Welcome everyone to episode 400 of Signals from Mars.
I'm your host Victor.
And once again we're back with another October,
with another monthly albums review this time around
that is for October 2024.
Jeremy Weltman is back with his insight.
I'm here to give you some of my opinion.
And here we go.
So episode 400.
I tried to book a guest,
reached out to a bunch of different people,
got multiple different things.
We're working on this, can't do it.
We're out on tour, can't do it.
Going out on tour.
That one I figured I would wait until they came back from tour.
I don't know, just so many things that come up
while people are away from home,
where the internet is shoddy and you end up
fighting to get something decent out of what they provide you.
Anyway, so I figured I'd hold off on that
and that interview will be scheduled soon.
I do have something scheduled tonight.
And it should be cool.
Focus on Metal just released episode 600.
And it was funny because
they were talking about
how for this number episode,
they had Joe Perry on and they had this other person for this one
and another episode.
And for 600, it was just the two of them talking.
It was Scott and Richie just talking.
And I could totally empathize with that
because it's a lot of what I've done recently
and I know there are people that tell me
you need to get guests.
That's how you're going to get people to catch
or people to post about your show
and get more people interested and this and that.
And yeah, they're probably right.
But time.
Time is the biggest factor, man.
Just being able to fit everything in.
I'm sure.
I know that there are a lot of you that don't follow me on Patreon
where I do my other podcast, the Victor Amarouas podcast,
where I talk about behind the scenes stuff,
talk about shit that's going on in my life.
Basketball, which is, you know,
last few years I've become a basketball coach.
And yeah, so I probably bite off more than I could chew a lot of times.
I try to straighten things out and try to get the right mix in there.
But sometimes I just can't do everything that I want to do.
And I'd love to do more interviews.
And going forward for 2025, I do want to try to get more interviews in there.
But man, I look at somebody like Chris Aiken
from the Classic Metal Show and he's doing all of these different interviews.
And I'm super envious, to be honest.
But anyway, I'm going to do something that I haven't done a long time.
And that is a shout out to my patrons because they are great.
They help support and quote unquote, keep the lights on,
help certain things keep going here on the show.
And they're a big part of, for example, 401.
They're going to be a big part of that episode,
which will be coming out in the next few days.
Technical issues have prevented me from getting this out sooner.
But anyway, real quickly here, I want to send a shout out to Pascal Schumacher,
who's my latest patron, Patron, excuse me,
Sean Richmond, Chris Szynszak of Despo Geek,
Tony Espin, Anthony Mackie, Ed Ferguson, Johan Eddestrom,
Metal Dan, Jose Ruiz, Chris Vaglio, Gabriel Ruiz,
Brad Doll, Mike Jones, Jeremy Weltman, Stephen Hoker, and Stephen Saylor.
Thank you guys so much for your support.
You guys know it. I say it all the time.
It means the world to me that you guys are supporting me.
And it means the world to me that people are listening to this episode,
episode 400, where there's a million other things that you could be listening to.
You're still here. Anyway, let's get on with the show.
Welcome, one and all, to the latest episode of Signals from Mars.
I'm your host, Victor, and joining me today is Mr. Jeremy Weltman.
Jeremy, how are you, sir?
Yeah, I'm really good. Thank you, Victor.
It's getting really cold here in the UK at the moment,
but we're going to cope with it for the winter months,
getting to some Nordic death metal or similar, I reckon.
What about yourself? How are you?
Yeah, it's the temperatures have dropped quite a bit here as well.
So it snowed up in the mountains, looks like.
You can feel that when you step outside the house.
And yeah, either way, we'll have a hot plate of piping metal
to go and warm us up during these winter months, for sure.
So we're back for our October 2024 albums review.
This is always fun.
This is for you lazy listeners who haven't checked out new music recently.
And we're coming towards the end of the year.
If you want to go back and check out some of the stuff that you've missed,
just check out all of these shows that Jeremy and I have done throughout the year.
And you can get caught up on some cool music that's come out this year.
So again, this is October.
Quite a few things that I listen to that we both listen to, actually.
I think we overlap quite a bit this time around.
But starting out with October 4th,
we had new releases from Blood Incantation, DAD, Disneyland After Dark,
The New Roses, Windrose, Mammoth Caravan,
Hermano, or Hairmono, if you want to pronounce it completely in English,
The Native Howl, Texas Hippie Coalition,
Texas Hippie Coalition, excuse me.
