Go the whole hog

I've noticed a bit of a trend over the past couple of years, of bands playing a lot of shows, building a following, releasing an album (all normal so far, right), then disappearing from view - either splitting up or just reducing the momentum. It's something that I can't understand, and somehow it bugs me a bit - although I am easily bugged.

Best of 2011

So the year's almost over and like every other blog out there I'm going to take a look back at some of my musical highlights from the past year.


There's been a lot of good music out there this year, so it's been tough trying to pick the ones that really stood out - apologies to any band missed off these lists.


Live


Alphabethead – I’d been told for years to go and see Alphabethead and once even came close to filming him live for a DVD magazine, but it fell through.  This year I finally got to see him perform and had my mind blown by his turntable wizardry, his amazing mixing ability and his entertaining antics.  Watching him live will change the way you think about hip hop/dance music.


Beastwars – On record Beastwars have a strong sound, but live they elevate things to another level.  A Beastwars show is always an entertaining, sharp and intense experience.  Frontman Matt provides most of that intensity, with theatrics that complement the bands sludgy, doomy brand of metal.

Luger Boa – Having never paid much attention to Luger Boa before, I was impressed by their professionalism and energy in their live performance.  They knew how to get the crowd going, and energized the room.  It’s a stark contrast to bands who amble onto stage, keep the audience waiting while they get themselves sorted out, and then crank out a set of songs like they can’t wait to get off stage.  Luger Boa should be used an example to new bands as to how to put on a performance.

Shihad – Shihad are a band I tend to see at least once a year, but this year they treated us to intimate performances of Killjoy and The General Electric in full (along with a couple of older tracks as an encore, including It from their early EP Devolve).  As if that wasn’t enough, they then returned to their old high school, where the band formed 20 odd years ago, to perform alongside some of the school’s current bands.  It was a pretty cool thing to do and a great performance.

Foo Fighters – It’s kind of a cop out picking the Foo’s because I doubt they ever put on a bad show, and their shows never change – when I saw them a couple of weeks ago it wasn’t much different to when I saw them 3 years ago.  But they are the epitome of the big rock show and do it so well that I had to include them.  If you’ve never seen them before make sure you catch them at least once – their almost 3 hour sets of non-stop rock are a lot of fun.

Mountaineater – Mountaineater were another band that I’d been told for years to go and see.  This year I finally managed it.  They combine the best bits of HDU but take push the sound further than HDU ever did.  They’re also one of the loudest bands I’ve ever seen live.

Albums

It’s always difficult trying to remember what albums I’ve heard over the past 12 months, but here’s some that have stood out.

Outrun The Buffalo – I can’t get enough of Outrun The Buffalo’s EP.  It’s quirky, fun, dark, moody all wrapped up into one almost unclassifiable package.  It’s also the best example from the year of a collection of songs working together and complementing each other, with the EP flowing perfectly from song to song.

Black Tusk – Savannah, Georgia, seems to churn out sludge bands like some sort of metal factory.  Black Tusk do it better than most and their latest album Taste The Sin is a fine example of the sludge genre.

Sorceress – Ontario’s Sorceress released a demo this year, available on cassette or download only, and it features some of the hottest sounds in metal I’ve heard all year. Heavy, doomy, raw - it's awesome, and it's just a demo.

Mastodon – The Hunter was one of my most anticipated releases of the year and it didn’t disappoint.  It’s a departure in style for Mastodon but still features plenty of huge riffs, layers of sound and driving rhythms.  It took a while to grow on me, but it’s now one of my favourite albums.

Royce Da 5’9” – The latest album Success Is Certain has a great sound to it, never takes itself seriously and is probably the best hip hop album of the year for me.


That's it for this year.  I'll be back in 2012 with some new songs for y'all to listen to and more talk on all things music.  

This week my ears have been enjoying...

Seeing there's a new Incubus album out made me want to listen to some of their older stuff, you know, from back when they were good.  Their sound after Make Yourself seemed to veer too much toward radio-friendly, middle of the road rock, and to be blunt, was pretty boring.  Make Yourself was still interesting, although still softer than the two albums before it, and still rocks now, 12 years after it was released.

Another list of random albums that I've had a listen to this week

After listening to Chino Moreno's new side project Crosses last week I had a hankering for some Deftones.  Diamond Eyes is probably my favourite of the Deftones albums - I think they managed to get the balance between chunky, solid riffs (almost like Meshuggah in some parts) and melodic and atmpospheric sounds just right.  This is a serious collection of solid tunes and I can't get enough of it at the moment.

These are, like, my all time favourite albums, as of right now, okay.

I'm sometimes asked by people to list my top albums - whether it's best ever, top 3, 5, 10 or whatever.  It seems like a pretty easy thing to do at first glance, but once you start thinking about it, it starts to get tricky.  I can usually come up with a quick list off the top of my head, without really getting into what constitutes a "top" album.  Is it albums that have stuck in my head?  Or perhaps the albums that I connect with significant moments in my life?  Or maybe the albums that introduced me to a band or a genre?

