Welcome everyone to episode 395 of Signals from Mars. I'm your host Victor.
And for this episode, Jeremy Weltman is back to talk about releases that came out in the month of July.
In the month of September, yeah, life kind of gets in the way.
I haven't been able to knock this one out until now.
But here we go, Jeremy and I discussing July 2024.
So the next two episodes are going to be essentially Jeremy and me discussing new music.
New music is important to me.
Like I've said in the past, if you follow the show, I dedicate these shows to the lazy listener that says that no good music has come out in 40 years.
Who say, hey man, I have so and so's last album.
Their last album came out in 91 and they've released 27 albums since and they've because they've checked out.
Doesn't mean that you have to check out.
So I hope that you enjoy these conversations between Jeremy and myself.
I have a lot of fun talking to him or any of my patrons, to be honest with you.
And this goes beyond Jeremy being a patron because he's become an integral part of the podcast and helps me do these shows once a month.
I don't like crying or complaining or stuff.
He's stood all the time.
Comfortable with the small knit family that we do have now.
It's better to have people that are into the show and like to interact with you instead of having millions of people that couldn't give a crap about you and are just looking to tear you down.
And at least I know that the people that do follow really enjoy what I do.
If not, they wouldn't be sticking around all this time since 2009.
Folks is when I started doing this.
So it's been 15 years and.
Yeah, it.
It still boggles my mind that a lot of times people will say, and this isn't referring to my show.
Hey, man, you guys are the only ones that talk about new music.
And we've been talking about new music for 15 years here.
We've been introducing people to new bands.
We've been into interviewing people.
We've been letting people know that their favorite artists have just put out.
Another new album or they have a new track coming out.
I can't play music like I used to.
Sure, I could if I wanted to.
But then I risk getting kicked off of Spotify.
I risk getting, you know, if there's any ramifications down the road, I don't want to mess around with any of that stuff.
So and I've had episodes kicked off of Spotify as a result.
But up there on Patreon, I post videos daily.
So there's new music to check out all the time.
And I'm not asking for a ridiculous amount of money.
I'm asking for two bucks a month.
Your voice gets heard when it comes to choosing what the next Patreon specials will be or the next patron specials will be.
Haven't done one of those in a while and look forward to doing a few between now and the end of the year.
Folks, we're almost in October, so it is almost the end of the year.
So these episodes with Jeremy and myself will help you guys compile your year endless and will help you guys.
Determine what albums you missed out throughout the year and what maybe you should check out.
If you go to signalsfromr's.com and you scroll down on the home page, the monthly albums review,
you'll find the last three episodes right there that are based on this specific topic.
And oh, yeah, you can click on here for more monthly album and find out the rest.
So Jeremy and I have you covered. Hope you enjoy our banter.
Hope you share this with your friends, share it on social media.
Support the show. Pick up merch. Do whatever you can to help us out.
All right. Thank you so much. And here we go.
Welcome, one and all, to the latest edition of Signals from Mars.
I'm your host, Victor, and joining me is Mr. Jeremy Weltman.
Jeremy, how are you today? Yeah, good. Thanks, Victor.
Nice warm day here in the UK. And you're in the home of metal, as usual, which is the United Kingdom.
How are you doing? You've been away. I've been away.
This is the first time we've recorded since June, maybe. Yeah.
June, maybe May. I don't even remember. But this is just like riding a bike.
Jeremy and I are back in September to talk about July releases.
So we've still got August coming your way, which we still have not recorded either.
But yeah, we're going to recap some of what came out over the summer here.
And starting out on July 5th, which we had releases from Kissin Dynamite,
Visions of Atlantis, Ordin Ogan. I hope I said that right, Brad Doll. Ordin Ogan.
OK. Tommy Vex, Nictifobia, Kryptos, Zastor, the Triceratops, Octoploid,
Mine Road, EPs from Palmar, Detroit, reissues from Slayer, Clutch and Fallujah, and a live album from Slayer.
Jeremy, what did you listen to this week?
Yeah, so I began by listening to the classic rock sounds of Kissin Dynamite,
the German band that, as you know, emerged on the scene in 2006, producing albums consistently every two years now.
And this is their eighth studio album. It's called Back with a Bang.
Nothing unexpected with this one. It's very solid, glitzy, sort of classic rock, hair metal music.
Twelve songs on it. It's very proficient. The singer Hans Braun, I think his name is Hans Braun, Hans Braun.
Sounds a little sort of old school Bon Jovi.
He sure has the sort of rock star looks that might appeal to Mrs. W. But is it any good, I hear you cry?
Well, yes, there are some fine melodies and choruses. It's all sort of kind of throwback stuff, nothing new.
But it's a very enjoyable listen, nevertheless. So that was quite good.
