Wraith - Naked Aggression

Wraith are a ridiculous metal band from the UK, who I can only imagine expired quite some time ago, falling into the pits of obscurity along with dozens of failed major label deals and washed up airbrush artists. I mean, wallowing in the mire of death and grind for so long has exposed me to some absolute shiners when it comes to record sleeves, but whoever painted this deserves a fucking medal; that has to be one of the worst album sleeves in the history of music. 

Sound wise, I gotta say that I enjoy this, which is as surprised a statement as the words that I uttered when first laying eyes on that cover art (sorry to focus on it so much, but honestly, it is the only reason I actually listened to this thing in the first place). Sure, it leans more towards Motley Crue than it does to say, Venom, but I didn't turn it off before it ended, so it can't have been that bad, right? Right!? Just don't ask me to try and name any standout tracks....

Dave Stewart And The Spiritual Cowboys - Dave Stewart And The Spiritual Cowboys

Holy shit this is some chilled out stuff. I'm not talking dubby or ambient or anything, just nice and laid back rock'n'roll with easy, soft vocals and a purring bassline. I would never have bought this myself, mainly because I have never heard of Dave Stewart before; it was a gift from my old man (as the Americans say), who sometimes randomly sends a record my way, which is awfully kind of him. Apparently on a recent holiday my parents took, my father was mistaken for a retired Dave Stewart by the hotel staff. When I was told this story it became apparent that I had never heard of Dave Stewart, and a few weeks later this 12" landed in my possession. Ha!

As I opened up with saying, track 1 is chilled as feck, but track 2 "King Of The Hypocrites" brings all of the funk in the universe, chicken-grease guitars and all. The song that follows it, "Diamond Avenue" has a whole fast-paced abstract lyrical approach that reminds me of something that Bryan Ferry might have done at some point (think "Street Life" or "A Hard Rain's A'Gonna Fall" (that title might not be strictly 100% correct!)). The remains of the A side are fairly lackluster compared to these first three songs.

Side B opens up all guns blazing, with all sorts of shit going on; trumpets popping up left right and centre for the lively yet very rubbish "Party Town". In fact, "Party Town" is so goddamn awful that I call the listening a day right here. I've gotten an over-all feel for what's going on here! Ha ha! No doubt I'll spin this again soon but for the purposes of this review I have heard more than enough Dave Stewart and the Spiritual Cowboys. Mega recommends if you're into classic rock and/or roll, otherwise I wouldn't bother clicking.

Blue Oyster Cult - Cultosaurus Erectus

We've all heard "(Don't Fear) The Reaper", possibly hundreds of times in bars, pubs and on shitty "best-of" 3 disc rock music compilations. I'm pretty sure that "THE BEST Driving Album In The World, EVER no. 198234" even has it on there twice for good measure. But despite my over-exposure to their biggest hit, I had absolutely no knowledge of Blue Oyster Cult at all. Well, when I was in sixth form my teacher used to insist that Blue Oyster Cult secretly invented the heavy metal genre, but other than that, I knew nothing of them.

 

It was a random fluke then when my parents bought me this record as a present on their recent trip up to Birmingham. I don't really know why, but I guess they saw a record shop and thought of me, which is nice. Being entirely unfamiliar with the Blue Oyster I immediately threw it on the deck and gave it a spin. And you know what, it ain't half bad. I got a lot of spacey Hawkwind vibes from the cover, but the overall feel is a lot more rock and/or roll than Hawkwind. It holds that unique production sound of the early 80s, where the feeling and natural tone of most 70s records met awkwardly with the digital studio production of the future. The production is very clinical, and each instrument stands out perfectly, but at the same time it doesn't lose much of the "olde-y worlde-y" charm. It's quite the paradox!

None of the songs are anywhere near as good as the previously mentioned tune about the reaper, but the opening track "Black Blade" is a stormer, and track 3 "Divine Wind" is my second favourite. Side B is definitely weaker than side A, but "Deadline" is by far the worst song here. All in all, a nice experience but not something I'd run out and buy.

One bitchin' poster. 

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

These old Sabbath records are everywhere in abundance and picking one up is retardly easy because they are so cheap. Any metalhead worth his salt should appreciate the first four Sabbath records, in my rather elitist and useless opinion. This is Sabbath record number three, and is still lodged firmly in the category of "Good Sabbath", thank holy fuck. As far as I'm concerned, Sabotage onwards things start to go a bit pear shaped. As soon as Dio came into the picture, well that's another story for another time. I can literally feel the backlash of various opinions and arguements as I type this!

