Slash sets the rock world on fire (again)

I’ve previously raved about Slash’s albums, Apocalyptic Love and Ain’t Life Grand. Well, he’s done it again.

Weighing in with a bargainiferous 17 tracks, World On Fire is Slash (and friends) at his very best, especially the first few songs. With 17 of them, you would expect there to be some bum tracks on there - but there aren’t. An iTunes screen capture says it all, really:

If you only buy one album this year, I recommend this one.

Well played, Steel Panther!

At the end of February, I attended the first day of the two-day Soundwave Music Festival, primarily to see the headlining Faith No More. I’d perused the rest of the lineup before the day but not to the extent of doing any research on the bands that I did not know.

One such band had just started their set when we arrived to check out the main stage in the early afternoon: Steel Panther.

The picture from the Soundwave App (above) probably tells you 90% of what you need to know. The accompanying blurb:

STEEL PANTHER’s latest release ‘All You Can Eat’ fits this rock ‘n’ roll opus perfectly. There are badass riffs aplenty, arena-size grooves, lyrics about sex, drugs, and senior citizens, and the lingering scent of whisky, a stripper’s perfume, and hairspray.

I’m actually a bit of a fan of hair metal, and Steel Panther have a sound that hits the genre perfectly. Lyrically, though, they were not quite Bon Jovi. They were Spinal Tap!

I commented on this at the time but did not realise that they really were like Spinal Tap, being a parody act complete with wigs. From a small dose it was not entirely clear, except in hindsight: they did it very well.

I have since got All You Can Eat from EMusic and, whilst not for the lyrically faint-hearted, it has some cracking tunes on it. I'm not sure that I would consume the whole feast in one sitting but it's a good one to dip into occasionally for some well riffed silliness.

The 2nd Law of Rocking

The 2nd Law is the 6th album of Muse and my initial reaction after a few listens is that it is one of the best. It's a pretty eclectic miss.

Supremacy is a good a Muse song as you will find anywhere, full of orchestral/classical influences as well as their rock genius. Madness is Lady Gaga meets Queen (plus Muse, of course). In Panic Station, they out-Darkness The Darkness. For me, it's the difference between being great musicians and being great song writers (and musicians). Survival was one that I had already heard from its Olympics release but it actually sounds much better in context, I think. (The previous track, Prelude, sets it up nicely, as the name suggests.)

I've always thought that Muse had a touch of Radiohead about them and this is never more obvious than in Explorers, which has more than a little No Surprises about it in my book. (Not a bad thing.) Another band that I really enjoy is The Qemists and The 2nd Law: Unsustainable reminds me a bit of them, in a good way. It is a bit of a departure for Muse vocally, as they seem to have a Cylon doing guest vocals. I like it, though! (I think their interpretation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a bit flawed though - it's the same mistake that the Creationists make: the Earth is not a closed system. All the time that we get energy from the Sun, continued growth is indeed sustainable (in theory)!)

Overall, in The 2nd Law, I think Muse have achieved something quite unusual. Somehow, it contains both a wide range of styles but also an overall coherence that all fits together well. And it rocks! A definite contender for my favourite Muse album to date.

Avenged Sevenfold - my kind of Nightmare for Halloween

Not as cute as black cats but it seemed appropriate to make a Halloween post about an album with death and graves and stuff on the cover. I've already covered Rage (although I notice that Blogpress has eaten my pictures) so now is the turn of a band that are a much more recent discovery for me but remind me somewhat of the Scandinavian riffmonster rockers: Avenged Sevenfold and their most recent offering, Nightmare, which is my album of the moment. (I only got it last week.)

Avenged Sevenfold (or A7x to fans, as I now consider myself,) were recommended to me by a good friend. I was a little put off by the first album I got through emusic, Waken The Fallen as the vocals tend a bit too much towards screaming for my tastes in places (although the music still rocks) but I was reliably informed that it gets more rocky and less metalcore as the albums progress. It's true, and Nightmare is a fantastic collection of tunes for those who like crazy drums and wild fret-wanking guitar riffs - as well as good tunes, of course. (I do!)

Besides, how can you go wrong with a band whose lineup consists of M. Shadows (vocalist), Synyster Gates (lead guitarist), Zacky Vengeance (rhythm guitarist) and Johnny Christ (bassist). Their (replacement) drummer for Nightmare, Mike Portnoy, needs to do something about his name if he's going to join the band on a permanent basis!

Apocalyptically loving Slash

When I bought my MacBook and received an iTunes voucher with it, I am not ashamed to say that the first thing I bought with it was the most recent offering from that most excellent of British rockers, Slash. I've previously endorsed Ain't Life Grand from when he was part of Slash's Snakepit and, I must admit, I am a general fan of his. Not everything that came out of the Snakepit, or Velvet Revolver (or Guns 'n' Roses for that matter) is fantastic but every album I own has some gems on it.

Apocalyptic Love raises the bar and has now solidly cemented itself as one of my favourite albums - certainly of the year and probably of all time. It's a grower too, which is always a good sign. If you like Slash at his best, go buy it! Now!

The Darkness are back! But I'd prefer a bit more lightness - this is NOT Spinal Tap!