Hippie is from Motley Crue and Lords of Trident and reissued from Mastodon.
It is the 15th anniversary edition of Crack the Sky.
Jeremy, what did you listen to for October 4th?
Yeah, so I began the month checking out a couple of releases on Napalm Records.
The first one was a sort of unabashed open from the Italian band Leia.
This stood off really on a sort of a bad note, really, and it sadly got quite worse.
As you know, I'm a real power metal fan, but this is away from Firewind, believe me.
It has its sort of dated references to Norse mythology.
Bands that sort of do that well tend to be quite heavy, I think.
And this was sort of prancey dancy keyboard influenced drivel.
Sorry, guys, but I've no idea, you know,
who you're appealing to beyond a few teenage adolescents.
Just don't spend all of the album sales on a round of drinks.
Sorry, it's not personal.
The second Napalm offering, I think, was much better.
It was attracted to Danger by the New Roses.
It contains good time melodic rock and roll,
and it's apparently the band's sixth studio album to date.
Strangely, they do sound a bit like a US band, I think,
but they are in fact from Wiesbaden in Germany,
which Michael Schenker would be able to pronounce better than me, I think.
I suspect the singer Timmy Ruff might not be from Germany
because he doesn't sing with any accented vocals.
But whatever, they can write a good song or three,
and while they aren't tearing down any houses,
they're a band I'd sort of enjoy seeing live, I think.
There's some really sort of good choruses on the album
to get the crowd singing along a bit.
The title track has a sort of whiff of FM about it,
and if it's heavier after, Four Wheels has a riff that really sort of hits the spot.
So, yeah, that was pretty good.
I followed that up with the six-song EP, Frostbitten Galaxy,
and Mammoth Caravan, which is on Bladesetter Records.
This is a Sludged Doom band from Arkansas,
and you'll notice I'm saying that because when I was a kid,
I actually did a little bit of marketing and said,
Arkansas, by accident. So apologies early on there.
There's some variation on this sort of album,
it has some proggy elements, a fair share of sort of brooding intros.
It's got a very heavy, sort of groovy backline,
so people listen on board for most of it.
It's a hard listen, though, really.
It's got some sort of growly vocals on there,
you know, really growly as well, which, you know, sort of grates a little bit.
But, you know, the music shows a lot of promise.
I just think if they could get a stronger metal singer in to actually sing the songs,
maybe sort of mix it up a bit, you know,
with the growls and the non-growls, the clear vocals,
you know, it would be a winner, really.
But as it is, I guess that's the new roses as Mike of the week.
OK. And since I was lucky enough to interview Tim Ruff from The New Roses a few years back,
he is German. The thing is, Wiesbaden has a very, yeah,
they have a very big military base, US military base there.
So he spoke English early on in life and learned it directly from soldiers
and people that were stationed there.
So that's why he speaks with speaks and sings with very little accent.
So I listened to the DAD album Speed of Darkness.
I listened to the New Roses album Four Wheels is, I think, the best track off of that.
You mentioned that. And real quickly, I do want to mention that the album is called Troll Slayer,
but the band is Windrose. So just OK. OK. Yeah.
Just a quick correction there. Have you seen what they look like? Yeah.
No. OK. No. OK.
Because they look. Yeah, they look like characters out of He-Man, basically.
What else? I listened to the Ermano album, also the Native Howl and Texas Hippie Coalition.
I can't say that there's any album that I didn't like.
The Native Howl was more or less what I figured it would be,
being that the duet with Lizzy Hale was the leading single and obviously has Lizzy Hale, who's who's a big name.
It makes sense for them to release it with her because it's going to draw a certain audience there.
Texas Hippie Coalition was OK. The Ermano was stoner rock.
It was half live, half new track.
So it was what you would expect from them and people that have been in and out of Caius
and that extended family.
The New Roses is probably the. Out of everything that I've heard from them, probably the most polished album by them, probably the most radio friendly.
I understand completely why you would pick that one, because it's right up your alley.
The D.A.D. album, Speed of Darkness.
I think I think it's a good album.
I think it's again, they're not inventing anything new.
If you like D.A.D., you're going to like this like Metal Dan, who was looking to order this from overseas.
I'm going to give my tip of the hat to the Native How since you went with New Roses just to give people something different to listen to.
If you're not familiar with the band, it is acoustic.
It has fiddles. It actually has some electric elements to it.
It's a little different. And yeah, I think it's a little different.
And yeah, just to give them a shout out and have people check out both New Roses and the Native How.
