I was a bit more sympathetic to the 'charms' of nu-metal back in its heyday, and regularly spun CDs from the likes of Slipknot, Korn and Spineshank. Mushroomhead's "XIII" was another that I picked up at the time of release. It appealed to me because it felt like it had quite a dark and ominous subtext to it, as opposed to the youthful anger and impotent rage of the more popular nu-metal acts. However, as I succumbed more and more to the seductions of extreme metal, the rap-heavy and ultimately impotent anger of nu-metal dropped out of my metal diet almost completely.

It has been a long time since I last played "XIII" but hearing it for the first time in many years I am reminded of why it had a particular appeal to me in the first place. It kicks off strongly with the ascerbic-sounding "Kill Tomorrow" complete with its hardcore-derived vocals hitting hard from the off, threatening to rip the listener's head clean off. "Sun Doesn't Rise" buys more into the rap side of nu-metal, but it has that ominous atmosphere to it that initially drew me to the album way back when. This dark cloud of ominous uncertainty sets this album apart from the "Iowa"s and "Follow the Leader"s of the time and is much more in keeping with the kind of doom aesthetic that appeals to me most. Alongside this there is often a mechanical throb to the riffs ("Mother Machine Gun" and "The Dream Is Over" for example) a la Fear Factory that gives Mushroomhead's version of nu-metal an industrial feeling at times and which positions them as close to FF as Korn.

The band sound incredibly tight with chunky riffs and a throbbing bassline, although the drums sound a little thinner than I would have liked, particularly the snare which, whilst it is no St Anger, is still a little tinny. The dual vocals contrasts hardcore punk raging with a strong, and faintly bluesy clean style for a quite striking effect. They also had an uncanny ear for a catchy melody with "Nowhere to Go" surprisingly never released as a single, despite sounding more radio-friendly than the album's only actual single "Sun Doesn't Rise" and making me feel like I should be waving a Zippo lighter in the air whilst "Almost Gone" is such a groovy mutha that it may well make even a grumpy old metalhead like me want to start dancing! Obviously such a long album would be much better if it had finished after the 8-minute "Destroy the World Around Me", foregoing the inconsequential "Thirteen" which is quite annoying, particularly with the old 'scratchy needle' sound effect, and the cover of Seal's "Crazy" which feels out of place with the rest of the material here.

The last few minutes aside, listening to this now, over two decades after its release, it feels like it has aged incredibly well, unlike so many of its contemporries from the nu-metal scene and still sounds fresh and exhilharating. Thanks for putting this forward as a feature, Saxy, and allowing me to reconnect with an old friend that I haven't entertained in quite a while and who is actually better company than I remember them being.

First thing to note is that I didn't completely hate this. Yeah I know, no one was more surprised than me, but I was swept along by the obvious enthusiasm and energy of the band and kind of went along for the ride. The speedy riffs and shredding solos are pretty entertaining, the riffs to both "Scream for Me" and "Burden of Time" for example stood out as being much heavier than I would have expected. Vocalist Asami is a big plus, sounding both melodic and reasonably powerful, although I am not so keen when she reaches for those really high notes and becomes a bit screechingly ragged, although this seems to be a feature of power metal generally that I just can't get to grips with. It is power metal after all so, of course, it is larger than life and over-the-top with keyboard overlays and some layered backing vocals, but not in a terribly cringey manner, ultimately being more operatic than pantomime. I do think that the album runs out of steam after "Burden of Time" and tracks like "The Apocalypse", "Inspire" and the godawfully balladic "Edge of the World" (the album's nadir for me) sound more like the kind of power metal that I struggle with.

Look, in truth this isn't going to break into my top 500 (or even 1000) metal albums and I am unlikely ever to pass this way again, but while it lasted I found it entertaining enough and I got through the whole thing pretty easily without a single skip and remarkably few cringes. In fact, if it had ended with "Burden of Time" I would have thought even more highly of it. Damning with faint praise then? Yeah, probably, but for me and power metal this was an untypically positive experience with the guitars and vocals being sufficiently impressive to keep me on board and to allow me to forgive the album its other obvious excesses, not least of which is the ear-batteringly, over-compressed mastering that makes it feel like it is being rammed into your ears with a steamhammer - and not in a good way!

