Today, July 25, marks the 25th Anniversary of the release of Metallica’s debut album, KILL ‘EM ALL.  Originally released by then fledgling Megaforce Records, KILL ‘EM ALL heralded a major shake-up in the Old Guard of Metal.  These acne-pitted youngsters in ripped-up jeans and sleeveless t-shirts turned up the heat a notch or three on the Iron Maiden’s, Ozzy’s and Judas Priest’s of the world.  A combination of NWOBHM, punk and good ol’ American kick-assness, KILL ‘EM ALL still stands as a testimony to what being young, hungry, drunk and pissed-off can accomplish.  As opposed to, say, LOAD or RELOAD, which stands as a testimony to what being middle-aged, sober, mellow, rich art-collectors can accomplish.

Let’s also not forget original lead-guitarist, Dave Mustaine, who co-wrote a lot of the tunes on KILL ‘EM ALL.  It’s too band the rest of the band woke him up at 6 AM to send him back home from New York to California on a Greyhound bus before he could record a lick for the album.

Here’s to ya, Young Metallica!  Cheers!*

Voivod’s a hell of a thing.

When I came across their first album (1984’s “War and Pain”) in the old Tower Records in Tacoma, I knew I had something special. It took me years to fully understand it and by then the band had outdistanced me and were off to other planets, other dimensions and other bass players. I bought a copy (eight dollars and 98 cents would buy you a sweet piece o’ vinyl in those days), took it home and put it on the turntable. What came out of the speakers was not what I expected. But then, what had I been expecting? Another Slayer clone or third-rate Metallica? Probably. But I wasn’t very discerning then, anyway, and a third-rate Metallica was still better than the unholy Boy George/Michael Jackson/Duran Duran triumvirate that dominated radio and MTV at the time. After all, I did own cassettes like Thrust’s “Fist Held High” (with the non-classic “Poser Will Die”), Omen’s “Battle Cry” and even some band called Vyper that looked like typical L.A. Hair Metal dudes trying to go in a more Power Metal direction.

So, “War and Pain”…

Chances are I would have played it a few times and then sold it along with Thrust, Omen and Vyper to the local second-hand record store for dope money if it wasn’t anything special. But it was. It was more than special – it was unusual. To this day, I can’t think of a record that sounds anything like it (except for Voivod’s second album, RRRÖÖÖAAARRR, but even by then the band was already stretching its black, leathery wings to include strange bits of cybernetic horror and mechanized paranoia). The closest I can come is to maybe compare it to Motörhead on acid or possibly some weird Venom/Germs hybrid filtered through a science fiction junkie’s brain. It sure as hell was the noisiest record I’d ever heard. At times the band sounds barely in control of their own songs and guitarist Piggy’s masterful use of dissonant chords, echo-effects and over-the-top distortion makes his guitar seem like one of the machineries of Death that vocalist, Snake, keeps screaming about as if he keeps waking up in the middle of a nightmare only to discover that everything he ever feared has come true. Original bass player, Blacky (appropriately listed as playing “Blower Bass” on the album) rumbles underneath with the second most distinguishable bass sound in the history of Metal (number one being, of course, Lemmy) and drummer, Away (also the artist responsible for all of Voivod’s incredible and unique cover art) relentlessly hammers away with slightly-demented time-signatures in a post-apocalyptic fury.

Besides the noise, the second thing that strikes the discerning listener (or third thing, if you count the afore-mentioned amazing cover art) is the cohesion of the record. This is the debut album of a fledgling rock band—a fledgling Canadian rock band (not sure why that matters, but somehow, it does)—but already Voivod has tied everything together with an a character—The Voivod himself, a future-past survivor of some cataclysmic war—and a sound that never varies while simultaneously avoiding redundancy. Even the look of the band at this time was in unison. It wasn’t quite a concept album (that wouldn’t happen until their fourth album, the brilliant masterpiece, Dimension Hatröss) but it was a concept—one that the band kept throughout their career, varying it, tweaking it and updating it but never losing sight of it.

From the opening sounds of chains being dragged while Piggy pulls some volumatic tricks on his “Burning Metal Axe”, already something is different. The noise-collage that begins the eponymous track conjures up the nuclear war-ravaged, post-apocalyptic wastelands that Voivod wanted us to envision. Then Snake (simply and correctly listed as “Throat”) kicks off a wake-up call to all those who would dare venture into those wastelands -: “VOIVOOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!” - while Blacky and Away steamroll us into submission. We’re off and we’re not looking back. We may never return. Ahead of us we have “Warriors of Ice”, the “Iron Gang”, “War and Pain”, the “Black City” and “Nuclear War” (again?!!!) to look forward to. The mysterious “Blower” doesn’t bode well and “Suck Your Bone” could refer to The Hills Have Eyes-like bands of roving cannibals or perhaps there is some weird sexual connotation there—whatever, it still contains what I consider to be the single greatest line in the history of Rock ‘n’ Roll: “Go, shit, I’m not a fish!”*. And the whole thing is summed up concisely halfway through Side 2 with “Live For Violence”.

By the end of the album you’re lying in a pool of toxic sweat, smoke rising out of your ears from overload, crying tears of blood…but there is a big, goofy smile on your face just the same. Then you flip the record over and start all over again…

In later years, Voivod refined their sound and stretched the boundaries of both their and their listener’s imaginations. The raucous, blood, dirt and machinery grind of their first two slabs of mammoth noise mutated intentionally into an amazing Prog-Metal/Thrash/Psychedelic fusion that continued to challenge and dumbfound many who just couldn’t grasp their unique brilliance. But this, their first offering, remains completely belligerent and insane and heavy as all fucking get-out.

