What are you listening to now? : Non-metal Edition

Swans - "The Great Annihilator" (1995)

High quality experimental post-punk & gothic rock from New York, USA.

Scorpions - "Love at First Sting" (1984)

I've always found that I get some enjoyment out of Scorpions records but have never found myself gushing over them like the majority of rock/metal fans seem to.  Sure, the guitar solos are great but they have a fair amount of cheese included on every record too & I'm pretty sure that all of our regular contributors clearly understand my aversion to that abominable trait by now. I was familiar with the full string of five albums from 1976's "Virgin Killer" up until 1982's widely celebrated "Blackout" record (not to mention their 1978 "Tokyo Tapes" live release) prior to coming into "Love at First Sting" with all of them sitting at that 3.5/5 mark but the Germans highly regarded 1984 ninth full-length may be the first album I've heard from them where I struggled to overcome the commercialism with fully-fledged glam metal raising its head on more than one occasion.

The tracklisting begins quite well with the heavy rock of opener "Bad Boys Running Wild" being pretty entertaining however proceedings descend significantly after that with five lacklustre efforts in a row before the band miraculously resurrects things with three quality hard rock numbers to close out the album. Closing ballad "Still Loving You" is the clear album highlight & leaves me feeling better about the whole experience but I can't quite shake the memories of glam metal numbers like "Rock You Like A Hurricane", "The Same  Thrill" or "Big City Nights" with their obvious pop hooks that were so clearly intended to crack the American rock radio circuit. There's no doubt that Matthias Jabs' guitar solos are exhilarating & my ears prick up every time he steps up to the plate but, as with every other Scorpions record, I have serious doubts about the metal credentials of "Love at First Sting". There's really only the one song that I regard as being genuine metal in the fairly dull "Coming Home" although "Bad Boys Running Wild" kinda skims along the borderline between hard rock & heavy metal. I guess they're a metal band if you think that Van Halen, AC/DC or Guns 'n' Roses are but I very strongly disagree with that sentiment.

"Love at First Sting" gives 80's Scorpions fans exactly what they want but I'm afraid this is where they've started to lose me & I'm a little fearful about what's to come from their later material given that it's not regarded anywhere near as highly as the band's classic era which ended with this record.

3/5

Living Colour - "Vivid" (1988)

It’s funny how I occasionally find myself in a situation where I’ve maintained a position on a certain record for many decades only to finally undertake a reassessment of it's value & decide that I don’t think I’ve even heard it before because nothing about it sounds familiar. It doesn’t happen very often but it’s occurred over the last couple of days with the 1988 debut album from New York’s Living Colour. I'm sure that I first discovered them shortly after the release of this record through the inclusion of their big hit & opening track “Cult of Personality” on a compilation I’d acquired & I know that song back to front but the rest of the album? Nup… I can’t honestly say that I recognise a single second of it so I don’t think I actually checked it out even though Living Colour’s 1990 sophomore record “Time’s Up” got quite regular plays around my home as a teenager so this gives me the opportunity to approach it with unbiased ears.

Living Colour were known as one of the big players in the early funk metal movement & became really popular in Australia off the back of their 1991 hit single “Love Rears It’s Ugly Head”. I quite liked them at the time but remember questioning their links to metal & “Vivid” certainly sees me revisiting those feelings as there’s very little genuine metal on this record. I can only think that people have had their opinions influenced by “Cult of Personality” more than anything as it’s clearly the most metal track on the album & even then it’s kind of a heavy metal/hard rock hybrid. The rest of the record sees this talented outfit championing a sound that’s better described as an unintimidating blend of commercial hard rock & bouncy funk rock with some poppier moments scattered across the tracklisting. Unsurprisingly, those poppier tracks are the clear fails here too & “Vivid” is a lot less consistent than I thought it’d be, particularly when you consider the talent on show.

Living Colour’s main focal point is definitely band leader & guitar virtuoso Vernon Reid who absolutely slays here, his exciting jazz fusion guitar solos representing the high point of almost every song. I’m a big fan of his expansive & experimental style & the album is worth listening to solely for his contribution but bass player Muzz Skillings & vocalist Corey Glover also put in stellar performances & you get the feeling that the band was always going to make it big given the collective weight of their musical chops. This makes it a bit of a shame that they opted to explore a few obvious cash-grabbing opportunities on this album because when they extend themselves creatively they’re a more than decent & very likeable unit. Sadly though, poppy filler like “I Want To Know” & “Glamour Boys” see the shine taken off the better material. I’m not sure it sees my score dropping at all but it’s definitely reduced my opinion of Living Colour just a touch.

