2018 in Review: Top Albums

Prepare for a long one folks.  After the jump is every single new album I purchased in 2018, listed in descending order of preference.  I did not buy anything truly bad, so just because an album is last on my list, does not mean it is terrible.  I should also note that I have several 2018 albums still coming in soon that obviously will not make the list because I have not heard them yet (Metal Church, Arsis) and I was never able to check out some albums by bands that I normally would have (Voivod, Skeletonwitch, Psycroptic).  So this should by no means be considered an exhaustive list. 

Enough of that crap, here we go:

Cataloguing My Metal Collection Pt. 49

ARTIST:  Judas Priest
ORIGIN:  Birmingham, England
TITLE:  British Steel
LABEL:  Columbia Records
YEAR:  1980
GENRE:  Heavy Metal
FAVORITE SONG:  "Breaking the Law"
NOTES:  My first Judas Priest record.  This was picked up mostly because of "Breaking the Law" which I believe I heard for the first time on Beavis and Butthead.  It's possible that is incorrect, I have no real idea.  This is a classic album, though it took a little while to really gel for me.  Probably because it was a little lighter than some of the other bands I was listening to at the time.  Once I did fully appreciate it though, I became hooked on the band.

Underrated Albums: Judas Priest: Defenders of the Faith

Okay, I know, Judas Priest is absolutely one of the biggest names in metal. They were hugely influential on just about everything in the genre from the sound to the look. Yet, in all that, I really do not hear a lot of praise for this particular album.

Maybe it's because it did not have the catchy anthem like "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" or "Breaking the Law", although I will argue that "Some Heads are Gonna Roll" is on par with both of those tracks. Maybe it's because of the homosexual double entendres like "Jawbreaker" and "Eat Me Alive". I don't really know.

I believe this is quite possibly Priest's best album, with only the possible exception of Painkiller. It is an amazing and complete album. Every song on here is fantastic, there is absolutely no filler.

I rediscovered this album a few weeks back when I was listening to it in my car and had to listen to the track "The Sentinel" about four times in a row. I don't know quite what grabbed me about that song, but I have come to believe it is the band's best song that no one talks about. "Freewheel Burning" is yet another classic that gets kind of dismissed a lot.

So yes, if you want a great Judas Priest album that is representative of their more classic, metallic sound, I would recommend this one.

Random Thoughts: Bands Pulling Me Out of My Funk

For some reason I have been a bit of a listening funk lately. I have been so busy with work and the wedding planning that I had not been enjoying music as much. This has sort of manifested itself in a dearth of posts from me, other than the Top 100 which I kind of force myself to do. I suppose that is bound to happen every now and again. Anyway, lately I have been a little reinvigorated with the help of three bands that I am finding some new-found joy in.

DESTRUCTION
It was a mistake not to include them in my Top 100. For some reason though they never really grabbed me like their peers in Sodom and Kreator. Until now. Their new material is probably even stronger than their aforementioned countrymen and their old stuff definitely has some impressive riff work. But it's their overall aggressiveness that has drawn me back into them. At this point, they are pretty even with the other two bands.

DEW-SCENTED
Germans just know how to thrash. Dew-Scented is a relative newcomer compared to Destruction, forming in 1992, but all they have done since then is put out great modern thrash metal album after great modern thrash metal album. Their music features a hefty death metal influence adding to their unstoppable brutality, but man nothing gets your fist pumping like "That's Why I Despise You". Their song "Retain the Scars" featuring Kreator's Mille Petrozza is not to be missed.

JUDAS PRIEST
Yes, Priest made my Top 100. They had to. I could not ignore the original Metal Gods. But only recently have I really started to enjoy all of their musical eras. I absolutely love their early 1980's material, when the band really laid down the blueprints to every metal band that came after them. Priest has so much great music that it's hard to pick out just one album, but Defenders of the Faith has recently become a favorite of mine.

My 100 Favorite Metal Bands Pt. 61: Judas Priest

Like Iron Maiden from yesterday, Judas Priest is a metal "sacred cow". The band is also one of the most highly influential groups in metal history. Priest is also one of the first bands to really identify with the metal label, as noted in "Metal Gods". Priest gave metal a look, granted the story behind the look is not flattering to a lot of fans, nevertheless leather and spikes became the metal look. Beyond all that of course is the music. Priest took Sabbath's sound and gave it speed and power. They were directly influential on the NWOBHM scene and even popularized the dual guitar attack. Rob Halford is one of the better singers metal has ever had.

