In memory of Mark Reale

Only just discovered that 2012 has already claimed the life of someone who featured heavily (ahem) in my metal education.

Mark Reale was the main man in a band called Riot. In June 1977 Riot released their first album called Rock City and while its not a classic it does include three tracks that I regard as utterly essential: Warrior, Rock City and Overdrive.

There is not a metalhead alive who should not own this album for those three tracks. Remarkably, the album originally never got a US release and I think that's because at least on these three tracks Riot were ahead of their time.

Warrior is closest in spirit and pace to Exciter by Judas Priest, which was released nearly a year later, though Priest had released Sin After Sin a couple of months before Rock City appeared. I've always wondered whether Priest heard Riot or Riot heard Priest. I guess I'll never know.

So Warrior is the belt along. Rock City is the crunching mid-tempo rocker, and Overdrive has the slow start before it all kicks into gear and races along to the finish line. Both Warrior and Overdrive feature brilliant, melodic, soaring solos by Mark Reale.

These three songs are so much better than anything else on the album it is breathtaking. I always wanted to ask Mark Reale how these three came about in particular. Missed my chance on that, too.

Riot's next two albums (Narita and Fire Down Under) were stronger albums overall but neither contained any truly classic tracks, although if you haven't got them you must hunt them down. You really must.

Rock City is available to listen to on Spotify so if you're a rock fan and you don't know these songs check them out before you do anything else and smile wistfully at the marvellous guitar playing of the late great Mark Reale.

Review of The Oceans We Are Drowned In by One Star Closer

This album may be the most remarkable album I've reviewed since I started working for Alternative Matter.

Remarkable because it appears to be the work of Vlad Petkevich, a one-man-band post-rock/ambient project from Minsk, Belarus.

Remarkable because that previous sentence is the sum total of information on One Star Closer/Vlad I have managed to find on the internet. The band's Facebook page has just 14 likes. And all the text is in Russian so I have no idea what those 14 people are saying about the album. Lucky for me the album and track titles are in English.

Remarkable because the music is of exceptionally high quality, superbly played and well-produced, albeit with what I assume are deliberate crackles as if it were on good old vinyl.

First track Sorry, It's Not About Space And Universe is simply gorgeous. Absolutely heavenly-sounding guitars twinkling away before drums enter playing almost a marching beat. Then after a couple of minutes we get some noisier, layered guitar and the whole thing continues to be gorgeous. The only downside is that it only lasts a little over three minutes in total.

Second track starts with piano and strings. If Vlad Petkevich is playing all this he is a special talent.

Third track starts with more piano, playing a lovely, lilting melody. Fourth track is similar to the others but doesn't reel repetitive, at least not in a bad way.

Fifth track Her Name Was Tragedy is piano and strings but has sampled some Michelle Pfeiffer dialogue from the movie I Am Sam. This serves to highlight the soundtrack quality of the music, which is no bad thing at all.

Okay, so you get the idea. The rest of the tracks follow this established pattern but all have a unique quality that stops the album getting dull. And as mentioned before, the skill involved in every part of this makes it more than worthwhile.

I just wish I knew more about One Star Closer and Vlad Petkevich.

Did he compose all the music himself? Did he play all the instruments? If not, who did? And did he record and produce everything himself sitting in his bedroom, which seems unlikely, or did he go into a studio? Which studio? Who paid for it?

And did he get permission to sample dialogue from a couple of movies?

Anyhoo, my fervent hope is that Vlad gets to read this and provide some answers.

The man may well be a musical genius and in five years everyone will know his name. I wouldn't be surprised. It feels like being at the birth of the universe.

I can confidently say that if you consider yourself any kind of a post-rock/ambient fan - however you interpret the term - then you will love this album.

How many times should you listen to an album before you know whether it's any good?

I've been writing reviews of (mostly) metal albums over the past year or so and one thing that has bugged me is if there is a required number of times you should listen to an album before writing a valid review.

I mean, can you honestly learn enough from one play of an album to get fully engaged with it? You might say that when it comes to metal albums once is more than enough - and I can see where you're coming from even if I don't agree - but I'm not sure that I'm entitled to write a critique of 50 minutes of music that an artist has sweated blood over for 2 or 3 years, having only played it once.

So that got me thinking that all reviewers should inform readers how many times they've listened to the album they are reviewing.

An interesting idea? Or just daft? Maybe both.

