My Top Albums of 2023

1. χ ξ ς’ – The Seven Seals of the Apocalypse​-​(​Revelation 5​:​7)

He’s done it again! For the fourth time in eight years, Sakis Tolis has topped my album-of-the-year list. He did it with his band Rotting Christ in 2016 and 2019 (with the records Rituals and The Heretics respectively), then he did it as a solo artist in 2022 (with Among the Fires of Hell), and now he’s done it again with his χ ξ ς’ project (which, like Rotting Christ, is ostensibly a Sakis solo vehicle). From start to finish, The Seven Seals of the Apocalypse​-​(​Revelation 5​:​7) sounds like a follow-up to Rotting Christ’s The Heretics album – the atmospherics, iconography and lyrical themes are heavily related. Also, this new release has certain apocalyptic parallels to my novelette Revelation Was Wrong (although Sakis’s lyrics make no mention of zombie burds, Buckfast tonic wine or an alcoholic Scottish prophet known as Tam the Bammus). The distinctive sound is instantly recognisable as this Greek master craftsman at work, showcasing the skills he’s honed through decades of dedicated metal delivery. No one else does it quite like him.

2. Winger – Seven

Who’d have thought that Kip and co. would be rattling out a barnstormer of a rock album in 2023, seemingly out of the blue? (In recent years Kip Winger has been busy composing, performing and conducting classical music, with considerable success.) Not that I’d written off Kip’s ability to rock when the mood takes him. He has always been a musical tour de force, since way back in his Alice Cooper days, when he, along with the equally phenomenal Kane Roberts on guitar, redefined the Alice band’s look and sound. I won’t pontificate at length about Seven. If you’re already a Winger fan, you’ll love it. If you’re a rock fan who has never encountered Winger before, chances are you’ll love it too. And even metal fans who’re too up their own pretentious arses to admit to liking Winger will almost all love it, even if they don’t acknowledge this to others. It’s a cracking album loaded with catchy tunes, big hooks, outrageous solos and masterfully crafted rock-cum-metal.

Here’s a wee true story involving me and Winger. Not long after the band had released its second album (the outstanding In the Heart of the Young), a tour date was booked for Glasgow. The band did a signing session in the city’s Tower Records beforehand, so in I went with my Winger vinyl, cassettes and gig ticket, to get it all signed by Kip, Reb, Rod and Paul. This all occurred not long after Kip had appeared in Playgirl magazine in the scud (although I hear his photoshoot was a “tasteful” one, with his knob always covered by some object such as a cushion, a plant pot or a coffee mug… in true Austin Powers style, even though the Austin Powers films hadn’t been made yet). Anyway, there I was in Tower Records chatting with Reb Beach, Rod Morgenstein and Paul Taylor as they signed my gear, while Kip was notably distracted by some article about himself in a rock magazine. Rod said to me, “Kip’ll be with you in a minute. It’s the massive ego, you see? He has to read everything everyone writes about him.” I said, “Is his ego even bigger since he did the Playgirl spread?” Rod, Reb and Paul burst out laughing and Rod said, “Like you wouldn’t believe!” At this point, Kip (whom I’d thought was oblivious to our conversation), looked up from his magazine, peered at me over the top of his circular blue glasses, and asked, “Well, have you ever been in Playgirl?” Straight off the cuff, I hit back with, “No, but I can grow a proper beard.” That just about finished Rod, Reb and Paul, who fell about laughing, which in turn set me off. The four of us were in stitches, tears of joy rolling down our cheeks from laughing so hard, as Kip’s face remained stony serious and his glare stayed fixed on me, a reaction that made the whole thing all the funnier. I looked like a caveman who’d just emerged from a hole in a rock: several months of wild untouched beard growth on my face; hair all over the joint. By way of comparison, Kip’s hair was immaculately coiffured and his beard trimmed to a designer-stubble length (as had become his trademark look, and had led to him being nicknamed “the blow-waved Bee Gee”). He slid his glasses down his nose and gave me a long stare, eye to eye. Eventually, his mouth morphed into a half smile/half sneer, then he spoke the immortal words, “Touché, asshole.” That tickled me, Rod, Reb and Paul, and the laughter started up all over again. Once that had settled down, Kip signed all my Winger gear and we had a lovely chat. He’s an authentic human being, as are his bandmates. Artists and virtuosos, but humble with it. Not above having a laugh, even at their own expense. I think it’s a beautiful thing that decades after that day in Tower Records, those same four individuals are still composing and recording amazing music together. The new ingredient in the Winger sound is Jon Roth, who shares lead-guitar and backing-vocals duties with Reb Beach. Perhaps it’s the addition of a fifth member that makes the sound on this album so especially huge. That must be part of it. Regardless of the reasons, Winger sounds as fresh and inspired as ever. It’s fantastic to have the band back. Not that they were ever really away…

3. Sam Thomas – Rane

Ten years ago Sam’s debut album Blind Theatre blew my mind. It still does. Rane, Sam’s second full-length solo album, was a long time coming (who the hell am I to talk about sequels taking a while?) but turned out to be worth the wait. An astonishingly uplifting record, it showcases Sam’s unique talent in the same sort of way the track I’m Gonna Be a Witch did a decade earlier, with sweeping musical soundscapes that defy categorisation, each one a journey that transforms the listener for the better, like a spring-clean to the soul. I’ve used the word genius to describe Sam’s musical abilities in the past. Rane makes it abundantly clear that I was right to use that term. So far beyond the usual intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus-outro blueprint that it beggars belief, these sounds are in a realm of their own. It’s a beautiful world to visit. I recommend it. It’s worth mentioning that, as on Blind Theatre, Sam plays all the instruments on this album, with guest vocals coming from the glorious pipes of Lim Orion, Ösp Eldjárn and Sian O’Gorman. Spellbinding, from start to finish.

4. Peter Gabriel – I/O

Speaking of musical geniuses… here’s another one. I’ve loved Peter Gabriel’s voice and music since I was a kid. My first conscious memory of hearing him is when the single Games Without Frontiers hit the British charts way back in the mists of time… near the arse-end of a different millennium. That track so impressed me that I made a point of grabbing all the Peter Gabriel solo material and also his albums with Genesis. I’ve continued to keep up with Pete’s solo releases, each of which has caused my jaw to drop in awe. I/O keeps that trend going. It was 20 years in the making but completely worth the wait.  The album is available in a variety of formats. I opted for the big fuck-off bumper version (not its “official” title), which features 3 discs. The same tracks feature on each of the discs, but the mixes and arrangements are radically different on each one. Disc 1 features the Bright-Side mixes, disc 2 the Dark-Side mixes, and disc 3 a 6-channel Dolby 5.1 surround-sound make-your-toast-in-the-morning-and-bring-you-a-coffee-in-bed mix of the album. At a push, I’d say I like the Bright-Side disc most, but each one has its own unique sound and particular strengths. The lyrics are deep and simple at the same time. Pete’s not trying to be pretentious here. Rather, he’s showing that real profundity comes when all the nonsense and illusions are stripped away, leaving just the truth. Every note, every word, every nuance sounds authentic and heartfelt. I love it.

5. Mesarthim – Arrival

These Australian atmospheric-black-metal maestros have topped my year lists more than once. Arrival is another worthy addition to the band’s discography. Once again, the soundscapes are immeasurably vast, and once again the glorious über-heavy riffage, blast-beat drums and banshee-wailed vocals are seamlessly combined with occasional electro-dance elements and ambient interludes. The overall effect is stunning.

6. Insomnium – Anno 1696

When I read that two of my favourite musical artists – Finland’s Insomnium and Greece’s Sakis Tolis – would be collaborating on a track for this album (the song White Christ), that piqued my interest in a big way. Insomnium’s albums have topped my year lists often, as has Sakis as a solo artist and with his band, the mighty Rotting Christ. Like fellow Finnish melodic-death-metal pioneers Amorphis, Wintersun, Omnium Gatherum and Swallow the Sun, Insomnium is able to flit seamlessly between light and shade, heart-wrenchingly delicate melodies and gut-tremblingly brutal heaviness, always knowing when to do which, for maximum emotive impact. Anno 1696 isn’t my favourite Insomnium album (Above the Weeping World holds that distinction), but it’s a cracking listen nonetheless, showcasing the immense sound that the band has honed and perfected.

7. Faidra – Militant : Penitent : Triumphant

Often summed up as “depressive” and/or “atmospheric black metal”, Faidra’s sound has a cathartic honesty to it, an authenticity of spirit. I find it compelling. This record is in the same vein as the band’s outstanding 2020 release, Six Voices Inside, which was one of my favourite albums of that year, and remains one of my favourite records, period. This new collection of songs is every bit as strong, every bit as deep, every bit as cathartic, every bit as poignant, and every bit as resonant. It also features one of the greatest track titles ever: Punishment Nailed Deep. That’s how it’s done.

8. Exitium Sui – Endless/Regression

Another Australian outfit. You won’t find any tracks about sunshine, beer or kangaroos on here, though. Geographically, Exitium Sui may exist in the warm land of Oz, but sonically the band is closer to the cold sounds of Russia’s Olhava, Finland’s Insomnium, Germany’s Alrakis, Sweden’s Faidra, Switzerland’s Triptykon, and Romania’s Negură Bunget. And there’s nowt wrong with any of that! With the exception of the intro to the last track (… Into Fog), there are no clean vocals to be found, so if you’re not a fan of growlers (the singing variety as opposed to the ones found between women’s legs), this album won’t be your cup o’ tea. The music is an inspired blend of lightness and heaviness, with atmospherics that owe much to the Finnish melodeath vanguard (Insomnium, Amorphis, Swallow the Sun, Omnium Gatherum, Wintersun) and also to atmospheric-black-metal titans Alrakis and Mesarthim.

9. Myrkur – Spine

The lightest Myrkur album to date (musically, not thematically), Spine is another sterling release featuring Amalie Bruun’s ethereal vocals layered over compositions that feature obvious influences from metal, electronica, Nordic folk music, classical, and even pop. These components aren’t randomly flung together in a musical clanjamfrie, but, rather, are expertly applied for optimal dramatic effect. Valkyriernes Sang, for example, starts out like Nightwish meets Wardruna in a misty Nordic forest, until out of the blue at 2:57 a guitar riff arrives which is pure Iron Maiden. Then at 3:10 Amalie’s astonishing voice soars in again and puts its unique stamp on the song. Sublime.

10. Monasterium Imperi – Voices of Ecclesianum

“Grimdark Chants”. That’s how this Serbian project’s creator sums up the sound of his music. Imagine the Gregorian chants on Enigma’s iconic debut album (but waaaaaaaay darker), then add some sublime synth à la Vangelis, chuck in some sections of dungeon synth (think Mortiis’s early solo work, but with cleaner production), some Era atmospherics, and recurring Jarresque sonic leitmotifs, for an overall result that has a hypnotic effect on the listener. This outfit has been releasing music thick and fast over the past three years. A phenomenal work rate, yet the quality hasn’t suffered. These sounds really take my mind places. What places? That’s none of your business, nosy! Give Monasterium Imperi a whirl for yourself if you fancy something seriously atmospheric. If you go to the outfit’s bandcamp page, you can hear all the band’s tracks, and, if you choose to, buy the albums for a bargain price of 1 Euro each (that’s a minimum price – you can pay more if you want to). As a starting point, to hear what this outfit is capable of, I recommend checking out the track Lamentium (on this album) – sheer out-of-this-world musical escapism. It moves me in profound ways. Like all the best music, it doesn’t just reach ears and brain, but gets into the soul and resonates there, bringing on altered states and deepened moods. Phenomenal.

That’s it for now. A short-and-sweet top 10 rather than the lengthy pontifications of previous years (let’s not talk about the 10,000+ word summation of my 2015 top 45, even though that had to be done – it was a huge year for music). There were plenty of other albums that impressed me in 2023. I’m not going to list them all here, as it’d take all day and I’ve a big book to finish… hadn’t you heard? I’ll mention Metal Church’s Congregation of Annihilation, though, not just because it’s a cracking album (as all MC releases are) but also because it’s the first one the band recorded since the tragic death of longtime vocalist Mike Howe. The new MC vocalist, Marc Lopes, does a stellar job in the role, his voice sometimes sounding eerily like the original Metal Church singer, the legendary David Wayne, without coming across like a contrived clone. Good to hear them on form as always. It was also good to get a decent new studio album from Metallica. When was the last time that happened? In a different millennium! The newie 72 Seasons didn’t make my top 10 of the year, but it did slap a smile on my face, and still does whenever I listen to it. There’s some quintessential riffage from Hetfield, some tasteful lead work from Kirk Hammett, and some inspired compositions. It’s not too shabby.

In addition to being a year that saw some excellent new music, 2023 was a year of many losses. I won’t list them all here, in case I miss any who deserve to be included. Mike Howe, I’ve already mentioned above. One loss that hit me hard was Geordie Walker from Killing Joke, who died near the end of 2023. He was one of the most innovative and original guitarists ever to walk the planet. I have everything the band ever recorded, and I’ve been lucky enough to witness their greatness live, up close and sweaty in the best (existing) venue in the world, Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom (I say existing because there was once an even better gig venue – The Glasgow Apollo – where I saw my first live metal shows, and also where AC/DC recorded most of the equal-greatest album of all time, If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), on which the crowd’s energy can be felt, not just heard). Back to Killing Joke, though. Speaking of the first time he ever heard Geordie play guitar, Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman said, “It was like fire from Heaven.”

The Albums of 2022

1. Sakis Tolis – Among the Fires of Hell

I’m not sure why Sakis chose to release Among the Fires of Hell as a solo album rather than a Rotting Christ release. The moniker doesn’t matter, though – it’s the music that counts. Sonically and thematically, the material on AtFoH is just like latter-day Rotting Christ – the walls of riffage are there in force, as is Sakis’s distinctive growl, monk-like chanted backing vocals, and numinous lyrics. From the spoken words that kick off opening track My Salvation to the closing refrains of final song Nocturnal Hecate (a cover of the Daemonia Nymphe track), this album is pure atmospheric perfection. During his career with Rotting Christ, Sakis pioneered and honed his own sonic blueprint, which is all over this solo release. For an exhilarating example, listen to the track I Name You Under Our Cult, which is a masterclass in metal. When the chorus arrives with its sublime cascading layers of guitar and Sakis roaring, “Apollyon… release the fire,” the emotional impact is stunning. Total mastery of metal composition, execution and atmospherics. Immaculate.

2. Orphans of the Ash – Ellipsis

Since my first metal gig as a primary-school kid (Iron Maiden at Glasgow Apollo), I’ve seen thousands of guitarists playing live. Most of them were impressive, some jaw-droppingly so (Vai, Malmsteen, Satriani, Gilbert, Van Halen, Skolnick, and many others). The most impressive of all was Zal Cleminson. Still is. No one else can do what he can do with a guitar. There are plenty of guitar maestros, but Zal is the guitar wizard. This fact is well known by fans of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. One only has to play the SAHB discography (preferably on vinyl) on a quality hi-fi system to hear guitar sounds so unique, so inspired, so tasteful, so rich in nuance and melodic genius, that the listener is forever changed for the better. (Zal’s guitar work didn’t exist alone in those grooves, of course – there was a beautiful musical synergy between him and his bandmates Alex, Chris, Ted and Hugh.) I’ve been lucky enough to see Zal play live a bunch of times, both with SAHB and also with his Zal Cleminson’s Sin’Dogs project. It’s always a transcendent experience. In a live setting he does the impossible: makes perfect songs sound even more so. How can he do this? How is it even possible? It shouldn’t be. But as I said, Zal’s a wizard. So I was excited to hear about his Orphans of the Ash project. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I knew it would be special. It is. Ellipsis is a barnstormer of an album – fearlessly creative, expressive and cathartic. Once again (as he did with Sin’Dogs), Zal proves that in addition to his renowned fretboard abilities, he’s also a ferociously effective frontman. The album’s opening track, Evolution Road, might be the best example of this: I got chills – actual shivers of awe – when I heard Zal roar, “My fingertips, my Holy Fire!” A lyrical tip o’ the hat to the much-missed Alex Harvey, whose Faith Healer imagery is seared into the soul of every SAHB fan. (“The fingertips of Holy Fire, everlasting sweet desire.”) Evolution Road starts out with some of the most sublime acoustic guitar ever recorded, accompanied by a heartfelt vocal delivery, then at 1:28 a cataclysmically heavy riff arrives, to stunning effect. That guitar sound is heavy. As in, weights-made-of-lead heavy (couldn’t resist a SAHB pun). As always with Zal, when he goes heavy it’s never done just for the sake of heaviness. There’s always a bigger picture, an overarching melody… a vision. And as always, every note, every tone, every nuance is just right. The album isn’t a one-man show, though. The chemistry between Zal and collaborator Billy McGonagle is amazing. This isn’t the first time the two of them have played in a musical outfit together. Billy was also in Zal Cleminson’s Sin’Dogs. (Before that, he was in a SAHB tribute band, The Sensational Alex Harvey Experience, in which he played the role of Zal. Surreal or what? Billy must be in hog Heaven now that he’s recording as a duo with the real Zal Cleminson.) I could pontificate about the immaculate sounds of Ellipsis until the cows come home. It’s a work of genius.

Serendipity is a strange thing. A couple of weeks before the release of Ellipsis, I had been listening to Led Zeppelin (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and also listening to The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (as every decent human being should at least once a day). Alex’s words and imagery were swirling around in my mind (those fingertips of Holy Fire), as was the Zep fallen/falling angel icon from their Swan Song record label. I set about creating an artwork that combined the two: a 3D-rendered digital model with pose and overall vibe based on the Zep icon, but with a SAHBish revision – the angel’s right hand sported fingertips of Holy Fire. (That wasn’t the only revision I made to the original blueprint: I also put a pair of half black/half tartan trousers on the angel (based on a pair I own), made his physique more muscular (think Macho Man Randy Savage circa 1990), put the Gáe Bulg (Cúchulainn’s spear from Celtic mythology) in his left hand, and made his wings out of coruscating blue fire.) Then the Ellipsis album plopped through my letterbox, I played it for the first time and stood stunned as Zal roared, “My fingertips, my Holy Fire!” Awesome.

Here’s a few pictures of me and Zal in Edinburgh. If you look really closely you might be able to see some Holy Fire emerging from those Cleminson fingertips. Even if you can’t, it’s there. (Thanks to my friend Fraser – another beardy guitarist – for taking the pictures.)

3. Amorphis – Halo

My equal-favourite band in the Universe. The journey of these Finnish masters parallels that of the above-mentioned Sakis and Rotting Christ in many ways. The timeframe is the same, with Sakis founding Rotting Christ in 1987, and Amorphis kicking off in 1990. Both Rotting Christ and Amorphis have kept up a tireless work rate in the studio and on the road. Much growth occurred along the way: musical, lyrical and spiritual. This can be heard in the music; felt in it too. What Sakis did to put Greek metal on the world map, Amorphis did to place Finnish metal there. The groundwork Amorphis laid down in Finland played an influential role in what followed: the culture embraced that style of music to such a degree, Finland now contains more metal musicians per square mile than any other country does. By far. Metal’s spiritual home may be Aston, Birmingham, England (where four icons known as Ozzy, Tony, Geezer and Bill gave birth to previously unheard and unimagined sounds in 1968), but Finland is now metal’s main breeding ground. Has been for the past couple of decades. Enough history, though. What about the present? What about Halo? Well, it’s another corker from Amorphis (that’s a highly technical musical term – corker, noun a thing so impressive that it causes jaws to drop, spines to tingle, body hairs to prick up, and souls to resonate). I mean, listen to the track The Moon at high volume on a quality sound system. If that doesn’t move you profoundly, you’re either dead inside or your soul needs an enema. I won’t yammer on at length about the rest of the album. It follows the same masterful Amorphis blueprint that the band has refined over three decades. As with much of the band’s previous music, there’s a strong folk influence, to the extent that some of the melodies come across a bit like metal incarnations of sea shanties with a Finnish folk flavour (i.e. dark, deep and atmospheric). A spellbinding record.

4. Solár – Atlas

This one really took me by surprise. Even before hearing a single note of Solár’s music, I was drawn to this record. The band’s name and the album title resonated with me, I found the cover art compelling (still do), one of the album’s tracks is named after the abstract artist Sam Francis, and in addition to all those things, some sixth sense was telling me to grab the record and dive into its sounds. As always, the animal instincts were right. I wouldn’t describe any of the tracks as songs. They don’t follow the usual “rules” or even “suggestions” that determine what constitutes a song. Atlas consists of six vast soundscapes, each unique, each mesmerising in its own ways (one of the tracks is even called Mesmer). Opener Nomad is 22 minutes and 8 seconds of staggering, echo-heavy sound that’s fearless, free and organic, like Pink Floyd’s more melodic moments from The Division Bell filtered through cold Swedish post-rock sensibilities then tweaked by a producer with an Alrakis obsession (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I have one of those obsessions). My favourite track on the album is Sam Francis, a beautiful example of how a piece of music can build and evolve as it progresses rather than just delivering verses, choruses and solos to some predetermined blueprint. The track starts with a sublime guitar refrain and Sam Francis himself talking of his “ways of seeing”. This segues into an instrumental jam phase (the musical type, not the strawberry stuff): a section whose repeating leitmotifs have a hypnotic effect on the listener. Then arrives a monumental riff, a thing of wonder, the sort of riff every other guitarist will listen to and say, “Fuck me sideways, I wish I’d come up with that.” Impressive isn’t a sufficient word to describe this track. It’s a masterpiece. A gesamtkunstwerk. From start to finish, Atlas is the sound of true artists creating music driven by passion, love and creative freedom. It’s there in every note, every nuance, every aspect. A joy to hear.

5. Saor – Origins

If Origins had contained material as inspired and groundbreaking as the track Children of the Mist (from the 2014 Saor album Aura), it would be sharing the 2022 top spot with Sakis. That’s how impressive Saor can be, when the conditions are right and the inspiration is there. The thing about recording a track so unfeasibly, ridiculously good is that every Saor track from that point on gets compared to the masterpiece… by me, anyway. Can’t help it. I’ve never been disappointed by any Saor release, though. I’m just always hoping for an album loaded with tracks of a Children of the Mist calibre. Some folk would say that’s an unrealistic thing to hope for – it’s like hoping for Black Sabbath to release a new album on which every track is as unique and groundbreaking as War Pigs, or for Deep Purple to do a new album loaded with songs as iconic as Child in Time, or for Led Zeppelin to create a new record containing nothing but tracks of a No Quarter quality. You get my point. But the thing about hoping is that it doesn’t have to be realistic. Realistic shit happens all the time. It’s the unrealistic stuff that has to be hoped for. Enough philosophy, though. To Origins. It’s an amazing album in its own right. The distinctive Saor sound is there throughout – a captivating blend of Thin Lizzyesque Celtic guitar melodies, much heavier black-metal influences, and indigenous folk flourishes that help to create a true Caledonian atmosphere. An Alba atmosphere! This is done so well that it always comes across as authentic, never as twee or contrived. Saor mainman Andy Marshall describes his music as, “Caledonian Metal from Scotland, inspired by history and nature.” That’s an accurate summation. The Nature influence has been evident in Saor’s music from the very beginning, and it’s a breath of fresh air in the genre. A Saor album is the musical equivalent of climbing the Aonach Eagach in Glencoe and then looking out across the glen while you stand in awe with the sky in your hair and the breeze on your face. If that sounds like your cup o’ tea, give this band a whirl. Your heid will never be the same again.

