I’ve been pretty quiet in 2021, and that’s because it was a year of great change for me. I made a career shift well out of my comfort zone in January, and it was a pretty intense 12 months – but intense in a good way. Because of that, I didn’t get the opportunity to write much about the music that moved me, and there was a lot of it, so I didn’t want to let it all pass without at least some small acknowledgement. I’ve got a lot to say for one best of list, so without further ado, here’s a look at my Best of 2021:
Honorable Mentions
ANTI-MORTEM – ANTI-MORTEM: This was probably my most anticipated album of the year. I loved their 2014 debut New SouthernNew Southern, and the first single from this record, “Old Washita,” recaptured that grooving Southern sound that hit so close to home for me. It sticks out like a sore thumb on this album, though. The rest of the record is mostly good, but very different than what I expected. The heavy guitar riffs from Nevada Romo are still there, but it has a more modern feel with some electronics thrown in – and Larado Romo’s powerful voice is too often disguised under megaphones or effects.
I waited 35 years for this – since the first time I heard Number of the Beast (admittedly, a couple of years after its release) – but the biggest remaining band on my bucket list has been checked off.
One of the regrets of my teenage years has always been missing a 1980s show in my area that featured both Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. It was a mid-week concert during the school year, and I would have been hard-pressed to get my parents’ OK, so I didn’t try. As the years passed, I still had not seen either band for various reasons, and that decision loomed large. It was a long shot, but it would have been a shot.
I took care of Judas Priest, hitting a couple of shows over the past two years, and I vowed that I would not miss the next Iron Maiden concert within a reasonable drive. When tickets went on sale for the Dallas date last November, I was waiting to be sure that I got good seats. So even after having tickets in hand, there was still about 10 months of anticipation before I finally entered the Dos Equis Pavilion for that final payoff.
As I prepare to check the biggest band off my bucket list in a couple of months, I thought I’d give them the Dream Set treatment. The cut here was brutal.
As Nicko McBrain announced in a series of hilarious videos, they’ll be playing 16 songs, nearly two hours, and still not hitting everything I want. My rules limit it to 13, which is even tougher. There aren’t a lot of surprises in this setlist, and as much as I tried to skip a few of the “big” numbers, I just couldn’t do it.
THE MAIN SET
“Wrathchild” (Iron Maiden, 1980). I love this song as an opener. It’s high-energy, aggressive and gets things kicked off the right way.
I’ve been a huge fan of Flotsam and Jetsam’s last couple of records. They’re probably one of the more underrated thrash bands of that genre’s classic era, and I thought they found their way again on 2010’s The Cold and 2012’s Ugly Noise.
“Iron Maiden,” the first single off their upcoming eponymous album presents a serious shifting of gears from those two records.
This past year was a strange one for me musically. While there were a few albums that I’d consider outstanding, I had a very hard time finding new music that connected with me. Some highly anticipated records disappointed me, and an album for which I really had no expectations stunned me and rose to the top of my Best of 2015 list.
Rather than culling from a big list as usual, I had to stretch a little to get it to 10 entries, and the bands on the list are all pretty well-established acts. It’s certainly not the strongest top 10 that I’ve ever turned in, but those few records at the top would be there in any year.
Here’s hoping for a more fruitful musical search in 2016 …
10. PRO-PAIN – THE VOICE OF REBELLION: This is the first of a few surprises on the Best of 2015 list for me. Though the veteran hardcore band has been popping out albums every year or two since their 1992 debut Foul Taste of Freedom, I haven’t really given them much thought since that record. I liked the debut but, as with most hardcore, the sound got old to me after a while. I gave this one a listen with somewhat fresh ears, and songs like the raging title track and the catchy “Age of Disgust” pulled me in.
I often think heavy metal fans are far too enamored with long songs. I’m guilty myself. If all the songs on a record are 8-10 minutes long, then it’s got to be epic, right? Maybe it’s a deep-seated rebellion against the punchy three-minute pop song that makes us think that way, but the epic metal that we expect isn’t always what we get.
When word got out that Iron Maiden’s latest record Book of Souls was a double album with only 11 songs, there were ooohs and aaahs. There was a Maiden-getting-back-to-its-roots sort of feeling for some, since they are the band responsible for a great many of those truly epic long-playing metal songs of the past. After a few listens though, I tend to think of Book of Souls less as a double album than a single disc stretched beyond the capabilities of its content.
After a few weeks of wildly varied shuffles, we're back to something a little more metal, minus one country tune, of course ...
Bruce Dickinson, "Kill Devil Hill." From the album A Tyranny of Souls (2005). Man, we're long overdue for a new Bruce Dickinson solo album. His solo work, at least for me, has been far better than Iron Maiden's records in recent years. My shuffle seems to love this song, which naturally, deals with the Wright Brothers' first flight. It's one of those great, dramatic Dickinson tunes.