How about that? All right.
So let's move on to the 11th of October.
We had new releases from the Offspring, Miles Kennedy, Jelly Roll 1349, Vomit Fourth,
Dance of the Dark, Seven Hours After Violet, the new side projects from Shavo from System of a Down.
That's one that I forgot to check out, which I will write down to to listen to.
Add Infinitum, actually Clean Break, The Crown, House of Lords, Linda Lindas, Master Boot Record,
Aransi's Pizzuzu, Radioactive, Seven Hours After Violet on here twice.
Seven Hours After Violet on here twice. So let me remove that.
Century Cemetery Skyline.
Shit, I really wanted a list of that and I didn't or did I listen to that?
I think I may have. And Touché Amore.
Jeremy, what did you listen to for this week?
Yeah, this particular week I started off listening to Full Tilt Overdrive by House of Lords,
the band from Connecticut, of course, formed by Greg Yuffier.
It began way back in the 1980s and reformed in 2000.
This one is on the Frontiers label and it's what I class as decent hard rock with strong guitar,
the perfectly adequate vocals from James Christian.
I'd say not all of the tracks are truly great songs on this album, but the guitars are pretty strong.
It's a pleasant listen overall.
The best tracks for me on that were Cry of the Wicked, the single Bad Karma,
and the extended album Closer Castle's High.
So I just kind of class that as fairly solid without being too into it.
Also on Frontiers was the album Video by Fans of the Dark.
This band was formed in 2020 in all places, of course, of Sweden,
where just about every other band seems to come from these days.
This is all sort of fun, poppy, early Europe, AOR style rock,
just the sort of thing you might imagine from Swedish pretenders.
And it will get slated for being very dated and it's kind of far too safe.
Those would be sort of fair criticisms, I guess.
I can almost hear the vomit gurgling up, Victor, when I tell you that one of the songs is called Let's Go to Rent a Video.
But let me put it out there, sickening as it might be,
the band can really sort of write a decent commercial song or two,
even if they sound a bit of a throwback from Top of the Pops in 1982.
So I'm not dismissing it. It's there for someone.
And I quite enjoyed it.
So talking of 80s influences, it brings me on to the Nordic Gothic,
the debut album from the supergroup Cemetery Skyline.
This has really sort of more than a passing reference to Sisters of Mercy
and other sort of similar indie goth bands of old.
It's really sort of described as a gothic death metal band and album,
and a meeting of minds really with some various well-known band members from the Nordic mellow death scene.
It's a real super list in this one.
I mean, you could criticise it for sounding a little bit samey,
but I think they're sort of very well-written songs, they're expertly performed.
It'll really appeal to that sort of niche of hard rockers that sort of veer into gothic, sort of alternative indie music sometimes.
It has sort of sizzling keyboards, very textured echoes on it, topped off with, you know,
what I say is really sort of truly brilliant vocals of Michael Stanner.
It's an album, you know, I've put on my purchase list already, and it's very easily my album of the week.
Okay. So I listened to a few different things here.
I listened to the new album by Offspring, Supercharged.
I really liked the singles that they released before the album came out.
I have to say, folks, probably the strongest songs off the album.
So when people give kids a hard time for streaming, it's your perfect example as to why I don't, because this saved me a lot of money.
I ended up with three songs in my 2024 playlist off of this album, Light It Up, Come to Brazil, which were leading singles, and then Hanging By a Thread.
There's really nothing else off of it that I felt worthy enough to either get my 2024 playlist or in my Offspring playlist.
So they've come a long way from their last great album, which to me was Splinter, and that was 20 years ago, if I'm not mistaken.
I listened to Crown of Thorns by The Crown.
I really, I like the album, but it starts to sound pretty same-sy after a while.
And it's still good, but I wish it was a little bit more diverse.
The Touche Amore spiral in a straight line.
It's not bad. Very punk feeling to it. Very 80s British feel to it.
But my album of the week is going to be the same as yours, Nordic Gothic by Cemetery Skylines.
I did listen to this. I thought so. I didn't have it crossed off on the list, but I'm like, I'm pretty sure I listened to it.
The singles were great leading up to it, and everything that I've heard off of the album, I really enjoyed.
The interesting thing here is that the lead singer who you mentioned before is in, I don't know how many bands at the moment.
And he sings completely differently in every band.
He's also in the halo effect with all these former members of In Flames.
And if he's sung the way that he does on Cemetery Skylines, I would like that music even more.