6. Mitch Murder – Selection 6

Sublime synthwave from the busiest man in the business. The Jarre and Tangerine Dream influences are evident (as they are in all electronica), there’s a strong Air influence too, and there’s even some jazz-fusion electro grooves à la Jan Hammer (especially his original Miami Vice soundtrack work). Selection 6 features fifteen slices of upbeat ’70s/’80s-style synth genius. It’s the musical equivalent of cruising along a California coastal road in a convertible with the top down, and not a care in the world other than soaking up some rays. Bliss. Check out the track Beach Interlude Redux for a prime example of this. Pure sonic sunshine.

7. Stratos Zero – Stratos Zero I 2012 – 2022

That Murder man again. Named after the original Lancia Stratos prototype (the Stratos Zero: a thing of beauty styled by Marcello Gandini), this band is a solo side-project of Mitch Murder, who describes SZ as a fusion of classic electro, techno, acid house and (mostly ’90s) electronica in general. Like all electronica, it owes a heavy debt to Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, the visionaries who paved the way for all subsequent electro acts. There’s also an unashamedly Depeche Mode sound (definitely a good thing) on a couple of tracks, and hints of Legion-era Mark Shreeve here and there (another good thing). There’s even a tripomatic Jam and Spoon influence on some tracks (yet another good thing!), most notably on Accelerator Control Network, which has as smooth and easy a vibe as you’ll find anywhere this side of Right in the Night. The album is an excellent blend of light and shade, joy and melancholy, established rhythmic blueprints and new synth textures. It’s challenging in parts, asking some questions of the listener rather than just going for the easy option (smooth synth) all the time. More enjoyable with each successive listen, it’s like a puzzle that takes a while to figure out but is worth the effort.

8. Saxon – Carpe Diem

I won’t call Saxon “the Barnsley Big Teasers” (again), because Biff will correct me (again) and say, “I’m not actually from Barnsley… I’m from Honley, which is fifteen miles up the road from Barnsley.” Except when he says it, it comes out like, “Eh oop, Rice lad, Oi aren’t from them thar parts, Oi be from oother parts oop the road from them thar parts.” Sorry, Biff. I couldn’t resist it. To the new album, though. Carpe Diem is quintessential Saxon. As always, the songs are masterfully crafted and immaculately executed. As always, the hooks are huge, the choruses anthemic. As always, the tracks feature some of the most impressive twin-guitar work in the known Universe. And as always, the vocals are utterly inimitable; no one else sings like Biff. (In my novel Metallic Dreams the young Spark MacDubh describes his first experience of Saxon thus: “I was ten when I heard the music that ended the first phase of my life and launched me towards a new horizon at the speed of sound. Drenched to the skin, I stood on Dunoon’s pier peering out to sea through sheets of rain, looking for the ferry that would take me home. There on the everwet west coast of Scotland I heard it: electrified powerchords slicing through the dreich weather. My body hairs pricked up like antennae. To my young ears these amplified guitars sounded angelic, for surely no man-made instrument could produce that tone. The singer couldn’t be human. His voice was too clean, too pure, too resonant, as though a robot larynx were piping words through vocal chords of polished silver. The overall effect was intoxicating – a storm of drums, earthquake bass, razor-sharp guitar riffs, and soaring vocals of astonishing clarity. I knew that I was hearing the future.” – excerpt from the chapter titled Heavy Metal Thunder). That description still fits Saxon perfectly. The young MacDubh was describing Princess of the Night (autobiographically, for I had that exact experience) from the iconic album Denim and Leather, but the 2022 incarnation of Saxon sounds just as fresh, energetic and inspired as the early version of the band did all those years ago. A testament to the band’s influence is this: I’ve met a lot of metal musicians – thousands – with widely ranging tastes and opinions, but not even one of them has ever had anything negative to say about Saxon. Among metallic peers, this is the most universally loved and respected band. Carpe Diem is a reminder of why this is the case.

9. Isafjørd – Hjartastjaki

Sólstafir has long been one of my favourite bands. (The 2015 album Berdreyminn is one of the most perfect things ever recorded. The other stuff’s impressive, but Berdreyminn is immaculate.) The recently formed Isafjørd project features Sólstafir founder Aðalbjörn “Addi” Tryggvason and occasional Sólstafir touring member Ragnar Sólberg Rafnsson. The duo’s resulting Hjartastjaki album is a supremely listenable and atmospheric piece of work. Sonically, the Sólstafir influence is the most evident one, but there are others too: some of the more delicate melodies remind me of Atti’s (and Ragnar’s) fellow Icelandic visionaries Sigur Rós. The blend of melancholy and optimism is there, as are the light and shade. Atmospherics in spades. Hjartastjaki was recorded in Norway, where Ragnar lives. Thank you to my fellow Scottish author (and major birder) Peter Carroll for drawing my attention to this album a couple of weeks after its release.

10. Soul Dissolution – SORA

The front cover is straight from the Bathory school of album art. A Naturescape so magnificent, mysterious and atmospheric that one can sense the old gods just out of sight behind the scenes, waiting, watching, preparing for their return. Belgian band Soul Dissolution was a welcome new discovery for me in 2022. SORA impressed me so much that I went straight out and got the rest of the band’s discography (by “went straight out” I actually mean “sat on my arse in my office and ordered online”… but old habits die hard… and it sounds better to say “I ran straight out and got”, which is how I used to do things as a kid… I’d hear a tune for the first time on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show, then the very next morning I would run 2 miles to my local Impulse Records shop to buy the chunk of vinyl whose grooves had so impressed me on the radio the night before). So anyway, SORA impressed me so much that I remained sitting on my arse in my comfy swivel chair, moved my right index finger almost imperceptibly in order to click a mouse a few times, and downloaded Soul Dissolution’s discography in lossless digital format. Doesn’t sound even remotely impressive when I put it like that. Where’s the epicness? Where’s the running for miles through the ice and snow, like I used to have to do to get records? Where’s the sweat and the blood and the guts? Where’s the sense of expectation and ritual? Where’s the pain and sacrifice? Even though I didn’t have to don my battle jacket covered in studs and patches, wrap a bullet belt round it, then brave winter storms, fighting off rampaging neds and assorted other nutjobs along the way, in order to get to a physical record shop and buy SORA, I would happily have done so if that had been an option. That’s the way I used to do things. But Impulse Records is long gone along with all the other local record stores. (A bookies now exists in the space where Impulse used to be. That’s regress, not progress.) It’s not just the cover art of SORA that’s captivating – the music is too, from start to finish. The use of varying guitar tones is used to amazing effect. On heavier interludes there’s much of what I call “the Halifax sound”, i.e. the guitar tone heard on the early releases by Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema (I know Anathema hailed from Liverpool, and My Dying Bride from Bradford, but both of those bands were such a pivotal part of the Halifax doom scene that their sound – along with that of actual Halifaxsters Paradise Lost – essentially defined that scene). SORA‘s tracks counterbalance real heaviness with delicate moments (as Anathema did even in the early, heavy days), frequently veering into blackgaze territory to create hypnotic soundscapes reminiscent of Deafheaven and Alcest. There’s even a couple of sublime piano intros that fit seamlessly into the songs. It’s impossible to label this band. That’s how it should be. Musical artists, like all artists, should explore and express, not hem themselves in.

That’s my top 10 albums of 2022. Of course there were loads of other albums that also impressed me this year. I’m just not going to write about all of them at length. I’ve a big sequel to finish, don’t you know? (Currently 423,788 words and counting.) I don’t want the year’s other cracking albums to go without even a mention, though, so here’s a list of the releases that didn’t make my top 10 but resonated with me nonetheless: The Hu – Rumble of Thunder, Starfield – Confluence of Two Stars, Amon Amarth – The Great Heathen Army, Doodseskader – Year One, Timor et Tremor – Realm of Ashes, Brymir – Voices in the Sky, Vermilia – Ruska, Arjen Anthony Lucassen’s Star One – Revel in Time, Midnight Oil – Resist, Syöjätär – Pyhät puut, A Place of Level Earth – Fractured, Lost in Kiev – Rupture, Dawnwalker – House of Sand, Nothing but Echoes – The Sixth Extinction, Lunar Mercia – Leaving the Fragile Space, Russian Circles – Gnosis, Skid Row – The Gang’s All Here, AURORA – The Gods We Can Touch, Lumnos – A Glimpse Through the Event Horizon, Venom Inc. – There’s Only Black, Terra – Fur Dich Existiert Das Alles Nicht, Eternal Helcaraxe – Drown in Ash, A Mountain of One – Stars Planets Dust Me, Avantasia – A Paranormal Evening with the Moonflower Society, Ilvilja – Skymningsdager, Primordial Woods – De Rerum Natura, Herbstlethargie – Melancholie im Blattfall, Ilvilja – Endless Rivers, Grima – Frostbitten, Nurez – Nachtlied, Uzlaga – The Might of Waves, Interior Mors – Fronde, Spettri Ed Antiche Pietre, Eerie Heir –Your Face Forgotten, Your Fate Nightmare, Adrenalin Ghosts – Impossible Piano Pieces, Corpus Vitreum – The Roots of Corpus Vitreum, Olhava – Reborn, Dark Funeral – We Are the Apocalypse, Abbath – Dread Reaver, KORN – Requiem.

My Top Albums of 2021

1= Mesarthim – Vacuum Solution

My favourite Australian band found the perfect sound in 2021. The duo’s early material blew my mind – I knew I was hearing the start of something special. Some of those early tunes, despite being musically immaculate, were held back a little by production that could have been fuller. No such issues anymore. The production on Vacuum Solution captures the vastness of the band’s sound. Captures isn’t the right verb, in fact. Expresses is a more appropriate one. These soundscapes are too vast to be captured. That’s why it’s so difficult to get the production right for a band of this scope: what do eternity, infinity and a supremely sentient consciousness roaming through space sound like? They sound like this. Vacuum Solution is up there with the Alrakis albums as the most inspired and inspiring atmospheric black metal ever created. The tracks delve into electronica too. This isn’t Mesarthim’s first time fusing ambient elements with colossal metal. It is, however, a showcase of just how good the band has become at blending the two styles. Listen to A Manipulation of Numbers and you’ll hear what I mean. It starts off like something from Jan Hammer’s soundtrack to the original Miami Vice TV series – delicate keyboards and sublime melodies. Then 49 seconds in, the music quietens, there’s a momentary lull, expectation builds, and… BOOM! A gargantuan wave of riffage explodes out of the speakers. On top of that wave, riding it like a berserk surfer, is a roar of sheer cathartic abandon. The effect on the listener (in my experience, at least) is monumental. Endorphin flood. Shivers up the spine. Body hair standing up like a legion of antennae sensing magical frequencies in the air.

Vacuum Solution is technically a 5-track EP but I’m including it in my album-of-the-year list because: (a) it’s as staggering a piece of work as any album; (b) Slayer’s Reign in Blood LP is only 28 minutes and 55 seconds long, yet that doesn’t stop people from hailing it as a classic album (Vacuum Solution clocks in at 27 minutes, 48 seconds). Listen out for tips o’ the hat to Enigma’s Sadeness in A Manipulation of Numbers – Mesarthim acknowledging their electronic influences. I like that. It’s respect. Despite this duo being very much an atmospheric black metal band, the opening riffs of Heliocentric Orbit are total melodic death metal in the Finnish vein, sounding just like Wintersun. Nothing wrong with that! The same track also features brief appearances from a plinky-plonky melody that sounds like it came out of a Fisher-Price kids’ keyboard. Reminds me of the keyboard sound on the phenomenal Nobody’s Wife by Ten Benson (one of the most underrated bands on the planet). The influences here are many and varied. I urge you to listen to this EP in lossless format: vinyl, CD or lossless digital FLAC. Lossy formats such as mp3 are, in a word, shite. They’re called lossy for a reason: they lose much of the original source material’s frequency in order to reduce file size. The result: smaller files with horrifically diminished sound. Mesarthim’s music is vast. It has to be heard it in all its lossless wonder. Turn it up loud and be wowed.

1= Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

There are some similarities between this album and the Mesarthim EP above. Both feature soundscapes that fluctuate between quiet introspective melodies and huge walls of riffage. Both delve into electronica and ambienta in pursuit of the perfect balance between heaviness and melody. Both transcend what could be referred to as “songs”, creating something so much bigger it’s transformative to hear. That’s why I use the term soundscapes to describe them. They’re vast. Deafheaven’s music is often labelled blackgaze. That’s not a bad way of summing it up – a mixture of shoegaze and black metal (the hi-fidelity, endorphin-boosting variety as opposed to the lo-fi, burn-down-churches-in-Norway brand). While Mesarthim’s vocals are roars in the abyss, Deafheaven’s singing is cleaner and more delicate than ever before. I saw one preposterous article (I won’t name and shame its writer – he’s entitled to his opinion, even if it is ludicrous) about this album. The writer in question lamented the direction Deafheaven took with Infinite Granite. He expounded at length over how the band had veered disastrously out of blackgaze territory and into shoegaze. Such a pronouncement was preposterous in so many ways, I’m not even going to get into them here. That article’s writer just doesn’t get 2021 Deafheaven. He whined and moaned about how the songs on the new album don’t get any emotional response from him. If that’s his experience he has every right to voice it. He went on, however, to declare that none of the songs on Infinite Granite would stimulate awe in any listener, as the band’s early classics did. That’s not for him to say. He can’t extrapolate his experience out to everyone; to think he can is evidence of a character disorder and/or some sort of god complex. Music is all about resonance. The new Deafheaven material may not have resonated with him but it does resonate with me. Utterly. So much so that the album’s right at the top of my 2021 list. To me, it seems weird that anyone could listen to the track Lament for Wasps and not be moved on a profound level. Sublime intro, gorgeous tones, vulnerable vocals, flawless melodies, then the escalation, the expansion into a tsunami of sound that gets into every part of me and affects me on a molecular level. I feel it happening every time. It resonates. And as I said before, it’s all about resonance. Every moment of Infinite Granite resonates perfectly with me. I consider it a masterpiece. That’s my experience.

I recommend playing this album in lossless format, turned up loud and pumped through big speakers. It just may change your life for the better.

1= Insomnium – Argent Moon

This isn’t the first time a release from Finland’s Insomnium has topped one of my album-of-the-year lists. Or the second. Or even the third. The first Insomnium LP to do so was Above the Weeping World back in 2006. That pioneering album – my equal-favourite record of all time – was a defining moment for melodic death metal. Since then, each successive Insomnium release has achieved top billing in my list for that year. Insomnium’s music resonates with me. Totally. I love this band. I’ve listened to their albums thousands of times and they never get stale. The music is mythic, dark, beautiful and wintry. It’s heavy yet always driven by melody, even in its most brutal moments. Like Mesarthim’s Vacuum Solution, Insomnium’s Argent Moon is technically an EP. Also like Vacuum Solution, Argent Moon is absolutely going on my 2021 album-of-the-year list, for the same reasons given earlier. Plus it’s my fucking list so I’ll fucking well put whatever the fuck I want on the fucking thing and if any fucker has any objections, (s)he can fuck right off. So as I was saying, I like Insomnium. Prior to the release of Argent Moon, band bassist/vocalist/founder Niilo announced that it would be an EP featuring four new tracks, all of them ballads. This fascinated me. I know what Niilo means when he says ballad. An Insomnium ballad is a long way from Every Rose Has Its Thorn and More Than Words. If you’re not familiar with Insomnium and you’re wondering what a ballad by these melodeath pioneers might be like, imagine your soul tearing itself apart in existential sorrow as you look up into the Finnish winter sky at night, feeling limitless longing while the Universe sheds Her icy tears onto your skin. That’s what an Insomnium ballad is like. There’s beauty and delicacy, poignance and heartache, but there’s also anger and catharsis, rage and roar. There is balance. Light and shade. Each of the tracks on Argent Moon is a classic in its own right. This was by far my most listened-to record of 2021. I played it relentlessly for months while working on the Metallic Dreams sequel (which is nearly finished – more on that later). Perfect atmospheric music for the soundtrack of my book. Perfect music, period.

1= Wardruna – Kvitrafn

Wardruna founder Einar Selvik used to go by the name Kvitrafn in his previous band Gorgoroth. Kvitrafn means White Raven. Paradoxical, see? And as Salvador Dali pointed out, “All true art is utterly paradoxical.” This latest album from Wardruna is loaded with the highest quality of music, astonishing vocals, awe-inspiring atmospherics and real emotional depth. It’s the music of nature and the north. It talks to the listener’s soul. It resonates. There’s that word again. Wardruna’s most unique feature is my pal Lindy-Fay Hella, whose voice takes the music out of the worldly realm and into the otherworldly. While Armored Saint’s John Bush gets my vote for best male metal vocalist, Lindy-Fay gets my vote for best vocalist, period. That voice. Words can’t describe it. Just when the listener is soaking up the sounds of ancient Nordic instruments and the ritualistic chants of Einar Selvik, and thinking that a particular song is so perfect it couldn’t get any better, Lindy-Fay’s vocal arrives, elevating the whole experience sonically, emotionally and spiritually. Out of this world.

1= Adrenalin Ghosts – The Plague Fountain

The unlikely way in which I found this album proves the existence of serendipity. Here’s the story. You may already know (but if you don’t you’re about to find out) that the greatest song ever written is I Could Be So Good for You by Dennis Waterman. There are other equally good songs but none better. You can’t improve upon perfection. As you may also know (and if you don’t you’re about to find out), I Could Be So Good for You, in addition to being a hit single, was the theme tune for Minder, the best TV show of all time (rivalled only by Chorlton and the Wheelies). Minder was a full-on Watermanfest. Dennis not only composed, wrote lyrics for, performed and sang the intro and outro music for the show, he was the star in the programme too (along with the inimitable George Cole as Arthur Daley). I have the single of I Could Be So Good for You. From that I created a lossless FLAC version years ago, to listen to in the car and on my Cambridge Audio black-magic upscaling digital witchery device at home. It’s one of the songs I’ve sung to the wolfchild since he was just a wee explosion of polar-bear-white fur with enormous ears and paws (which he soon grew into). He has always loved me singing to him, and I Could Be So Good for You is the song he enjoys most (along with Uncle Elijah by Black Oak Arkansas). So when I couldn’t find my FLAC version of the Waterman standard, a sort of panic set in. (I lost a lossless file – there’s surely some sort of irony in that.) I could have created a new FLAC from source, but I figured it would be quicker to find a lossless version online. No such thing exists, though. A shitey mp3 download was available from Amazon but I had no interest in that. It had to be the real thing with the full sound. Figuring Dennis might have a bandcamp page, I Googled “Dennis Waterman bandcamp” only to find that he’s not on there. Google did deliver an intriguing search result, though: a link to the page of Adrenalin Ghosts, a musical project I’d never heard of before. Why was that page presented as the answer to my query? Because the band’s bio says the following: Adrenalin Ghosts is a mostly solo project of Si Egan, who plays everything, and does the artwork. Like Dennis Waterman without the singing or acting. As soon as I saw that, I knew that serendipity was at work. I clicked on the link, which took me to a page featuring the most recent Adrenalin Ghosts album, The Plague Fountain. Even before sampling the sounds, I was captivated by the album’s front cover. It has the same haunting quality as the cover art of Iron Maiden’s debut LP. There’s no Eddie the Head with his spiky hair, wide eyes and cadaverous menace, but there doesn’t need to be. The atmosphere in The Plague Fountain‘s cover is just as surreal, its nocturnal scene like a vision from a dream. Instead of Eddie’s eerie eyes staring out, it’s an old Volvo estate car with the headlights on. Like the debut Maiden cover, there’s mist, lamppost streetlights, a bus stop, a bin and some mysterious-looking flats. (I often see or hear connections even when they weren’t consciously created. That’s the way my mind works. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been listening to someone ramble on about some random topic or other, and I’ve blurted out, “That reminds me of a Blue Öyster Cult lyric!” Then I’ve proceeded to recite the lyric and explain the link between it and whatever the individual in question had just been talking about. Sometimes this blows the person’s mind. Other folk stare back startled, like I’ve just swooped in from some alien planet and imparted information in a language they don’t understand.) Anyway, back to Adrenalin Ghosts. The music is the product of genius. So much subtlety, such an innate understanding of layers and dynamics and repeating leitmotifs in order to bring about an altered state in the listener. As I sampled the tracks on The Plague Fountain, each one felt familiar. Even though my ears and brain had never experienced these tunes before, my soul knew this music. And when I played Trevelyan’s Rocker for the first time, it was like meeting a best friend I hadn’t seen in forever. I knew every nuance of the tune. And it knew me. So I bought the entire Adrenalin Ghosts discography. The Plague Fountain album in lossless format – upscaled through my Cambridge Audio black-magic machine and pumped out by huge speakers – is a monumental sound. Every time I hear Trevelyan’s Rocker my soul feels at home. The hypnotic tones of Labyrinth Music bring on an ultra-relaxed state, their leitmotif like a ghost that gets into the listener and, when it leaves, is missed. The Six Tasks of the I Ching is sonic bliss. Immaculate melodies, gorgeous layering – restrained and minimalist yet weirdly cathartic. Title track The Plague Fountain sounds like classic ’60s/’70s prog with a funky bass line and some Deep Purplesque keyboards. If this song were tagged onto a remaster by Focus or Van der Graaf Generator and listed as a “previously unreleased session track” not a single fan would disbelieve it. It’s that accomplished. I could go on and on about this album but I’ve said enough. It resonates with me. Each track evokes a cascade of emotions, so much so it’s like sorcery. There being no vocals doesn’t take anything away from the tunes. They’re all the more evocative because they don’t feature vocals. Singing would ruin these soundscapes. They’re perfect as they are.