And I then moved on quickly to Decimator by Kryptos, which I think you mentioned to me, Victor.
Yes.
Yeah, you did. A band from India formed in the late 90s that are self-styled pioneers of India's modern heavy metal movement, apparently.
Because obviously I didn't know very much about them before until you put me onto it.
This is their seventh album. It treads a familiar path of, you know, quite sort of tight riffs, strained vocals.
You'd expect to hear on sort of hundreds of these 1980s new Wobham bands.
It has a bit of a sort of a nice sort of real comforting glow about it as well.
It's sort of good to hear something that sounds like this.
And it's a real sort of solid throwback material, I think.
Unlike many bands out there, it has enough grit and edge to be relevant as well.
I think that's kind of why you sort of pointed me towards this band.
And so, you know, although it's sort of rather straightforward type of music, it's quite simple with sort of the melodies and lyrics.
You know, it was pretty good. So, yeah, that was a good suggestion by you.
Then after dipping into sort of a few death and black metal albums during the week and wondering what, you know, I was going to choose for my album of the week,
I came across something really interesting. It was called Tomorrow's Sky by a band I've not heard of before called Mine Road from Dublin, Ireland.
Apparently, they went on hiatus for a while.
Some of the band members emigrated to Australia and the US and they came back in 2019, apparently.
There are definitely sort of US, Aussie and Irish influences all mixed in here on a really good hard rocking album.
I guess you can sort of think Slash, think Phil Campbell, think Black Star Riders rock and roll, that kind of music.
So I really quite enjoyed that one. And that's my pick of the week.
Excellent. Yeah, for me, I listened to the Kryptos, which, again, I don't remember.
I don't remember if it came out in July or June, actually.
It may be one of these albums that because I received the promo, the dates may have changed.
I don't remember. I listed that. I listened to the Ordyn Ogan as well.
Those are the two that kind of stood out to me the most.
There's one track off of The Order of Fear, which is the Ordyn Ogan album called Moonfire,
which I've listened to quite a lot while on vacation.
It was kind of in steady rotation there. There was a few songs that were in that rotation.
But I think I'll have to go with Decimator from Kryptos because I think it's got more songs.
It's got like five or six songs that I really enjoy. The Order of Fear has like two songs that I really like.
The rest is kind of paint by numbers, symphonic rock. It really isn't that big of a deal.
So yeah, that's going to be my pick for July 5th. Cool.
So July 12th, we had new albums from Mr. Big, Unearthed, Tim Montana, Northbound,
Wind Hearts Wake, Wind Waker, Deep Al Brindle, Van Helge, I don't know how you pronounce that,
Palace, Spectra, Plutocracy, Plutocracy Planet, Ver and Zidde, American Overdose,
Butterside, Turin and Obscure, live albums from Amorphis and Nicolo, Kotzev's Nostradamus,
reissues from Testament, they reissued their first two albums, reissue from Candlebox,
and a day to remember, the 15th anniversary of Homesick.
Now, what did you listen to for this week, Jeremy?
Yeah, so this week I sort of stuck with Frontiers for a hat trick of albums.
First up was the poppy rock sounds of a band from London, England called Palace.
I don't know if they're from sort of Crystal Palace area, but anyway,
they've released three albums prior to this, I believe.
I thought I'd hate it, but this band can certainly write an 80s soft rock tune with great melodies
and choruses as well, so of course it won't appeal to the average death metal fan,
but don't dismiss it if you like hook-laden 80s tunes with that unmistakable 80s keyboards and drums.
It verges a little bit on new romantics occasionally, but just about steers clear,
and hell, can these guys write good songs, so you know, it's certainly worth an hour of my time or just less.
I also dug into the Mr. Big album called Ten.
This band obviously dates back to 1988, and to be honest, never really made that much of an impression on me,
but it does have Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert involved,
so it's a band certainly worth checking out, I think, because of the names there.
It's really quite a listenable offering too, I think, but it's on the softer side of hard rock and metal as well,
and it does have some fairly well-crafted songs, but overall, it wasn't completely taken by it.
My favourite, the lot really, was an album called Hypnotized by Spectra.
This was a really enjoyable melodic offering.
This time it's a band from Brazil.
It appears to be their second album. It follows on from their debut, Overload, in 2021.
These guys can really play. They've got a really great vocalist too, who's worked with Jeff Scott Soto, who we know,
and added to that is, you know, there's some really good production.
It really sort of raises the songs into, you know, what I call the premier league,
because often, you know, you can listen to these sort of bands and, you know, you think, oh, they're OK, but they're nothing special.
And I know sometimes we criticise Frontiers really for putting together sort of makeshift bands and releasing stuff that is a bit forgettable,
but when they do get it right, they get it right, and Spectra are a really decent melodic rock outfit, you know, I really like them.
