The Best of 2009: Honorable Mentions (M-Y)

You probably thought I was just amazing in terms my musical tastes, didn't you? The fact is I'm amazing at most things, I am a man of countless talents. For starters I make the world's best lasagna. Most people don't know that.

Right, now that I've pimped my newest amazing blog, let's move on to the last batch of great albums that didn't quite make it onto my Best Of 2009 list. Another twenty nine albums in fact. Goshdarnit, will it ever end?

Yes, this will all end next week when the top 30 albums of the year are presented. Until then, enjoy these.

A personal favorite here is Megasus, a band featuring people from Lightning Bolt and other less savory characters. Just check out the lyrics to their song Megasus:

The cult of blood gave rise to a mythic beast
Sprung from the shrine of gods at the lunar feast
No living thing no sage no king left standing in its way!

Grim destroyer thunders from its hidden lair
Immortal beast spreads it wings sets fire to the air
Ancient worm mare of night born of plague and doom!

Elders demand a sacrifice
And so the village passed from light
The sea of blood it fails to please him
Hordes of men prepare to fight!

Dawn of war has begun
Brave kinsmen they fight as one
The clash of shield and sword and helmet
They hint of slaughter yet to come!

Iron and bone upon its flesh
Brave words and deeds put to the test
Bitter teeth, claws, wings and hooves now
Death awakens from its nest!

How badass is that? You don't have to answer it, I'll do it myself: It's extremely badass. Almost as badass as their badass album cover.






(mp3) Maim - Carnal feast
Available on From The Womb To The Tomb





(mp3) Maserati - Monoliths
Available on Passages





(mp3) Masters of Reality - Always
Available on Pine/Cross Dover





(mp3) Megasus - Megasus
Available on S/t





(mp3) Mono - Ashes in the snow
Available on Hymn To The Immortal Wind





(mp3) Mumakil - Without grief
Available on Behold The Failure





(mp3) N.A.S.A. - Spacious thoughts (feat. Tom Waits & Kool Keith)
Available on The Spirit Of Apollo





(mp3) Napalm Death - Procrastination on the empty vessel
Available on Time Waits For No Slave





(mp3) New Model Army - Today is a good day
Available on Today Is A Good Day





(mp3) Obliteration - The spawn of a dying kind
Available on Nekropsalms





(mp3) Om - Meditation is the practice of death
Available on God Is Good





(mp3) Otep - Smash the control machine
Available on Smash The Control Machine





(mp3) Pearl Jam - The end
Available on Backspacer





(mp3) The Prodigy - Run with the wolves
Available on Invaders Must Die





(mp3) The Project Hate MCMXCIX - The locust principles
Available on The Lustrate Process





(mp3) Rammstein - Bückstabü
Available on Liebe Ist Für Alle Da





(mp3) Rise And Fall - It's a long way down
Available on Our Circle Is Vicious





(mp3) Russian Circles - When the mountain comes to Muhammad
Available on Geneva





(mp3) Snail - Underwater
Available on Blood





(mp3) Spinnerette - Rebellious palpitations
Available on S/t





(mp3) S:t Erik - Your highness
Available on From Under The Tarn





(mp3) Switch Opens - Pyramids
Available on S/t





(mp3) Therapy? - Crooked timber
Available on Crooked Timber





(mp3) Todd - Happy easter Florida
Available on Big Ripper





(mp3) Totalt Jävla Mörker - Ett vackert landskap af ensamhet
Available on Söndra & Härska





(mp3) Träd, Gräs Och Stenar - Svärmors brudpolska
Available on Hemlösa Katter





(mp3) Vic Du Monte's Persona Non Grata - She's a rocker
Available on Autoblond





(mp3) Withered - The fated breath
Available on Folie Circulaire





(mp3) Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson - Relator
Available on Break Up

The Best of 2009: Honorable mentions (F-L)

Another 24 tracks of great stuff that didn't quite make it onto my top 30 of 2009 but still deserves to be listened to.

A lot gems on this one, like the Death From Above 1979-meets-Beyonce stylings of Invasion. There's Horisont, a band which taps into the sound and spirit of November better than any other.

There's nimble noise rockers Kong facing off with heavyweight sludge/doom champions Kongh, there's the lovely miss Norah Jones and the not so lovely Jello Biafra, premium black metal from Funeral Mist and Liturgy, death metal from God Dethroned and Hypocrisy, trippy shit from LSD March, and some shimmering noisy pop from The Flaming Lips.

And so on and so forth. Something for everyone.

Please pay extra attention to cover for the Latitudes album, the boar vs hound. That's some vicious badass shit right there, definitely one of my favorite album covers of year.

