1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Welcome everyone to episode 389 of Signals from Mars. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,000 I'm your host Victor. 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:13,000 And for this episode, we welcome Jeremy Weltman back for another Lazy Listener special. 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,000 It is the June 2024 albums review. 5 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,000 New music, new releases, however you want to put it. 6 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,000 We're a few weeks late, but who cares. 7 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,000 It's all cool, it's all good. 8 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:30,000 We just want to share and talk about music. 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:58,000 I'm ready. 10 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000 All right, so we're back for another one of these monthly album reviews. 11 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,000 I love talking about new music. 12 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:11,000 I say this all the time, whether it's from bands we all love, whether it's new bands, I try to listen to as much as I can. 13 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,000 Some months I can listen to more than others. 14 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:25,000 And this month, for example, I'm going back and relistening to a lot of the things that I noted down that stood out to me earlier in the year. 15 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:33,000 Because due to time and whatnot, I haven't been able to throw stuff into the playlist as I would have liked to. 16 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Hell, this episode for June is coming out in late July. 17 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,000 Folks, life gets in the way. 18 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000 Regardless, the music is still good. 19 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:49,000 There isn't a sell by date stamped on any of it. 20 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:54,000 So you can still enjoy it, whether we're a few weeks late or not. 21 00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:05,000 I hope that you still appreciate the fact that we do make an effort to do these episodes and try to turn you on to new things that are out there. 22 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,000 I know that there are other shows that do it. 23 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:16,000 Despo Geek, for example, does a great job with Fresh Blood and with other episodes that they do where they talk about new music. 24 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:19,000 And we're not we're not the only show to do it. 25 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000 So it's definitely not a new concept at all. 26 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 It's just that I'm trying to spread the love this way. 27 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:30,000 So I hope you guys can appreciate that as well. 28 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:32,000 Jeremy does a bang up job. 29 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:37,000 We try to make sure that we don't sync up and listen to all the same things. 30 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:43,000 Sometimes we do because there's a big release from a band that we're both interested in. 31 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:48,000 But I try to listen to stuff that he's not listening to and vice versa. 32 00:02:48,000 --> 00:03:04,000 And I think that we do cover a lot of things when putting these episodes together or when putting my list together, I do give preference to PR firms and labels that send me stuff. 33 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:15,000 Then I go searching on other sites and checking out what releases they have, see if there's anything that I don't have and try to do my best to cover all grounds. 34 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:21,000 With this episode, I do post the entire list of of releases. 35 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:23,000 Obviously, there's more out there. 36 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:30,000 There are other sites that I check up on and they have sometimes 40 to 50 releases more. 37 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:32,000 I do the best that I can. 38 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 And I think what's best for my audience. 39 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:46,000 And if you've got a band or a label or PR and you want me to list your your music, drop me a line. 40 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,000 Signals from Mars at signals from Mars dot com. 41 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:59,000 You can also go to signals from Mars dot com to check out everywhere where we're posting on social media, where the show is available to subscribe. 42 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:04,000 If you're into podcasting 2.0, sign up on some of those services as well. 43 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,000 You could also check out the video version of these shows. 44 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:15,000 All that great stuff is is available to you. 45 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:16,000 What else? 46 00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:32,000 We also have merch up there on the website where if you want to help us out by giving us a donation or picking up merch or signing up for the Patreon, you can do any of those three things. 47 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,000 There's also a buy me a coffee, which I've renamed as buy me a pizza. 48 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:46,000 You can also pick up stuff on Amazon and we got a kickback for I say we I get a kickback because I'm an Amazon associate. 49 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:54,000 And if there's a sale that is associated where I can get a kickback, then I do get a kickback. 50 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:56,000 I just want to mention that they don't kick me off of there. 51 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:15,000 Anyway, let's get on with the episode. 52 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:19,000 Welcome, everyone, to another episode of signals from Mars. 53 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:20,000 I'm your host, Victor. 54 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:27,000 And joining me as usual over here is Mr. Jeremy Weltman. 55 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:30,000 How are you, Jeremy? 56 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:31,000 Yeah, doing good. 57 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,000 Really good. 58 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:40,000 I shouldn't really be saying Spain beat England in the euros, but I am going to speak to you because we obviously meet over music. 59 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:44,000 And so let's let's discuss all the great music instead of the football. 60 00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:46,000 We'll forget about that. 61 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,000 That's absolutely it. 62 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:53,000 That's that's the cool thing about this show that we do with signals from Mars. 63 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,000 We come from different parts of the world. 64 00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:01,000 We could have differences with other things like on the football pitch when it comes to talking music. 65 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:03,000 It is a brotherhood here. 66 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:09,000 I love talking about music with you and with other people that we have on the show. 67 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:11,000 And today is no different. 68 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:18,000 We're going to talk about music that came out in June of twenty twenty four. 69 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:27,000 And shortly thereafter, you and I also have to record the best of the year or what we've enjoyed the most out of the first half of the year. 70 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,000 But before we do that, let's get away. 71 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:36,000 Let's put away the last month out of the first half of the year here. 72 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:43,000 A lot of sites in June are already posting their best of the first half and not everything is out yet. 73 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:48,000 So so this is the last month to break things up. 74 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,000 We're at the equator of the year. 75 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:58,000 This is to help all of you lazy listeners that say that there's no good music out there. 76 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,000 Well, you just have to search it out. 77 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:09,000 And Jeremy and myself have done a I think a bang up job this month of kind of sorting things out and picking different things. 78 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:19,000 I think we've overlapped on one thing this month, which is the Anvil album, which is later on this month. 79 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:27,000 But outside of that, we purposely listen to a bunch of different things. 80 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:37,000 So let's start things off with June 7th, which had new albums from Bon Jovi on the other end of the spectrum. 81 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:47,000 We have Vomit the Soul, Holy Mother, Entranced, which I'm just realizing that I actually listed that. 82 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:55,000 Evergrey, Grand Slam, Apocalyptica, Enter Chikari, ESA, Nightmare. 83 00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,000 Actually, Nightmare is from last month. 84 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,000 So wherever I pull this information from is incorrect. 