Ultimately, “Vivid” is a competent rock record produced by a class act that really knew what they were doing. It’s just not one that offers me the sort of appeal to see me returning to it in the future. My childhood memories recall “Time’s Up” being a more complete piece of work but I’m starting to question myself on that now & may have to give it a fresh assessment at some point before committing to claims like that. In the meantime I’ll be raising a Hall of Judgement posting as I really don’t think “Vivid” has a place at the Metal Academy if I’m being honest.

3.5/5

Elder - "Lore" (2015)

I’ve really been enjoying Massachusetts-based trio Elder over the last couple of years since discovering their excellent 2012 “Spires Burn/Release” E.P. which triggered my subsequent exploration of the band’s back-catalogue. I’d eventually nominate their 2011 sophomore album “Dead Roots Stirring” as a The Fallen feature release & also got stuck into their 2017 “Reflections of a Floating World” fourth album at some point while contributing to the Hall of Judgement, both of which presented Elder as a highly professional & seriously talented group of creative musicians. It only makes sense then that I would look to fill in the gaps between those very solid records with 2015’s “Lore” album which seems to be just as highly regarded as the releases I’d already experienced.

Despite being consistently linked to the stoner metal genre, Elder have always been a bit of an anomaly as far as genre tagging goes. I found “Dead Roots Stirring” to sit firmly within the realms of stoner rock with some psychedelic influences popping up here & there. “Spires Burn/Release” saw them upping the heaviness & working its magic in the space between stoner metal & stoner rock but “Reflections of a Floating World” possessed a more progressive sound than those two records so I’ve tended to tag it as progressive stoner rock. This left me wondering whether “Lore” would represent the starting point for Elder’s more progressive excursions & I’d eventually discover that this is the case as I’ve found it to sit a little closer to its successor in terms of ambition & technique although I don’t see as much psychedelia as I’ve heard from them in the past. Despite including a number of metallic riffs, "Lore" isn't a metal record in the true sense of the term as the production is intentionally centred around a more organic 70’s sound & the guitar work never stays in Sabbath mode for long before returning to a more ambitious & techy approach akin to progressive rock icons like Yes. I do hear a fair whack of Tool in some of the grungier parts of the album though which can’t be a bad thing while some of the riff structures also recall a band like Mastodon.

I remember mentioning in the past that the limiting factor in Elder’s chances of reaching my higher scores is the vocals & that’s still the case here. It’s not that they’re not well done as I actually think they’ve improved since “Dead Roots Stirring” but it’s a question of whether they can hit upon melodic hooks of the highest calibre. As has become the norm for Elder, the vocals are used fairly sparingly with the instrumentation generally taking the front seat so when they do come in they have the opportunity to make a bigger impact. We can see an example of that on album highlight “Legend” whose memorable hooks see it overflowing into classic territory. I don’t think Elder quite get there with the remainder of the material though & it’s left to the more progressive moments to capture me which they do with utmost ease.

Ultimately, I have to say that I challenge any fan of mature & ambitious rock music not to like a record like “Lore” as it’s yet another triumph for a band that had already well & truly proven themselves by that point. My affection may still be a little stuck behind the confines of its more palatable rock packaging but it’s almost impossible not admire the skill of a band who seems to be incapable of making an ordinary record. I have to say that I favour Elder’s more progressive releases over their earlier works these days with “Reflections of a Floating World” still remaining the high point of my Elder experience to date but “Lore” has done extremely well to come in a close second after a couple of very rewarding days of listening pleasure.

4/5

Boris - "Heavy Rocks" (2011)

I’ve been a big fan of Tokyo trio Boris for a very long time now but they’re so prolific & their back catalogue is so extensive that it’s really pretty hard to keep up with them. They also cover so much musical ground (often within the confines of the same release) that you never know what to expect as they jump wildly between different genres at random. I really enjoyed the high quality stoner rock of Boris’ 2002 “Heavy Rocks” album recently though & noticed that they’ve also released two more albums with the exact same name in 2011 & 2022 (presumably intended as a thematically linked trilogy) so I thought I’d give the 2011 sequel a few spins to see what it has to offer.

