Welcome everyone to episode 383 of Signals from Mars.
This is our May albums review.
This is where Jeremy Weltman and myself discuss new releases from the month of May 2024 that
stood out to us as things that were memorable, things that could make our year endless, things
to help the lazy listener.
Check out some new music.
These episodes are so much fun to do because Jeremy and I sit back and discuss various
albums that we've enjoyed and there are some months that are tough.
I mentioned this during the episode so I kind of don't want to repeat myself, but yeah,
there are some months like April.
April was difficult.
Some weeks there just was nothing there, you know.
So to have a month like May that had so many really, really good things to listen to, a
lot of things that meander between different styles of hard rock and metal, was just so
cool because there are so many different things that you can be turned on to, so many different
things that I could help turn you guys on to when it comes to music.
Jeremy and myself turn you guys on to.
How about that?
Because I try to approach this in a different way.
I try to not overlap with Jeremy.
Yeah, there are some things that I check out because it's bigger name things and I want
to give you my opinion as well.
And also I try to search out things that are kind of different.
We don't all like the same things and I think it just helps make the show, make our playlist,
make everything better if we're able to expand what we're both listening to.
I'm scheduling a bunch of different shows with patrons, with other people in the coming
weeks.
And so there are going to be a few shows where you're going to be hearing things that are
going to be prerecorded.
Not only interviews, but other subjects.
I hope that what I have in store for you guys for this summer will be something that you
guys enjoy, will be something that will cultivate music discussion with you, with your friends.
I understand that Patreon isn't for everyone.
I do want to send a shout out to my patrons.
I will name them all in a second, but I don't think it hurts anyone to go out and share
the episodes, talk about the subject matter that we're discussing.
That's what these shows are all about.
So thank you for listening.
And real quickly here, I just want to thank my patrons.
You can get into Patreon for as little as two bucks a month.
You could also do a PayPal donation or pick up merch.
But anyway, real quickly here, thank you goes out to Sean Richmond, Chris Sinczak of Despo
Geek podcast, Tony Espin, Anthony Mackey, Ed Ferguson, Johan Edestrom, Metal Dan, Jose
in Connecticut, Chris Vaglio from the Song Swap Showdown podcast, the Metal Dentist Gabriel,
Dr. Poison himself, Brad Dahl from yargmetal.com, our Mike Jones who just celebrated a birthday.
Happy birthday, sir.
Here's to Jeremy Weltman who is featured on this episode, Steve Hoker and Stephen Saylor.
Guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode.
I know a lot of big name shows have started saying this, but I've been saying this for
a while.
I do appreciate all the support.
I do appreciate anyone that listens to this.
And I understand that there are a million other things you can be doing right now.
Other shows you can be listening to, other things you could be watching.
But you choose to spend some time with me and in this case with Jeremy.
And I appreciate that one million percent.
All right.
Thank you so much.
And this is a fun one.
It's a lot of music.
Hopefully it's going to put a dent in some people's wallets as you guys support some
of these bands.
Thanks again.
And here we go.
Let's get on with the episode.
Welcome, everyone, to the June 7th edition of Signals for Mars.
I'm your host, Victor.
Joining me is Jeremy.
How are you, sir?
Yeah, I think they're doing well.
Thanks.
As you can see, it's fairly sunny here.
Still in the UK.
Don't know if you can still hear me because it's gone all black at my end.
Oh, it has.
OK.
Yeah, I can hear you perfectly.
It is just so you guys know, it is quarter to 11 at night on my end.
There's still some sunlight out, but not as much as on Jeremy's end.
He is an hour behind me.
We're going to talk about new releases from May 2024.
And the first thing I have to say is, man, what a month for music.
There was a lot of good music that came out this month.
And although maybe there were stronger releases that came out earlier this year, probably
top to bottom, this may be the most stacked month when it comes to music, because there's
just so much of it.
And as you pointed out to me off the air, there are five weeks worth of music to discuss
here.
So it's interesting because in April, I feel like maybe it was kind of a lull where some
weeks just really didn't have stuff that really jumped out.
And this every week, I think, has something that really stands out.
So it really made me want to listen to more and more until I kind of ran out of time getting
ready for the show.
All right.
So May 3rd, it's interesting because we're going to run into holidays in Europe and in
the US, which is going to give us some shorter, shorter weeks for releases.
May 3rd was one of them where we had new albums from Sound of Thunder FM, Doth, Hirschwanz,
Frank Turner, Goth Minister, POD, Wheel, Keith Wallen, Broom and Speed Limit.
We had a reissue from Imperial Triumphant and compilations from Mob Rules Celebration
Day 30 years of Mob Rules.
That's an interesting title for me because a lot of bands give you the, would have given
you Mob Rules greatest hits.
And you would think, well, you know, where are the hits?
Or you get a band that has volume one and it's like, wait a second.
By saying volume one, it makes you think that there may be more volumes coming.
Anyway, what stood out for you this first week?
Yeah.
So, well, I began the month listening to the Charismatic Leaders album by the prog metal
band Wheel from Finland.
Quite a short seven track offering that one.
