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Hmmm… this is the 5th band in a row from the “A”s. I must scroll down more…

Skyforger – Amorphis (2009)

Amorphis - Skyforger

Those close to me will tell you right that at this very moment I am in the grip of an obsession. A fanaticism, a burning devotion beyond my control, that if it turned out to be anything other than a fad might threaten to unhook my slender grasp on any form of musical perspective. I speak… of Folk Metal. I must use this broader term than the previously favoured “Battle Metal” or “Viking Metal” since I have been discovering new bands at a stunning rate just lately, and they defy the narrow pigeonholes that others would happily thrust them into – Eluveitie are broadly Celtic Metal, Tyr are fairly Viking metal, Turisas are quite Battle Metal, Korpiklaani are… well, they’re more what I would call Drinking Shanty Metal, but that doesn’t seem to exist yet. Perhaps it should. Anyhow, my first gentle amble into these brave new musical landscapes was in the company of Amorphis, once again thanks to my esteemed ex-colleague Nick “The Squirrel” Jones, and he I must thank most highly. This album Skyforger is their ninth studio release, and it is from start to finish hard, heavy and utterly awesome. Amorphis are – like many folk metal bands including Ensiferum, Turisas and Korpiklaani – Finnish, and like some of their counterparts base their songs on the epic poems of old from their homelands – in this case, the Kalevala, which was written in the early 1800s and translated into English in 1888. In short, if you like your songs to speak of chasing girls, modern life, teen existential angst, or your parents not understanding you, please skip on. If you’d rather hear epic tales of heroism and derring-do set to some jaw-dropping musicianship, then Folk Metal may be for you, and from experience I can say that Skyforger is a wonderful introduction to the genre.

Standout tracks: Silver Bride, From The Heaven Of My Heart, Skyforger
You’ll like this if you like: Blind Guardian, Turisas, Iron Maiden

Holy crap, now I’m three days behind on Rocktober. It was @allhale’s fault, I swear.

The Sound of White Noise – Anthrax (1993)

Anthrax - Sound Of White Noise

I honestly couldn’t take Anthrax when they had their original singer Joey Belladonna, but when they launched this album with John Bush on vocals and a new fresh take on the metal sound, I absolutely loved it. Again, I think it was catching the video for “Only” on Raw Power that alerted me to the new fresh awesome, and for me this is still the best thing they ever did. Songs like the brutal opener “Potter’s Field”, the twitchy “Hy Pro Glo” and the sublime “Only” (once described by James Hetfield as ‘the perfect song’) still stand up alongside the best metal of today. This is the sound of a top-notch metal band doing literally everything right, but as is often the case with Anthrax it’s Charlie Benante’s drumming that really grabs you by the cojones and squeezes.

Standout tracks: Only, Black Lodge, Room For One More
You’ll like this if you like: Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden

Oooh lookee, another band from the “A”s…

American Pearl – American Pearl (2000)

American Pearl - American Pearl

Another random Amazon purchase, this is an utter cracker of a rock record. Just like DoubleDrive, American Pearl came together for a brief sneeze of time, put out one great album, then dissipated like that great idea you have in the morning just before waking up, the one that will unite the races of the world and mean that everyone can live together in peace, plenty and harmony, but is gone by the time you get your slippers on and finish scratching your arse. And it’s a shame, because in 2000 when this album came out, the hard rock landscape was pretty barren. I remember, because I was the one fan from back in the day who kept the pilot light burning for everyone else. Anyway, what you have here is another great collection of straight-ahead rock tunes with no overly fussy orchestration, no guitar-hero-grandstanding, and well written riffs and songs with great production. Kevin Roentgen has since gone on to do other things under the name Praying Hands, and most recently joining Orson as guitarist, though I haven’t heard them so I have no idea if they sound similar in any way. Either way, this is a well solid rock album with attitude in spades that isn’t going to set your world on fire, but should keep your cock set to “rock” for 45 minutes or so. Good work, fellas.

Standout tracks: California, Free Your Mind, Automatic
You’ll like this if you like: Buckcherry, Mötley Crüe, Backyard Babies

Oooh, another band from the “A” section of my library…

Hi-Fi Serious – A (2002)

A - Hi-Fi Serious

The sparsely-monickered A’s first couple of albums (How Ace Are Buildings and A vs. Monkey Kong) never really got off the launchpad for my money, but on this third effort all the planets must have aligned on Friday 13th under a full moon at a crossroads with a black cat in attendance, because this record rocks the fuck out from start to finish. A was originally formed by three brothers from Essex and a couple of their mates, and there is something essentially British that shines through in every aspect of this album, though you never feel like it’s being made into a focal point, like with Jarvis Cocker for example. Twelve strong rock songs with only one short guitar solo (guitarist Mark Chapman is a fan of Steve Vai, I believe, and you can hear it in the single short solo break on “The Distance” – plus, when they appeared on ReCovered on British TV (I don’t know what channel it was on, and Teh Intarnets are not being helpful with that piece of information) they did a cover of DLR’s “Just Like Paradise” – rockmungous) and every one’s a winner. The opener “Nothing” rocks an absolutely pounding main riff (which I lifted for the theme tune to my podcast Bucket of Rocks), “Starbucks” is the catchy singalong tune, “Going Down” is a memorable commentary on um… being on a passenger plane when it gets bombed in mid-air, “The Springs” is as close as they get to a ballad, while “The Distance” is a roaring air-punching “come and have a go” type anthem, and every song here does its job perfectly. This is still for me A’s best work – the followup Teen Dance Ordinance didn’t quite have the catchiness throughout that Hi-Fi Serious achieves.