1= Ministry – Moral Hygiene

Angriest album of 2021 by a country mile. As always, Al Jourgensen’s lyrics are incisive, observant and wholly unwilling to tolerate the hypocrisy and deception perpetrated by so-called government, corrupt corporations and their shill lackeys in the mainstream media. If everyone were as outspoken and savvy as Al (and I wish that were the case) the world would be in a much better state. No one would listen to “politicians” or other such deceitful, manipulative cunts. There are sociopaths out there getting away with murder on a vast scale. They have committed – and continue to commit – crimes against humanity. For that they will be held accountable. They’re in the medical-pharmaceutical complex, “governments” (a joke of a term) and the so-called World Health Organisation (the most inaccurately titled collective in history), assisted by their puppets in the media (who peddle whatever propaganda and lies their corporate funders pay them to disseminate). If you’re not fearlessly outspoken against all of that, you’re part of the problem.

To the music, though. It’s my favourite Ministry album. What does that mean? Well, Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs blew my mind when it first came out. Still does. It’s a cerebral, articulated venting of focused rage. Even the gibberish of Jesus Built My Hotrod – on which Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes delivers one of the most berserko vocal deliveries of all time – makes perfect sense within the context of that album. It might be thematic and lyrical light relief compared with the more serious anti-religion moments on the record, but musically it has the same energy: it’s a geyser of boiling fury. Moral Hygiene has even more anger… and with good reason. It’s heartening to see and hear that someone has his eyes open and his mind unpolluted by the pathetic political pantomime that has been playing out for years, culminating in the current deranged situation in which megalomaniacal psychopathic morons are trying with all their (feeble) might to control the thought processes and behaviour of the masses, proposing the permanent stripping away of individual freedoms because “it’s in the best interests of everyone”. Which it isn’t, of course. It’s in the financial interests of a few manipulative little cretins but in the absolute worst interests of everyone else. The pollution of people’s minds and bodies is going to come to an end and the perpetrators will be held accountable. That is already underway. The truth they’ve desperately tried to hide is known by many. More people are becoming aware of it every day. I’m still troubled that so many people were/are so easily duped. Critical-thinking faculties are in short supply. Kids should be taught – as I was – to question everything. They should know that “authority” is a mere illusion pushed by those who seek to manipulate. Understand that and you will always be free. You’ll perceive things as they actually are. You’ll see through every Emperor’s New Clothes lie. You’ll be a beacon of truth. Speaking of truth, Al dishes out ten servings of it on Moral Hygiene. There are musical tips o’ the hat – I’m not sure if they’re conscious or inadvertent – to some other legendary sonic innovators. Opener Alert Level kicks off with a rhythm reminiscent of White Zombie’s More Human Than Human, followed by a guitar riff that’s a variation of Black Sabbath’s Black Sabbath – a tune that scared the shit out of millions through effective use of the tritone: that three-part melody which the church tried to ban centuries ago because they believed that it could usher in the Devil. Back then churchgoers named the tritone “Diabolus in musica” – the Devil in music – having witnessed its ability to stir up a sense of unease and fear in those who heard it. (In an inspired move, Slayer chose Diabolus in Musica as a title for one of their albums.) This new Ministry album starts as it means to continue, with more fury than even the angriest Slayer record. Listen to the unrestrained rage in Al’s voice as he roars the opening line, “The cards are on the table, the hands are on deck, heading to a future we all reject.” Staggering. Track three on Moral Hygiene – a furious ditty called Sabotage Is Sex – starts out like a speedier version of Testament’s Low (nothing bad about that!). Further on in the song, starting at 2:24, a new backing melody comes in, sounding a lot like the opening rhythm of Amorphis’s Towards and Against. Could be deliberate tips o’ the hat to Testament and Amorphis, or subconscious tributes to them, or maybe just accidental soundalike moments. Moral Hygiene contains one cover version, included because it fits perfectly with the album’s theme: it’s Search and Destroy, originally by Iggy and The Stooges. Every song on this album is loaded with fury. The track titles speak volumes, among them: Disinformation; Broken System; We Shall Resist; Death Toll. This is a visceral non-fiction antithesis of the lies and nonsense pushed by politicians, their corporate masters and the shill lackeys in the media. It’s the sound of an avenging angel roaring in righteous rage. And it is fucking glorious.

1= NEGURĂ BUNGET – Zău

The swan song of my favourite Romanian band. Zău is testament to the creativity and innovation of band drummer/founder Gabriel “Negru” Mafa, who died in 2021 aged just 42. It’s a sonically complex beast. The album uses a wide range of sounds to build a truly original atmosphere. Spacey keyboard tones, pan pipes, arboreal sounds, wind, haunting whispered male voices and hypnotic female chants combine to astonishing effect. Opener Brad is one of the most epic pieces of music ever composed – 15 minutes and 53 seconds of utter atmospheric perfection. It begins with mesmerising ambience – the soundtrack to wintry woods at night – as a layer of keyboard and a whisper invite the listener in deeper. Then, halfway through the piece, when the listener is in too deep to escape, the mother of all riffs arrives like a bolt from the blue; this wall of black-metal riffage changes the whole dynamic from relaxation to awe. Later, the piece returns to ambience before once again delivering dark riffs of immense magnitude. The rest of the record continues in this vein – sublime ambience and heavy atmospherics in perfect balance, complementing each other but never competing. I can sum up this musical balance in three words: Zău is Zen.

The band was always inspired by nature, particularly that of their home region. This comes through in the music. Even the band name reflects it. “NEGURĂ BUNGET” is derived from ancient Romanian for “dark misty forest”. There’s no better name for a metal band. As well as being NEGURĂ BUNGET’s final release, Zău completes the Transylvanian Trilogy, which started with Tău and continued with Zi. This is the music of nature, winter and eternity. At points it actually transcends music and becomes something else – a primal sonic force. The use of traditional Romanian instruments recorded in an echo-heavy environment (some parts sound like they were performed in an echo chamber) is used to amazing effect on the intros and/or outros of several tracks. I could write all day about this album, then keep writing about it all night. There’s so much in it. Zău is so authentic, so deep, so rich in resonant soundscapes, so laden with mystery and emotional impact, it deserves to be hailed as one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

2= Autumn Nostalgie – Ataraxia

Innovative atmospheric black metal from Slovakia. Ataraxia is Autumn Nostalgie’s second album. The first – Esse Est Percipi – released in 2020, would have placed joint #1 at the top of my album list for that year if only I’d heard it that year. I didn’t come across Autumn Nostalgie until 2021, though. If I start retrospectively editing my albums-of-the-year lists whenever I discover new (to me) records, that would become a full-time job. So my posted album lists stay as they are, but in my mind Esse Est Percipi is right up there with Armored Saint’s Punching the Sky as the best album of 2020. Successor Ataraxia is a phenomenal album too. The ultra-fast sweep-picked cold-echo-in-the-void guitar work that characterises atmospheric black metal is present in force. There’s also a healthy amount of down-tuned rhythm riffage and bottom-heavy bass that the listener feels in the guts as much as in the mind. Light interludes are used to excellent effect. The album is sublimely delicate in parts, featuring dreamlike keyboard layers and some of the most beautiful guitar intro/outro melodies I’ve ever heard.

2= Mesarthim – CLG J02182–05102

When a band named after a binary star system in the constellation of Aries releases an album named after a galaxy cluster whose behaviour is baffling astronomers and physicists alike, it’s a safe bet that the results will be cosmic. CLG J02182–05102 is exactly that. The album features wholly different material from the Vacuum Solution EP released earlier the same year (although the LP does include a sequel to one of the EP tracks – A Manipulation of Numbers Part 2 (Vacuum Decay) is, unsurprisingly, the follow-up to A Manipulation of Numbers). This album is loaded with quintessential Mesarthim soundscapes: immersive, vast, profound, entrancing. The only reason CLG J02182–05102 isn’t joint #1 on my 2021 list is because the opening vocals in A Manipulation of Numbers Part 2 (Vacuum Decay) sound like Elmo from Sesame Street having a go at singing black metal. The familiar raw roar returns soon enough but the opening section of that track would have been far better sung in the usual Mesarthim way or delivered as a spoken-word section – a technique that can work extremely well with atmospheric black metal. The Elmo Incident is a minor blip on an album that’s otherwise immaculate. Electronica influences are present in abundance, blending perfectly with the heaviness and adding an extra dimension to the sound. In the case of instrumental Nucleation Seed, heavy elements are abandoned altogether, leaving just layers of electronica that could fit seamlessly onto a Jean-Michel Jarre album.

A deep, dark, awe-inducing album. Like everything these innovative Aussies have ever recorded, it’s essential listening.

3= Sundrowned – Become Ethereal

Atmospheric black metal again, this time from Sweden. Sundrowned’s Become Ethereal is the sonic equivalent of a cool breeze on a blazing summer day. To paraphrase a certain beer manufacturer, this music refreshes the parts (most) other atmospheric black metal can’t reach. Cracking band name. Phenomenal album cover. And, crucially, music with substance, texture and depth. I love it.

3= Lindy-Fay Hella & Dei Farne – Hildring

That Hella girl again. And that voice. There’s no way of summing up Hildring just by throwing a category at it. Yes, it’s folky but there’s more to it than that. Yes, the music digs deep into Lindy-Fay’s Nordic and Sami roots, yet there’s more to it than that. At points, her voice gets into the listener’s soul and cleans it out from the inside, revitalising and renewing. A heady experience. Sonic magic. The good stuff.

Backing band Dei Farne shouldn’t go without mention. Their music brings a unique energy and atmosphere through a form of electronica that sounds simultaneously current, futuristic and ancient. That doesn’t happen by accident. There’s serious talent on display here.

Hildring means mirage. That’s a perfect name for this record. The music and vocals are evocative and at times otherworldly, the images they conjure up in the mind very much altered-state dreamscapes.

One thing that amazes me about this album is how different it sounds to Lindy-Fay’s solo album Seafarer and her iconic body of work with Wardruna. Some of the same thematic elements are there – nature, mythology, ancestry – but the music here has a sound all of its own. A unique collaboration.

4. Mr Bungle – The Night They Came Home

All the previous Mr Bungle albums are worth owning and listening to, as is any music that features Mike Patton. One thing those records have in common: each contains a couple of absolute classic tracks and a bunch of odd experimental noisemongery that’s at best tolerable and at worst annoying. Yet I always grab Mr Bungle albums as soon as they come out, just as I do with music from Patton’s other projects, of which there are many (Faith No More and Tomahawk, most notably). For me, The Night They Came Home was the biggest musical surprise of the year. I don’t perceive it as a truly immaculate album worthy of joint #1 at the top of this list, but it isn’t a kick in the baws away from it. The opening track Won’t You Be My Neighbor? sees Patton in lounge-lizard crooner mode (just as he was in Faith No More’s cover of The Commodores’ Easy), but unlike in Easy, Patton switches into a full-on rage and takes the song in a whole different direction. After that, the album is loaded with ridiculously heavy riffage, low-end bass, blast-beat drumming, and Patton’s voice(s), as always, set to impress. There’s none of the clownfoolery of the past – no snippets from porn films, no carnival music (although there is a bit of death-metal mariachi), nobody wailing on brass instruments and annoying my ears with that horrific sound. This album is all about songs. Riff verse chorus riff verse chorus widdly guitar solo chorus outro riffage stop. That sort of song. No fannying around. They just get the job done. And holy fuck, they do it in style.

5. Greta Van Fleet – The Battle at Garden’s Gate

Their debut LP Anthem of the Peaceful Army placed equal top in my 2018 album-of-the-year list. To the critics who complain that GVF’s music sounds like Led Zeppelin, I’ll say this: do you eejits think Led Zeppelin invented the sounds on their albums? Newsflash – they didn’t! Led Zep pilfered in the most flagrant way, nicking big chunks of blues songs, sometimes whole songs. They even stole lyrics in their entirety from journeyman blues artists. You don’t think Robert Plant came up with that lemon-squeezing stuff by himself, do you? Most of LZ’s The Lemon Song is a plagiarised Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf, then towards the end of the track Plant chucks in a bunch of lyrics nicked from Robert Johnson’s Traveling Riverside Blues. And Robert Johnson got those lyrics by stealing them! From Joe Williams, who in 1929 sang about an unspecified someone squeezing his lemon and causing the juice to run down his leg, in his track I Want It Awful Bad. (Joe must have enjoyed having his lemon squeezed, for not only was he moved to write a song about the experience, the lyrics express a desire for more of the same. That song could even be interpreted as a recruitment campaign for lemon squeezers.) So Zep’s The Lemon Song features multiple layers of thievery, yet the band had the audacity to claim all writing credits for the music and the lyrics. Until Howlin’ Wolf’s record company sued them, that is. Zep settled out of court and revised the songwriting credit so that it acknowledged Chester Burnett – aka Howlin’ Wolf – as the song’s creator. And that’s just one example of Led Zep’s magpie behaviour. They also nicked lyrics and music from a host of other musicians, many of them relatively obscure in commercial terms (and therefore safer to pilfer from – less chance of litigation in response). I love most of Led Zeppelin’s music. Although they were undeniably thieves, they were able to use stolen ideas and fuse them with their own innate musical sensibilities, in the process coming up with some iconic music. For a critic to complain about Greta Van Fleet nicking Led Zeppelin’s musical style is like saying, “That car thief is totally out of order for stealing a car from the dude who stole it from somebody else!” It’s that level of nonsense. Music critics: they’re like bumholes – they smell funny and they talk shit. I mean, I’ve never heard a football commentator get incensed and shout, “How dare that player come out onto the pitch wearing shorts, a shirt and boots, and then kick the ball into the goal net? That’s been done before! He needs to be utterly different from every other footballer who ever existed, otherwise we will criticise him while frowning heavily in his direction!” All musicians have influences. Some wear theirs on their sleeves, musically speaking. In GVF’s music I do hear a strong Zeppelin likeness, but I also hear a big Boston influence, some Triumph (especially on the vocals), lots of Rushesque technique, some Alice Cooper, a soupçon of Lynyrd Skynyrd, a bit of The Eagles, the occasional Black Sabbath riff, and hints of myriad other musical artists. And guess what? In the music of every single one of those artists, I hear the influence of musicians and composers who came before them. That’s how music works.

Now that that’s off my chest, let’s talk about this second full-length Greta Van Fleet release. I love it. Not quite as much as the debut, but still a lot. The debut will always be extra special to me because I played it relentlessly in the car during one of my stays on the Isle of Lewis, my ancestral homeland. It was the perfect soundtrack – timeless and epic like the island itself. I listened to that album so much as I drove all over Lewis and Harris, the music became weaved into the fabric of the landscape, merging with the rays from the sun, the roar of the sea, and the golden sand of the beaches. Now when I listen to that LP – no matter where I happen to be – I’m transported back to my favourite island. So album number two from GVF had a lot to live up to. There isn’t a dull moment on it. Two of the tracks don’t quite hit the spot for me, but the rest are every bit as powerful as the material on the debut. Yes, there are some blatant Led Zep chunks, including one intro that sounds like a hybrid of Stairway to Heaven and Robert Plant’s solo track Ship of Fools. There’s also a couple of nicked Alice Cooper guitar melodies (Only Women Bleed and I’m Eighteen), a flurry of Skynyrd’s Freebird guitar solo, a melody reminiscent of The Eagles’ Hotel California, and a riff that’s essentially Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell in amongst the more original elements, but so what? These are tips o’ the hat to the music that helped these kids become what they are. And what they are is phenomenal. Such is the elemental power in some of their music, it feels like it hasn’t been created but unearthed. Josh Kiszka’s voice can do all the Robert Plant stuff and more: Kiszka can sing with such immense power while conveying such deep emotion, the effect is stunning. It resonates with me. That word again.

If you’re going to listen to this band, I recommend choosing a lossless format so you hear the music as it’s intended to sound, not some butchered version of it. This applies to all music, so I won’t say it again in this 2021 list. Take it as read. Lossy music doesn’t just lose quality – the music also loses much of its emotional impact. Lossless is the way. Hear music in all its sonic glory.

6. Andrew WK – God Is Partying

The album title is an in-joke for fans. Since the start of AWK’s musical career he has done, redone, re-redone and re-re-redone the party theme… and then done it a whole lot more. This led many people to misjudge the man, writing him off as some moronic drunken rocker with a low IQ and a one-track mind. The reality is far from that, though. He’s a remarkably eloquent, intelligent, compassionate and empathetic human being. This album is his most accomplished to date. The songs are beautifully crafted. The material is the heaviest (musically and thematically) AWK has ever created but at no point is it noise for noise’s sake. The musical craftsmanship on display here is sublime. As Andrew has grown up, so has his music. Not that there was anything wrong with his early material. It contained some of the catchiest, most endorphin-boosting anthems ever written. All of AWK’s music – this album included – has one key feature in common: it doesn’t hold back. That’s one thing I love about this dude. He gives his all. As in, he gives his ALL. Whether he’s pouring his heart out or roaring his lungs out, he gives 100%. The only track on this record that would fit seamlessly onto one of his early albums is Not Anymore: a straightforward fuck-you to all his detractors. It has the same relentless gung-ho attitude as early anthems Party Hard and She Is Beautiful. Turn this track up loud. Pogo around the room / punch the air / do whatever the music moves you to do. Repeat as necessary. Pure catharsis. Music therapy of the best kind.

Although the album is titled God Is Partying, there’s no song of that name on it. There is, however, a track called Goddess Partying. I like the balance. The observant among you may have noticed that Goddess Partying and God Is Partying are homonymic phrases, i.e. they sound the same but have different meanings. Which reminds me of my one teenage year spent in Virginia, USA, when every day in school a dude who sat in front of me used to turn round, gaze into my eyes, flutter his eyelashes and whisper, “I love you.” This freaked me out at first but by the end of the year I was used to it. On the last day of school, when everyone was signing yearbooks, he wrote two words in mine – “Elephant Shoes” – then signed his name underneath. Took me a moment to figure it out.

7. Death SS – X

My equal-favourite Italian musical artists (along with Ludovico Einaudi and Alan Sorrenti). I’ve been listening to Death SS a lot recently, not just this new album but the band’s entire discography, which contains some of the most iconic and influential shock metal ever recorded. Stefano Silvestri – or, to give him his band name, Steve Sylvester – doesn’t get enough credit for the groundwork he laid musically, thematically and in terms of image. Since Death SS’s inception back in the ’70s, he has been wearing horror-movie makeup and writing songs that are essentially sonic versions of horror films. I’m sure that the Sami Curr character in the film Trick or Treat was based on Steve Sylvester.  I’ve a picture of Steve from the early ‘80s which looks identical to stills of Sami Curr from that film (which arrived a couple of years later), from his clothes to his hairstyle and even the crazed look in his eyes. I’m also sure that Death SS’s image and music have been a big influence on Ghost (along with Mercyful Fate and Blue Öyster Cult), Rob Zombie, GWAR, Lordi, Deathstars and many others. To the album X, though. Its predecessor Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon was a barnstorming record: an adrenalin-fuelled blend of Deathstars’ over-the-top shock metal and the horror influences of Death SS’s early material. The sound of heavy metal firing on all cylinders. This successor is a return to the band’s roots in terms of musical style. The production isn’t as big as on Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon. Most of the tracks on X are less like actual sonic weapons, and more like palpable threats – the musical equivalent of a horror film that has you looking over your shoulder afterwards… just in case. That’s what Death SS’s music has always been about: metal mixed with effective theatrics. While I prefer Rock ‘n’ Roll Armageddon to X (not by a huge margin, though), the former was the sound of Death SS being influenced by bands who had first been influenced by Death SS, so it had a karmic circularity to it. X, on the other hand, is Death SS being influenced from within. It’s their own sound which they pioneered decades ago, then refined and produced in order to add a more polished finish. At its heart it’s the same raw, theatrical horror metal that only Alice Cooper (and, on the original Hellbilly Deluxe, Rob Zombie) can do this well. The difference is that Alice and Rob are clearly putting on a show, whereas with Death SS the listener can’t help but wonder if these nutcases are doing it for real.

For me, the standout track is Heretics, which has an amazing groove, a Spaghetti Western twangy guitar style and an anthemic singalong chorus. It’s the lightest track on the record but also the catchiest. Like the D.A.D. classic Sleeping My Day Away and Tarot’s stomper Painless flung into a blender with Satan and a bunch of horror-movie ghouls. It’s a new subgenre! Satanic Spaghetti Western Twangery. I love it. I also love the rest of the album, which is heavier than Hell lined with lead.

8. David Crosby – For Free

It may surprise some people to hear that I have all the music David Crosby has ever recorded. Not just his work as a solo artist but also his many collaborations. This newest solo record is my favourite of the lot.

For Free is a masterclass in music. From the quality of songwriting and production to the musical execution and vocal delivery, this is a spellbinding record. Crosby’s vocals are more poignant, exposed and authentic than ever before. The listener can actually feel Crosby’s soul in the vocals. And soul is something he has a lot of. For evidence of this, listen to the track I Won’t Stay for Long – the pinnacle of this album. It is one of the most beautiful, vulnerable, utterly captivating songs ever recorded. I am in awe of it. I turn that song up loud and my jaw drops. Moves me to tears. Every. Single. Time.

Art without artifice. An amazing album from a true legend.

9. Moonspell – Hermitage

They topped my 2014 list with Extinct, an album I consider as immaculate as anything ever recorded. Hermitage is another quality album by my favourite Portuguese outfit. The atmospherics aren’t as dramatic as those on Extinct, the production’s not as crisp, and the music is a lot less gothy. Extinct had a distinct Type O Negative influence. The two bands toured together and were good friends, so it’s natural that some stylistic bleedover would happen. Not that Moonspell were ever emulating TON – the influence was subtle but it was there. I don’t hear any Type O influence on Hermitage, though. This record delves more into Opeth territory, exploring the land of heavy progressive metal. This gives Moonspell the chance to stretch themselves musically and express their artistic vision in new ways. But Hermitage – musically adept as it is – doesn’t set my excitement on fire the way Extinct does. When Extinct first came out I listened to it continually for months. It was by far my most listened-to album of that year. Hermitage is different. It doesn’t captivate me but I can appreciate its artistry and deeply enjoy it. There are some gorgeous moments: sublime guitar work, particularly. Pink Floydy in parts. More evidence of prog leanings. It’s an introspective piece of art. That’s the main difference between Hermitage and Extinct. Extinct was a roaring catharsis of an album. Hermitage is more inwards-looking, more solitary, true to its title.

10. Mike Tramp – Everything Is Alright

I like Mike. White Lion played their part in my adolescence. Their tunes are still special to me. Mike’s subsequent project Freak of Nature delivered heavier music that was hugely underrated, but the folk who got it really got it. Since then, as a solo artist, Mike’s music has been consistently strong, never more so than on 2021’s Everything Is Alright. For me the album’s highpoint is Trust in Yourself, an emotive song that shuns the moronic herd mentality prevalent today. That track is very much the spiritual and musical successor to White Lion’s Living on the Edge, in which Mike sings about packing his bags and riding into the sunset, not knowing where he would go but not being even the slightest bit worried about that. Shades of Freak of Nature’s Open Space too. Perfect songs, all.