So, yeah, that's my album of the week.
OK, I got to listen to the Mr. Big album 10.
This can fall under the Black Country Communion, where the.
Parts should give you something different, in my opinion.
But. Yeah, they've.
They've got songs here and there that I enjoy, and there's like one song that I think is really good off of this album.
The rest is. I've heard all before, you know, there's kind of no need for this for me personally.
I'm not a big fan either. Got to listen to Juniper by Northbound.
It is a pop punk album.
Kind of run of the mill pop punk, nothing out of the ordinary.
Plutocracy Planet, self-titled album.
Got to listen to that. It's a mixture of a bunch of different things,
but doesn't really do enough to kind of stand out.
And then the other one that I listened to is American Overdose with artificial infection.
That's self-released and it's a mixture of industrial and symphonic.
Metal, to be honest.
There isn't really anything that sticks out to me this week to say this is my album of the week.
For me, it was kind of a down week, nothing that absolutely sucked, but nothing that.
Really stood out to say, oh yeah, I, you know, I put my seal of approval on that one.
Yeah, that could happen. Yeah. Yeah. We've had that happen a few times in the past.
So moving on to the 19th.
We had new albums from Deep Purple, Paul Diano's War Horse, Orange Goblin.
The Chris Slade Timeline. Wow. That's one that I really want to listen to and I totally forgot about.
That's what vacation does to you.
Patriarchs in Black, Rivers of Nil, Her Heads on Fire, Flat Black,
which features Jason Hook, former guitarist of Five Finger Death Punch,
Sable Hill, Ceremony of Silence, Worshipper, Ruby Ate the Fig,
The Stabbing Jabs, EPs from Calling All Captains and Tracheotomy, reissues.
There's one, two, three, four reissues from In Flames, one from Mr. Bungle and one from Pussifer.
So Jeremy, we overlap on a few of these this week. What's your opinion or what stood out to you?
So, yeah, I checked out Paul Diano's War Horse first of all, obviously the former Iron Maiden frontman with his self-titled album.
Plus it mentions that it's with Madaraqa and Poopy, presumably some contractual obligation there with the two relatively unknown Croatian musicians.
But they do the best on it. But I don't know why they have to be mentioned.
This isn't terrible, but it comes close on too many occasions for my liking, on too many songs.
I mean, for one thing, I think Diano really struggles with his voice.
I don't think he ever had a very strong voice. But obviously when he's a young man and with Iron Maiden,
it had that sort of nice punky feel. I think he lets it down a little bit on the mix and production,
which are not quite right to my ears as well. I think it's done on the cheap.
The website notes that they spent two years perfecting this album, but the songs, although they're not actually lacking in melody,
they're mostly quite basic and the lyrics are a lot to be desired. The cover song Precious has something about it.
So maybe they should have done more of that than dated old school metal stuff.
So maybe it's just best really listening to a deep Depeche Mode album than picking this up because I wasn't very impressed.
And I didn't expect to be. So my second album of the week was more rewarding, I think.
It was Strange Desires by Her Heads on Fire. This is a sort of indie post-hardcore band,
a quartet featuring members of other bands I've not really heard of.
I couldn't find anything at all on where they're from, this band. They're either from the US or they're from England.
But I have no idea. It was very typical indie music of the 80s and 90s. It had sort of occasional glimpses of Oasis there.
They had some good songs at varying speeds. It was well worth my time listening to it.
And hopefully the listeners out there will find something in it, even if it's not in the normal sort of hard rock and metal sphere.
It was worth listening to. I really couldn't fault the album of the week, even though it's not spectacular, but it is very interesting.
It's the album Equals One by Deep Purple. I think it's worth remembering that the band was actually formed 56 years ago,
which is almost my age. I was two years old when they were formed. They're still featuring the original drummer Ian Pace.
They have Mark II, Purple, Star Wars, Roger Glover and Ian Gillan in the band still.
Their recent albums have been sort of fairly loose affairs, various members sort of unleashing their creative juices and just sort of playing whatever they like, really.
This is no exception. It's sort of an eclectic mix of boogie, blues, soul, full influences, you know, all sort of a bit of prog there, a bit of rock, you know.
It's all very quintessentially purple, though. It's got that sort of distinctive keyboard sound, which is now the domain of Don Aery,
who, by the way, like Gillan, Glover and Pace, is in his late seventies now. You have to remember how old these guys are.
It's not a metal album at all, and the rockier moments now are sort of few and far between these days,
but you do get real heaps of outstanding melodies, really super production on their albums.
And it's my choice of the week in what I think is really a super year for British rock music. And long may it continue.