I admit, I kind of knew nothing about them before, to be honest, but I quite enjoyed
it.
This is their third album apparently and since they sort of started in 2017 and overall,
I thought it was a fairly powerful album.
I think you need to sort of think sort of its ever grey in parts, but with a sort of
nice rich sound, lots of melody, very good production on it, very clear sound.
The only drawback is that these kind of songs can kind of overstay their welcome a bit.
And that's true, I think, on the nine and a half minutes track submission as it is on
the follow up saboteur racking up another nine minutes.
So I toss that one aside a little, it's not my album of the week.
I followed that with Thunderhood by Sons of Thunder.
Very much a tongue in cheek ACDC copyist band, nothing to do with the 1970s Christian band
with the same name.
There isn't much available about this band, although I did discover they hail from Italy,
which explains the accent on the vocals.
Of course, you're going to get great riffs, sort of, you know, grey ACDC style riffs,
but it isn't quite matched by the lyrics, which are quite laughable at times, I think.
There's even a song entitled, wait for it, I don't piss from my knees.
Wow, there you go.
Just take that in for a second.
I'll say it again.
The song is titled, I don't piss from my knees.
Interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, we'll move on to the sensible world of soft, radio-friendly AOR, which was the
new album from the British Star Wars FM.
They're always quite a really good live act, I think, and becoming a bit of an institution,
a bit like Thunder.
Old Habits Die Hard is their band's 14th album now, the studio album, since they came out
in 1986 with Indiscreet, as well as reforming in 2010 after a 15-year break.
This won't appeal to the metalheads, of course.
It's soft rock for aging adults who are about to sort of rustle up a cock of ham for dinner.
But turn it up loud on a summer's evening, and you really start to understand, well,
I do anyway, why FM are a cut above Bon Jovi and other, you know, other sort of poppier
acts out there.
I think vocalist Steve Overland is losing none of his appeal, really, as he ages, and
they write decent songs.
And in what was, I think, a lean week to start with, it's definitely my choice.
Well, just so you know, FM will be on their 40th anniversary tour about 20 minutes from
my home.
Whoa, there you go.
But are you tempted, Victor, because we know this might not appeal to this kind of rock
music.
Right.
So that's the thing.
They were advertising their show during the Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg show that we went
to.
And the first person that came to mind was you when I saw that being advertised.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
That's the thing.
It's really not something that I would go out of my way to see.
But playing so close to home, if the ticket's right, maybe a gun played not that long ago.
Same same venue.
Yeah.
But they were asking like 40 euros ahead.
And I was like, yeah, that's kind of steep for a band that I like two songs from.
Yeah.
So I we sidestepped it.
I know that people loved it, but just kind of wasn't my thing.
One of the things that me and Jeremy do when we do these shows is that we do keep a list
of what we've been listening to.
So I purposely try to listen to different things so that there's more to offer you guys
with these shows.
There's going to be things that we're going to overlap with during this episode.
But for example, I listened to three different albums this week.
Earlier today, I was listening to Undefeated by Frank Turner, which is something that sounds
if you're into flogging Molly, there are some aspects of that, like Irish punk or however
you want Irish folk punk, however you want to classify that.
There are other things that are straight up a little bit more commercial on there as well.
So it's not terribly bad.
It's not something that I would probably listen to more than a few times.
The Norwegian Act Goth minister who tend to have a song or two on each album that I enjoy.
The name of the album is Pandemonium 2 Battle of the Underworlds.
This is probably their weakest of their last few albums.
I have to give it a few more listens to there.
There really hasn't been a track that's jumped out at me like some of the other ones right
away.
My pick of this week though is POD, Pable on Death with Veritas, a band that man I loved
early on in their career, but there's been a big stretch there where they've just haven't
done it for me.
It's probably their best album that they've released in 20 years.
It's shorter than some of their other albums that they've released in recent memory, but
I think they've been good with kind of cutting off some of the fat and giving you more or
less what you want from them.
There's some cool duets and special appearances.
For example, Randy Blythe of Lamb of God appears on a track and it's heavier than what I expected.
So I really enjoy it.
It's my pick for May the 3rd.
All right, May the 10th.
A lot of different things that have come out as well.
The new album from Warlord, Sebastian Bach, Annette Olsen, former lead singer of Nightwish,
Crown Shift, Knock Loose, Power Man 5000, Six Feet Under, Sonic Universe, The Tangent
for One, The Treatment, Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats, Unleash the Archers, Stretch Armstrong,
Like Moths to Flames, Belushi Speedball, Caldwell and Big Special.
EPs from, and this seems to be a split from Lanzerath and Shroud of Despondency.
All right.
Compilations, something I'm very envious about Jeremy having.
It is Black Sabbath and O'Dominey 1989 through 1975 box set with all of the IRS records.
See they're calling it the Tony Martin stuff or the Tony Martin years, but it is missing
the Eternal Idol and it's because the Eternal Idol was on Warner Brothers and everything
else is on IRS.
The Eternal Idol was just re-released a few years ago.
So they decided not to push for having that included in this release and that makes sense
to me.