Mike continues fearlessly on, free as a bird, creating music from the heart, guided by his own inner compass. There aren’t many like him. The album has some exhilarating moments. That unique voice is instantly recognisable, dripping with emotion and truth, singing meticulously crafted lyrics. Mikey’s the real deal. Always has been.

11. Fear Factory – Aggression Continuum

One of my all-time favourite bands. I played Soul of a New Machine, Demanufacture and Obsolete relentlessly back when they came out. Likewise with the tour-de-force return to form Genexus in 2015. Fear Factory pioneered cyber metal. Taking electronic cues from Front Line Assembly, Gary Numan and Brad Fiedel, and philosophical themes from Terminator, FF combined these with precise industrial metal. And lo, cyber metal was born. Burton C. Bell’s soaring voice is perfect for this style of industrial machinistic music. His tones are irrepressible, loaded with hope and a refusal to submit. He can roar but his voice can also soar, and that’s when it’s most effective. Aggression Continuum is – like Ministry’s Moral Hygiene and a lot of the savvy art of the past couple of years – a work of enlightened, angry social commentary. Whereas Ministry’s album is raw and visceral, Fear Factory’s is polished shinier than a T2 robot. It’s the sound fans have come to expect from the band – the Fear Factory blueprint. As usual, there are tips o’ the hat to Brad Fiedel’s amazing soundtrack work from the Terminator films – a leitmotif that carries across several Fear Factory albums. It works. Sometimes the band forgets about melody and veers into all-out noise. That’s a necessary part of their craft, but I prefer when they blend melody and heaviness. When Burt uses clean vocals and lets his voice soar, that’s when Fear Factory’s music has maximum impact. That’s when it takes the listener on a journey. Aggression Continuum isn’t my favourite Fear Factory album but it is – in parts – stunning. A welcome addition to the band’s groundbreaking discography.

12. Swallow the Sun – Moonflowers

One of my friends – a fellow Swallow the Sun fan – can’t get into this album at all. He finds it too introspective, the songs too dirgelike. (That same friend summed up the recent Alan Parsons live album as sounding “similar to a bunch of old goats bleating in a barn” – a description that had me crying with laughter… and I’m an Alan Parsons fan!) Back to Moonflowers, though. It’s not a happy smiley album. No Finnish melodic death metal is. But of all the bands in that movement, Swallow the Sun has always been the most grief-laden and funereal (thematically they’re like a Finnish incarnation of Halifax doomsters My Dying Bride). Some of their songs are tributes to fallen loved ones – mythic laments awash with delicacy and emotion. There’s a huge Dark Tranquillity influence (always a good thing) on Moonflowers, particularly in the vocals. Most of the tracks start out with soft intros featuring guitar work that sounds a lot like Steve Rothery’s (another good thing). Some songs remain restrained throughout. Others grow heavier, exploring the full spectrum of the melodeath sound. This album is an ideal accompaniment to reflection, meditation, remembrance and grief. It heightens those experiences. The track Woven into Sorrow is the spiritual successor to Queensrÿche’s Silent Lucidity. Epic in sound and scale.

A monumental album by a monumental band.

13. Tomahawk – Tonic Immobility

Another Mike Patton project. Tonic Immobility is the first Tomahawk record in eight years. Musically, the album reminds me a lot of of Faith No More’s King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime, which makes sense in one respect but is strange in another. It’s logical that these two albums might sound alike, as Mike Patton sings on both and is involved in song composition too. The likeness is chronologically strange, though, in this sense: King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime came out in 1995, then four years later Patton formed Tomahawk, yet the early Tomahawk material doesn’t sound much like FNM at all. Not to my ears, anyway. But Tonic Immobility is essentially King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime Part 2. There are the same jagged riffs, vocal delivery and dense production. Admittedly, the track Business Casual harkens back to slightly earlier FNM, sounding like Kindergarten from the 1992 album Angel Dust. All of which is good. I’m always happy to hear Mikey’s musical output, from his myriad obscure projects to his “supergroup” Tomahawk, his “side band” Mr Bungle, and his “main band” Faith No More.

A little piece of trivia. Mike Patton has a six-octave vocal range – the largest in all of rock or metal music. I’ve always loved the way he can flit between deep, menacing growls and glass-shattering shrieks. I think I know how he achieves this. When I was a kid, one of my metal-loving friends and I were sitting listening to music in my room one afternoon. I asked my friend how he thought vocalists such as Rob Halford, Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson, King Diamond and Eric Adams were able to hit stratospheric high notes with apparent ease. My friend pondered this for a moment and then replied, “They must be squeezin’ their baws. I mean, it isnae natural for a man tae sing that high. No’ unless someone’s squeezin’ has baws.” There was definite logic in what he said. So I put his theory to the test. I selected a song with a super-high vocal scream – Jag Panzer’s Harder Than Steel – and played the track at considerable volume, singing along with gusto. 26 seconds in – just as Harry Conklin’s voice soars into the upper register – I grabbed my balls and squeezed hard. I hit some really high notes. Not the right high notes, but high notes nonetheless.

14. Dark the Suns – Suru Raivosi Sydämeni Pimeydessä

Suru Raivosi Sydämeni Pimeydessä – easy for you to say! Those words are of course Finnish for “buy this album or we’ll kick you in the genitals”. Not really. It’s actually Finnish for “my grief raged in the darkness of my heart”. Which is a much better title, admittedly, than one about booting people in the nether regions.

Like previous Dark the Suns releases, this album is melodic death metal of the original Finnish variety, in the same vein as the titans of the genre: Insomnium, Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum, Wintersun, Swallow the Sun. Certain sections sound a bit like Mors Principium Est… and there’s nothing wrong with that. Vocals alternate between guttural roars and clean-toned singing – a technique pioneered by Insomnium’s Niilo. Done well (as they are here), this vocal duality is effective. It brings balance to the heaviness, light to the darkness, and emotional impact to the atmospherics.

15. Gojira – Fortitude

A hugely enjoyable chunk of heavy groove metal. For the first time on a Gojira record, the riffage features an unmistakable Pantera influence. Not just here or there but throughout most of the album. There are those trademark bouncy, groovy riffs and even the squealies (pinch harmonics, if you want to be all music theory about it) that Darrell used to amazing effect in Pantera’s music. In terms of Gojira 2021 vocals, they sound a lot like Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman, to the extent that some parts of this record could be straight off KJ’s 2015 release Pylon (my equal-top album of that year). Gojira’s rhythm section, on the other hand, has a distinct tribal sound reminiscent of Sepultura’s circa Roots. No bad thing. But Fortitude isn’t just a cobbled-together bunch of influences. Sonically the album stands very firmly on the shoulders of giants (most notably Pantera, Killing Joke and Max Cavalera-era Sepultura), but it features song structures with true originality, even though they’re delivered using techniques that have been heard before. This band has never been about breaking new ground for the sake of it, though. They’ve always been about the groove, the songs, the flow, the totality of the sonic elements. Fortitude is a supremely listenable record, from start to finish.

16. Helloween – Helloween

Self-titled albums annoy me. Not musically but through their titles. How lazy is it to just fling out an album with the same name as the band? Smacks of can’t-be-arsedness. Imagine the flak I’d get if I released a book called Mark Rice! And rightly so. Pushing aside nomenclaturial gripes, though, let’s focus on the music. Helloween has been one of my favourite bands since they kicked off, back when I was a metal kid with hair like an untended hedge. Their Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I album was a life-changer for me. The first time I heard Future World I thought I was going to explode with awe. I played it over and over, going berserk, amazed by the Iron-Maiden-on-speed staccato riffing, and the stratospheric vocals of Michael Kiske. Since then the band has been through a few lineup changes but the quality of their material has never seriously dipped. I don’t think they’ve ever matched Keeper of the Seven Keys, Part I – that album was a slice of magic: a unique occurrence that resulted from many outside factors aligning perfectly while band members felt simultaneously inspired and able to work together in harmony, without “creative differences” or bickering.

Helloween’s 2021 LP showcases this band’s talent. Masters of their craft. They make it sound easy.

17. Ken Hensley – My Book of Answers

The word legend is much overused these days. Some moron posts a 10-second video of himself doing something inane, and within days millions of other morons are hailing him as a legend. They have no clue. Ken Hensley was a legend. In fact, Ken Hensley was a LEGEND. Capitals, italics and bold font are required to stress the magnitude of his talent. I hate using the word “was” with regards to Ken. I miss him. He was, is and always will be a legend. There. That feels better.

As a kid I became familiar with Ken Hensley’s talent when I found the music of an absolute one-of-a-kind band called Uriah Heep. Like Jon Lord in Deep Purple, Ken Hensley was able to make the keyboards in Uriah Heep an integral part of the band’s sound – not a frilly extra as is usually the case in rock. Hensley’s keyboards were a driving force, pushing the music forwards, like a wave for the other instruments and vocals to ride on. Quite something to hear.

Hensley wasn’t just a keyboard player, though. He was a prolific composer, multi-instrumentalist and an amazing singer too. I love his body of work with Uriah Heep, I love the new dimension he brought into Blackfoot’s music during his time with them, and I love his solo albums. My Book of Answers resulted from a chance serendipitous meeting between Hensley and Russian poet Vladimir Emelin, a huge fan of Ken’s music. Emelin spotted Ken at an airport in Spain, recognised him, approached, introduced himself, and the two started chatting. They soon realised they were kindred spirits. An idea for a collaboration began percolating. That idea bore fruit: My Book of Answers. Emelin’s poetic words suit Hensley’s musical compositions perfectly. One thing really surprised me about this record: Hensley’s voice. For most of the album he sounds like Blue Öyster Cult’s Eric Bloom. The two voices have the same sort of resonance. That word yet again.

I’m certain there’s enough unreleased Ken Hensley material to fill at least a 10-LP box set, so this record may not be the last thing we hear from him. But who knows if or when that other material will see the light of day? In the meantime, I’ll continue enjoying this record as the beautiful swan song it is.

18. Thor – Alliance

Ever since hearing Let the Blood Run Red on Tommy Vance’s Friday Rock Show as a kid (and buying the single on blood-red 12″ vinyl in my local record shop the next day), I’ve been a fan of Thor. The force of his music has never dimmed. The themes of his songs haven’t changed either. Jon-Mikl Thor is an old-school heavy-metal stalwart whose tunes explore the archetypal themes of mythology, strength, perseverance, loyalty to tribe, annihilating villains, and never taking any shit from anyone. Jon-Mikl Thor’s offstage persona isn’t much different from his onstage one. He’s metal to the core, all the time. Alliance is another epic addition to the Thor discography. A glorious slab of anthemic metal.

19. Katatonia – Mnemosynean

A comprehensive collection of rarities and B-sides, Mnemosynean is an eclectic listen. Because it covers the 30 years of Katatonia’s existence, this record allows the listener to hear the evolution of the band’s sound. Some of the earlier material sounds almost indistinguishable from The Sisters of Mercy – the heavy goth influence and Eldritch singing style is there. As the band members matured, so did their music, which took a progressive path, lightening for the most part but still dishing out wall-trembling riffage on occasion. I got the double-CD expanded edition of this album. So many songs, so much pleasure and melancholy. Jonas Renske’s voice (his true voice which he he sings with now, not his Eldritch-clone goth voice of the distant past) is astonishing. It’s at once relaxing, evocative and loaded with melancholy. A voice that can break your heart and fix it at the same time.

Amongst the tracks on this album is a cover version of Judas Priest’s stunning Night Comes Down. The sleeve art of Mnemosynean is also a tip o’ the hat to Priest: it’s a sort of Nordic mirror image of Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance artwork. Priest’s classic front cover features a giant robot warbird known as the Hellion screeching diagonally earthwards – wings up – against the backdrop of a crimson sun surrounded by yellow sky, with the album-title lettering in the slipstream. Katatonia’s cover art shows a raven rising diagonally – wings down – against the backdrop of a grey sun and a slightly less-grey sky, with the album-title lettering in the slipstream. The moment I saw the Katatonia cover art I knew it was a tribute to Priest’s. Respect indeed.

20. Timecop1983 – Faded Touch

I went on at length about most of the releases above, so this time I’ll keep it brief for a change. Faded Touch is sublime synthwave. It’s upbeat, uplifting, inspiring and dreamy. The sort of music that’ll have you tapping your foot to the beat whilst smiling in stunned awe at what you’re hearing. Play it through big speakers, sit in the sweet spot between them, and you’ll actually feel the frequencies pulsing in your body. I recommend that. It’s an enjoyable tune-up. There’s a big Vangelis influence and an equally strong Tangerine Dream one. When it comes to synth-based music, that sort of provenance is about as good as it gets. Some scorching guitar solos on this album, too – those came as a welcome surprise.

I put the Timecop1983 track On the Run (from previous album Night Drive) onto a compilation CD I made for the car. The wolfchild loves that tune as much as I do. Whenever he hears it, his default expression turns into a lupine grin and he looks at me as if to say, ‘That is phenomenal!‘ As you may already know (and if you don’t you’re about to find out), wolves are not just excellent judges of character, they also have impeccable musical taste.

A couple of my favourite bands – The Skids and Saxon – released albums of cover versions in 2021. I never include covers albums, tribute albums, greatest-hits compilations, best-of collections or live albums in my year lists. Only newly released original material is included, although it isn’t always newly recorded – sometimes it has been lying around in a studio for decades, such as box sets I got by Jimi Hendrix, Alex Harvey, and Lynyrd Skynrd (individually, not jamming together – although that would have been something to hear!). That rationale is why Katatonia’s Mnemosynean – an extensive collection of rarities and B-sides – made it onto my 2021 list, but covers albums by Saxon and The Skids didn’t. In terms of musical calibre, those covers records are strong enough to be included in the year list, but they’re not original songs – that’s why they’re not on the list. The Skids and Saxon never release less-than-impressive music. I’ve been listening to Saxon since I was ten, but I was listening to The Skids even before that, back when I was practically a baby. My elder brother was a huge punk fan and used to buy every 7″ vinyl single by Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, The Rezillos, and – of course – Dunfermline’s finest, The Skids. I soaked up those sounds as a child. Loved them. Bounced around to them. Those tunes accompanied me through highs and lows, enhancing my joys and lightening my sorrows. I’ve been lucky enough to meet and spend time with both Saxon and The Skids, the former as a result of their inclusion in my novel Metallic Dreams – an adventure they were only too happy to be part of. In 2018 I spent a weekend with The Skids in their home town of Dunfermline, just three months after the death of my mum. While I was chatting with singer Richard Jobson, he said, “You’ve been listening to our music for so long now – since you were a kid barely out of nappies – you’re more than a fan.  You’re a friend.” A surreal, life-affirming moment.

Some folk say you should never meet your idols, as you’ll only be let down by the result. I reckon it’s unhealthy to perceive anyone as an idol but it’s healthy to admire artists whose work resonates with you. And when particular art – be it music, literature, poetry or visual art – really resonates with you there’s an overwhelming likelihood its creator(s) will too. After all, the art came from them. Whenever I’ve met the creators of music that affects me on the deepest level, they have always resonated with me.

I urge you to check out the 2021 covers albums by The Skids and Saxon. You’ll hear a diverse array of classic tunes played like never before. Pump The Skids’ rendition of Ace Frehley’s New York Groove through big speakers. It won’t just blow away the cobwebs – it’ll blow your mind (and maybe your speakers too). And The Skids’ cover of David Essex’s Rock On is immaculate, starting out as a heavy-yet-faithful rendition of the original, then Jobson goes all spoken word and tells an immersive story of ’70s Fife life, when – in Dunfermline’s Kinema ballroom on DJ nights – the song Rock On was the cue for the most feared local gang, the AV Toy, to kick off a spree of violence; that track became the soundtrack to the AV Toy’s bloodthirsty bonanzas. Years later Jobson told David Essex that Rock On had been a notorious gang song in the east of Scotland. Essex was surprised yet said he could understand how that track might become a gang’s chosen fight song, as the music has “a seething underbelly” to it. David Essex’s original is an example of sonic restraint and understatement. The Skids’ version is a wild beast unleashed.

It’s worth mentioning that Enuff Z’Nuff also released a covers album in 2021. It contains only Beatles covers. The Beatles’ influence on Enuff Z’Nuff’s music has always been easy to hear, so it made sense that one day Chip and the lads would do a full album of Beatles covers. I’d rather have had a new studio album from EZ’N, but one of those will probably appear soon. A few years ago I was lucky enough to meet Chip Z’Nuff in Bannerman’s Bar in Edinburgh after an Enuff Z’Nuff show there. My friend Bruce – aka vocalist Thunderfuck from The Deadly Romantics – has been friends with Chip for decades. After Bruce introduced us at Bannerman’s, Chip and I had a good chat about music, writing, art and all that good creative stuff. I’m happy to report that Chip is just as friendly, upbeat and adorable in real life as his starry-eyed onstage persona implies. Peace and love personified.

In addition to all the releases mentioned above, there was an abundance of other new music that impressed me in 2021. You’ve read my top 20 list (which contains 28 items, breaking the “laws” of arithmetic) and my thoughts on 3 excellent covers albums. It would seem wrong to not mention the other artists whose new sounds enriched (and continue to enrich) my existence. So I offer love and thanks to Diana Ross, Wolfchant, Accept, Styx, Trivium, Tragedy (the second-gayest metal band on the planet, after Pink Stëël), Perturbator, Exodus, Night Ranger, Vangelis, Рожь, Ghost Bath, Devin Townsend, Jim Peterik and World Stage, Enslaved, Smith-Kotzen, Electric Boys, Sol Sistere, Скверна линия, Cân Bardd, Arde, Mostly Autumn, Bonfire, Thundermother (not the ’60s UK proggers but the 21st Century hairy sweaty heavy-metal burds from Sweden… not that there’s anything wrong with that – some of my most enjoyable experiences have been with hairy sweaty heavy-metal burds from somewhere or other), Rob Zombie, Ozric Tentacles, A Pale Horse Named Death, Marty Friedman, Paul Gilbert, Skold, Michael Schenker Group, Fenris Vrede, Colotyphus, Folkrim, Gloosh, Einherjer, Blackmore’s Night, Alda, Yes, Tiesto, Kemerov, Fugit, Wolves in the Throne Room, Medwyn Goodall, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Olhava, HammerFall, Korpiklaani, Lindemann, Vouna, Eternal Valley, Kalmankataja, A Sea of Dead Trees, Jean-Michel Jarre, KK’s Priest, Aephanamer, Toyah, Eard, Athemon, Billy Gibbons, Cheap Trick, Mitch Murder, Faithless, The Darkness, Steven Wilson, Lesbian Bed Death, Ars Magna Umbrae, The Mission, Billy Idol, Alice Cooper, The Stranglers, Aquilus, Kreationist, Olio Tahtien Takana, Panopticon, Unreqvited, Breath of Wind, Bodom After Midnight, The Dropkick Murphys, Ruadh, Stormtide, Windfaerer, Firienholt, Ethereal Shroud, Lucifer, Nemorous, Koto, Flotsam and Jetsam, Medenera, Limp Bizkit, Joel Hoekstra’s 13, Auri, Mammoth WVH (the new project of Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang), Bellatrix, Iron Maiden, Cradle of Filth, Peter Goalby, Trevor Bolder, Lee Kerslake, and last but definitely not least, Lee Aaron (fwooooooaaaaaaaaar, etc. – sorry about that… the 12-year old me whose bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Ms Aaron took over for a moment).

As for the most epic work of metal fiction ever conceived – the sequel to Metallic Dreams – it’s nearly complete. More than twice as long as its predecessor – so big it’ll bend bookshelves – it’s an anarchic novel that doesn’t so much push the envelope as take a flamethrower to it. Readers who ask about the sequel’s progress have heard “it’s nearly finished” so many times I’m beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. That may be a good analogy, because in that story the wolf did come eventually. When the time was right. Just like this novel. It’s worth the wait, I promise. The ending is written and the cover art is done. Just a few more chapters need to be transposed from my mind onto the page. Then the book will be ready. Cometh the hour, cometh the story.

Until then I’ll be incommunicado, either writing immersed in music, or somewhere in the wilderness with the wolfchild.

If you haven’t read Metallic Dreams (and if you haven’t, why not… eh… EH?) now’s the time to do so. You’ll then be ready for the sequel. The remastered edition of Metallic Dreams (which I spent a full year creating in late 2018 and early 2019) is at a reduced price on Kindle worldwide until that sequel arrives. It’s available in paperback form too. Or if you want to go all flashy and splash out a bit, there’s a hardback edition of the remaster. I’ll post links below. Click the bloody pentalpha to be taken to the Kindle page. Click the molten gold candlewax pentalpha to go to the hardback page. One orthodox Greek priest who is renowned for his attacks on anything he considers “of the Devil” (his kung-fu attacks on ATM machines are infamous in Athens) saw a promo front cover of the Metallic Dreams Greek translation and immediately tore it to shreds. He then announced that if the book is released in Greece, he will decry everyone involved as heretics and will publicly burn the novel. So my Greek translator friend mailed a paperback copy of the Greek edition to the priest, who subsequently burned the book and declared me a heretic (this shouldn’t come as a surprise to many people). If I ever set foot in Greece, there could be a Mortal Kombat-style battle between the kung-fu priest and me, Muay Thai Markie. You can’t buy that sort of book publicity.

As an extra gift (don’t say I’m not good to you), I’ve posted a short video (2 minutes 24 seconds) of in-car karaoke featuring the wolfchild dancing and me “singing” along to the the equal-greatest song of all time (which we’ve already established is I Could Be So Good for You by Dennis Waterman). There’s also a short burst of CW McCall’s Convoy (from the film of the same name) after that. I’ve embedded a link to the video on this page. Scroll down to beneath the Metallic Dreams covers and you’ll see it. I recommend choosing 1080p as video quality – don’t accept the default ‘Auto’ setting. Best seen in its true resolution and viewed full screen. And please feel free to sing/howl along.

