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.

Mediæval Bæbes - Mirabilis

The Mediæval Bæbes are back with their special style of Mediæval period-influenced music. Their new album, Mirabilis, is my favorite of the five I have. I've gone back to the other four to try and figure out why. I thought maybe it is because the vocals are more upfront and less atmospheric. Problem with that is my favorite song on the album, Lhiannan Shee, is as atmospheric as you can get. Maybe it is just the newness. Whatever the reason, it is good stuff. If your ears are looking for a rest from all that rocking out, and your brain would like to lose itself some lush and very feminine sounds, the Bæbes have what you are looking for. Check out Trovommi Amor.

Krumble - thirteen

In my last CD Baby order the bonus disc was Thirteen, the 2001 debut by Cleveland band Krumble. These bonus discs, as you might imagine, tend to suck but I always give them a listen because you just never know. Turns out it's pretty good stuff. Rocking sound with an edge. Solid female singer. A good first effort from a local band. I wanted to find out more about them so I went to CD Baby to read the album's page. No band listed there by that name. Huh? I tried a few variations but nothing came up. Odd. I did the Google thing and came up with their site. Turns out the lead singer on that album, one Theresa Carroll, has been replaced but you can click to listen to a couple of tracks with their new lead singer. Problem is, the link is broken. Search on Theresa Carroll--nothing. The band does have thirteen for sale on their site, so it appears that that is the only game in town. Problem is, I go to write this tonight and the band's site is pretty much gone now, replaced by a The future home of Krumble page. So here's this local band with some potential and, for whatever reasons, just disintegrates. I don't get to hear them get better. I don't get to hear their lead singer develop. Even CD Baby doesn't carry their album anymore and they carry anybody's album. For some reason it just struck me as sad, that's all. Take a listen to Vow and Awful Truth to hear what you missed.

UPDATE 2020: Theresa Carroll was also in a band called Spider Lilies around the time she was in Krumble. They reunited a few years ago and have an album called Everything on iTunes.

Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil

There's been a lot of hype and noise surrounding City of Evil, the latest released by Huntington Beach's Avenged Sevenfold. "The most anticipated release of the year" or some such nonsense reads the sticker on the CD. "Sellout" and "I'll never forgive them for stealing Overkill's bat!" (which they did) reads postings on the message boards of heavy metal sites. I picked the album up and...it's okay. Nothing revolutionary. It doesn't suck. It's okay. This album is a slicker affair then their previous two albums, Waking the Fallen and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, but I really question whether moving from screaming to singing is selling out or whether it is trying to stand out from the crowd. Have you seen Headbangers' Ball lately? Hardcore, death metal, and Pantera/Machine Head wanna-be's are wall-to-wall. How do you stand out from that? By sounding like every other band on the Ball or do you swing the pendulum the other way and try singing for a change? These are things I think about while fast-forwarding my DVR through most of HBB. Back to Avenged Sevenfold, the vocals, at times, reminded me of somebody but it took a while to figure out who: a less raspy John Bush (Anthrax, Armored Saint). Not always but on cuts like Blinded in Chains he sure does. City of Evil is a heavy, interesting album that you should check out and not just blow off based on what you've read on the boards. Check out Bat Country.

AFI - Sing the Sorrow

I saw a video on Headbangers' Ball that really caught my eye. It was for AFI's song The Leaving Song Pt. II. Very interestng video--keeps you off balance. So I do some digging on the band and get their latest CD, Sing the Sorrow. First off, this was released in 2003 and yeah, yeah, yeah, this isn't exactly a cutting edge article. So sue me :-). This album is quite a departure from AFI's previous albums, which were definitely punk. That's a drag for their old fans (with the expected cries of "Sellout!") but to my ears this sound better suits AFI. Their punk sound was more Offspring than hardcore, and I don't much care for The Offspring (not enough edge). This new sound is edgy enough for rock and with the punk influence still there, it's a fresh sound. Also check out Miseria Cantare - The Beginning and I promise that the next time I write about AFI, it will be more timely.

Candlemass - Candlemass

I was able to see doom metal pioneers Candlemass on their last tour of the U.S. back in 1991. Good stuff. The band broke up after that tour. Well, technically, singer Messiah Marcolin left the band which, for me, means the band broke up. Then, a few years ago, Messiah re-joined the band for a reunion tour. Things looked good for a new album, some demos were cut...and then the band broke up...only to get back together several months later. What did all that turmoil produce? How about the best album of their career, the self-titled Candlemass. Messiah's voice, for the unwashed, is this quasi-operatic force of nature. The first time I heard it I didn't know what to think but I was definitely drawn to it (I actually went back to the CD store to sample Ancient Dreams several times before I finally bought it). Now that you have been forewarned, the new album is filled with the band's trademark doomy sound but it is even heavier than before. If you are a fan, don't worry, just get the new album. If you are curious about the band, this is a great place to start. Check out Black Dwarf and Witches.