I already have the Eternal Idol, so it would kind of annoy me that the price would go up
a little just to have that included again anyway.
So Jeremy, what did you listen to during this week?
Yeah, so I began the week listening to Wake Up the Neighborhood by The Treatment.
This is a band from Cambridge in the UK which I was amazed to find out, I've actually been
active now for 16 years.
I wish I didn't realize.
I mean I really liked them when they broke out on the scene in the first place.
They've got nice hard riffs, melodic tunes, good old sort of classic rock and to be fair
that's the sort of the template here too on which is their sixth studio album.
But I was left pretty empty by this release.
I thought the band didn't really listen back to many of the songs which if I'm brutally
honest they were somewhat boring, you know, so paint by numbers, rock and roll which is
a real shame.
I felt they could have done better with that one.
So that led me on to two albums which were really sort of vying for album of the week.
The first didn't quite make it but it was really, really good nevertheless.
It's Chow Within the Man by the former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach.
This is what I really wanted to hear from him to be honest.
It's great sounding hard rock.
It's a man who's still putting real energy into his vocal delivery.
You know we got a good taste of this from the sort of couple of tracks that you posted
on the Patreon group which by the way is only a couple of pounds, dollars or euros folks.
So you get to hear all the latest music and more so please join.
Advert over.
I have to say the quality on this is really kept up throughout.
I mean it's a really good album.
It's really heavy, it's very melodic, it's definitely one that I'll put on repeat and
although it's only May I'm gonna hedge my bets there.
I'm gonna say this is a very worthy contender for my end of year top ten.
So really good album.
I really recommend everybody listen to it.
Listen to it all the way through.
It's a good hard rocking album that.
But talking of the top ten for the year, this week's choice which I've gone for has actually
gone into my top three for the year and I'll be very very surprised if it gets kicked out.
I've backed it up by purchasing a copy so I've put my money where my mouth is.
It's the new project called Sonic Universe from the Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover
and the Adrenaline Mob guitarist Mike Orlando.
The album's actually called It Is What It Is.
It's basically a sort of rockier version of Living Colour.
It's heavy funk, it's very good, so it's laden with hooks, sort of testosterone fuelled
acts playing.
I mean I really wondered if there was a bit of a rivalry building here between Orlando
and Nuno Bettencourt to play the very fastest craziest guitar solos because if you listen
to some of the tracks on it there's some really crazy playing on there.
But that aside, it's really good.
Glover's vocals haven't aged at all, really suited to this type of music as well.
Every one of the ten songs is really expertly crafted.
We're taking on a real journey with this one, real craftsmanship on offer here.
Orlando's brilliant, Glover's brilliant.
I call it musical expertise.
I'm really raving about this album.
It's a really richly rewarding listen and of course it's my album of the week.
Oh man, this is going to be one of these times this year where we're going to have differing
opinions on an album.
Right, okay, that's great.
So okay, so let me handle this this way.
Sebastian Bach, I listened to The Child Within the Man, one of the ones where we overlap
on.
I thought that the album was good, but kind of towards the end it got kind of too formulaic,
kind of too like nothing new.
And that's not a bad thing because you're getting probably exactly what you want.
But I wanted something a little more like you look at someone like a Stephen Pearce
with his last few albums.
Sure.
He's not doing anything really out of his wheelhouse, but every album has like four
or five songs where you think, yeah, that's going in my playlist.
No, that's going to be one of those songs that I'm going to remember this year by.
You know, one of those things.
And although the songs are good, I can't find to me, it just kind of didn't sit that way
with me.
What else did I listen to here?
Uncle acid and the dead beats.
This is the album is Nellora Blue.
If you're Italian, you'll understand a lot of this album because it's a lot of it's 19
tracks, a lot of instrumental music.
I recall there being only one track with actual vocals.
There are interludes with people speaking Italian.
So I bring up the Italian aspect.
Unleash the archers.
Fantoma.
I listened to that solid release.
It's really much on par with what to expect from that band.
Sonic universe for me.
Was a letdown.
Why?
Yeah, I'm interested.
Because what label is this on?
This is on ear music.
OK, this felt like a frontiers project where to me where somebody paid Corey Glover and
said, OK, we can't get living color, but I want you to make a living color album.
Michael Orlando does the Vernon Reed part excellently, but there's just something missing
that just doesn't quite get it to living color level for me.
And I kept thinking about the ultraphonic album that Corey Glover did with George Lynch
where Corey listened.
Corey's vocals are excellent on this.
But again, it's I listen to this and I instantly want to turn on living color.
It's almost like when Rob Halford and Judas Priest are separate.
And it made you with some of his release, some of his solo releases made me want to
listen to that.
Also made me want to listen to the priest.
But there are other albums that made me want to listen to older priest because it just
didn't reach where I wanted it to go.
That second fight album, for example.
This is kind of the same thing for me where Sonic Universe just makes me want a new living
color album is what it does.
That's just my strange taste.
And I'm not going to dissuade anyone from listening to Jeremy's opinion and checking
the album out and then they can decide what they think about it themselves.
My selection this for this week is similar to what I said with the POV for the previous
month.
