BURNING WITCH- CRIPPLED LUCIFER

This is my candidate for the most brutally-heavy album(s) of all time. I say 'albums' because Crippled Lucifer compiles both of Burning Witch's full-lengths but they both operate on the same plane of soul-destroying doom metal. This is seriously the heaviest doom gets. No groove, riffs that exist solely to build tension that gives you chills, guitars tuned down to almost atonal frequencies and then the vocals. The singer for Burning Witch sounds like Bon Scott possessed by the most evil, fucked up, and anguished demon to ever be banished to the ninth circle. This is not for casual metal fans or people who don't like "sad" music... oh and I believe Steve Albini recorded both albums so yeah, they sound awesome!


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DEATH- LEPROSY

Death. Not the Detroit proto-punk band that recently had all their material from the mid-70's reissued but the Florida band from the late 80's that really, if they didn't invent it, gave the genre of death-metal it's name. The argument over who was the first real death-metal band rages on and always will: Possessed, Death Strike, Sadus, Morbid Saint... but with all of those bands there was still a clear allegiance to the tendencies of thrash. Obviously Death couldn't have made the music they did without those bands or all of thrash metal's innovations but there was something mysterious on those first two Death LP's that just sounded so much heavier than everyone else making metal in the late 80's.

This, their second LP, is my favourite metal album of all time. It's not hailed as a masterpiece in most circles and it's usually near the bottom on most people's Death depth-chart but it's their last LP before the more progressive tendencies (which I also love) started to show up. This is raw, heavy, evil and masterfully composed death-metal. The riffs are crushing, the drum sound is amazingly heavy while still sounding raw in the way early death-metal should and this is the only Death album with second guitarist Rick Rozz. For those who know, Rozz was a notoriously lazy guitarist who was sacked from the band for his refusal to help write more progressive material but his playing style works in perfect harmony with main man Chuck Schuldiner on these songs. Chuck is an amazing soloist who has a flair for finding the melody within the dissonance of his compositions, turning his solos into their own internal compositions. Rozz is a thug with a floyd-rose who's solos consist of an endless barrage of dive-bombs, ascending legato-runs with no real purpose and they all end with a big dive or a big pull. Having these two styles on the record is what makes it for me. It really is the perfect mix of first-wave death-metal and what would become progressive death-metal.

If you play guitar, like, or are even curious about death metal then you owe it to yourself to check out this band.


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BREADWINNER- THE BURNER

This is some weird shit. Not weird in a Sun City Girls or Portal way. Just weird I guess. It sounds like stoned guys with a lot of technical ability who were compelled to create a mix of what was then math-rock and really dissonant thrash... Somehow it comes off as more arty than heavy... it was on Merge when they were doing cool stuff so you know it's at least worth hearing.

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DANZIG- S/T

Before being a washed-up goth dad, an overly cocky tough-guy, a prima donna rockstar with demands of french onion soup and all the other hilariously pathetic stories we'll probably never hear, Danzig was fucking rad. Obviously he was in the fucking Misfits when they were actually good but he was also asked by Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker of fucking MINOR THREAT to start a band after both bands had called it quits. As if that wasn't enough to convince you this guy was fucking cool, there he is on the cover of fucking Thrasher in 86' when it was probably the coolest fucking magazine in existence. Gradually his ego was fed and well... shit happens. Some people just end up shitty and I guess Ziggy is one of them but hey, he was cranking out decent shit from 78' to 92', which is not a bad run if you ask most people. Scoff all you want but this, his first solo LP, is the fucking jam.

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SAXON- WHEELS OF STEEL

I'm just listening to this record for the first time... HOLY SHIT! This rules so hard! you and your lame attitude don't even know. Saxon are always counted among the more important NWOBHM bands but clearly these guys are less interested in their contemporaries and more interested in sounding like a biker-obsessed version of the Scorpions trying really hard to sound like Van Halen! So good. If I had parties, I would play this record all night.

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