All right. So real quickly, her head's on fire is from New York City.
Oh, there we go. Thanks. You solved the puzzle.
There we go. Yeah.
So I got to listen to two of those three. I listened to the Paul D'Anno.
So the first track War Horse is OK. Yeah.
The Depeche Mode covers the best song on the album, I think. Precious.
Totally agree. Why on earth he decided to cover Tequila is beyond me.
I was thinking, first of all, recovering alcoholic all these issues with alcohol in the past.
I'm like, he's got a song called Tequila's. This doesn't make sense. Like, OK, but let me let me let me give it a listen.
And then all of a sudden. He's the song starts and I'm like.
This is the song from the Pee Wee Herman movie. This is Tequila.
This is what Paul Rubens would come out and dance to on the Gong show in the late 70s.
I'm like, oh, my God, seriously made zero sense to me. But then.
What else? I listed the Patriarchs in Black that had some really cool songs on it as well.
Listen to the Deep Purple. I was I was driving to the Limp Bizkit concert when when we were listening to this.
And my youngest son says to me, this isn't bad, but.
I think it's kind of boring. I said, son, it's it's British hard rock.
It's a bunch of guys in their 70s. They're doing what they can.
The true standout to me is Simon McBride on this album because his solos are fantastic.
They're a lot. They're a lot better than what I expected.
So he's got some really like balls to the walls, fiery solos on here where, you know, I'm not the hugest, the purple fan,
but I don't recall Steve Morris doing those types of solos.
I think he wanted to steer so far away from Richie Blackmore that he kind of didn't do some of that stuff.
And I think Simon McBride is has fit in really well and and bringing that aspect back to the band.
What else did I listen to here? Oh, well, it would be my pick of the week.
It would be Science, not fiction by the British band Orange Goblin.
I've been a fan of theirs for such a long time. Great.
Stoner Rock, Stoner Metal, Doom Metal, however you want to categorize them, just powerful, huge riffs, great melodies.
They remind me a lot of the Quill because they've kind of drank from the same kind of fountain that Black Sabbath Fountain.
And you can always count on at least half of an album being really good and memorable.
So this week, my pick is Orange Goblin with Science, not fiction.
Awesome. So let's let's move on here to the last week in July.
And I kind of miscategorize this funny because I listened to a live album almost right off the bat here.
But anyway, studio albums from category seven, the debut album that features John Bush,
Jason Bittner from a Shadow's Fall. He just left Overkill,
Michael Orlando, Phil Demmel, who's best known for Machine Head and Violence and Jack Gibson, who's best known for Exodus on bass.
New albums from, let's see, Bisto, Blanco.
But I think that's the wrong date because I remember not being able to find the album.
Verney, which is I just mentioned Overkill. That's Dee Dee Verney from Overkill, his new solo album.
New albums also from Dream Evil, Disloyal, Duskwalker, Iron Flame, Skalled, Mountaineer, Wizard Tattoo,
Beyond All Hope.
How the hell do you pronounce this?
Oh, Orison Space Collective.
Reissues from Sacred Rake, which I have in a box behind me, which I have not opened yet.
Actually, same with the category seven. Reissue from Bad Brains, King Buzzo, EP from El Nino,
and live albums from Ghost, the soundtrack to Right Here Right Now, which is a live album in concert per se.
And Pete Townsend, live in concert 1985 through 2001.
Jeremy, what did you listen to this week and what stood out to you?
Yeah, so just a couple for you really. The first one, I listened to Metal Gods by the Swedish metal band Dream Evil.
For the most part, I thought this was kind of bog standard heavy metal, sort of cum power metal.
Good production, some Judas Priest kind of edges to it. A singer that is really well suited to this type of music.
And overall, I thought it was a reasonably enjoyable listen, shorter being a real standout.
Though it did point me to some of their early releases and it was worth the time digging in,
because I kind of liked their debut album and one or two other bits and pieces along the way as well.
So yeah, they're quite an enjoyable band, but nothing spectacular.
My album of the week, though, just sort of moving straight onto that, because I didn't listen to a lot in this week,
was the Right Here Right Now, the original motion picture soundtrack, the live album from Ghost, which I thought was really good.
I mean, this is a band I've slowly sort of come to appreciate in recent years,
particularly their latest studio album, which I thought was outstanding.
There are a smattering of songs from that particular album on this, and what you get is a really sort of good best of package.
There's 18 songs, one hour, 30 minutes set, packed full of really great songs, played well.
Whatever the studio trimmings may have been done to kind of improve it, we don't know.
But whatever you think about how Ghost the band has kind of risen to become a sort of really strong premier act in recent years,
you can't get away from the fact that they're real performers with a unique sound to their output.