But anyway, definitely an album to check out.
Oh, I forgot to mention that there were EPs from One Line Drawing, Ten Years, and live albums from Def Leppard and Stoner.
Again, part of that whole Caius family tree.
October 18th, we had new releases from Jerry Cantrell, Encepharum, Escuela Grind, MC5, Cortez, Grand Magus, Fate, Frost, DGM, and Swallow, The Sun.
Jeremy, what did you listen to this week?
So I started off listening to Thieves and Charlatans by Cortez on the Ripple label.
I thought that was quite a decent listen.
It's a five-piece heavy Stoner band from Boston.
It's kind of varied its style a bit on this particular album.
And that's sort of obvious when you compare the opening of Gimmie Danger, which is sort of a lively, classic rock song, the very sludgy second-track, Leaders of Nobody.
And then they kind of follow that up with a very sort of bouncy, almost Black Sabbath-style riff on Stove Up, which has a – then it changes again with a sort of choppy chorus that sounds a little bit like Vandenberg's Moon Kings.
So it all makes for a great song, and there's a good variation of songs as well, so that's good.
But they also have their own sound, so they keep to their own sound.
So it's one of those albums that has something for everyone, kind of deserves a few listens.
So I quite enjoyed that.
I moved on to Sunraven by the Swedish three-piece Grand Magus.
I think it's Magus, is it? Or Magus? I don't know how the Swedes pronounce it, but anyway, it's on nuclear blast.
And I know it's one that you've also listened to, Victor, so you'll probably chip in in a minute.
I can't say I've listened a lot to this band before.
I hadn't listened to a lot of their – the back catalogue, but I have gone back and listened to it since.
I'm not entirely certain if I'm fully on board with the vocals of Yanni Kristofferson,
but I'm not saying I dislike his voice. I just haven't made up my mind on it yet. It's one of those.
But I do like the album a lot. It has those classic rock and metal elements and sort of melds them together into a great listen.
It has a nice bouncy feel to it. It has a solid mix. It's good production on it.
It has that sort of quality of a new Wobben band sometimes as well. It's got that rawness, but it has heaps of melody as well.
They managed to carve out a sound all of their own as well, which I kind of applaud. I did enjoy it. It was great.
So I moved on to Shining by Swallow the Sun on Century Media.
This is a Death Doom band from Finland, a genre I kind of seem to be warming to.
I think it's maybe The Dark Nights going on here in the UK. It's making me listen to that sort of stuff.
Harking back to that Indie Goth sound of old, I kind of liked as well. Whatever it is, it's a good listen.
The band's got a wealth of albums behind it now. I think they're a little bit more accessible than bands like Ayrton or Witherfall.
I think they've got some good melodies. I liked Melancholy, which I thought was almost like a ghost song.
I think they'd certainly cover that one really well. Very brooding, a nice eerie sort of...
There's even a bit of modern Queensryche on the song called Cold with a K. Had a bit of a growly twist on there as well.
I think there's twists and turns on this album. I think it's quite exceptional in its artistry. It sort of draws you in.
You kind of enjoy it without any interruptions. It's one of those you just want to listen to from start to finish.
I liked it a lot, but I think if I'm really honest, I will go for the Grand Makers album as my album of the week, but that one came a close second.
Okay, so I listened to the Escuela Grind, which is a full on mix of hardcore punk and some noise rock to it.
Not bad. I mean, there's a few tracks that I enjoyed. Not something that I would reach to all the time, but I did enjoy the release.
I really enjoyed Sun Raven by Grand Magus. I don't know if it's Magus or Magus either. I used to say Magus until Mark corrected me one time.
Interestingly enough, I believe the current singer of Firewind used to be in this band, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong.
I know that if it's not the current singer of Firewind, that was one of their previous singers anyway.
But man, I want Blood from Jerry Cantrell. Love this album.
For everyone that sits here and says, I don't know, without Lane, they're not this, they're not that.
I listened to Cantrell on the new Metallica podcast, him and Robert Trujillo, who also appears on this album, talk in depth about it, which was a really cool listen.
If you haven't heard that, I do recommend it. I did preorder this on vinyl. We'll be picking it up shortly.
It is my album of the week and it is Jerry being Jerry without being full on Alice in Chains, if that's a way of describing it.
I mean, obviously his voice is his own, but it's doing stuff that he really doesn't do all that often or if ever in Alice in Chains.
And my number two would have been the Grand Magus. So we've got all bases covered there.