Standout tracks: Nothing, Pacific Ocean Blue, The Distance
You’ll like this if you like: Green Day, Blink 182, Van Halen

These guys come from a land down under.

Runnin’ Wild – Airbourne (2007)

Airbourne - Runnin' Wild

Do you love AC/DC? Do you like Brian Johnson on vocals, but still miss Bon Scott? Do you wish their songs were about 10-20% faster? Then you need Airbourne. This really does feel like an early lost AC/DC record in places, but that is by no means a bad thing in my opinion – there are plenty worse bands they could sound like. And yet despite the obvious comparisons, this album does have something fresh about it. The boys aren’t breaking any new ground here, but they sound like they’re having as much fun as it’s possible to have with an existing formula, and that’s worth a lot these days. Singer/guitarist Joel O’Keeffe is somewhere between Scott and Johnson in delivery, though his lead guitar playing owes more than a nod to Joe Perry as well as the obvious antipodean influence, and like Perry hardly ever puts a note out of place. This is a cracking rock record, and yes, it sounds similar to AC/DC, but is that such a bad thing? I say no.

Standout tracks: Too Much Too Young Too Fast, Cheap Wine And Cheaper Women, Diamond In The Rough.
You’ll like this if you like: um… AC/DC!, Rhino Bucket, Jet.

Monday is catchy-uppy day, so have some of this:

Hardcore Superstar – Hardcore Superstar (2005)

Hardcore Superstar - Hardcore Superstar

Hot wet damn, there’s some great rock music coming out of Sweden these days. This is HS’s fourth album (yes, like Metallica they released three albums with names before deciding to do an eponymous one) and for me this is where it all came together for the Gothenburg 4-piece. Their first album Bad Sneakers And A Piña Colada was energetic but marred by some pretty terrible lyrics and patchy production, and while the followup Thank You (For Letting Us Be Ourselves) addressed these issues it still didn’t feel like they’d quite hit their groove. For me the third album, No Regrets, was a turn in the wrong direction, trading the screaming and pounding for more catchy poppy tunes, a direction they thankfully backed up on with this 4th album. Here the songs got much heavier and the production style really settled down allowing Jocke Berg’s vocals to shine through and really letting Thomas Silver properly get his riff on. This album set the style for the two later albums, Dreamin’ In A Casket (2007) and Beg For It (2009), both of which carry on the heavier theme in comfortable style, while still blending in some seriously catchy melodies throughout. Of the myriad hard rock banks pouring out of Sweden nowadays, very few stand out from the ever-growing crowd, but HS are head and shoulders above most.

Standout tracks: We Don’t Celebrate Sundays, Kick On The Upperclass, Blood On Me
You’ll like this if you like: Buckcherry, Backyard Babies, Guns N Roses

Catchup post coming later today – but this one is post #666 on cm.com! Rar! \m/

Empire – Queensrÿche (1990)

Queensrÿche - Empire

I forget where I first heard Queensrÿche – it was probably on Raw Power, the late night rock and metal show on Friday nights in the late 80s and early 90s – but I wasn’t aware of them before hearing “Best I Can” and being blown away by the sound of them. I guess I was comparatively late to the party, not having heard – or even heard of – Operation: Mindcrime, but either way this is still the best album they’ve ever released in my opinion. Naturally, there will be those out there who have only heard “Silent Lucidity” thanks to its inflated airplay, but this is of course just like judging Extreme on “More Than Words” or Mr. Big on “To Be With You”. The twin guitar partnership of Michael Wilton and Chris DeGarmo is one of the classic pairings in rock, and I’d say they complement each other just as well as Adrian Smith and Dave Murray from Iron Maiden, and that really is saying something. The real standouts here though are Geoff Tate’s epic vocal performance and the absolutely perfectly crafted songwriting. Never overly complicated yet always intelligently put together, the 11 tracks here should be required reading for the school of prog-influenced hard rock. Go on, stick on “Jet City Woman” or “Hand On Heart” then try and tell me I’m wrong.

Standout tracks: Della Brown, Jet City Woman, Resistance.
You’ll liked this if you like: Rush, Iron Maiden, Winger.

Oops, fallen behind again. S’OK, I’ll catch up at some stage.

A Twist In The Myth – Blind Guardian (2006)

Blind Guardian - A Twist In The Myth

Some call it Battle Metal, some call it Folk Metal, I call it awesome. What you’ve got here is essentially Iron Maiden on steroids, and once you get over the need to classify and pigeonhole every variation in sound into some new sub-brand of metal, you can realise that Blind Guardian are a bloody awesome band. I’m personally not a huge fan of their much-lauded album Nightfall In Middle Earth, possibly because I couldn’t get on with Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion” on which it is based, but also perhaps because it’s a concept album based on one long story and I personally like to enjoy things on shuffle, dipping in and out as I see fit. Either way, A Twist In The Myth is a collection of separate songs all of which are based on various stories myths and legends, and all of them executed with BG’s excellent metal style and flashy guitar work. If you like your metal to have some kind of story to it, I couldn’t recommend this enough, and I thank ex-colleague Mr. Nick Jones for introducing me to Blind Guardian, as well as another band who are coming up later in Rocktober.