I've seen them actually twice myself and once in a tent at Leeds Festival,
and again on a bigger stage supporting Metallica at Manchester City's Ground.
They're really good. It's a reputation well deserved, and I really enjoyed this album.
It's one you can play and play again.
I guess in a different time zone, a different sort of era,
maybe we'd be talking about Ghost along with UFO, Thin Lizzy, all those great live albums,
because I think they kind of missed out on that era.
And if they don't be as massive as those bands,
it's only because they're just at the wrong time period, but they deserve it.
So I got to listen to the Ghost album,
and I just want to dovetail with what you just said, because I think the album is great.
I think your assessment is really good because you listen to a lot of live albums nowadays,
and they sound so homogenized, they sound boring and slow, and like the band is just filling a contract.
And with Right Here Right Now, some of these songs are sped up, they're played a little differently.
So it's kind of what we used to get when we listened to Strangers in the Night and Live After Death,
and Kiss Alive 1 and 2, where it's a different take on the albums.
And you kind of don't care if they were touched up in the studio,
because the feel, the energy is there, and it makes you remember the actual live show.
So this is kind of the first live album in a really long time that I listened to on a consistent basis.
I listened to this album quite a few times while on vacation.
So this is a really, really, really good album.
The Sacred Rite album that I mentioned that I received, Heel, which is a reissue, that's a good album.
That was their last album before they released Awakening in, I think, 2019, if I'm not mistaken.
Not a bad album, not their strongest, but still has some really good material on it.
The Verney Dreadful Company album is really cool.
It's Dee Dee doing Ramones and Misfits and stuff like that.
So if you're into that kind of music, Dee Dee does it justice.
And my pick of the week, it could easily be The Ghost, just like you.
But I'm going to go with category seven just because I've listened to quite a few songs off of this on vacation as well.
Like I said, this is the quote unquote supergroup with John Bush and a bunch of other people.
There's some really good music on here.
Mike Orlando is usually shredding all over the place.
And the whole band is great.
This will finally give him, I think, an outlet for a lot of the Anthrax material that he hasn't played in many years.
But I'm curious to see, I mean, they're signed the Metal Blade.
Is this a one off? If this is going to be a band that, yeah, they plan on recording two, three albums.
Is this a we'll wait and see after we go out and tour? Is there a demand?
I don't know. I'm interested to find out where they're going with all of this.
But definitely check it out. And it sounds nothing like Thin Lizzy.
I'm sorry, but they originally said this is like them doing Thin Lizzy.
Yeah, I don't know. This is kind of more like John Bush doing thrash again.
It's more what it's like to me. But what do I know?
So real quickly here, let's just recap some of our picks here for the week of the fifth.
You picked Kissing Dynamite, is that right? Yeah, that's right.
OK, I picked Kryptos with Decimator. No, I picked Mine Road.
Kissing Diamond. Sorry, Kissing Dynamite was the first one I mentioned, but Mine Road.
Yeah. OK. My mistake. Mine Road with Tomorrow's Sky.
OK. The second week, I didn't pick anything and you picked.
The next one was Spectra Hypnotized. OK, cool.
Nineteenth, you went with Deep Purple. Yeah.
OK. And I went with Orange Goblin, Science Not Fiction.
And then for the last week in July, the 26th. So it was Ghost.
Yeah. And I went with Category 7, but that Ghost album is great as well.
So you can't go wrong with with either one.
So let's see here. Jeremy's always great about sending me
different items to discuss. And unfortunately, my browser kind of just froze.
So I got to look at the points that you sent on my phone.
Yeah, I can remember them. So.
Let's see. Your first point here, our gigs. You have Lincoln Park, Rock Witch.
Yeah, because obviously you went to see a gig in the US.
So interested. Well, I think everybody else would be interested just to hear how you got on there.
But that was actually Loserville. Loserville was Corey Feldman.
Nate No Face, Bones and Lincoln Park.
Not Lincoln Park. Why do I keep saying Lincoln Park? Limp Bizkit.
Yeah, Limp Bizkit. Yeah, yeah.
Everyone is going around posting the worst guitar solo of all time, which is Corey Feldman.
Folks, I got to see it in person.
Corey Feldman is doing his whole
Michael Jackson thing.
Nate No Face was a guy with a sampler
just like barking into a mic.
Nate No Face or not Nate No Face. Bones was three different rappers
that did all types of like
they did everything from dark wave to some synth pop to just some flat out
hip hop and rap.
And then Limp Bizkit came on. Limp Bizkit did not disappoint.
My youngest son loved it.
At one point, they invited everyone who was under 12 to go up on stage with them.
And he was like, Dad, I'll see you in a little bit.
And I said, you're not moving from my side, my friend, because we didn't just fly
3000 miles for you to get lost in a concert.
