"Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other."
--H.P. Lovecraft, The Silver Key
Dialing up a bit of Manilla Road this Metal Friday, one of the most swordly-and-sorcerous metal bands ever.
I love the atmosphere of "Mystification." Mark Shelton sounds like an evil sorcerer out of a Clark Ashton Smith story here.
Through the winds of time
A poet found The Key
To The Elder Rhyme
Some call the song mystic
With tales of gore
And terror in the night
His words, no more,
Have kept me mystified
Someone in an online group posted that they fail to see the aesthetic connection between metal and S&S (?) Sarcasm doesn't always come across well on the internet so I hope this was a case of crossed wires ... otherwise this is a really bad take.
Mystification is basically Weird Tales with guitars.
Manilla Road also has a song called ... Queen of the Black Coast.
This past weekend I was away celebrating the long July 4 holiday. My extended family is fortunate enough to own a seasonal camp on one of the small lakes that dot southern New Hampshire like lapis lazuli under the mountains. We watched fireworks on the beach, puttered around in the pontoon boat, drank spirits, and forgot about life for a while.
But my mind kept wandering. Far away, to Birmingham, England, where an old greying band dressed in black was taking the stage one last time. Saturday was “Back to the Beginning” and the beginning of the end for a band near-and-dear to my heart.
I’m talking about Black Sabbath, of course.
If you believe Rob Halford and Ozzy Osbourne (who wouldn’t? they are our metal gods, infallible, their word comes from on high), heavy metal’s distinctive sound and look derived at least in part from the sound of clashing steel machinery and billowing fire and smoke of the iron foundries of Birmingham. Birmingham was among the principal engines of the industrial revolution of the mid-18th/early 19th centuries. After the Luftwaffe bombed the shit out of it in WW2—which come to think of it is very fucking metal—it rebounded with a period of economic growth, before beginning a slow decline in the 70s.
Against this curtain of dirty steel and fire heavy metal was born.
Ozzy was born in Aston, a ward in the city, in 1948, growing up in a row of terraced houses. Not a lovely place to spend your childhood. “Unless your life’s ambitions was to work in a factory, killing yourself with all-night shifts on an assembly line, there wasn’t much to look forward to, growing up in Aston. The only jobs to be had were in the factories,” he says in his 2009 autobiography I Am Ozzy.
From this cauldron of crashing iron, molten steel slag and urban decay came Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, the alpha and omega of heavy metal. And others besides. Ozzy escaped the slaughterhouse in which he worked, and hitched to Tony Iommi his star quickly ascended.
Sabbath is regarded as the first metal band by almost everyone; if you think it was actually someone like Blue Cheer you are more than a little pretentious; if you think it was Led Zeppelin you’re an amateur but us metalheads can work with you, young grasshopper, and get you on the path to enlightenment. Those bands made metal sounds, sprinkled in metal chords, and sometimes wrote metal songs: “The Immigrant Song” is thoroughly metal, for example. But Zeppelin as a whole is not. They are blues-based rock. Likewise Blue Cheer may have made songs with heavy metal elements, but they did not start a movement. Black Sabbath did, by going all in with the sound and the look, consistently, album over albums. Their self-titled album debuted on Feb. 13, 1970, and with it heavy metal was born.
If a band is to be considered heavy metal it must embrace that identity all the way--thematically, visually, and most of all, unapologetically. Without irony, unless you are Steel Panther or GWAR. This describes Black Sabbath. The quartet of lead vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, founder and lead guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, and bassist Geezer Butler, went all-in with crunching, guitar-forward riffs, demonic imagery and lyrics. To get a sense of his sound and how different Black Sabbath is than say, the Rolling Stones—who rock hard but are not heavy metal—you must listen. Words are inadequate. I recommend pulling up “Into the Void” on Youtube or Spotify. You might at first think you’re stoned; the drawn-out intro is downbeat, slow, murky. Coupled with a trippy album cover you might think you were listening to some obscure act who had their heyday at Woodstock and burned out on acid. But then, suddenly, at the 1:14 mark, the song takes a hard right turn into the primal. A primitive downshift to an entirely new type of thing altogether. If you have a pulse this is guaranteed to cause a few involuntary reactions. Your mouth will harden into a rigid, righteous attitude. Your lips will purse. In short order your head will begin nodding to Ward’s driving drumbeat. You may break out into air guitar, mimicking Iommi’s inimitable guitar tones, or you may air drum, swinging your arms to hit an invisible snare. No one seems to play air bass but if that’s your thing, have at it. Go do this now; I’ll wait here. If you experience no involuntary reaction to “Into the Void” or “War Pigs,” you are not metal and never will be.