It is Power Man 5000 with Abandoned Ship.
Power Man 5000 when they're on.
They're great for me.
I love them.
I love their mix of riffs and industrial hard rock and metal and melodies.
And it just does it for me.
And again, this is probably their best album since the late 90s only because it's you know,
you can listen to it front to back and each song is good as opposed to there just being
one or two tracks that are great and then everything else is just kind of just there.
So cool.
All right.
So real quickly here, your take on the Black Sabbath box.
Have you gotten a chance to listen to it yet?
No, because it hasn't arrived yet.
Of course, I ordered it from one of the biggest online retailers in the universe.
And of course, they tell me it's going to come either between now and early July.
So I'm going to wait around for it.
But you know, who cares?
I got it at a decent price for the vinyl.
And I've tried to avoid listening to it online as well until I get it.
So I want to put the records on and give them a good spin.
It's not on Apple Music, so I haven't been able to listen to it yet.
I know it's on Spotify, but I haven't looked for it.
So the price that you sent me was for the vinyl?
It was for the vinyl and that was free delivery.
Wow.
Yeah, that's really good, isn't it?
Yeah.
I don't know whether that's because there's a delay on it or because we're in the UK,
you know, and it's a British sort of release.
Maybe that could be.
But yeah, we're doing well with that because I thought that was pretty good.
Just to tell the viewers, it was 89.99, which I paid for it.
I think that's the cheapest you can get the vinyl anywhere.
That's the cheapest price that I've seen it on the mainland in Europe.
It's 120 euros, which I don't know with the exchange.
I think it'd be more in pounds, definitely more than 90 pounds, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought.
Let me see.
Yeah.
So let's ask the board people, let's see what the exchange rate is.
OK, 120 euros is 102 pounds.
Yeah.
So let's flip this around.
You paid roughly 90.
Yeah.
So it is 105 euros.
There you go.
What is 21 percent on that?
And great to get it free delivery as well.
I mean, I didn't have to be a member of this international organization, which we all know
about and I'm not going to give them free advertising, but I'm not a P.R.I.M.E member.
But so, yeah, I was pleased with, you know, you don't have to pay for the packaging as
well for the delivery.
So, yeah.
Well, from that same service here, it's listed as the vinyl not being delivered until July.
Right.
Yeah.
So they've obviously got some delays on it, but I'm happy with that because, you know,
I don't need to hear it straight away.
It's not a new release.
It's all old stuff.
And, you know, I'm going to be around for a long time, so I'm going to listen to it
at my will.
So it's fine.
The only thing that I've heard is they released Enno Mundi.
Yeah.
Evil Eye.
Yeah.
And Get a Grip.
And I know people are making a big deal out of, oh my God, this sounds so much more like
Sabbath to me now because the guitars are all, excuse me, the guitars are all the way
up in the front.
And it's this and it's that.
There was just a misconception with Forbidden, I think, from the start.
I've said this many times that there are songs off of there that had Ronnie James Dio or
Ozzy recorded that have been considered classics.
So that's just my opinion.
Anyway, moving on here, May 17th, we had new albums from Pain, Intervals, Babylon AD,
Bat, Cage the Elephant, Cognitive, Combi Christ, Demon, Elvalon, Gate Creeper, Jasta, Kerry
King, Marty Friedman, Paul Bear, Slash, Zombiest, Suck Brick Kid, Striknos, Trail of Anguish,
Botanist, Freedom, I felt like I almost said it like, oh my God, I like Christopher Walken.
He's a botanist.
I don't know.
That's my poor attempt at a Christopher Walken impression.
Freedom, Godin, Duft, Ancient Settlers, Settlers, Settlers, live albums from Ginger and Shark
Island.
All right, Jeremy, what was your fancy for this week?
You know, I pray to God that there isn't a month where you actually send me a message
to say I can't do this.
You're going to have to read out all the names.
I've got a sore throat or something and then I've got that job of pronouncing them all.
Anyway, this week I gave the new Slash album the once over.
Of course I did.
This is his blues offering.
He's gone back to having a guest star on every song, much like the eponymous solo he released
in 2010, which was a rockier version.
This one's called All You The Damned.
It has a really good cover on it.
Of course the guitar playing is expert and the guests all help out in one way or another
with the vocals.
But for me there's something very missing from this.
Slash to me doesn't have the feel of a real blues man or even a rocker who turns to the
blues.
I mean, he's no Gary Moore.
He's certainly no Buddy Guy or Albert King.
It's fine though, you know, he's Slash.
But it's just somewhat soulless for me.
And anyone who really gets the blues know it comes from the soul and it just isn't on
this.
And I didn't really want to go back to listen to it very much.
So in what I would class as a bit of a lean week for me personally, I've opted for the
new album by the British stalwarts, Demon.
It's called Invincible.
It's their 14th studio release, but only the second in a decade.
And this is a band I remember actually back in the day, 1981.
They released Night of the Demon.
They were a sort of a melodic old school metal band that on reflection were actually okay.
But I probably didn't give them as much time then.
They were sort of dealt a bad hand, I guess, by the rise of the new Wobham.
