Vampires have come a long way.

Somewhere around the time of the Lost Boys, it became cool to be a vampire. Think about it, the benifits sound great – you get to live forever, you get to fly, you get to wear great clothes, and you get to sleep all day and party all night! As an added bonus, you get to eat/maim/kill people you don’t like. What a bargain! The only real negative is that there are people roaming the coutryside who are dedicated to sticking wood through your chest, but hey, every job’s got a down side.

The other thing that the Lost Boys gave Vampires was cool soundtracks. No longer are the undead cursed to roam the Earth to creepy pipe organ music – they got to fly around to killer compilation soundtracks.

Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 fiends are no different. Sure, they have a lot of blood sucking to do, but they might as well get to do it in front of a backdrop of some killer metal tunes. Let’s face it, creatures of the night don’t do their dirty work to R&B, folks.

Powerman (Zombie) 5000 opens the album with the first single, “Ultra Mega”. I’m not sure if I’ve heard this exact song before, or if it just sounds like all the other PM5K songs, but it rocks in a generic sort of way. The sountrack moves it’s way through some older metal acts (Slayer, Pantera, Monster Magnet) straight to the nu-metal scene (Linkin Park, Static-X, Taproot), and still leaves plenty of room for surprises (Godhead feat/Marilyn Manson, Endo, Disturbed, and of course System of a Down).

To be honest, I haven’t seen this movie. I probably won’t see it until it hits the cable movie channels, or if I hear great things about it, I’ll rent it on DVD in a few months. That being said, I’m not disappointed with the soundtrack at all. Plenty ot rockin’ songs from plenty of bands I know and like, and some I didn’t know and enjoyed. Half-Cocked’s track, “Sober”, reminded me of a rockin’ and dirtied up Veruca Salt, which I really enjoyed. Flybanger’s “Blind World” was another nice surprise that made me pull the disc out of the car player to see who it was.

I’ve spent a lot of money on a lot less. 15 pretty good tracks from some pretty good bands. I’m sure it won’t win album of the year, or soundtrack of the year, but I might give it soundtrack of the month. If you like soundtracks and don’t mind that this CD is an obvious marketing ploy to tie a bunch of heavy music into a movie and cross over sales for each, pick it up. Plus, it gave me an excuse to run around the house in a vampire cape and jump off the furniture pretending to fly while it was in the stereo (ok, not really).

And for those who don’t always read the fine print, be sure to pick up the explicit version and not the censored one. If you’re old enough to suck blood, you’re old enough to hear some four letter words, dang it.

Tracks:
01. Powerman 5000 – Ultra Mega
02. Disturbed – Welcome Burden
03. Slayer – Bloodline
04. System Of A Down – The Metro
05. Monster Magnet – Heads Explode
06. Godhead – Break You Down (featuring Marilyn Manson)
07. Linkin Park – One Step Closer
08. Pantera – Avoid The Light
09. Static-X – Ostego Undead
10. (hed)pe – Swan Dive
11. Taproot – Day By Day
12. Endo – Malice
13. Flybanger – Blind World
14. Half Cocked – Sober
15. Saliva – Your Disease

I’ll tell you up front — I was NOT looking forward to listening to this album. For some reason, I had these guys lumped together with all those nu-metal bands. Dog Fashion Disco may not be for everybody, but they’re unique enough to at least check out.

Committed to a Bright Future, Dog Fashion Disco’s second offering, grabs the spirit of Mr. Bungle and takes it to new, heavier heights. Parallels between Dog Fashion Disco and System of a Down are apparent as well. All three bands have their own unique approach. to mixing rock, jazz, funk, and metal; DFD falls somewhere between the other two in the “radio friendly” chart. Their songs are more cohesive than anything from Mr. Bungle, but aren’t straight forward rock tunes like SoaD.

One thing you can’t say about ‘Committed to a Bright Future’ is that it’s boring. From the thrashy assault of “Dr Piranha” to the heavy riffs on “Love Song For A Witch”, the band will keep you guessing not only from song to song, but within each song as well. Like Visions of Disorder’s debut disc, this album feels longer than it is due to the numerous structural changes within the songs.

