Yes its back! Ten of Gareth's favorite metal albums, Ten of My favorite albums, hopefully that neither of us have listen to, and we review away, to boarden horizons and generally to see if we can make the ammatuer review to the "proffesional" review. Round One: Pantera vs. Strokes
Pantera – Vulgar Display Of Power
Pantera’s Vulgar Display Of Power is an angry record. I know exactly what you’re thinking, “no shit Sherlock”, and of course your right but for once it’s worth stating the obvious because Pantera’s aggression is counterbalanced by some smooth and dare I say pleasant arrangements. So don’t be fooled Pantera are pissed off, they’re pissed off with politics, society, the media and all the sheep that follow their lead. However, they give the game away on This Love, the albums most intriguing track. What really gets Pantera’s goat is girls, yep just like every other metal, punk, rock and even boy band in human history. The frustrated visceral cry of “No More Head Trip!” perfectly encapsulates a feeling that every bloke from Times Square to tineniman square has felt at one time or another in their collective lies. The line is a prime example of Pantera’s brilliant lyrical one two punch. The blunt force trauma effect of Phil’s primal call to arms choruses, witnessed on Rise and Walk, which hit you over the head with their simplicity. Contrasted with some wonderfully subtle and witty lines like No Good’s “From evolution we’ve been killing each other, I imagine we’ve got it down to a science” delivered with a deliciously nonchalant semi croon creating a wonderfully ironic juxtaposition.
This sense of juxtaposition is the very essence of Vulgar Display Of Power beneath its simple, brutish and urgent facade lies great depths of subtly. This is holds true in the music as well as the lyrics, behind every pounding machine guns blast of base pedal and chugging guitar line is an intricate groove. It’s this groove that really makes the album so accessibly and interesting. Just one listen to Mouth Of War and the groove gets you, your heads banging and your toes tapping. There’s a brilliant elasticity to the guitar lines that Fifteen years later Muse would bombast up to take rock music into the outer reaches of the solar system. The groove is complemented by some lovely spiralling smooth guitar solos that are appropriately scattered across the album and never overstay their welcome. It’s the balance between the groove, the solos and the visceral energy that makes Vulgar Display Of Power such a refreshing listen and an album that great swathes of metallers can learn from. The rhythm plays a key roll unlike so much of modern metal it’s not buried under a wall of distortion and it’s certainly not thirty seconds of inaudible chuggery between choruses and solos. This is bass, drums and rhythm guitar that grabs you by the balls and demands you dance or at the very least headbang.
The album starts on absolute fire with War of Mouth, A New Level, Walk, Fucking Hostile and This Love. The later has a guitar line that sounds like the love child of Come As You Are and Enter Sandman. After This Love the album becomes more hit and miss, Rise has a nice groove but sees Phil doing a somewhat cringe worthy Lemmy impression and sees the track accelerate into some generic metal mode before dropping into a dull chorus. The track is supposed to be a poignant political opus for the album but instead is a rather hackneyed and bloated failure. Thankfully No Good (Attack The Radical) immediately picks up the ball that Rise dropped delivering the albums most adventurous and best track vocally. The second half of the album is hit and miss, nothing on this album is horrible or even bad but with the last four tracks all clocking in above the four minute forty second mark you can’t help but feel some ideas have been stretch out far too long for their own good. Tracks like Regular People and Demons Be Driven could be greatly enhanced by being condensed into punchier less roamy three minute blasts. It’s a shame really because the dragged out later portion takes away from the lovely Hollow a spacious haunting ballad that morphs brilliantly in mid stream with a some psychotic spoken vocals into pounding metal finale. It’s a testament to the talent of the band.
All in all Vulgar Display Of Power is a very good album, it has some great classic Pantera style anthems (Walk, A New Level, Mouth For War) and some excellent more experimental tracks (This Love, No Good, Hollow) unfortunately the album is somewhat let down by some dragged out generic tracks that you feel Pantera could churn out in their sleep. Regardless this is a great album that manages to be visceral and groovy all at once. (8/10)
The Strokes - Is This It
Is This It is without doubt the most important guitar record of the twenty first century. Marking not just a sea change in the direction of the music industry but a monumental cultural shift changing the way people dressed and cut their hair seemingly over night. Cast your mind back to the world pre Strokes, the rock world was dominated in America by Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Korn and the UK was churning out turgid shite in the form of Travis and Starsailor. The morose lad and laddette culture of Oasis and Blur dominated Great Britain and young America had become a sea of wiggers. Thankfully in 2001The Strokes were transported into the World’s Collective consciousness fully formed and killed all that crap dead. Looking like models, sounding like the unholy off spring of the Velvet Underground and Television with a sprinkling of ice cold guitar lines, a dash of metronomic drum beats and a healthy dollop of Julian’s soulful croon to create the perfect album. Is This It’s brilliance is in its nonchalance, how effortless the album feels, despite arriving on the biggest wave of hype in human history the Strokes simply scoff with the sublimely understated title track and album opener which knowingly asks Is This It? An ironic shrug of their shoulders to the music industry. And with that Ice cold sentiment you could just hear a million kids throwing down their turn tables and picking up their guitars again. Is This It sounds as if it was recorded in a skip and Julian sounds like he’s singing through an intercom its so fucking cool. The album is perfectly laid out and every track slotted together naturally, nothing overstays its welcome, everything is in it’s right place taking you a journey from start to finish. Picking out individual tracks is almost pointless it’s and album comprised of eleven singles. My personal favourite is the beautiful Trying My Luck with its smooth driving guitar lines and Julian’s desperate croon. Ultimately the Strokes invented modern music paving the way for The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon and making guitar music cool again. Ultimately that’s what Is This It is, it’s cool as fuck and it doesn’t care what you think of it, from the opening sentiment of Is This It to the closing gesture of Take It Or Leave It. The Strokes ushered in the age of the Understatement, slick, cool, stylish and apathetic the Strokes have absolutely nothing to say and yet paradoxically they say everything about modern society. Now in closing think back to those dark pre-Strokes days can you hear that? The idiotic cry “Keep Rollin Rollin”...ugh...christ...Viva La Revolution let us never go back. (10/10)
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