85 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:08,000 And the reason I know this is that I went to listen to it and the date within Apple Music was May. 86 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:11,000 So that's a mistake on my end. 87 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:15,000 Anyway. Wow. 88 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,000 First one that I'm going to trip over. 89 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:30,000 That's a mystery. Rarity, Grand Demise of Civilization, Devil Moon Risen and Holocide. 90 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:35,000 We had reissues from Carnivore, from Ashes to New and Chris Rhea. 91 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:45,000 Live albums from The Who, that is the Mongolian band, HU not the English band, WHO. 92 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:48,000 And a live album, Live in 82 from Loverboy. 93 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:50,000 I posted some videos off of that. 94 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:52,000 The footage looks great. 95 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:56,000 I mean, that's stuff that MTV used to play all the time back in the day. 96 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,000 So it's kind of cool that they've released that now or remastered it. 97 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:09,000 You know, I'm not that big of a Loverboy fan to know if it's one or the other, but it is out now anyway. 98 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:19,000 Jeremy, before going any further, what's some of the music that you listened to that came out this month and what are some of the things that stood out to you? 99 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:26,000 Yeah, so obviously I was the guy who listened to the new album from Bon Jovi called Forever because I kind of guessed that you wouldn't be. 100 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:29,000 Their 16th studio album. Can you believe that? 101 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:34,000 To be honest, I kind of pretty much gave up on the band Beyond Have a Nice Day, which I kind of liked. 102 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:36,000 I thought that was a pretty good album in its day. 103 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:40,000 So obviously my expectations were very low. 104 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:43,000 But what you have is, you know, it's soft rock. 105 00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,000 You can play in a care home. 106 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,000 It does have some moments. 107 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 Living proof. I liked. I liked the People's House. 108 00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:56,000 Very sort of typical Bon Jovi melodies of old, which I enjoyed. 109 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:01,000 There's also a song called Kiss the Bride, which will make Bon Jovi a fortune. 110 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:03,000 Every wedding is going to now play it. 111 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:06,000 It's one of those songs that's, you know, every bride's going to walk down to. 112 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:09,000 So, you know, you can't knock him for that. 113 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:10,000 That's all I've got to say about it. 114 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:16,000 You know, I don't want to knock Bon Jovi too much because they were a sort of part of my youth. 115 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:19,000 And, you know, they brought out some big, big hits. 116 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:23,000 But, you know, they're not a band that I'm going to play again and again. 117 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:27,000 So I'll quickly move on to the L.A. band Entranced. 118 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:32,000 There's an album called Muerte y Metal, which I believe, Victor, you're going to put me right on. 119 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,000 I think it says Death and Metal in Spanish. 120 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:36,000 Correct. 121 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,000 There we go. 122 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,000 And in fact, there's a mix of Spanish and English on the tracks too. 123 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:46,000 You know, really nice sort of New Obum style with a very modern touch. 124 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:51,000 The track Fantasy reminded me a lot of the Joe Stump sort of Alcatraz sound. 125 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:53,000 Really enjoyed that one. 126 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:56,000 There were quite a few other songs as well I enjoyed on this. 127 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:02,000 I don't know, Nothing sounds sort of very early Def Leppard in parts a bit. 128 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,000 And, you know, they put their own spin on things as well. 129 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:09,000 The vocalist has a good voice as well that fits quite well with this kind of music. 130 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:12,000 And I thought the mix and production is quite right as well. 131 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:15,000 So, you know, thumbs up to that one. 132 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:20,000 I then had a listen to Rise by Holy Mother, which is a New York based outfit. 133 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:25,000 Very traditional metal sound formed in the 1990s. 134 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:29,000 I think they've now released about seven albums and surprising, 135 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:31,000 I don't believe I've heard very much by them. 136 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:33,000 You know, they sort of passed me by a little bit. 137 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,000 But the Opener Fire, I liked, I very liked Fire Wind. 138 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,000 But there's some tougher songs on there like Jeremiah, 139 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:44,000 which is, you know, possibly the best song Dio's never written. 140 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:49,000 So, you know, if you like a bit of Dio, you're going to like some of this album. 141 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,000 It's not all amazing sort of catchy songwriting, but it doesn't have to be, you know, 142 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:58,000 it's for the most part, it's kind of Dio back to life. 143 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:02,000 Listen to Rise and tell me that isn't Dio. 144 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:07,000 You know, it really does sound like him on that particular track. 145 00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:11,000 But, you know, it's I'd say it's a lot better than the last In Line album. 146 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,000 So, you know, it's worthy of your time. 147 00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:17,000 I moved on to Grand Slam. 148 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:21,000 Grand Slam are back, you know, great British sort of rock sounds from them. 149 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:27,000 We've heard a lot of British stuff recently from Demon, Lionheart, Praying Mantis. 150 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 You know, we'll be talking about that in the sort of half yearly review. 151 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:34,000 And this is their second proper studio album. 152 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,000 It's called Wheel of Fortune. 153 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:39,000 Originally a Phil Lyonet project, as you know, 154 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:43,000 and although John Sykes is nowhere to be seen on this kind of thing, 155 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:48,000 the band continues with the original guitarist Lawrence Archer. 156 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:52,000 And by the way, Phil Lyonet's father-in-law is Leslie Crowther. 157 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:58,000 Now, he was the host of a UK TV show called, guess what it might be called? 158 00:12:58,000 --> 00:12:59,000 Wheel of Fortune. 159 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:05,000 So they seem to have named the album after that or I don't know if it had any bearing at all. 160 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,000 But anyway, it might have been in the back of their minds. 161 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:11,000 There's also some welcome sort of Thin Lizzy style songs here. 162 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:15,000 The opener, There Goes My Heart, Trail of Tears. 163 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:16,000 There's a lot of variety too. 164 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,000 There's solid riffs, melodies throughout. 165 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:22,000 They've got a great vocalist as well, Mike Dyer. 166 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:24,000 He was once in a band called Tokyo. 167 00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:29,000 And he also starred in some London West End productions and theatre productions. 168 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,000 So, you know, all of this makes it a rather decent listen in my book. 169 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:37,000 And although I could have picked Holy Mother or even Entranced, 170 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:40,000 this one is my album of the week. 171 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:41,000 OK. 172 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:48,000 So we've actually overlapped on two this month because I realized that with everything going on, 173 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:55,000 I didn't check off some of the albums that I listened to in June. 174 00:13:55,000 --> 00:14:03,000 But I did listen to the Enter Shikari First, band that I've seen live, band that I've enjoyed. 