I grew up in a
conservative home and the first metal band I was allowed to listen to was
Stryper, who are a
Christian metal band. But since they were the only Christian metal band in the cassette aisle at Meijer, and Petra are as
boring as shit, I bought Yngwie's Trilogy, KISS' Asylum, and Maiden's Somewhere In Time. I liked those albums, but something was missing. They weren't
hard enough,
crazy enough,
bombastic enough. Pretty soon, I discovered the
Big Four of Thrash, and was soon squirting my
teenage jism to
staccatto riffs with difficult time changes. This was my soul music. This spoke to what I was feeling and I was feeling pretty
pissed off about life and really didn't have much of a sense of humor about it. The Big Four; Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer, explained my youthful rage. Recently, I turned 43. For my birthday, I requested a Big 4 night, because I am apparently going through a mid-life crisis. I am not getting any younger. And I'm still pretty pissed off about life. My anger has deepened. My rage is a fine, barrel aged whiskey. I savor it.
First, we heard a certified classic that is nearly immune to criticism. What can you say that hasn't been said about Metallica's Ride The Lightening? Just the facts, I suppose. It was released in 1985 and it was the breakthrough masterpiece that catapulted them to eventual domination. This is their best album. It eschews the cliches of the debut, and it lacks the ponderousness of later thrashsterpieces. It is a sleek metal machine, a mighty meeting of riff and song, of dark atmosphere and foreboding that they never really expressed again. There is an evil vibe here. There is death. Hetfield is in his lyrical prime, expressing directly, without metaphor, the many exciting ways to die, whether by your own hand, the hand of God, by nature, by the state. And after all that, we are sucked into the primordial ooze with Cthulhu. If you can't appreciate this album, then you will never fully appreciate life itself. This would have been winner of the night, if I wasn't such an asshole.
Into the Necro Lands Part 11.1 - Creeping Death
I produce a marker from my pocket and
begin to draw, tracing out the Mournful Congregation patch from
memory. Again, the bell rings, "Arvid?" Intones the
tired-looking Sargent. We rise and follow him down a shabby hallway
lined with tiny offices. "Have a seat, please." The gray
bureaucrat motions to a couple of cheap plastic chairs on he other
side of his desk as he shuffles through papers in the file cabinet.
Bloodmace and I look at one another, knowing we will have to hide the
sigil somewhere in this district of Sekran, as per Chanthoth's
instructions. We begin the paperwork for the assassination request.
Endless droning questions to witch we give false answers fill the
air. "May I be excused?" I get up and walk down the hall
towards the bathroom, but I walk past the wooden door and straight to
the Sectaurian at the front desk. I discreetly slip the note to her
as I pass and put the clay button with the magic sign on the desk.
Looking at the note, she quickly grabs the forbidden object and drops
it into the pen holder. I walk back to the office to answer another
hundred queries before I am presented with a license for a murder
that will never happen. The desk Sargent dismisses us and we amble
down the hall to the receptionist’s office. Passing her desk, I spy
her side a piece pf paper out in our direction. Without looking at
her i snatch it up, burying it in my front pocket.
Marred by a crappy cover song, Megadeth's
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying is still one of the best thrash metal albums ever made. Dave Mustaine sustains much of his tarnished reputation on the achievements of this album, where he perfected his jazzy, difficult, crack cocaine, guitar solo driven thrash metal. It's a collection of inchoate rage songs, a few devil songs here and there, a vague political mumbling. You don't listen to Megadeth for lyrics. You just jam it the fuck out and appreciate the tricky riffs and manual dexterity. It was a rare moment, since it is one of the few good albums in the whole goddamn ouvre. Take away this album and Rust In Piece, and Megadeth are a crap band. Indeed!
Into the Necro Lands Part 11.2 - Evil Has No Boundaries
The chaos of the daily market has
subsided when we leave the assassination office. Only a lonely
janitor, languidly sweeping up the remnants of the day's work remains
in the cavernous chamber. Bloodmace and I wander down the corridor
toward the exit but as we pass the great doors that give entrance to
the hall of commerce, the Sectaurian who aided us walked swiftly in
front of us. Her hands, clasped behind her back, relax for a moment
and make a discreet motion to follow her. Walking swiftly, but well
behind our guide we move through the imperious checkpoint at the exit
and into the gusting stormwind outside. Weaving through the onyx and
alabaster gates that separate the business district from the city's
dwellings, we behold the city's strange architecture. Metal and
crystal structures bubbled up from the multicolored sand that covered
the ground, all domes and spikes that towered above us like great
thorny plants. We step up our pace, feeling the gaze of the patrol
officers wandering about. "Bloodmace," I say, "Do you
think we can trust this one? She did recognize the
Mournful
Congregation symbol, but..." Bloodmace, looking straight ahead,
replies, "Too late brother, we gotta follow on now, I think we
got a tail though." I pretend to drop something, when I bend
down and sneak a look, there are indeed a couple of nautical looking
necromancers loitering on the corner. "C'mon, hurry."