If ever Boris have failed to commit to a defined direction with an album it’s here as the 2011 “Heavy Rocks” album suffers a real case of ADD with so many genres stuffed into the ten tracks that it’s almost impossible to tag this release with anything that seems appropriate. It's generally regarded as a stoner rock/metal record but I’d suggest that those genres only really account for a couple of tracks included here with the others exploring a whole array of sounds including neo-psychedelia, alternative rock, hardcore punk, post-rock, post-metal, doom metal & thrash metal. To my ears there’s not enough metal to warrant a metal primary tag though if I'm being honest. In fact, I’d estimate that only about a third of the tracklisting is legitimate metal with stoner metal opener “Riot Sugar”, the epic thirteen minute post-doom metal monster “Aileron” (my album highlight) & short thrash metal closer “Czechoslovakia” being the sole contributors. If pushed I’d probably go with post-rock & alternative rock as the best fit for primary tags on this one so I’ll be submitting a Hall of Judgement nomination to have “Heavy Rocks” removed from The Fallen & added the Non-Metal shortly.

From a general quality perspective, the consistency of the tracklisting seems to be pretty jerky & a good half of the songs included don’t do all that much for me. Some of their signature pitchy vocal melodies sound a bit flat which doesn’t help but thankfully the two best tracks on the album both exceed twelve minutes which saves “Heavy Rocks” to an extent. There’s a very casual feel to the way Boris present themselves here though. I know they’ve always pushed that dangerous edge that the modern rock scene seems to be so lacking in but at times they push things a little too far & can tend to sound a bit lazy in my opinion. Boris are certainly at their best when they’re at their most cerebral with the post-rock inspired excursions & the more psychedelic stoner material being clearly more appealing than the messy alternative rock & punk material but... I dunno.... I can’t help but be a touch disappointed with 2011’s “Heavy Rocks” even though it’s a pretty enjoyable experience when viewed holistically. I guess I just know that Boris are capable of so much more & feel that a little quality control might go a long way at a time when they seem to be releasing three or four full-length albums per year. This may well be the weakest Boris album I’ve heard actually but thankfully it’s still not a bad listen & their prolific past ensures that I’ll likely never run out of unexplored gold either.

3.5/5

 Héroes del Silencio - "Senderos de traición" (1990)

Spanish gothic/alternative rock.

Breaking Benjamin - "We Are Not Alone" (2004)

I know this might sound strange to those of you located in the USA but I had literally never heard a Breaking Benjamin song until the last couple of days when I explored their sophomore album. It seemed like an unintimidating thing to play while my wife & kids were around & my suspicion was right about that so it served the purpose quite well. What we have here is a combination of Bush/Nickelback style post-grunge & alternative rock with a bit of Tool & Korn style alternative metal & nu metal tossed in there here & there. It's certainly not a metal release in my opinion as there are really only two full metal songs on this bad-boy & both of them a pretty much clones of the two metal bands I mentioned above. It's not as bad an album as a lot of people would have you believe though, even if there are a few pretty ordinary attempts of commercialism included (see the radio-friendly alternative rock of "Follow", the cheesy pop-rock of "Forget It" & the poppy acoustic ballad "Rain"). I quite liked the rest of the album to be honest but can't see any reason that a record like this one should belong here at the Academy.

3.5/5

It snowed last night at my house.  So I went out there this morning, played some of "Withstand the Fall of Time..." and now I'm sitting inside with the live album "A Very Lonely Solstice" by Fleet Foxes.

Chelsea Wolfe - "Abyss" (2015)

A wonderfully deep & dark representation of modern darkwave & gothic rock.

Parannoul - After the Magic

Genres: Indie Rock, Shoegaze

This album seems to be the next big thing on the internet as far as "album" listening instead of "song playing" goes, and so far it's living up to the hype.  The textures are much more beautiful than they were on To See the Next Part of the Dream, possibly due to having a stronger indie sound instead of the emo sound.  It's much more meaningful and pretty.  And if it weren't a bit repetitive, I'd say this was just as good of a shoegaze album as Loveless.

Dokken - "Under Lock & Key" (1985)

Los Angeles hard rockers Dokken made quite an impact on me back in the late 80’s/early 90’s, mainly due to my obsession with guitar virtuoso George Lynch who represents one of my biggest inspirations as a musician. I first discovered Dokken through their 1987 “Back For The Attack” album which I ripped from a school mate’s older brother & it would lead me to investigate George’s 1990 “Wicked Sensation” debut album from the Lynch Mob project he’d begin after leaving the band in 1989. Lynch’s tone & style were pretty much identical to my own preferences in shredding lead guitar so the fact that both bands were a bit more commercially accessible than I’d usually go for became much less of an issue. However, my commitment to more extreme forms of music would see my interest drifting away from bands like Dokken & I’d only find myself returning to them during my research for the Metal Academy podcast in the mid-2010’s. It was there that I first heard their 1981 debut album “Breaking The Chains” & 1984 sophomore effort “Tooth & Nail” but I’d only just started digging my teeth into 1985’s “Under Lock & Key” when we’d decide to end of 3.5 year run of shows so I never got the chance to properly develop a firm position on its qualities. This week I decided it was time to rectify that.

