Has any band ever stayed as true to a winning formula as AC/DC? Over three-plus decades, the Aussie quintet never embraced contemporary fads (like ’80s ZZ Top with dance music or mid ’90s Metallica with alternative rock) or deviated from their air-guitar-friendly ways. Eight years after their previous effort (the underrated STIFF UPPER LIP), the band comes through again with BLACK ICE. With Phil Rudd’s muscled, midtempo beats and the Young brothers’ inimitable fret interplay, the album is loaded with fist raisers. No less than three songs specifically mention “Rock & Roll” in their titles.
Familiarities aside, there are some wild cards on BLACK ICE. Brian Johnson sings almost wistfully on the stand-out “Anything Goes” over Angus’s staccato picking (reminiscent of the “Highway to Hell” intro). Johnson also delivers some surprisingly blues-inflected performances on tracks like “Stormy May Day” and the workingman’s stomp, “Money Made.” “War Machine” finds them storming into protest territory for the first time in their Hall of Fame career. Like all their recent outings, BLACK ICE was recorded at the Warehouse in Vancouver by alt-rock super-producer Brendan O’Brien whose no-frills, turn-it-up-and-get-out-of-the-way production approach suits the material perfectly.

MASTER OF PUPPETS was Metallica’s last album with bass player Cliff Burton. Burton was killed in a traffic accident. He was replaced by Jason Newsted.
Metallica: James Hetfield (vocals, guitar); Kirk Hammett (guitar); Cliff Burton (bass); Lars Ulrich (drums).
Recorded at Sweet Silence Studios, Copenhagen, Denmark from September through December, 1985.
Metallica’s irresistible rise to the top continued with this enigmatic 1986 album. A constant touring unit by this point, their combination of light and dark and their deft staccato delivery, especially on the title track, came brusquely through. Their ever-lengthening arrangements (three songs came in at over eight minutes), bolstered by the precise snap of Hetfield’s vocals, testified to their undeniable power. The striding “Battery,” the darkly lit “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” as well as the complex instrumental, “Orion,” all gave powerful testament to their ever-developing skill and vision.

Diamond Eyes, the latest from heavy favourites the Deftones, is produced and mixed by Nick Raskulinecz (Alice in Chains, Coheed & Cambria, Foo Fighters), and recorded and engineered by Paul “Fig” Figueroa (Alice in Chains, Bad Religion) Diamond Eyes is “a powerful combination of muscular impact and expansive and atmospheric clarity that propels DEFTONES through their ever-evolving new sonic terrain”.

Tracklisting
1. Diamond Eyes
2. Royal
3. Cmnd/ctrl
4. You’ve Seen The Butcher
5. Beauty School
6. Prince
7. Rocket Skates
8. Sextape
9. Risk
10. 976-Evil
11. This Place Is Death

Houdini is about as close as one gets to a representative Melvins album, and it vividly captures the band’s unreconstructed power, vision, and musical strangeness.

Tracklisting
1. Hooch
2. Night Goat
3. Lizzy
4. Going Blind
5. Honey Bucket
6. Hag Me
7. Set Me Straight
8. Sky Pup
9. Joan Of Arc
10. Teet
11. Copache
12. Pearl Bomb
13. Spread Eagle Beagle

Professional Reviews
Spin (11/93, p.133) – Highly Recommended – “…A few sections on [HOUDINI] are recorded so hot that the guitar distortion literally breaks up into white noise in your speakers: the hits are classic Melvins tuneage, which means they’ll make you wonder if the batteries are going dead in your radio…”

Musician (11/93, p.13) – “…[HOUDINI] is a slow-motion barrage of buzzsaw noize apocalypso, with tracks like “Pearl Bomb” achieving a formal brilliance that slams together the Ramones, Stooges, Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham….”

Since the ’90s, the Deftones have clawed out their own specialized niche in music. Many have imitated them, but few have reached their heights. They were innovators of so-called nu metal and could easily have settled into complacency riding the wave they helped create. Instead they continue to make waves with their self-titled fourth album.