For this post I thought I'd have another go at it and come up with my top 5 albums of all time.  I've selected albums that I have distinct memories of, that had a pretty major impact on my life or musical enjoyment and experiences, and importantly, that I still listen to and enjoy now.  So in no particular order of significance...

Appetite for Destruction by Guns n' Roses.  Okay, so I went into why this album means so much to me in last weeks' post, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time going into it again - you can read all about it here.  I actually stopped listening to this for about five or six years, as I got into a real metal phase for a while, then when I snapped out of it I'd kind of moved on.  Then I had it played to me again about 10 years ago and all the reasons I love this album and what it meant to me came flooding on back.  In terms of where I am now musically, and how I got here, probably the most important album on my list.

Live at the Fillmore East by Miles Davis.  I grew up listening to a lot of jazz - my dad had a huge collection of jazz on vinyl - but when I heard this album it blew my mind.  Recorded over four nights in 1970, this showcases Miles at his best - mellow Miles, traditional Miles, Miles the innovator and experimenter.  After hearing this I went out the next day and signed up to trumpet lessons, mainly because I'd never realized the trumpet could be so cool.  It's definitely the best Miles Davis album I've heard and well before he started to get way into (too far into) electronic music. 

...And Justice For All by Metallica.  The Black album was actually the first Metallica album I remember hearing, although I might have heard some of the earlier stuff before then, but Justice is the one that stands out for me, and got me into Metallica in a big way (and the start of that metal phase I mentioned earlier).  Despite the sometimes shoddy production on it, including the (deliberate?) vandalism to the bass track, the songs are epic slabs of metal and are Metallica at their peak (the Black album is too polished and commercial for my tastes, and coincides with when the cracks started to show in the band and therefore in their music).

Straight Out Of Compton by NWA.  Before I heard this, and I did hear it a couple of years after it came out, it made me realise that hip-hop wasn't all happy Will Smith tracks and Hammer pants.  This was real music, about real situations, created by the people who lived it.  Okay, that last bit might be open to debate, but the feeling in that music, from the strong opening track, right through their diatribes against the police and... oh wait, that was pretty much the whole album, that feeling was what was missing from all the other hip hop I'd heard up until then.  I've been a fan of Ice Cube and Dr Dre ever since (until Dre's releases starting getting worse and worse anyway).

Suck On This by Primus.  Who knew bass could be the focus of a band?  Not me, until I heard Les Claypool noodling away on Primus' first release.  And who releases a live album before they've even released a studio album anyway?  Primus were never going to be a conventional band, right from the start; you could argue that Sausage, the forerunner to Primus, ensured normality was never going to be an option for them.  Their songs are ridiculous tall tales of exploits on the seas, in dark alleys and bars, and on the road, but it's the music that Primus do best.  Tim "Herb" Alexander delivers an amazing performance on the drums, including an impressive solo, and Larry LaLonde ain't too shabby either.  Frizzle Fry, the follow up and debut studio album, is one of my favourites too, but it's this album that introduced me to Primus and made me want to learn bass (see a theme developing here?).

Now, I know it's a top five list, but since I already dedicated an entire post to Appetite for Destruction, I think I'm entitled to one more pick.

Lateralus by Tool.  What's to say about this?  Amazing drumming?  Check.  Big riffs?  Check.  Wicked vocal effects?  Of course.  Solid playing, interesting compositions, fun with time signatures?  All there.  I've been on the Tool bandwagon since Undertow came out, but Lateralus represents the culmination of the Tool journey to me.  10,000 days was a bit same old, whereas with every other release before that they'd pushed the envelope (to quote from Lateralus itself) and destroyed all expectations.  Sure, the previous albums were awesome too, and Aenima got them the attention they deserved, but with Lateralus it's like they didn't care so much about winning over new fans, or getting exposure, they just went ahead and made an album that needed to be made.  And for that I thank them.

There's a few other albums that should have made this list but it was hard enough settling on five.  So to round out my top ten, we've got:

• Reign in Blood by Slayer - best thrash metal album of all time, and has stood the test of time.
• The Real Thing by Faith No More - funky, fast, aggressive and most of all fun.
• Killjoy by Shihad - New Zealand's best rock band ever.  Big, loud, chunk riffs and solid playing.  Produced by Killing Joke's Jaz Coleman, so it was always going to be awesome.
• Back In Black by AC/DC - another album of big, solid riffs.  It's a wall of sound coming down to rock your world and steal your women.  Their best album, and then they went and got into screaming solos.  Shame.

So, let's hear your top five albums... leave a comment with your list below.

This week I've mostly been listening to..

There’s been some awesome new music out over the last week or two.  Here’s my picks of that new music…

Mastodon’s Black Tongue, the first single of their upcoming album The Hunter, is popping up all over the net as a teaser.  It’s not going to please fans of the older, heavier Mastodon sound, but if you were into their last album, and that softer, more melodic sound, then you’ll be well impressed.  They’re definitely continuing to progress and develop their sound.  Can’t wait to hear the rest of the album (out late September).