That then led me to think about albums from the last 30 or 40 years. What on earth could I have written about OK Computer after just one listen? Can I honestly say that I knew after that first listen that it was a masterpiece and that I would come to regard it as the greatest album of the 90s?

Maybe...but maybe not.

And even if I had picked up on its genius after the first play, there is no chance that I picked up on all the nuances, all the layers, all the ultimate joys of OK Computer...unless I am really, really smart.

Which I'm not.

Mind you, I was pretty sure that Kid A was bloody awful after the first play and I still stand by that.

Thirty years ago Queen released Hot Space. I can still vividly remember the first time I put that on the turntable. Jeepers, what the hell were they doing? So had I reviewed that after one play it would have been spectacularly negative. Probably after ten plays, too.

But you see, now...now, I consider it to be my second favourite Queen album. After Queen 1, of course. I am quite sure you think me bonkers - but that's okay. The Elder is my second favourite Kiss album (after Destroyer, natch) and EVERYONE hates The Elder.

So should I publish how many times I've listened to the album when I publish my next review? I think I will. Can't do any harm, can it?

And what albums did you hate on first listen but grow to love?

Indeed, what albums did you love at first but swiftly lose interest in?

Answers on a postcard yadda yadda yadda.

Review of Manifest Tyranny by Andromeda

I'd forgotten all about this review, mainly because the album was so appalling. But I thought I might as well post it. If it encourages someone else to avoid this album then it will have achieved something! Mind you, if you think the album can't be as bad as I'm making out and feel tempted to check that out for yourself...well, on your head be it.

"Scandinavia has brought us the best metal over the last ten years or more. It staggers me how good is the metal coming out of Sweden alone.

So it really is a surprise to find an album that is genuinely, unremittingly pants.

I read that Andromeda appear to have done some good stuff in the past, but given how bad Manifest Tyranny is I find that hard to believe.

It starts off with Pre-emptive Strike which ought to be a hard-hitting belter to kick the album off but lacks any real oomph. Halfway through Lies 'R Us you are beginning to wonder what is going on, then you get the third track Stay Unaware. Its a terrible title. But its a truly terrible song, with probably the worst breakdown I have ever heard.

I have always said lyrics are inconsequential in metal. Yet on Manifest Tyranny it is blindingly obvious that the lyrics are dreadful, and sung in such an earnest, cringe-making way, that you cannot just gloss over them and concentrate on the music.

Technically, the playing is competent but but the more I listen to the album the more depressed I get, to the point where I can't write anymore about it.

Go listen to Opeth. Go listen to Soilwork. Go listen to Karmakanic. But don't listen to this."

Review of Spicilege by Belenos

There was a time when you wouldn't have held out any hope for a metal band from France but what with the likes of Gojira and Hacride around things are different now.

Belenos are a black metal band from Brittany who have been going for quite a while. SPICILEGE is a reissue of an original album from 2002 which has been remastered, and had 3 live bonus tracks and 4 unreleased versions added. They've even improved the artwork, it says here.

I've taken far too long writing this review but this has actually resulted in a more positive one than it started out as. Three weeks ago I was writing that Spicilege was routine black metal - pounding drums (albeit recorded muddily), screaming guitars, and screeching vocals sounding like they were recorded outside by the bike shed.

Although to a certain extent those things are still true, I now find them much more appealing than before.

And having listened to the album quite a few more times I can pick out nuances in each track which I couldn't when I'd only played it two or three times. This makes me wonder how many times should you listen to an album before you review it...but that's to ponder for another time.

The first three tracks on Spicilege are standard black metal stuff but do a job and do it well. The fourth track is all acoustic guitar and eerie chanting and its rather splendid. The next track starts with flute, not an instrument you hear very often on a black metal album.

Sixth track Mort Divine has more acoustic guitar to start with before it all kicks off. I think it was this track where I first acknowledged to myself that I was genuinely enjoying the album.

The live tracks are pretty fine and the unreleased tracks do enough different things to stand up on their own.

In the same way that the French do their cinema just a bit differently so French metal has a gallic slant that makes it interesting. I don't actually know why Belenos has re-released an album from ten years ago but its a pretty darn good one and if you get a copy, which I strongly suggest you do, you will - like me - be more than tempted to check out some of their other stuff and wonder why you'd never got into them before.

Review of Give Me Infinity, the new album by Exit Ten

Give Me Infinity is the second album from Reading's Exit Ten, who are a British rock/metal band, which is kind of refreshing in this world of a million and one genres.