175 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:06,000 The album is Dancing on the Front Line. 176 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:10,000 To be honest, this is a remix album that I realized once I started listening to it. 177 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:18,000 So it's a bunch of different tracks made into danceable tracks, basically. 178 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:31,000 Devil Moon Risen is an album that has a mixture of thrash and some old fashioned heavy metal. 179 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:37,000 It's self-produced or it's self-released and it seems to be self-produced as well. 180 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:42,000 It's funny, I always think about Mike Jones talking about, he often says, 181 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:46,000 awesome, garage metal or stuff like that. 182 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,000 And it's totally what it is. It is low budget. 183 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,000 It is cool for what it is. 184 00:14:52,000 --> 00:15:01,000 I also got to listen to the Evergrey album, Theories of Emptiness. 185 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:08,000 Look, if you're a fan of Evergrey, they're not doing anything you're not accustomed to before. 186 00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,000 It's got a few really cool tracks. 187 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:18,000 It goes a bit too ballad deep for me personally, but it's not a bad album. 188 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:28,000 My pick for the week is Muerte y Metal from Entranced and for a few reasons. 189 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:32,000 Not only is it everything that Jeremy mentioned, but I'm going to be honest with you, 190 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:37,000 I'm kind of biased because I did get to interview James Paul Luna back in the day. 191 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:43,000 Not only is he the lead singer of this band, but he was the original lead singer of White Wizard 192 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:47,000 and then moved on to be in Holy Grail for several years. 193 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:53,000 Last Holy Grail release was eight years ago, which is Times of Pride and Peril. 194 00:15:53,000 --> 00:16:02,000 I've always enjoyed pretty much everything that White Wizard Family Tree has released. 195 00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:10,000 I enjoy his vocals on High Speed GTO and there's a lot of stuff from over the years with Holy Grail that I enjoy. 196 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:14,000 And this is just a continuation, similar to what I said about Evergrey. 197 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:19,000 If you're used to his vocals and what he's done in the past, this is a continuation. 198 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:28,000 I really enjoy the added facet of him singing in Spanish on this, which is kind of cool for me anyway. 199 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:32,000 So that is my pick of the week. 200 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:38,000 Cool. So let's move on to the 14th of June. 201 00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:44,000 We had new releases from Fu Manchu, 96 Bitter Beings, 202 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:53,000 Un-Communion, On Lap, Embryotic, Autopsy, Jesus, I don't know why I got stuck on that. 203 00:16:53,000 --> 00:17:04,000 Sulo, Rivethead, New Horizon, Zanaris, Axl Rudy Pell, Malignancy, 204 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:19,000 Mythologic, okay, brain farting there. Camerata, Medio Lanace. 205 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:29,000 That seems like Latin to me. If I say it in Spanish, it's Camerata Medio Lanace. 206 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:34,000 Okay, probably closer to how it's pronounced. 207 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:41,000 Perchsta is another release, almost a clothes hanger in Spanish. 208 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:52,000 EPs from Legionary and Drought and reissues from Devin Townsend with Terraria. 209 00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,000 Jeremy, what did you listen to this month? 210 00:17:55,000 --> 00:18:00,000 Yeah, so I delved into the fifth album by the reformed Black Country Communion. 211 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:04,000 It's obviously called V or Five. 212 00:18:04,000 --> 00:18:08,000 Generally speaking, I think, and I think you'd agree with me here, Victor, 213 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:15,000 they've been a bit of a disappointing band in the past, given the sort of musicians involved and the expertise that they have. 214 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,000 This particular album, I feel, is a bit better. 215 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:27,000 I'm not overly into it, but it has a groove that I think is reminiscent of the California Breed project that Glenn Hughes put together. 216 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:32,000 And I think it's a bit more of a coherent album, even if it's more blues soul based. 217 00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:35,000 So I think that it's got that going for it. 218 00:18:35,000 --> 00:18:39,000 Hughes, obviously, is in his 70s now, but his voice is very strong. 219 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:45,000 And so that's a plus. It lacks the great solos again, though. 220 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:50,000 And that's that's a problem. But I did like the production on this in comparison with some of the past albums. 221 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,000 So it wasn't a complete no, no. 222 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:56,000 And, you know, if you like that sort of music, you're going to you're going to quite enjoy it. 223 00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,000 You know, put it put it on in the car. Why not? 224 00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:05,000 Next up, I tried Conquerors by New Horizon, which is on the Frontiers label. 225 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,000 I thought I'd actually hate this for some reason. I don't know why. 226 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:13,000 But there's a lot of I mean, there's a lot of Halloween style speed metal. 227 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:15,000 There's an abundance of keyboards. 228 00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:19,000 There's some well worn sort of Egyptian Roman type themes. 229 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:24,000 And it's not all good for sure. But of course, it's a Swedish act. 230 00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,000 And that means you're going to get great soaring vocals. 231 00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:32,000 And to be honest, you can also get some terrific solos on songs like Daimyo. 232 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,000 One of them that means I think it's Daimyo or Daimyo, 233 00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:41,000 the kind of sort of a very powerful Europe song with touches of maiden thrown in. 234 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,000 So but talking of Maiden, the album rounds out with a song 235 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,000 which you may be familiar with called Alexander the Great. 236 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:54,000 And yes, it is a cover of the Alexander the Great song, all eight minutes, 44 seconds of it. 237 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,000 A bold move, I must say. 238 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,000 But that aside, it's all, you know, quite an epic album. 239 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:03,000 And while it may be, you know, quite generic, 240 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:08,000 and I do fear that you probably hate it, Victor, others won't. 241 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:14,000 But I'm putting it out there to people who would like to listen to a little bit of sort of maiden epic stuff. 242 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:17,000 And they might enjoy that one. 243 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:21,000 I then had a listen to the latest album by Axel Rudy Pell. 244 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,000 It's called Written Symbol. It was OK. 245 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,000 I'm not raving about it, if I'm honest. 246 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:31,000 There's a version of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant song that really fails to match the original. 247 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:37,000 Sadly, a lot of the album lacks songwriting ability and inspiration, if I'm honest. 248 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:42,000 And maybe it's one that needs a few listens, but it's certainly not my album of the week. 249 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:47,000 And I guess, you know, if I'm going to pick one, it's probably going to be Black Country Communion overall, 250 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:51,000 just because, you know, I like sort of bluesy, souly sort of music. 251 00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:57,000 And it was quite listenable, but it was a bit of a weak, weak, weak, weak. 252 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:01,000 Yeah, I think 253 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:07,000 the month, although it had some good stuff, I think overall in comparison to other months, 254 00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:12,000 was probably weaker than May and April, for example. 