Between 2000’s ‘Chocolate Starfish and the Hotdog Flavoured Water’ and 2003’s ‘Results May Vary’, American rap rockers Limp Bizkit went from being one of the biggest bands on the planet, to becoming one of the most hated. There is a number of reasons for this. Whether it’s to do with the quality of the music, pop culture fads, individual members of the band, or just about any other reason you can think of, it’s undeniable that from the mid-90’s to the early 2000’s, Limp Bizkit’s career was on an upwards trajectory. 

Then they released this abomination. 

‘New Old Songs’, released in 2001, features a whole bunch of soulless, uninspired and quite frankly, terrible remixes of tracks from the bands previous three studio releases. I can see how this certainly put people off. None of these tracks are overly enjoyable. They certainly didn’t appeal to the rock and metal fans, and I doubt hip hop fans would have cared to give it a chance either. 

At an absolute stretch, the ONLY decent track is the DJ Lethal remix of ‘My Way’, but even that is clutching at straws. I’d much rather listen to the original track. 

I don’t know what Limp Bizkit were aiming for here, but it blew up in their faces. Did the album sell a lot of copies and make lots of dollar for the band? Absolutely. Is there anyone who actually likes this album though? No. No there isn’t.  

‘Voice in the Light’ is a 2007 concept album by progressive metal supergroup, Amaran’s Plight. Featuring renowned musicians such as vocalist D.C. Cooper (Royal Hunt), guitarist Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery) and drummer Nick D’Virgilio (Spock’s Beard), this ambitious release is a treat for fans of the genre, and for fans of the individuals involved. 

Stylistically, this sounds a lot like Shadow Gallery. Fans of the band will no doubt enjoy this, and it shows the heavy involvement of guitarist and songwriter Gary Wehrkamp. Clocking in at one hour and 19 minutes, and stretching the physical CD to its storage limits, I won’t deny that I find the story a bit muddy at times. Whether it’s due to the long-winded duration, or just a number of filler tracks causing me to lose interest, usually by the end of the album I’m left baffled by whatever the concept was supposed to be. 

Musically however, this is a very good release, with a number of particular stand-out moments. The musicianship is excellent (as you’d expect), with plenty of dazzling guitar and keyboard virtuosity, as well as fantastic vocal performances, and the album is full of both heavy and melodic tracks. Highlights include ‘Truth and Tragedy’, ‘Turning Point’, ‘Betrayed By Love’, ‘Coming of Age’, the beautiful ‘Reflections Part 1’, and in my opinion the highlight of the album, the energetic ‘Viper’. 

While I doubt this is likely to be anyone’s favourite album, especially as the duration can make it a bit of a slog at times, overall, ‘Voice in the Light’ is a very solid release, and a worthy addition to any progressive metal collection. 

I originally became a part of the Australian metal scene as a fresh-faced teenager in the very early 1990’s. I’d been a fan of hard rock & metal for a good couple of years by that point & would religiously attend all of the international tours that were taking place at the time but it took me discovering legendary Sydney thrash metal establishment Mortal Sin in 1989 to realise that there was a local scene that could compete with the overseas acts I’d fallen in love with over the previous few years. But once I started to associate with older metalheads, I soon started to develop a list of mythical band names who had reportedly played strong roles in developing our beloved metal landscape here in the land down under. Amongst those names was a group that went by the very common metal moniker of Tyrant & who surprisingly hailed from the unlikely location of Tasmania i.e. the island state that’s positioned off the bottom south/east corner of Australia. I don’t think I ever got the opportunity to hear a Tyrant record at the time but I was always acutely aware that they were in some way important. It’s only been in the last few years that I’ve finally ventured back to check out Tyrant’s earliest work in the four-song “Never Too Loud” E.P. which was very successful on a local level & led to a string of important gigs across the country during the mid-1980’s.