Interestingly, they feature a singer who sings. Although I'm quite happy with cookie monster vocals and the like, 45 minutes of shouting can sometimes get on your nerves so kudos to Ryan Redman, Exit Ten's front man.

After my first run through of half the album so far what I most like about Exit Ten is an acknowledgement that the song is the most important thing. I don't care how good you are at your chosen instrument, if you can't write a song then all you're doing is showing off. The musicians of Exit Ten, all individually excellent, do precisely what each song requires and that's not always the case with rock and metal bands.

Opening two tracks Life and Curtain Call start the album off strongly. The latter in particular has a mighty riff but then two thirds of the way through has a quiet passage that musically has a hint of Oceansize, which is the greatest compliment I can pay any band.

Track 3 Suggest A Path has tasteful guitar and strings before everything crashes in but Ryan Redman bestrides it all, emoting his heart out. Eyes Never Lie is another solid piece of rock with another hint of Oceansize. Nice.

Tracks 5 to 9 are like overs 20-40 of a one-day international. Little cricket reference for you. They are all solid pieces of work but are working up to some kind of climax. The Cursed sounds like one of those alternative/indie rock bands and is quite hooky. Track 8 Sunset is a bit Funeral For A Friend-ish. Smoke has a restrained, pretty beginning. The guitars in this song, and indeed throughout the album, sound glorious when they are both restrained and full-on.

But then.

Then, we reach the tenth track. It is called Mountain.

Oh. My. God.

If you're lucky a band makes a good album. Occasionally, a band makes a great album.

But only rarely does a band make one utterly fabulous track that stands out so much it makes you completely rethink how you feel about the album its on and actually hauls that album out of the good category and into the great category.

But Exit Ten has done it and Mountain is the track.

It starts with a monstrous guitar sound and manages to maintain that monstrous greatness throughout its five and a half minutes. I won't describe it in any more detail because if what I've already said hasn't encouraged you to go seek it out then there is no hope for you.

It is genuinely thrilling. Thrilling that Exit Ten came up with it and thrilling in the way Exit Ten has laid it down. It shows admirable, awe-inspiring ambition.

And do you know what? Last track Lion is almost as good.

Coming to the end of this review I have now listened to Give Me Infinity a whole bunch of times and I have come to the conclusion, unsurprising given some of the things I've written above, that this is an enormous, formidable, fantastic rock record and I am most assuredly Exit Ten's newest fan.

I hope fans of the first album come along because Exit Ten are going somewhere, of that I am absolutely convinced.

Buy this album. Go see them live. Do whatever you can to encourage Exit Ten. I know I will.

The whole Michael Jackson thing

There was a radio debate about Michael Jackson on yesterday. Everyone was saying what a great artist he was but what a "troubled" person he was in his private life.

I've got no idea what he was really like. He seemed pretty odd...but that's not the worst thing in the world. He did dangle a child over a balcony. That was dumb. He did seem to like the company of children but we'll never know whether he could actually be labelled a paedophile.

So let's stick with what we know. His music. I am old enough to remember the excitement and buzz in 1982 when Thriller came out and the video was shown in its entirety on the telly.

Off the wall, the previous album, was also pretty good.

1987's Bad, while not actually bad, was no more than okay.

After that, unmitigated garbage.

So, two and a half albums that you'd want to listen to.

One of them is the biggest-selling album of all time, so his contribution is not to be sniffed at.

But was he really such a good singer and such a good dancer? To my ears, his singing was competent but punctuated by needless whoos every other line. His dancing seemed to be a well-choreographed routine that he basically repeated endlessly whilst grabbing his crotch in an unappealing fashion.

There is not a single Michael Jackson vocal performance that is as good as, for example, Prince's singing on If I Was Your Girlfriend. Come to think of it, Prince was a much better dancer than Michael Jackson. He was free and loose and unshackled in a way that Jacko never was.

And now that I think about it, Prince was a better musician and a better songwriter...biggest-selling album ever notwithstanding.

From 1983 to 1988 Prince released Purple Rain, Around the world in a day, Parade, Sign o' the Times, Lovesexy.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. That's about as good a five-album body of work as you can possibly get. Up there with the first four or five Roxy Music albums.

And I've always wondered about those devoted fans of Michael Jackson. Maybe the media highlighted the slightly loopy ones when he died but frankly anyone who follows ANYONE with that kind of blinkered fervour is worrying.

Anyhoo, just a thought. I'm not a Jacko hater as such, and I'm not questioning his impact on the world, but sometimes a little perspective can be a good thing.