The rest (M-Y) will follow tomorrow, and the top 30 will revealed some time next week.





(mp3) Firebird - Worried mind
Available on Grand Union





(mp3) The Flaming Lips - Silver trembling hands
Available on Embryonic





(mp3) Funeral Mist - Sword of faith
Available on Maranatha





(mp3) Ghost Brigade - Into the black light
Available on Isolation Songs





(mp3) God Dethroned - Poison fog
Available on Passiondale





(mp3) Griftegård - Charles Taze Russell
Available on Solemn, Sacred, Severe





(mp3) Horisont - Horisont boogie
Available on Två Sidor Av Horisonten





(mp3) Hypocrisy - Sky's falling down
Available on A Taste Of Extreme Divinity





(mp3) Invasion - Cursed treasure
Available on The Master Alchemist





(mp3) Isis - 20 minutes/40 years
Available on Wavering Radiant





(mp3) Jandek - The playground
Available on Skirting The Edge





(mp3) Jello Biafra & The Guantanamo School Of Medicine - New feudalism
Available on The Audacity Of Hype





(mp3) Norah Jones - Stuck
Available on The Fall





(mp3) Keelhaul - Glorious car activities
Available on Triumphant Return To Obscurity





(mp3) Kiss - All for the glory
Available on Sonic Boom





(mp3) Kong - Blood of a dove
Available on Snake Magnet





(mp3) Kongh - Essence asunder
Available on Shadows Of The Shapeless





(mp3) Kowloon Walled City - Gambling on the Richter scale
Available on Gambling On The Richter Scale





(mp3) Latitudes - Myth cathexis
Available on Agonist





(mp3) Laudanum - Invoke
Available on The Coronation





(mp3) Left Lane Cruiser - Waynedale
Available on All You Can Eat





(mp3) Like Rats - Dynasty
Available on S/t





(mp3) Liturgy - Arctica
Available on Renihilation





(mp3) LSD March - Kimi no uta wo kiite boku wa akuma ni natta
Available on Under Milk Wood

The Friday MP3 Shuffle #41

R.I.P. Molly 1990-2002

Let's take a tiny break from all this nonsense about the best albums of the year and relax with another fantastic Friday mix.

This is actually an old one, originally posted here on my old blog on June 29th 2007, and now resurrected for your pleasure. It consists almost entirely of underproduced high octane RAWK! stinking of sweat, motor oil and cheap booze. Flawless from beginning to end of course.

By the way, the Leadfoot that's included is not the Leadfoot fronted by Karl Agell (formerly of Corrosion Of Conformity), but a short-lived project featuring members of The Hellacopters, Entombed and The Nomads.

Bon appétit!

(zip) The Friday MP3 Shuffle #41 (49 mb)

1. MC5 - Skunk (sonically speaking) (1971)
2. Truckers - R.I.O.T. (2003)
3. Grand Grace - (Baby I ain't no) loser dog (2003)
4. Puffball - Constant rotation (1999)
5. The Nomads - Top alcohol (2001)
6. Backyard Babies - Backstabber (1997)
7. New Bomb Turks - Defiled (1998)
8. The Robots - Laff track (1998)
9. The Hives - Automatic schmuck (1997)
10. Super$hit 666 - Crank it up (1999)
11. Henry Fiat's Open Sore - Girlfriend (1998)
12. Gluecifer - Rock throne (1997)
13. Leadfoot - Suckerpunch (1993)
14. The Coachwhips - Hands on (2002)
15. The Hellacopters - Bore me (1996)

The Best of 2009: Honorable mentions (A-E)

I dunno what's been going on during 2009, but the list of great records coming out this year has been nothing but gargantuan compared to previous years. Maybe I've just been listening to more records than usual.

Trying to make a list of the best albums of the year turned into a nightmare. At first I was just gonna do a concise top 10 like I did in 2007, but that soon proved impossible. A top 25 like last year also proved difficult, as I came up with over a hundred records good enough to include. A hundred! Never happened before. And I'm sure there are still albums that slipped my mind, for which I apologise in advance.

Eventually I managed to narrow it down to the top 30 albums, because trying to rank all of them into a top 100 was just not going to happen. The top 30 will be presented next week. But I felt a little bad about leaving out the remaining 70 or so albums which were also damn good and worthy of your attention, so I'll share some samples from them in a three part series starting today with A through E.

I realised after I had uploaded all the songs that Irish folk singer Christy Moore should of course have been filed under the M's, not the C's. But by then it was too late and I just couldn't be arsed to go back and change it, so there you go.

These aren't ranked in anyway, just an alphabetical rundown. Also, I've included stuff beyond the usual borders of this blog. Instead of doing the heavy stuff on this blog and the not so heavy stuff on the other blog like I did last year, I'll just post them all here.