So come on. It's a once in a lifetime thing.
Yeah, I understand. It's also once in a lifetime that I would be
headed if I got home and didn't come home with you.
So, yeah, we'll stick with the show. The show was good. It was entertaining.
As Mark Striegel said, I think that they're leaning into the whole
Loserville thing, into the whole I mean, the last album was called Limp Bizkit Sucks.
They're really kind of leaning into all that.
And I got to tell you, I think with Lawnseeds,
PNC Bank Art Center in New Jersey, I think it's somewhere between 25 and 30
that fit in there. And it was pretty full.
I would say it was 90 something percent capacity.
So a lot of people are still into Limp Bizkit, regardless what others will say,
regardless how other people will poo poo the band.
It was entertaining. I enjoyed it.
I knew all but two songs. They covered.
They kind of covered Bon Jovi and they covered Rage Against the Machine.
So there you go. How about for you? You went to Rockwich then.
Yeah, just before I say that, it's cool that you went with your son because I've been to a couple of shows with my daughter,
just me and my daughter. Those are the ones you remember.
So, you know, in years to come, they're just fantastic.
Yeah, so I went to Rockwich, which is in Northwich, which is where I live.
It's on every year. It puts on a lot of small bands, you know, mostly almost entirely from the UK.
They're on the sort of classic rock circuit, all young bands.
And I they have a sort of acoustic night the night before, but I didn't go to that.
I went with my wife to the main show. We went early evening and it starts at 12 midday.
So there's a lot going on all day, but we thought we wouldn't last and we were doing other stuff.
We went sort of late afternoon, early evening.
We got in and I think Ash and Reach were a band playing and we sort of caught their last song.
And then a band called A Priori came on and they were pretty good.
Typical sort of nice melodic heavy metal. Really like them.
The best band that we saw, well, we saw the Karma Effect, which were a bit of a black rosy type band.
I really liked them. My wife didn't find them entertaining at all.
So that was interesting that, you know, I bought the album and she didn't like it.
But then we both really liked the next band on, which was superb.
They were the second to last band on called The Virgin Marys. Just two guys.
So they're a bit like Royal Blood, a bit like...
Who's the other band with the two? Oh, White Stripes. Yeah.
So, you know, that sort of thing, really. They use a lot of effects to help it along, but they don't often make a noise.
They were absolutely tremendous. If you ever get a chance to listen out for them, they're really good.
And it was just there was a headline act on as well, which is just... I forgot the name of.
We saw a few songs by them. They're very much an ACDC type band, but really good at it.
The name will jump out in a minute. But we had to go at that stage. We had to get home.
And they actually came on an hour late because it was all running a bit late.
It was getting on past midnight and we had to go for various reasons.
So, yeah, but it was... What we saw was amazing. It was cheap to go.
The crowd was great, you know, small crowd, all the bands mixed with you. They were selling lots of merch.
Fantastic. Really enjoyed it. Cool.
And by the way, my oldest son wanted to go see... was Bush, Jerry Cantrell and Candlebox.
He wanted to see Jerry Cantrell play.
And I found out that he was only playing, I believe, like eight to ten songs and was only playing about half an hour.
And I said, yeah, let's just wait until he comes back with Alice in Chains.
So because that's what, you know, the material that he enjoys the most by that.
All right. So dynamic pricing.
Dynamic pricing is something that a lot of people are really annoyed about in the States.
Bruce Springsteen was kind of the first guy that really reap the rewards of that.
So a guy that was a real meat and potatoes type of guy and, you know, a fan's artist, per se.
This last tour, I guess he's looking to finish off paying his mansions or something.
And dynamic pricing is coming to effect where the prices just keep going up and up,
especially on seats that are closer to the front of the show.
I know that when I picked up the Limp Bizkit tickets,
they were offering discounts on certain seats for that show and for like 50 different shows that were going to take place this summer.
So there, well, there.
The government, the U.S. government is kind of going after them.
So I'm assuming this is why they did that. It was not of the kindness of their heart.
But the dynamic pricing kind of came from Ticketmaster and from Live Nation as a way to gouge fans, especially post COVID.
So it isn't kind of being looked upon very favorably in the U.S.
How about in the U.K.?
Yeah. So the reason why I kind of mentioned this, Oasis were having their sort of ticket sales last weekend, you know, for the reform band.
And they originally were at, I think, £160 for, you know, inclusive of all the fees or whatever.
And so, you know, we were all sort of sitting there.
Everyone in the country was really sitting there trying to get tickets for the what was I think 12 shows.
And then they added a few more. And then apparently some people got through.
And when they got through, they doubled the price as they were, you know, trying to get the tickets.
