Category: Album Review

You Picked It! The Strokes – ‘Is This It’ – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t really that close. They took an early lead and never looked back. The winner this month is The Strokes with their album ‘This Is It” which was one I had never heard before. I usually pick older classic albums for that slot, but thought I try and bring something more recent like in the last 20 years and it won. Here are the results.

  1. The Strokes – ‘Is This It’ – 9 votes
  2. Royal Blood – ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ – 5 votes
  3. Blue Oyster Cult – ‘Fire of Unknown Origin – 4 votes
  4. Drive-By Truckers – ‘Decoration Day’ – 3 votes
  5. Skillet – ‘Dominion – Sadly, with ZERO votes (poor Skillet, no one wants to hear them)

Thanks to all for participating. The March choices will be up on Saturday!

THE STROKES – ‘IS THIS IT’:

The Strokes debut album came out on July 30, 2001 and I basically ignored it. It wasn’t hard enough from what I heard and I didn’t care for the over all sound so they were pushed to side and I never bothered with them. Here we are 20 years later and I thought I’d throw them on the You Pick It! Series and if they won, I’d finally give them a fair shake. Well, they won so I guess I have to live up to my end of the bargain. I spent all week listening to the album over and over and over and did my opinion change? Let’s find out…

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Kryst the Conqueror – ‘Deliver Us From Evil E.P.’ (1989) / ‘Soldiers of Light: The Complete Recordings’ (2019)- Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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You are probably wondering why I am reviewing two albums at once. I know, it is strange. Well, here is the thing. We are reviewing Kryst the Conqueror’s E.P. – ‘Deliver Us From Evil’, however, I don’t have that version of the album. I have the more recent release which is called ‘Soldiers of Light: The Complete Recordings’. This contains the E.P. ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ as well as all the songs from that recording session.

But first, let’s back up a little. Kryst the Conqueror (pronounced Christ) is a project from former members of the band The Misfits. It consists of Jerry Only (known as Mo the Great in The Misfits and as Mocavious Kryst for this band) and his brother Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein. The idea of the band was take fantasy and sci-fi imagery and mix it with religious themes and in this case Jesus was now a Conqueror and was going to deliver us from evil. Yikes!

The E.P. Cover

The band never officially had a lead singer. Jeff Scott Soto was brought in to record the songs to get a feel for the songs and how they would sound, but he was never intended to be the lead singer. In fact, on the E.P. he is not even credited. The lead singer is listed as Kryst the Conqueror. In fact, with all the songs he recorded, only 5 were ever released and that was the original 5 Song E.P. ‘Deliver Us From Evil’. From what I can gather, it was released as a fan club package to the Misfits Fan Club to make sure Jerry was keeping in touch with the fans. But the project never really had any staying power or amounted to anything much. I guess that isn’t totally true, although they never performed live, the band did stay together (at least Jerry & Doyle) until around 1995 when they reached an agreement with Glenn Danzig to reignite the Misfits and then they started touring under that name taking some of these songs and turning them in to Misfit songs.

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Kuni – ‘Lookin’ For Action’ (1988) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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After Jeff Scott Soto’s stint with Yngwie Malmsteen was over, Soto was able to land a gig with the Japanese guitar virtuoso, Kuni. The rest of the band included Mike Terrana on Drums, who played with Yngwie and Beau Nasty, as well as Douglas Taylor Baker on Bass, who also wound up playing with Beau Nasty. Behind the boards on this one is a name a lot of you should be familiar with due to the bands Vinnie Vincent Invasion and Slaughter. That is right, Dana Strum produced the album and I have to say the production work on here is fantastic.

The band was very popular in Japan and they even got to tour. One of the shows was recorded for TV so it makes wonder if there is a live album or bootleg of that show anywhere. I need to start looking for that.

The copy I have is actually a re-release from 2018 and has a couple live bonus tracks and who doesn’t love bonus tracks. All releases of this album are Japan only which means…yes…OBI strips and my copy is no different. You can see it a few pictures down. Also included is a fold out page that has an essay in Japanese and I have no idea what it says, but you see Vinnie Vincent’s name mentioned, Loudness, Yngwie and several other band names so I am guessing it is talking about the band members and where they came from plus tons of other great information that would be nice to read…if I read Japanese. The page also has the lyrics to the songs, in English, on both sides.