Dokken’s sound has always bled across a few related subgenres. “Breaking The Chains” was an immature blend of glam metal & heavy metal that I struggled with while “Tooth & Nail” saw them concentrating on the heavier side of their sound which would appeal to me a lot more. With “Under Lock & Key” we see Dokken finally breaking out into the US mainstream radio circuit in a big way with a sound that’s dominated by the poppy choruses & straight forward beats of the LA Sunset Strip. Around 80% of the tracklisting falls into glam metal territory with Lynch’s spectacular metal guitar work being combined with a commercial hard rock rhythm section & simple melodic vocal hooks that take away most of the band’s edge. That can be a problem for me at times & around half of the tracklisting is a bit of a struggle for this particular extreme metal devotee. The other half includes some high quality hooks though with the couple of genuine heavy metal tracks being amongst the strongest on the album (see wonderful album highlight “Lightnin’ Strikes Again” & respectable closer “Til The Livin’ End”).

Don Dokken may be the band leader but his vocals do tend to be one of the components that leads Dokken astray at times as he can sound pretty bubblegum on occasion, along with the use of cowbell & some easy-listening backing vocals. Ironically the album’s two most iconic songs “In My Dreams” & “Unchain The Night” fall into this category & do very little for me while the ballad “Slippin’ Away” is simply awful. Thankfully the band manage to come up with some of the more respectable glam metal tunes you’ll find to offset those misfires a bit (see “The Hunter”, “It’s Not Love” & particularly the very solid “Will The Sun Rise”) but you probably need to be able to accept a more radio-friendly brand of hard rock & heavy metal (think WASP, Scorpions, Motley Crue, etc.) if you’re any chance of falling in love with Dokken’s third album. “Under Lock & & Key” may be Dokken’s most highly regarded release these days but it’s certainly not my personal favourite. “Tooth & Nail” is a much more palatable & enjoyable listen for me personally & it’s got me wondering what I’ll think of “Back For The Attack” these days. I think I’ll pull it out over the coming month & see.

3/5

Fields Of The Nephilim - "Elizium" (1990)

Gothic rock from Hertfordshire, England.

Charlie Megira and The Hefker Girl - "Charlie Megira und the Hefker Girl" (2006)

Gothic rock/post-punk

The Cult - "Love" (1985)

Post-punk/gothic rock from London.

Tiamat - "A Deeper Kind Of Slumber" (1997)

The infamous follow-up to 1994's classic fourth album "Wildhoney" represents the point in which the Swedish gothic metallers stepped away from metal altogether yet still managed to produce another highly engaging & universally captivating piece of creative experimentation. I'd describe it as a combination of gothic rock & Pink Floyd-inspired progressive rock for the most part although you'll also find a whole bunch of other influences scattered across the tracklisting including world music, psychedelic rock, trip hop, darkwave, new age & downtempo along with a couple of metallic tracks to remind you of past glories. It's a fascinating listen from a classy artist & I'd recommend that all of the Moonspell/Lake of Tears/Paradise Lost style gothic metal fans out there should still check it out as there are definitely enough familiar traits for you.

4/5

Clan Of Xymox - "Clan Of Xymox" (1985)

Dutch darkwave/gothic rock.

Pink Turns Blue - "If Two Worlds Kiss" (1987)

German post-punk & gothic rock.

Concrete Blonde - "Bloodletting" (1990)

Alternative rock from Los Angeles, USA.

BUCK-TICK - "悪の華 (Aku no hana)" (1990)

 Visual kei/New Wave from Japan.

The Damned - "The Black Album" (1980)

Punk rock with a gothic edge from London, England.

Fontaines D.C. - "Skinty Fia" (2022)

Post-punk/gothic rock from Dublin, Ireland.

Red Temple Spirits - "Dancing to Restore an Eclipsed Moon" (1988)

An outstanding Los Angeles gothic rock/post post double album. A real find.

Creux Lies - "Divine (Remix)" 2023

Pulsating darkwave from California that is actually their 2021 release remixed.

Swans - "The Great Annihilator" (1995)

High quality experimental post-punk & gothic rock from New York, USA.

Just heard this yesterday.  And I got a couple more albums before I head towards The Beggar.