And then the final week of October, the 25th, had new releases from Artreu, Loud Blast, 311, which that date may have been moved because I can't find that album.
Devin Townsend, Annihilator, but not the Annihilator from Canada. This is Annihilator with one N.
Underdogs, Trucker Diablo, Ares Descendant, Cassandra's Crossing, Doug Pinnock, Fit for an Autopsy, Iotan, League of Distortion, Mindless Sinner, Pixies, Turmoin, Catalot, Kings of Mercia,
EPs from Enthios, Dance with Dead, Asking Alexandria, and Enforced, reissues from Green Day and Rat, live album from Bohemoth and compilations from him, Motorhead, and various artists with the American Psycho comic series soundtrack.
So Jeremy, what did you listen to for the final week of October?
Yeah, I should have listened to the Rat album. I don't know whether that's a remaster. Hopefully it is a remaster and I'm going to have a listen to that in due course.
We all know how good that album is anyway, so we didn't need to listen to it as sort of new music goes.
I started out the week listening to the thrash album Death is Calling from Annihilator, which as you mentioned is a different band, it's a different spelling to the Canadian band Annihilator.
This is the one from Texas that started out 37 years ago apparently and returned in 2015 after disbanding for many years.
It's actually a seven song album of just 33 minutes of music, but as you've often mentioned sometimes, less is more.
So more of an EP than an LP I guess, but it's all very typical melding of all the various thrash elements you'd expect, brutal riffs, fast bass drumming.
There's even a sort of priest-like metronomic blast of iron grinder to get your teeth into.
It's unrelenting, it's unreconstructed, it's powerful anvil grinding, bone crushing metal I'd say, and it truly hits the spot.
I really enjoyed it and I suggest the listener goes out and have a listen to it, it's good.
Next up I listened to Power Nerd by the prolific Devin Townsend, his 12th studio release now under his own name, because he's done other stuff as well as we know.
I can't say I'm much of an expert in his music and I've not been that much of a particular fan in the past either, so I'll be honest with you.
It's a really nice listen, it's got quite a bit of variation in styles, it keeps you sort of hanging in for a longer listen which I like about albums sometimes.
I like the song Gratitude, it has parts that are very Pink Floyd, interspersed with a great stadium friendly chorus I think.
That was one of the highlights for me and it didn't overstay its welcome as well, sometimes bands or artists like that can go on a little bit and that's a perfect song.
The opening title track adds a bit of pace, I like that, and I like Glacier, I thought there was a brooding atmospheric sort of combining of acoustic and electric guitars so it's a very good effect.
There are some fine melodies on that and a good crescendo as well.
It was a decent listen, not normally my sort of thing but very enjoyable.
A big shout out to Nine Ties by the Italian Stoner Rock Band Underdogs, they seem to be back after a decade break, well worth a listen.
But it wasn't my album of the week, that goes to Social Hand Grenade by the Irish New Wave of classic rock band Trucker Diablo.
They've now released six studio albums since 2010, this is all sort of heavy hitting riffs, solid production, it's good time rock and roll, very much in the style I'd say of Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, that sort of music.
Apparently they've spent quite a long time going over this album, producing it and coming up with the songs and for the most part that shows as well.
Occasionally they dial it down, sometimes they do sound a little bit like every other band out there but they certainly know how to write a decent rock song as well.
I'd very much like to see them live and hey presto, they're headlining Rock Witch Festival next August in my hometown. So there you go, there's a great opportunity for me, I've got no excuse, I should go and see them. Solid stuff, album of the week, Trucker Diablo.
Alright, cool. For me, let's see, I listened to the IOTN album, Kinship. I really enjoyed their previous release but I have to be honest, this release bored me.
It was just very long drawn out and kind of samezy.
I listened to Doug Pinnick's latest solo album, Thingamajigger, and it was okay, respectable, has some pretty cool tracks off of it.
Also listened to the Devin Townsend Power Nerd.
With Devin I either really like what he releases or I really don't care for it.
This has a few good songs on it but the rest is, we've kind of been here before, we've heard all this before so there's really not much more for me to kind of enjoy with it.
I'm going to go with Cassandra's Crossing and Garden of Earthly Delights. This is a George Lynch project with a female singer.
And I should have been better prepared for this.
Let's see if this comes up here. I guess that was the name of a movie as well from the 70s.
Look at that.
Okay, so when you're not looking for a video, a bunch of videos pop up.
Cassandra Carson is her name.