Deftones frontman Chino Moreno wastes no time in expressing his despair mere seconds into “Hexagram” with a blood-curdling scream that will make your skin crawl. The dense, down-tuned guitars of Stephen Carpenter form a solid backdrop for the vocals that’s more about creating a mood than a melody (”When Girls Telephone Boys”). Ironically one of the album’s most intense moments (”Lucky You”) doesn’t even involve guitar, it relies on Nine Inch Nails-type rhythm and keyboards to create an uncomfortable tension. DEFTONES winds down with the loud-soft-loud pattern they’re famous for on “Moana.”

Tracklisting
1. Hexagram
2. Needles And Pins
3. Minerva
4. Good Morning Beautiful
5. Deathblow
6. When Girls Telephone Boys
7. Battle-axe
8. Lucky You
9. Bloody Cape
10. Anniversary Of An Uninteresting Event
11. Moana

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (5/29/03, p.60) – 4 stars out of 5 – “…This is metal that crushes, then soothes; collapses, then soars…”

Spin (7/03, p.105) – “…With DEFTONES, they’ve built a cathedral of suffering, filled to the rafters with agony, awe, and terror…” – Grade: B

CMJ (6/2/03, p.6) – “…These compositions are messy and contained, quiet and loud, aggressive and vulnerable–often within a single breath…”

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Deftones – Around the Fur

Of the “big four” original thrash bands (the other three being Metallica, Anthrax, and Megadeth), Slayer was the least compromising and most consistent. As such, 2009’s WORLD PAINTED BLOOD recalled more than the title of Slayer’s 1986 masterpiece REIGN IN BLOOD; it shared the earlier album’s ferocious aggression and trademark speed metal-meets-hardcore sound. Throughout, the sound is lean and mean, with bassist/vocalist Tom Araya’s vocals mixed relatively dry and upfront, giving the album a bracing, fist-to-the-face force. Jackhammer tracks such as “Hate Worldwide” and “Psychopathy Red” are short, no muss-no fuss blasts of double kick drum, minor key-riffing fury, with an unrelenting intensity that requires little in the way of sonic or textural variation. The title track, on the other hand, is a somewhat slower dose of classic chugga-chugga head-banging which showcases Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman’s shrieking, emotive guitar work. Remaining true to Slayer’s defiantly old school sound, WORLD PAINTED BLOOD carried the torch for pure thrash.

Tracklisting
1. World Painted Blood
2. Unit 731
3. Snuff
4. Beauty Through Order
5. Hate Worldwide
6. Public Display Of Dismemberment
7. Human Strain
8. Americon
9. Psychopathy Red
10. Playing With Dolls
11. Not Of This God

Professional Reviews
Alternative Press (p.117) – 3.5 stars out of 5 — “WORLD PAINTED BLOOD is the most raw and punked-up Slayer album this decade, and a vital addition to the band’s catalog.”

When Layne Staley died from a drug overdose in 2002, it had already been several years since most Alice in Chains fans stopped hoping for a new album. The singer had become a recluse since the late-`90s, and there was little indication that AIC would ever again produce much in the way of new music. As a result, when the remaining members reunited to release BLACK GIVES WAY TO BLUE in 2009, expectations were low. To the delight of all however, the album proved to be perhaps the Seattle combo’s most energetic and consistent effort since its masterpiece DIRT. Perhaps the most surprising element of the new record was how much it sounded exactly like Alice in Chains. While new singer William DuVall was not an exact Staley soundalike, he managed to evoke both the unique timbre and sense of deep angst that were the late vocalist’s trademarks. Throughout, the sound is heavier and sturdier than ever before, with songs like the first single “A Looking In View” and “Check My Brain” borrowing a bit from the nu-metal bands Alice in Chains inspired, and beating the upstarts at their own game.

Tracklisting
1. All Secrets Known
2. Check My Brain
3. Last Of My Kind
4. Your Decision
5. Looking In View
6. When The Sun Rose Again
7. Acid Bubble
8. Lessons Learned
9. Take Her Out
10. Private Hell
11. Black Gives Way To Blue

Professional Reviews
Spin (p.72) – “Alice in Chains still have an appealingly outcast aura on their first studio album in 14 years.”

