Tag Archives: Faith No More

My Life in Music II: Where Boys Fear to Tread

Music_2

Continuing from yesterday’s post (link), here’s the second part of my quest to examine and document my favourite full-length records from each year that I have been alive. This post covers my second seven years: 1992-1998, which describe a fondness for grunge and alt-rock. Tomorrow, I’ll examine 1999 through to 2005 before culminating in the most recent seven years.

So without further ado, let’s boogie:

1998: Less Than Jake – Hello Rockview

Hello Rockview

To the untrained eye, this probably seems a more obscure choice than others on this list; however, Hello Rockview was one that was a shoe-in from the get-go. Less Than Jake are one of my very, very, very favourite bands but as good as they may sound on record, it’s nothing to their consistently skank-tastic live show. But we’re not here to judge to judge live performances but recorded output, and Hello Rockview remains the pick of the bunch. Where LTJ hit their 20th anniversary in 2012, Hello Rockview remains the high-water mark for their album output: after a few scruffy (but solid) entries to the third-wave ska movement in Pezcore and Losing Streak, they really hit the sweet spot with their third album release. Sure, a ska-punk album is never going revolutionise the world, but finely hones the tropes of its genre; delivering  there’s a deft balance between horns and guitar, catchy tracks and insatiable lyrics superbly delivered by Chris DeMakes and Roger Manganelli. The whole is a near-flawless package, epic-ly catchy and perfectly skankable; polished off with some smooth production values that sand the rough edges into a clean-cut bundle of fun.

Song Choice: [All My Best Friends are Metalheads]

1997: Foo Fighters – The Colour and the Shape

1997

In my humble little opinion, Dave Grohl is probably the most talented and influential rock musician of this generation. Out of the ashes of Nirvana came Pocketwatch!; a self-penned side-project which later developed into Foo Fighters, undoubted kings of stadium rock in the 21st century. Stepping out from behind the drums to create debut album Foo Fighters, on which Grohl played every instrument on the record before assembling a band for the live setting. It was only on the follow-up, The Colour and the Shape, that the Foo FIghters display a true group effort, and it shows. Count the classics: ‘Monkey Wrench’, ‘My Hero’ and ‘Everlong’; never mind a whole raft of other favourites like ‘Hey, Johnny Park!’, ‘Enough Space’ and ‘February Stars’. More so than their eponymous debut, there’s a barrel of emotion contained on this shiny disk, demonstrated by the powerful ‘My Hero’ and legendary ‘Everlong’, but it’s also still (arguably) the heaviest and most chaotic that Foo Fighters have been in their 18-year career. A masterclass in modern rock, it’s also a gateway between alternative rock and the heavier stuff, and undoubtedly has ushered many an indie kid into a full-blown rock and roll. Perfect in every way, a remarkable icon for an enduring band.

Song Choice: [Everlong]

1996: Tool – Ænima

1996

Tool aren’t the most immediate of bands: the undoubted rulers of the prog-metal kingdom, their material can sometimes be overlooked since it’s sometimes deeply unsettling, progressive and leftfield. This is no more true than on Ænima, their sophomore effort which builds on the momentum gathered from debut Undertow, yet refuses to yield to accessibility. There’s a greater range of confidence on display than on its predecessor and while there’s the immense sense of craft that typifies any Tool release, it’s got the feeling of a slightly ‘rougher’ (perhaps “abrasive” is more appropriate) object of still considerable weight: I’ve no doubt that it’s all in Tool’s design; the endless struggle to trouble the listener with abstract ideas, sounds and images and disrupt the status quo. The formula would later be perfected on 2001’s Lateralus but regardless, Ænima represents an epic of  immense bulk, and an absolute classic in the progressive metal canon.

