Review: This essential metal album captures Black Sabbath at their most raw back in their formative years. It features their now-legendary April 1970 session for DJ John Peel and some visceral performances from Germany's Beat-Club in May of the same year. With early live renditions of era-defining tracks like 'War Pigs,' 'Iron Man' and 'Paranoid,' these tunes offer a gritty and unique glimpse into the band's rise as pioneers of heavy metal. With Tony Iommi's sludgy riffs, Ozzy Osbourne's haunting vocals and a rhythm section that redefined heaviness, it's easy to see how Black Sabbath's genre-defining legacy got its start.
B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition
Scene One: Regression
Scene Two: I) Overture 1928
Scene Two: II) Strange Deja Vu
Scene Three: I) Through My Words
Scene Three: II) Fatal Tragedy
Scene Four: Beyond This Life
Scene Five: Through Her Eyes
Scene Six: Home
Scene Seven: I) The Dance Of Eternity
Scene Seven: II) One Last Time
Scene Eight: The Spirit Carries On
Scene Nine: Finally Free
Review: ***B-STOCK: Sleeve damaged but otherwise in excellent condition***
Yet another addition to Rhino Records’ Start Your Ear Off Right series hears a reissue of prog metal band Dream Theater’s fifth studio album and first ever concept album. A sequel to the thrillingly titled Metropolis-Part I: The Miracle and the Sleeper, this record builds an intensive recollective sonic theatre out of the mosaic themes of memory and depersonalisation. Themed around the subject of a young man undergoing past life regression therapy, the record is a compelling, initially psychotic howl into the night, and yet it proves an ultimately integrative, recursive experience, adding themes of murderousness and prophetic fate.
Review: Arriving in 2008, a half-decade on from their controversial eighth full-length St. Anger, thrash metal heavyweights Metallica would dig deep on LP number nine to produce what many avid fans consider to be one of the band's best post-1980's records (with the obvious exception of 1991's The Black Album). Restoring the face-melting shredfests completely absent from their preceding effort, while looking inward to gauge how much of the Metallica formula should be modernised without losing sight of why they originally resonated with so many a headbanger in the first place, Death Magnetic struck the ideal balance between the epic thrash spectacle of old, with cuts like 'Cyanide' harking back to the anthemic theatrics of 'Creeping Death', while 'The Day That Never Comes' offers up a slow burning metallic ballad that would've fit right in during their 80s/90s transitional period, yet embellished by frontman James Hetfield's more seasoned bravado and demeanour. Switching out producer Bob Rock (who many had felt was well beyond outstaying his welcome) for bearded guru Rick Rubin, the results speak for themselves as Death Magnetic can likely be attributed to Metallica's continuing reign as the ultimate thrash giants, while each subsequent project since has followed the album's retro-revitalised blueprint.
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