I have a certain fondness for The Darkness. I have Permission to Land and love a couple of the songs, whilst enjoying the remainder. For me, though, they are always at their best with a twinkle in their eye and approaching a parody of a rock band.

Their new album, Hot Cakes, is undeniably The Darkness - it sounds like them from beginning to end - and it certainly has some good rock music on it. I can't help being a little disappointed, though. I can't take them seriously enough to fully engage with serious material - even if the words are serious, the sound is not! At the same time, however, they seem to take themselves too seriously to fully embrace the tight-trousered silliness that they excel at - and that made them famous.

I think the album can be summed up by the fact that my favourite song on it is a cover of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" by Radiohead. It's a really good cover! In fact, it's an excellent cover: it isn't a copy - it sounds like The Darkness through and through - and it rivals the original in quality. But they didn't write it and Radiohead songs have never really been known for their levity.

Hopefully, for their next album, they can harness their enthusiasm and talent to some epic song-writing that is up to the task. (Perhaps a collaboration with someone possessing the song-writing genius of Tim Minchin?) In the meantime, I can recommend "Street Spirit" (and maybe "Living Each Day Blind") but not much else at this point. (Maybe they're "growers"?) If you fancy some tongue-in-cheek glam rock: get a copy of the soundtrack to This is Spinal Tap!

Beyond Busted: Charlie Simpson and the fantastic Fightstar

My most recent big musical discovery is that of Fightstar Fightstar, a British rock band whose most famous member is probably Charlie Simpson, formerly of Busted.

I must confess that I don't really know a lot about Busted. My one real experience of them is hearing them sound-check, or possibly rehearse, Year 3000 prior to a gig in Dublin. What I heard was not pretty but this may have been more to do with me being outside the stadium (Lansdowne Road, as it was then,) and/or the fact that they hadn't got their sound set up than a reflection on their talent. Either way, the sound-bite combined with my natural distrust of teen "Pop punk", meant that I have avoided them ever since. This makes the discovery of the sublime Fightstar all the more surprising, as the lead member is none other than Charlie Simpson, formerly of Busted.

I can't really compare Fightstar to Busted but I suspect that the sound is very different, as Fightstar kick out proper rock tunes with heavy guitar and the occasional screeching rock scream, in addition to the more melodic singing that dominates. I find it hard to pigeon-hole bands into genres and so I am not really sure to what sub-category of rock Fightstar belong. (Wikipedia editors have opted for "alternative" or "Post-hardcore", whatever that means.) I would probably just say "Rock" or "Modern Rock", for this is no Bon Jovi either.

It was probably a short customer review on EMusic that made me take the step of having a listen. To paraphrase, it said something along the lines of:

if you like Rock music, you will like this.

I would have to agree 100%. I think that wherever you sit on the rock spectrum, Fightstar offer something. If, like me, you sit somewhere in the middle and enjoy music and influences in all directions from Pop/Rock to Metal, you will love them. The two albums that I have are the later One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (2007) and Be Human (2009) and, if recommending just one, I would be hard-pushed to choose. (Probably "One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours", especially as you pick up a two-disc version for a bargain on Play.com!) They're both currently available from Emusic, if you want a bargain.

The other factor that made me try them, quite surprisingly, was listening to Young Pilgrim, the more recent solo album of Charlie Simpson. This is a very different beast, and is proper singer-songwriter acoustic pop rock along the lines of Jack Johnson. It's good stuff, though, and definitely marks Charlie Simpson out as an accomplished musician and singer. For me, this was important, as I find that I cannot look beyond bad singing, however good the music is. (The Wildhearts are the possible exception but their singing is not too bad and their tunes are very good!)

Communing with the Black Country

Today's washing up music of choice: "2" by "Black Country Communion". Another fine rock outfit that I recently discovered. I can't remember how, now. Either emusic or a 7digital freebie, I suspect. Anyway, another great album with good vocals and rocking guitar work, well worth a listen.

Favourite track: "The Battle for Hadrian's Wall".

Location:Southampton, UK

Rage Against the Running Machine

This gym session, I was mostly listening to Rage, a Scandinavian rock group. As their album art indicates, these guys are at the heavier end of the spectrum but don't let that put you off. This stuff is far from a wall of noise. The guitar work is particularly good, with every track laden with rocking riffs. I won't deny that a certain amount of fret wanking goes on but it's always perfectly timed and never seems gratuitous.
If I had to pick a weak element, it would be the vocals. There's nothing wrong with them - no out of tone wailing or excessive screaming - but you can very much tell that they're a Scandinavian rock group and it's simply not my favourite voice. It's not hard to imagine a large bearded fellow, singing into a battle axe a la Lordi on Eurovision. For some songs this works particularly well but it is definitely the aspect of their sound that I tire of first.
Nevertheless, Rage are excellent gym music companions. Not only are they loud, and a little bit angry, but a lot of their songs border on frenetic, which is great for the treadmill.

Gym goer or not, if you are a rocker then check out Rage as soon as possible.

Equipment used: treadmill, vertical traction
Distance: 5km
Future goal: get myself a program

Location:LA Fitness, Southampton, UK