And so they were facing this dilemma immediately because obviously you've got like a minute or two to decide whether you want to take that ticket.
And they'd been on all day, these people, and realized now that they're having to pay double for the ticket that they thought was going to be 160 quid.
So it's well over £300 for the ticket.
And so it was it's caused a ferrari here. The government's got involved. They're looking into it.
Ticketmaster, to be fair, say that it's nothing to do with them.
They say that it's to do with the promoters, that presumably what is happening is the promoters are saying to Ticketmaster,
listen, if there's demand, we want to double the price.
And Ticketmaster are just saying, yeah, no problem. Whatever you want to do, we'll do because, you know, we take a cut of it.
So, you know, what are they going to say? Oh, no, we won't do that for you because, you know, we're not going to we can, you know,
we're shutting ourselves out of the extra cash that we're going to get because I don't know what the cut is.
But, you know, Ticketmaster are going to take that percentage, whatever it is.
So who knows? The band themselves, the members of Oasis, obviously Liam and Noel Gallagher,
they're saying that they have nothing to do with it whatsoever. And you can understand that's probably true.
I mean, they have management, they have promoters, they have people that they just speak to on a Sunday about, you know,
how's it going? And they leave them to it. So, you know, I would imagine the band themselves have never set the prices
and don't even know what the price is, as long as they get paid the 10 million or whatever it is, you know.
So it's a terrible thing. I think the problem is I heard just after this happened with Oasis, a Spanish football team does it as well.
I don't know which one, maybe you know, or you can find out that I think it's one of the biggies.
And apparently they're doing it as well, where they're raising the price in terms of demand.
So if this is a thing that's really taking off, you know, where do we stop with this?
Because it means that anything that people want to buy, you know, if you wanted to go, say, to the Champions League final,
you can imagine, you know, that's a big sought after occasion, or you wanted to go and see, I don't know, ACDC next time they tour,
because it's their last tour, or what about the last Black Sabbath concert?
Could be next year with Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi and Giza Butler and Bill Ward, who knows?
You know, they might play three or four songs together, then it's a bit of Ozzy with Zach Wilde or whatever.
And who knows, if he's only going to play one or two shows, there's a huge demand for that.
They could, you know, charge whatever they like.
Yeah. So the team is Valencia. Yeah.
And the funny thing is, it'll just give fans more reason to hate the owner, Peter Lim,
who they've been wanting to get rid of for years.
You see, the issue is really it's not the price, it's changing the price while you're in the process of buying it.
Yeah. That's the issue.
Well, I think both are really an issue, because I mean, this is with the case of Valencia, they're a shit team.
They're a team that has a big name, but has been close to relegation ever since Peter Lim got them, you know, since he purchased the team.
So it makes no sense to do that with concerts, with some of the hotter tickets.
Listen, everyone needs to make a living. Just depends on how much, I guess. I don't know.
Yeah. But the thing is, if you know in advance what the ticket prices are, you can decide whether you want to go or not,
you know, whether you can afford it or you don't.
And also you can check out all the various tiers of prices and you can decide you might go for the cheaper ticket rather than the more expensive ticket.
But I just think if they're changing the prices as you're waiting and you've been on the line for three, four hours,
because seriously for the Oasis, everybody, the whole country was sitting there for the whole morning.
It was a whole Saturday morning. It was mad.
You as well is what you're saying.
Yeah, yeah. I was doing it. My daughters were all on. They all had two devices on at the same time.
We were taking it in turns to go and make coffees.
It was, you know, the whole procedure. And of course, we didn't get any.
But we, you know, we hear about these people who were faced with this situation.
And of course, it's not fair because you've got two minutes to decide, OK, I was going to pay 160 quid.
But now do I pay that 300 quid? It's not right.
So the members of the Reunited Oasis, I'm looking at it right here.
So it's Nolan Liam Gallagher, obviously. Yeah.
Paul Bonehead, Arthur's, who is the second guitarist on the first few albums.
Paul. Googsy. Yeah.
McGuinn. Yeah. I pronounce it. Was it McGuiggin? Yeah. McGuiggin. OK.
Was he with the band early on as well? Yeah, he was. Yeah. OK.
And the drummer is Tony McCarroll. Was he also with the band early on? So is this? Yeah. Yeah.
OK. So this is like the second like the Mach 2 version of Oasis. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
I know the. But when they were selling the tickets last Saturday, they didn't announce the rest of the band members.
It was just Noel and Liam. But that didn't matter because everybody just wants to see them anyway.
Well, the other thing, too, is I'm sure that they're going to lean in heavily to the first two albums.
Yeah. Maybe there'll be a track. I mean, what are they going to play?
All my people right here right now. Yeah. And they tend to play.