This will make for a pretty strange and ecclectic mix but strange and ecclectic is just how I roll, nigga.




(mp3) A Camp - The Crowning
Available on Colonia





(mp3) Abandon - There is no escape
Available on The Dead End





(mp3) AC4 - Let's go to war
Available on S/t





(mp3) Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Ex-cop
Available on Agorapocalypse





(mp3) Alice In Chains - A looking in view
Available on Black Gives Way To Blue





(mp3) The Arctic Monkeys - Pretty visitors
Available on Humbug





(mp3) Assjack - Redneck ride
Available on S/t





(mp3) Behemoth - Ov fire and the void
Available on Evangelion





(mp3) Scott H. Biram - Go down ol' Hannah
Available on Something's Wrong/Lost Forever





(mp3) Black Cobra - Chronosphere
Available on Chronomega





(mp3) Bloody Panda - Gold
Available on Summon





(mp3) Brutal Truth - Daydreamer
Available on Evolution Through Revolution





(mp3) Buried Inside - VII
Available on Spoils of Failure





(mp3) Burnt By The Sun - The great American dream machine
Available on Heart of Darkness





(mp3) The Casualties - We are all we have
Available on We Are All We Have





(mp3) Christy Moore - China waltz
Available on Listen





(mp3) Clutch - Freakonomics
Available on Strange Cousins From The West





(mp3) Constants - Genetics like chess pieces
Available on The Foundation, The Machine, The Ascension





(mp3) Creature With The Atom Brain - Lonely light (feat. Mark Lanegan)
Available on Transylvania





(mp3) Cult Ritual - Horror sale
Available on S/t





(mp3) Dälek - Blessed are they who bash your childrens' heads against a rock/No question
Available on Gutter Tactics





(mp3) Dark Castle - A depth returns
Available on Spirited Migration





(mp3) The Dead Weather - So far from your weapon
Available on Horehound





(mp3) Doomriders - Bear witness
Available on Darkness Comes Alive





(mp3) Dundertåget - Ifrån mig själv
Available on Skaffa Ny Frisyr





(mp3) Editors - Bricks and mortar
Available on In This Light And On This Evening





(mp3) Eels - Lilac breeze
Available on Hombre Loco: 12 Songs of Desire





(mp3) Ender - Part 1
Available on S/t





(mp3) Every Time I Die - Host disorder
Available on New Junk Aesthetic

Steve Von Till - "If I Should Fall To The Field" (2002)

Sorry 'bout the lack of updates on the blogs recently, but I've been busy trying to figure out to do my rundown of the best albums of the year. It won't be a big countdown like I did with my 90s list, because I just can't be arsed. Besides, sometime next year I'm planning to do a similar top 30 about my favorite album of the 00s, and three such countdowns is a bit much.

Maybe cram it all into one post and get it over with? Maybe not even rank them, but just do them alphabetically? I dunno, we'll see. In the meantime, here's something to keep your spirits up for a while - the mightiest beard in Neurosis doing his best to fill Johnny Cash's shoes.

You know exactly how this will sound just looking at the album cover. I got ten bucks saying Von Till recorded it in a field of grain with a barn in the background and a crow on his shoulder.

(mp3) Steve Von Till - Hallowed ground
(mp3) Steve Von Till - This river
(mp3) Steve Von Till - Running dry

Buy it @ Amazon.com

The Friday MP3 Shuffle #40

Hello, my name is David and I'm a rawkaholic.

(zip) MP3 Shuffle #40 (41 mb)

1. Barkmarket - Visible cow (1996)
2. Chooglin' - Airport bar (2009)
3. Clutch - Burning beard (2005)
4. Fear Factory - Freedom or fire (1998)
5. The Immortal Lee County Killers - Killer 45 (2001)
6. Queens of the Stone Age - Someone's in the wolf (2005)
7. Guns n' Roses - You're crazy (1987)
8. Every Time I Die - Wanderlust (2009)
9. The Bear Quartet - Least loved (of the unloved) (2009)
10. Electric Wizard - The chosen few (2007)

Buy 'em @ Amazon.com.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #67

(mp3) Primus - Too many puppies
Available on Frizzle Fry (1990)

(mp3) Spinal Tap - Big bottom
Available on This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

(mp3) Earth feat. Kurt Cobain - Divine and bright
Available on Sunn Amps and Smashed Guitars (rereleased version, 2001)

(mp3) The Hives - Mad man
Available on Your New Favourite Band (compilation, 2001)

(mp3) Fu Manchu - Coyote duster
Available on Daredevil (1995)

The Hellacopters - "Head Off" (the originals)

Most of the time I feel that the decision to have two separate blogs - one for heavy music and one for the softer stuff - was a good one. But some artists just tend to fall somewhere inbetween and then I'm not sure on which blog I should write about them.