A few of the songs, like “Fetus on the Beat”, pour the keyboards on a little too think for my liking. Keyboards are present in all of the songs from time to time, but they rarely overpower the heavier-than-I-expected guitars.

Committed to a Bright Future is three hours worth of ideas crammed into one hour’s space. It’s all a little hard to take in the first time through, but repeated listenings let the band’s talent shine through. Fans of the Bungle will be glad to hear someone else is carrying on the torch.

Tracks:
01. Love Song For A Witch
02. Rapist Eyes
03. Dr. Piranha
04. Fetus On The Beat
05. Worm In A Dog’s Heart
06. Plastic Surgeons
07. Pogo The Clown
08. Castaway
09. Nude In The Wilderness
10. The Acid Memoirs
11. Déjà Vu
12. Magical Band of Fools
13. Scores For Porn
14. Chin White

Dismember has returned to the death metal scene with Where Ironcrosses Grow. Fans of Dismember or simply Swedish death metal can go ahead and click on that little gray “X” in the upper right hand corner of your browser — there’s not much I can tell you about this release that you don’t already know.

Simply put, this album represents. Oddly, the title track, which is also the first track of the CD, is one of my least favorites. Not that it’s not good, but it’s fairly vanilla death metal. Full speed forward without a lot of variation or creativity. After that, the band really begins to shine. It’s almost like the band said, “yeah, we’ve shown you we can do the old stuff — now here’s the NEW shit!” Not that the other tracks reinvent the wheel or anything, but they do manage to change it up a bit while remaining completely old school and doing what Dismember has always done best; devistate. Later tracks, like “Forged with Hate” and “Sword of Light” are great examples of dropping the speed limit and coming up with some great grinding riffs without playing 100mph.

One thing long running fans of the band will appreciate is the production on Where Ironcrosses Grow. The band has done a good job of presenting that classic Swedish sound by presenting a clean but not overly punchy mix. The result is a bass-thick guitar tone layered over that classic clicky kick drum sound.

Where Ironcrosses Grow is an example of good text book death metal. If I met someone who had never heard of death metal before, I would not hesitate to toss this disc in and let it represent the genre. With so many bands twisting and tweaking genres like never before, sometimes it’s nice to hear something that just sounds familiar.

As a fan of the Misfits, I really got a kick out of Devils Whorehouse’s album, Revelation Unorthodox. According to the band’s website, B. War and Morgan (both of Marduk) teamed up with two unknown local musicians to form a Misfits/Samhain cover band. Apparently, the guys had so much fun, they recorded 13 (of course!) new songs in classic Misfits style, and Revelation Unorthodox was born.

Everything from the vocals to the song structure to the sound quality itself sounds like 80’s-era Misfits. In fact, it’s done so well that I would guess even Misfits fans could be fooled into thinking this is an unreleased album by the band — especially judging by the vocals, which song so much like Glenn Danzig it’s scary. With campy lyrics like “When the Raven flies, someone dies” (on “The Raven) or “love hurts” (in the chorus of “Bondage Goddess”), these guys both get the joke and are in on it.

I’m at a loss for what else to say. By now, you should know if you like the Misfits or not. If you do, you’ll love Revelation Unorthodox. Tracks like “Pentagram Murderer,” “Howling”, and “Erotikill” could be easily snuck onto any Misfits’ compilation without drawing attention to themselves — hell, “Blood Nymphoman” even contains Glenn’s patented “whoaaaaaaaaaa!” yelp.

Old Misfits fans will find Revelation Unorthodox completely fun and enjoyable.

Destructor. Band, or He-Man’s enemy?

Give up? It’s a band, and their latest album (after an 18 year hiatus) is called Sonic Bullet. They’ve got a sonic bullet locked and loaded, aimed straight at your head.

Unfortunately I didn’t make up that cheezy tag line. It’s the chorus of “Sonic Bullet”, the song, from Sonic Bullet, the album. On an unrelated note, my wife also refers to Sonic’s breakfast burrito as a “Sonic bullet” as well, because it goes through you like … well, anyway.