Song Choice: [Stinkfist]

1995: Smashing Pumpkins – Mellon Collie and the Inifinite Sadness

1995

It took me almost five years to ‘get’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness; more accurately, five minutes to ‘get’ the first disc (‘Dawn to Dusk’), but five years to fully appreciate the second (‘Twilight to Starlight’). I first picked it up after hearing a few of the Pumpkins’ hits, like ‘1979’ and ‘Today’, and immediately fell in love with the first disc: the songs felt dream-like and wonderous (none more so than ‘Tonight, Tonight’), whilst others (such as ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ and ‘Muzzle’) felt like pure-bred rockers. The second disc, on the other hand, is a lot more rough, inconsistent and meandering: the alt-rock anthem ‘1979’ is followed directly by ‘Tales of a Scorched Earth’, a song that could well have come from the back catalogue of any noisy alt-rock upstart. Like the band itself, Mellon Collie typifies the excesses and indulgences of the post-grunge period, but documents a stellar-esque jaunt through some of the Pumpkins’ most dreamlike lilts and lullabies which, to this day, remains a sheer delight.

Song Choice: [1979]

1994: Green Day – Dookie

1994

Since Green Day’s ‘second coming’ circa American Idiot, it’s sometimes easy for the music mainstream to forget their first career. It’s also easy to forget that this album is nearly twenty years old, which is astonishing, given that this remains pretty much the pinnacle of punk rock and top of the ‘suggested playlist’ for teenage converts to the rock/metal scene: alongside the endeavours of The Offspring, Weezer and Blink-182, Dookie still ranks among the most influential albums to emerge from the Nineties pop-punk resurgence and feels no less relevant now. In between the classics (‘Basket Case’, ‘Welcome to Paradise’, ‘Longview’, ‘When I Come Around’) are ten other, equally superb punk rock anthems which reinvigorated the punk rock scene  and drove thousands to pick up a guitar and replicate Green Day’s signature three-chord sound; myself included. Cut me in half, and you’ll see Dookie scoring my bones and tissue, like rings on a tree trunk, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Song Choice: [Welcome to Paradise]

1993: Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream

1993

For me, Siamese Dream is the ultimate Pumpkins record. It instills their skilled grunge leanings with a vision of the overblown, rock behemoth that they’d become on Mellon Collie… and beyond; yet keeping everything in check to deliver a lean, mean rock record that stands the test of time. Opening with the killer ‘Cherub Rock’ and soon following with the equally-brilliant ‘Today’, the album then opens up into an abrasive mix of short rock tunes and 7-plus minute epics in a way only the Pumpkins could pull off.  Sure, things get a tad bloated in the middle, but it’s rounded off magically with the maniacal ‘Silverfuck’, and then the two shortest songs of the record but which are also the most touching.  The Pumpkins may forever struggle to capture their heyday of the early 1990s, but thankfully with Siamese Dream, we have a snapshot of their brilliance that we can return to, again and again.

Song Choice: [Cherub Rock]

1992: Faith No More – Angel Dust

1992

For the 1992 crown, there was a long-fought tussle between this and Dream Theater’s sublime Images and Words. For both bands, they represent a high-water mark in not only their back catalogues, but their respective genres as well. Indeed, according to a 2003 Kerrang pollAngel Dust is the most influential album of all time; Images and Words doesn’t appear on the list, which I can only assume is due to some typographical error. The Real Thing may have the more famous tracks, but Angel Dust is the connoisseur’s delight: ‘Midlife Crisis’ is the killer app, but the quality of the rest is still consistently superb and with a far more diverse musical genre-set than before. Representing FNM’s second album with Mike Patton, it’s here that his experimental, offbeat musical bandwidth really begins to reveal itself, nestling perfectly inside the band’s evolving, genre-straddling style. The result, then, is a musical tapestry of almost criminal brilliance; one which deserves infinite high regard.

Song Choice: [Midlife Crisis]

[Zinar7]

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My Life in Music I: From Out of Nowhere

Music_1

Over the next four days, I’ll be posting a series of entries about one of the things closest to my heart: music. Most of my post-puberty life has been spent adoring the plethora of (primarily) rock-based sounds that the world has to offer, and so I thought an interesting study would be to examine and document my favourite full-length records from each year that I have been alive.

