Droids Attack - Must Destroy

Shit yes! Dirty grimey stoner riffin'. Dirty,dirty, grimey stoner riffin'! Head banging!

Alabama Thunderpussy/Tummler/High On Fire/Bongzilla

Dax Riggs - Say Goodnight To The World

Mostly quiet and dark. Really good vocals. Sparse bummer tunes. Theres a few up tempo numbers on here. You know, he switches it up to the blues. There a quiet Pink Floyd type vibe going on. I think there's some kind of 80's thing going on here. Can't put my finger on it because it's stuff I wasn't a fan of in high school. Gothic-y. Leonard Cohen-esque.

Demonic Resurrection - The Return To Darkness

These guys are from India. They play symphonic black metal. They do a pretty good job of it. I'm just not the biggest fan of symphonic black metal.

Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart

Boy/girl vocals. Neil Young meets Dead Meadow. Good tunes. They've got a country (I might be confusing country with Folk)/indie pop thing going on.

Folky indie that rocks too.

Briton Rites - For Mircalla

Thrashy Doom Metal. Satanic too! Killer riffs and rockin'. Headbanging and groovin'. Killer production. This is a damn fine album. Chug a lug. If Goatsnake was a NWOBHM band.

After more listens...the production on this I find really irritating. The vocals are a bit grating, which I could put up with, but the are so up front and loud and clear all the time. The guitar is really big and loud and huge which is fine with me 'cuz there's lot of killer riffin' going on here. The bass is almost non-existent, it pokes it's head out once in awhile, but mostly playing root notes or whatever and way down in the mix. The drums are mostly OK but you almost have to squint your eyes to hear the symbols. The overall mix gives you the feeling that this is the singer/guitarist project he mixed it and it sounds like it's all about him.

Which in turn make it more difficult to put up with his vocals.

Samsara Blues Experiment - Long Distance Trip

Mostly instrumental heavy psyche/space rock out jams like Earthless/Monster Magnet/Dead Meadow.

These guys are from Germany. Good Stuff!

Apostle Of Solitude - Last Sunrise

Sad bummer American Metal. Traditional Doom. Good vocals. Good record.

Grand Magus - Hammer Of The North

Shimmering production. Wailing vocals, think Chris Cornell. Killer modern day metal drawing from...doomy sabbath type stuff, but closer to a doomier Soundgarden/Judas Priest. Really catchy, not catchy hooks, more catchy melodies and well constructed metal songs. This is the kind of stuff that should be played on FM radio.

-This is an awesome epic record. Killer guitar riffage and soaring vocals.

Agolloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

Reminds me of Ludicra but I don't know a lot of Black Metal so there may be a better comparison. This is a awesome record. Flows well and it's all pretty bummed out. Peaks and valleys. Neurosis/Ludicra.

Zuul - Out Of Time

Authentic sounding NWOBHM. High energy rockin. Good good stuff. All starts sounding the same after a while, but that's OK. What do you want?

Dawnbringer - Nucleus

This record kicks ass. Dual leads! 70's/80's Metal. It's not retro, that's just where the biggest influences seem to lie. This is a modern record.

Hooded Priest - Devil Worship Reckoning

Doomy rockin' that rocks good. Trouble meets Mercyful Fate.

Seamount - Sacrafice

Killer dual leads. Very cool songs. For my personal taste, I'm kinda on the fence about the vocals. I think with a different production style the vocals could be worked in differently...you know, so I could like it better, so you guys might want to get on that. Retro heavy sounding stoner rockin' with some sweet dueling guitars. Little bit of a lull in the middle but a solid record. Play with your Thin Lizzy records. There might be a message in the lyrics.

Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones

Big and heavy with a big guitar sound that sounds more like a huge machine. Throw it on with old Mastadon or High On Fire. One song reminds me of a huge metallic Alice In Chains. This album is way metal but working hard on the slower punishing grooves. Quiet scary mellow piano metal too. Metal lyrics and vocals. "I shall feast on your misfortune". Crushing mennacing heavy crushing metal. A bit operatic and serious feeling sometimes. Feels like there is a bigger concept at work.

Mount Rushmore - High On Mount Rushmore

Bluesy hard rock with psyche guitar. Big Brother and the Holding Company, Blue Cheer, Cream territory here, but second level.

Thundermother - No Red Rowan

Killer psyche guitar meets heavy blues hippy rock. Elements of Blue Cheer aspiring to be Free by way of Grand Funk Railroad dressed as a hippy psyche band during the acid trip scene in a movie. Good good stuff.

Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way To Blue

I bought the first Alice In Chains record when it came out and thought it was great. Heard all the radio/MTV hits over the years and liked them all...not enough to buy another album after the first. I was pretty sure it was all about their singer. I remember hearing the Jerry Cantrell solo stuff and thinking, "Wow, he was a bigger part of the vocal sound/feel of the band than I thought." After Layne Staley died you would think, you can't really do Alice In Chains anymore. Well, they did. Surprisingly it sounds like Alice In Chains without thinking about it too much. Mostly because of how much Cantrell added to the vocal department. Music is cool. File this record under, better than I thought it would be. Goes on too long though.