Sabbath were the torchbearers for metal from 1970-1976, putting out classic after classic album including their self-titled debut, followed by Paranoid (1970), Master of Reality (1971), Vol. 4 (1972), Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973), and Sabotage (1975). Sabbath’s distinctive sound came from its tuned down guitars; Iommi needed to loosen his guitar strings after losing the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident (a story that is so metal it has passed into legend, or True Myth). Although they received little commercial airplay Black Sabbath built a massive following with hits like “Paranoid,” “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Children of the Grave.” Their sound would influence subsequent waves of American thrash bands across the Atlantic, including the most commercially successful metal band ever, Metallica. Said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich during Sabbath’s Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony,:“Bill, Geezer, Ozzy and Tony, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be here. Obviously if there was no Black Sabbath, there would be no Metallica. If there was no Black Sabbath, hard rock and heavy metal as we know it today would look, sound and be shaped very, very differently. So if there was no Black Sabbath, I could possibly still be a morning newspaper delivery boy.”
Sabbath was also the first metal band to feel the unending attacks of self-righteous and pretentious critics, who were unable to appreciate this groundbreaking genre of music because they had their heads jammed firmly up the Beatles’ asses. Rolling Stone critic Lester Bangs in September 1970 panned Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut—the same album that launched thousand metal careers and today remains a stone-cold classic—with the following bucket of ice water: “Over across the tracks in the industrial side of Cream country lie unskilled laborers like Black Sabbath, which was hyped as a rockin' ritual celebration of the Satanic mass or some such claptrap, something like England's answer to Coven. Well, they're not that bad, but that's about all the credit you can give them. The whole album is a shuck.”
55 years later the laugh is on him. Apparently all 45,000 tickets for the concert sold out in 16 minutes. I was giving the streaming pay-per-view serious consideration but again, family comes first.
Sabbath’s last live performance as the original four was at Ozzfest in 2005, although a new incarnation picked up in 2006 as Heaven and Hell (I do consider H&H Sabbath in all but name—Iommi drives the boat, Chief. Not Sharon).
But no original four for a stretch of 20 years. Until Saturday, when they took their final bow. Back in Birmingham, as it should be.
Seated on his black throne Ozzy managed to summon some of his old power and haunting vocals, the unmistakable keening wail. I was pleasantly surprised by their performance, both the Sabbath final set and Ozzy’s solo material prior. Seeing him struggle through “Mama I’m Coming Home” brought a tear to my eye. I think he was struggling because of the words and what they represent, not the effort.
Some of the old guard summoned some great performances, too, pieces here and there I’ve been able to catch. Slayer was great. Steven Tyler was fantastic though he did not perform any Sabbath songs. Metallica rocked (“Johnny Blade”? Are you kidding? Awesome). Jake E. Lee, Nuno Bettencourt, and KK Downing shredded. I was also impressed by some young blood/Yungblud. Whew, that dude can sing. I’ve heard great things about Rival Sons cover of “Electric Funeral.”
I haven’t seen all the performances yet, just what I’ve been able to find on YouTube. I’m sure there will be some special DVD release and I’m looking forward to seeing it in full.
We also had some great recorded performances. Jack Black’s School of Rock version of “Mr. Crowley” made me smile, and nod… and cheer. He played it straight, rare for him. Over the top in an early 80s Ozzy tribute costume, but not straying into buffoonery or mockery, and he sounded great. I’ve already mentioned Judas Priest’s cover of “War Pigs,” which was sort of a separate thing though obviously timed for the show.
I don’t believe another metal band will ever receive this sort of all-star sendoff. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Metallica are rivals in influence (though I think Sabbath still gets the nod here) and Metallica is more commercially popular, but by the time Metallica retires—they are still in their early 60s and could have another solid decade ahead of them—the old guard will have slipped away, either into musical senesce or their mortal coil. We won’t have Slayer and Steven Tyler to perform; we won’t have Judas Priest to create a video tribute.
Metal is going, boys. Its passage had already begun with the deaths of Ronnie James Dio and Lemmy, but with Sabbath’s departure from the stage we’re truly seeing the beginning of the end.
And it makes me sad.
Classic heavy metal is tied to the romance of my life. Growing up I discovered its magic. For me heavy metal was a release from conformity. When I joined the ranks of metal warriors I wasn’t scared; I was part of something powerful, unique, wild, weird. I wore the denim, and the black.