The cheese factor on Sonic Bullet (the album, not the song or the breakfast entre) is quite high. The second track is heavy, literally. In “Heavy Artillery,” the band manages to yell “heavy” more times than Rob Zombie gets “yeahs” out at his best. There’s a song on here called “Iron Curtain”. Who sings about the Iron Curtain anymore? Destructor does! On “Master of the Universe”, the band has a sweeping effect that’s so cliche I had to chuckle. Hey, “Master of the Universe”? Maybe Destructor IS He-Man’s enemy afterall!

You would think that all of this would be enough to turn me off of this album, and it would have if the music hadn’t been so damn good! Destructor metals its way through songs like they’ve been doing this for a while. The best way to describe this band musically is to call them a thrashy version of Iron Maiden. The entire disc is peppered with kick drum attacks and whipping guitar leads. The vocals ape Bruce Dickenson, and aren’t half bad.

It’s no surprise that the band’s last album was released in 1985, as Sonic Bullet sounds like it could have been the band’s 1987 follow up. Everything from this disc screams 80’s metal, so much so that I couldn’t tell if these guys were stuck in a time warp or if this was a send up, a’la Spinal Tap and The Darkness. It doesn’t come off as guys from 2003 doing late 80’s power metal — it comes off as a late 80’s power metal album. Destructor is the real deal, like a caveman trapped in ice twenty years ago and thawed out for the purpose of ROCKING!

Don’t ask why there would be a caveman around in the 80’s, or how he would learn how to play guitar for that matter. You already know too much.

01. Sonic Bullet
02. Heavy Artillery
03. Silent Enemy
04. Blackest Night
05. Master Of The Universe
06. G-Force
07. The Triangle
08. Pounding Evil
09. Iron Curtain

“Re-runs”, the opening track from Deadweight’s Stroking the Moon, kicks off the album with a riff that falls somewhere between the golden age of grunge and the current age of retro rock. It’s heavy, it’s catchy, and it’s got a bend that’ll make snarl your lip.

And, it’s done completely without guitars.

Deadweight’s three piece lineup consists of drums, a cello, and a violin. No guitar, no bass … but plenty of rock. With as much amplification and distortion as the guys have on their instruments, the casual listener would never know what they were listening to. This is no hillbilly ho-down here; the Deadweights have come to rawk.

The problem with most novelty bands is, well, the novelty. Once it wears out, there’s no substance to keep you coming back. Not so on Stroking the Moon. The riffs contained within stand on their own feet despite the band’s creative instrument choices. Songs roam all over the sonic map; “The Bottle Song” summons Led Zeppelin, “Capacity” resembles the work of Beck, “Anesthesia” harkens Primus and “Go to Hell” rivals most of the current progressive metal bands’ chops. Stroking the Moon is frantic, varied, and fantastic.

The ironically named “Deja Vu” (as this is something I’ve NEVER heard before) reminded me of Jane’s Addiction in several aspects, including the vocals. In both that song and “Feed the Ground”, the band occasionally drops the distortion and lets us hear the true voice of their string section.

Alternative Tentacles is famous for finding and promoting bands with a unique voice in the world, and San Francisco’s Deadweight is no exception. Stroking the Moon is interesting on many levels. While first and foremost is obviously the use of non-traditional instruments on a rock album, the songs themselves are quite catchy and may make you rethink your stance on what “rock” actually is.

Deadsy. Haven’t heard of ’em yet? You will.

Does that mean they’re good? Not necessarily, but they’re original, and that in itself is enough to garner media attention these days. I can sense these things. You wait and see, in six months everyone will be talking about this band and you can go around bragging to all your friends that you knew about it six months ago because the Flack man has his ear to the street. And if not, fuck it, I don’t get paid to write this shit and you don’t pay to read it.

Deadsy sounds like … (here goes) … “Type O Negative meets The Cure with some major David Bowie influence thrown in.” That’s about the best I can do for you on the surface. I saw them described as a “gothic new-wave doom-metal band” on another website. That’s probably not too far from the mark. The odd thing about this disc is that even though the band has a new, fresh sound, most of this CD was recorded in 1997, and has been being passed between record labels ever since.

