Saturday Shuffle: Danzig, Alice Cooper, Sentenced, Slayer, Doctor Butcher

Time to shuffle again: 

“Brand New God,” Danzig. From the album IV (1994). IV is definitely not my favorite Danzig album, but this is one of the songs I do like. I love those sparse power chords of the beginning as Glenn Danzig wails out the first line. Then we get into more of a bashing metal-type song, then there’s that bendy guitar riff and slower part in the middle that reminds me of something off the first record. It’s definitely one of the high points of this record.

15 Years, 15 Records: 2005, Zakk Wylde makes an offer we can't refuse

Zakk Wylde finally put it all together with Black Label Society in 2005 for Mafia. Sure, the band had never released a bad record to that point, but the songs, the mix, everything was just right for Mafia.

Led by the charging rock of the opening single “Suicide Messiah” and the catchy hook of the main riff of “Fire It Up,” the record was a stark contrast to the mostly acoustic Hangover Music, released just a year before. There were mellower moments, as well, though, most notably the ballad “In This River,” which Wylde dedicated to Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott.

Mafia made a promise that 2006’s lackluster Shot to Hell couldn’t keep, and it wasn’t until 2010’s outstanding Order of the Black that the band got back on track.

15 Years, 15 Records: 2002, Members of Pantera, COC get Down again

There was some serious competition in 2002, but it’s an easy choice for me. The Southern sludge of Down’s second release remains an all-time favorite record of mine. After beginning as a side project between Pantera’s Phil Anselmo, Corrosion of Conformity’s Pepper Keenan, Crowbar’s Kirk Windstein and Eyehategod’s Jimmy Bower – all from New Orleans – the band released its first record, NOLA, in 1995 and disappeared for seven years as the members returned to their respective bands.

In 2002, as Pantera was falling apart, the band unleashed Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow, now also featuring Pantera’s Rex Brown on bass. The album was a little groovier and a little more Southern than the band’s first outing.

15 Years, 15 Records: 2000, Alice Cooper gets 'Brutal'

The thrashing opening riff of Alice Cooper’s Brutal Planet announces 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.

Review: Poisonblack, "Of Rust and Bones"

I could really use a new Sentenced album about now. Unfortunately, that won’t be happening, so I have to settle for the next best thing – singer Ville Laihiala’s Poisonblack.

My relationship with Laihiala’s side project turned main project has been up and down. I wasn’t wild about the debut record with a different vocalist, but the follow-up, Lust Stained Despair, with Laihiala back on the mic, was among my favorite records for 2006. When 2008’s A Dead Heavy Day came around, I couldn’t get into it. Granted, times were better then, so I just might not have been in the mood. Of Rust and Bones, on the other hand, has arrived with perfect timing.