FAVORITE ALBUM: PAINKILLER

Year in Metal: 1990

ENTOMBED: LEFT HAND PATH
I could be mistaken on this, but I think this was the first full-length album by a Swedish death metal band using the Sunlight Studio. It has the very familiar buzzsaw guitar sound on the riffs. This was just a small sign of things to come from the Swedish death metal scene as Dismember, Grave, and others began releasing albums and the guitar tone became commonplace. It's influential because it's a great album, not just the tone. Unfortunately Entombed would never put out another album quite as good.

JUDAS PRIEST: PAINKILLER
After a bit of a period of mediocrity, Judas Priest returned in full force on this album. The songs were more engineered to sound like their 1970's output, while adding in elements of speed metal. What resulted was a frenetic and fantastic album of speed and power. Halford never sounded quite as good as he does on this album. Unfortunately, he would leave the band soon after and it would be years before he rejoined them. This is Priest's best album in my mind.

KREATOR: COMA OF SOULS
This is not a particularly special or unique release by Kreator, it's actually just them being Kreator. But the album is great anyway and was the band's last great album before over-experimenting with other styles. This album features the incredible "People of the Lie", which is one of my personal favorite German thrash metal songs. Mille's voice sounds amazing on this album. As I said, it would be years before they got back to this point.

PANTERA: COWBOYS FROM HELL
Here we see the beginning of a powerful career in metal. Pantera had released a few albums before this, but this was the first of their groove metal stage, the most well-known part of the band's history. They had not fully resorted to mid-paced half-thrash at this point. This album still bears marks of power/thrash metal. It is my favorite Pantera album for this reason, and also because "Cemetery Gates" is an all-time favorite song. I was never quite as impressed with the rest of the band's output, maybe it's because this was the first album I heard, maybe it's because this is just simply better, in every way.

SADUS: SWALLOWED IN BLACK
I mentioned in a previous post that thrash was finding new ways of brutality in the late 1980's/early 1990's. This is one of the lead bands from this brutal style of thrash. Sadus plays inhumanly fast. This is the second album from the band, which features Steve DiGiorgio of such great bands as Death, Testament, Autopsy, and Iced Earth. Sadus is so brutal that they oftentimes veer in the direction of death metal.

Honorable mentions: Alice in Chains: Facelift, Anthrax: Persistence of Time, Blind Guardian: Tales from the Twilight World, Cannibal Corpse: Eaten Back to Life, Danzig: II-Lucifuge, Death: Spiritual Healing, Death Angel: Act III, Deicide: Deicide, Forbidden: Twisted Into Form, Iced Earth: Iced Earth, Megadeth: Rust in Peace, Obituary: Cause of Death, Paradise Lost: Lost Paradise, Queensryche: Empire, Slayer: Seasons in the Abyss, Testament: Souls of Black.

Bands that formed in 1990: At the Gates, Cathedral, Dark Tranquillity, Fear Factory, In Flames, Krisiun, Kyuss, Lamb of God, Lost Horizon, My Dying Bride, Opeth, Satyricon, Type O Negative.

Year in Metal: 1982

IRON MAIDEN: THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
Iron Maiden was reborn in 1982. The band started as a rather impressive NWOBHM band under the songwriting of Steve Harris and the vocals of Paul Di'Anno. Di'Anno though was never all that great of a singer, certainly not enough to be truly noticeable. Enter Bruce Dickinson, whose soaring classically-trained tenor became THE VOICE of Iron Maiden. Energized by their new singer, the band crafted a monumental album with several now-classic songs. The dueling guitars, galloping bass lines, and impressive vocals all add up to a monster album. This is not my absolute favorite Iron Maiden album, but it is certainly a great one.

JUDAS PRIEST: SCREAMING FOR VENGEANCE
Judas Priest scored a massive hit of their own in 1982 with this album. Priest had long ago left behind whatever progressive rock tendencies they had. By this point, their music was simple, direct, and not the least bit subtle. "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" is the enormous hit on this album, and it really was big. This album was essentially Priest at their peak. All of the songsd are classics, with a couple that stand out higher than the rest. They would grow to be more metallic on subsequent albums, heavier and darker. However they would never be quite as memorable.

VENOM: BLACK METAL
Picking up where the last album left off, Venom released this album just the next year. You don't really see that much anymore. Their musicianship has tightened up a little bit, but they are still very raw. Their songwriting has also improved with several more complex structures on this album. This album's fairly simple riffs, fast speed and dark lyrics was an influence on the upcoming black metal scene, even moreso than the band's previous album. Hell, the genre even got its name from the name of this album. This is also Venom's best album in my opininon.