One such band would be The Hellacopters, a jolly bunch whose music fits equally well on both blogs, and I suppose this post could be a sort of companion to the one I posted yesterday on Metal Bastard Goes Soft.

Last year The Hellacopters released their final album Head Off (named the second best album of 2008 by yours truly), a record consisting entirely of covers as a tribute to bands they felt hadn't gotten enough attention over the years.

Well, one day maybe six months ago I came across a collection of the original versions of these songs (plus two songs The Hellacopters recorded for b-sides), of which I had previously only heard one (The Robots' In The Sign Of The Octopus). I can't for the life of me remember where I found this but if you have a clue, let me know. Someone clearly worked hard to compile these and I'd love to give credit where credit is due.

Whether you've heard Head Off or not, this is an excellent collection of spunktacular rock 'n' roll by bands that indeed have been unfairly neglected by the media and mainsteam audiences.

(zip) Head Off - The Originals (44 mb)

1. The Demons - Electrocute (1997)
2. The Peepshows - Midnight angels (2003)
3. The Humpers - I'm watching you (1995)
4. The Turpentines - No salvation (1998)
5. The Robots - In the sign of the octopus (2004)
6. The New Bomb Turks - Veronica Lake (1992)
7. The Maharajas - Another turn (2004)
8. Asteroid B-612 - I just don't know about girls (2006)
9. Dead Moon - Rescue (1999)
10. The Bellrays - Making up for lost time (2003)
11. Gaza Strippers - Throttle bottom (1999)
12. Royal Cream - Darling darling (2000)

Bonus tracks:

13. The Powder Monkeys - Straight until morning (1994)
14. The Yesmen - Acid reign (1999)

Happy 1:a advent, you jävla wankers

Today is Advent Sunday. I will use this as an excuse to post a song by the best band on the planet.

You're welcome.

Besides, I feel the word needs to be spread about Opeth. Not enough people are blogging about them. Just look here over the almighty blog aggregator The Hype Machine. When you search for "Opeth", you find that the top 20 (!) hits are from my blogs alone. Unacceptable.

There's an awful lot of Vampire Weekend around these days but very little Opeth. This will not do. Do you have a blog? Then blog some Opeth for fuck's sake.

(mp3) Opeth - Advent
Available on Morningrise (1996)

Soulfly - "S/t" (1998)

I would hereby like to name this record one of the top 3 most retarded metal albums of the 90s.

Max Cavalera left Sepultura after 1996's Roots, an album Sepultura fans have a heated love/hate relationship with. Some love it (like me), others can't stand it. In the mid 90's nu metal was the shit and on Roots Max made sure that Sepultura used the same studio, the same equipment, the same producers and the same engineers as Korn. Fuck the thrash of old, it was time to tune down until the guitar strings flopped around like wet spaghetti.

After leaving he brought the bouncy rumbles of nu metal with him, alongside the expanded element of experimentation that had been prevalent on Roots. On Soulfly, the eponymous debut album of this new solo project disguised as a band, he kicked open up the floodgates and let all hell break loose. The whole album is like one giant jam session with Max and whatever friends happened to drop by. Producer Ross Robinson has even admitted in interviews that Cavalera had no finished material going into the studio, just a bunch of riffs that were made into songs as they went along.

Imagine Roots with each individual ingredient amplified, and Soulfly is what you get. About a third of the album is fairly traditional metal/nu metal of the Sepultura kind, but the rest is so fucked up and ridiculous it's amazing more people haven't pointed it out. Strange influences that you wouldn't expect (nor should you, as they make no sense) come shooting at you from every direction, there's always something peculiar just around the corner.

The weird thing is that Cavalera has done metal mixed with South American tribal music for so long now that it almost feels like this combination makes perfect sense. But it doesn't - it's fucking stupid. And yet somehow very awesome. It wouldn't be far off to dub this the The Shape Of Punk To Come of nu metal. Not in terms of quality, but undoubtedly in terms of diversity.

It's as though Max felt freed from the restrictions of Sepultura and just decided, not unlike a kid let loose in a candy store, to go nuts and grab every last little thing he could reach. All kinds of stuff thrown together with little to no regard as to whether they fit together or not. And somewhere in that total madness and complete lack of thinking lies the greatness of this album.