“Voivod – I’m a paranoid

Voivod – the wine of blood

Voivod – I’m a crazy god

Voivod – the ferocious dog” - “Voivod”, Voivod (music by Voivod, lyrics by Snake)

*For the exceptionally curious, the second greatest line in Rock ‘n’ Roll comes from Gene Vincent who sang “Be bop a lula, she’s my baby”…genius!

Black Sabbath’s new box-set entitled “The Rules of Hell” is now available.  Containing all three Dio-era studio albums plus the double-disc “Live Evil” album  in their newly remastered state, this is a “must have” for any self-respecting headbanger.  Yes, we all love Ozzy and know that the original Sabbath kicks everyone’s ass, but never snub your nose at the mighty collaboration between Tony Iommi and the Diminutive One, Ronnie James Dio.  This is pure, unadultered METAL, people.

“You’re all fools - the Mob Rules!“

Judas Priest - “Sad Wings of Destiny” (1976)

“Sad Wings of Destiny” is a landmark metal album for a myriad of reasons, not the least being that the cover art by Patrick Woodroffe introduced us to the prong-like “Judas Priest Cross” that was adopted by the band as a symbolic representation, much like Iron Maiden’s mascot “Eddie” or the use of the pentagram for bands like Venom and a fledgling Motley Crue. But SWOD also saw Priest taking a mega-leap in their songwriting, from the pedestrian latent-hippie semi-psychedelic hard rock of their debut, “Rocka Rolla”, to an emphatically heavy metal aural landscape of dueling lead guitars and guitar harmonies over which vocalist, Rob Halford, soars, distancing himself from any other singer of the era. Song titles foreshadow the obsessions of countless metal bands to come: “Tyrant”; “Genocide; “The Ripper” and “Epitaph” signify an allegiance with the dark side and forever changed the landscape of metal imagery. But the highlight of the album belongs to the incredible, “Victim of Changes”, still a staple of the band’s live set, as I was honored to personally behold when they co-headlined 2005’s Ozzfest with fellow Birminghammer’s, Black Sabbath.

Motörhead - “Ace of Spades” (1980)

Lemmy & Co.’s fourth studio album cemented them as legends of hard rock and set the standard for every self-respecting Metalhead to come. Faster, louder and dirtier than anything previously unleashed upon the public, Motörhead hit their stride on “Ace of Spades” with Lemmy’s lyrics exhorting the joys of every vice he can possibly…eh…enjoy. Underage girls, shooting your enemy in the back, forbidden lizard-love and tubes of superglue all get the thumbs-ups from Mr. Kilmister and crew. “Fast” Eddie Clarke and “Philthy” Phil (Animal) Taylor provide a frantic backdrop of amplified aggression over Lemmy’s overdriven bass as they take Chuck Berry to the extreme. The title song says it all: “You know I’m going to lose/and gambling’s for fools/but that’s the way I like it, baby/I don’t wanna live forever”.

Iron Maiden - “Killers” (1981)

Tha amazing thing about Iron Maiden’s second album, “Killers”, is not just that it’s good, it’s that it’s so damn good. Then again, maybe it isn’t all that surprising. After all, Black Sabbath’s second album, “Paranoid” is still believed by most to be the band’s pinnacle. Many believe Metallica never topped their sophomore effort, “Ride the Lightning”. And of course Slayer’s “Hell Awaits” is no slouch of an album. Still, “Killers” sounds remarkably like a band that’s been around the block a few times, when in reality, they had really only been around the English pub circuit. There remains a great divide to this day between the legions of fans who proclaim vocalist, Bruce Dickenson, who joined the band after this album, the second-coming - perhaps inferior only to the previously-mentioned Halford and legendary mystic-dwarf, Ronnie James Dio. But there is another die-hard contingent who actually prefer the more street-level vocals of original singer Paul Di’Anno. A playful punk, Di’Anno would have been out of place on later Maiden albums, which explored such topics as Egyptian mythology, 17th century romantic poetry and paens to lonely marathon runners. At the time of “Killers”, Maiden was still firmly ensconced in a horror-movie world of Rue Morgues, subway killers and as the title of one track suggests, the “Twilight Zone”, and Di’Anno’s vocals suit these subjects well. “Killers” also marks the debut of long-running second lead guitarist, Adrian Smith and the interplay between Smith and co-lead guitarist, Dave Murray, took Priest’s Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing guitar innovation up a notch. Of course, bassist and main songwriter, Steve Harris, established himself as a genius with this album. Up the Irons!

Van Halen - “Van Halen” (1978)

Everything changed in 1978. Suddenly, Ted Nugent no longer cut it for aspiring hard rock guitarists. Ace Frehley was still a beloved figure but he wasn’t exactly blazing new trails. Lest you think that all the formative metal was coming out of jolly old England, consider that America’s sunny west coast was offering up a homemade (and incredibly potent) brew of their own, that featured guitar pyrotechnics the likes of which no one had ever experienced before. Eddie Van Halen’s hands seemed possessed and his solos sent chills down the spine. And who was this amusing, acrobatic ego-maniac that was shouting at us that he’d like to be our “Ice Cream Man”, or declaring himself an “Atomic Punk”, whilst simultaneously being able to show us his tender, thoughtful side on tracks like “Little Dreamer”. Of course, he’s right back at it with “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” only to do another 180 and sing about his own lecherous nature from his victim’s point of view on “Jamie’s Cryin”. Hugely influential, Van Halen set the standards for good-timin’ American metal bands to come, like Motley Crue and…um…well, maybe it’s best to stop there. But Eddie’s guitar playing spread like disease until every metal guitarist worth his salt had to know how to do “hammer-ons” or risk being laughed off stage. “If you want it got to PLEAD FOR IT, baby!”