Elijah Blue Allman (Greg Allman and Cher’s offspring) sings vocals as P Exeter Blue on the disc. The vocals are a throwback to the heavily echo and ‘verbed vocals of the 80’s, sounding more like Bauhaus or the Cure more than anything of recent times. The most recent thing I could think of to compare it to would be Orgy. The guitar/bass on the album is heavily overdriven — I get roughly the same effect by plugging my Peavey Rage directly into my soundcard and sending the levels through the roof. Percussion is snappy when required, but heavy and lumbering when the songs call for that as well. Mixed in with that are keyboards — lots and lots of keyboards, in fact. Nothing modern sounding, mind you, just lots of old 80’s sounding over-the-top synthwork. It’s as odd to listen to as it is to describe, but somehow it works.

The songs are as complex and layered lyrically as they are sonically. The lyrics are thick and poetic, with tinges of Bowie thrown in. Other lyrics reminded me of Tool in places. There aren’t many bubble gum sing-a-long choruses here, but it all sounds poppy. This band reminds me a lot of Tool, not in sound but in design. There are just enough pop songs to get people pulled into the Deadsy circle, but if you spend the time tooling around their website or in the booklet, I think you’ll find a lot more to them.

Time will tell if the masses will attach themselves to Deadsy’s dark, moody, retro sound. Whatever you say about the band, one thing’s for sure — it’s a breath of fresh air compared to most of the other crap coming out right now. If you miss dudes wearing black turtlenecks and eye shadow or are just looking to hear something new and different, check Deadsy out. Once MTV gets a hold of them, you won’t be able to avoid doing so.

I’m sure the band will gain some notoriety with their fuzzed out cover of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”, but hopefully that won’t end up being just a one hit wonder for the band.

Tracks:
01. The Key To Gramercy Park
02. Winners
03. Brand New Love
04. Mansion World
05. Lake Waramaug
06. The Elements
07. Flowing Glower
08. Furture Years
09. She Likes Big Words
10. Cruella
11. Seagulls (The Macroprosopus)
12. Le Cirque En Rose (Obsolescence)
13. Tom Sawyer
14. Commencement

In tenth grade, my sociology teacher had become very concerned about a small group of young men in his class. My friends and I had begun growing our hair our, wearing heavy metal T-shirts, and acting like, well, teenagers. Convinced that “the Devil’s music” had corrupted us, Coach Pierce brought in an expert – some preacher from the local Baptist church who brought with him a set of videos. They were the equivalent of the “Blood on the Highway” videos they show you in Driver’s Ed – basically, a three hour set of videos discussing the evils of rock music. The last two days were labeled a “question and answer” session, but ended up being little more than a “preach to the long haired kids and tell them how good Church is and how bad their music is” class – hey, you can get away with those sorts of things here in the Bible Belt.

To show us the evils of our music, the movie contained several music videos to support it’s claims. When talking about straight out Devil worship, they showed Corrosion of Conformity’s “Mine Are The Eyes Of God,” and to talk about homosexuality, they showed Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song.” I can’t say that any of my friends were “saved” that week, but I can tell you one thing – we all walked away Corrosion of Conformity and Jane’s Addiction fans.

As a young guitar player, I quickly learned respect for Dave Navarro’s guitar playing. I downloaded (from BBS’s, not the internet!) tablature for several Jane’s Addiction songs. I remember one that layed out the bass lines, had the lyrics written on top of that, and then for the guitar tab it just had one comment: “I have no idea what he’s doing here.” And it was true, you could listen to the songs and just think, “Good God, what the hell is he doing there?” Sure, certain JA songs had recognizable choruses, but there were tons of solos, bridges, and sometimes even main riffs that would leave my fingers blistered for days – and those were just the ones I could figure out.

Jane’s Addiction came and went, but Dave Navarro remains one of my guitar heros to this day. Even his work with the Red Hot Chili Peppers is phenominal. To capture on paper what his guitar sounds like would be like to just write down the words of say Martin Luther King, Jr. The words are only part of the emotion – the delivery is everything.

This long introduction isn’t meant to compare Dave Navarro’s fretwork to freeing the slaves, but simply to express the admiration I have for Mr. Navarro. Not necessarily for Dave as a person as he’s pretty odd, but for his as a guitar player.