Anyway, if by any chance you're missing, George really doing Dockin' like material.
This is the album for you because it's George really playing in that style with a singer that has an upper registry and can pull off a lot of that stuff. I don't know if he's going to tour behind this or not.
But if he does, he's got a singer that can do that early Dockin' without really struggling.
So it'd be interesting to see if he does anything with her or not.
Anyway, so yeah, so those are our recommendations. Let's just run down Jeremy and my recommendations real quickly.
For October 10th, Jeremy did say the new roses with Attracted to Danger. I said
the native house Sons of Destruction for December. For December. Yeah, for October 11th.
Let's see, Jeremy did say Cemetery Skyline, which I agreed with.
For the 18th, Jeremy said Grand Magus with Sunraven and I said Jerry Cantrell, I want blood. And for the final week of October, the 25th.
Let's see here, Jeremy went with Trucker Diablo and Social Hand Grenade. And let's see here, I mentioned Cassandra's Crossing with Garden of Earthly Delights.
And as usual, Jeremy and I love discussing music, love discussing different topics. So there are a few other things that we are going to discuss now.
Jeremy, you wanted to talk about the 1988 show, since you were not present.
What did you think of the countdown when you listened to it? Did you get that emoji losing its mind when you find out what the number one was?
Yeah, well of course, you're expecting a variation on these kind of shows. It's not going to be the one that you sent in, it's going to be an aggregate of everybody.
And when I reflect on it, I was kind of shocked that Iron Maiden were not number one. But then I thought number one was Metallica.
Hey, it's going to be Metallica, Iron Maiden or Queensryche, I guess. As I've said to you, I'm not a huge fan of that particular Queensryche album.
I prefer Empire myself. But I get that everybody loves it and I get that it's so popular amongst Queensryche fans and the broad metal church of fans.
I was quite surprised that Iron Maiden didn't get to number one because I agree with you, you mentioned this on the show, that it really is probably their best album.
If you think about it, there aren't any fillers on that album, whereas if you go through most of their catalogue, there's great songs on every album.
We love Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden have got five, six brilliant songs on every album, but they never really did an album that sounded so complete.
And this was a peak in their career. And what's happened is that on previous years that you've done these, they've been number one every time.
And this is the first time they've not been when probably they've released their best album. So that was probably something I was shouting from the rooftops.
Yeah, I was surprised as I mentioned, when I saw early on that they weren't going to be number one, I was like, whoa, either something turns around real quickly or the streak is broken.
And I thought to myself, I'm like, well, there's, you know, there's still enough time to go where people could vote for it. But then I started to see that people were leaving this album off their lists altogether.
And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. I know that we talked about the fact, for example, Ed and Anthony Mackie talked about the fact that.
Some of these bands really started to drop off quality wise around this point in time.
I can see how after somewhere in time, some people would jump off the bandwagon because.
That's I mean, out of Bruce and Adrian's original run with the band, Number of the Beast, Peace of Mind, Power Slaves, Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son.
I think somewhere in time is easily their weakest album out of all of those, in my opinion anyway.
Seventh Son is, as you said, it's strong beginning to end Moonchild, Infinite Dreams, Can I Play with Madness, The Evil That Men Do, Seven Son of a Seven Son, The Prophecy, The Clairvoyant and Only the Good Die Young.
This this album, even though it's got some monstrously long songs, the album is done before you know it because it just goes down so easy.
I was rooting for Queensryche to come in number two.
Because I thought I was like, well, it's a foregone conclusion. You know, this fan base is going to vote for Maiden and then I'm hoping that Queensryche is too.
And then for the longest time, Maiden and Queensryche were going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
And I was like, well, you know, it might be kind of cool if a Queensryche album perseveres.
But then on the last day, I received like four different people's votes and it was apparent at that time that
Queensryche was not going to get number two.
I don't know why, but this isn't loading for me.
I'm just thinking there's two ways to judge an album.
You're judging an album now as you've listened to it in the past week again, after a long time where you probably haven't listened to the album.
Or you're judging the album as you received it back in that particular year.
Right. And there's two ways to think about these things, because I think sometimes a particular album can make a massive hit on you in the year that it was released.
Or you'll listen to it again and you think, fuck me, that album is so good.
And it's got to wear well, hasn't it? Because an 80s album will have 80s production.
But if you listen to Seventh Son, I think it's worn so well.
I mean, it sounds so good today as it did back then.
