I was digging through some of my old music that I never listen to anymore and came across this gem. This is a mix tape I put together sometime around the mid 1990's. This was a time when nu-metal was starting to rear its ugly head. I would have been in eighth or ninth grade at the time this was put together. Back then, I used to sit by the radio with a blank tape and tape songs off of The Blaze. If I liked them, I would frequently get the album. It was at this time that The Blaze had The Power Hour on Wednesday nights when they would play substantially more metal stuff. I loved The Power Hour, and it helped introduce me to Trouble, Voivod, Grave, Paradise Lost, Slayer, and Machine Head, among others. I was very distraught when that show was cancelled. That was the beginning of the end for The Blaze as a decent radio station.
PUBLIC ENEMY W/ ANTHRAX: "BRING THA NOIZE"
This was recorded off of my brother's Public Enemy tape. It's one of the early examples of the crossover between rock and rap. It features Anthrax thrash riffs and the political-minded rap of Public Enemy. I'm pretty sure one of the Anthrax guys takes an ill-fated stab at rapping too. Partially responsible for nu-metal. Not bad though.
DEFTONES: "BORED"
Slow-burning angst-ridden track off their debut. It was enough to get me to buy the album at the time. Not sure I still have it. Never liked it that much. I don't understand the huge amounts of praise this band has always gotten. NFM.
MARILYN MANSON: "LUNCHBOX"
Really? This is one of the better, harder tracks, before he got all gothic and weird. I think I taped this before Marilyn Manson was real well-known. NFM.
TROUBLE: "PLASTIC GREEN HEAD"
This is just a great song. It took me a long time, but I finally decided to pick up this album from the trad doom titans. I have done a post on this album before.
VISIONS: "IN THE MIND'S EYE"
This sounds more like a harder punk or hardcore song. Nothing terribly impressive. I haven't looked into this anymore. NFM.
VOIVOD: "EROSION"
I bought this album, but it didn't have this song on it. Apparently this was only on some versions of the album, which is a shame because it would have been the best track on it. Excellent example of progressive thrash. Voivod is a highly underrated band.
KILGORE SMUDGE: "METAMORPHOSIS"
This is a little-known early nu-metal band. It sounds as good as you would expect. God the vocals are awful. Next please. NFM.
MOTLEY CRUE: "WILDSIDE"
One of the earlier, more metal Motley Crue tracks, this one does sound more like sped-up Priest with some pop influences for good effect.
MOTLEY CURE: "LIVEWIRE"
See above, but even heavier than the prior song. This is the Motley Crue I enjoy the most.
KISS: "HEAVEN'S ON FIRE"
Ugh, what was I thinking? NFM.
KISS: "DOMINO"
I generally prefer Gene Simmons over Paul Stanley when I have to hear Kiss. But this song is really cheesy and a little gross. It's about a famous groupie. He sounds like my grandpa, and that is disturbing on many levels. NFM.
KING'S X: "SOMETIME"
This was disappointing, one of their more blues/rock oriented songs. Not bad, just not what I hoped.
VALLEJO: "BOOGEYMAN"
This has a great bass line, but the vocals suck. Not metal. NFM.
GRAVE: "WORTH THE WAIT"
I now realize this is not the best example of this band's work, but at the time, it blew my mind. Additional points for the Hellraiser 3 sample at the beginning. This thing was awesome. I do own the CD now and it definitely pales in comparison to their other work, but hey, this song got me into them.
PARADISE LOST: "ONCE SOLEMN"
I got the Draconian Times album off of the strength of this song and "Forever Failure". This is a much faster track and is not representative of the band's general sound. The gothic doom band usually plays much slower but they proved they were definitely capable of playing fast on this track.
VOIVOD: "VORTEX"
Another Voivod track off their Negatron album. Another track that does not appear on my version of the album. Disappointing.
MICHELIN SLAVE: "THIS SIDE"
This sounds like some sort of industrial rock. Reminiscent of Ministry at first, although the comparison doesn't hold. It's okay, but I wouldn't check them out. NFM.
SAVATAGE: "HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING"
I love this song. One of the all-time great metal riffs. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get this album, I picked it up early this year. I also did a post on this album.
SAVATAGE: "JESUS SAVES"
This was off one of their mid-era albums when they were more interested in putting together rock operas. Still a decent song, and tells a good story. You can definitely see where Trans-Siberian Orchestra evolved out of on this.
SAVATAGE: "HANDFUL OF RAIN"
This is a ballad from Savatage. It's off of a later album. Not bad, but I'm not a huge ballad guy.
CRUSH: "NOWHERE NOW"
This also appears to be some form of industrial rock. Not terribly interesting either. NFM. Next.
SLAYER: "GEMINI"
This track appeared on their punk covers album and is the only new track on it. A decent song, but it has absolutely nothing on their 1980's material. This is much slower, but still violent and abrasive.
CANNIBAL CORPSE: "MONOLITH"
The first time I heard this version of Cannibal Corpse, I didn't like it. I preferred Chris Barnes's vocals. Corpsegrinder's eventually grew on me, but the first several albums with him were not real great.
THE EXPLOITED: "BEAT THE BASTARDS"
The Exploited was a heavy punk band that began incorporating more and more thrash metal influences into their music. This track is from the height of their metal influence and is basically a crossover track. It's a hell of a lot of fun.
MACHINE HEAD: "DAVIDIAN"
Machine Head sounded real fucking heavy at the time. Now, I recognize they were just a groove metal band riding Pantera's coattails, but this was a time in which the major hard rock played on the radio was from groups like Korn and Soundgarden. This is still a decent song and it is off Machine Head's best album in my opinion.
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