Honorable Mentions: Manowar: Battle Hymns, Motorhead: Iron Fist, Raven: Wiped Out, Twisted Sister: Under the Blade

Bands that formed in 1982: Artillery, Armored Saint, Corrosion of Conformity, Death Angel, Destruction, Dio, Exodus, Kreator, Napalm Death, Possessed, Sodom, Suicidal Tendencies, Voivod, W.A.S.P., Watchtower

2010 Grammy Award of Metal Performance Goes To...

Judas Priest for "Dissident Aggressor" off of their recent live album. I predicted some time ago that Slayer would win it, but expressed a preference for Megadeth or Judas Priest. This is a pleasant surprise. I am not predicting any sort of real change in Grammy voters in how they feel about metal. The fact that they gave Judas Priest their first Grammy some 40 years after the band's formation shows that they don't understand today's music. "Dissident Aggressor" is a song which first appeared nearly 30 years ago. Whatever. The other problem is of course the fact that they don't hand out the Metal Performance Grammy during the televised show. Congratulations anyway Judas Priest.

2010 Grammy Nominations for Best Metal Performance

I hate the Grammys and I am sure that most metalheads would agree with me. Ever since the first year the award was given out for Best Metal Performance, no self-respecting metalhead has taken it seriously. That first time was one of the most infamous fuckups in award show history. They gave the Grammy to Jethro Fucking Tull. Over Metallica. Over Metallica's "One", a masterful song. That same year the other nominees were Iggy Pop, AC/DC, and Jane's Addiction. What a way to start the award off with a complete fucking disaster.

Since then, Grammy awards under this category have been awarded to non-metal and false metal bands like Nine Inch Nails (twice), Rage Against the Machine, Tool (twice), Deftones, Korn, and Slipknot. The worst year was 2003 when not a single nominee was actually a metal band. That year featured Korn winning with nominations for P.O.D., Slipknot, Stone Sour, and Rob Zombie.

This year's nominees were announced on Thursday and they're not as egregiously, mind-blowingly, awful as usual. Huh. Maybe they're learning. Probably not. As my fiancee said to me many metal bands have become better known in the last few years. She has heard of all of these bands. So, here's the list:

Judas Priest: "Dissident Aggressor": I have no idea why they picked this particular track off the band's recent live album. The song itself is 30 years old.
Lamb of God: "Set to Fail"
Megadeth: "Head Crusher"
Ministry: "Senor Peligro"
Slayer: "Hate Worldwide"

Slayer has won a couple of Grammys for this category recently, so they could easily get it again. Ministry seems to be nominated every year (five times total), so it would be nice for them to finally win it, though I doubt they will as they are extremely inaccessible. Megadeth has been nominated eight times, without a single win. Judas Priest has been nominated four times without a win. Both Megadeth and Judas Priest deserve it for their larger body of work, not necessarily the stuff for which they were nominated.

In short, I think Slayer will win it, but I would like to see it go to Judas Priest or Megadeth. I will not watch the show as they give out this award during the pre-show. Stupid bunch of shit.

Metallica and Alice in Chains were nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance. Metal bands nominated for Hard Rock? Sigh.

Rob Halford: A Brief History of the Metal God

Rob Halford is one of the most important, well-known, and influential individuals in metal history. And he is still going strong at the age of 58. Best known for his work with Judas Priest, Halford sang some of the most anthemic songs in metal. Halford has a nearly four octave vocal range, pretty impressive for a metal singer. Halford has been involved in a few different bands during his career, none of whom can touch Priest in importance, but many of which were very good nonetheless. I decided today to touch on one of my favorite metal singer/songwriters.

JUDAS PRIEST

Halford joined Judas Priest in time to appear on the band's full length debut album Rocka Rolla. Priest at that time had not quite found their trademarked steel factory-esque sound. The band was more of a progressive hard rock/metal band. This sound continued for a few more albums, occasionally touching on the sound that would make them famous.

In 1980, British Steel was released, the album that cemented Priest as metal royalty, featuring the hugely popular "Breaking the Law". Halford provided a voice and a look to heavy metal. Halford started dressing in all leather and studs, a look borrowed from the gay culture in England in the 1970's. This look caught on and became something of a uniform for metal bands. Halford was in actuality a gay man, so this look was not horribly surprising, but the fact that ultra hetero bands and fans caught on was a bit amusing and ironic.

Priest released a few more straight-ahead metal albums over the years before incorporating the use of synthesizers to pander to the glam metal crowd. The band had become a little more boring. Their legal issues were more interesting than their music. The band became embroiled in a lawsuit claiming use of subliminal messages after two young men shot themselves using a 12 gauge shotgun. One of the men survived temporarily with a grossly disfigured face. The Plaintiffs claimed that the band inserted subliminal messages of "do it" into their cover of Spooky Tooth's "Better By You, Better Than Me." The trial lasted over a month and the band was eventually exonerated when it was dismissed.

