My pal Gloomchen once used the term “Puddle of Nicklecreed” to describe the wave of safe-rock bands taking over radio airwaves everywhere. While Creed may no longer be with us, Eight Days Gone is poised to fill their shoes with the realse of their latest album, Silence to the Naysayers.

Through songs like “Today I Dreamed”, “Sell the Sky” and “Radio Love Song”, Eight Days Gone present textbook family-friendly rock tunes. Similar to Creed, the majority of the album is vocal-oriented. Neill Steinke’s voice is a perfect fit to the band, which performs quite competently as well on the disc. Those familiar with bands like Puddle of Mudd, Nickleback, Third Eye Blind and Creed will welcome Eight Days Gone to the club with “Arms Wide Open”, so to speak. Eight Days Gone manages to rock just enough distorted guitars and solos to get their CD filed under “rock”.

Overall I found Silence to the Naysayers to be unexciting, which is the nicest synonym I could find in the thesaurus for “boring”. These guys certainly have what it takes to chart with any one of the singles on the album. If you’re looking for a CD to listen to during work that’s guaranteed to offend no one, Eight Days Gone are your guys.

Despite being fans of some really heavy music, none of the staff around here are actually practicing Satan worshippers (that I know of). Sure, we all enjoy Hell related artwork, flame jobs on cars and big-tittied she-demons wearing bikini tops and daisy dukes, but when it comes right down to it none of us come home from work and sacrifice goats to the big horned one himself.

The Electric Hellfire Club however do, and they want to tell you all about it. Long before Marilyn Manson ever thought about joining Anton LaVey’s army, Thomas Thorn and co. were already marching in line behind Captain Flames himself. The Electric Hellfire Club’s songs range in subject from Hell to Satan to Satan in Hell to Satanism in general, with occasional side tangents of serial killers, murderers and drug addiction thrown in for good measure. If you’re waiting for EHC to release a family oriented Christmas album, it’ll be a cold day in … well, it’ll be a long time.

A quick history lesson; Thomas Thorn (the mastermind behind EHC) was a member of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult for several years. When MLWTTKK began leaning away from “evil” and more towards “pop,” Thorn split and channeled his dark energy into the EHC. Over the past ten years, EHC has become known as a mediocre electronica band whose sound fell somewhere between old MLWTTKK and the Lords of Acid. Despite their demands to be taken as a serious Satanic band, their cover tunes are some of the funniest (and greatest) I’ve ever heard. Some of their covers include Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones), Killing an Arab (the Cure), Highway to Hell (AC/DC), Shout at the Devil (Motley Crue), Devil Inside (INXS), the Halloween theme, Reign in Blood (Slayer), and Charles in Charge (yes, the television sitcom theme song, but dedicated to Charles Manson).

Summary up to this point – Electric Hellfire Club is a campy, techno-based Satanic band with albums titles like Burn, Baby, Burn, Satan’s Little Helpers, Unholy Roller, and Kiss the Goat. Got it?

Kiss that image goodbye. The EHC has emerged into the new millennium with a leaner, meaner sound, rooted in Swedish metal and branching out from there. Forget dance-related comparisons — the new incarnation of EHC is closer to White Zombie and Ministry than it is to MLWTTKK or Lords of Acid. Sure, Thorn is still taking the stage with horns stuck to his forehead and pentagrams flying, but he’s doing it this time around backed with guitars instead of keyboards. EHC’s latest release was Recorded at Swedens Abyss Studios with producer/engineer Tommy Tägtgren (known for his work with black metal legends Marduk, Dark Funeral, and others), and Tägtgren’s roots show through on the album’s sound.