These are, of course, my opinions now, not at the time (because I didn’t take note of these things), and obviously I wasn’t listening to G’NR and Metallica, etc. when I was three years old. However, I think it’s an interesting study since it follows not only the trends in my listening habits in the 10-12 years that I’ve been intimately following the rock/metal scene, but also the trends in how genres have developed or evolved over time. The primary measure which I’ve used to measure this is the ability of certain albums to never grow old to me: those records that I could listen to over and over again, without tiring, and which consistently stir emotions and passions inside me in a way that sometimes only music can.

This post covers the first seven years: 1985-1991, which describe a fondness for the rise of thrash metal and kicking ass. I kick off with 1991 because over the next three days I’ll be posting the remaining three parts of this chronology, followed by a quick round-up of those records that didn’t make the cut. And on that bombshell, let’s get going. Enjoy!

1991: Metallica – [self-titled]
(aka The Black Album)

Critics and fans unite may unite in the opinion that 1986’s Master of Puppets is the definitive Metallica album (and I don’t deny that it’s the more technically accomplished and defining), The Black Album remains my personal pick. Beneath it’s black-weathered cover, there’s evidence of the evolution of Metallica’s sound from their thrash era in the ’80s; in particular with the presence of slow-paced songs like ‘The Unforgiven’, and the haunting, ethereal ‘Nothing Else Matters’. Metallica still feels like the uncontrolled, charging beast it once was (nowhere is this more plain than on monsters like ‘Sad but True’), but now a band that has learned to pace itself every so often. It’s also reassuring that Metallica still know how to write a killer opener in ‘Enter Sandman’ (still the most accessible song for the masses, and kicking the record off spectacularly like ‘Blackened’ and ‘Battery’ did on …And Justice for All and Master of Puppets before it) and a snorting, raging closer in ‘The Struggle Within’. 1991 may be best remembered for the explosion of grunge, but for me, Metallica still take the crown.

Song Choice: [Enter Sandman]

1990: Pantera – Cowboys from Hell

Cowboys from Hell

Judging from my record collection, 1990 was a bleak year. Out of it all, Cowboys from Hell was pretty much the only release that fits the bill, but that shouldn’t really detract from the quality of the record. Bridging the gap between Pantera’s lesser-known glam-rock phase and the full-on thrash/groove-metal destruction which commenced with Vulgar Display of Power, from the get-go (the iconic ‘Cowboys from Hell’) there’s a sense of the brutality that would come to define Pantera’s later career in ‘Primal Concrete Sledge’ and much of the middle-ground of the record. It also remained a stark reminder of how spectacular Pantera could be in their prime, and how the combination of Phil Anselmo’s harsh vocals, Dimebag Darrell’s superlative guitars, Vinnie Paul’s solid percussion and Rex Brown’s grooving basslines can combine in perfect harmony. Defiantly my favourite Pantera record, it’s a sonic barrage of skilled musicianship summed up by Cowboys‘ closing song: ‘The Art of Shredding’; and what an art it is. Long may it reign.

Song Choice: [Cowboys from Hell]

1989: Faith No More – The Real Thing

1989

On every audible level, The Real Thing is an absolute triumph. Faith No More showed superb promise on their previous album Introduce Yourself, but it’s the addition of Mike Patton (replacing previous vocalist, Chuck Mosley) that is the real turning point in the band’s trajectory: Patton brings both vocal skill and unbridled energy to the combo; rousing genuine excitement from the listener with his unique, avant-garde style and diverse range. Sure, Patton’s arrival brings the band into their own, but it’s nothing without the consistent spine of FNM and solid backing delivered by Mike Bordin et al., streamrolling through the likes  ‘From Out of Nowhere’, ‘Epic’ and onwards. Never a band to be pigeonholed, FNM’s grungey-metal is supplemented by a diverse range of funk, jazz, prog rock, hip hop and soul;  and finishing with the sublime cover of Black Sabbath’s seminal ‘War Pigs’.  with such a range of influences and new things to hear with each subsequent listen, The Real Thing is the gift that keeps on giving.