For me, this is the fundamental problem with Navrro’s album, Trust No One. It’s not a guitar oriented album. “There was so much to attend to,” Navarro said in an interview with SFX.com, “the guitar just ended up being secondary. ” See, that’s a problem. I really don’t care about Dave Navarro’s views of the world. I mean, maybe I would if I didn’t know who he is or what he was capable of on a six-string, but I do, and I do – and I wanna rock. It’s like Celine Dion putting out a CD of instramental songs – that’s all she DOES, she SINGS. Why would I want to hear songs with no vocals from her? (Why I would want to hear anything from her would be an entirely different arguement.) And therein lies the problem – Dave Navarro is one of the most influential and underrated guitar players of our time. Tommy Iommi’s solo record was a perfect example of a guitar player putting out a solo disk. Trust No One is also a perfect example – of how not to do one.

Those looking for straight forward rock, or anything that rocks at all for that matter, will be disappointed with the disc. Drum machines and synthesizers run rampant throughout the album’s 10 songs – only to be met head on by Navarro’s acoustic strumming. This isn’t a rock album – it’s some sort of wierd hippy love fest. After being a member of both Jane’s Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for some reason Navarro now feels it necessary to prove to us that he can rip off the Stone Temple Pilot’s most mellow riffs. I just don’t get it. While all the musicianship on the album is top notch, Navarro rarely turns up the distortion and rips one off for old time’s sake. His voice is surprisingly good and fits this style of music – even though most of the vocals have been doubled or triple-layered in many cases to give his voice the illusion of depth. Capitol is pushing the point that Navarro played all the instruments on the album – does that mean he couldn’t afford fellow musicians, or no one was willing to work with him?

The key to the album is the lyrical content. During this time in his life Mr. Navarro was using a lot of cocaine and a lot of heroin. You may already be familiar with the line, “there is no love left in your eyes / there is love between your thighs,” from the first single of the disc, “Rexall.” This is one of the more normal lyrics in the album. The lyrics are often dark and introspective. “I met some friends of mine / I used to call them friends,” sets off an interesting part of “Sunny Day.” “Not For Nothing” is a sappy little love song (sarcasm) which laments, “How can you miss me when I’m here with you? / Miss the person you thought that I would turn into / How can you say you miss the small things? / Take my .38 and push it inside of you.” Plus, he gets to yell “Starfucker” a lot in this one – didn’t Reznor and Manson already do this already? The majority of the lyrics could just as easily have been found on the next Cure album – except even Robert Smith isn’t THIS depressed. “I’d never wish myself upon you / But I cut myself trying not to.” Ouch.

Summary: Mr. Navarro is one pretty depressed and strung-out guy. While depressed and strung-out he wrote a bunch of depressing lyrics, holed up in a studio for a couple of months, and recorded them. I would probably love this album a whole lot more if I didn’t know it was Dave Navarro. It’s like discussing John Bohnam’s solo harp album, or Louie Armstrong’s bongo extravaganza, or Kirk Hammett’s harmonica outing.

Trust No One stands on it’s own as a spiralling voyage into depression. It’s not a NIN or a Bauhaus level of depression, but he’s off to a good start. I think the difference is, Dave Navarro isn’t particularly upset about being depressed like Trent Reznor is – Dave’s sad, but he’s willing to live with it and stays busy numbing himself instead of getting mad about it. For what it is, it is. For what it could be, it isn’t – and it’s a shame.

Tracks:
01. Rexall
02. Hungry
03. Sunny Day
04. Mourning Son
05. Everything
06. Not For Nothing
07. Avoiding The Angel
08. Very Little Daylight
09. Venus In Furs
10. Slow Motion Sickness

In various reviews across the web, I’ve seen The Datsuns compared to The Strokes, The Vines, and The Hives. Personally, I think that’s The Crap.

The Datsuns blow them all away.

Hot off their award for “Best Live Band” by NME comes the Datsun’s self-titled, major label debut disc. Hailing from New Zealand, the quartet blaze forward with a rocking intensity not heard in a while. Obviously, someone forgot to tell the Datsuns that good ol’ rock was dead.

