HELLOWEEN / Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I (1987)

Helloween basically invented European Power Metal on Keeper and its sequel, but I can forgive them because they did it properly. The much-maligned bollocks revival that happened a few years back isn't worthy to wipe Helloween's collective asses. Their music is frantic and melodic, with choruses that you can't help but enjoy. It's packed with varied twists and turns, which leave little room to get bored. It's peppered with widdly solos that work - a rare thing, in my book. Vocalist  Michael Kiske has a unique voice that's part operatic and part Bruce Dickinson. The album is just under thirty-seven minutes long, but it has a vitality that means it lingers in the mind for much longer.

Songs of Note: Twilight of the Gods; Future World

4½ pumpkins and ticking clocks out of 5

GODFLESH / Streetcleaner (1989)

Streetcleaner is over twenty years old but still kicks the shit out of most of the Industrial music around today. It's as powerful as a force of nature - a storm of sludge and grit and glass that eats into your brain and shreds your veins. A drum machine pummels along beneath a wall of lo-fi guitars and bowel-rattling bass while Justin K. Broadrick vocally releases his inner demons.
I'll never forget the first time I heard it and the life-changing impact it had on me. It's a masterpiece and as important to Industrial music as The Beatles were to Pop music. Yes, I did just compare Godflesh to The Beatles and I stand by it.
For the record, the 2010 remaster is a successful update, it makes everything a little clearer but loses none of the original's crushing power.

Songs of Note: Like Rats; Christbait Rising

5 dead, pale worlds out of 5

CARTER U.S.M / 1992 – The Love Album (1992)

The difficult third release got the duo a number one album but it wasn't as good as the previous one. Typical. It tries to sound more grown up by adding more layers to the musical formula, but it just draws more attention to the synth aspect instead. It has quiet piano moments, an accordion and some occasional strings. The lyrical content is as scathing and passionate as anything they had belted out before. It's still a great album despite its flaws. It even has a kind of ballad, Carter style.

Songs of Note: Suppose You Gave a Funeral and Nobody Came; Skywest and Crooked

3½ teacups in a storm out of 5

DANZIG / The Lost Tracks (2007)

A two-disc set collecting unused material, rare tracks, B-sides and some previously unheard covers from the years 1988-2004. Up until 1994 the Evil Elvis was still churning out 5 Star albums, so some of this is really worth having.
Even if there's something very wrong with you and you preferred the later albums (V-VII) there's something for you on TLT. With 26 tracks in all, you can ignore what you don't like and still have a regular album's worth of new classic-era Danzig!

Songs of Note: When Death Had No Name; You Should Be Dying

4 new old is goodzig out of 5

K.U.K.L / The Eye (1984)

Released on the often-criticised but always interesting CRASS records, the first K.U.K.L album is post-punk at heart, but it's Björk, so it's experimental bat-shit crazy as well, and has a lot of genre-bending. Expect bells, flutes, pipes, guitars and drums, with vocals shared between her and Einar Örn that range from a whisper to an anguished scream. It sounds like PiL in places, and Sugarcubes in others (both Einar and Björk were in the 'Cubes). If you like weird, and don't hate the outspoken Icelandic pixie, you might find something new in The Eye.

Songs of Note: Dismembered; Anna

3½ icy screams out of 5

FIRE + ICE / Rûna (1996)

Neo-folk! I love it. Ian Read (Current 93/Sol Invictus) formed Fire + Ice to express his views on "…magic lore, runes, tradition, renaissance medievalism, Nordic mysticism and other esoteric and occult mysteries." Phew. That'll work. It's typical of the genre, with slow acoustic moments and traditional skin drums played in a very harmonious, ancient, pagan way. Part of the album is a runic poem; the lyrics are multi-faceted and will take knowledge of Runes and an age to decipher.
If hippies and pagans give you the fear, then you should probably avoid Rûna. But if you like the genre, then it's certainly worth seeking out.

Songs of Note: The Galdor; Of Midgard

3½ Thor's day child was full of Hammer out of 5

CELTIC FROST / Cold Lake (1988)

"...not popular with the group or its fans and is no longer available to buy."

That's a good thing.

Tom G Warrior dropped a turd...

0 ... at the bottom of the lake out of 5

PANTERA / Far Beyond Driven (1994)

FBD sold by the bucket-load on the strength of the previous album, but it's not as good. Diamond/Dimebag Darrell's down-tuned chug is slowed way down in places and sounds like Fear Factory in others; Fear Factory are boring. The drums are savagely heavy-handed and impact upon the sound of the whole album a little too much. It's still as heavy as a bag of spanners, but has less to set it apart from the era's Pantera clones. Although, there's a rather fine cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan at the album's end that deserves a mention.