Kindle Edition

Hardback Edition

My Top Albums of 2020

It was a good year for metal, a decent year for rock, a so-so year for electronica, and a not-much-happening year for punk. Every year’s a good one for metal, though. It expands and diversifies, evolving and surviving. Even in the ’90s when the print media – horseshit-talkers to a man – was blethering about “the death of metal” and claiming Kurt Cobain and Nirvana had killed it, actual events proved otherwise. Some of metal’s biggest-selling outfits sold fewer albums during the grunge years, but the old guard rolled on regardless, continuing to record new music, release it, and play it live around the world. Meanwhile, the Second Wave of Black Metal was building momentum in ways that changed the face of the genre forever. That Second Wave – or, as some call it, the First Wave of Norwegian Black Metal – saw a phenomenal surge in creativity which continues to this day. And just a few miles away in Finland, the melodic-death-metal scene was being born. It spawned the trailblazing bands Amorphis, Omnium Gatherum, Swallow the Sun, Insomnium, Ensiferum and Wintersun. A few miles in the other direction, Sweden’s Gothenburg scene was blossoming, with In Flames, Dark Tranquillity and Soilwork spearheading the vanguard. Yet magazines continued to print their nonsense about the death of metal, which in reality had never been more alive. The main breeding grounds had moved. That’s all. Metal was born in Britain in the late ’60s and grew there throughout the ’70s and right up to the early ’80s, with the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (or NWoBHM to those in the know) spawning a staggering depth and breadth of talent. In the early ’80s the main breeding grounds moved to the US as the thrash movement (and, hot on its heels, the death-metal movement) exploded from San Francisco Bay Area (or in death metal’s case, South Florida) out to all other parts of that nation. And beyond. Then in the ’90s the main breeding grounds moved again, this time to the icy north – Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark – where they remain to this day. I don’t see that ever changing again. Finland spends five times more on musical education per capita than any other country does. It’s no accident that so many of the most talented musicians on the planet hail from Finland. Or that Finland has more metal bands per square mile than any other nation on Earth. By far. The cold beauty of that landscape plays its role too, as does the mythology of the people.

I usually have a difficult time choosing my favourite album of any given year, sometimes so much so that I award joint #1 to two or more records which I can’t separate in terms of quality. But in 2020, for the first time ever, it was an easy decision. The top album won by such a huge margin – a chasm – that the others couldn’t touch it or even get close. The album in question wasn’t by a Finnish or Scandinavian outfit either. Rather, it was a new release from one of the aforementioned old guard – the most transcendent recording they’ve ever created. A thing of utter sonic perfection. Without any further ado (or adon’t, or amight), here’s my list, starting with that astonishing slab of metal.

1. Armored Saint – Punching the Sky

John Bush gets my vote for best metal vocalist in the known Universe. He always knows exactly what note to hit, how much intensity to hit it with, what tone(s) to use, and how long to sustain it for maximum emotional impact. In short, the man’s a vocal powerhouse. He approaches singing in the same way he approaches life: fearlessly. I saw him fronting Anthrax a few times in Glasgow. At one of those gigs, Bush climbed up a huge stack of Marshall amps. When he reached the top, he was so high that he couldn’t stand up straight without putting his head through the ceiling. He stood there semi-crouched, looking out over the crowd. Then he leaned forwards, swaying back and forth like he was preparing to jump. I thought, ‘Surely he won’t. He’s a long way up.’ He did. Not some half-hearted jump either. A full-force launch that sent him flying over the crowd, whose upstretched hands caught him safely and passed him back to the stage. That is a frontman. Punching the Sky came 5 years after its predecessor. It was worth every minute of the wait. It’s a barnstormer of a record, an immaculate masterpiece – a gesamtkunstwerk – jaw-droppingly impressive throughout, from the haunting Uilleann pipe intro of opening track Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (an intro which reminds me of Gerry Rafferty’s Shipyard Town – one of my favourite songs) to the riproaring strains of closer Never You Fret. It’d normally be difficult to pick a favourite song on an album that’s utterly perfect, but in this case it’s easy – Lone Wolf is out of this world. It’s not as instantly haunting as the opening track, but after 10 seconds of slow Sabbathesque riffage it shows its true colours, baring its teeth and morphing into a hungrier beast. The verse is a slow-burner but the bridge is pure sonic magic. Then, just as it seems impossible for the song to get any better, the chorus hits and John Bush comes into his own. The chorus of Lone Wolf brings tears to my eyes, sends shivers rippling through me, causes all my body hair to stand up and the flesh at the base of each hair to steeple: an awe response. On that chorus Bush isn’t human-singing. He’s wolf-singing. Not high-pitched howls but drawn-out lupine lowing so plaintive and loaded with longing, it has a monumental emotional impact on the listener. John Bush: a wolf in human form. Armored Saint: stronger than they’ve ever been before.

2. Enslaved – Utgard

A near-perfect album from one of Norway’s most iconic and influential metal outfits. Enslaved’s recorded output has slowed a bit over the past decade, not through apathy or abandonment, but because frontman Ivar Bjørnson and his friend Einar Selvik (formerly drummer with black-metal titans Gorgoroth, and then founder/frontman of Wardruna) collaborated on their two groundbreaking Viking-folk-roots recordings Skuggsjá and Hugsjá. Bjørnson has brought some of these influences into Enslaved’s music (which was always rich in folk influences, but originally these manifested thematically, not musically). On Utgard these folk-roots qualities are more notable than on any previous Enslaved record, and the album’s all the better for it. Still, this is very much a metal album. There’s plenty of incendiary riffage and that familiar Bjørnson growl, but there are also quieter musical interludes (reminiscent of Opeth’s recent heavy-prog style) and some clean singing too. I love when I can hear a band evolving and growing from album to album, adding new influences and experimenting with new sounds, without abandoning the original vision. That’s musical maturity. Enslaved now understands that the spaces in between the notes are as important as the notes themselves, that both light and shade are necessary in order to create atmospherics. Utgard is one atmospheric album. Its vast sweeping soundscapes conjure images of frozen tundra, icy winds, angry seas, mountains, ravens, Vikings and the pantheon of Nordic deities. For every burst of aggression, there’s an ambient interlude to counterbalance it. That’s something Utgard gets just right: balance. It’s the sound of a band in control of its craft. Tracks this rich in atmospherics and emotional resonance don’t happen by accident or by following some music-by-numbers formula. These are personal songs composed and performed from the heart.

3. Pendragon – Love Over Fear

I’ve loved Pendragon since I was 10. Back then, my elder brother’s best friend (known to all as “Big Pete”) was a roadie for Pendragon and Marillion, neither of which had record deals yet. The giant Pete used to bring me demo tapes, badges and patches of those bands. That was a magical experience for me: being there at the very beginning, hearing amazing music by bands that other people – even rock and metal fans – hadn’t heard of. I felt like I was being entrusted with sacred secret sounds, which I suppose I was. Marillion went on to become one of the biggest rock bands in Britain. Pendragon didn’t achieve anywhere near that level of commercial success, but – full credit to them – they never went away. They stuck to their guns, creating some of the greatest and most underrated heavy prog albums on record. Love Over Fear might just be the greatest Pendragon album of all. And what an appropriate title. The first 55 seconds annoy me – I don’t know what kind of mushroom trip made Nick Barrett think that intro was a good idea. But after that, things improve immeasurably. The guitar tones are sublime – very much like the signature tone of Marillion’s Steve Rothery. Lyrically, the album is angry, observant and uplifting. One recurring theme is: seeing through and overcoming the lies and propaganda that have been ravaging the world. That’s a timely message, when most people have lost the ability to think independently, use critical-thinking skills and apply logical analysis to see through the lies spewed by so-called governments and medical authorities (two huge misnomers), and the mainstream media (news and social).

4. Paradise Lost – Obsidian

One of my favourite bands since they first riffed their way out of Halifax back in the ’90s. Obsidian is quintessential Paradise Lost. It combines the catchiness of the One Second and Symbol of Life albums with the doominess of early PL material and the heaviness of Obsidian‘s predecessor, Medusa. An ideal blend. As always, Nick Holmes’s vocals manage to be simultaneously dour and uplifting. That’s a paradox, I know, but Paradise Lost has always been a band steeped in duality: heavy yet catchy; gloomy yet inspiring; pessimistic but born survivors.

5. Blue Öyster Cult – The Symbol Remains

It had been a long time since a BÖC studio album arrived – almost 20 years. I’d heard Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma talk about an all-acoustic album they’d been considering for ages and might get around to recording/releasing. This isn’t it. The Symbol Remains is electrified and loud – it’s Blue Öyster Cult on top form doing what they do best: layering unique vocals and backing harmonies over glorious guitar riffage, while a rock-solid rhythm section keeps everything structured to perfection. This album came somewhat out of the blue. I’d seen the band perform live just a few months earlier in Glasgow, but they said nothing about a forthcoming album. Kept it very much under their hats. This meant a big surprise when I received a ‘you may be interested in’ e-mail with a link to a new Blue Öyster Cult record. I may be interested? I couldn’t be more interested! It’s perhaps appropriate that during the interim between BÖC’s most recent albums – 2003’s The Curse of the Hidden Mirror and The Symbol Remains in 2020 – Swedish band Ghost borrowed/stole/recycled the BÖC musical/vocal blueprint and melded it with Mercyful Fate’s darker sensibilities to great effect. Now the masters have returned to show that they can still do it like no one else. Others can mimic the style, but it’s never quite the same.

A wee Blue Öyster Cult story for you. In the early 2000s they played a couple of shows – 1 year apart – at my favourite gig venue (ever since Glasgow Apollo closed), originally called The Renfrew Ferry but later renamed The Ferry. At the first of these shows my journalist friend Mike (who was reviewing the show for a Scottish daily newspaper) was in his usual spot upstairs, directly above and behind the stage. (The main crowd/stage area downstairs had once been the ship’s engine room. In order to turn the vessel into a concert venue, the ship had to be disemboweled to make room for a stage platform and standing audience space.) Mikey and I prefer to be upstairs at Ferry gigs, seated at one of the few tables on the perimeter of the upper deck. This vantage point offers an uninterrupted view of the stage. Plus you can buy chips upstairs. And, in Mike’s case, beer too. At Blue Öyster Cult’s first Ferry gig, Mike went to the bar to buy a fresh pint of beer just before the band was due to arrive onstage. While he was on his way back to the table – which was right above the drum kit – the lights went out and BÖC stepped onto the stage. As the band launched into its opening track, Mikey rushed back to the table, tripped over a chair leg, and dropped his glass on the tabletop. The glass tipped and the full pint of beer poured down onto drummer Bob Rondinelli’s head. The poor bastard had only just sat on his drum stool and already he was drenched. Many drummers would have thrown a tantrum at that point. Some would have walked offstage and refused to perform. Rondinelli wiped beer out of his eyes but kept on playing. A true professional. A year later Mikey and I were back on The Ferry, awaiting the arrival of Blue Öyster Cult. I’d insisted on sitting at a different table upstairs – one at the right-hand side, in a location that offered a diagonal-front view of the stage and made it impossible for clumsy Mike to spill beer on the band. A few seconds into the gig, I’m watching Rondinelli closely to see if he looks up. I figure he plays thousands of gigs in thousands of venues, so he may not remember that this particular location was where he received a pint of beer on top of his napper. But he did remember! About 30 seconds into the first track, he looked up and an expression of recognition (and horror) appeared on his face. I nudged Mike with my elbow and pointed this out, laughing so hard I could barely hear the music. During the gig, Rondinelli looked up nervously 15 or 20 times, obviously wondering if/when he’d be soaked by a torrent of some idiot’s beer. I said to Mike, “Look! Look what you’ve done tae Rondinelli! He’s a nervous wreck! You’ve given him a twitch!” Bobby played beautifully, as always, but every time he looked up with that worried expression I fell apart laughing and shook my head at my eejit friend Mike. That’s my favourite Blue Öyster Cult story.

6. Diamond Head – Lightning to the Nations 2020

When I first saw this advertised I thought it might be a 2020 remaster of the original Lightning to the Nations album – Diamond Head’s debut – which I’ve loved since I was a kid. If it had been, it wouldn’t have qualified for an album-of-the-year list. Those are for new studio recordings only – not compilations, remasters or live albums. But LttN2020 is a complete revamp and re-recording of the tracks from the original record, plus some cover versions of other artists’ songs. Those early Diamond Head tracks are some of the most iconic metal ever recorded. They couldn’t be bettered in terms of song quality or compositional creativity. But the production values of the early material were sketchy, so there was a lot of room for improvement there. LttN2020 revamps the old songs enough to make them new and fresh – not just clones of the classics. These tracks are whole new animals – they’re still recognisable as the classic DH songs, yet they have a different sonic DNA. Vocalist Rasmus Bom Andersen sounds enough like original singer Sean Harris to give this record that quintessential Diamond Head sound, yet Andersen’s voice has enough of its own character to make this a new Diamond Head rather than a band trying to reproduce its old sound. Andersen also plays back-up guitars on the record, as well as being mixer and producer. He did an amazing job of the production. Every nuance of every track is fit to bear the name Diamond Head. It’s a phenomenal record. I was over the moon to receive a copy signed by all five members of the band – fantastic! One thing DH lacks now, though, is a member with a truly heavy-metal name. They lacked that in the beginning too. But they did once have a vocalist with perhaps the best name in metal: Nick Tart. He sang for them during the 12 years between Harris’s departure and Andersen’s arrival. I cannot confirm whether Nick has sisters named Strawberry and Slutty, but I like to think he does. I realise I’ve gone off topic a bit, but this is my blog and I’ll fucking well go off piste if I like. So there.

7. Biff Byford – School of Hard Knocks

Biff Byford is one of my favourite people on the planet. I love him. Not in the sense that I want to rip off his clothes and tamper with him, but in the platonic sense of having major respect for the man as an artist, a vocalist, a musician and a human being. While writing my first book, Metallic Dreams, and seeking permission to quote certain song lyrics in the manuscript, I quickly found out that record companies are greedy bastards who do nothing unless there’s a lot of money in it for them (in my experience there was only one exception – EMI Germany). Record companies – especially major labels – like to retain legal ownership of the music and lyrics of all the artists on their roster, even though the folk at the record labels didn’t compose the songs or write the lyrics. This is an area where many bands have been shafted, finding – to their horror – that despite selling many records (sometimes millions) they’re still broke…but the record company isn’t! Fledgling artists would do well to learn that lesson: don’t give away legal ownership of your art – retain it at all costs. This is true in all types of art, but music in particular is an arena where corporate entities have been financially shafting artists since recorded music became a business. Anyway, back to Biff. I had approached several record companies asking permission to quote lyrics from albums released on their labels. Most of these companies either didn’t respond or replied with something along the lines of, “Permission to quote said lyric in your book will cost you £X per word.” The X value varied from company to company but it was always a big number, particularly the X that Sony Music asked for. Sony’s X was so ridiculously high that I sent them a picture of my bare arse along with the words, “This is my arse. Kiss it. And by the way, since I hold complete legal rights over that arse (as well as any and all images of it), each kiss will cost you £X.” (X being the same figure they had requested from me.) I thought they might see the funny side of this, realise they were being pricks, and waive all costs. But I never heard back from Sony, so I never quoted those particular lyrics in my book. EMI Germany, on the other hand, was far more accommodating. I had requested permission to quote a chunk of the lyric to Rocking Again, from the Saxon album Innocence Is No Excuse (originally released on the EMI Germany label). EMI replied quickly and helpfully, explaining that they didn’t own the legal rights to Saxon’s lyrics – Biff Byford did. They suggested that I contact Saxon’s (then) manager Leonard Loers and provided me with his e-mail address. I fired off a quick message to Leo, telling him the premise of the book, detailing exactly what lyrics I wanted to quote (a fairly big chunk), and assuring him that in the story every mention of Saxon is affectionate and born out of love for the band’s music. Moments later Leo sent me a reply that said, “I’ll phone Biff to ask.” A few minutes after that, another e-mail arrived from Leo. This one said, “Biff says yes! He’s excited about it.” No mention of money, no requests or demands for payment. None of that shit. Just a big beautiful excited yes. I felt the same magic I’d experienced as a kid of 10, when I first heard Saxon’s music. Over the next few months I sent Leo periodic updates on the book’s progress. When the novel was nearly finished, I received an e-mail from Leo saying, “Biff was wondering if he could have a signed copy of the book when it’s ready.” I replied, “Of course! I’d be honoured for him to have one.” A couple of days after that, another e-mail arrived from Leo: “Now the other guys in the band want signed copies too! They’re feeling left out. Could they have a signed copy each? Would that be possible?” I replied, “Yes! Of course. I’ll send ten signed copies: six named and signed copies – one for each of the band, and one for you – as well as four plain signed copies for wives/roadies/whomever else in the Saxon camp might want one.” So that was that – I sent the ten books to Leo in Germany, making sure the package arrived before Saxon set off on tour…because secretly I loved the idea of Biff and his bandmates reading my book in their bunks as the Saxon tour bus rolled through Europe. The very thought of that felt surreal and life-affirming. A few weeks later, at Saxon’s Glasgow gig, I met Biff and the band after the show. We talked about their tour and my book, which Biff told me he’d been reading on the bus in between shows. He quoted an incident from the story (from chapter 2, in which the 10-year-old Spark MacDubh first discovers heavy metal, in the form of the Saxon song Princess of the Night). As Biff and I stood in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street talking about my story, the karmic nature of the experience hit me: since I was a kid Saxon’s music had been playing a huge part in my life – changing it for the better, widening my horizons and opening new dimensions; now Biff and his Saxon compadres were enjoying something I’d created. That felt so good – and surreal – it made all the blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids I’d put into the book’s creation worthwhile. Before leaving to drive home that night, I asked the five members of Saxon (and Leo) to sign the same page of a fresh copy of Metallic Dreams. I loved the idea of having on my bookshelf a copy of my book signed by all of them. They thought it was a cracking idea and were happy to oblige. Since then, I’ve been put on the guest list for every Saxon show in Glasgow. They treat me like family because that’s the kind of human beings they are.

Now, to Biff’s solo album. Right from the outset of opening track Welcome to the Show, this record is magic. Most of the songs on School of Hard Knocks would fit right in on a Saxon album, but there are three delicate ballads that showcase a softer side to the Byford voice: (1) Throw Down the Sword; (2) Me and You; (3) a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair. The voice is still instantly recognisable as Biff’s, but it’s good to hear him occasionally ease back from his usual stratospherics in order to sing in a more relaxed fashion. There’s also a spoken-word track – Inquisitor – that’s too short to have much impact. (Biff has a perfect voice for spoken-word compositions – listen to Saxon’s Kingdom of the Cross to hear what I mean: it’s an immaculate track on which the Byford vocal delivery is spellbinding.) By comparison, Inquisitor is just a short filler between one song and another. It doesn’t hinder the album but doesn’t add much either. School of Hard Knocks is what I hoped it would be: a strong album that sounds a lot like Saxon most of the time but contains a few welcome surprises too. Best of both worlds. You can’t knock that.

8. Karg – Traktat

Often characterised as ‘depressive black metal’, Karg’s music is – to me – uplifting. It’s cathartic and angry, for sure, especially the vocals, and the musical backing has a lament quality (I nearly wrote ‘a lamentable quality’ there by accident!), but the overall emotional effect is, on me at least, absolutely positive. I find this to be true of much so-called depressive black metal and ambient black metal too. Partly it’s a cathartic thing. Hearing a musical artist who’s unafraid to bare his heart and soul – unafraid to channel his deepest pain and anguish into his music – is cathartic to hear because the listener senses it’s the sound of someone undergoing healing through music. It’s honest. And vulnerable. Pure too. Uncontrived. Those qualities are in short supply, which makes them all the more precious.

9. Katatonia – City Burials

One of the most consistently impressive bands, period. There’s never been a weak Katatonia track, let alone a weak album. The atmospherics are astonishing. Part of the genius of Katatonia is the way even their heaviest melodies are complemented by Jonas Renske’s hypnotic silk-smooth vocals. This creates a unique ambience. Many of their tracks are deceptively heavy – deceptive because Renske’s soaring voice can lull the listener into believing (s)he’s hearing something much lighter than it actually is. Then the listener notices a particular down-tuned riff that makes the walls shudder, or a guitar solo of savage intensity. This is the hallmark of Katatonia: blending velvet vocals and deceptively heavy music that’s memorable, catchy and overflowing with atmosphere. City Burials is a worthy successor to The Fall of Hearts and continues in the same musical vein.

10. AC/DC – Power Up

AC/DC studio albums don’t come around often these days. After the death of founding band member/rhythm guitarist/key songwriter/producer Malcolm Young, it didn’t seem likely that there would be another AC/DC album, particularly one that contained Malcolm’s imprint. In that respect, Power Up was a surprise. (In 2014 AC/DC recorded Rock or Bust without Malcolm, who wasn’t physically well enough to participate. It sounded like AC/DC by numbers – not bad, but lacking the special magic that’s present on so much of the band’s back catalogue.) I suppose Angus must’ve felt pressure to make Power Up a strong album, as it’s the first to come after Malcolm’s death. Angus stated that Power Up is dedicated to Malcolm in the same way Back in Black was dedicated to Bon Scott. Although recorded by the same lineup that created Rock or Bust – with Angus and Malcolm’s nephew Stevie once again filling in for Malcolm on rhythm guitar and backing vocals – Power Up has Malcolm’s presence all over it. Angus crafted some of the tracks out of previously unused musical ideas Malcolm had come up with, so the end result sounds very much like quintessential AC/DC. On this record Stevie Young sounds just like his uncle did. With Stevie’s flawless rhythm playing, Phil Rudd’s signature four-on-the-floor beat and the pounding bass of Cliff Williams laying down AC/DC’s trademark sonic foundation, lead guitarist Angus Young and singer Brian Johnson are free to run riot all over the tracks, which they do in style. They sound like they’re having fun too. The record doesn’t contain any songs that I consider all-time AC/DC classics, but there aren’t any fillers either. Power Up is full to the gunnels with bouncy anthems that get feet tapping, heads banging, voices chanting, and air guitarists abusing their instruments with gusto.

There were many other cracking albums released in 2020. Rather than turning this blog post into a novel-length thing (it’s already heading that way) by waxing lyrical about my top 20 (or 30, or 40, or more) albums of last year, I’ll offer my thoughts on only the top 10 but will list below, in no particular order, the other 2020 records that impressed me.

British Lion – The Burning

Revolution Saints – Rise

Thor – Rising

Ayreon – Transitus

Ensiferum – Thalassic

Missing Persons – Dreaming

Varg – Zeichen

Sojourner – Premonitions

Kvelertor – Splid

Ross the Boss – Born of Fire

Raven – Metal City

Winterfylleth – The Reckoning Dawn

Reb Beach – A View from the Inside

Heaven Shall Burn – Of Truth and Sacrifice

Faidra – Six Voices Inside

Mezcaleros – The Preacher

Neal Schon – Universe

Heathen – Empire of the Blind

Stone Temple Pilots – Perdida

Deftones – Ohms

Marco Hietala – Pyre of the Black Heart

The Night Flight Orchestra – Aeromantic

Secrets of the Moon – Black House

Trivium – What the Dead Men Say

Cirith Ungol – Forever Black

Deep Purple – Whoosh!