Billboard (p.84) – “The droning ‘Private Hell’ takes the listener into a trance-like state, while the album-closing title track is a salute to Stanley that features Elton John on piano.”

Q (Magazine) (p.116) – 4 stars out of 5 — “[T]he quartet sound reborn, with new vocalist William DuVall’s eerie melodies perfectly complimenting Jerry Cantrell’s lead-bottomed riffs. A stunning return.”

AROUND THE FUR, the follow-up to Deftones’ passionate, aggressive ADRENALINE, sees the California quartet expanding on the sheer rage of their earlier work, adding new, more sinister shades to their already extreme sound. The opening “My Own Summer (Shove It),” serves as an introduction to the album’s sonic theme: sinewy guitars and eerie whispers alternate with fast, violent crunch. Sepultura’s Max Cavallero contributes guitar and vocals to “Headup,” while “MX” finds singer Chino trading off vocal lines with Annalynn Cunningham, (wife of Deftones’ drummer Abe) in an acerbic take on the rock star mentality.

Vocal acrobat Moreno attacks a variety of styles: his breathy, psychotic recitations sound downright industrial, while the album’s calmer, more brooding moments show his gift for haunting melody. Behind him, guitarist Stephen Carpenter’s heavy wall of sound is astoundingly muscular, yet inspiringly agile. When Deftones’ hellish fury hits full tilt, as it always does on this album, Moreno’s voice erupts into screams which are best described as otherworldly, transforming this intense musical firestorm into a hurtling juggernaut of aggression.

Tracklisting
1. My Own Summer (Shove It)
2. Lhabia
3. Mascara
4. Around The Fur
5. Rickets
6. Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)
7. Lotion
8. Dai The Flu
9. Headup
10. Mx

As the first grunge band to be signed by a major label, Seattle’s Soundgarden opened the pop floodgates, and a deluge of thrash-o-rama bands began swamping the airwaves. Following a series of trend-setting releases on the independent Sub Pop and SST labels, Soundgarden’s initial A&M releases LOUDER THAN LOVE and BADMOTORFINGER signaled the return of the classic guitar band to popular consciousness.

Using the time-honored Led Zeppelin/Aerosmith approach as a jump-off point–not to mention influential bands like Black Sabbath, MC5, The Stooges and Killing Joke–Soundgarden has formalized their own approach to raw power. Their stylized melodic hooks, however, along with their sometimes surreal lyrics, set them apart from the pack. Whether they get dazed and confused on the vamping “Limo Wreck,” or cut loose with a wham- bam-thank-you-ma’am 4/4 cruncher like “Kickstand,” Soundgarden can rock and roll with all the jet-propelled, no-nonsense crunch of all your favorite bands, from Zeppelin to the Ramones–and lead guitarist Kim Thayil’s chops never outrace his melodic imagination.

But Soundgarden is doing a lot more than simply recycling their best bits for another run up the charts. With SUPERUNKNOWN, they’re stretching out and putting some distance between themselves and their imitators, incorporating different styles into their own mix, and creating a fresh modern sound. Certainly, there are not many bands who could rock convincingly in 5/4 time without sounding like slumming jazzbos, but Soundgarden’s “My Wave” is a fist-shaking anthem that suggests the tone of the Stones’ “Get Off My Cloud.” The curious mixture of psychedelic blues elements, Near-Eastern tonalities and Indian ragas which make “Head Down,” “Black Hole Sun” and “Half” so distinctive indicates that Soundgarden didn’t simply cop their ideas from a Hollywood soundtrack. With his guttural Steve Tyler-like growl, frontman/songwriter Chris Cornell can turn a spoon player into a street shaman on “Spoonman,” give in to despair on “Let Me Drown,” or rail against authoritarian types on “Head Down.” With slamming production by Michael Beinhorn, SUPERUNKNOWN is the hard rock event of 1994.