They lacked the punch of the other bands.
But this album sort of follows other great releases this year from old school British
acts, Lionheart, Prey and Mantis.
And it shows the power of really good songwriting and good production as well.
And dare I say it, it marks a little bit of a renaissance for sort of UK hard rock that
I'm guessing will be capped off by Deep Purple's new album later this year.
So I must admit, at first I was put off slightly by the original vocalist, Dave Hill's Aging
Voice.
It even sounds, and I don't wish this to mean sort of bad on him, but it does sound
as if he's had a stroke or something because he's sort of slurring his words a bit.
But I couldn't help turning up the songs like Face the Master and Break the Spell.
This was a really enjoyable listen.
I really dig this album and it was a really worthy album of the week.
Okay.
I'm going to give you some homework because there's something that came out this week
that I'm surprised you didn't jump on.
And I'll mention it in a second.
Okay.
All right.
So I listened to I Am Out by Pain.
It's okay.
The album is kind of samezy all the way through.
The album Under the Crooked Claw by Bat is the side project from a few of the members
of Municipal Waste.
Not bad.
I know that on Patreon people weren't into the vocals.
It is kind of vocals are somewhere between guttural and lemmy-ish.
The music is pretty cool.
Combi Christ released a double album, which is CMB CRST, which is pretty much pronounced
Combi Christ.
Again, okay, just a bit long for it being a double album.
The second album is more or less instrumental.
Let's see.
Paul Bearer, Mindburns Alive.
I believe this only has seven tracks and it's close to an hour long.
It is what you would expect from Paul Bearer.
It's got some pretty interesting stuff on it.
I posted one of the singles on Patreon and people seemed to enjoy it.
It was different than what they expected.
If you haven't heard them before, they mix melodies with Doomy Sludge Metal.
It's an interesting mix.
You have to be in for the long haul though.
Like I said, it's seven songs, I believe, and it's like 50 some odd minutes.
Each track is really long.
A lot of instrumentation going on there.
I didn't get a chance to listen to the Slash yet, but I think based on the singles, you
used a specific phrase, no soul.
It's kind of what I got out of it.
I'm not the hugest blues guy, but when you hear blues done right, you feel it, as you
mentioned, even with rock bands that do the blues.
Blues to me is just, I mentioned on Patreon, it's just very homogenized, very overproduced
and compressed and not taking anything away from the musicians.
But I think had they produced it in an old feel, it would have gone over better.
And there's just some songs that the originals are timeless and there's no reason to cover
them.
So there's that.
Papa was a Rolling Stone, for example.
Let's see.
So there were three excellent albums that came out this week and they're all three of
them are completely different.
So I'm just going to give you a quick rundown of them.
Josta and Josta for All.
It is from the team that put together, that has done the last few Jamie Jost albums.
They did the Corpse Grinder album and they've done the D Snider solo albums.
It is Jamie Jost and mixing his brand of of hardcore metal with thrash metal.
And it sounds really cool.
So if you're a thrash metal person and want to listen to something different, check this
out.
I know a lot of people are probably listening to the Kerry King.
Sure.
But we know that Ed Ferguson is listening to that and he's going to give us a review
of that shortly.
My homework to you.
Rome wasn't built in a day by Babylon A.D. Babylon A.D. is a band that was that kind
of came out, got MTV Airplay like Little Caesar, like a few other bands towards the tail end
of the original run of Headbangers Ball.
I started listening to this one of the last things that I listened to today and was thoroughly
impressed.
If you're looking for something in the vein of L.A. guns, guns and roses.
Dirty sleazy hard rock from late 80s, early 90s.
Check this album out.
I'm sure if you listen to this, Jeremy, I could be wrong here.
You could listen to it and say, oh, it's a stinker.
But I do think it's worth your while to check out.
I think that it's got a lot of you'll probably enjoy.
I'm going to listen to that definitely.
Yeah.
But my album of this week is Heart of Darkness by Zombies.
It's funny because I kept thinking of a comment that Anthony Mackie made when I posted the
either the first or second single off of this because the vocals are very reminiscent of
Glenn Danzig's vocals.
And he said some of the extent of.
Oh, OK, he's doing the dancing thing.
He's going to stick with that.
And he sticks with it throughout the entire album.
This is their first album in over a decade.
And I'm into those styles of vocals.
I'm into the dark, gothic, over the top, heavy or doominess of the album.
And I really enjoyed it.
I was surprised.
I think it's great.
I mean, it could end up on my top 10 at the end of the year.
I'm that convinced.
So.
All right.
On the 24th of May, this is Memorial Day weekend for a lot of people.
And let's see, it's a short week.
I had the albums from Caspian, Rotting Christ, Summoner's Circle, Veil of Nath.
I'm assuming that first P is Silent, Mortal Wound, Sound and Shape, TeraMaze.
Evil Dead and Night Laser.
So there were only a few things that were released and we overlapped with a bunch of
them here.
Jeremy, what was you know, what poison did you pick this week?
I'm going to shock you in a minute, but let's start off with called me what you want by
a night laser, the heavy glam act from Germany.
Actually quite a fun 80s style hair metal offering this one.