Belore – Journey Through Mountains and Valleys

Lionheart – The Reality of Miracles

Lucifer – Lucifer III

My Dying Bride – The Ghost of Orion

Napalm Death – Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism

Cloven Hoof – Age of Steel

Fish – Weltschmerz

FM – Synchronized

Midnight Odyssey – Ruins of a Celestial Fire

Conception – State of Deception

Bonfire – Fistful of Fire

Ludovico Einaudi – 12 Songs from Home

Moby – All Visible Objects

Tangerine Dream – Recurring Dreams

Testament – Titans of Creation

Ozric Tentacles – Space for the Earth

Lightracer – Across the Dark Sky

Dance with the Dead – Blackout

Snowy White and The White Flames – Something on Me

Ray Wylie Hubbard – Co-Starring

Neil Young – Homegrown

Sodom – Genesis XIX

Bruce Hornsby – Non-Secure Connection

That’s all for now. Happy listening. Till next time, keep your powder dry and your naughty bits wet.

Slàinte mhath!

My Albums of 2016

1. Jean-Michel Jarre – Oxygène 3

I first experienced these tunes in a live setting a couple of months before the album’s release.  I’ve seen hundreds of gigs but watching the master on stage performing these compositions was the most impressive live-music delivery I’ve witnessed.  A masterpiece of electronica.

Favourite track: Oxygène Part 17.

 

2. Rotting Christ – Rituals

A monumental leap forward for Rotting Christ.  Every detail – album title, cover artwork, song composition, track flow, lyrics, sonics, production quality – has been meticulously crafted by a band in total control of its art.  Rituals is the perfect title for this album.  The leitmotifs in tracks like Devadevadem and The Four Horsemen have a hypnotic quality that makes listening to them feel like participating in a ritual.  Perhaps that was the band’s intention all along: ritual through music, on a grand scale.

Favourite track: Devadevadem – a glorious blend of eastern melodies and dark chants.

 

3. Omnium Gatherum – Grey Heavens

Another immaculate album from one of Finland’s finest metal bands (and what fierce competition they have in the world’s most metallic country).  Few bands deliver this level of heaviness.  Even fewer do so with melodies that are breathtakingly beautiful.  Not only can Omnium Gatherum achieve this, they make it sound easy.  That takes a special type of talent.

Favourite track: Skyline – a contender for greatest riff of all time.

 

4. Saor – Guardians

At long last, Scottish metal inspired by Scotland.  Not the Walter Scottised contrived Scotty-dogs-and-tartan-shortbread-tin touristy bollocks, but the real Scotland.  Guardians transports the mind on a journey over sweeping glens, monolithic mountains, waterfalls, heather-clad valleys, golden beaches, clear blue seas, bloody battles and clan allegiances.  This isn’t jaunty and twee like folk metal.  It’s heavy, poignant and beautiful like.  Saor’s closest musical parallel is probably Amorphis, whose epics are inspired by their Finnish mythology.  Saor’s masterpieces are inspired by real, bloody Scots history.  Frequent Celtic flourishes leave the listener in no doubt where these melodies hail from.  This is Scotland in musical form and it’s magnificent.

Favourite track: Hearth.

 

5. Jean-Michel Jarre – Electronica 2: The Art of Noise

JMJ was a busy man in 2015 and 2016.  In addition to his first Electronica collaboration album (my top album of 2015) and Oxygène 3 (my top album of 2016), he found time to create a second Electronica.  It follows the same blueprint as the first: Jarre at the helm as composer, creator and performer while selected guests perform alongside him.  This time around the collaborators include Rone, Gary Numan, Pet Shop Boys, The Orb, and Hans Zimmer (among others).  Solo Jarre performances are musical bookends at the start and finish of the album.

Favourite track: Here for You (with Gary Numan).

 

6. Ihsahn – Arktis.

The frontman of one of Norway’s most influential black-metal bands (Emperor) continues to forge ahead with his solo career.  Arktis. has more in common with British traditional metal (especially Judas Priest and Holocaust) than with Scandinavia’s black-metal hordes.  Ihsahn favours clean singing and guitar tones these days, with only occasional growls harking back to his vocals of old.  I enjoy Emperor when the mood takes me but I can listen to Ihsahn’s solo material anytime.  It follows no fashion and there’s no evidence of artifice.  Arktis. is just over an hour of pure metal.  You can’t go wrong with it.

Favourite track: Until I Too Dissolve.

 

7. Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik – Skuggsjà

It speaks volumes about a nation when its elected leaders commission two local metal musicians (who happen to be influential on a global scale) to compose music to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of their country’s constitution.  This happened in Norway, where Bjørnson (best known for fronting Enslaved) and Selvik (formerly known as Kvitrafn in black-metal titans Gorgoroth, then switching to his given name to front the genre-defying Wardruna project).  Skuggsjà sounds almost identical to Wardruna (the absence of Lindy-Fay Hella’s vocals is the main difference).  This is indigenous Scandinavian music rooted in lore and magic, incorporating ancient instruments alongside electrified modern ones.  A classic album with exquisite layered depths.

Favourite track: Skuggeslåtten.

 

8. Wardruna – Ragnarok

This Warduna recording lacks one vital element its predecessors contained, namely one Kristian Espedal, better known as Gaahl.  It’s a phenomenal album on its own merits, with Selvik and Hella on fantastic form, but I miss Gaahl’s menacing growl.  He was the darkness to Selvik’s light, with Lindy-Fay flitting between demonic and angelic depending on the music’s demands.  Ragnarok – the third Warduna album – will apparently be their last.  The project was envisioned as a trilogy of recordings dedicated to the runes and Norway’s musical roots.  Job done.  Wardruna is uniquely moving music that resonates in the soul.

Favourite track: Raido.

 

9. Alcest – Kodama

One of my favourite French bands goes all Japanese on this, their fifth release.  Inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s film Princess Mononoke, the album Kodama explores the confrontation between the natural world and the human realm.  As with previous Alcest recordings, the music defies categorisation.  There are depths, textures and moods galore in these swathes of sound.  Dive in.  You’ll be all the better for it.

Favourite track: Kodama – a captivating wave of sonic bliss.  Utter perfection.

 

10. Dance with the Dead – The Shape

A high-energy fusion of electro synths and wailing guitars that manages to be both retro (à la 1980s) and futuristic, The Shape could be the soundtrack to an iconic sci-fi film that was never made.

Favourite track: That House – pure perfection.

 

11. Insomnium – Winter’s Gate

Three Insomnium albums (Above the Weeping World, One for Sorrow, and Shadows of the Dying Sun) have placed #1 in my album-of-the-year lists.  Why is Winter’s Gate at #11?  Several reasons.  Firstly, it faced serious competition.  Secondly, it consists of one track.  It’s a long track, but not nearly long enough to qualify as an album proper (by Insomnium standards).  Perhaps this would have been better marketed as a concept EP rather than an album.  The lyrics tell a moving story and the musicianship is, as always, astonishing.  Winter’s Gate has peaks and troughs and light and shade, but it is still – whichever way you look at it – just one big feck-off song.

Favourite track: oh, the suspense…Winter’s Gate.

 

12. Gojira – Magma

It’s vive la France for the fourth time in this list.  Magma is Gojira’s sixth album and, I reckon, their best yet.  Like fellow French peers Blut Aus Nord, The Young Gods, and Alcest, Gojira creates metal that is deeply personal and cerebral.  It is often described as avant-garde.  To my ears their biggest inspiration seems to be legendary Canadian outfit Voivod (also described as avant-garde), so perhaps that’s as good a way as any of summing up their music.  It is fearlessly experimental, with influences from death metal, speed metal, prog, doom and more, all seamlessly flowing together to create a unique sound that pushes the Gojira envelope that little bit further.  The bulk of this album features cleaner vocals than in the past, even going a bit shoegazy at times, which is a beautiful counterpoint to the transcendent riffage and rhythmic mountain of sound.  It has much in common with space rock, too.  They share a cosmic, psychedelic quality.  If Hawkwind had formed 30 years later and been French with a penchant for really heavy metal, they’d sound a lot like this.  That’s high praise indeed.

Favourite track: The Shooting Star.

 

13. Anti-Nowhere League – The Cage

I got into Anti-Nowhere League when I was ten.  I loved that their music was bouncy and angry and catchy and singalong and also a vehicle for righteous rebellion.  I didn’t have much to rebel against back then.  Life as a ten-year-old was good.  Perhaps if the dinner ladies at my primary school hadn’t been so generous with second helpings (and thirds, and fourths), I’d have railed against them with punk attitude.  But they were lovely, so there was no need.  Even my teachers were supportive of my Anti-Nowhere League leanings.  My primary-six teacher Mr C (whom you may have read about in my blog post Life Imitating Art) used to suggest bands he thought I might like.  Soon after I’d discovered ANL of my own accord, I decorated a portrait I’d drawn in art class (like many of my portraits at the time, it looked suspiciously like Lemmy) with a forehead tattoo that read ‘I Hate People…Let’s Break the Law’.  Noticing this, Mr C took me aside to ask if everything was OK at home.  I explained that the tattoo was simply two Anti-Nowhere League track titles.  Deadpan, he replied, “Very good.  Keep your lawbreaking activities outside my classroom, though, eh?”  A great man.  Anyway, I’ve veered off on a tangent.  Back to 2016.  ANL’s new album is the strongest they’ve ever recorded.  It’s still instantly identifiable as them and has their boundless punk energy, but the riffage and production have a decidedly metal quality.  The result is a bigger, bouncier sound that’s utterly addictive.  As usual, the lyrics are socially aware and pissed off without being whiney.  A jolt of sonic adrenaline.

Favourite track: Bad Storm.

 

14. Mortiis – The Great Deceiver

Ol’ goblin nose is back!  Well, he was never really away.  He’s back on form, though.  I once argued with an idiot who made the ridiculous statement, “Mortiis was better when he was in Emperor.”  I replied, “In Emperor he was just a hired-hand drummer.  He had no say in what direction the band took.  On Mortiis albums he’s expressing his own vision.  Saying you liked Mortiis better when he was in Emperor is like saying you liked African-Americans better when they were enslaved.  It’s just stupid.”  My favourite Mortiis album by far is The Smell of Rain: a collection of captivating soundscapes with an escapist mood all their own.  Since then, Goblin Features has veered into industrial metal, usually to the detriment of his tunes.  The sonic territory on The Smell of Rain seemed so perfect and so uniquely his that I hoped he would stay there on successive musical outings.  This was not to happen.  Until The Great Deceiver, that is.  It’s an industrial-based album, but one with hints of the atmosphere that made TSoR so special.

Favourite track: Doppelganger.

 

15. Metal Church – XI

Another scorching album from a band whose quality hasn’t faltered since they emerged at the dawn of the thrash movement.  Metal Church may not have achieved the enormous sales of peers such as Metallica and Megadeth, but their influence is vast and can be heard in thousands of bands that followed.  Also, while the aforementioned titans Metallica and Megadeth watered down their sound and skipped into musical fields of pansies, Metal Church stuck to their guns and remained true to their metal souls.  More credit to them for that.  XI sees them on top form yet again.

Favourite track: Signal Path.

 

16. Anthrax – For All Kings

Speaking of thrash pioneers, I bring you Anthrax – stronger now than they were back in the glory days of thrash.  You can hear traces of their roots in some of the new tracks, but present-day Anthrax is a barnstorming balls-to-the-wall traditional metal band with bigger hooks, polished production, grown-up lyrics and gravitas in spades.  They’ve evolved without losing their heaviness.  That’s the key to Anthrax’s enduring popularity among longtime fans: they remain metal to the core.  Riffmasters.  Innovators.  Legends.

Favourite track: Breathing Lightning.

 

17. Abbath – Abbath

Ol’ Doomface is back!  He was never away either, of course.  Always busy with Immortal or one of his side projects, he is one of metal’s hardest-working souls.  I love the music Abbath created with Immortal.  More than that, I love his one-off side project I’s concept album Between Two Worlds (the definitive Viking-metal recording).  So I had high hopes for this, his first album under his own moniker.  When I heard that Abbath’s solo band would be a trio, my first thought was, ‘I hope his bandmates are called Assink and Attoilet.’  It saddens me to report that they are not.  They missed a golden opportunity there.  Musically, this is in the same vein as Immortal.  Slower and more melodic (that’s a relative term!) for the most part, but with those same cataclysmic riffs.

Favourite track: Root of the Mountain – music to crumble castle walls.

 

18. Katatonia – The Fall of Hearts

They’ve impressed me over the years and continue to do so.  The genius of Katatonia lies in their ability to create music of deceptive heaviness.  This is largely down to the sublime vocals of Jonas Renske, which bring light to even the darkest Katatonia dirge.  The Fall of Hearts continues in the same vein as its post-2000 predecessors (pre-millennium the band was a death-metal outfit).  Katatonia is a complex beast, with prog leanings, labyrinthine song structures and introspective lyrics delivered with passion and vulnerability.  The music is intricate, delicate and, even though your ears are sometimes tricked into believing otherwise, gloriously heavy.

Favourite track: Old Heart Falls – a masterclass.

 

19. Marillion – F.E.A.R.

This one took a while to have an impact on me.  Sometimes that’s the way of it with Marillion albums.  Clutching at Straws, my favourite Marillion release, was underwhelming on the first listen, but after 20 or 30 spins I got it – really got it.  To this day, I enjoy CaS more with each listen.  And so it is with F.E.A.R. (Fuck Everyone and Run), an album so rich in nuance that it took many plays for me to soak up all the melodic details, the lyrical cleverness, the seamless segues and the emotion.  The key emotion here is anger.  F.E.A.R. is an angry album.  It’s angry at a broken financial system and the greedy bankers who bled it dry, angry at warmongers and the politicians who enable them, angry at the shallow direction in which western culture is headed, angry at the loss of community and the rise of every-man-for-himselfdom.  Never before have you heard anger expressed like this, though.  Anger usually sounds angry.  When punk bands are angry at capitalist greed, you hear it in their music.  When Scandinavian black-metal bands are angry at Christianity for displacing their old religion, that rage roars through their music (and in the fires they light to burn down churches).  Marillion’s anger is channelled differently.  If you paid no attention to Hogarth’s lyrics and instead concentrated on the music, anger would be the farthest emotion from your mind.  When you listen to the words, though, when you really hear them and feel their intention, the effect is visceral.  F.E.A.R. improves with every listen.  Anger never sounded so beautiful before.

Favourite track: The Leavers: v. One Tonight.

 

20. Tobias Sammet’s Avantasia – Ghostlights

The Avantasia project has allowed Tobias Sammet to work with some of rock’s biggest names.  The one constant by Sammet’s side is co-conspirator/guitar wizard/composer Sascha Paeth.  Ghostlights, the seventh Avantasia album, is another ensemble performance including contributions from Bob Catley, Michael Kiske, Dee Snider, Geoff Tate, Marco Hietala, Sharon den Adel, and Jørn Lande.  With that sort of pedigree it’d be difficult to go wrong.  Sammet’s flair for the theatrical is present throughout, sometimes to an overblown extent (think Meat Loaf), but for the most part he stays out of wince-inducing territory.  If you don’t like rock melodrama à la Magnum, give this album a wide berth.  If, on the other hand, you don’t mind a bit of cheese with your metal, this might be just your cup o’ tea.

Favourite track: Unchain the Light (featuring vocals from Tobias Sammet, Ronnie Atkins and, to my delight, Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween) on spectacular form).

 

21. In Extremo – Quid Pro Quo

No one else does medieval metal quite like this motley bunch of German rascals.  Their combination of ancient instruments and modern metal is seamless.  The older instruments don’t sound out of place, nor do they sound crowbarred in (metaphorically speaking) to add some sort of historical credibility.  This is the real thing: a group of anachronisms who look and sound like they belong to some bygone time, eschewing all modernity except heavy metal, which, filtered through their medieval sensibilities, comes out sounding like nothing you’ve ever heard before.  A unique band in an increasingly generic world.

Favourite track: Quid Pro Quo (Acoustic Version) – a bonus track on the deluxe version of the album, this version of the title song is stripped down to just vocal and piano.  I prefer this variation.  It’s loaded with poignance and the vocal delivery is immaculate.

 

22. Karg – Weltenasche

Another German band, this one a long way ideologically from In Extremo.  Karg’s music has been described as dark, depressive, black metal, post-black metal (one of the most preposterous terms knocking around; there can be no post-black metal when black metal’s thriving more than ever – the idiots who come up with these ‘post’ terms should be rounded up and punished by having actual posts, big spiky fenceposts, shoved up their arses), sombre, gloomy, pessimistic, and even suicidal.  I’m not a fan of labels.  They seek to pigeonhole that which can’t be pigeonholed.  They’re at best inaccurate and at worst limiting to artists who accept them.  Karg’s music isn’t shiny and happy, that’s for sure.  Dark, gloomy and sombre are adjectives that spring to mind when listening to Weltenasche.  As with much dark art, however, it exerts a strange effect over the listener, bringing about a lightening of the spirit.  To some this may seem like a paradox but it isn’t.  The darkest, angriest storms are the ones that clear the air the most.

Favourite track: Le Couloir des Ombres.  For those of you who don’t speak French and can’t be arsed using Google translate, that means ‘the colour of the shadows’.

 

23. The Depressick – 1962

Rather than try to sum up Mexican outfit The Depressick’s music in blanket terms (as many have done using idiotic ‘post’ labels and a host of other silly categorisations), I’ll let the artists describe their musical vision in their own words.  ‘The Depressick was founded in winter of 2012-2013 by Old Skull and Detestas with the aim to express inner struggles, deep self-hate and melancholic feelings powered by oppressive, hopeless and miserable landscapes from daily life in Mexico City, our bleak and dear home.’  When I stumbled upon Mexican record label Self-Mutilation Services a couple of years ago I was amazed by the size and strength of their roster.  I knew that metal, particularly extreme metal, was popular in Central America, but it was still a surprise to come across such a wealth of excellent metal that was new to me.  I should have shares in that label now, as I’ve bought pretty much its entire stock.  Money well spent.  1962 is catharsis through music.  This was the case for the creators, but it also works on the listener.  The band favours a raw, lo-fi sound which suits their music perfectly.  There’s the familiar discordant riffage of black metal, and the blast-beat drums to match, but the vocals and overall energy have their roots in punk as much as in metal.

Favourite track: Gray Ocean.

 

24. Dark Tranquillity  Atoma

A few years ago I had a debate with a dude who’s as heavily into Scandinavian metal as I am.  One thing we couldn’t agree on was whether ‘the Gothenburg sound’ – that distinctive sound pioneered by Swedish bands Dark Tranquillity, In Flames, At the Gates, and Soilwork in the early ’90s – was a good thing.  He thought it sounded too clean, polished and produced, and therefore generic.  I pointed out that Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Saxon had been cranking out clean riffage and ultra-clean vocals for decades, but their metal is generally considered ‘classic’ or ‘traditional’, not ‘generic’.  After all, I continued, surely you can’t be called generic for inventing something new.  (The aforementioned Swedes didn’t invent metal, but they did take the existing blueprint and hone it into something fresh with a sound all its own.)  With hindsight I think what that dude meant was formulaic, rather than generic.  If he’d used the word ‘formulaic’ I’d have agreed with him.  It is formulaic, but it’s a formula those four bands from Sweden put blood, sweat and tears into honing, refining and perfecting.  It’s a formula that works.  Since that debate I’ve discovered that the Gothenburg sound divides metal fans like nothing else.  I’ve yet to meet someone who’s on the fence with regards to the topic.  Folk seem to either love the sound or hate it.  I love it.  I’ve loved it since I first heard At the Gates back in the ’90s.  A couple of years after that, when I saw In Flames live for the first time, I found out that to hear the Gothenburg sound live is to really experience it.  On record it’s impressive but a bit restrained, as if always holding back.  Live, though, it’s like a wild beast let loose. Awe-inspiring. Atoma does an impressive job of capturing that live energy in the studio.  The vocals alternate between clean singing and growls (a technique now used to great effect by many heavier bands, especially in Finnish melodic death metal).  Song structures vary widely, giving the album diversity and keeping the listener coming back for more.

Favourite track: Our Proof of Life.

 

25. In Flames – Battles

More Swedes and there’s that Gothenburg sound again.  In Flames has lightened its sound considerably over the years, yet the band’s new material is instantly recognisable thanks to their trademark hooks, dense riffs, anthemic choruses and soaring vocals, all built on a bombastic rhythm-section foundation.  Battles is the band’s most commercial album to date.  It doesn’t have the death-metal credibility of earlier material like, for example, Whoracle, but it isn’t trying to.  The band has evolved and this is the sound of their evolution.  The songwriting’s as skilful as ever, as is the delivery.  I hope, though, that they heavy it up a bit for the next album.

Favourite track: Before I Fall.

 

That’s it.  That’s my top 25 of the year.  Many excellent albums didn’t quite make the list but brought me lots of listening pleasure nonetheless.  Honourable mentions to Artillery, Whispered, Witherscape, Ulver, Glenn Hughes, Darkthrone, Neil Young & Promise of the Real, Suicidal Tendencies, UK Subs, Tygers of Pan Tang, Spiritual Beggars, Magnum, Tyketto, Sunstorm, Spell, Forndom, Blood Ceremony, Evergrey, Testament, The Cult, The Mission, Mourning Sun, Crimson Moon, Dare, and Killswitch Engage, all of whom released quality albums in 2016.  Hail to you all.

 

 

Man, Mountain

Mountains clear my mind. They provide solace and solitude, asking nothing in return. I give them offerings, though: blood and sweat. My respect for wilderness is infinite, as is my love for the beasts who inhabit it.

Big Tony and I have scaled Scotland’s highest peaks together. His son Cal first accompanied us on a climb when he was eight. Cal summited two snow-topped Munros that day, in sub-zero conditions, without a single complaint. The wind was relentless but so was Cal’s resolve. On a knife-edge ridge between two peaks he learned something important about himself: rather than feeling afraid of the exposure or the height, he felt purified by them. They brought him to a state of clarity. He found Home in high places. In the twelve years since then, mountains have played their part in transforming Cal from eager boychild into a man of Zen nature. A mountain man. Like me. Like his father.

Coffee Break on the Loch

Tony missed our first climb of 2015. Cal and I set off early to beat the traffic. We stopped beside Loch Lomond for coffee, as has become tradition on our trips north. As we sat in silence watching puffs of cloud blow across the cobalt sky, a heavily muscled dog with orange and black tiger stripes padded across to us. I offered him my hand. He sniffed it and showed his approval with a lick. I scratched his head. He rolled onto his back. I rubbed his belly. Back legs twitched as he let out grunts of enjoyment. Cal took over the dog-pampering while I spoke to the dog’s keeper – an Essex man called Rob – about the creature’s unusual markings. He explained that a mixture of Bullmastiff and Staffordshire bull terrier were responsible for the muscular physique. The markings and colouring were an enigma. When Rob strolled back to his Winnebago motorhome, the dog made no attempt to follow. Happy with his two new pals, he had decided to stay put. Rob shouted on the dog, who steadfastly ignored him. Irritated, the Essex man walked over to our table, grabbed the animal by his collar, and pulled him back to the Winnebago. The dog growled all the way there. Cal and I were sad to see the tigerdog go. He was a magnificent beast and our time together had been too short.