Upon first listen, I could see where comparisons between the Datsuns and those other “The” bands came from. The difference here is, while those other guys (ie: The White Stripes) are following up their rockin’ singles with lighter, softer tunes, the Datsuns are here to keep on rockin’ straight through the night.

“Sittin’ Pretty,” the disc’s opener, launches with a catchy scale-based riff, introducing listeners to the band’s sound. Fans of fuzz, cheap mics and Mashall stacks will be in heaven. Track two moves on to a song dedicated to lost love. “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore?” Hardly. Try, “Mother Fucker from Hell,” which is also the song’s chorus. “There’s a girl running around my head/I know she makes me frown/She may be crazy, she maybe not be right/She makes me feel like/Like a motherfucker from hell!” The guitar riff manages to best the opener’s, making this song even catchier than the first!

And so goes the album. Each song is basic rock n’ roll, consisting of good riffs, catchy choruses, and layers of distortion. I’d say it wasn’t rocket science, but the explosiveness comes damn close. But there’s no smoke to be found here. The Datsuns are what they are — straight forward, kick ass rock and roll.

By the time “Freeze Sucker” comes around (“Hey, baby, now what she said/freeze sucker, you move and you’re dead”) the party feels like it’s ended much too quickly. All ten tracks on the CD have the same basic sound, but the riffs and song structures themselves keep each track sounding original.

Whether chasing down bad guys in your ’72 Gran Turino, getting people off their asses at your next party, or just playing air guitar in the bathroom mirror, the Datsuns have written the perfect soundtrack for you.

Tracks:
01. Sitting Pretty
02. MF From Hell
03. Lady
04. Harmonic Generator
05. What Would I Know
06. At Your Touch
07. Fink For The Man
08. In Love
09. Your Build Me Up
10. Freeze Sucker

Glenn Danzig is a person who can adapt with the times. Unlike bands who completely change their sound every time a new trend comes along, Danzig has a way of remaining modern and cutting edge without selling out or straying too far from his roots.

Such is the case with Danzig’s seventh album, titled 777: I Luciferi. For those who have been out of the Danzig loop, Danzig’s 5th album was panned by critics and fans alike as being “too industrial”. The dark one answered back with 6:66 Satan’s Child, a really good album that didn’t get nearly the amount of press it deserved.

Danzig’s seventh album picks up where number 6 left off, but delivers more. A whole lot more. In fact, 777: I Luciferi may be Danzig’s heaviest and best album. Ever.

Each Danzig album has something that sets it apart from the rest. The word that sums this album up is “guitars”. Raw, catchy riffs with evil dripping from every hook on the disc. The majority of the album keeps a pretty rapid pace, with big open chords during choruses and lots of palm muting and bends during verse riffs. The album still has that patented heavy Danzig guitar sound, but it’s been modernized this time around.

Danzig albums have always been about vocals first, guitars and drums second, and bass last. Album #7 makes no attempt to reinvent this formula — Glenn’s voice is thick and right up front. The songs are all guitar oriented, with the drums blasting through and the bass following behind. The bass is best noticed when the guitars are turned off, mostly in the slower, moodier, darker passages (few and far between). I didn’t notice any keyboards or synths on this disc at all — Danzig 7 is a straight forward rock album, and an aggressive one at that.

Danzig tackles such topics as child abuse and world hunger on this album … hahaha, who are you kidding? This is Danzig, baby! With songs like “Black Mass”, “Dead Inside”, “Kiss The Skull”, and “Naked Witch”, you can rest assured that Evil Elvis hasn’t strayed too far from his original path to Hell. Fans of Danzig albums #1 and #6 will take an immediate liking to this disc, while fans of some of his slower, keyboard based music (#2 through #4) may have to let #7 grow on them. There are no fans of #5, face it. I honestly believe that this is some of Danzig’s strongest material ever. The only slow point comes in “Without Light I Am”, the closing track of the disc, and even it is crammed full of emotion and explosions of energy. Those of us who have been waiting for a complete album of rocking Danzig tunes finally got our wish.

It looks like it may turn out to be a “Dirty Black Summer” after all.