Some production techniques on it and enjoyed it quite a bit.
It seems to be their third album.
And if at times it seems sort of old fashioned, old school rock, it does have some good hooks
and it keeps you listening throughout.
It definitely for fans of Skid Row, Doc and Keele, you know, the sort of thing you're
going to get on that.
So yeah, that was a that was a fun listen.
My second pick was the L.A. Thresh Act, Evil Dead, their new album called Toxic Grace.
If you haven't heard of them before, and I'm sort of appealing here to people who aren't
in the US, it's because they've only ever released four studio albums, I believe two
in the 80s, two since reforming and a second reunion, in fact, that occurred in 2016.
No surprises here, really.
You just get sort of great traditional riff heavy thrash.
The songwriting, I think Epson flows a little bit, but you know, there's some good elements
on here.
Good songs like Raising Fresh Hell.
I like the closer is called Fear Porn.
But it doesn't quite extend to the whole album.
So I didn't pick that as my album of the week.
So I'm really going to shock you, Victor, here.
I hope you are sitting down.
I want you to brace yourself because wait for it.
Pro Christu by the Greek black metal purveyors Rotting Christ is my album of the week.
Let's just bear.
Let's just take a couple of seconds to take all that in, because it's not a band that
I would normally turn to, as you know, but it's very approachable black metal.
This one is really brooding.
It's full of obviously the death and religious imagery, of course.
But it's not so brutal as to really exclude the mainstream metal crowd.
And I think that's really good.
You really need to sort of think more of Eamonn Amarth and Meshuggah on this one.
It's an album that left me satisfied by its sort of imagination and atmosphere.
It wasn't obviously a week where there wasn't so much sort of classic heavy rock that came
out.
I could have picked Night Laser, but I didn't.
I like this album better.
So Rotting Christ really turned me this week.
OK, cool.
So for me, it's actually Evil Dead with Toxic Grace.
The band also features Juan Garcia, who in the last few years has been a part of Body
Count and interesting because the Apple Music Closer is a cover of the Killing Joke Song
Death and Resurrection show.
So it was funny.
I got out of practice the other day and the way that my car radio is, you don't see the
act, you just see the name pop up on whatever's on the Bluetooth.
And I hear the riff come on and I start to think I wasn't listening to Killing Joke before
I went to practice.
What is it?
I'm like, oh, shit, it's a cover.
Oh, wow.
So this is kind of cool.
Yeah, I enjoyed it and I think you formed it up well.
Cool Thrash album at Ebs and Flows.
And if you're a thrash fan, I would recommend you check it out.
Cool.
The final week of May brought us a lot of releases.
We had releases from Bad Omens, Bloodbound, Four Stroke Baron, Hell Butcher, High Desert
Queen, Low Lives, Nestor, who Johan is seeing at the Sweden Rock, Rhapsody of Fire, Witherfall,
Dusk, Adversarial, Carry on Throne, Cobra the Impaler, My Diligence, Clovenhoof, D-Arma,
Woodwork, Supermodel Taxidermy, live albums from Exodus, and a compilation from Tier.
Again, best of the napalm years.
Jeremy, what did you listen to this week?
So you may say huff, but we say hoof.
And it's Clovenhoof.
Yeah.
Another British band to start the week off, the album Heathen Cross by Clovenhoof.
New Wobbam Starwarts from the West Midlands.
They really sort of over egged their contribution to the genre, I think.
Maybe really sort of think of Clovenhoof as one of the biggies from that time.
But nevertheless, this was a really welcome listen for this particular week.
This is their studio album number nine, and it's their third since the 2000s actually
began.
The last album actually really annoyed me for ripping off bands like Maiden.
And that kind of makes a bit of a return here occasionally, too, on songs like Sort of Darkest
Before the Dawn.
But I guess there are lots of bands out there sticking to the template, and it also reminds
me a little bit of Times of Judas Priest's album.
But it's all fairly fun stuff, to be honest.
It's got giant riffs.
It's occasionally down tuned.
It's got a very tight rhythm section and solid production, and it's a really good listen.
That sort of brings me to two albums that are vying for first place.
The first, which could have been first this week, is Sounds of the Forgotten by Witherfall.
I mean, this is a band that we've talked about previously.
In fact, we had it, I think it won album of the year last time they released Curse of
Autumn.
I think it was number one.
And in my opinion, they seem to go from strength to strength, actually.
You've got a very technically gifted band that's really carving out its own sound.
You've got some very rapid prog music with classical influence guitar playing and that
sort of soaring falsetto vocalist, Joseph Michael.
As with the previous releases, a good fine mix of music here, very sort of heavier stuff,
proggy tracks, and some really fine ballads on it as well.
I think you need a lot of time with a full album to sort of take in the majesty of it.
It's definitely worth it, though.
And it was almost album of the week.
And I did fight between this one and the next one.
So don't take it that it's second because it's probably equal first.
But I did give the accolade rather surprisingly to an album called At What Cost by the incredibly
named supermodel Taxidermy.
This is actually a metal thrash hardcore fusion act from Canada.