Traditional Brazilian percussion is all over the place, there are songs (or at least parts of songs) sung in Portoguese, there are covers of football anthems, hiphop beats and Fred Durst (of all people) show up out of nowhere, Chino from Deftones appears with some sort of ghost-like throat singing, Benji of Skindred (then the singer of Dub War) guests on two tracks laying down some sweet riddims, there are two mellow instrumental tracks, two songs are produced by the Beastie Boys' knob-fiddler Mario Caldato Jr., The Song Remains The Same is actually three songs in one - firstly a cover of Ratos de Porão's Caos, then a sped-up version of Sepultura's Attitude, and then finally The Song Remains The Same. Three members of Fear Factory stopped by the studio - Christian plays distorted acoustic bass (?), Dino lays down some guitar and Burton shows up to sing exacly one word ("eye").

I could go on but I shant, as the list in nigh endless. This album is the metal equivalent of a retard shuffling down the street wearing his helmet eating ice cream with one hand and a hot dog with the other. They're both good so together they must be twice as yummy, right?

Soulfly would have their occasional moments on subsequent records, but while the wackyness did continue on latter releases it never sounded as off the cuff and spontaneous as this. Their other albums felt too contrived and though-out in their eccentricity, this one feels like it just sort of happened, without much thought as to what the end result might be.

But for this one brief, shining moment Soulfly were the most anarchic and absurd mainstream metal band on the planet.

(mp3) Soulfly - Bleed
(mp3) Soulfly - Tribe (recommended)
(mp3) Soulfly - Bumba
(mp3) Soulfly - Prejudice (recommended)

Buy it @ Amazon.com

The video for Bleed, featuring plenty of low angle shots of Cavalera's octopoid dreadlocks:

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #66

(mp3) New Bomb Turks - We give a rat's ass
Available on !!Destroy-Oh-Boy!! (1993)

(mp3) Porcupine Tree - Sentimental
Available on Fear Of A Blank Planet (2007)

(mp3) A-Bombs - Vivid one
Single (1997)

(mp3) Isis - Carry
Available on Oceanic (2002)

(mp3) Bullet - Heading for the top
Available on Heading For The Top (2006)

The Friday MP3 Shuffle #39

I've done the world a favor and re-uploaded all of the Friday MP3 Shuffles for your listening pleasure.

Whether you want the now classic Volume 1, the classic rock of Volume 4 (still the best one yet), the back-breaking brutality of Volume 7, the noisy shenanigans of Volume 10, the swine flu tribute of Volume 11, the post-metal metal of Volume 12, the fierce onslaught of Volume 14, the upbeat Volume 17 or any of the other masterpieces I've provided this year, go on and download away. You'll them all here or by clicking the tag in the column to the left.

And of course download this week's installment too - it's short, sweet and mindblowing.

(zip) MP3 Shuffle #39 (35 mb)

1. Metallica - Damage Inc. (1986)
2. Foo Fighters - Low (2002)
3. Dropkick Murphys - Citizen C.I.A. (2005)
4. The Hives - Hey little world (2007)
5. Them Crooked Vultures - Gunman (2009)
6. Nattefrost - Preteen deathfuck (2005)
7. Punky Brüster - Heinous anus (1996)
8. Street Dogs - Hard luck kid (2006)
9. Kyuss - Flip the phase (1995)
10. The Hellacopters - Ghoul school (1996)
11. Fu Manchu - Burning road (1997)

Buy 'em @ Amazon.com.

Nine Inch Nails - "The Downward Spiral" (1994)

Some were disappointed this one wasn't on my countdown of the top 30 albums of the 90s, and to be honest I feel a little bad about that. In hindsight it should've probably been on the list.

An excellent album, a landmark in many ways and the album that put Trent Reznor on the map once and for all. There's nothing to say about it that hasn't already been said - it's been a part of modern rock lore since the day it came out.

You know, recorded in the house where Charles Manson's minions slaughtered five people in 1969 and all that. A disturbing masterpiece which grabbed the coattails of grunge's self-hating introversion and pushed it to its most absurd extreme. If you want to slit your wrists, this would be a likely soundtrack.

From the opening samples of a man being whipped (from George Lucas's THX 1138), via the drumming melee of Piggy, the appropriately titled Heresy (which in less than four minutes accomplishes everything that Marilyn Manson has spent 20 years trying to get across and failing miserably at it), the unlikely hits March of the Pigs and Closer, the serene A Warm Place, all the way up to the legendary end song Hurt, this album is at once an intellectual and visceral experience unlike any other.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is just an excuse to post these vids of the band surprising the audience by playing the album in its entirety in New York on August 23rd of this year. This was completely unannounced and by the second and third song you can hear people going "OMG! They're doing the whole album!", and at one point someone concludes "It's like I've died and gone to hell".

An almost orgasmic experience. Definitely one of those "I will forever loathe myself for not being there" type moments:

(mp3) NIN - A warm place (highly recommended!)
(mp3) NIN - Reptile
(mp3) NIN - Hurt

Buy it @ Amazon.com

Ho. Lee. Shit.

Durrrrr!!

Durpy durky durrrr! Dey dook mah jubb! Dey dook yur jubb! Deyduckyujurrr!!!!

(mp3) Nasum - The idiot parade
Available on Human 2.0 (2000)

(mp3) Anal Cunt - Van full of retards
Available on 40 More Reasons To Hate Us (1996)

(mp3) Heresy - Sick of stupidity
Available on Face Up To It (1988)

(mp3) A-Bombs - Five stupid men
Single (1997)

(mp3) Roger Alan Wade - If you're gonna be dumb
Available on V/A - Jackass Motion Picture Soundtrack (2002)

Black Sabbath galore

I posted a Black Sabbath cover by Neurosis last week which got me into a big Sabbath covers trip. I thought I'd might as well compile them and share them with you fine and dandy lot.

These are taken from the two Nativity In Black tributes and a variety of other places. Have fun.

(zip) Black Sabbath covers galore (99 mb)

1. Throne of Azaz - Black sabbath
2. Machine Head - Hole in the sky
3. System of a Down - Snowblind
4. Kyuss - Into the void
5. Coalesce - Supernaut
7. Entombed - Under the sun
8. Daemon - Symptom of the universe
9. Cathedral - Solitude
10. Pantera - Planet caravan
11. Slayer - Hand of doom
12. Metallica - Sabbra cadabra
13. The Fartz - Children of the grave
14. Faith No More - War pigs

And just for the sake of comparison, here's a zip of the originals as performed by Black Sabbath. All songs are from their first six albums, if you don't own them you need to get your shit together.

The Friday MP3 Shuffle #38

I got such a big kick out of doing the posts with Thin Lizzy title tracks and Neurosis title tracks that I just couldn't help making a Friday MP3 mix with only title tracks.

'Tis amazing.

(zip) MP3 Shuffle #38 (51 mb)

1. Entombed - Left hand path (1990)
2. At The Gates - Slaughter of the soul (1995)
3. Nasum - Inhale/exhale (1998)
4. Soundgarden - Superunknown (1994)
5. Disrupt - Unrest (1994)
6. Slayer - Seasons in the abyss (1990)
7. The Stooges - Fun house (1970)
8. Monster Magnet - Powertrip (1998)
9. Metallica - Ride the lightning (1984)
10. Judas Priest - Rocka rolla (1974)
11. Iron Maiden - Killers (1981)
12. Ebba Grön - We're only in it for the drugs (no. 2) (1978)

Buy 'em @ Amazon.com.

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #65

(mp3) Baroness - Swollen and halo
Available on Blue Record (2009)

(mp3) Led Zeppelin - Four sticks
Available on IV (1971)

(mp3) Neurosis - Children of the grave
Available on V/A - In These Black Days Volume Vol. 6 (1999)

(mp3) Spiritual Beggars - Magic Spell
Available on Another Way To Shine (1996)

(mp3) Serpent Throne - One percenter
Available on The Battle Of Old Crow (2008)

Sad But True x 1086

Last week Metallica's Sad But True became the first file in this blog's two year existence to hit a thousand downloads. And this in only a few months, since it was first featured in this post.

As of this very moment Sad But True has been downloaded exactly 1086 times. No reason to stop there, here it is again. Let's make it two thousand!

(mp3) Metallica - Sad but true
Availabe on S/t (1991).

A real work of art

Blabbervagina reports that some hack named Tom Sanford will auction off his "controversal" painting (see above) of Dimebag Darrel's assassination. It is expected to fetch anything from £500 to £700.

The painting is just as controversal as the attention-starved Sanford intended, but for very different reasons. It's not the subject matter that bothers us, sweetheart. It's the fact that you're a worse painter than a rabid raccoon running around on a canvas with a paintbrush up its ass. That thing is so bad it wouldn't even have made it onto a thrash metal album cover in 1988.

Sanford says he was "able to base [his] painting on the oral reports from witnesses of the four murders as well as Nathan Gale's eventual death." Apparently the audience's reactions to the murder was not so much shock and disbelief, but more like someone farted. Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas (bottom right), who I had no idea even attended the gig, looks more like someone just reminded her of the time she peed her pants on stage.

It also seems Nathan Gale looked like Lloyd Christmas with his shirt tucked into his jeans Jerry Seinfeld style, and Geddy Lee was so busy handing out View-Masters by the side of the stage he barely took notice of the murderings and shenanigans.

Here look, it took me precisely three minutes to make a better one:


I'm not as greedy as Sanford, so you can have it for only £400.

(mp3) Pantera - Cat scratch fever
Available on V/A - Detroit Rock City Soundtrack (1999)

Songs That Get My Juices Flowing #64

(mp3) Om - At Giza
Available on Conference of the Birds (2006)

(mp3) Street Dogs - Rights your to soul
Available on Fading American Dream (2006)

(mp3) Deep Purple - Paint it, black
Live in Stockholm 1970. Released on Scandinavian Nights (1988)

(mp3) Scott Kelly - Flower
Available on Spirit Bound Flesh (2001)

(mp3) Watain - Puzzles of flesh
Available on Casus Luciferi (2003)

Dropkick Murphys Week, Sunday: "The Meanest of Times" (2007)

Okay, let's finish off Dropkick Murphys Week in style!

After 2005's wildly uneven The Warrior's Code (see yesterday's entry), Dropkick Murphys showed once and for all what a force they can be if they only focus their energies in the right direction. With fantabulous The Meanest Of Times they released their best album since 2001's Sing Loud Sing Proud.

While this album may contain a rendition of the classics Lanigan's Ball (here called (F)lannigan's Ball) and Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya, this their least Celtic sounding record since 1999's The Gang's All Here. There's still plenty of bagpipes, tin whistles, accordions, mandolins and god knows what, but musically I see this a combination of the straight-forward punk rock of The Gang's All Here with the more settled classic rock sound of 2003's Blackout. A lot of the Lucky Charms leprechaun flavor they'd sometimes had in the past is missing here, and I'd even say that this is the album that more than any of the others harkens back to their 1998 debut Do Or Die.

That's one of my favorite things about this album - just when you thought they'd run with the success they had with I'm Shipping Up To Boston and put out another record of easily jiggable (is that a word?) Irish rock, they revert and go back to their brawling Guinness soaked rock roots, chock full of pirate singalongs and shamrock badassery. Feelgood anthems with fists pumping, spirits are high and revolution is in the air.

I really can't praise this album enough, hands down one of the best records of the 2007. Why I didn't include it in my countdown of the best albums of that year is a mystery.

I have nothing else to add, just download these and realise the greatness of The Meanest of Times. Then go and buy it. Don't download it, you cheap bastard, pay for it.

(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - God willing (recommended!)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - The state of Massachusetts
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Surrender

Buy it @ Amazon.com

Dropkick Murphys Week, Saturday: "The Warrior's Code" (2005)

In this the penultimate day of Dropkick Murphys Week we've come to my least favorite album of theirs.

I took me quite a while to come to terms with this fact and it caused a great deal of hurt because the album paradoxally also contains my all time favorite Murphys songs. The three songs below are absolutely fantastic and as damn near flawless as any song could be. The Auld Triangle, a re-working of an old traditional, is so good it's almost hard to believe your ears. Same with the opener Your Spirit's Alive, written about their friend Greg Riley.

Other songs like Citizen C.I.A. and The Walking Dead are also great, but while the high points are staggeringly good they only make it more obvious how weak the low points are.

Captain Kelly's Kitchen probably looked like a fun idea on paper but in practice it's only silly and annoying. Wicked Sensitive Crew might be funny upon first listen, but is ultimately little more than a novelty. I'm Shipping Up To Boston, another Woody Guthrie piece set to music, gave the band a long overdue exposure thanks to its inclusion in Martin Scorcese's The Departed, but it's hardly much of a song. And don't get me started on the terrible Sunshine Highway, a cheery piece of rubbish somewhere halfway between Bruce Springsteen's least inspired moments and Blink 182.

Take It And Run and the title track aren't bad, just pretty uninteresting, they go in one ear and out the other. The Eric Bogle cover The Green Fields Of France, about a soldier in WWI, is too overly dramatic to take seriously. The final track Last Letter Home, about a soldier in the Iraq war, fares much better.

So yes, it does pain me to admit that one of my favorite bands could release such dull record. It is however arguably their most popular one, thanks to I'm Shipping Up To Boston. Many people discovered Dropkick Murphys because of that song, and they hold The Warrior's Code as their favorite as it was their first acquaintance with the band. Let's just hope these new fans don't stop there but instead keep digging deeper into the Murphys catalogue to find the really good stuff.

But let's not be a negative Nancy. As I said, the album does still contain some of the band's career best moments. You can find them below - crank 'em up and jig until the sun comes up.

(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Your spirit's alive (recommended!)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - The walking dead
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - The auld triangle (very recommended!)