Bloodmace motions to me as the strange insect woman disappears around
a corner. We stride briskly after her as a heavy rain begins to pour
down. The street she leads us down is lined with many more modest and
uniform dwellings. We break into a run as she ducks into a doorway on
the right. We hear a splashing behind us and even as we approach the
doorway we are flanked by our swift pursuers and pushed into the
apartment. The Sectaurian we were following has a worried look
on her
face, "They followed us," She says to the corpsepainted men
who had jostled us on the way in, "Follow me you two." We
run after her with our unknown hosts in tow, up flights of stairs and
on to the roof, where we climb down a rope ladder into a second
apartment, with lush white carpets and leather walls. From a closet
in the luxury suite, we descend stone stairs for what seems like an
eternity. Deeper and deeper into the ground we travel until we
finally reach a door at the bottom level. Our guide motions for us to
stop and be silent. We all listen intently for any motion or sound,
minutes pass and our six armed benefactor quietly opens the steel
door and slips through. We find ourselves in a richly appointed
office. dim lamps illuminate the black walls and carpet enough to see
the monochrome chairs and desk. Bleached white skulls of many
different beasts contrast the inky backdrop on the walls and tables.
"I am Sauntra, Scrollkeeper of Narn. Chanthoth has told me of
your quest." The graceful sectarian before us speaks in a quiet
tone, "We will help you place the sigils in the five positions,
but we must hurry. Someone or something was following us on the way
in. We may have lost them for now, but they make it harder for us."
She pulls a map from the desk, "I will show you the way to your
goal within the castle and the way out. We meet at midnight on the
north dock."
Winner of the Night (for me anyway) was Anthrax's
Persistence of Time, their last with Joey Belladonna and their last good album, period. This is the 'serious' album; the one that seeks to combat their image as a cartoon metal band that writes about comic books and invented rap metal. They succeed. It is easily their darkest album, and their most ambitious. The riffs stick to your craw, and for once, Joey sounds like he would not rather be in Journey. Even the Joe Jackson cover song is good. The songs are lengthy, but not ponderous. There are a few nods to Pantera and the newly emerging nu-metal genre, but this is still a thrashster piece. I voted this for winner because I was impressed by how well it stacks up against the certified classics, this nearly forgotten album by a band that would try to sound as much like Helmet as they possibly could for the rest of the 90's.
Weirdly, we decided to have Slayer's live EP, Live Undead, as the bonus album. I don't remember why. I was drunk. This is a good document of thier early period, when the Priestness of their songs was most obvious to the point of near plagiarism. Evil, youthful energy abounds. Not nearly as vital as their late 80's albums. I was drunk. It was my birthday.
Words of the Elders
Let us contemplate the strangeways, the
cruel and beautiful pendulum that is time and tide of this uncanny
world. None can know the exotic fancies of those gods and goddesses
that play stones on the fates of mortals, none can reckon the end of
one game or the start of another. Yet in the darkness, we call. Like
a beacon for whatever entity may answer, we call. Lift up the
sorrowblade and strike the sky young kings! Smite the brow of fate
and crush the gods that defy you! Remember Narn, remember the T'Chah
Karnac and the indecent at Mount Raven! Graafenweisen Kalik'ch!
Otqara Machak!
Until next week, whips of fate,
Horns
Behemoth's The Satanist has made so many top ten lists this year that it's kind of ridiculous. But the accolades are well deserved. I've never been a fan of their blackened death metal phase; too much overblown and gimmicky histrionics, not enough dynamics. But this flaw has been corrected, and Behemoth have crafted a masterpiece. Big production meets compositional strength, the riffs and atmosphere taking you to in surprising direction, but always grounded a brutal fistfuck of sound. Refreshingly, the annoying overdriven vocals of yesteryear have been toned down a couple notches, and the tempos are not a ridiculous spastic blur. Say what you will about the quasi-mall metal image, this album is a wet blowjob to Satan, and is the winner of the night, of that night, when ever it was.
So the next week we kept it up and listened to a ton of new shit. First, we heard Pallbearer's hip hipster friendly doom trip, Foundations of Burden. This is a vast improvement over their overhyped debut. Better 
The wonderfully monikered Pestifer fucked our fucking faces with their tech death extravaganza, Reaching The Void. As wonderful as it is to find a good new technical death metal album that doesn't just sound like Cryptopsy, this album doesn't break much ground. It is a familiar mix of ground tread by Death, Necrophagist, and host of other nimble fingered face fuckers. Quite good.