And to my ears, it's a very appealing mashup of Anthrax and the Beastie Boys.
So immediately, I know you're an Anthrax fan, Victor, so I'm guessing you'll kind of dig
this.
What you get is sort of a melodic, in your face, punky rap thrash based tunes with large
doses of social comments, of course, on this sort of type of music, all knitted together
with very rhythmic riffs.
So it's not all unique, but it does have a sort of super urban edge to it.
It's sort of like it's being recorded live on the streets of a rough neighborhood.
It's a very engaging album, and I didn't expect it to be album of the week, but it is.
Wow.
OK.
So that's definitely something that I will write down in my homework column for myself.
It's funny because going over this list with you, there's definitely a lot of things that
stood out to me where I didn't get a chance to listen to, which I will listen to.
But for me, I checked out the Four Stroke Baron album, Dada Diamond.
I would say that if you're a fan of Last Crack, maybe Early Faith No More, Mordred, stuff
like that, you may want to check this out.
Let's see what else there was to hear.
Cobra the Impaler, if you're into Mastodon, I think they're right up your alley.
The Cloven Hoof I listened to as well.
Don't want to offend anyone.
The Witherfall, I think you summed it up.
I think it's a really good album.
It's really along the lines of what we expect from them.
So maybe it isn't so much that the album is bad in any way.
It's just that there were no surprises with it.
Whereas for me, when I listened to the Palm Reader from High Desert Queen, it stood out
to me and it surprised me.
So that kind of captured my interest this week.
It is a great stoner rock, doom rock, doom medley type album with a lot of cool riffs,
with a lot of cool melodies.
And I do think that it's worth checking out.
I've made it a point to mention several albums each week because of what you're saying.
There are a lot of things that have been close to a first, a close second where it was one
nudged out the other one by an eyelash, basically.
So yeah, cool.
I mean, it definitely gives us a lot of stuff to check out.
All of you lazy listeners that come here to check out what we recommend.
Quickly here, let's just go over these.
On the third, what was your recommendation, Jeremy?
Oh, now you're asking me to go back and have a look.
I can't remember.
May the third, I went for FM.
Oh, OK, that's right.
FM and I went with POD on the 10th.
So that was Sonic Universe for me.
OK, it was Power Man 5000 Abandoned Ship for me on the 17th.
Yeah, so I went for Demon, didn't I, in that week?
Yeah.
OK, for me, it was Heart of Darkness from Zombies.
On the 24th, Rotting Christ with Pro Christu.
OK, I went with Toxic Grace from Evil Dead.
And the last week on the 31st of May.
At what cost by Supermodel Taxidermy?
And for me, it was Palm Reader by High Desert Queen.
Folks, a lot of great music that came out this month, as I mentioned early on in the
episode.
I think this may be the most stacked month so far in music because there were so many
good new albums that were released during this month.
So definitely a lot of a lot of homework for all you listeners out there.
So there's a few topics that we did want to touch upon before wrapping this up.
And a little over a week ago, there were rumors that started to come out that Mali Crew may
actually not be satisfied with John 5.
I've heard other rumors where John 5 wasn't happy with the band, that he wasn't happy
with their shenanigans, so on and so forth, and that they've reached out to McMars.
To come back to the band.
This is a rumor.
And I know that Chris Aiken from the Classic Metal Show, amongst other shows, he's part
of a few different shows, has stressed that he mentioned this on one of his shows and
that it's strictly a rumor, but it comes from a reliable source within Mali Crew's camp,
apparently.
So I personally think that unless they're not getting offers for shows or not getting
the big money that they were before, that I can't see that this being I can't see the
validity of this rumor.
That's the only thing that I think would make them want to go back to Mick, is that promoters
are saying, yeah, John 5 is cool within the band, but we're not selling the same amount
of tickets, so we want Mick back.
Honestly, I would see them probably go for a DJ Ashba or somebody like that before they
would go back to Mick, honestly.
Someone else that's younger that they're going to have, that they're not going to have the
same types of issues that they may have had with Mick.
Jeremy, what do you think?
I think you've picked up on probably the main thing there.
I think there's another little thing that I'd like to add in that they've just released
some new music, Mali Crew, and it's a bit weird.
It's a bit non-Mali Crew.
And I'm just wondering whether the band are thinking, this isn't quite what we want.
This isn't what we're aiming for, and maybe they're thinking, well, Mick comes in and
gives us these riffs, and we go back to producing a little bit of the old Mali Crew type output.
That's another reason that he might want to be brought back into the fold.
Let's face it, Mick's brought out his own album this year, and it's pretty decent.
Mali Crew's single, do you think that's on the same level?
I'm not so sure.
There's a lot of people who like it, and it's a bit different, which isn't too bad.
But for me, it wasn't Mali Crew.
So that's one reason.
And I guess I agree with you.
I think it's his name, and he's a guy who sort of links it all together.
When I saw them live, he was doing a lot of the donkey work on stage, obviously being
the guitarist.
And I just feel that they're a better band with him in.
Whether he'll want to do it again, I don't know.
Apart from all the illnesses that he's got with his back and what have you, where he
can't necessarily perform on stage regularly, that's a big issue, I think, for him.