Buy it @ Amazon.com

Dropkick Murphys Week, Friday: "Singles Collection Volume 2" (2005)

On this day, the 5th of Dropkick Murphys Week, we've arrived at what is possibly my favorite DM record. Which feels a bit unfair since 18 of its 23 tracks are covers. Of the five original tracks, the only ones I get nuts about are the fast-paced On The Attack and Mob Mentality, a collaboration with oi! legends The Business.

The covers are what really make this compilation worthwhile. The Murphys pay tribute to their heroes in a raging and most entertaining way. Once you take a gander at the bands covered here (The Press, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Iron Cross, Cock Sparrer, The Nipple Erectors, AC/DC, The F.U.'s, Gang Green, Stiff Little Fingers, The Business, Motorhead, Sham 69, Angelic Upstarts and Misfits) you begin to understand where the Dropkick Murphys come from musically. They really do sound like the best parts of all these bands.

No wonder they kick fucking ass.

I usually pick three songs when I write about an album, but Singles Collection, Volume 2 is so damn good I couldn't possibly narrow it down to any less than five, and even that was a struggle.

All of these are extremely recommended.

(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - 21 guitar salute (The Press)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Vengeance (The Nipple Erectors)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Warlords (The F.U.'s)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Alcohol (Gang Green)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Hey little rich boy (Sham 69)

Buy it @ Amazon.com

Alcohol live 2002:

Dropkick Murphys Week, Thursday: "Blackout" (2003)

Day four of Dropkick Murphys week!

On Blackout the band kept moving towards the more classic rock sound that had become more prominent on 2001's Sing Loud Sing Proud (see Tuesday's entry) and really ran with the whole traditional Irish music influences which at some points makes the album feel more like it belongs in the "world music" section of the record store, as opposed the "punk rock" one. Whereas in the past the Murphys had sounded like The Dubliners mixed with Gang Green and The Business, here they sounded like The Dubliners mixed The Rolling Stones, Thin Lizzy and The Clash.

I've been a bit dubious over this album since it first came out. The main reason being that I feel bass player Ken Casey takes the mic way too often. If you have such a perfect singer and frontman like Al Barr, why have someone else sing?

This was also the first time I'd heard a Dropkick Murphys song I didn't like - both third track The Outcast (sung by Casey) and the opener Walk Away sounded a bit washed out and dull to me, and they still do. I think this rather (to me ears anyway) weak opening had tarnished the album for me for quite some time. It was only a year or so ago I realised just what a brilliant album this is. And I've even grown to like Ken Casey singing.

The Ed Pickford cover Worker's Song is a personal favorite of mine, the acoustic World Full Of Hate is another and The Dirty Glass, on which Stephanie Dougherty supplied some excellent guest vocals, is a classic. Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight features lyrics for an unplublished song by Woody Guthrie, which caused quite a bit of publicity when the album came out. Prior to this only Billy Bragg and a couple of others had been given the privilage to use Guthrie's words.

While I may have accepted Blackout for the great record that it is, I must say I don't care for the bagpipes on it. The album was recorded after Spicey McHaggis left but before current bagpiper Scruffy Wallace had been recruited, so the pipes were handled by Joe Delaney who also provided some pipe action on 1999's The Gang's All Here.

Is it just me or do the pipes sound quite out of tune? I'm sure Delaney is a fine piper, but he ain't no Wallace or McHaggis, that's for sure.

(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Buried alive (recommended!)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Fields of Athenry
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Kiss me, I'm shitfaced

Buy it @ Amazon.com

Buried Alive live in 2003:

Dropkick Murphys Week, Wednesday: "Live on St. Patrick's Day from Boston, MA" (2002)

Day three of Dropkick Murphys Week!

The liner notes say "Dropkick Murphys don't give concerts - they throw parties" and ain't that the truth. I don't really have much to add to that, it sums it all up. You'd be hard pressed to find a Murphys gig where the audience is as important as the people on the stage. Half the time the audience is on the stage, but still.

Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick's Day shows is the stuff of legend in Boston, where the band annually spends an entire weekend performing. That seamless blend of band and audience is most definitely felt on Live on St. Patrick's Day from Boston, MA, which was recorded during three explosive shows at the Avalon Ballroom in 2002. This live recording was also included in their dvd On The Road With The Dropkick Murphys in 2004.

Singalongs and crowd interaction are a given in pretty much every song. Curse Of A Fallen Soul (from 1999's The Gang's All Here) gives me chills every time I hear it.

(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - For Boston/Boys on the docks
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Curse of a fallen soul (recommended!)
(mp3) Dropkick Murphys - Skinhead on the MBTA

Buy Live on St. Patrick's Day from Boston, MA @ Amazon.com.

Buy On The Road With The Dropkick Murphys too while you're at it. Right here.