Song Choice: [Epic]

1988: Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son

This was a tough year to call; one of the first in this chronology that had no clear victor. In the end, Maiden’s conceptual opus just sneaked past the post over Metallica’s (undoubtedly great) …And Justice for All. Introducing more of the prog-rock and keyboard elements which had developed on Somewhere in Time two years prior, Seventh Son… represents a full-blown Maiden concept album, full of nods to mystical powers, the paranormal and subject matter which matches the musical ambiance. There’s certainly no lack of Maiden’s usual galloping flavour of NWOBHM but this time comes bundled with a more introspective and story-driven tack, most prevalent on the album’s singles ‘The Evil that Men Do’, ‘The Clairvoyant’ and the seminal ‘Can I Play with Madness’. Sadly, the album also represents an end to Maiden’s killer run of records, since the formula couldn’t be recreated on the subsequent No Prayer for the Dying, but if ever there was need to remind oneself of how persuasive and poetic Maiden can be when they’re in the zone, this is it.

Song Choice: [Can I Play with Madness?]

1987: Guns ‘N Roses – Appetite for Destruction

1987

‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ may be the seminal song from the album, but Appetite for Destruction is major accurately summed up by opener ‘Welcome to the Jungle’: unhinged, bombastic and rock ‘n’ roll as hell, G ‘n R leap out of the box with a pocket full of arrogance and a sneer at the establishment, but possess skills enough to back up their anarchy. There’s a staggering number of classics on here: in addition to the two previously mentioned, it’s difficult to name a song that isn’t a surefire hit: ‘Paradise City’, ‘Mr. Brownstone’, ‘My Michelle’ are but a few. It’s a cohesive effort: an example of how, when working together, Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy and Adler could produce something truly special and where ego doesn’t dominate. G ‘n R may have lost the plot going into the Nineties, but they’re far better when ignoring the nine-minute epics and the haunting strings and remain focussed on playing straight-up rock and roll. An undoubted classic, it’s also a benchmark for every rock band that has come since, and with good reason. A triumph.

Song Choice: [Welcome to the Jungle]

1986: Metallica – Master of Puppets

1986

What can be said about Master of Puppets that hasn’t been said already? The ultimate metal album, almost flawless in every regard, this is the sort of occasion when the stars align and eight songs are crafted with such beauty and brutality that the like of which will likely never happen again. There’s not a dud song on here; in fact, quite the opposite. ‘Battery’ still has (probably) the most killer intro of any metal song ever; ‘Master of Puppets’ still the rampaging, furious steamroller it ever was. The album’s crowning glory, however, is ‘Orion’: an eight-and-a-half minute instrumental epic that ebbs and flows and rages and quietens in an almost dream-like fashion. It’s a huge shame that this would be Metallica’s final album with bassist Cliff Burton, as one can only imagine where the Bay Area titans would have gone had his untimely death not occurred, but instead we got Jason Newsted and …And Justice For All a mere two years later; a clear reaction to Cliff’s passing. Puppets remains Metallica’s masterwork, though, and inspiration for every metal band existing today. An absolute powerhouse.

Song Choice: [Battery]

1985: Iron Maiden – Live After Death

Live After Death

I debated for a long time about whether I wanted to include a live album on this list. A long time. But heck, I figure that if you’re going to bend the rules, you may as well bend them for (arguably) the greatest live album of all time. Live After Death is a double-album of Maiden hits culled from the ‘World Slavery’ tour in support of Powerslave and featuring live versions of Maiden classics across ‘2 Minutes to Midnight’ through ‘The Number of the Beast’ across to the classic show-closer, ‘Running Free’ – as such, it effectively summarises the band’s first five years of recorded history; a live ‘best of’ compilation of some of Maiden’s best work; delivered at the height of their mid-80’s power. A finer live metal band you will never find, and Bruce Dickinson’s glorious crowd-pleasing and teasing still inspire goosbumps nearly thirty years on.

Song Choice: [2 Minutes to Midnight]

[Zinar7]

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