Electronomicon, EHC’s fifth full length album, presents listeners will thirteen (of course) tracks firmly founded in hellish fun. EHC hasn’t backed off at all — if anything, their most recent collection of songs are more intense than ever. “Wired in Blood,” the opening track, explains the theory of the Electronomicon. The EHC tell stories in all their songs. “Hypochristian,” one of my favorites, talks about how people are “dammed to salvatation,” and “lost in a labyrinth of their own creation.” The songs on Electronomicon are much more advanced than EHC’s previous efforts. Instead of just coming out and asking for “Bob Larson’s head on a platter,” the lyrics seem more mature and planned out.

Electronomicon is an interesting step for the Electric Hellfire Club. Most of their old albums were synth and drum machine based, so just the foundation of live drums and guitars is a big change. The new songs still contain a lot of samples, which add to the mood and fit the songs perfectly. It’s not death metal and it’s not black metal, but it is a nice blend of hard rock and hard lyrics. Check your Bible at the door and give it a spin.

01. Into Thee Abyss
02. Wired In Blood
03. Sons Of The Serpent
04. Hypochristian
05. Stockholm Syndrome
06. Whores Of Babylon
07. Broken Goetia
08. I Dream Of Demons
09. Nordland
10. Tannhauser Gate
11. This Is The Zodiac
12. Hymns To The Fallen
13. Conjuration (Song Of Azazel)

ECW, or Extreme Championship Wrestling, is the “third” major wrestling organization, nestled pretty far behind the big two, WWF and WCW. What Extreme Wrestling lacks in ratings it makes up for in intensity. The pictures on their web site have people being body slammed through tables covered in thumb tacks and being thrown head first into a flaming pile of barbed-wire. Indeeeeeeed.

Wrestling this intense needs it’s own soundtrack, and the new ECW Anarchy Rocks CD is probably exactly what you think it would be – 12 hard rockin’ tracks from various artists that you can expect to hear on the show, on their commercials, and in their video games.

First of all, this CD is just about perfect from a marketing standpoint. Take well known bands (Static-X, Coal Chamber, Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Cold, and Powerman 5000 to name a few) and put their hit songs on a compilation CD.

The 6 page booklet continues the cross-marketing madness that ECW is known for. Each song has a picture of a wrestler, a quote from that wrestler explaining why he or she picked that song, and then the lyrics to the song. The flip side of the booklet contains: 4 pages of ads for ECW shirt, the ECW video game, and ECW home videos, 1 page for credits and 1 page of the cover.

But enough with all the marketing – how’s the MUSIC???

First of all, ECW must be pulling in a hell of a lot more money than I thought they were to have this kind of talent list. As I mentioned above, Static-X, Coal Chamber, Rob Zombie, Linkin Park, Cold, and Powerman 5000 all make appearances. The songs … well, let’s just say there’s no ballads on this collection.

The CD is fairly evenly split between three categories: Songs you know from bands you know, songs you don’t know by bands you know, and songs you don’t know by bands you don’t know.

The first category, songs you know from bands you know, consists of Linkin Park’s One Step Closer, Powerman 5000’s Neckbone, Disturbed’s Welcome Burden, and the one song that is doomed to appear on every “hard” compilation from now until doomsday, Rob Zombie’s Superbeast.

The second category has some less popular songs, like Cold’s Just Got Wicked and Coal Chamber’s El Cu Cuy.

The rest of the disc is filled out with a couple of cover tunes, including Chimaira’s version of Balls To The Wall, and Jesse James Dupree’s version of Highway To Hell. Both are recognizable, but changed enough to be interesting. U.P.O., One Minute Silence, and F.M. Racket round out the roster.

One extra thing I discovered when I tossed this disc in my PC is an ECW video for Balls To The Wall. The video is little more than ECW wrestling bits, with a few shots of the wrestlers in the music studio singing along. If you’ve never seen ECW, this will show you why it’s called Extreme. Nothing on the front or back of the jewel case mentions anything about this, and inside there’s only a small blurb noting that this is an enhanced CD.