We continued north on the A82, skirting Loch Lomond’s shoreline as familiar mountains came into view, their contours as familiar to us as those of our own faces. It was a quintessential Scottish spring morning – endless blue sky and blazing sunshine: the sort of day that looks warm in pictures but in reality chills the flesh. I find those days invigorating. Many Scots don’t agree. They’re highly suspicious that the yellow sphere in the sky is taunting them, like a celestial exhibitionist saying, “Behold my naked splendour. Every day I will reveal myself to you, making you long to feel the warmth of my touch. But I will leave you waiting in frozen yearning until summer. Then, when at last my rays warm your skin, they will feel like long-lost friends.”

Cal and I stopped in Crianlarich for the customary cup of tea that should always precede a climb. The locals were dressed for the weather, with thermal layers covering all but their faces. I was in shorts, T-shirt, hiking socks and climbing boots. A long day of exertion lay ahead, so I had dressed for ease of movement and maximum cooling. As I walked into a shop, the woman behind the counter looked me up and down, then up and down again – more slowly – as if sure her eyes had deceived her the first time. Pointing at my bare arms, she said, “Is someone feelin’ the cold?” Her sarcasm stirred up the appropriate response from me. (“Shut it. Is someone makin’ me a cup o’ tea?”) Giggling, she led me to the back of the shop, where she invited me to make my own tea while she located a waterproof climber’s map of the area. As I prepared tea, the woman said, “OS maps don’t have enough detail for these mountains. And they fall apart in the rain. My waterproof climbin’ maps have much more detail and they’ll stand up to the wildest storm. Come back here after your climb. Maybe I’ll make you a cup o’ tea then.”

Cal and I drank our tea outside. The sky was a deep unbroken blue. A good sign. With any luck we would scale Cruach Ardrain – our chosen mountain for the day – then descend in clear weather conditions. The forecast was good on all climbing websites and the sky seemed to be in agreement.

On the edge of a forest near Crianlarich, we pulled on rucksacks loaded with maps, compasses, camera equipment, water, fruit juice, coffee and nuts. No sooner had we embarked than a grisly sight met us: a mountain sheep had been ripped apart by some predator. Her picked-clean bones were scattered like jigsaw pieces that would never fit together again.

Bones

A cold sensation shot through me. I said to Cal, “Ah hope this isnae an omen for the day.” He nodded. Shaking off the jitters, I said, “Superstition’s for the weak. We make oor own luck. Let’s climb.” Again, Cal nodded.

The walk-in to the base of Cruach Ardrain was long and muddy. We kept to stony ground, as that allowed quicker progress than wading through marsh. The stream to our right was a mass of frogspawn, which spilled over onto the banks. We stopped upstream for a spell, to watch frogs swim in a crystal-clear pool. An hour later, as we neared the base of Cruach Ardrain, a sky-spanning stormcloud blew in and engulfed the mountaintop. It settled there as if held by magnetic attraction. Looking up into the storm, I willed it to blow over. The stubborn bastard stayed put.

Cal crossed the River Falloch by leaping onto stones that jutted above the water’s surface. We began parallel climbs, one on each side of the river. My ascent brought me to a young ewe who had fallen down the mountain and bashed her head on a rock. She was dead, freshly so. Bloodtrails from her mouth and eyes hadn’t yet congealed. Cal looked on helplessly from the far side of the water while I stood equally helpless next to the beautiful animal. Her fleece was thick and brilliant white, her face black with delicate features: one of the Scottish Blackface breed, also known as the Mountain Sheep. These surefooted beasts are excellent climbers, yet one lay dead at my feet – a reminder that in the high places one wrong step can have severe consequences. With an aching heart I spoke to the ewe. “Sorry Ah wasnae here tae catch you when you fell, little one.” Tears pricked my eyes. The bad-omen jitters returned. I pushed onwards.

As Cal and I continued our parallel ascent, we saw a mountain sheep in the river. Drowned. Powerful currents had swept her downstream, bouncing her off rocks until she became trapped between two stones. Fast-flowing water surged over the ewe, causing her head to bob as if nodding in time to nature’s symphony. But there was no life left in her. Body broken, head caved in, she gazed unseeingly through dead eyes. Three dead mountain sheep in as many hours. In hundreds of climbs, I had never experienced that. It felt wrong. With each dead animal I encountered, my unease grew. I carried on, though.

An hour later both Cal and I were on the right of the river. The temperature dropped, so we covered our top halves with additional layers. Just beneath the storm shelf that concealed Cruach Ardrain’s summit, we spotted another ewe in the river. This one was alive. Exhausted, terrified, in shock, and up to her neck in numbingly cold water, but alive. Cal reckoned she’d injured her front legs, which repeatedly buckled under her as she struggled to stand upright. She was near the opposite bank, with a steep slope to her left and thundering waters to her right. Too exhausted or injured to scramble back onto dry land, and aware of the danger just a few inches away, she was in a state of panic. She’d had a lucky landing in a sheep-sized pool of relatively still water. Had she fallen higher or lower, she’d have been dashed on rocks. If the fall had taken her farther horizontally, she’d have been swept away by fast-moving torrents. The coming of spring, longer days and increasing temperatures had resulted in vast snowmelt on Cruach Ardrain’s higher slopes, turning the river into a falling flood of ice-cold water. The ewe could have been in the water for hours already – scared, freezing, circulation dwindling, shock setting in, exhaustion taking over, muscles failing. I’d encountered three dead ewes that day and had felt the bite of helplessness each time. I was too late to save those fallen animals but I’d arrived in time to help this one. And nothing in this Universe could have stopped me from doing exactly that.

Cal and I exchanged looks that conveyed the urgency of the situation. We spoke the same words at the same moment: “We cannae leave her.” (Like me, Cal is an animal lover whom wild things instinctively trust. During our last climb of 2014, we crested a lowland mountain peak and found ourselves face to face with feral mountain goats. These solitary beasts usually keep their distance from humans, and wisely so, but they were different with us. When we saw the goats, Cal and I stood completely still, barely even breathing, our body language a silent acknowledgement that this was their domain. The goats dipped their heads, long horns pointed skywards, and spent a minute gazing at us: getting the measure of us. Then, satisfied with what they had perceived, they went back to their grazing. Cal and I walked among those amazing beasts, our horned kindred spirits, and they didn’t flinch. They’d seen into our souls and were happy with what they’d found there. This is the way of it with wild things. They know only truth.)

We needed to help the ewe immediately. This presented a quandary. By drawing closer we might startle her, causing her to move into the torrent and be swept downriver, but if we didn’t act quickly she would die from exhaustion, shock, hypothermia or drowning – a situation that was becoming more likely with each subsequent collapse of her legs. My brain went into emergency mode. In my mind’s eye I saw the only way of making a sure save. There was no room for error. I would go into the river below the ewe. That way I could catch her if the torrent took her. Cal would go up the right bank then close in from above, staying on dry land, while I approached from the water below. If I didn’t counterbalance the river’s movement I’d be swept away. An image flashed into my mind: rushing waters toppling the sheep, me catching her and the momentum bowling me over, sending both of us hurtling downriver, pinballing off rocks until the waters ran red. I let go of that image, refusing to accept it as a possibility. No harm could come to this ewe. I wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t let it.

On entering the water I barely noticed its chill, thanks to the adrenaline that my body was pumping out. I achieved a state of equilibrium by leaning against the river’s flow. Equilibrium was a start, but to reach the ewe I’d have to move upriver, pushing against the water’s elemental force then finding a new state of balance after every step. Each upwards step was accomplished through brute force and will. As soon as I was within reach of the ewe, I grabbed her horns and did a handstand of sorts, flinging my feet out of the river and landing upside down with toes dug into the mountainside as anchors. Cal sprinted towards the river’s right bank and launched himself into the air. He landed with immaculate balance on a rock behind the sheep. An exquisite jump. A perfect landing. As I lifted the ewe by her horns, Cal pushed her hindquarters. An instant later she was on dry land beside me. I lay there, heart pounding, relief infinite, maintaining eye contact with the sheep as I stroked her fleece and spoke words of comfort to her. The way she looked at me is something words can’t adequately describe. Her gaze transmitted waves of trust, gratitude, friendship, love and more. It transcended words. Cal climbed up to join us. He spoke his own words of comfort to the sheep. He, too, received that look.

I checked the ewe’s legs and determined that she had no injuries. The unsteadiness we’d witnessed must have been caused by exhaustion and numbness from the icy water. We couldn’t leave her on that river bank. The gradient was dangerously steep and she had already fallen once. Cal asked what I was going to do. I told him there was only one thing to do. Eyes wide, he said, “You cannae carry her up the slope!”

“Ah have tae. It’s too dangerous for her here.” Wrapping my arms around the ewe’s body, I picked her up and ascended the mountainside. (Sheep are heavier than they look, especially when they have a full fleece which has just been submerged in a river. Waterlogged climbing boots and sodden clothes didn’t make my load any lighter.) I lost my footing a few times but made sure my knees – not the sheep in my arms – took each impact against the mountain. Upon reaching a flattish clearing of bracken, I laid the ewe down and collapsed beside her. Cal sat on her other side. As he stroked her head and spoke more words of comfort into her ear, I dried her fleece. Her pulse was weak and her temperature worryingly low, so I used a technique I’d learned from a Reiki master to channel energy through my palms and into the ewe. I kept this up until her pulse was booming and her body temperature toasty.

Transferring Energy

Cal and I rose to head up the mountain. Panicking, the ewe scrambled to her feet and tried to follow us. “We cannae go yet,” I said. “She isnae ready.”

Cal looked up at the dark stormcloud. A frown appeared on his brow. “If we don’t go noo we might no’ make the summit and back before dark.”

“The mountain isnae goin’ anywhere, Cal. It’ll be here another day. This gorgeous creature might not be if we leave too early. We have tae stay wi’ her.”

Cal looked at the ewe. She gazed back at him. “Aye,” he said. “We stay wi’ her until she lets us go. When she’s ready.”

Happy Mountain Beasts

And so it was that in the first days of April 2015, on the icy slopes of Cruach Ardrain, two climbers flanked a mountain sheep who had melted their hearts. The ewe gazed at her new friends with such pure affection – such love – that they felt no desire to ever leave that place. They gazed back with admiration for her hardiness, and also, yes, with love.

Cal and I did leave that place. Eventually. But only when the ewe let us go.

Storm over Cruach Ardrain

Under the Stormcloud

Above us the storm shelf loomed, turning the ground below into a land of shadow. We ascended into the storm. From that moment on, our climb became a semi-blind journey through a realm of ice, snow and biting wind. On reaching the upper peaks, we didn’t hang about as we usually do at summits. No drinking coffee from flasks or munching high-calorie snacks to replace spent energy. No sitting at the cairn to enjoy the view. There was no view – just a whiteout. Wind chill dragged the temperature far below zero. Soaked from the river, my clothes began to freeze. Boots became blocks of ice. My beard froze solid, bringing on a bastard of a headache. Extremities turned numb. Due to lack of visibility, our usual rapid descent wasn’t possible. We knew what could happen if a foot is put wrong in the mountains. We’d seen brutal reminders of it just hours earlier. So our movements remained measured and meticulous.

Despite unbroken focus, we found out first hand how easy it is to fall when conditions take a turn for the worse. Traversing a vertical snowbank, Cal lost his grip and dropped like a stone. Heart in mouth, I watched as he vanished into the mist. He could have been shattered on rock, but he landed on a bed of bouncy heather. Lucky.

My ice-encased feet became numb. When they could no longer feel the ground beneath them, I plummeted off a ledge and fell head first through cloud. A rock column shot up towards me. I reached out to break my fall. My left palm took most of the impact, splitting open and spraying nearby snow crimson. The palm had what looked like a flesh catflap on it. Pulling open the skin, I plunged my hands into snow to clean the wound and stem the bleeding. My hands-first landing could have been a head-on collision. Lucky.

When Cal and I emerged from the base of the storm, a welcome vista opened up. On the horizon sunbeams streamed through a hole in the clouds and flickered over the countryside below like celestial fingers massaging the land. Keeping our eyes fixed on the jostling columns of light, we breezed down the mountain.

The Way Back

Soon we were back on the lower slopes where thousands of frogs were fornicating, frolicking, jumping, swimming and croaking with the pure joy of being alive. We knew how they felt.

The day’s last shafts of sunlight danced over lush green land. With those golden beacons lighting our way, Cal and I lit cigars for the walk-out. Relaxing more with every step, we agreed that our experiences in the storm had been some of the least enjoyable ever. We also agreed that the real reason we were there – unknown at the outset but obvious with hindsight – was to save one spectacular sheep. That lucky ewe had passed on some of her luck to us. Luck be a lady, some say. I disagree. Luck is a brave mountain ewe who inhabits the wild landscape of Cruach Ardrain. I love her.

Life Imitating Art

Life and art borrow from each other. I’ve written some characters whose personalities and idiosyncrasies were based on real people. Art often imitates life but recently I experienced the converse in a way that was nothing short of spooky.

While working on a story that revolves around witchcraft in Scotland and the horrific fates once dealt to alleged witches here, I created a character in the image of one of my primary-school teachers. I’ll abbreviate his name to Mr C. He was an excellent educator: a perfect combination of wisdom, savvy, knowledge, compassion and inspiration, all rounded off by a temper that could, when necessary, explode with enough ferocity to bring transgressions under control. Also, he had a ridiculous amount of coolness for a teacher. Aged ten, when I became immersed in rock and metal music, I scrawled intricate band logos on the covers of my school jotters. Rather than making a fuss about this, Mr C gave me leads to follow, such as, “I see you have an ELP logo on there. If you don’t have their Tarkus album, save up your pocket money and buy it. You won’t be disappointed.” My respect for Mr C grew as he nodded his approval of my rock artwork and I gave him my feedback on the music he had recommended. The only time he ever seemed worried by my direction was when, for one art project, I created a bust of Motörhead’s Lemmy with cigarette hanging from his mouth and Ace-of-Spades-shaped badge (featuring the words With Dope You Hope, With Booze You Lose) on his jacket. Mr C took me aside and said, “You haven’t started smoking dope, have you?” I explained that I’d seen the slogan graffitied on a wall and thought it possessed a certain je ne sais quoi, adding that I’d never dabbled in dope. Happy with my explanation, Mr C nodded.

A few years later Mr C left his job without warning, apparently under a cloud. He left town and wasn’t heard from again. There were rumours, but I never paid attention to the Chinese-whispered gossip. I looked for definitive evidence of his whereabouts. Nothing. Not so much as a whiff. Like Keyser Söze in The Usual Suspects, Mr C seemed to have disappeared into thin air. With the advent of the Internet, I looked for details of the disappearing man. Nada. Not a phone-book entry, employment history or link of any kind.

The mystery of Mr C had long troubled me, which explains how his alter ego found his way into my fiction. I created that character to highlight the fragility of the human psyche. In the story a teacher is fired from his job. Devastated by the loss of the career he found so rewarding, the man shuts himself off from the outside world and drinks himself into oblivion, pissing away self-worth and lifeforce. In real life Mr C had enjoyed a drink but hadn’t been an alcoholic (unless he was a functional alky whose daytime activities didn’t suffer as a result). In my story of Scottish witchcraft, his character’s self-destructive arc was something I felt. So I wrote it. This proved to be a double-edged sword: my intuition had sensed the answer to a nagging question, but this made me all the more determined to find out what had really happened to Mr C. He was impulsive and had been known to wade into dangerous situations with questionable people, but he was also streetwise enough to have extricated himself from those scenarios before things went south. Although the mystery remained officially unsolved, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had tapped into some universal consciousness and that Mr C was, somewhere, drinking himself senseless.

Then, after an archery session in 2012, I went to a pub called The Crooked Lum with my coach and a fellow archer. As I stepped into the interior’s warmth I saw him. Mr C. He was seated alone, back to the wall, eyes glazed, staring over his pint of Guinness. If this had been a cartoon I’d have balled my fists and rubbed my eyes in astonishment, sure they were deceiving me. I stood rooted to the spot. My coach said, “What’s the matter? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Unable to tear my gaze away from Mr C, I replied, “Ah did. Ah still am. You two go and get your drinks. There’s somethin’ Ah have tae do.”

I approached Mr C’s table. He appeared not to have aged. Pickled, perhaps. Preserved by alcohol? His chestnut hair was brushed in the same wavy side shed I remembered from childhood. The granite jaw looked as resolute as ever, his expression drunken but determined. He looked up at me through dark eyes which – despite being coated with the glassy sheen of inebriation – sparkled with intelligence. My presence seemed to make him uneasy. I addressed him by his full name. That put him even more on edge. I didn’t understand why. Then I realised that I’d changed substantially since the last time he’d seen me: bigger, hairier, some would say scarier. He asked, “Who are you?” His body language told that he was ready to dash for the door.

When I replied, “Mark Rice,” the tension left Mr C’s body. Eyes like polished onyx gazed at me, seeing beyond my unshaven face and unkempt hair. I saw recognition in those eyes as they identified the boy within the man.

What Mr C said next was light years away from what I’d have predicted. “Mark Rice – you used to live on beans.” It seemed as though I’d wandered into a Douglas Adams novel, such was the preposterous nature of the proclamation. Then memories came flooding back. My father used to buy certain foods in bulk. Baked beans were one such commodity. I had developed a bean fetish (not a sexual one, I should stress), devouring them tirelessly, sometimes even running home to make beans on toast straight after eating lunch in school. Mr C had once paired off the children in his class and set us the task of making clay sculptures. I convinced my art partner Iain that we should create a sculpture of beans on toast. We threw ourselves into the task. Sculpting toast out of clay was easy but rolling individual beans was a fiddly job. Nevertheless, we hurtled onwards with our intricate project as if possessed, pouring thick orange paint over the finished article. It was a masterpiece. We thought so. Mr C thought so. The headmaster thought so too, so much so that he put our sculpture in a glass cabinet just inside the school’s main entrance. When visitors came to the school, the headmaster’s sweeping hand gestures would draw their attention to the cabinets full of gleaming sports trophies and…beans on toast. There was a wonderful eccentricity about my primary school. I loved the way teachers there encouraged creativity and free thinking, even wildly lateral thinking. Meanwhile in The Crooked Lum I experienced a chain reaction of memories, taking me back to a time when every day felt profound. As if sensing my temporal trip, Mr C said, “You were a great kid – a joy to teach.”

“You were an excellent teacher.”

“Really?”

“Aye, really. Surely you know that? You had the perfect blend o’ characteristics for someone whose job was tae teach a bunch o’ savages like me and ma classmates. You were intelligent enough tae gain oor admiration, compassionate enough tae earn oor trust, and terrifyin’ enough tae stop us from runnin’ riot in the classroom.”

“I’ve often wondered if I made any difference at all,” he said. “It’s good to hear that I did. I’m happy to see you wearing a Rush T-shirt. Do you remember who introduced you to Rush?”

“Of course. You did. Ah listened tae Rush more than any other band while Ah was writin’ ma first novel. How’s that for you makin’ a difference?”

Mr C tilted his head, weighing up what he’d just heard. “I knew you’d write a book. That was always going to happen. Let me guess – it’s full of otherworldly fantasy, heavy metal, women and beans?”

“Pretty close. Beans don’t feature in it, though.”

“Oh? Are you saving them for the sequel?”

I chuckled at Mr C’s quick wit. My archery coach brought over a mug of coffee then left me and my erstwhile teacher to our conversation.

Then things turned eerie. Mr C told me he was back in East Kilbride to visit his father, who was at death’s door. In between sups of Guinness, he revealed that his own health was in almost as bad a state as his dad’s. He had drunk his way to severe liver cirrhosis. Sitting across the table from this man I so admired, and looking into his mirror-reflective eyes, I felt the hair rise on my arms and neck. Pressure built in my eyes until tears pooled. I wondered what I had tapped into while writing my story about the witches. The infinite energy latticework known as the Zero Point Field? Jung’s Collective Unconscious? Or had I picked up a psychic distress call from this man who had been ever supportive of my childhood endeavours? A few months earlier I’d created a character based on Mr C and written about how he drank himself into oblivion. Now the real man sat before me, one step away from the oblivion I’d described. He didn’t seem sad or worried. In fact, his attitude was upbeat. He asked more questions about the years when he’d taught me. Do you think I made a difference to other children too? Have you carried any of my lessons with you into the world? What are your favourite memories of those years? Then more questions. Which is your favourite Rush album? What gigs have you attended since your first (Iron Maiden, Glasgow Apollo, the same year I was in Mr C’s primary-six class)? That one took a long time to answer. What’s the summarised plot of your novel? I guzzled coffee after coffee, answering every question Mr C threw at me, feeling that somehow my presence was providing him with a temporary lifeline to a time when he was an unshakable force of nature. Yet that momentary silver lining seemed destined to be engulfed by dark clouds. So I stayed longer, hoping to reinforce in Mr C that he had every reason to feel a sense of self-worth. I had to let him know he wasn’t just admired and respected as a teacher…he was loved.

His right hand began fiddling with a mobile phone while his left gripped a pint of Guinness as if it were a lifebuoy keeping him afloat at sea. “May I take your photo?” he asked. “I forget things sometimes. If I take your picture I’ll know this wasn’t a dream.”

Pondering the idea, I saw a hole in its logic and so suggested a better alternative. “You didnae recognise me at first tonight. If you wake up tomorrow and this whole night’s a blank, you might see a photo o’ me on your phone and wonder, ‘Who’s that hairy basturt and what’s he doin’ on ma phone?’ Tell me your number. Ah’ll send you a text that leaves no room for confusion.” The text I sent said that Mr C was a great teacher and an inspiration. It went on to say how happy I was to once again meet the man who had played such a pivotal role in my early development: the teacher whose belief in me had been unflinching. I put my name at the end of the message.

At closing time, as pub patrons filtered out into the darkness, a feeling of helplessness flooded into me. I wanted to take this man – who would have faced Hell for me all those years ago – under a protective wing to heal his hurt. The demon on my left shoulder growled, “You fuckin’ did this. You wrote it and it’s unfoldin’ as you described. Happy?” Perched on my opposite shoulder, a kilted Faerie chieftain said, “Don’t listen tae that infernal fuckwit’s far-fetched fiction. This has been happenin’ for decades. Your mind simply tuned in tae your teacher’s frequency and sensed what he was goin’ through.” I believed the Faerie warrior, as I always do, yet I couldn’t help feeling unnerved on a monumental scale.