What's that one? The Importance of Being Earnest off the like the fifth album or whatever it is,
because it's that's Noel singing it. So it gives Liam a rest. It's quite it's quite a good song.
And then they'll play one off the newest album, the one Digging Your Soul, Dig Out Your Soul or whatever.
Because there's about three songs at the beginning that are quite groovy. Yeah. Yeah. So they might play one of that.
Yeah. But yeah, you're essentially right. It'd be off the first two, stroke three albums.
Most of the songs. Yeah. First two are huge. So I saw the reissue for Definitely Maybe yesterday.
And it was I I'm looking at it through my contact lenses, which I should have my glasses on so that I could see small print.
But I could make out one hundred sixty nine ninety nine for the issue. And I'm like, yeah, that's a bit much.
Yeah. Love the band. Love a lot of their music, but not that much. No.
Yeah. So last thing that we were going to touch upon here is a testament. Yeah.
You wanted to know what. What I want for a New Testament album.
Yeah, because I think we've kind of touched on this a little bit in the past.
We've talked about Testament, obviously, over many shows in the past.
They've turned up in sort of the best of years shows that you do,
because I just wanted to know what you think a testament really as a band in terms of an album.
So not not in terms of seeing them live or their greatest songs.
But what do you think about their albums?
I think that their albums are all pretty solid. I like some more than others.
I think that they were on a hot streak between Formation of Damnation, Dark Roots of Earth and Brotherhood of the Snake.
I think the three of those albums are tremendous.
I think Titans of Creation is a step behind those albums.
So my biggest fear is that I already know that they're not working with Andy Sneep.
They're saying that Andy seems to say that he's busy with Judas Priest,
which I'm not sure that I'm buying because he still worked with except he's still working with other bands.
I think it's Testament wanting to try to take the reins again.
But that's what I think the difference is between Titans of Creation and the others.
It's. Songs aren't bad. But they're not great.
Those other three albums have great songs on them.
That's the difference to me.
Yeah. I mean, I think Dark Roots of Earth is my favorite.
And I obviously like the title track.
So not the soundtrack, but the first track, Rise Up, which I think is. Yeah.
It is. There we go. Same.
Massive. It is. Oh, we both have the DVD edition.
OK. Yeah, it's great. So, yeah, I agree with you.
This is a great album and I really like Rise Up.
I wish you'd do more of that kind of song.
And apparently this album, according to the band, is going to be more brutal in its sound.
So they're going for a really, really heavy sound on this one.
But I hope they don't lose the melody as well, because that's what makes Testament great.
But why I asked the question was, I think the last two albums,
I really only like about five songs on each album.
And then I think they fade a lot.
I think that the second half of the albums really fade for me.
And I almost don't like them.
I kind of think they're kind of thrash metal, but there's no direction to the songs.
I think they're better when they do really melodic thrash songs.
And they've got a bit of almost melody to them that you can get into,
whereas I think they just go on a bit.
So I'm hoping that they bring out an album where they've thought about the songwriting a little bit more.
Because I think that's the problem for me with Testament.
I really like them when they're great, and I love certain songs.
But I've found that they've do a cover again on this new album.
But whether that's just a throwaway track at the end of the CD, I don't know, because they've done that before.
They've done it a ton.
I mean, they did more than one, I think, on Dark Roots of Earth.
I'm just looking now. Yeah, they did Dragon Attack, Animal Magnetism, Power Slave.
Yeah, those are. And over the years, they've covered Aerosmith as well.
Yeah, they did.
They did the four. So they've, you know, Judas Priest, they've covered as well.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to listen to it.
It should be good. Again, it should have a few songs on there that are still good and powerful.
Yeah, I mean, they're great musicians. They've got a new drummer this time as well.
So that's another interesting aspect to it.
Yeah. And I don't know if they were going for a heavier direction because they had Dave Lombardo in the band for a minute and then a tour.
And then he was gone.
But so they have Chris Dovis in the band now.
He comes from another thrash band, and I don't remember which, but hey, listen, if they have him in the band, that means that he can play the part.
So it should be should be interesting.
Let's see. He's from Boston.
And okay. So it looks like his audition tapes are online. You can actually see them on YouTube.
All right. I'll have to check that out later. Cool. Awesome.
So Jeremy and I will be back for probably the next episode following this, where we're going to talk about August releases, which we'll record in a few days.
Give us some time to catch up on some of those albums. Jeremy, thank you for joining me once again.
Thank you to anyone that's listening or watching the replay or the first play of this because we are pre-recording it.
Thank you for your support. Don't forget the merch store, which we have available with a bunch of different t-shirts, caps, bucket hats, sweatshirts, so on and so forth.
On that note, we bid you farewell and we will see you next time right here on Signals from Mars. See you folks.
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