Though three of the five songs are from the early 1990s, it feels like a very '80s sort of week ...
Jackyl, "Let's Don't Go There." From the album Cut the Crap (1997). Arguably the first ballad from a band that had previously prided itself on not doing ballads (I'm going to agree with their statement that "Secret of the Bottle" was an attempt at a country song rather than a ballad). Yeah, they rock it up on the chorus, but it's still a ballad. Not a bad song, but not one of the best from the record.
This week, a group of really good musicians do a really bad job on Iron Maiden, and we throw in a little classic country, Southern rock, Canadian thrash and punk...
Chuck Billy/Craig
Goldy/Rickie Phillips/Mikkey Dee, “Fear of the Dark.” From the album Numbers
from the Beast (2005). Yeah, this is one of Iron Maiden’s coolest songs, and
this version just really doesn’t work for me. An overly effects-laden vocal
performance from Chuck Billy might be cool in another use, but I miss the dark
Bruce Dickinson delivery. Musically it’s pretty faithful, but as much as I love
Testament, this isn’t the venue for Billy.
Kind of a heavy theme to this week’s shuffle. Let’s get it going…
Overkill, “Loaded Rack.” From the album ReliXIV (2005). This
was a pretty uneven record for Overkill, but “Loaded Rack” is one of the better
tracks. It’s got that old-school Overkill feel and a some memorable hooks and
melodies.
Today I launch a new weekly
feature here that serves little point other than maybe occasionally
embarrassing me or making me remember a record I’ve forgotten about.
I call it the Saturday
Shuffle, and it goes like this: I’ll put my music collection on shuffle and
comment each week on the first five songs that come blasting out of the
speakers. No skips, no hedging over potentially embarrassing tunes that might
pop up. The only songs that I’ll skip are duplicates that I’ve covered before. I
hope you enjoy it, maybe find something that you’ve not heard or forgotten or
possibly get an occasional laugh. And away we go:
Originally released as Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper on Deadline Records in 1998, this collection of covers has recently gotten a repackaging from Cleopatra Records with a few extra tunes from Iced Earth, Children of Bodom and Icarus Witch tossed in as a bonus.
Though most of the songs are done by a mish-mash of artists thrown together – as was the whole series of tribute albums released by Deadline in the late 1990s – there are representatives from some of the biggest names in hard rock and metal here. On the tracks, you’ll find members of The Who, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Megadeth, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Dio, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, the Ozzy Osbourne band, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Dokken and more. There are also a few names you might not expect, like sax man Clarence Clemons and bassist Stu Hamm.
The thrashing opening riff of Alice Cooper’s Brutal Planetannounces immediately that this record is going to be a little different. The record, which is essentially a morality play, is darker and bleaker with less of Cooper’s trademark black humor, though it does creep in on songs like “It’s the Little Things.”
It’s a heavier record musically, easily Alice’s most metallic, and the themes that he tackles in the songs are heavier as well. It was part of a trio of heavier records, ending with 2001’s Dragontown, after which he returned to his garage rock roots.
White Wizzard’s last outing, Over the Top, was my favorite record of last year. It was a great fun throwback record that hit me immediately, and some of the songs from that record are still on my everyday playlist. I gushed about it every time I got the chance. So Flying Tigers was one of my most, if not the most, anticipated record of the year for me. Admittedly, I already had it penciled in for a spot atop my best of list for this year, so perhaps my hopes were a little too high, but after spending a few weeks with it, my reaction is a resounding “meh.”
It’s been a turbulent year and a half since the release of Over the Top. Singer Wyatt Anderson left the band, then returned to record this album, then left the band again. Guitarist Erik Kluiber is also out. The lineup for this record included founder/bassist Jon Leon, Anderson, drummer Giovanni Durst and producer Ralph Patlan.
When Bruce Dickinson’s first solo album, Tattooed Millionaire, arrived in 1990, it left me — and I’m sure many other Iron Maiden fans — just a little confused. My initial reaction to this mixture of 1970s-inspired hard rock and 1980s excess was deep disappointment.
It was such a far cry from what I was used to from Dickinson, and I thought the simplistic song structures didn’t really allow him to use that amazing voice to its fullest. Luckily for me, during those years, a $10 cassette was a serious investment, so I rarely gave up on one without a fight. As I gave it more chances, many of the songs began to grow on me, and two decades later, I’m actually quite fond of the album.
I’m wondering if Iron Maiden mastermind Steve Harris is, for some reason, trying to alienate fans. First, the band goes on tour last year playing primarily songs from its last four records and largely ignoring the classic albums that made them one of the top heavy metal bands in the world. Then came the lazy and uninspired The Final Frontier. (Yes, I know not everyone agrees with me, but it was really flat.) Now, we’re presented with yet another compilation album to try to suck money out of fans’ wallets.