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Aerosmith – ‘Permanent Vacation’ (1987) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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The band was in trouble after ‘Done With Mirrors’. What was supposed to be their comeback album, flopped big time. The drugs were still a big problem. So the band had to make a huge change…and they did. They got sober! ‘Permanent Vacation’ is the first album the band has ever made that they were sober…no drugs, no drinking…clean and sober. And people reacted to that in a big way. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford and Joey Kramer had a lot to prove and they couldn’t do it alone.

The studio that the first batch of help should come from a great producer. At the helm this time around was Bruce Fairbairn and his amazing engineering staff of Mike Fraser and Bob Rock which is one of the most impressive crew behind the boards every in music history. Heck, Bruce even played trumpet, cello and sang background vocals while Mike Fraser played something called a plunger mute. Huh??? Well, that is a trumpet with an attachment on the front that mutes the sound a little. I don’t see where Bob is credited with anything other than masterful engineering. The recorded at the very famous Little Mountain Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia. If you saw my interview with Paul Laine we talked about that studio a lot.

The second row of help came from some song doctors, however, this was one big area of contention with the band. They were forced to work with outside writers much in the way Cheap Trick had to with ‘Lap of Luxury’ that we discussed earlier this week. The biggest contribution came from Desmond Child who co-wrote 3 of the tracks, 2 of which were massive singles for the band. They also had help from Jim Vallance (Bryan Adams writing partner) and Holly Knight (Kiss and Cheap Trick).

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Cheap Trick – ‘Lap of Luxury’ (1988) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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By 1988, Cheap Trick’s popularity was dropping fast. Their last few albums didn’t really light the charts on fire and the record company you could say was quite unhappy. As a result, the record company forced the band to work with outside writers or song doctors. This was 1988 and all bands were now doing that. There was only one song on the album that was written solely by the band, all the others were co-writes by other people and some even entirely written by others.

But it wasn’t all bad news. The band was back to the four original members as Tom Petersson returns to the fold replacing Jon Brant on bass. As a result, the gang of Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Tom Petersson were back which made the world think of this as sort of a comeback album for the band. Now don’t think it was a comeback in forms of that 70’s Power Pop. Nope, it was more plain pop with this one, however, we did the see band hit the platinum status and garner their first ever #1 song.

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Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force – ‘Marching Out’ (1985) – Album Review (The Jeff Scott Soto Series)

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In a little less than a year after the release of Yngwie’s debut album, he puts out another release and this time a few changes were made. First, this sounded more like a band album. Jeff Scott Soto was still on vocals but this time he was involved in much more of the song writing. He contributed writing on 4 of the tracks and sang on 8 of them. For that reason, this was a more collaborative, band like experience…at least in how the album felt. The other change were a couple line-up changes. They brought in keyboardist Jens Johansson’s brother, Anders, to play drums. They also made a change in bass by bringing in Marcel Jacobs who is key and crucial part to the whole Jeff Scott Soto Story.

Marcel Jacobs is vital to Jeff’s story as the two became fast friends and within a few short years, the two would start what I think is one of Jeff’s best bands ever, Talisman. They would go on to do a couple side projects together called Human Clay and Humanimal, but they would always come back to Talisman and ended up giving us 10 studio albums together and numerous live albums and compilations. Without Marcel coming in to Jeff’s life, would his story have gone the way it did…I don’t think it would have. Even though they didn’t get along at first as Marcel was a stuck up European snob and Jeff was a trashy American, they eventually found common ground and their paths were destined to be intertwined for years to come.

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Aerosmith – ‘Classics Live! II’ (1987) – Album Review (The Aerosmith Collection Series)

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As we mentioned in the prior post on ‘Classics Live!’, the band Aerosmith had reunited with Brad Whitford and Joe Perry and went out on tour to celebrate the reunion. That tour was the Back in the Saddle Tour. The band had been on Columbia Records, but jumped ship and signed with Geffen Records in hopes of getting back in the good graces of the buying public. They planned out and released their comeback album ‘Done With Mirrors’ with little fanfare at least that was until they were on the Run DMC cover of their song “Walk This Way”. That combination of Hip Hop and Rock joining together and being celebrated so much on MTV brought them back in to the limelight.

This new found fame was great for Columbia Records because the bands new deal with Geffen still allowed Columbia to release material they owned of the band, which was a lot. Columbia took full advantage of this opportunity and the first release was a live compilation called ‘Classics Live!’ in April 1986. This time around in June 1987, a little over a year later, Columbia released ‘Classics Live! II’.