Overall, it’s a pretty catchy collection. If you close your eyes you can easily see wrestlers beating the crap out of each other with every one of these songs playing in the background. Each one of these tunes are the type to get you pumped up and ready for action. Unfortunately, it’s working a little too well – I almost got pulled over speeding on the way to work this morning because I had this CD cranked and had the pedal to the metal. Of course, it *IS* a Geo Tracker, which means it doesn’t have a whole lot of either to offer (pedal, or metal.)

The worst part about the whole situation is that ECW is tetering on the edge of existance. Having been dropped from TNN, their last pay per view is being advertised as “possibly the LAST ppv”, and with half of their roster moving to the WWF, the whole franchise might be going up in smoke very shortly. This just might be the last official ECW product to be released.

If you’re looking for a testosterone-filled disc that won’t make you think too hard but will get your foot tapping, check out this collection.

01. Chimaira – Balls To The Wall
02. Static-X – Head
03. Coal Chamber – El Cu Cuy
04. Rob Zombie – Superbeast (Remix)
05. Linkin Park – One Step Closer
06. Powerman 5000 – Neckbone
07. Cold – Just Got Wicked
08. UPO – Now You Want Me
09. Disturbed – Welcome Burden
10. One Minute Silence – Holy Man
11. Jesse James Dupree – Highway to Hell

In 2001, New York based rockers Dust to Dust released their self-titled debut album. Despite getting on some decent sized tours (opening for Type O Negative and Dave Navarro), response to the album was lukewarm. It didn’t take long before the band was dropped from its label (Sanctuary Records). Soon afterwards, Stu (guitar) and James (keyboards) all quit the band, leaving only Rob Traynor (bass) and Steve Tobin (drums).

Most of us would refer to this as “the band broke up,” but not Traynor! On Dust to Dust’s sophomore album Sick, Traynor plays guitar, bass, and keyboards, while still supplying vocals for the band as well. Traynor’s only accomplices are Steve Tobin behind the drum kit, and guest musician and friend Kenny Hickey (Type O Negative) performing lead guitar duty on some of the songs.

Did I mention that Rob Traynor also released this album on his own, self-funded record label, and recorded it in his own, self-funded studio? Say what you will about Traynor (which I’m about to), just don’t call the man a quitter.

The problem with Dust to Dust isn’t in the band’s performance or album’s production — both of which are excellent. Likewise, you certainly can’t fault Rob Traynor’s desire and persistance. Every thing I’ve been able to get my hands on about this guy’s story reminds me of the movie “Against All Odds.”

Unfortunately, Traynor and company have put out an extremely well produced, well performed, emotionally driven and yet somewhat boring album. It’s another hard rock album where the lead singer sings about things like addiction and abuse and drug dealers and organized religion. The title track is about “feeling helpless against things in the world that are out of your personal control.”

The music is about as innovative as the lyrics. When combined with Traynor’s vocal style, the end result sounds like a cross between nu-metal verses with 80’s hair band choruses. The riffs follow the drums and practically write themselves. I don’t think I heard a riff or a vocal that made me say, “boy, I didn’t see that coming!” Run of the mill hard rock. Only a few songs into the album, you start to get the feeling that you’ve heard this all before. A few songs later, I was sure I had.

I feel it would be a disservice to the band if I didn’t mention how good the production is on the album. Seriously. Long after Traynor and crew give up Dust to Dust, this guy should go into the production business. As a guy who’s dabbled on both sides of the mixing board, I can honestly say this is one of the best self-recorded albums I have ever heard. Ever.

Dust to Dust’s Sick isn’t a bad album, it’s just a bit uninspired. The band’s sound is as impeccable as it is generic, desperately needing some flashier guitar riffs and a slightly more unique signature sound to separate themselves from the pack. Dust to Dust have already proven that they have the determination and perseverance to make it in the business; now they just need a gentle nudge in the originality category to make it to the big time.

Tracks:
01. Rot
02. Sick
03. Think About It
04. High
05. Barely Breathing
06. Fix On
07. This Way
08. Pusher
09. Shame
10. Cursed
11. Supadupamachoman
12. Blue Sky Line

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.