255 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:20,000 So in any event, I listened to 96 Bitter Beings, Return to Hellview, 256 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:27,000 which is essentially, if you're not aware of the 96 Bitter Beings and CKY 257 00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:34,000 split off or rivalry or whatever you can want to call it, 258 00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:43,000 the original vocalist and guitarist of CKY is the person in charge of 96 Bitter Beings. 259 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:48,000 And this is a bunch of re-recorded CKY tracks. 260 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:54,000 So although it is cool, 261 00:21:54,000 --> 00:22:01,000 we kind of fall into that re-recorded territory that we've discussed in the past. 262 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:05,000 From there, I listened to Onlaps Waves. 263 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:10,000 I was surprised because this is off of AFM Records, 264 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:17,000 which usually puts out heavier stuff or stuff that's in the vein of New Wave of British Heavy Metal 265 00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:24,000 or even more modern stuff. And this is kind of generic, to be honest. 266 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:29,000 It was kind of a radio rock friendly, which kind of caught me off guard. 267 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:33,000 I listed the entire thing. 268 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:39,000 It made me think for as much as people crap on bands like Nickelback and Creed, 269 00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,000 there's people that are still trying to imitate them. 270 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:48,000 So from there, I listened to Rivethead's Absence of Time. 271 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000 It's self-released. 272 00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:56,000 It definitely once again has a self-release production and sound. 273 00:22:56,000 --> 00:23:06,000 Isn't a bad album. I've posted some videos on Patreon and some people have said some nice things about it. 274 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:11,000 But I'm going to have to go with Fu Manchu and The Return of Tomorrow. 275 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:15,000 I've been a fan of this band for some time now. 276 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,000 By no means is this their best album. 277 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:25,000 For me, California Crossings is probably my favorite album of theirs. 278 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:36,000 But like every Fu Manchu album, it's got a few really cool rocking stoner rock songs, some great riffs. 279 00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:52,000 Definitely something that I recommend checking out. It always has some cool melodies and stuff that I think just makes you want to get in a car and drive on a sunny day and drive with the coast in the background somewhere. 280 00:23:52,000 --> 00:24:01,000 So yeah, for me, it would be again, The Return of Tomorrow from Fu Manchu. 281 00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:12,000 From here, we probably move on to what I would consider the strongest week of the month just due to what was released. 282 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:35,000 So on the 21st, there was new albums from Wage War, Kitty, Cavalera, Canites, I guess how it's pronounced, Earth Tone 9, Seven Spires, Portrait, 283 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:45,000 Cain, Cavaen, K-V-A-E-N. 284 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:51,000 But is this one of these bands that the V is actually a U? 285 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,000 Cavaen? 286 00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:09,000 Rendezvous Point, Assimilator, that sounds like a good 80s thrash band, but they're on Horror, Pain, Gore, Death Productions. So I would have to think they're a death metal band, but Assimilator. 287 00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:24,000 Codex Mortis, Thornhill, Alcest, Greenleaf, and Hyperdon'tia? 288 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:29,000 Anyway, Jeremy, what did you listen to? 289 00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:34,000 At the end of the year, we need to have a top 10 of band names as well. 290 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,000 Band names that you can't pronounce. 291 00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,000 Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, that'd be great. 292 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:49,000 So I started out the week listing to In Resonance Nexus by Earth Tone 9. This is an alternative metal band from Nottingham here in the UK, which is in New Zealand, if you don't know. 293 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:54,000 They've been, they've continued since reforming in 2010, apparently. 294 00:25:54,000 --> 00:26:06,000 It's not my favourite style of metal, to be honest, but there were some bright spots with this. The melodic overtones of Under the Snake and the album Closer Strength is My Weakness, which I enjoyed. 295 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:15,000 There are clearly a lot of influences here as well, but they're a very talented bunch and I can see why they might appeal to their, you know, their fan base. 296 00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:23,000 I moved on to A Fortress Called Home by Seven Spires. This is this symphonic metal band from Boston. 297 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,000 This was pretty awful. 298 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:35,000 Symphonic metal is not my bag for sure. You know, I do like a little bit of now and again, but the clean vocals, I suppose, were fine, but there was also the inevitable shouting in parts. 299 00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:43,000 It wasn't all bad. There were some decent guitar pieces for one thing and for another after 12 songs, it did finally come to an end. 300 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:53,000 So next up was the metal sounds of the Swedish band Portrait, which has been releasing music now for 18 years. I didn't realise that. 301 00:26:53,000 --> 00:27:06,000 Their fifth album, The Host, is actually very much to my taste. I really like this. It's dark and brooding. It's also fast paced, thrashy metal topped off with some very decent almost Bruce Dickinson style vocals and fine melodies, 302 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:14,000 defining the sort of more black metal song titles and the what you can describe as a ludicrous amateurish album cover. 303 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:23,000 But put that aside, it's, you know, it's also probably a little long, perhaps. There's 14 songs, there's one hour and 14 minutes of music. 304 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:33,000 They could have just picked out the best tunes, but if you're seeking out a grittier, sort of more metal version of Iron Maiden, then this might just be for you. 305 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,000 And for that reason, it's my album of the week. 306 00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:51,000 Excellent. I'm just realising that I did not mention EP's released this week from Gasket, Black Veil Brides and live albums from Thornhill and Merillion. 307 00:27:51,000 --> 00:28:11,000 OK, so I listened to new albums from Wage War, which is Sigma, Kitties Return with the album Fire and Greenleaf with The Head and The Habit off of Magnetic Eye Records. 308 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:27,000 The Wage War album, I will say, was interesting to me because Wage War is a band that there are tracks of theirs that I really enjoy and others that I really don't care about. 309 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:37,000 And the one single that I kind of enjoyed off of this, it was kind of more melodic and more poppy than what I had expected. 310 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:51,000 It's called Magnetic and I don't remember if I ended up posting it on Patreon or not, because there are videos that I check out and I'm like, yeah, this really isn't going to go over well or it's too poppy or it's too this or it's too that. 311 00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:55,000 And then there are other weeks where I really have nothing else to choose from. 312 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:59,000 And I say, hell with it, I'm going to post it. 313 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:04,000 So I don't remember if I posted this one or not. 314 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,000 The album is OK. 315 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000 Nothing extraordinary, but kind of just wasn't my thing. 316 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:17,000 I do enjoy that song, though. I do enjoy a catchy melody. 317 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:25,000 This week is kind of hard for me because Greenleaf, which I expected to be kind of more on the stonery side. 318 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,000 And the album is The Head and The Habit. 319 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:38,000 Really surprised me. I really enjoyed this because it was kind of a it was had elements of of doom metal. 320 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000 So elements of like sabbathy type stuff. 321 00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:46,000 But at the same time, there were elements of more. 322 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:51,000 60s influenced Hard Rock, 70s influenced Hard Rock. 323 00:29:51,000 --> 00:30:01,000 So there were some things that you could qualify as being more like zeppelin or more like cream or more like. 324 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:09,000 Other things that had come out in that era, early deep purple, maybe without the keyboards. 325 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:14,000 So it was it was really an interesting listen. 326 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:20,000 It's an album that I'm going to check out a little bit further to pick songs out for my 2024 playlist. 