I so rarely get a physical product these days with review copies that I think I get way too excited when I get a nice one in the mail. The trappings of Three Thirteen’s Full Tilt aren’t all that elaborate – it’s a folding slipcase, designed a bit like an old LP cover, with a three-page insert. But it’s still pretty damned cool.
The band is a throwback to the classic 1970s and ‘80s days of hard rock and metal, and the packaging celebrates that era.
For all the mediocre music he shelled out under the Black Sabbath name following the departure of Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi seems to be making amends later in life. His reunion of the Dio-era Sabbath lineup under the name Heaven and Hell a few years ago produced the best Black Sabbath record (and it was Sabbath, no matter what the cover said) since the same lineup reunited in 1992 for Dehumanizer. Now, he’s back together with Ian Gillan, who fronted Sabbath briefly after Dio left, for a charity record to benefit the rebuilding of a music school in Armenia that was destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1988.
Since that earthquake, Iommi and Gillan, who helped in the original relief efforts, have spent a lot of time in Armenia. On a recent visit, they discovered a music school, which had been destroyed by the quake, still meeting and trying to carry on in tin sheds. On the flight home, the pair came up with the plan for a one-off project called WhoCares to help benefit the school. The result is a new single, “Out of My Mind,” out this month on EarMusic in Europe and Eagle Rock Entertainment in the U.S.
Just the reunion of Iommi and Gillan would likely be enough for most heavy rock fans, but the rest of the band reads like a who’s who of the genre. Gillan’s former Deep Purple bandmate Jon Lord handles the keys for the project. Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain and ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted make up the rhythm section. Representing the younger generation is guitarist Mikko “Linde” Lindstrom of HIM, who, at 34, is 14 years the junior of Newsted, the next youngest member, and 35 years younger than oldest member, Lord, who is 69. But all that goes to show is age doesn’t really matter when it comes to good music, and “Out of My Mind” is really good.
This first single is very much in the Black Sabbath mode. The song opens with a low rumbling as Newsted thumps a bass line that sounds just a bit like the main riff of “Black Sabbath,” while Iommi provides a quiet, slightly distorted guitar lick. It slowly builds into one of those trademark Iommi power chord beasts of a riff, and Gillan’s vocals, even at age 65, are great. In fact, it’s kind of funny to watch the video for the song below and see this nice, grandfatherly looking gentleman and then hear the voice that’s coming out of him. Lord builds some dramatic flourishes on the Hammond organ on the chorus, which is really the only place you can hear him on the song, Iommi’s guitar dips down for an even deeper, darker growl, and Gillan continues to soar mocking vocals over the top of it. It’s a thing of beauty for an old metalhead.
A little later in the song, the assault is toned down for a softer interlude that sounds a lot like something from Ozzy-era Sabbath, right down to a more nasally vocal tone from Gillan. Iommi delivers a soulful lead, and after another trip down into that dark chorus, the song fades out with some slightly exotic sounding lead guitar licks. I’ll admit that I wasn’t a fan of Gillan-era Black Sabbath, but this song makes me a believer. Maybe it’s time I went back and gave Born Again another listen.
The b-side of the single (can you call it a b-side anymore?) is a song called “Holy Water,” which should please the other half of this band’s target audience. The song fades in with some Persian-flavored sounds before going full on rock. Lord has a more heavily featured role in this song, as his Hammond gets behind Iommi’s main riff and pushes it along. We get a bluesier, smokier vocal from Gillan that has a very late ’60s feel, and the song, overall, is more of a Deep Purple number. I prefer “Out of My Mind,” but then I also prefer Sabbath to Purple. You can’t really go wrong with either tune, though.
My only complaint with this project is that there’s not enough of it. I’ve been both anticipating and dreading a Black Sabbath reunion with Ozzy Osbourne because I know it can’t possibly live up to their first six records. After hearing “Out of My Mind,” I say let Sabbath rest in peace. I want to hear more from WhoCares — a lot more.
It's a rare year when my best-of list starts at 25 records and I have to whittle that down to 10. Typically, there aren't that many records that stick with me, and there have been years where I had to dig and include a few I wasn't really pumped about to get to 10. But metal fans have been pretty lucky in the last couple of years, and this year, at least for me, ended up being a banner year.
Sometimes I find myself with many more records than I have time to review, so I have to pick and choose my reviews based on what I like better or what my fellow writers at other outlets are doing. Sometimes, though, I’d still like to say a little something about those records, so I’m going to try a new feature out and see how it works. From time to time, I’ll collect three or four of these records and just give a quick paragraph or two take on them. Here are the first three.