Painkiller was released around the same time as the trial and featured an immense improvement musically. The band had become extremely powerful and created one of the most important speed metal albums of all time. Still, it was not enough to keep the band together and Halford quit after the tour. Priest hired former Priest cover band singer Ripper Owens to replace Halford. "The Ripper" is the name of an early Priest song.

FIGHT

Halford formed Fight after leaving Judas Priest. Fight was more of a heavier groove/thrash metal band. The music was not as fast as later Priest albums but was more aggressive and heavier on the first album. This was a fairy modest success. However, the band's next album went for more of a grunge sound and was not nearly as successful. Fight also released an EP at this time featuring live tracks and techno-like remixes.

2WO

After Fight disbanded, Halford formed a gothic-industrial group called 2wo, produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. An utter failure on every level, Halford abandoned the project after one album.

HALFORD

Halford then created a new band named after himself which saw a return to heavy metal. Halford was trying to recapture the spirit of the Painkiller album with this band. Fans flocked back to Halford and began talking about the possibility of a Judas Priest reunion. Halford satiated some of that talk with two strong albums.

JUDAS PRIEST

Sure enough, Halford returned to Judas Priest and released a new album in 2005. Priest was rejuvenated thanks to the return of its most popular singer. Their 2005 album was one of their best in years. Afterwards, the band announced they would be releasing a double album featuring an orchestra and an overall concept centered around Nostradamus. The band had not done anything like it before. Unfortunately, the album was not a great success. Currently the band is still together.

Other Work

Halford has recorded Black Sabbath's "The Wizard" with Geezer Butler and Bill Ward of Black Sabbath, Wino, Fight guitarist Brian Tilse, and Jimmy Wood on harmonica for the first Nativity in Black tribute album. Halford also fronted Black Sabbath for a few shows.

Metal's Sacred Cows

Are there metal bands who are beyond criticism? No, of course not. However there are some groups who went through a period where criticism is fairly difficult, not impossible because music junkies in general can be very elitist and dislike anything that is popular. This is also true of metal. That being said, here are some bands who went through a period of time that is almost universally praised.

1. BLACK SABBATH
Duh. The band who started it all. Without Black Sabbath, we would not have metal. That reason alone is enough for metal fans to praise their work. Another reason is that their material has withstood the test of time. It sounds just as good now as it did when it came out.
PRAISEWORTHY PERIOD: Self titled album through Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. After that they got too proggy and drifted away from metal. They came back strong when Ronnie James Dio took over for Ozzy Osbourne on vocals.
BAD ALBUMS: Forbidden, Technical Ecstacy, Never Say Die, Born Again, Seventh Star.

2. JUDAS PRIEST
Almost on par with Black Sabbath in terms of respect from metal heads. Judas Priest took the Black Sabbath sound and perfected it. Judas Priest was also one of the first bands to truly embrace the tag of "Heavy Metal." Priest also gave metal a look.
PRAISEWORTHY PERIOD: 2nd album through Defenders of the Faith with one exception. They also came back strong with Painkiller later on, one of the quintessential speed metal albums. Then Rob Halford left for a few years. When he came back, the band was rejuvenated.
BAD ALBUMS: Point of Entry, Turbo, Demolition, Nostradamus.

3. IRON MAIDEN
Iron Maiden is the principal band from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and one of the few such bands that is still active. Maiden is one of the biggest metal bands in the world. They didn't start out that way though, it was not until classically-trained vocalist Bruce Dickinson joined the band that they really took off. Still able to headline world tours.
PRAISEWORTHY PERIOD: Dickinson's first album, The Number of the Beast through Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Iron Maiden seemed to lose steam in the late 1980's. Bruce Dickinson left the band for a few years. Yet again, when he came back, so too did the band.
BAD ALBUMS: No Prayer for the Dying, Virtual XI, Dance of Death.

4. METALLICA
Surprised? You shouldn't be, Metallica was hugely important in metal. One of the founding fathers of the thrash metal movement and still one of the best such groups. Metallica achieved popularity that was once thought impossible for a metal band.
PRAISEWORTHY PERIOD: Debut Kill 'Em All through ...And Justice For All. The first four albums by Metallica are on par with anyone else's first four albums and quite possibly better than anyone else's first four albums with the only exception of possibly Black Sabbath.
BAD ALBUMS: Load, Reload, St. Anger.

That's pretty much it for unimpeachable metal bands. I'm sure I may be forgetting some, but these groups during these periods are so important to metal, that very little else comes close.