This time around the album is mostly one show which was the New Year’s Eve show at Orpheum Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts, December 31, 1984. It had all five original members back in action. There are two additional songs from other shows, but like the other songs, it is the full gang back together. Nice thing is there are no repeats songs from ‘Classics Live!’ and four of the song titles were not on ‘Live! Bootleg’. There are just 8 songs like before so it isn’t a full show. It is purely a money grab by Columbia, but as a collector, I don’t care. I’ll take it. Plus, it would be 11 years before we get another live album from the band which we will get to eventually.

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You Picked It! – Queensryche – ‘Rage for Order’ – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t really that close. After the first five picks were one for each artist, the winner took the early lead and never looked back. The winner this month is Queensryche and their album ‘Rage for Order’ which was one that was in my collection. This one was never really that close. Queensryche had the lead from vote 1 and never lost it. Here are the results.

  1. Queensryche – ‘Rage for Order’ – 8 votes
  2. John Prine – ‘John Prine’ – 6 votes
  3. Triumph – ‘Allied Forces’ – 6 votes
  4. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – ‘Barn’ – 3 votes
  5. Shania Twain – ‘Come on Over’ – 1 Vote

Thanks to all for participating. The February choices will be up on Saturday!

QUEENSRYCHE – ‘RAGE FOR ORDER’:

I discovered Queensryche back in 1988 when they opened for Def Leppard. They were touring for the ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ album which I immediately purchased. As a result, I went back and tried to find more music by them and the next thing I picked up was ‘Rage for Order’. The album came out back on June 27, 1986 and was unlike anything else I had heard at the time. It was progressive metal and I am not sure what the hell was with their clothes and that hair. Woah! That hair. Was it glam? Was it Metal? I had no clue.

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Kiss – ‘End of the Road: In Allentown 2020’ – Blu-Ray Review (Bootleg Series)

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I was out a Record Show and I found a table that had a lot of Kiss memorabilia but nothing much I really wanted as I generally stick to the music. I did find something I didn’t realize existed and that was Kiss Blu-Ray Bootlegs. This guy was selling a lot of them. I came back to the table and looked again and decided, you know, I want to try it out. When he then offered that I could get two for $15, I jumped at the chance. $15 was worth the risk. So I grabbed one from the End of the Road tour and one from the 40th Anniversary Tour as I saw both those tours, just not these shows.

So, first up we are going to go the most recent which is the End of the Road Tour and this show was filmed at the PPL Center in Allentown, PA on February 4th, 2020 just a month before COVID shut the whole touring scene down. Kiss was a full year in to the tour at this point and in fine form.

I have to say the video quality is much better than I expected. It is supposed to be a Pro-Shot video and although some of the camera angles sucked at times as they got washed out with the colors in the lights, overall it was pretty cool. The shots from the front of the stage were perfectly clear and killer you still got some shots that were muted by the lights some blurriness as the cameras couldn’t focus fast enough. But for $7.50 a piece, pretty darn acceptable.

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Cheap Trick – ‘The Doctor’ (1986) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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After recording the fantastic track, “Mighty Wings” for the Top Gun Soundtrack, Cheap Trick headed in to the studio to record their next album. At the time, not knowing that song wasn’t written by the band, I had high hopes that their album would come out rocking like that song. Yeah, but it didn’t…AT ALL!! Thanks to the production by Tony Platt, Cheap Trick came out with an album that had no balls and sounded so dated with the massive keyboards that you threw your hands up in the air and said “what is this crap”. Yes, I am ruining this review by telling you the ending right away…that is how bad this album is to me.

The band was really fighting with their label as the label kept screaming more keyboards and the band, in the end, just threw up their hands and finished the album in 3 weeks. I don’t think they even realized at the time how weak and lame this would turn out to be. They probably had an idea as it was Tony Platt that mixed their last album after Jack Douglas had to back out due to legal problems with Yoko Ono (that is whole other story for another time). Tony turned their album. “Standing On the Edge” in to a wimpfest when it was supposed to be a rocker…at least that was Jack’s vision. Why would they expect anything different with this one.

The band line-up was unchanged from the prior as we still had Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Bun E. Carlos and Jon Brant. However, this would be the last album to feature Brant as the band’s next album would see the return of founding bass player Tom Petersson. And not a moment too soon. The album finally saw its release on November of 1986 and it didn’t do well at all. It peaked at #115 on the Billboard Charts and only had one U.S. single which didn’t even chart. That says all you need to know right there. The band had probably hit rock bottom at this point in their career which would make you think that after this, there was no where to go but up. We will see if that happens.

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