Tyrant began life in the Tasmanian capital city of Hobart in March 1983, the project of the two Zarins brothers (guitarist Andy & drummer Robert) with their neighbour Neil “Steel” Wilson handling the vocals. They originally went by the much less cool name of Slyder & were more of an AOR act but the excitement of the NWOBHM & a very strong local pub rock scene soon saw them giving in to the lure of heavier sounds which triggered the requirement for a name change. Second guitarist Grant Wallace & bassist Paul Hassman would be added to the lineup & Tyrant quickly became a mainstay of the Hobart rock scene, leading to the recording of this debut four-song release in 1984, a record that would gain the band a fair bit of exposure across the southern part of Australia in particular & would ultimately lead to Tyrant relocating to Sydney to chase rock stardom in 1985.

“Never Too Loud” is a fairly basic release really. The four songs are all pretty traditional in both style & structure with the production job being a little rough & presenting the songs in more of a demo context than a glossy, commercially-accessible radio rock package. There’s not much information around on “Never Too Loud” but I’m gonna assume that it was a self-financed affair as that’s what it sounds like to my ears but the sound quality is still clear enough to give the song-writing the chance to dig its hooks in.

The early Tyrant sound has one foot in each of the two camps that inspired it i.e. the NWOBHM & the Oz rock scene. The song-writing is structured in your classic hard rock verse/chorus style with the rhythm section maintaining a controlled, thumping mid-paced rock rhythm while the dual guitar attack draws its influence from the flashier heavy metal scene that was arguably at its absolute peak following its successful infiltration into the American market over the previous year or two. This combination works really well for Tyrant too & it’s probably not terribly surprising that a sound like that was going to appeal to the Aussie market either given that it gave the boys a really crunchy heavy metal sound that would work brilliantly in a live setting but was still easily relatable for your average Australian.

The four songs included are all of a pretty reasonable quality, although they admittedly don’t break any new ground & are all structured in a very familiar way. You can easily hear the influence of Aussie pub legends AC/DC, Rose Tattoo & The Angels in the anthemic hard rock hooks with the major emphasis being on the catchy, uncomplicated chorus lines. The guitar work is much more metal than those acts usually attempted though, drawing inspiration from hard rock-inspired heavy metal acts like Saxon & Accept as well the the early-1980’s Judas Priest albums. Frontman Wilson generally seems to be regarded as the protagonist of the Tyrant sound, possessing a clean & easily intelligible tone that I find to be more serviceable & acceptable than I do charismatic & exhilarating. In fact, I think that Wilson’s vocal limitations place a cap on the heights that “Never Too Loud” had the potential to reach to be honest as the crunchy instrumentation is well executed & was very much in line with what was popular in the global scene at the time. I can see how Wilson might have been a different prospect in a live environment though as he can certainly hold a tune & the whole package seems to have been tailored specifically for live performance.

I enjoy all four of the songs included on the E.P. to varying degrees. It’s really only the highly memorable “Thunder & Steel” that possesses the class required to see me feeling like I may return to it in the future though. Opener “War of the Roses”, the title track & closer “Lambs to the Slaughter” all have their moments but Tyrant’s music is generally always going to live & die by the quality of the chorus hooks with the rest of the song-writing all being presented as the entrées to the chorus’ main courses. For a country that was as isolated from the rest of the world as Australia was at the time though, “Never Too Loud” served its purpose nicely & I can see why people may have gotten a little hot under the collar for this rough-&-ready, working-class heavy metal. I’m glad that I’ve given the E.P. a couple of revisits now too as it feels like a reasonably important release in the Aussie metal story to me, even if I don’t think it’s strong enough to warrant me returning to it again in the future.

For fans of Saxon, Accept & early-1980's Judas Priest.