327 00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:27,000 There are a few songs that that I did already throw in there, but. 328 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:31,000 There's more on there. It's just that. 329 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:35,000 One of these things where I got to listen to a lot of this album while in the car, 330 00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:41,000 so I didn't really get to pick songs out as much as I would have wanted to. 331 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,000 So I'm going to go back and check that out. 332 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:50,000 My album of the week is Fire by Kitty. 333 00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:59,000 And I think I've posted five or six tracks that they've released videos for. 334 00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:06,000 I've interviewed every single member of the of this lineup of the band. 335 00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:13,000 I got to see them live at the old BB Kings in New York, where I got to interview Tara and Ivy, 336 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:22,000 the guitarist and bassist. And I've been able to interview the. 337 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:27,000 Damn it. I was I was about to say. 338 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,000 The wrong last name, so. 339 00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,000 Before I do, I'm going to look up the last name. 340 00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:43,000 I'm sorry, my close to 51 year old brain is. It's having a brain fart right now. 341 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:50,000 I know that is Mercedes and Morgan are the two sisters. 342 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,000 That could happen in your 50s. Your brain just goes. 343 00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:59,000 Yeah, it is. Come on, Lander. 344 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:05,000 See, I knew it was I thought it was I was going to say Morgan. 345 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:10,000 Morgan Lander, but I was scared to say. 346 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,000 The guitarist that I had interviewed who was in Machine Head, it's a very similar name anyway. 347 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:22,000 Morgan Lander, Mercedes Lander, Tara McLeod and Ivy Jenkins are the components of of the band. 348 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:29,000 I've always enjoyed the band. And what I like about this album is that they've mixed things up a lot. 349 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,000 There's there's been a long break between albums. 350 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,000 And I think that that's really helped them. 351 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:43,000 I think that they're a band that being away has helped them quite a bit. 352 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:48,000 And 2011 was the last album that they released. 353 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:56,000 I'm not saying that they should take what, nine, 13 years to release an album every time. 354 00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:02,000 But maybe a five year break here and there would would help them. 355 00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:13,000 They've also made it public that they've been in other bands and worked in other avenues like real estate while the band has been away. 356 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:20,000 And that's probably helped them quite a bit only from a financial standpoint, but from a. 357 00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,000 A way of them getting the creative juices flowing. 358 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:34,000 So for me, the kiddies fire is the pick for that week for the 21st of the final week in June. 359 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,000 Saw new albums from Anvil, my epic crystal viper. 360 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:48,000 Nothing more. So buyer ill disposed ex cops sun bomb. 361 00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:59,000 The era, I guess, 200 stab wounds, EPS from the X's and El Nino. 362 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:09,000 This is a short week because the Fourth of July holiday was was fairly close to this. 363 00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:13,000 And it makes it so that bands don't release music. 364 00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:20,000 There's a lot of people have their minds on barbecues and other things, especially in the U.S. 365 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,000 Jeremy, what do you listen to from this week? 366 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:28,000 Yeah, so not as much on this week for the reasons you just pointed out. 367 00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:38,000 I mean, the final final week sort of really began with a fairly sour note for me because I listened to the very uninspiring sun bomb album light up the sky. 368 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,000 Now, I know many of your patrons, Victor, don't like Michael Sweet. 369 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,000 And on this album, I have to agree. 370 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:53,000 But here the songs are poor and I feel he's much better suited singing to George Lynch songs because I've got the, you know, the album that he did with Lynch. 371 00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,000 And I quite like that. 372 00:34:55,000 --> 00:35:00,000 Some of these songs have a bit of a Sabbath edge to them, you know, the riffing. 373 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:05,000 And they could have been improved probably with some remixing and a different singer for sure. 374 00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,000 But for me, it wasn't really an enjoyable album. 375 00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:11,000 I listened to it, tried to listen to it a couple of times and I just couldn't get into it. 376 00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,000 And when you can't get into an album, you can't get into it. 377 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:24,000 But, you know, if the listeners are out there and they just fancy dipping into it and prove me wrong, then do so because, you know, everybody should listen to albums and listen to themselves. 378 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,000 You know, and maybe there's some people out there that may want to buy it. 379 00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:33,000 So, you know, go out and buy it because, you know, you should support music either way. 380 00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,000 My week improved, though, with a dose of Anvil. 381 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:41,000 The songs were a lot more upbeat and hey, we know that they aren't the best band in the world. 382 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,000 We know that. Everybody knows that. 383 00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,000 I think Anvil know that. 384 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:51,000 But they've made a success and we'll talk about success in a minute, I'm sure, of being a tongue in the cheek metal band, 385 00:35:51,000 --> 00:36:00,000 something we make on to explore a little bit later, as I said, in light of your excellent interview with Lips, which is on Blabbermouth. 386 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:05,000 They've mentioned it and you've put it up on Signals from Mars. 387 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,000 No surprises here, of course. It's melodic metal. 388 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,000 You can just turn up and sing along to. 389 00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:13,000 It's got that unmistakable vocal. 390 00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:17,000 Sure, no Anvil album is ever an eight or nine out of ten. 391 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:24,000 But as we've said before, there's always a place for that sort of warm comfort blanket of the greatest pub band ever. 392 00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:25,000 That's all they are. 393 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:31,000 They're a good pub band and we'd all go out and watch them if they came to, you know, locally to us. 394 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,000 And why not? We need that sort of band around. 395 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,000 They've got the enthusiasm. 396 00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:42,000 So for that reason alone, it's my album of the week, as it was when they released the last album. 397 00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,000 I don't know when it was, maybe last year or the year before. 398 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:55,000 Excellent. Yeah. So I got to listen to Nothing More's Carnal, which is an OK album, very radio friendly. 399 00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:04,000 But outside of that, my pick of the week coincides with you, Anvil, one and only. 400 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,000 Listen, I've said this a lot of times on the show. 401 00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:17,000 I always harken back to an album review that I did of a Rob Zombie album, which I just found fun and entertaining. 402 00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:20,000 And that's how I feel about this Anvil album. 403 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,000 It doesn't need to have five million notes. 404 00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:36,000 It doesn't need to have a perfect guitar solo that's perfectly mapped out with a metronome and exotic time signatures and stuff like that. 405 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:39,000 No, Anvil is what they are. 406 00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:42,000 And sometimes, like you said, you just need comfort food. 407 00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:50,000 Sometimes you just need comfort music, just something that entertains you and helps you through the day. 408 00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:56,000 So for those reasons, Anvil is my pick for this week as well. 409 00:37:56,000 --> 00:38:01,000 So real quickly here, let's recap our picks of the week. 410 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:06,000 So on the seventh, you picked Grand Slam Wheel of Fortune. 