Whereas some of the albums that you went through on that particular show, the production on them probably sounds quite 80s.
Right, right. They sound dated also.
There's certain albums that are kind of the opposite for me.
And I mentioned this on the air and on my Patreon show, where Second Sighting by Fraley's Comment loved back in the day.
And now it's an album that I hardly listen to anything off of because I just don't think it's that good.
I don't think it's aged well. Yeah.
There's so much material there, though, that that did. I think that there's a lot of good music that came out.
That easily.
Is is is.
You know, you.
You see some of these albums and you realize, like, oh, yeah, yeah, there's a reason why that is included.
There's a reason, you know, there are others.
I mean, personally, I didn't get.
Why so many people voted for.
Bon Jovi's New Jersey, but I get it.
Well, it was a big, big seller, huge seller, and it had so many hits.
I guess so.
But I am. Yeah, for some reason, the OK, so here it goes.
It's loading up for me now.
What's the difference here?
A similar type of album that I voted on, which didn't even feature in the top 10, I didn't expect it to was the Europe album out of this world, which is an absolute super AOR soft rock album.
I mean, I think it's probably better than the final countdown overall because there's so many great songs on it.
But I understand it because it's not a hard hitting.
It's not a heavy metal album.
It's not really a classic rock album in many respects.
But it's still, you know, it's it means something to me.
And I like it.
I can pick it up, listen to it.
And it's very easy. It's got an 80 sound to it.
You know, and it's it does sound a little dated, but the song amazing on it.
And again, you know, David Lee Roth, I think me and you agree that we like that album, but not everyone sort of considers it.
It's one of those that passes people by. But we like the, you know, the David Lee Roth solo stuff.
It had something about it.
Yeah, I think that that album gets a bad rap.
Like I said, I meant to sound the Patreon show.
It's it's pretty solid. You know, a lot of people would say, oh, no, he was trying to go too commercial and it sounds kind of disco.
And outside of the song, just like paradise and.
Oh, the the acoustic ballad.
Good times is a call. I don't remember, but it's it's the end of side one, if I'm not mistaken.
Those are the two singles off of it. And those are the only two kind of commercial songs off of that album, I think.
So I've always thought it was better. I think it's better than the than, oh, you wait one, too.
I think it's a lot better than you wait one, too. But, you know, hey, everyone.
Votes for what they think is right. The the Europe album ended up being number 26 out of this world.
I have a few albums that made the top 10. I voted for the Metallica, the Iron Maiden, the Queens, right?
The Ozzy, the Halloween, the Anthrax.
The Scorpions. Yeah. Living Color. Interesting.
Yeah. Just pick up on that Scorpions album because, you know, Scorpions, as we know, have really released so many great albums before that album.
So I think it might put some people off. I think if you listen to it in isolation and pretend that Scorpions never released any other albums before that,
you'd probably think that that's a damn good album. Imagine if that was their debut album.
It just came out that year. It'd probably be, you know, probably in the top three because you'd think, wow, this band, where they come from.
But it's simply because you're comparing it to the old stuff and you're thinking, well, Blackout was better. Love Drive was better.
And, yeah, they probably were. But it's still on its own a super album, Savage Amusement. Really good.
And it shows, you know, they had a run of a string of great albums all one after the other at that time in the 80s and late 70s.
And going into the 90s, I think Face the Heat isn't a bad album either. It's got some pretty good stuff on there.
Crazy World is the one where to me they were trying to do Love at First Thing Part Two. They were trying to get too radio friendly.
They were trying to force, you know, they had gone like almost like in a slightly heavier direction.
And then they came back with this, which was just straight up. Some of the songs like the song Tease Me, Please Me, which I've always thought was horrible.
It was I was like, they don't need to be recording Poison.
They, you know, they've done enough on their own that they don't need to glom off of what others are doing.
Yeah. So I mean, that album is I think is still really good.
It's also an interesting time, wasn't it? Interesting time because you've got you've got Thrash Metal coming in at the time where we're still listening to all that sort of solid classic rock, melodic, you know, classic rock and poppy rock even.
And then you've got Metallica still quite early in their career. They're coming out with an album that is hit number one because people love it.
They love the songs on it. The production, as we know, you know, leaves a bit to be desired, I think.
But they've got some solid songs on there that appear still in their live act today.
And they were, you know, forging their their sort of forging their way, weren't they? What they do, you know, what they do best.
So although it still surprises me that it hit number one, you know, on the other side, I can see because a lot of people love the fact that Thrash came in at that time and, you know, was taking over.