Master of Reality opens with one of my favourite Black Sabbath songs, "Sweet Leaf". At the price this comes at these days this record is worth buying on this song alone. Whatever your opinion on da 'erb, there is no denying the sheer excellence and rifftacularness of this track. It is chilled out and heavy as fuck at the same time, something we are (thankfully) used to thanks to the stoner and doom genres of today but back in it's time it was something else entirely, just like the whole Sabbath sound. Closing side A is "Children of the Grave", another Sabbath favourite of mine, percussion heavy and almost progressive in parts. Side B sexplodes into the acoustic "Orchid" before giving way to another Sabbath favourite. "Lord of this World".

I could go into every single song but then that would be a bit boring I think, especially on the subject of Black Sabbath. Sometimes I feel a bit dickish reviewing albums that have been out for years, so considering Master of Reality was out in 1971 and the world and his fucking cat have heard this album please excuse me if I don't go into too much depth. Classic shits, classic songs. If you haven't heard this then...well your on the wrong website ha ha!

Pus - Pus

Here's an EP I've been meaning to check out for a long time now, but me being me, it's taken me the best part of forever to finally stumble upon a copy. Maaaan this shit is so fucking heavy - so heavy that on my car stereo all I can hear whilst driving are the cymbals and vocals. This is something that generally happens with muddily produced grindcore records, but Pus' epic low end just isn't audible on tarmac. At home, however, things are different. On my absolutely epic 250w system, Pus can be appreciated to the max. The guitars are lower than Atlantis! They are the next thing after Hymns...era Last Days of Humanity due to rattle my neighbours out of bed sometime soon. I look forward to it.

 

The EP starts on a great note but for me I find it gets better and better as it goes on. The band's rather unique mega-doomy / sludge crossover sound really makes this CD, and allows for some very interesting songwriting to unfold. The vocals are agonized shouts and screams and for the most part are drenched in echo or distortion, which really adds to the vibe here. All in all, a cracking debut from Pus - this is some ugly shit! Blows my mind that some of these guys are / were from Merthyr and it's taken me this long to hear this stuff. I'm such a mong! I can't wait to see what this band come up with next. Released as a collaberation between Universal Tongue and Feretro Records.

Free EPK from ReverbNation.com

Cathedral - Endtyme

For me, Endtyme stands apart from anything else in the Cathedral discography. They have done dark before, sure, one needs not look further than the debut album to realize that, but that record is a whole other sack of decapitated witch heads. Here, Cathedral are chuggy and enormously groovy-heavy; and in a certain way take their groovy doom and smash it head on with the styles on display in the debut. Once I read somewhere  a quote that more-or-less said "Endtyme proves that Cathedral can still bang heads", and that pretty much sums it up.

 

"Melancholy Emperor" remained a Cathedral staple and ended up even on the Earache best of called The Serpent's Gold, "Whores to Oblivion" is catchy as shit, even featuring something that comes close to harsh noise at the end! Talk about variety! "Alcemist of Sorrow" is one of my favourite Cathedral songs, the opening lines of "I am Midas in reverse, my gold has turned to lead" are possibly the best example of Lee Dorrian's vocals ever (it's either that or "Huggy Bear? Oh yeah!"). Released a fuckload of time ago on Earache Records and strangely, this pressing was confined only to CD, which is very unusual for a band like Cathedral.

PS apologies for the frankly vomit-inducing scans; the Endtyme artwork is an absolute bitch to try and get a picture of because it's all so fucking shiny. 

Kroh / Ice Dragon - Split 7"

Kroh are on top form here, bringing up more mega-heavy tunage with their trademark crooning vocals. This could be a B-side from the S/T recording sessions for all I know, the sound is that similar to the recordings used there. Does it matter? Nope. Great stuff! Fat production, brilliant singing and THAT guitar sound that we love so much from Fukpig.

 

Ice Dragon I can't get my head around, unfortunately. The sound is an absolute mess, and the band play in some sort of melodic trad doom approach which is as confusing as it is interesting. Imagine merging Zeppelin and Sabbath in a birthing pool filled to the brim with the essence of the modern stoner metal sound, and then throw in some awful production values and you've pretty much got Ice Dragon. Eventually the song slows into one epic solo and shit sounds great, but when things are going faster it just all falls apart. I think I need to see these live to form a decent opinion on them.

Limited to 100 copies on Devizes Records, 50 on green wax and 50 on orange (this fucker).