411 00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:11,000 I picked entranced Muerte y Metal. 412 00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:17,000 For the 14th, you picked the Black Country Communion with Five or V. 413 00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:22,000 I picked Fu Manchu, The Return of Tomorrow. 414 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,000 On the 21st, you picked Portrait the Host. 415 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,000 I picked Kitty Fire. 416 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,000 I would also encourage you to check out that Greenleaf album. 417 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:35,000 I do think it is really good as well. 418 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:41,000 And on the 28th, we both picked Anvil, one and only. 419 00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:44,000 So awesome. You guys have some homework to do. 420 00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:48,000 You don't have to agree with all of our picks, but giving you music a shot. 421 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:57,000 Listen to some of these and let us know if you think that you've stumbled upon something new or we've helped you stumble upon something new or if you think that we're out of our minds. 422 00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,000 Either way works for us. 423 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,000 Jeremy, you did want to talk about some other subjects? 424 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:13,000 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just wanted to pick up on the Lips interview that you did, really, because I thought it was a good one. 425 00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:18,000 It was a great interview and Lips talked forever. 426 00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,000 Passionately, I thought as well about subjects that really mattered. 427 00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:29,000 There were three major takeaways I took from that interview and I hope you sort of thought the same as well. 428 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:32,000 One, he talked about success, which we'll talk about in a sec. 429 00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:36,000 The other one was the importance of producers for albums. 430 00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,000 He mentioned that quite a bit. 431 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:46,000 And the other one was about bands making money or having to even pay venues to play, which we've touched upon in the past as well. 432 00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,000 So maybe we can just sort of discuss those sort of three issues, really. 433 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:58,000 I mean, success. He sort of went on about how to him it was successful, you know, that he's making these albums. 434 00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:04,000 It doesn't matter that they're not the biggest band. They don't have to be Metallica. They don't have to be Megadeth. 435 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:09,000 He was mentioning that most bands don't become the biggest bands in the world. 436 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:14,000 And when you think about it, we talk about all these bands that we listen to from week to week. 437 00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,000 Many of those bands are small bands, aren't they? They're not household names. 438 00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:26,000 You know, we've just mentioned quite a few there that I have to sometimes look up to find out who they are and what they've done before, 439 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,000 because you don't always listen to them or you've forgotten who they are. 440 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:36,000 And they're just small bands bashing away, but coming up creatively with some great music. 441 00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:39,000 So I thought that was a really interesting point that he made. 442 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:45,000 And it's great that he enjoys the fact that he thinks that he has made a success of it, 443 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:52,000 because I think when you listen, when you watch the film before they got to the film stage, 444 00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,000 they were obviously struggling a hell of a lot. 445 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,000 And I think things have changed a little bit for them since then. 446 00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:04,000 You know, they get they get more tours, I presume, and a little bit more airplay and that sort of thing. 447 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,000 But, you know, we know Anvil, don't we? 448 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:14,000 We know Anvil as much as we know Metallica, but Anvil are not in the same league as Metallica. 449 00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:20,000 And yet we know about them and we talk about them as one of the metal bands, you know, 450 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,000 of the many that we talk about. 451 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,000 And so in that respect, yeah, he's right. 452 00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,000 They're a success. And so are all these other small bands. 453 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:34,000 If they produce great music, that's all they have to do to be successful. 454 00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,000 Yeah. A few things there. 455 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:42,000 And I'm going to give a quick shout out to the basketball camp where I've been working at, 456 00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,000 only because it ties in with basketball. 457 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:52,000 The notion of success. 458 00:41:52,000 --> 00:42:01,000 As a coach, wins and losses aren't necessarily what drives me to consider what a success is. 459 00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:13,000 As somebody that's coaching preteen girls, teen boys, 460 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:23,000 the evolution of them as players and people is more important than wins and losses. 461 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:33,000 To me, there's a lot of valid things in sports or a lot of values that can be applied to other points in life. 462 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:40,000 Because let's be honest, there's more losses than wins in everyday life. 463 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,000 And that's, I think, what kind of Lips was getting at. 464 00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:51,000 Being a Metallica on paper. 465 00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:58,000 Okay, you've got all that money, but you're kind of living in an alternate reality as well. 466 00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,000 I always think back at this interview that Jim Brewer did with them. 467 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:10,000 And he was asking them what the price of an egg carton is of a dozen eggs, what the price of this was, what the price of that was. 468 00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:20,000 And they had no clue because they've got people working for them that do all this stuff for them. 469 00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:28,000 I remember interviewing the guitarist from the band The Sword. 470 00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:36,000 And let me bring up the name real quickly here. 471 00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:47,000 Again, this is always one of the most interesting parts of the show is me Googling things. 472 00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000 I got to speak to Kyle Schutt, if I'm not mistaken. 473 00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:56,000 Yeah. And one of the things. Yeah, it's him. 474 00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:07,000 So one of the things that he said was how they could have done the entire Death Magnetic Tour, but they just ran out of gas. 475 00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:18,000 It wasn't that they had to pay for the tour or whatever because they were making enough money. Metallica was giving them plenty of money to be on that tour. 476 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:23,000 But just the daily grind of getting in a van. 477 00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:33,000 Sure, their equipment was being taken on a truck the next place, but they were on vans, buses, planes. 478 00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:39,000 And he flat out said to me, listen, Metallica gets on their private jet after a show. 479 00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:46,000 They're flown to the best hotel in the next area where we're playing. 480 00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,000 So it's completely different to them. 481 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:56,000 And he said, you know, we're still in some sort of transport for six to eight hours. 482 00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:03,000 The show's done and we don't get to see Metallica. We have to get on the bus. 483 00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,000 We have to drive to the next city. 484 00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:10,000 And it's six to eight hours of road and traffic and this and that. 485 00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,000 And it's hard. It's wear and tear. 486 00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:18,000 And I know that a lot of people will say, oh, you know, go work in a coal mine. 487 00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:21,000 You know, that's that's real work. Correct. 