So we're not dealing with an ordinary guy who's well.
Difficult thing.
It's probably just a rumor, but hey, there may be something to it.
Yeah.
The other thing to consider too is that he's come out and said that I believe that outside
of New Tattoo that he really hadn't played on an album beginning to end since the self-titled
album with John Karabi.
So that means that Generation Swine and New Tattoo, Saints of Los Angeles, Dirt Soundtrack,
the new songs off of that, that the majority of that isn't him.
That he plays on some of the songs and that's it.
And I mean, for all accounts with the new stuff off the dirt, that was already John
5 anyway.
So I mean, I don't know.
It's just odd that this soon after the member change that they would go back.
But stranger things have happened.
Listen, if you don't get on with each other, that's the thing.
They might be great players, but do they actually get on with each other?
Is that sort of, you know, you're on the road together.
You've got to get on with the people you're playing with, really.
Here's the other thing to consider.
There have been rumors that they've been wanting to get rid of Vince for years.
Does Motley Crue sell tickets with just Tommy and Nicky as opposed to Mick coming back and
instead them switching singers?
Does that get them more money than just two of them?
Yeah, definitely need him back for that sort of situation, I think.
And of course, he's not been in it forever, as we know.
So they could play with a different vocalist.
They've done it before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right.
And the last topic here that we wanted to touch upon is we've all been seeing videos
of ACDC playing, for example, the two shows that they played here in Seville, Spain.
And you recently got to see an ACDC cover band.
The tickets for the show in Spain were just ridiculous in price.
Plus, one of the shows was on a Thursday, the other one on a Saturday.
Again, very prohibitive to go and, you know, I don't know, to sit all the way back at the
top of a stadium that holds 60 some odd thousand people really isn't appealing to me.
Does seeing a tribute band that probably does the songs better than they do nowadays anyway,
does it make sense just to go see that as opposed to shelling out the big bucks traveling
ten hours by car to see the hey, excuse me, the actual thing?
Go ahead.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think in ACDC's case, it's a no brainer now.
I agree with you.
I nearly pulled the trigger on tickets to go and see them in the UK.
And then I thought better of it was going to, you know, I was working out the travel there
and everything else that goes with it.
And then I paid 25 quid and watched a tribute band.
I'll tell you why I think it's no good seeing ACDC anymore.
There's only two members in there.
You know, they're basically, you know, you know, members are dying and they've left and
etc, etc.
You're not really seeing an ACDC that made back in black.
Yeah, sure.
You've got Brian Johnson back.
You've got Angus Young, who's, you know, he's looking very old now, not saying he can't
play.
Of course he can play.
He's Angus Young.
He's a hero.
And people will go and just see him.
But I saw a tribute band and they were they were exactly like ACDC were in their heyday.
And I think they sounded better than the real ACDC.
Obviously, the real ACDC have got, you know, a lot of help, a lot of technical help.
It's going to be a great show.
They've got all the screens.
But why would you pay all that money to see, you know, the old ACDC as it is now when you
can just go and see a tribute band and we know how good ACDC songs are and how they
sound great when people play them really well.
So it's it's a no brainer for me.
It's the it's the tribute band all the way.
Yeah.
I think you're lucky in the where at least the bands are are going to.
The tribute bands are going to have decent vocalists who will sound very similar, whereas
here a lot of those vocalists just are not good where.
They enunciate close, but they're not pronouncing the actual words.
I remember seeing a Michael Schenker tribute being advertised.
The musicians were just fantastic.
And then I paid attention to the vocalist and he wasn't enunciating any of the words.
He was just doing it was imitating English.
And it was one of these things where like those are like scratch vocals.
They're not even like real vocals.
He's not pronouncing an actual word that I know just felt like you were getting hoodwinked
from.
I don't know.
It's funny now.
It just dawned on me that Chris Cheney isn't in Jane's Addiction right now.
And I'm thinking, where's he?
Why isn't he part of this new tour?
Oh, yeah, he's touring with ACDC.
So there's that.
Yeah, I was lucky when I saw the tribute band, like you say, because the guy who was doing
the Brian Johnson looks like him and sounded like him.
And he had even sounded as if he was from Newcastle.
I don't know if he was putting all that on, but in between the songs, he was talking in
a Geordie accent.
So he was he was to me.
I was looking at Brian Johnson.
It was just so, so like him.
So for for those ignorant people in the US like myself, what would the Geordie accent
sound like?
The Geordie accent is for like Newcastle, man.
Your castle.
That's how it sounds.
Yeah, if you listen to any ACDC live album and you listen to a Brian Johnson talk, that's
more or less outside of his hey, that's more or less what he sounds like.
So awesome.
This was a blast to do this with you, Jeremy.
Hope you guys enjoyed listening to our suggestions.
Keep new music alive.
Listen to some of these and let us know whether you think we're fools, whether you like some
of this stuff, whether you agree with us or if we missed one, if there's one that we should
check out.
So on that note, Jeremy, thanks for joining me and we will catch you next time right here
on Signals from Mars.
See you folks.