Stuck in my Head: Gloryhammer, "Fly Away"

 

A great deal of turmoil has descended upon the Kingdom of Fife since last we heard from Gloryhammer.

In the summer of 2021, the band unceremoniously fired vocalist Thomas Winkler with a brief, matter-of-fact social-media post just as live music was beginning to make a comeback. Shortly after that firing, a leaked chat transcript revealed some juvenile and offensive chatter between remaining members of the band that included racist and misogynistic jokes. An evil cloud descended upon the land, and it seemed that the former heroes might not be able to save it this time.

OK, I make a little light of what was a serious situation on both fronts. Winkler was an integral part of the band’s sound and was the absolute perfect frontman to take on the role of their main character Angus McFife. Obviously, I don’t need to explain the seriousness of the other charges.

Review: Zeal & Ardor, "Zeal & Ardor"

When a band gets classified as black metal, that’s usually going to be a hard pass. The label conjures up a certain stereotype, I suppose, that just doesn’t appeal to me. I imagine an album that sounds like it was captured on a shoebox recorder in someone’s basement, guitars that sound like angry bees and a guy in corpse paint screaming in an incoherent rasp about Satan. I expect songs that are linear with little melody and certainly nothing so mundane as a chorus or hook.

Yes, I know that’s a broad generalization of the genre and not truly representative of everything it contains, but that’s what immediately comes to mind.

There are plenty of exceptions, but none quite as exceptional as Zeal & Ardor. In fact, I wouldn’t call them black metal at all, but that seems to be the general consensus. There are elements of the music present, certainly, with occasional buzzing guitars and screams, and there’s the general disdain for religion that permeates black-metal lyrics. But there’s so much more at play here, including blues, soul and, strangely enough, a heavy gospel influence.

Review: Aerosmith, "1971: The Road Starts Hear"

As a young boy, I was introduced to Aerosmith by my teenage aunt as we rode the backroads jamming to songs like “Walk this Way” and “Sweet Emotion.” I forgot about them for a few years, until their resurgence in the mid-1980s, at which point I went back to explore their ‘70s work and discovered that I already knew most of it.

Aerosmith was, and remains, one of the two most important musical acts in my life, along with Black Sabbath. I was obsessed with the band for many years, so obsessed in fact that my friends in high school knew that if I was a few minutes late to class, it probably meant that an Aerosmith video had come on MTV at the time that I should have been leaving in the morning, and I had delayed my departure to watch it. I sang the praises of Aerosmith until my friends were sick of hearing it and would insult the band just to get me to shut up and leave. The ‘70s version of the band was just so damned cool, though.

Random Rants: HBO's "Peacemaker" and glam metal

When director James Gunn took on the relatively obscure Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel, he brought a chart-topping soundtrack of 1970s music that connected with audiences and became an integral part of the film’s success.

Now, Gunn has taken on an even more obscure property from DC in the HBO Max series Peacemaker, and he’s done something similar for a surprising genre. In this raunchy romp about a ridiculously goofy and often clueless anti-hero, James Gunn has injected a much-needed dose of humor and silliness into the previously mostly grim DC Comics Universe, and in the process, he’s also injected life back into the glam-metal sounds of the 1980s.

For a child of the ‘80s, the soundtrack for Peacemaker hits hard. But much of the real fun in it is that a great many of the featured bands and songs are not from that era of the glam scene, but from the more recent past. Look no further than the goofy yet endearing opening sequence which has turned Wig Wam’s 2010 track “Do Ya Wanna Taste It” into a bit of a sensation.

Best of 2021: Trivium, BLS, Sumo Cyco, Flotsam and Jetsam, Ad Infinitum, Cody Jinks

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. 

Standout songs: “Old Washita,” “STFU,” “Money”

Review: Avatar, "Hunter Gatherer"

It’s not often these days that I’m a latecomer to a band. All the music in the world is at my fingertips, and I’m pretty much willing to give anything at least one listen. But somehow, I missed the boat on Avatar.

Back in my newspaper days, I remember them playing a local club. I checked them out, thought it wasn’t my cup of tea, and moved on. I’m not sure what album that was or what songs I listened to, but having spent the past couple of weeks catching up on their catalog, I feel a little silly.

The song that sent me down the Avatar rabbit hole was “Child” from their latest release Hunter Gatherer. I’m not sure what made me click on it after steadfastly ignoring the band for years, but I’m glad that I did.

The super-creepy little ditty about a young child whose mother has been buried alive bounces between a manic, showtune-like verse and a bashing, screaming bridge that leads to an infectious chorus melody straight out of a horror movie – the good kind. It was love at first listen for me, and after running through the song a few times, I had to hear the rest of the record.

Review: Anti-Mortem at the Rail Club (July 25, 2021)

Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have made the four-plus hour drive to Forth Worth for less than a bucket-list concert. But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they?

Still, this one will certainly go down as a show I’ll never forget for a few reasons. The first is simply that it had been almost two years since I’d had the chance to abuse my eardrums with some live heavy metal. The second is that Anti-Mortem’s debut New Southern was one of my favorite albums of the last decade. It’s still in regular rotation nearly 10 years later, and until recently, I was bummed that I thought it would be the last music we ever heard from them. Even with those two factors, I still would have been hesitant to take this trip, but it was my son who spotted the show online and really wanted to go. That sealed the deal.

Review: Alestorm, "Curse of the Crystal Coconut"

To say that I anticipated this album more than any other in 2020 would be an understatement. Through five albums with Alestorm and three with Gloryhammer, Christopher Bowes has never disappointed me – and the band’s last outing, 2017’s No Grave but the Sea, was its best to date. I’ve sung the praises of Bowes at the top of my lungs, and his music has been a source of great joy for me for more than a decade. So it pains me to write this, but the magic just isn’t here on this one. It’s not a bad album by any means, but it’s just not on par with what they’ve done in the past.

Curse of the Crystal Coconut was always going to have a hard time following No Grave but the Sea. That release was near perfect. Bowes and crew were performing at the height of their piratical prowess on that one, and three years later, there’s not a song on it that gets the skip button. But the strong melodies and catchy hooks of No Grave are traded in here for a collection of middle-of-the-road songs that lack much of the charm I’ve come to expect.

Review: Amaranthe, "Manifest"

I always imagine what the conversation with friends might have been like when Amaranthe decided to get together.

Friend: So are you guys going to be a pop act, a prog metal outfit or a melodic death metal band?

Amaranthe: Yes.

The band has made a decade-long career out of mixing things that shouldn’t go together, and their sixth album, Manifest, continues the tradition. The vocal trio of Elize Ryd, Nils Molin and Henrik Englund Wilhelmsson all give the music a different perspective. Ryd brings the pop hooks and looks, Molin delivers the power and mystery, and Wilhelmsson hammers it home with his death-style growls. Guitarist and primary composer Olof Morck plays them all masterfully in an irresistible genre-blending brand of metal.