488 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:27,000 I'm not going to I'm not going to take away from the person that says that you're playing rock star. 489 00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:32,000 You're being able to travel around and play your music. 490 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:39,000 But there's a difference between traveling around and playing your music and actually being able to survive. 491 00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:44,000 And I think that's what Lips is more or less is talking about. 492 00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:50,000 Listen, we don't need to be as big as Metallica so long as we can pay our rent, pay for our car. 493 00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:54,000 Pay to put food on the table. We're good. 494 00:45:54,000 --> 00:46:05,000 And he said, you know, we're at that level where we make a comfortable living, where we don't have to have outside jobs to do what we do. 495 00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:10,000 I'm glad that the interview with him was was for the most part upbeat 496 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:18,000 because I've read some of the other interviews I've listed them and it seemed like he was kind of down with some of them. 497 00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:21,000 So I was very appreciative of that. 498 00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:34,000 It was it was hard for me if you listen, if you watch the video and then go and listen to the audio version, I cleaned a lot of my audio up because he talked a lot. 499 00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:41,000 And there were times where I tried to interject and it wasn't possible because he kept talking. 500 00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:51,000 So I'm going to make my sound good. So that's why I took myself out of a lot of the audio interview. 501 00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:59,000 Yeah, he certainly talked passionately and that was great because he obviously really wanted to be there and talk about it and get it out there. 502 00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,000 And yeah, and I think you're right with the success sort of thing. 503 00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,000 That was an important point that you made. 504 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:15,000 There's a point that he labored on as well. And so you've made you sort of think that you needed to consider it and it's full, full detail, really. 505 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:24,000 Yeah, absolutely. And again, I think success is relative to who you are. 506 00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:32,000 But what's he saying about the fact that he thought is that you're a success if you if you create your own music and put it out there, that's a success. 507 00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:38,000 That's what he's trying to say. It's not successful in terms of he wasn't bothered about how many people buy it. 508 00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:45,000 He was talking about, you know, you create something, you put it on record and you and it goes out there. 509 00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:51,000 That's that's you've made a success of what you've done because you've you've actually produced it. 510 00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:58,000 Right. And and listen, this can be in any sector of life. 511 00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:04,000 Again, I mentioned my standpoint from basketball. 512 00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:10,000 Is someone in business successful or from any economic standpoint? 513 00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:19,000 If they don't have a penthouse, if they don't drive an expensive car or success for them, 514 00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:26,000 is it just putting food on a table and making sure that their kids can get through university? 515 00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,000 You know, there's different levels of success. 516 00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:37,000 And sometimes because my level of success is one thing doesn't mean that your level of success needs to be the same again. 517 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:46,000 His was, as we're saying, being able to make a living and being able to put out 20 albums, being able to record off of 20 albums. 518 00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:53,000 Let's say he put out 10 songs per album. Well, that means he's released 200 songs. 519 00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:58,000 You know, he talked about writing a thousand songs. 520 00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,000 He very may well have done that. 521 00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:09,000 And, you know, I've read some of the comments on Facebook and people say, oh, you know, well, he's put out all those albums, but. 522 00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:13,000 You know, his music isn't any good. Similar to what he said during the interview. 523 00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:19,000 OK, you get a record deal and you do it. See, see what you can do. 524 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:30,000 So I found that part fascinating and again, something that can be applied to other parts of life. 525 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:34,000 So, yeah, you mentioned two other points. 526 00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:42,000 Yeah, I mean, that really leads us into the importance of producers, because you're mentioning about, you know, he's released these albums and some people don't think they're any good. 527 00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:47,000 I think they're really well produced, particularly the later albums and the more recent ones. 528 00:49:47,000 --> 00:50:01,000 He was mentioning about he likes working with the same producer in Germany because he knows that that producer gets what he's doing, you know, and tells him what needs doing and gets the right sound out of the band. 529 00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:09,000 And I think that's true because each band needs a different producer to get the right sound out of the band, don't they? 530 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:18,000 We've heard many albums in the past that are so good, but we've also heard some that, you know, really shouldn't have had that producer working on them. 531 00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:36,000 And, you know, that's an important part of the music, music process is having the producer, because without it, you know, you can try and be a success and bring out all these great songs that you've got, but they need to sound great. 532 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:41,000 And it's even more important nowadays because, you know, we listen to stuff digitally. 533 00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,000 We listen to stuff on 108 grams vinyl. 534 00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:48,000 And some of it, you know, is overproduced. 535 00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:53,000 Some of it is not produced very well, but often it's produced very well. 536 00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,000 And I think Anvil have got it right on that score. 537 00:50:56,000 --> 00:51:03,000 You know, I can't think of how they could produce their albums, their music any better. 538 00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:10,000 When I brought up the producers and the engineer that helped mix it. 539 00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:18,000 First thing that came to mind was Titans of Creation by Testament. 540 00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:32,000 Good album that I think had they've worked with Andy Sneep again on the production side of things, could have been a great album, much like Brotherhood of the Snake, much like Dark Roots of Earth 541 00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:36,000 and Formation of Damnation, the three albums that came out before that. 542 00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:42,000 Andy was out with Judas Priest and only had a hand in the mixing of the album, if I'm not mistaken. 543 00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:45,000 Yeah. 544 00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:55,000 Bands sometimes need somebody there to say, yeah, that's not quite good enough. 545 00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,000 Yeah, let's do that again. 546 00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,000 That vocal is missing something. 547 00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:08,000 That solo doesn't hold up to how good the rest of the album is. 548 00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:17,000 You know, the riffs are great, but that solo just kind of isn't up to the level of aggressiveness that we need. 549 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:21,000 Look at that Black Country Communion. 550 00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:25,000 Who produced that? Because I think I know who produced it. 551 00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:35,000 And it would lead me back into what we're talking about and what you've kind of discussed. 552 00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:46,000 Let's see, Black Country Communion, the producer. 553 00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:52,000 Ah, yes, it is exactly who I thought it was. 554 00:52:52,000 --> 00:53:02,000 The producer is Mr. Kevin Shirley. 555 00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:14,000 The thing that sets California Breed apart from Black Country Communion to me, 556 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:28,000 and I've always said this and I will always say this for as much as Andrew Watt is now working with some high end clients like Ozzy and the Rolling Stones and stuff like that. 557 00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:31,000 Post Malone, so on and so forth. 