Tracklisting
1. Let Me Drown
2. My Wave
3. Fell On Black Days
4. Mailman
5. Superunknown
6. Head Down
7. Black Hole Sun
8. Spoonman
9. Limo Wreck
10. The Day I Tried To Live
11. Kickstand
12. Fresh Tendrils
13. 4Th Of July
14. Half
15. Like Suicide
16. She Likes Surprises

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.54) – Included in Rolling Stone’s “Essential Recordings of the 90’s.”

Rolling Stone (3/10/94, p.63) – 4 Stars – Very Good – “…At its best, SUPERUNKNOWN offers a more harrowing depiction of alienation and despair than anything on IN UTERO….Although the band serves up a healthy amount of metallic bluster, Soundgarden refuse to define themselves in strict headbanger terms….”

Spin (9/99, p.154) – Ranked #70 in Spin Magazine’s “90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s.”

Spin (12/94, p.78) – Ranked #17 in Spin’s list of the `20 Best Albums Of ‘94′ – “…turn[s] everyday teenage gloom into a prayer for divine wrath to wash the world away….When Kim Thayil locks into…visceral riffs…pure hormonal energy thunders to the rescue…”

Entertainment Weekly (Spring 2000, p.166) – Ranked #6 in EW’s “Top 10 albums of the ’90s”

Q (12/99, p.82) – Included in Q Magazine’s “90 Best Albums Of The 1990s.”

Melody Maker (3/5/94, p.40) – “…Like IN UTERO, SUPEREUNKNOWN has a depth and maturity which isn’t easily assimilated on the first few listenings ….a brilliant, brilliant album….”

Village Voice (3/94, p.5) – Ranked #2 in the Village Voice’s 1993 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.

Village Voice (2/28/95) – Ranked #11 in the Village Voice’s 1994 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll.

Q (Magazine) (p.122) – “Soundgarden dealt in unreconstructed heavy rock: a heavy guitar sound, depth-charge drumming….Yet SUPERUNKNOWN also includes more measured moments, such as the shimmering hit single ‘Black Hole Sun.’”

New York Times (Publisher) (1/5/95, p.C15) – Included on Jon Pareles’ list of the Top 10 Albums Of ‘94 – “Hard rock, all muscle and sinew, that churns and howls…”

RAMMSTEIN are back. Four years after the release of “Rosenrot”, their last studio outing, Germany’s most successful rock act have announced the release of a brand new studio album, “Liebe Ist für Alle Da”.

Since starting out 15 years ago, RAMMSTEIN have built a reputation as a controversial, no-compromise, and hugely entertaining band, with a fiercely loyal and genuinely international following. Today, they stand head and shoulders above the competition as the greatest (musical) showmen on earth, with an incendiary stage performance that generally results in tickets for their concerts selling out in minutes. They return to UK stages in February 2010, in support of their sixth studio album an eleven track offering that is already being talked about as a classic to rival their hugely acclaimed 2001 “Mutter” release.

Produced by Jacob Hellner and mixed by Stefan Glaumann, the regular RAMMSTEIN team, this latest album is perhaps the Berlin band’s most varied release to date, including genuine surprises, a smattering of English and French, plus some of the heaviest songs in their repertoire. As always with RAMMSTEIN, controversy is never too far from the scene, with lead single/video “Pussy” already causing something of a stir, and “Wiener Blut” drawing ‘inspiration’ from the recent much-publicised case of Austrian Josef Fritzl. Other key tracks include “Rammlied” (a celebration of the band itself), “Waidmanns Heil” (which sees traditional hunting horns used for the first time) and “Roter Sand”, an atmospheric cinematic composition unlike anything the band have recorded before.

Tracklisting
1. Rammlied
2. Ich Tu Dir Weh
3. Waidmanns Heil
4. Haifisch
5. B********
6. Frühling In Paris
7. Wiener Blut
8. Pussy
9. Liebe Ist Für Alle Da
10. Mehr
11. Roter Sand