Ozzy Osbourne - Scream

Less than 30 seconds into the album the pinch harmonics start. A trademark on Ozzy records since...forever, no matter who the guitar player is (Did it start with Zack Wylde? I don't know I was over Ozzy by the time that guy was in the band). Ozzy singing through a machine. Half way through the first song I'm bored. Cool solo break, then back to Ozzys boring "singing". Second song has a sing along/anthem chours. I hate that shit. Boring formula rock. Third songs' a slow chunker. First song that doesn't suck.#4 Power ballad or whatever. Skip it.#5 Starts with acoustic guitar like something from Diary then gets real heavy. Unfortunately then it gets mechanical. Goes back to being heavy and here come the pinch harmonics. Then you have to listen to Ozzy sing for a while. There's a cool riff in there though and the solo is pretty cool. Nice guitar playing on this album.#6 Filler.#7 Filler. Chant along anthem chours. I hate that shit. #8 Slow song that builds. #9 Chugga lug riffing with a commercial sounding chours. Some classic Ozzy sounds show up in this song.#10 Filler.#11 Kinda touching on old Ozzy it's only a minute long, so Ozzy can say, "We have to stick together, I love you all".
I haven't really checed out any Ozzy records since the 80's. The Ultimate Sin is the last one I owned. I've heard enough here and there over the years to know I didn't want to explore further. I'm under the impression that No More Tears is his best one since the first two. I'll have to track that one down.
Ozzy has been in a tough position for a lot of years. He has to please a really wide variety of a fan base and he's got to keep it commercial and sell a ton of records. Trying to keep everybody happy just waters everything down. This album is Metal though I'll give it that. With a few quieter parts to sell some more records.

The Joe Perry Project - Let The Music Do The Talking

I broke this record out after a LONG time and it smokes! Lots of stuff going on and almost alway keeps it interesting. The times it's not busy it seems like the singer ends up in the forefront and you notice that he's annoying, but then they change it up and it gets interesting again. This is grimey stuff like Draw The Line,Combination, Train Kept A Rollin type vibe. It gets a bit funky sometimes. Perry sings a couple songs which are my favoriutes cuz they have some drugged up downer type riffs. Sometimes this reminds me of Ace Frehley. There's an instrumental that might as well be a Hendrix cover. Lots of guitar rockin on this album and it all sounds like it's in the gutter.

-This record smokes! Lots of guitar rockin'. Little bit of bluesy funkyness. Little bit of wastedness.

-The Songs Joe Perry sings are the good ones. If he sang all the songs this would be right up here with Ace Frehleys solo album as far as wasted 70's rockin' goes.

Food Brain - Social Gathering

A bunch of organ soloing all over this instrumental album. Songs are all over the place in that wacky Japanese kind of way. Sometime some cool guitar soloing comes in to take the place of the organ. Song titles are cool. Liver Juice Vending Machine, The Hole In The Sausage, The Conflict Of The Hippo And The Pig...you know, things like that. Sounds like these guys got together to do some jamming. After listening to it once I for sure had to listen again to try to figure out what the hell is going on here. I don't think there's much to figure out though it's just some jammin'. It's alright. Mildly interesting for a few spins. A bunch of these guys went on to better projects. Oh yeah, there's a jazzy song on here to with sax skronking and everything. The album is pretty much dominated by organ soloing. Farfisa organ if I'm not mistaken.

Cheap Trick - Next Position Please

I remember when this came out I was pretty disappointed. All the power of this power pop band has been removed from this release. Kill 'Em All came out the same year and that is for sure where my head was at. Cheap Trick is my favorite band ever so this album has received a lot of plays over the years. A lot more if it was a different band I'm sure. Most all the songs are pretty good and Cheap Trick got REALLY bad after this...There's touches of 80's electronic blip sound here and there, but this is still mostly all rock instruments. My friends who like rock hate this record. I'm a sucker for Cheap Trick. Probably 10 Cheap Trick records better than this one, but this one is solid as far as the songs go, the rockin' however has been removed.

-There might only be 7 or 8 Cheap Trick albums better than this one.

Aerosmith - Live Bootleg

Like most all live albums it's pretty much a greatest hits deal with a couple oddities tossed in. The good thing about this album is it came out in 1978 so it's not bogged down with a bunch of crap. Aerosmith probably has six or seven greatest hits albums at this point and I would rather listen to this than any of those. This sounds more "live" than most live albums from this era...you know Kiss Alive 2 or Double Live Gonzo. There's some feedback here and there and a couple grand finale type things. I'd stick to the proper albums, but if your in a greatest hits mood this should satisfy that urge.Good not great. The strength is this was Aerosmith at the top of their game. Mostly recorded 77/78. The weakness is that this is them at their most wasted so the live shows maybe were not always the best...It's a real good bunch of songs. It's not overproduced and super cleaned up with a bunch of overdubbs, which is pretty cool, but probably the reason I don't pull this one out too often. Best in small doses.

Speed Glue & Shinki - Speed Glue & Shinki

Really loose double album like the White album, but nobody is gonna confuse this with the Beatles. Electronic blips buzz hums between drum solos and smooth laid back tasty blues leads. At first this thing seems to be all over the place, but after a couple listens it becomes more cohesive. The album stays the same but my mind seems to be able to grasp better after a few spins. At different points Black Sabbath, The Stooges and Lynyrd Skyrnd all come to mind, but those thoughts come and go and this shouldn't be compared to those bands because that's not what this is about. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk comes to mind as well. Not because anything on this album sounds like that album. Kitchen sink...not really. Some nice blues going on here sometimes. Overall this album is pretty laid back and pretty awesome. Psychedelic blues rock if you prefer.

Gene Clark - No Other

Psychedelic Country Rock. First couple songs seem pretty much straight forward country with some psychedelic twinges. Then it just gets bigger and spacier. Killer soft psychedelic soft country rockin.

Gene Clark was in The Byrds for the first couple albums and was their principal song writer. I totally dig this album. Kickin' back.

The Third Power - Believe

These guys were from Detroit. They've got the Cream power trio thing going on. Smokin' guitars, hippy vocals. Cool album. Fancy production.