Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Mini-reviews

I bought three CD's last week and all are decent, but none of them are great. So I decided to toss them all into one post.

Smashed Gladys-s/t, 1985
They kind of sound like early 80's AC/DC with a female singer and she has a good, rough rock voice. The first nine tracks are solid hard rock. However the next six are a very average cross between hard rock and 50's music. I don't know if these are bonus tracks that were not on the original release or not. So it's almost like you one good lp and one mediocre ep on one CD.

Trixie-Shelter, 2006
The third and most recent effort from Trixie is about three parts Def Leppard and one part Motley Crue. They are not terribly original, but have a professional sound and sharp production. Somehow I see this as the one of these three albums that may grow on me the most. I think this is due to the production values and the band's attention to details.

Viking-Do or die, 1987
I used to have this on vinyl back in the late 80's, but sold it. It's almost like they heard Slayer's Reign in blood and said "hey, let's do this". It's very much Slayer style thrash, but it's better than some as they manage to maintain a good deal of heaviness to their sound. I remember their second album "Man of straw" as showing more of their own sound. Guitarist Brett Eriksen joined Dark Angel after Viking folded.

So what's the most recent album you bought or downloaded?
What did you think of it?

6 Comments:

Blogger Jeff said...

Most recent CD's I recieved in the mail was both Bob Seger's "Face the Promise" and The Mars Volta's "Amputechture", Segers is great but The Volta's is phenomenal.

11:04 PM  
Blogger Will said...

The Viking album sounds interesting Mark.
I've just purchased new albums in the last week.
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
James Dean Bradfield - The Great Western
Razorlight - Razorlight
Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
The Sleepy jackson - Personality

3:27 AM  
Blogger David Amulet said...

The only album I've picked up since Iron Maiden's new release is Steve Hackett's new one, Wild Orchids, which continues his nearly 30-year post-Genesis tradition of turning out compelling prog rock with bursts of amazing acoustic guitar play.

-- david

4:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The two CDs that I purchased:

Mastodon-Blood Mountain: Awesome CD! These guys continue to amaze me with their musicianship and songwriting. The vocals are much improved too!

The Mars Volta-Amputecture: Very weird CD. I'm surprised at how popular this band is. They are so far from the mainstream. Long solos, insane song structures. The band sounds like Rush meets Pink Floyd on steriods and speed.

5:33 AM  
Blogger T-_Bone said...

I remember Viking, I listened to it a while back when doing my top tens. Not bad at all. Lately, I have been listening to nothing but Iron Maiden, and A Matter of Life and Death in particular. After the shows on Oct 7 and 13, like will resume to normal, but for now, it is For The Greater Good of God!

6:54 AM  
Blogger Ray Van Horn, Jr. said...

I had Smashed Gladys on tape back in the day. Ironically enough, Joe Lynn Turner and I had a fun discussion about them.

Did I borrow Viking from you back in the day?

I too bought Mastodon and Mars Volta along with Celtic Frost's Monotheist since the two promo copies I have are full of bleeps everywhere. Mastodon...well, read my entry today...it's getting me through some angry times...it's a genuine masterpiece...

I've always dug Volta hard...ironically this major label release is their most difficult album...I can say that per Skinny of Mushroomhead, we discussed why Universal let them go after XXIII sold well, but they want million unit figures....Volta is too out there to generate million unit sales figures....they are one of the most brilliant bands out there along with Mastodon

Frost? Absolute skullcrusher

7:29 PM  

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