Mr C and I shook hands under the night’s blue-black blanket of weeping clouds. My last words to him: “You were an amazin’ teacher. You still are a great man. Remember that.” As we parted, my heart boomed a collision of past, present and future. I felt in my soul the ripples that every action sends out into the world and wider Universe. An epiphany? That’d be an understatement. It was what Zen monks call a moment of satori. Even in his drunken state and on a seemingly inexorable journey of self-destruction, Mr C was still leading me to greater understanding. For that, and for every moment I was blessed to spend with this man, I feel gratitude.

Mr C, you were loved. You still are. You always will be. The difference you made will ripple forever.

Albums of 2013

With 2014 underway and much exciting new music in the pipeline, let’s look at the iconic albums of 2013.  It was a year that saw predictably brilliant albums released, but there were some huge surprises too.  Read on, fellow rocker, for an overview of the sounds that made my 2013 a scorcher.  In true metal style, here are my eleven favourite albums of the year, starting with number one.

1. Joe Satriani – Unstoppable Momentum

A true virtuoso, Joe Satriani invents new sounds, new dimensions of guitar music, new ways to push the envelope.  Unstoppable Momentum contains eleven astonishing instrumentals.  Don’t be put off by the absence of vocals; Joe’s guitar melodies are so beautiful that words would only get in the way.  Personal favourite track: for pure distilled emotion, I’ll Put a Stone on Your Cairn.

2. Ghost – Infestissumam

A natural successor to debut album Opus Eponymous, this is a perfect blend of Mercyful Fate/King Diamond lyrical themes, Blue Öyster Cult melodies and enough originality to transcend accusations of plagiarism.  Sweet vocal harmonies and church-organ backing are balanced by clean riffing and deliciously evil lyrics.  Personal favourite track: Monstrance Clock.

3. Queensrÿche – Queensrÿche

A huge return to form for the Seattle pioneers.  New vocalist Todd La Torre infuses the quintessential ‘rÿche sound with fresh energy on eleven songs that ooze quality.  Soaring vocals, sublime guitars and that wonderful rhythm section combine to create the year’s most unexpected musical surprise.  Don’t confuse this incarnation of Queensrÿche (which contains three founder members) with the other Queensrÿche (which contains only one founder member: estranged vocalist Geoff Tate).  Legal battles – over who has the right to record and tour using the Queensrÿche name – won’t be settled until at least spring 2014.  In the meantime, both versions of Queensrÿche are recording and touring.  Confused?  So are they!  Geoff Tate is an excellent vocalist, but it’s the lineup featuring founder members Scott Rockenfield, Eddie Jackson and Michael Wilton – with Parker Lundgren on guitar #2 and Todd La Torre on vocals – that has remained true to the iconic Queensrÿche sound.  Personal favourite track: the staggeringly brilliant In This Light.

4. Amorphis – Circle

Amorphis albums are vast pastiches of epic lyrics and musical complexity.  From their melodic-death-metal roots, this band has blossomed into a genre-defying beast with absolute mastery over its craft.  Personal favourite track: Mission.

5. Blood Ceremony – The Eldritch Dark

This album arrived from out of the blue, a gift from my brother-in-metal Jimmy McCarthy.  Before playing the CD, I was drawn in by the ornate cover artwork and Wicker Man themes.  It’s said that one can’t judge a book by its cover, but in this instance the artwork is an indicator of the sonic brilliance inside.  The songs are doomy and retro, fusing elements of Jethro Tull, Uriah Heep, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Rush, Rainbow and other classic bands, yet managing to sound fresh and vital.  Driving back to Scotland after Wintersun’s 2013 gig in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I played this album on repeat for the entire journey.  It improved with each listen.  Even after five or six successive plays, I never felt any desire to change the CD.  Personal favourite track: Drawing Down the Moon.

6. Wardruna – Yggdrasil

When Kvitrafn and Gaahl (infamous for their other bands, Emperor and Gorgoroth respectively) formed Wardruna to create music inspired by their Scandinavian ancestral roots – specifically the runes – they piqued my interest.  Wardruna’s first album, Runaljod – Gap Var Ginunga, was unlike anything created before.  Recorded primarily in a Norse forest, it incorporated the sounds of wind, rain and nature alongside rhythms of ancient instruments and chanted vocals.  The result was a collage of profound, transcendental tunes that are part of nature, not the product of digital technology.  Breathtaking.  On this, Wardruna’s second album, they introduce a scintilla of electronic instrumentation – mainly keyboards – but in a way that remains true to the original blueprint.  The vocals of Lindy-Fay Hella, third member of the band, alternate between angelic caresses and fierce norn’s growls.  Truly original and absolutely magical.  Personal favourite track: Sowelu.

7. Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks

During the five-year NIN silence after The Slip, I hoped that Trent Reznor’s seclusion was a creative one and that he was once again pouring his soul into cathartic Nails soundscapes.  He didn’t disappoint.  Hesitation Marks is a swathe of gorgeously delicate melodies interspersed with Reznor’s inimitable pained vocals.  Personal favourite track: the raw and vulnerable Find My Way.

8. Amon Amarth – Deceiver of the Gods

Viking metal at its best.  Personal favourite track: Deceiver of the Gods.

9. Saxon – Sacrifice

While other NWOBHM bands have slowed down, retired or split up, Saxon – the band that got me into metal in the first place – keep writing, composing, recording and touring at a rate which would exhaust regular mortals.  To my ears, there hasn’t been a weak Saxon album.  Even during the band’s dalliance with a lighter, more US-friendly sound (Innocence Is No Excuse, Destiny), the quality of songwriting and musical execution was unquestionable.  Today’s Saxon is a heavier beast, more power metallists than radio-friendly rockers.  Sacrifice is a natural successor to Lionheart and The Inner Sanctum.  As always, Biff Byford’s vocals sound like they come from a larynx of polished chrome.  The clean-toned twin-guitar attack of Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt, now well established in the band, is razor-sharp.  Nibbs Carter and Nigel Glockler provide a rhythm section as solid as any in metal.  The songs are masterfully crafted examples of anthemic metal.  Personal favourite track: the epic masterpiece Guardians of the Tomb.

10. Metal Church – Generation Nothing

Despite being one of the most underrated outfits of all time, Metal Church influenced many other bands, most notably ‘80s Metallica.  MC’s definitive recording – The Dark – is one of metal’s milestones: a perfect album in every way.  The band has survived tough times, including the tragic death of singer David Wayne, to produce consistently strong material.  Generation Nothing is the sound of innovators who have nothing to prove; they’re doing things their way, flying in the face of fashion and fad alike, to create metal that’s timeless.  Personal favourite track: Generation Nothing – a masterclass in precision thrash.

11. Hardcore Superstar – C’mon Take on Me

Hardcore Superstar’s Beg for It was my album of 2009 by a substantial margin.  Its combination of super-tight musicianship, huge singalong hooks, phenomenal drumming, raw vocals and perfect production made it one of the most iconic albums ever recorded.  HS’s immaculate melodic sensibilities make them incapable of creating music that’s less than great.  C’mon Take on Me is a different animal from Beg for It – looser, rawer, less fierce and less polished – yet it’s a strong album in its own right: anthemic metal with swagger and sleaze in spades.  They make it sound easy.  Personal favourite track: C’mon Take on Me.

So there you have it – my albums of 2013.  Not an easy selection, as myriad other albums made my longlist, among them recordings by Darkthrone, Motörhead, Soilwork, Fish, Blackmore’s Night, Ihsahn, Children of Bodom, Burzum, AFI, Sarah Brightman, Ulver, Dream Theater, Megadeth, Front Line Assembly, The Ocean, and Tom Keifer.  My friends Thunderfuck and the Deadly Romantics finally got around to releasing an album (and a fine chunk of Mindwarpesque metal it is too) and touring.  I saw them a few times (no mean feat, considering that they’re banned from every venue in Glasgow) and enjoyed the performances (as well as betting on what point frontman Bruce would keel over drunk at).  Special mention  must go to Nimbatus, the one-man project that never fails to astonish me with music that’s poignant, beautifully melodic and crushingly heavy.  Sounds like a paradox, I know, but Nimbatus pulls it off with aplomb.  There was no Nimbatus album in 2013, but there were several singles and an EP, all of which showcased gorgeous compositions.  Had those tracks been compiled into an album, it’d have been right up there battling for the top spot with Satch.  If you enjoy the dark sounds of Paradise Lost, early Anathema, My Dying Bride, and appreciate the instrumental wizardry of Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert, do yourself a favour and check out Nimbatus on bandcamp.  If you don’t like it, I’ll eat my hat (and my kilt).  This musical genius deserves to be huge.  Let’s make it happen.

So what’ll be the album of 2014?  Favourite has to be Insomnium, whose Above the Weeping World and One for Sorrow were my albums of 2006 and 2011 respectively.  They’ve completed work on their new album, which is at the mixing/mastering stage now.  I’ve been lucky enough to hear previews of some tracks…and they’re out of this world.  Other possibilities for the top spot are Agalloch, if they release something in 2014, or the fourth Nimbatus album, if it emerges from deepest, darkest Germany to bless our ears with its incomparable melodies.  There will be surprises, too.  One thing’s for sure – music’s alive and well.  So tonight I’ll light a Peruvian cigar to 2013’s great recordings while raising a glass to the sonic wonders to come in 2014.

Album Covers That Changed My Life

I love album covers, especially on vinyl LPs.  Narrowing my list down to eleven wasn’t easy.  To do so I had to omit thousands of my favourites, among them the homoerotic Teutonic imagery of Accept and Rammstein, the loincloth-clad would-be warriors Manowar, the nonchalant symbolism of Scorpions, the eerie imagery of Venom, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond and Blue Öyster Cult, the razor blades and metallic robot creatures of Judas Priest, the masking-tape-nippled, cameltoe-pantied, oiled-up, chainsaw-wielding anarchisexuality of Wendy O. Williams, the two-steps-from-transexuality preening poseurishness of LA glam metallists, the otherworldly wonder of Magnum’s Rodney Matthews artworks…you get the idea.  These eleven are not necessarily my favourite album covers, but they are the ones that, for reasons which will be explained, had the biggest impact on me.

1. AC/DC – If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It)

My equal-favourite album of all time (the other being Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction’s Tattooed Beat Messiah).  Its cover affected the 10-year-old me in a visceral way when I saw it for the first time (on a snowy winter’s day in an East Kilbride record shop called Impulse).  I picked up the vinyl LP and – after a few minutes of staring at both sides of the cover – walked to the counter shaking with excitement and bought this chunk of high-voltage riffage.  Walking the mile and a half home through the snow, I gazed at the cover in amazement: on the front Angus is impaled by his own guitar while Bon looks over his shoulder like a demon; on the back Angus is face down and dead, a Gibson SG headstock jutting from a bloody exit wound, and Bon nowhere to be seen (prophetic, as Bon was to check out of this world soon afterwards).  And the sound? Immaculate!  From the roar of Glasgow Apollo’s crowd (the greatest gig venue I’ve ever set foot in) to Bon’s banshee screams on High Voltage to the never-bettered guitar tone of Angus and Malcolm Young, the energy levels on this album are higher than any ever captured on record before or since.

2. Motörhead – Ace of Spades

This one shouldn’t need explanation.  The band image – equal parts biker, bandito and shoot-you-in-the-back bastard – was perfect.  This cover didn’t just convince me to buy the album: it inspired me to buy a bullet belt, too.  Little Filthy Phil Taylor was the scuzziest-looking thing I’d ever seen, so naturally I loved him!

3. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

This cover scared the bejeesus out of me as a child.  I was afraid of only one thing back then: witches.  I’d fight any boy, man or beast.  I’d boot a vampire in the balls if he crossed my path.  I’d set a werewolf on fire if he bared his teeth at me.  Witches, though, were a different story.  They terrified me.  The spectral female figure on the front of this album looked like a definite witch – the scariest I’d ever seen: a pant-shittingly frightening wyrd woman who would haunt my dreams and rip out my soul if I so much as dared to play the album.  So I played it over and over, staring at the cover for hours, certain that facing my fears was the only way to banish them.  The building on the cover is Mapledurham Watermill.  I’m happy to report that it hasn’t changed much.  With a bit of Crowleyesque jiggery-pokery, some Satanic slap and tickle, and a shamanic forest dance (or, if you prefer, a short walk from the car park), you can look upon the watermill from the same angle as the cover photographer did back in 1970. And if you’re lucky, a pale figure in black might appear on the water’s edge…

4. Rush – Permanent Waves

Symbolism run amok.  In the background a man waves, unaware of the approaching tidal wave that’s about to wash him away.  In the foreground a woman with a demi-wave hairstyle smiles as her skirt flutters in waves, offering the viewer a cheeky glimpse of panties.  Genius.

5. Candlemass – Nightfall

The most numinous of these eleven, Nightfall‘s cover features the Thomas Cole painting Old Age.  If you fancy a look at the original, pop over to the Smithsonian Institute and have your mind blown by this spectacular piece of art.  For me, it provokes memories of early childhood with its Sunday School, biblical parables, and pondering the existential mysteries of the Universe.

6. Deep Purple – Deep Purple in Rock

The cover features the giant heid of Ian Gillan…carved into rock!  Ritchie Blackmore’s there too, as are the other three legends from the Mark II lineup of Deep Purple (Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Jon Lord).  Based on the larger-than-life sculptures on Mount Rushmore (where the heads of American presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt are hewn into the rock), this cover goes one better by having five heids.  And even an idiot knows that five heids are better than four.  As a child, I found this vinyl LP in a Menorcan record shop during a summer holiday.  Nearly pissed myself with excitement.  Bought it on the spot.  Iconic.

7. Diamond Head – Living on…Borrowed Time

Like AC/DC’s If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It), this cover uses back and front to deliver its message.  For the full effect, take the gatefold vinyl album, open it and enjoy the wide landscape art (by Rodney Matthews, who also created legendary covers for rock legends Nazareth and Magnum, among others).  Of all Rodney’s work, this is the piece I find most captivating.

8. Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden

When artist Derek Riggs created Eddie ‘the Head’ (Iron Maiden’s now-famous mascot, who has graced all the band’s covers – albums and singles – evolving through many incarnations along the way) he couldn’t have foreseen the enormity of the impact his monster would have on heavy-metal culture and identity. Derek’s body of work is now legendary, his character Eddie the universally recognised figurehead of the Iron Maiden juggernaut.  Each Maiden cover has breathtaking attention to detail, little flashes of self-referencing humour, and a unique mood.  I find the cover of this, their debut album, hypnotic.  The scene communicates an eerie and palpable sense of nocturnal danger.  As for Eddie, is he a punk or a metalhead?  Is he alive or is he dead?  Is he friend or foe, or sexual pest?  Or all of the above, like some Schrödinger’s zombie?  These are the things I’ve wondered as I’ve gazed into his eclipse-in-the-abyss eyes.  An utterly inspired cover with unparalleled atmosphere.  I can’t get enough of it.

9. Testament – Souls of Black

Pick up a copy of this on vinyl and look at the cover.  See it.  There are over 20 tortured faces in the clouds and sea.  The more you look, the more you’ll see.  I’m still finding new ones and I’ve had the album since its release in 1990.  Beautifully symmetrical logo in blood-red font.  Hooded dark wraiths.  Stolen heart wrapped in black thorns.  A beautiful inversion of Christian iconography.

10. Jean Michel Jarre – Oxygène

It’s difficult to look at this cover without contemplating the destruction mankind has wreaked on Mother Earth.  Job done, Monsieur.

11. Pink Floyd – The Division Bell

One of my favourite albums and a cover to match, courtesy of longtime Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson (RIP, you transcendent genius).  Division and union in one scene: an eternal paradox.  A metaphor for the Universe.  The building in the background is Ely Cathedral.  If you fancy seeing the giant heads, go to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.  They’re above the entrance to the museum’s third floor.

Metal’s Least Metallic Song Titles

Before I poke fun at any song titles, I should stress that I have vast respect for the artists below.  They, and thousands of others like them, have enriched my existence immeasurably and continue to do so.  Often they surprise me in ways which, with hindsight, I could have anticipated.  But sometimes they dish up surprises so bizarre that I’d never have been able to intuit their arrival.  The following song titles are examples of this – metal songs with names so unmetallic that they beggar belief.  Like Spinal Tap’s amps, the list goes up to 11…

1. Saxon – Standing in a Queue

No one likes standing in a queue.  There are always more productive things one could be doing.  My guess is that Biff Byford, he of the vocal chords that must surely be polished silver, was stuck in a non-moving queue one day.  With a long wait looming and a cup of tea out of reach for the foreseeable future, Biff snapped.  Raging, he penned a song about the experience.

I’m standing in a queue.

I don’t know what to do.

I haven’t got a clue

Why I’m standing in a queue.

2. The Darkness – English Country Garden

A metal variation of a traditional folk song I learned in primary one (and soon bastardised in the playground).  Here’s the first verse of the original song.

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow

In an English country garden?

We’ll tell you now of some that we know.

Those that we miss you’ll surely pardon.

Daffodils, heart’s ease and phlox,

Meadowsweet and lady smocks,

Gentian, lupin and tall hollyhocks,

Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, forget-me-nots

In an English country garden.

In the school playground, my friends and I were soon singing an adapted version with rather different lyrics.

What do ye do when ye cannae find the loo in an English country garden?

Pull doon yer pants and fertilise the plants in an English country garden.

Then ye take a leaf and wipe it underneath in an English country garden.

Keeching is fun underneath a blazing sun in an English country garden.

We added many other rhyming lines to that song: some crude, some awful, some inspired.

Now to The Darkness’s adaptation.  The title has no metal credibility whatsoever.  The Darkness don’t care about that, though.  They’re ever playful, always just on the edge of parody.  Their lyrics in this track are – at points – classic.  Check out this for an example.

When I saw her pushing that wheelbarrow,

She said, “Have you got a match?”

And I said, “Yes – my cock and Farmer Giles’s prize marrow!”

Fun and frolics.  To be a credible metal song, though, it’d need a title like Carpathian Ruin at Dusk.

3. AC/DC – House of Jazz

Jazz has no place in metal (with the possible exception of Spinal Tap’s Jazz Odyssey, but that’s another story).  AC/DC would have been better to call a spade a spade: House of Whores.  Or maybe even House of Holes.  But not jazz.

4. Rainbow – The Shed

I like my sheds.  Both of them.  The larger one contains an ever-present supply of Polyfilla and other invaluable substances, all of which are guarded by a large ginger cat who sprawls on the roof during daylight hours.  Although I might consider writing a track called Guardian of the Polyfilla or Orange Hairy Gargoyle about this situation, I wouldn’t pen a metal song called The Shed.  No matter how impressive Ritchie Blackmore’s shed was circa 1980, he must have been having one of his wired-to-the-Moon days (does he have any other type?) when he named a song after it.  And if his shed really was that special, why isn’t it mentioned in the song?  Doubly puzzling.  But – as with all things Blackmore – earthly logic needn’t apply.

5. Hardcore Superstar – Why Don’t You Love Me like Before

Do I need to explain?  Really?  It isn’t the missing question mark that offends me most (although I’m not happy about it).  Why Don’t You Love Me like Before is a synonym for I’m a Self-Pitying Whiner Who’s Feeling Sorry for Himself – an unacceptable attitude for a metallist.  If she doesn’t love you like before, instead of moaning about it in a ballad, find a hotter, filthier woman, get stuck into her, then write a song about the experience.  That’s the metal thing to do.

6. Motörhead – Joy of Labour

The song’s lyrics are dark and devilish, its title ironic.  Nonetheless, the title makes me think of Mother Mary giving birth to the baby Jesus in a manger, smile on her face, halo glowing around her head, while a baffled Joseph looks on wondering, ‘How did he get in there?’

7. Eternal Tears of Sorrow – Tar of Chaos

Conjures up images of demons (dressed in high-visibility yellow jackets and hardhats) drinking tea from flasks by a roadside while a steamroller flattens glutinous black goo next to a sign that reads Chaos 1 Mile.  Not a bad vision, just not a metal one.

8. Bigelf – Counting Sheep

Shagging Sheep would be a metal title.  So would Throwing Sheep at Satan.  But not Counting Sheep.

9. Halford – The Mower

The Metal God has created some enduring characters: The Metallion; The Painkiller; The Ripper; The Sentinel; The Hellion.  Those visceral beasts are mythic and magical.  The Mower, on the other hand, makes me think of an orange Flymo trimming my wee ma’s lawn on a summer’s day.  A quaint image but not a metal one.

10. Ozzy Osbourne – Civilize the Universe

As if the world needed any more evidence that Oz has become Americanised, he removes all doubt by using the ‘z’ spelling (civilize) rather than the English ‘s’ one (civilise).  That’s his prerogative, but stop a moment to reflect on the song title and its intention.  Keep in mind that this is the same Ozzy who bit the head off live doves (a stunt for which I’d have snapped him in two, had I been present at the scene); he was supposed to set the doves free from their cage after signing a solo record deal with Jet Records: a symbolic celebration of his freedom from Black Sabbath.  This is the dude who bit the head off a bat thrown onstage by a fan (although, admittedly, Oz thought that one was a rubber toy).  It’s also the same individual whose drunken, drug-fuelled debauchery has become legend.  I have immense admiration for Oz as a musical artist, even though he can be a compassionless mentaloid where animals are involved.  Were I to list the least civilised folk who spring to mind, he’d be near the top.  There’s unintentional irony in the lyrics of Civilize the Universe, which plead for peace (an admirable sentiment) but also lambast hypocrisy and implore us to be civilised (this from the man who, in his recent autobiography, claimed that he enjoyed his job at a slaughterhouse).  So an individual who gained pleasure from killing beautiful sentient beings then wrote a song begging folk to be more civilised.  That’s like a porn actress writing an anti-fucking anthem.  And another thing – heavy metal was never meant to be civilised.  Desecrate the Universe would be a good metal title.  Defecate a Universe would be an even better one.  But so-called civilised (or civilized) things have no place in metal.  It’s raw, primal and authentic.  Diary of a Madman – now that was a perfect metal title from Oz.

11. UFO – Dance Your Life Away

Strange left-field subject matter for a UFO song: a man and woman who take part in foxtrot competitions.  I put the whole thing down to the gargantuan amounts of drugs Moggy and co were doing at the time.  The idea probably felt like an epiphany.  I’d love to have witnessed the conversation that led to this track’s creation.  It must have been more Spinal Tap than Spinal Tap.

That’s it for now.  Watch this space for my next all-the-way-to-eleven list: Album Covers That Changed My Life (complete with lovely full-colour pictures).

Don’t say I’m not good to you.

Until then, keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground.