelievably rubbish Enigma we'll leave him there...


It seemed highly likely that Machine Head would never rise again. A now bit part metal band out of fashion, out of time and out of a record deal in the US.
However Phil recruited former Vio-Lence running mate Phil Demmel and whilst Avenged Sevenfold and Killswitch were out making a name for metalcore the 'Head came roaring back with a thrash metal album once more.
A change in the musical landscape? Fresh input?
Whatever the band have delivered two stone cold classic metal albums in the form of The Ashes Of Empires and 2007s benchmark metal album The Blackening.


On the face of it you can't argue that Machine Head weren't back and making the kind of albums you thought they would follow TMTC with.
You would think it is Machine Head's time to step up and into the void that will be left when Judas Priest retire, when Slayer finally stop twitching and when Metallica realise they can probably just release packaging these days and people will buy it.


Until now.
14th June saw the release of 'Locust' (Advance Mix) the forth coming single (?) advance track or whatever the hell you call individual tracks release these days where no one makes any money from music, and the result is.... kind of underwhelming.

Everyone expecting a full on balls out track will be a little disappointed to put it mildly.

It's nearly as long as anything off the last two albums clocking in at nearly 8 minutes, it has the heavy/quiet/falsetto bit that they have been doing lately but it all sounds a bit... well phoned in. A bit weak. Poppy almost. Down right fucking odd at times... Flynn's vocals have always been a selling point on Machine Head to me and the bizarre pronunciation on the lyrics is extremely off putting.

Maybe I'm just being jaded and looking at it in the light of an album it'll make sure - it's memorable enough, but it makes me wonder if Machine Head are a little lost.
Twice they have blown through the current trend and found themselves out in front as leaders and then stumbled and fell.
Maybe they are better when they are the underdog, maybe they can take an idea and Machine Head it up a little and make it great - The Burning Red was the best Nu-Metal album ever released in essence - but when it comes to striking out on their own do they have the chops to be innovators?
I'm not convinced, sure they have the skills - you don't produce albums like Burn My Eyes and The Blackening by being 'okay' but then again you down make The Number Of The Beast, Reign In Blood or Master Of Puppets by being content and this is what concerns me.
'Locust' is average Machine Head by numbers and the band stand a chance of being crushed under the weight of expectation.
Of course I could be wrong... the track hasn't had it's final mix and it is a single piece of music I have waited four years to hear, but I fear a sense of Deja Vu is kicking in...
Prove me wrong Rob, prove me wrong...

When One Tribe Goes To War

'Brother will fight brother,
spilling blood across the land,
killing for religion - something I don't understand'
Holy Wars... Punishment Due - Megadeth

Since Dave Mustaine wrote the classic opener from Rust In Peace he has alleged it is about Israel, Northern Ireland, but lets face it with the Ginger Whinger it is probably about being kicked out of Metallica 800 years ago and how his life has been utterly consumed by this failure, no matter that he has gotten married, had kids, sold a couple of records and spent a large part of that time touring the world, off his screwed up little face and not working the daily grind like the rest of us.

Now that line got me thinking the other night and I realise I have started off with 'there is a cliche' before, but the best thing about that statement is it's true and it's a little bit of history repeating'. And anyway, it's my fucking blog - don't like it? Get yourself a Kindle or something.
My favourite failed glam rockers - pregrunge, grungy drug dustbins and kings of stoopid Love/Hate once wrote 'It's okay to be a cliche - everything under the sun has been done'.
Well sure that was their excuse, but having tried to be a better Motley, a darker GnR and a frankly bizarre post nineties mess for several albums they would know exactly how many wagons have rolled pasted since the mid eighties as they have tried to hitch a ride on most.
However the one (cliche) that cracks me up is the notion of metal fans as a united tribe.
Sure we're all against the mainstream, but honestly there is jock metal that hates fag metal; Goths are rivalled, baggy assed trouser wearing, stupid fringe sporting types, emos, nu metallers, grungers, moshers, glam rockers, thrash, death, black metal, stoner types, fucking proggers; Christ - every one a cliche and a target of scorn for someone… I know it deep down because we all have ideas what music should be and the worst corruption is the one that makes us feel uneasy about our own selves…
I'd like to be open minded, I mean I listen to Hip Hop quiet avidly, I listen to dance music and have been told I'm at the wrong festival by passers by at Donington for the tunes on my stereo, but deep down nothing offends me more than a metal band I deem shit… I would rather listent to Britney Spears gagging on Akon's cock (presuming he's straight or even has gentials) than listen to some of the crap out there that is pedalled as metal these days so I know how divided this 'tribe' rely is.

Take for example one of my favourite new bands Emmure, they divide people like marmite and to be fair I love them for this.
To recap, they aren't really new. They have been knocking around in one form or another since about 2003. They belong in the sub basement genre of what could only be described as Deathcore.
What is deathcore? You say.
Fuck knows. I don't even care at this point.


I read an article on them regarding their latest album 'Speaker Of The Dead' which was released last year. They come from the mean streets and are heavily hip hop influenced which appealed to me because it put so many people off them. They specialise in death metal heavy music with huge and simplistic hardcore breakdowns and violent lyrics.
In all honesty they are a bit shit when anylised from a musical point of view - a beatdown is not a valid musical passage when simply placed on it's own, yet alone when you try and create a whole song from one, or six strung together. In reality they make the jock swagger of Limp Bizkit seem like Tool at times but they are incredibly cathartic when you are in a super pissed off mood - songs like Dogs Get Put Down and 4 Poisons 3 Words channel a senseless rage that make it the perfect music to vent the rat race frustration.
It's not for everyone, like Dream Theatre aren't right for me, like Slipknot aren't right for me, like BFMV, like some of the fringy, tight jeaned shit makes me want to punch the Hot Topic crowd in their stupid faces and bust open lips with piercings… but the amount of hate they attract on the internet is quite frankly hilarious.
None more cool sites like Metal Sucks or Blabbermouth hate on these guys so much I HAD to like them due to the moronic and inaneness of the people who post on there... if Emmure were really that terrible(which on some level they are and they aren't) I'd still love them because the 'in crowd' has such a problem with them.
They have their place in the order of things, they serve their purpose and if I'm feeling mad at the world I will drive home screaming, 'I don't want you, I don't need you - I have no reason to please or appease you and if you're not with me in this fight, then I'm walking away tonight'.
The thing is it made me realise is that much like those that used to be friends make the worst enemies; the music that (in the ear of the beholder) screws with what you love is truly the thing that gives you the most problem.
That and all the trappings that go with it.
Much like there will never be peace in Africa, The Middle East, Northern Ireland… brother will fight brother and the notion of a united tribe is fantastic pipe dream that just won't happen.
You grebeo douchebags.

Iron Maiden - A Band of Three Halves?

May the 4th be with you...
History Towers throws open it's doors once again and welcomes you to it's new surroundings from a technically different location.
If you wouldn't mind taking your shoes off at the door and keeping the noise down around the Degu cage you can make yourselves comfortable.
Yes folks my move went through, the lovely lady and I are in and so on International Star Wars Day I thought I'd kick back off with this masive missive I began penning way back in April.

Okay it was only a matter of time before I wrote about Iron Maiden...
It isn't a shock and we all know it won't be the last time either, so if you are not interested tune out now as this is some serious geekery about to unfold.
The motivation for this piece was because I have talked a lot about the nineties of late - most likely because I was there first hand to witness Metal stutter and attempt to evolve, but somewhere in the passage of time I have come to realise the nineties were a whole decade ago... where does the time fly?
The most significant thing in music for me to happen in the last ten years of music was the reunion of Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith with Iron Maiden and the subsequent four albums they have released.

I remember it like yesterday; it was 1999 and I was in halls of residence at university. It was probably a weekday as we were all pretty wrecked and the sun was certainly high enough to denote afternoon... who knows, as I said we were wrecked - the excuse? A day ending in Y probably.
The news came over the communal kitchen radio that the duo had returned; quite frankly this news was better than sex and promptly myself and one of my good friends ran around like giddy schoolgirls shrieking until we located the only Iron Maiden CD in the house (my collection was either on tape or confined to nostalgia at this point), the Paul Di'Anno fronted Killers.
You couldn't make it up.
Annnyyyywwaaaayyy...

The nineties were dark years for Maiden and this is something no one can deny. After conqueroring the eighties with an astounding run of albums; Adrian Smith left to pursue his own interests, Steve built a studio in the barn in his back garden, Dickinson changed his vocal style and long time producer Martin Birch announced imminent retirement. Whilst I have the luxury of viewing No Prayer For The Dying and Fear Of The Dark through youthful and Maiden tinted glasses (being my first new music by the band) the fact is that 'Prayer' sounds like a badly produced take on AC/DC style Rock n Roll and 'Fear' has nearly 50% filler.
Then Dickinson left.
Then Grunge exploded.
Then Day-Glo Punk exploded
Then Harris' father died and he got divorced.
By the time the X Factor rolled round in the mid nineties things were pretty dire in Camp Maiden and arguably only getting worse.

Smith had been adequately replaced for the proceeding two albums it seemed by 'Manic' Janick Gers who, admittedly can pen a good tune, but is an absolute travesty live where his insistence on skipping everywhere, throwing his guitar over his shoulder and not bothering to play the half the notes because he's 'off the wall' is frankly infuriating (especially now Smith is back and can actually play HIS solos) and grips my shit even seeing him live, yet alone on DVD where you can actually pay attention to the mangled guitar parts...

With Renaissance man Dickinson gone off to sing solo, fly solo, fence solo, DJ solo, write books solo, slag Maiden off solo and generally do other stuff (solo), Harris turned to Tamworth Terror and vertically challenged missing link, Blaze Bayley of Wolfsbane.
Now I want to be clear, I don't hate Blaze Bayley... (well maybe I do a little). When he was in Wolfsbane I loved him - Downfall The Good Guys is an awesome album, and I was rooting for them to become big. Just as it seemed they might, the short list came up for prospective Maiden candidates - I think the best two mentioned were original singer Di'Anno (who then - and now - looked like an inflated, geriatric Evan Seinfeld on crack) and Blaze.
It wasn't a vote but my support was with Blaze, a good solid down to earth guy who could sing. It cost Wolfsbane their career, a sad footnote in the story, but sacrifices have to be made... this is Iron Maiden, Godammit.
The anticipation built all summer long and then finally somewhere around September 1995 Man On The Edge was released as a single.
It wasn't great, but it wasn't the end of the world; that slight deflating feel that (deep down you knew) it wasn't that good was pushed to one side - album tracks were where the band cut their teeth these days.
Yeah... maybe not. The X Factor was a dirgy piece of work from start to finish in my opinion, flat monotone vocals, lumpen repetitive rifs and rubbish production. Even the Eddie on the front is a new level of shit.
It would honestly make it into my worst albums of all time, if not for the follow up release of Virtual IX, which apart from a slightly better cover has no redeeming features at all in my book. The notes Blaze had managed to hit on the X Factor were gone and if I hear that 'Lightning Strikes' chorus again it'll be about the 457th time and I only got half way through the album.
It's a dog. Truly and utterly. And it's only eight tracks long too - writing on the wall time?
And more importantly it had, up until that sunny day in 1999, completely and utterly destroyed my love for the band and Blaze Bayley, who in one move had broken up a much loved band and killed the best band in the world - and that's without talking about the piece of crap that is the Virus song they recorded for The Best Of The Beast - Metallica didn't lose the plot this bad with St Anger for fucks sake.

But a new millennia promised much; Smith and Dickinson back, a producer on board - the band even charitably kept Gers... who has now, much to my chagrin, been in Maiden LONGER THAN ADRIAN SMITH!!!!!!! - and embarked on a new chapter and this is what (after the extended intro) is what I wanted to talk about.
Maiden post 2000.


Coming in 2000 itself Brave New World is rightly hailed as a modern Maiden classic - certainly the first great album for a decade and the natural successor to Seventh Son. It benefits from having a decent producer - not a hearing damaged, control freak bassist and the energy crackles from the off. The Wickerman is balls out and aggressive, Brave New World is majestic, Blood Brothers goes on forever but the whole thing sounds fucking awesome even now; the cover was sharp and the band who were looking like booking tours of Guilford Hall and The Duck & Pond Anywhere, were suddenly headlining Rock In Rio to quarter of a million people. It must have hurt Harris' notorious pride to admit he was wrong, but the band needed Dickinson. Happily he'd also seen sense toward the latter half of the nineties and had reconnected with Smith. Whilst Maiden were acting like a donkey caught in a tar pit, they had produced the amazing double whammy of Accident of Birth and Chemical Wedding - proper metal albums again.
Smith rejoining was the icing on the cake... (and one of the conditions of Dickinson returning) now if only they would give him back his eighties solos...


Dance Of Death followed in 2003 and was again well received. In wracking my brain over this I have to say it comes last of all the albums they have released since the reunion. Don't get me wrong, I loved it at the time; Rainmaker, Smith penned war epic Paschendale, the title track, the led cajonnes of Face In The Sand, the title track, the acoustic Journeyman's Day... I still love it now, but if this was an offspring choosing competition it would be the red headed step child for many issues.
The cover is crap, a half rendered CGI masquerade ball with Eddie as the reaper, the half finished mix because Mr Harris listened to Kevin Shirley's daily recording one day and said 'That sounds great to me'. No More Lies indeed Steve, you're fucking deaf, I could go on but it would be uncharitable and a little like swearing in Church.
Still, when compared to the four nineties albums, it is a strong release and praised at the time with it's lavish stage show. Which I fucking missed to go stand at the back of a massive shed with no video screens and watch Metallica for the fourth time on the Madly In Anger At The World tour... not even the 5.1 HD DVD makes up for not seeing Paschendale with it's incredible trench warfare production.


A Matter Of Life Or Death arrived in 2006 and wow... Maiden's second longest album is a heavy weight affair that deals with war and religion all the way through. This is Prog Metal with all it's pomp and status - where as the band used to gallop they now march and ludicrously Dickinson sounds better on this album than he does on half the albums that have gone before it.
This is the album that saw massive cracks appear in the Maiden fan base as to the embracing of this direction. To me (once again terrible, thin, production aside) this is one of the pinnacles in an incredible career. The middle four songs on this album are some of the best ever recorded - Brighter Than A Thousand Suns, For The Greater Good Of God, The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg and The Longest Day... the album is not filled with tracks I would listen to individually a lot (the single Breeg as an exception) but as a complete piece it is just phenomenal and having seen the whole thing live it has to live with me as one of my favourite Maiden experiences.


And so to last year... 2011.
The Final Frontier arrived with rumours rife that the title was also reference to an old quote from Harris that he wanted to make 15 albums (this was back when they recorded Piece Of Mind in 1983). Thankfully rebuffed since it does highlight a very really and scary thought (for me anyway) that Maiden probably only have another 5 years left to run...
But what of the album?
It is another heavy slice of prog metal, but easily the most forward looking album for a long time. The chorus' are insanely singable, the production works and there are many bizarre twists and turns on this record. Of course for the fans who love Aces High, The Trooper and Two Minutes To Midnight, sombre epics like The Man Who Would Be King and When The Wind Wind Blows are going to seriously piss in the soup of rockers like El Dorado, the title track and The Alchemist but it spans an incredible seventy odd minutes of remarkable music that makes Maiden as vital and as great now as they have ever been no matter what Andy fucking Sneap says.

Make no mistake, the Maiden of this decade thunder like the days of old and unite the tribes with huge anthemic songs that put to shame the young pretenders half their age.The albums may divide opinion to shit or great, but live they are bigger, better and bolder than, well anyone. Sure I am biased as hell but having seen them conqueror Sonisphere last year with a set that show cased the reunion albums they have achieved the accolade of keeping relevant after a 30 year career which in itself is an incredible feat.
Due to the haze of nostalgia surrounding Maiden and their part in strengthening the metal genre in the eighties it would be easy to put together a top ten list of their classics... Run To The Hills, Aces High, Minutes, Hallowed, Seventh Son, Number Of The Beast etc which doesn't consider anything after 1988's Seventh Son and I would honestly struggle to praise their nineties material beyond Fear Of The Dark so as an exercise in education my recommendations for Maiden's Top Ten Songs post 2000 would be as follows:

1. Benjamin Breeg - AMOLAD
2. Brave New World - BNW
3. Starblind - TFF
4. Brighter Than A Thousand Suns - AMOLAD
5. The Wickerman - BNW
6. Paschendale - DOD
7. For The Greater Good Of God - AMOLAD
8. When The Wild Wind Blows - TFF
9. Coming Home - TFF
10. Rainmaker - DOD

But to be honest with you it is almost impossible to look at that list accurately considering the omissions... and particularly as I think Brave New World is a better album than Dance... I would have thought it would be simple.

(Album rankings
1. A Matter Of Life And Death
2. Brave New World/The Final Frontier
4. Dance Of Death)

I can name my favourite Metallica tracks of the last decade on one hand, okay that's a cheat maybe we'll say 15 to include the last four albums.
Bleeding Me
The Outlaw Torn
St Anger
Broken, Beat, Scared
No Leaf Clover... done!

Open that list to ten and I think I'd just do it but not have much passion left by 9 and 10 which shows how good Maiden have become in the final third of their career.
I'll stop rambling now... roll on August.