We got overkill as well that were doing it at the time and that they were they were high up on the list, I think, as well.
Yeah. Well, Thrash related bands, Metallica was number one, Megadeth was four, Slayer was five, Testament was seven, Anthrax is nine, Suicidal Tendencies is ten.
Halloween, who's known more for their power metal, I guess. I mean, what always appealed to me about those albums is that it was kind of a mix between Thrash metal and new album metal.
So it was to me, it was Anthrax or Megadeth meets Maiden or Judas Priest, where, sure, both of those bands influenced the Thrash bands we're talking about.
But it was adding double bass elements, certain synchronized guitar playing that lent itself to Thrash metal more so than Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
Yeah. Some interesting comments from your patrons as well. I think it was Erd who said about the Testament album that he's looking forward to hearing the remastered version. I think that will really be good on a remastered issue.
And I think it's out now, isn't it? And I need to really get hold of that because I like that album a lot.
But it's just the production and the way it's recorded that puts you off a little bit. I think if they've done a remastered version, I'm hoping it'll sound a lot better.
It's supposed to. I don't know if it ends up doing the job or not, but it's supposed to sound better. I know that that was a gripe that the band had.
At least when I interviewed Chuck Billy back in the day, he just did not like how their first few albums sounded and the label appointed a producer and the producer basically said, you know, hey, it's my way or else.
And they couldn't do anything else. And Chuck Billy, when I interviewed him, mentioned how they could listen to the Metallica album or other albums from their contemporaries.
And the album sounded timeless where you listen to their album and it sounded dated in very 80s.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it'll be interesting. Yeah.
I think that's a vinyl only release as well.
So that that should be interesting to hear.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Anything else that you want to discuss before we wrap things up here?
I think that was it really. I mean, it kind of got me on to what we just mentioned really with the Testament album.
I think there's a lot of albums that came out in the 80s and not just that particular year that are ripe for remastering and in some cases, re-recording as well.
I like, you know, I know some people sort of say, why are they re-recording an album with the new band?
Because we want to hear that particular album sounding great today as it's recorded with the instruments and the recording equipment today, because we know that that sounds better.
Technology has moved on.
So I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of call for remastering and we've seen it with Judas Priest with the very first album Rock a Roller that just came out recently.
A lot of the fans are saying, you know, it's great that that's been remastered.
They like some of the songs on it.
They know it's, you know, a band in its sort of formation and its early days, you know, just sort of stepping their toes in the water.
But it's better to have a better sounding album than the original, you know, if you can do it well.
And I listened to the Queen album recently and Queen won and it's fantastic what they've done to it.
Really good sound.
And, you know, I think they could do it more really.
I know, you know, a lot of people don't want to fork out money for albums like that.
But if you like a particular album and you want a new copy of it and something that sounds good, you're going to pay for it.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And the labels know that.
That's why, as we were talking about Off Air, that's why vinyl stores keep creeping up and popping up in different cities and places around the world.
Yeah, yeah, indeed.
And Long Live the Vinyl as well, I think, but, you know, you've got to move with the times.
You've got to record new stuff for people.
And don't forget there's a new generation of fans.
So if they're going to listen to something, they don't want to listen to something that sounds tinny, you know, it was recorded in 1980, whatever.
And it was great, great songs, but it didn't have a great sound.
They want to hear a great sound as well because they used to, good technology.
And why not re-record it, get young fans into it and keep rock and roll alive.
Keep it going beyond me and you, Victor.
We need our kids to be into rock and metal forevermore.
There you go.
I couldn't have said that better myself.
And I think.
Uh oh.
What just happened?
I should have had that ready.
Anyway, Jeremy, I do want to thank you for joining me tonight.
It's always fun.
Please check out all of the other monthly album reviews that Jeremy and I have done.
They're a worthy listen.
It'll help you get up to speed when casting your votes for the end of the year.
We've got one more month to go.
December usually doesn't have too many new releases.
So once December rolls around, we'll do a list of releases for probably just the first half of November, because the second half is usually dead.
Unless an ACDC or Metallica or somebody like that releases a surprise album.
But I think Lincoln Park has just done that.
I think they've released something on Monday.
So we'll see.
I'll have to look into that.
In any event, thank you guys for checking this episode out.
Thank you once again to Jeremy for joining me.
And we hope you enjoy the episode.
We will see you next time right here on Signals from Mars.
See you, folks.
Bye.