Life of Agony - Broken Valley

When New York's Life of Agony released their debut album, River Runs Red, back in 1993, it was really something. Not quite hardcore, not quite thrash, but definitely heavy and dark, it was a unique sound at an interesting time. Both Metallica and Nirvana were peaking, in one way or another, and this album flew in the face of all that. When the follow-up, 1995's Ugly, came out, it was...unexpected. LoA had made a 90-degree turn with their sound but the results were mixed. Despite what some may say, heavy metal can be a progressive genre (Black Sabbath, anyone?). However, this was a bit of a disjointed mess. Their audience was confused and after one more album, Life of Agony was no more. A few years ago they decided to give it a go again and the result is Broken Valley, which is what Ugly should have been ten years before. The new album is still a big departure from River Runs Red but it's a more natural progression than a forced one. Album opener, and single, Love to Let You Down (video here) is plenty heavy but in a different way than the past. Progress, even in heavy metal, is a good and welcome thing (however, bad is not progress, it's just bad). Broken Valley is a great return for LoA. Check out Justified for more.

The Capes - Taste

Riding the wave of the current British pop revival, we have The Capes from South London. Their American debut is a mini-LP called Taste. Full of catchy songs that remind me of The Kinks at times, though I have to admit that the upbeat songs are much better than the slower ones. Check out Galaxy Fraulein and Regional Heats.

Marjorie Fair - Self Help Serenade

My dictionary defines wistful as "having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing". A year ago I received a Capitol Records sampler which had a song, Waves, by the band Marjorie Fair and wistful is the first word that came to my mind. I wanted to write that I am a sucker for wistful songs but I tried to think of some but didn't come up with many. Baker Street for sure. Diamonds and Rust probably. Saturnine and In the End perhaps. After that, things get less vague as we leave wistful and go right into sad songs. Wistful songs make me want to take a drive down streets with someone special (or even better: just thinking about them) and keep going. I did that last week with Waves playing over and over again. I'm weird that way, I suppose.

So Marjorie Fair have recorded this five-star song (see the video here) on their debut album, Self Help Serenade, and it is released only overseas for a year (and it was recorded in 2002). It is coming out in July here in the states but what a drag for a band living in Los Angeles to not have their debut album available in their own country. Well, we have reached a point where you don't have to wait for the U.S. debut next month because the album is showing up reasonably priced at Amazon and on eBay. Okay but what's the album like, right? I'd classify it as a mellow rock album. Stare, sounds pretty mellow to you, doesn't it? I wish the band success. They have waited a long time for it.

The Fortunes - The Singles

One of the nice things about not listening to oldies radio stations is that you can be truly and pleasantly surprised when you hear a song that you haven't heard in a while. Such was the case a few months ago when I was in a store and heard Here Comes that Rainy Day Feeling Again. I hadn't heard that song in a long time. It's nothing deep or meaningful, just a nice song to hear. I did some digging and found out that it was recorded by The Fortunes, a British Invasion-era band that weren't huge but they did have a few hits, including one I really like, You've Got Your Troubles. The best way to go for these guys is to get The Singles, a 24-track collection that has a lot of fun stuff on it (including the original version of Seasons in the Sun). Nothing that changed the world, just some enjoyable Britpop. Beware of their singles on iTunes, though. Those K-Tel oldies albums usually have re-recorded versions of songs rather than the originals.

Sandy Denny - A Boxful of Treasures

My introduction to Sandy Denny came when I bought Led Zeppelin's fourth album and listened to The Battle of Evermore. I had to know more about the lady singing with Robert Plant. Her albums were mostly still in print at the time and I was lucky to find the ones that weren't fairly quickly in the used record stores I haunted. My goodness, what a voice! Beautiful and earnest, delicate and strong. She had a quality that I have not yet heard in another singer (Sandy died in 1978, several years before I discovered her). She was a folk singer at heart but calling her simply a folk singer is such an understatement. Anyway, you get the idea: I'm a huge fan. So much so that I bought the first box set devoted to Sandy back in the eighties...then I bought it again when it was released on CD several years later. So I have one Sandy Denny box set and along comes A Boxful of Treasures. Do I buy a second box set? It has lots that I don't have but lots that I do have. I finally bite the bullet and get it. Honestly, if I would have heard the live version of Whispering Grass that is on the box when I was trying to decide, I would have snatched this thing up a long time ago. Some of the "treasures" are for-fans-only recordings, to be sure, but there is plenty of great stuff here.

Now, I'm a realist. Unless you're already a Sandy Denny fan, you're not going to buy this box set. Fair enough. You owe it to yourself, though, to introduce yourself to the lady's works. Check out the No More Sad Refrains anthlogy which has Sandy solo, as well as with Fairport Convention and Fotheringay. From the exquisite Fotheringay to Nothing More and the folksy John the Gun, British folk music has never sounded better.

I also recently picked up It Suits Me Well - The Songs of Sandy Denny by Vikki Clayton. Not to take anything away from Vikki, who does a wonderful version of John the Gun, but the funny thing about tribute albums is that they often highlight just how special the original artist was.

