Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists

To me, the third album by Disturbed was going to be a make-or-break moment. It was either going to be great album, signalling that they were to be around for a while, or it was going to be a mediocre, repetetive affair highlighted by singer Dave Draiman leaning on his bag of monkey vocal tricks like a crutch. I don't mind telling you that I was giving even money on both outcomes. I am happy to report, though, that Ten Thousand Fists is a mighty fine album. Bookended by my favorite tracks, Ten Thousand Fists and Avarice, (so nice to not end an album with filler), the band proves that they are here to stay. Draiman does such a great job that I daresay he is turning out to be one of the finest voices in heavy metal, nicely filling the void that James Hetfield left when Metallica went all sucko on us. Disturbed even do a rocking, albeit straightforward, cover of the Genesis song Land of Confusion (of course, the original rocked, too).

Antimatter - Planetary Confinement

If ever an album cover matched the material inside, this is the one. Gray skies and barbed wire. That's the new Antimatter album in a nutshell. It's called Planetary Confinement and while I would hesitate to call it rock, just calling it music seems inadequate. Gray skies and barbed wire is much more descriptive. My introduction to Antimatter came a couple of years ago when they released an album, Unreleased 1998 - 2003, only on the internet and for free. It was hard to get a handle on the album at first. Finally I just had to stop and let the music sink in. Spare to the point of lonely, it is what it is. Now that Autumn is just around the corner and the top is on the convertible, my thoughts turn to quieter music that I am once again able to hear in my car. This is a good start. Check out Legions.

Heavy Bones

A few months ago on VH1 Classic's "Metal Mania" show, I saw a video I had never seen before by a band I had never heard of before. I'm watching it and it's all one long shot--no cuts. That was interesting and then I saw that the drummer kinda looked like Frankie Banali (Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P.) but it couldn't be him, could it? Turns out that it was him and on guitar was Gary Hoey. What the heck is going on? How did I miss these guys? Well, those two musicians and two other fellows did get together and formed a band called Heavy Bones. The album they released is pretty good. Some really good cuts and some filler--definitely a product of its time. So why had I not heard of them? Because the album came out in 1992 and these guys were not wearing flannel. They weren't a hair band but traditional hard rock quickly went out of fashion in '92 and Heavy Bones was one of the casualties. Again, this isn't some great masterwork but it's a good hard rock album from the era that you might not have heard of before. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a rarity so it can get pretty pricey at both Amazon and eBay. Here are a couple of tracks to check out. 4:AM T.M. was the video I saw. The Light of Day is my other favorite track.