558 00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,000 People can bag on him all they want. 559 00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:48,000 I will always point back to that California Breed album and tell people, check this album out and see what a fiery guitar player this guy actually is. 560 00:53:48,000 --> 00:54:01,000 And think about every time that I listen to Black Country Communion and think somebody needs to light a fire under Joe Bonamasa's ass. 561 00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,000 The songs. 562 00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:15,000 There's always two to three OK songs, in my opinion, and the rest bores me because I'm waiting for somebody to do something. 563 00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:19,000 Glenn Hughes is always the star. 564 00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:23,000 Jason Bonham is a second for me. 565 00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:33,000 But Derek Sherinian, who could technically do a keyboard solo as well. 566 00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,000 And Joe Bonamasa show me something. 567 00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:44,000 I can still remember all the chats with Mark Striegel where he says, well, I saw him at a Les Paul tribute and he blew everyone away. 568 00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,000 OK, that's cool. 569 00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:51,000 Blow me away with a solo on an album. 570 00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:57,000 It just it isn't there. 571 00:54:57,000 --> 00:55:03,000 It again comes back to a super group not being so super. 572 00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:13,000 So that's where I think the producer needs to come in and say, listen, Joe, the song needs you to wake up. 573 00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,000 The song needs some fire. 574 00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,000 The song needs some hunger. 575 00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:24,000 Use whatever adjective you want to place on it and say. 576 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:27,000 This needs to go to the next level. 577 00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:32,000 It does not with the way that you're playing. 578 00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:35,000 So so the producer is an essential element. 579 00:55:35,000 --> 00:55:37,000 That's what we're saying. 580 00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:38,000 Absolutely. 581 00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:49,000 And listen back to again, for people that want to say, oh, no, no, no. 582 00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:54,000 Martin Birch, Martin Birch produced Killers. 583 00:55:54,000 --> 00:56:04,000 Through, I believe, the X Factor by Iron Maiden, the X Factor by no means is a great album, but it's got some quality material on it. 584 00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:18,000 OK, that's the one thing that separates Martin Birch from Kevin Shirley, in my opinion, just the ability to say that's not good enough. 585 00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:21,000 That's way too long. 586 00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,000 That doesn't work. 587 00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:32,000 As opposed to just sitting back and fanning myself with a stack of hundreds and saying, yeah, that sounds great. 588 00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:35,000 Yes, that's awesome. 589 00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:38,000 It's it's having that relationship with the producers. 590 00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:44,000 And then this is what Lips was saying, really, because he's got that relationship with that producer that you mentioned in Germany. 591 00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:46,000 And he knows that he can speak to the producer. 592 00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:54,000 The producer will speak to him and they get that they get it right between them for the type of music that they're producing. 593 00:56:54,000 --> 00:57:02,000 At the end of the day, he's not going to change the music so much, but he's going to make it sound good. And that's what you need to you need to do. 594 00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:08,000 Yeah, sound good. And as he pointed out, they helped pick out the first single. 595 00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:14,000 Yeah, kind of say, well, you don't actually need a thrashy song on this. 596 00:57:14,000 --> 00:57:20,000 You know, you can go with mid tempo and slower songs on this. 597 00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:29,000 And yes, to your point, I think the sound of the album is great. Sounds really, really good. 598 00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:46,000 And that's a testament to, again, a band being willing to work with somebody, understanding that people are there much, much like much like the coach on a team is there to help correct things. 599 00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:54,000 And in a lot of instances, they're not there to just be a prick. They're there to help you improve. 600 00:57:54,000 --> 00:58:00,000 And I think that's what he mentioned during the during the interview. 601 00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,000 Yeah, yeah, definitely. 602 00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:08,000 The final point, I mean, was about the it was probably the saddest point, really, I think. 603 00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:20,000 It saddens me, probably saddens you about bands having to actually pay venues to play. You know, we were brought up in an era when bands thought they could make themselves rich by playing. 604 00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:26,000 But not just that, they thought they'd actually get, you know, 100 quid for playing a small venue at the end of the night. 605 00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:34,000 They split it and all have a drink and a curry and maybe just have enough for the fuel to get in the minibus home. 606 00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:43,000 But to not have any of that and to actually have to pay someone to play is destroying it's destroying music. 607 00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:57,000 It surprised me that he said that they had to pay to play the whiskey given given the band name, knowing that Def Leppard and Motley Crueve both recently played there. 608 00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:07,000 I wonder if those bands had to pay anything or since they were XM shows, XM maybe paid to rent the venue. 609 00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:13,000 I don't know. But that kind of surprised me that a band like that would still have to do it. 610 00:59:13,000 --> 00:59:20,000 Yeah, I know about younger bands and I know about younger bands having to pay on the tour still. 611 00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:24,000 But yeah, yeah, it's difficult. 612 00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:31,000 It's quite obvious, really, because you see all the bands on sort of festivals and you work out how much the festival's making in ticket prices. 613 00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:37,000 And then you're thinking, well, if they pay the headliner so much, there's not there's very little as you go down. 614 00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,000 You know, the beans can only go so far. 615 00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:46,000 And eventually you're starting chopping the beans in half and then you're thinking, well, the beans run out. 616 00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:51,000 And so the bands at the bottom, you know, they're not making anything out of it. 617 00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:55,000 I suppose the very smallest bands don't mind. They're playing to a bigger audience. 618 00:59:55,000 --> 01:00:02,000 They can maybe shout about their merchandise and hopefully some people will check out the music. 619 01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:08,000 But there's mid range bands that probably aren't making very much out of the music business. 620 01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:14,000 And the big bands are taking still a lot of money out of it. 621 01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:19,000 Metallica aren't doing it for nothing. That's for sure. 622 01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:26,000 And they complain about the cost of putting on a show, which probably has escalated enormously. 623 01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:29,000 And that's why their ticket prices are so high. 624 01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:32,000 But you feel for the smaller bands. 625 01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:35,000 But it's good that we need venues for them to play in. 626 01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:48,000 If they're still willing to do it, even for nothing, we need good venues and people to turn up and at least buy a T-shirt or buy a CD, check out the music, talk to them, et cetera, et cetera. 627 01:00:48,000 --> 01:00:51,000 Yeah, I agree with you. 628 01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:59,000 There was a festival here that went on a week ago and the headliner was Arctic Monkey. 629 01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:04,000 I didn't know any other band on the bill. And that was the impression that I got. 630 01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:10,000 OK, they paid so much for this band that they're not paying anyone else on the bill. 631 01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:17,000 It's kind of sad, but kind of how this festival has always worked. 632 01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,000 Just weird. 633 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:27,000 In any event, I do want to thank you, Jeremy, for joining me today for this awesome chat. 634 01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:31,000 We'll be back soon with our best of the first half of the year. 635 01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:35,000 And on that note, we say see you folks. Thanks for watching. 636 01:01:35,000 --> 01:01:40,000 Thanks for listening. And we will catch you next time right here on Signals from Mars. 637 01:01:40,000 --> 01:01:50,000 See you, folks. 638 01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,000 Thanks for listening.