Death From Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine

How about a drum & bass combo with a real drummer and a real bass player but they rock out and the bass playing sounds like Lemmy? That's what you get with Death From Above 1979: a bass player and a drummer who sings (with the occasional synth thrown in for texture). That's the band, folks. Speaking of minimalism, the singing reminds me of Jack White when he's really rocking but with even more energy. The sound is different, it's noisy, it's modern, but it really works at times on their debut album, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine. Check out Turn It Out and Little Girl.

Steve Howe - Turbulence

The problem with instrumental rock guitar albums is that you keep being reminded that they are GUITAR albums because there are GUITAR solos all over the place and, gosh, isn't that a great GUITAR solo, whether it should be there or not but it's a GUITAR album, what do you expect? Yes's best-known guitar player, Steve Howe, has released several albums and I finally decided to pick up one, having been impressed by a recording of one of his solo shows. Be forewarned that some of his albums have him singing and he is a terrible singer. Turbulence, though, is all instrumental so we are out of danger here. What I liked about this album was that I found myself forgetting that I was listening to a guitar player's solo album. I sometimes find Howe's playing a bit cold but he sure knows how to let the song take the spotlight and have the guitar(s) serve it instead of the song merely being a vehicle for (yet another) guitar solo. Check out Running the Human Race and Corkscrew. Do you hear what I mean? I'm looking forward to more of Steve Howe's (instrumental) albums.

Kaiser Chiefs - Employment

I love great pop albums. Unfortunately, "pop" is a much-maligned word in rock because it is too often used to describe crap. Great pop albums, though, are precious. Here is a short list of what I consider to be some great pop albums:

• A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles (1964)
• Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. - The Monkees (1967)
• In Color - Cheap Trick (1977)
• Get the Knack - The Knack (1979)
• Beauty and the Beat - The Go-Go's (1981)
• 11 - The Smithereens (1989)

Enough hooks to open a tackle shop, harmonies aplenty, and a beat you can dance to. You get the idea: great pop. That leads us to the Kaiser Chiefs. I'm not saying that their new album, Employment, is good enough to join the ranks of the above great albums. It's a very good album. I am saying that the Kaiser Chiefs have a great album in them. Check out the first single, I Predict a Riot, and Na Na Na Na Naa and just try and keep from moving to the beat.

Porcupine Tree - Deadwing

My favorite of the latest wave of prog rock bands is Porcupine Tree. Their 2002 album, In Absentia, was my introduction to them and it is a wonderful album with some truly stunning cuts, such as Blackest Eyes. They manage to produce both lush and hard rocking sounds in the same song yet it doesn't sound forced or unnatural. Don't pigeon hole them as just a prog band, though. They have their own unique sound that makes them special. There were several albums before In Absentia and I was afraid I had caught the band at its peak and that it was all downhill from then on (which has happened to me plenty of times). Their latest album, Deadwing, has arrived and I am happy to report that the band sounds even better. Shallow is the first single and it's rocking (so nice to hear a so-called prog group unafraid to rock out). Check out Open Car as well.

As an added bonus for me, when Porcupine Tree swings through Los Angeles next month I'm going to get to see Robert Fripp open for them. How cool is that?

Garbage - Bleed Like Me

I clearly remember the first time I heard Garbage. I was cruising through Tower Sunset and I heard this song. I went to the counter and asked who that was. "Garbage," was the answer. This caused me to pause for a second, then I remembered reading a few sentences about this new band. The song turned out to be Milk and I was hooked. Here we are, ten years and three albums later, and Garbage has released Bleed Like Me. They have pulled back from the over-production of Beautiful, and that's a good thing. Oh, it's not a stripped down, live-in-the-studio affair but the studio tricks are more restrained this time. Now we get rockers like the excellent Why Do You Love Me and the the catchy Sex is Not the Enemy. Let's hope we don't have to wait another four years for their next album.

Hanzel und Gretyl - Uber Alles

For those who like their industrial music with a teutonic twist, Hanzel und Gretyl have come to the rescue. Take KMFDM, add some Rammstein, then, with a wink, turn it up to 11 (Jello Biafra says Rammstein and the Runaways but I haven't seen HuG live so I'll leave that one alone). Don't let the air raid sirens and rally chants scare you off. With songs titles like Third Reich from the Sun and SS Deathstar Supergalactik, you know you have nothing to fear but fun itself. This is not HuG's latest album, though. That would be 2004's Scheissmessiah (see, nothing to fear) but Uber Alles is what I picked up first, so there.

50 Foot Wave - Golden Ocean

Alternative queen Kristin Hersh is stepping back into a band after the Throwing Muses reunion of a few years ago. 50 Foot Wave is the band's name, another trio, and the band has come to rock. Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with the oeuvre of Throwing Muses but this album album, Golden Ocean, sounds consistently harder and more punk than TM (to these ears). Did I not dig deeply enough? Take a listen to Clara Bow and Dog Days and let me know if I'm wrong.