Songs of Note: 5 Minutes Alone; Becoming

3 aggressive album covers out of 5

KATATONIA / Viva Emptiness (2003)

I've already described the Katatonia sound as best I could, without penning a short story about it, in a previous review, so I won't go over it again here. I'll just add that Viva Emptiness is more of the same and is hailed by many in the metal press as one of the finest gothic metal albums ever made. I prefer the previous album, but I can't fault VE in any way, despite the band's misgivings about the production. The atmosphere of uplifting sadness is uninterrupted, as is the formula they created and perfected. I also love how, since their musical reinvention, each one of their album covers is like a self-contained story waiting to be written.

Songs of Note: Criminals; Omerta

5 dreams of violence coming true out of 5

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD / That What is Not (1992)

The last PiL studio album was neither very good nor very bad. It sits somewhere in the middle, ignored most of the time by everyone. It's dogged by the curse of almost every song sounding the same. It's the sound of a band with nothing left to give, perhaps as a consequence of the earlier experimentation, Lydon had nothing left to say. The Public image has passed into the realms of the bland. It's for the best that he put it to rest after this. Death is a project... Do yourself a favour and go back to the very beginning.

Songs of Note: God; Acid Drops

2 unfucking lucky you, boo hoo out of 5

THE SISTERS OF MERCY / Floodland (1987)

Andrew Eldritch and Doktor Avalanche were all that was left of TSoM after the first album. And seeing as how Doktor Avalanche doesn't have a body, Floodland is basically an Eldritch solo album. It sounds like it was conceived to be played in a sunken cathedral, as you float along in a current of shadows, hell-bent on dragging you into a ruminative atmosphere... It's a soundtrack to the opening of your eyes to the bastardry of love and the reason the world is all wrong, until it all crumbles around you. Get the extended version for extra sparkly bonus track goodness, including a twelve minute version of Neverland.

Songs of Note: Dominion / Mother Russia; 1959 

4½ corrosion songs out of 5

AMORPHIS / My Kantele EP (1997)

An acoustic version of a track originally on Amorphis' Elegy (1996) album, two previously unreleased tracks and two new covers make the E.P a must for fans of the guys from Finland. The E.P is less metal than the album was but the song writing is no less interesting. It's a lot more folk and poetically driven than they were originally known for. Strangely, I prefer this version, it has a beauty that the original lacked. The two covers I mentioned are a Hawkwind song, and a Kingston Wall song. If you liked the experimental progressive folksy metal of the Elegy album, then the chances are good that you'll like My Kantele, too.

Songs of Note: My Kantele (Acoustic Reprise); The Brother-Slayer

4 strings gathered from torments out of 5

A PALE HORSE NAMED DEATH / And Hell Will Follow Me (2011)

Mix Alice in Chains' sludge with Type O Negative's atmosphere and you have A Pale Horse Named Death. It's the brainchild of former Type O Neg drummer Sal Abruscato, so it's only natural it would sound similar to the Drab Four. The AIC element was a surprise. It's pretty amazing. A drummer taking the guitar/vocal duties is rarely a good thing (people who know me will know what I mean when I say, "Hi, Dave!"). but APHND's post-grunge grunge is a success. I very much doubt it'll still be giving me the jollies a year from now, but today I've got it on repeat.

Songs of Note: As Black As My Heart; Cracks in the Walls

4 crows and horses and wolves and blood out of 5

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD / 9 (1989)

From Avant-garde art to Pop to Dance… I have to give Lydon credit for having a career so diverse, but this incarnation of PiL leaves me bored and unsatisfied. It's a half-breed dribbling poodle, not a pedigree wolf with bite that it used to be. It's almost the same line-up as the previous album, which was a first for the revolving door band, and while it's better than that previous effort, it's still sub-par for the PiL name. Expect bland Pop tunes that no longer stand apart from the norm, with the exception of Lydon's voice.

Songs of Least Fail: Disappointed; Happy

1½ invented friends out of 5

THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN / Automatic (1989)

The amphetamine-fuelled third album has the brothers finding a compromise between the distortion-heavy sound of their first album and the quieter, more sombre sound of their second. It took me a while to really warm to it.

The inclusion of a very obvious drum machine and synth bass is a shame, because live instruments would've given it an extra dimension, but when hidden behind the guitar distortion it's tolerable. Ultimately, it's another great release from the Scottish band who were their own worst enemy.

Songs of Note: Blues from a Gun; Drop

4 shitty album art is shitty out of 5