Iron Maiden is so damned good and has so many damned good songs that I can't listen to them neutrally. I've lost track of the number of times I've found myself sitting next to a friend with a cold beer, and had to stop our conversation mid-sentence.
"So man I've always wanted to tell you something. And never had the courage. It's just that..."
"Wait, hold that thought--you need to hear this. Wait for it..."
And then I launch into how awesome this bit of Maiden-ness is.
The guitar solo in "Powerslave" is one of those moments. Stops me cold every time. Easily in my top 5 Maiden solos, and that's saying something. I'm proud of the work I did capturing the fantastic work of Nikki Stringfield of the Iron Maidens absolutely killing it at Wallys on Hampton Beach.
I mean, just beautiful. So is the guitar solo.
"Powerslave" brings dry and dessicated ancient Egypt to vivid visceral life through the power of heavy metal. When Bruce Dickinson dons his owl Horus mask (as I saw him do in 2008) the effect is complete. We're hearing the words of an ancient Pharoah, believing he is a god but finding out he is all too mortal, subject to the eternal law of death.
Tell me why I had to be a Powerslave
I don't wanna die, I'm a God, why can't I live on?
When the Life Giver dies, all around is laid waste
And in my last hour, I'm a slave to the Power of Death.
Electric guitars playing in the right tone can produce in me a feeling that has no words. Its like I've entered into a new dimension adjacent to this one, transported to a better world.
Steve Clark's guitar work on "Gods of War" produces this effect in me.
You never really hear much about this track. Although its on the wildly popular Hysteria, its greatly overshadowed by the lineup of mega hits on the rest of the album. Buried in the middle, an afterthought amid the seven (!) singles that dominated the charts.
But I find the guitar tone on "Gods of War" impeccable ... nostalgic, epic, beautiful.
Here's a live performance from 1988. Give it a listen and let me know if you agree. See 1:27 mark.
Sad that Clark left us just three years later but this is a legacy piece of work.
Here’s a deep cut from his Rainbow days on this Metal Friday. Listen to the lyrics of this one, S&S fans. This is where Dio fully tapped the vein of fantastic source material that would be the hallmark of his career.
Meet me when the sun is in the western sky
The fighting must begin before another someone dies
Crossbows in the firelight
Greensleeves waving
Mad men raving
Through the shattered night
Flames are getting higher
Make it leap unto the spire
Drawbridge down
Cut it to the ground
We shall dance around the fire
Also, if anyone happens to be in Dracut tonight (obscure MA town/what are the odds? But you never know if you don’t ask), I’ll be at The Boat to take in Wildside, an 80s tribute band fronted by Ron Finn. I’ve known for Ron some years now and he’s twice played live in my home. In addition to a great Rob Halford he can do David Coverdale, too.
Cauldron Born is sword-and-sorcery brought to heavy metal life. Band members Howie Bentley and Matthew Knight are not just talented musicians (the latter is also the band's new lead singer) but also published S&S authors, well versed in the sacred genre. After hearing them speak on recent podcast interviews and YouTube videos I figured some of their music was in order.
Blast their first album "Born of the Cauldon" this Metal Friday. Soak in the impeccable guitar tone and revel in that incredible album cover art by Lionel Baker II (you can view more of his artwork here, click on the album links).
It's a testament to the greatness of British Steel that a song as good as "The Rage" is buried deep on side 2. Wait, do people still refer to albums, and sides? I do.
There is a reason this album is a stone-cold classic. To use a sports analogy its bench is deep ... I don't think it has one weak track and it all sounds awesome, songs stripped down to bare steel. You will find an album "none more metal," to paraphrase one Nigel Tufnel.
The start of "The Rage" is quite unexpected, a funky solo bass intro followed by a jazzy, swinging drum beat that lulls you in to a false sense of security. Where's the rage?
But wait, it's coming. An angry, fist-thrusting metal assault, pounding beat and heavy guitar backed by Rob Halford's soaring vocals.
The breakdown at the end with the rapid fire (snare? I'm not a musician) is divine. It sounds like a machine gun. See 4:06 of the below video.
Few things are more rewarding than stumbling across or being served up in the algorithm an awesome tune, looking it up, and getting gobsmacked to discover is more than 40 years old.
See "Cold Sweat" by Thin Lizzy (1983). Never heard it until a month or so ago. Am glad I did, even if I'm pissed I wasn't cranking it 30 years ago. I think you'll enjoy it too, on this Metal Friday.
Chalk this up to Boys Are Back in Town syndrome. It's borderline tragic that Thin Lizzy's entire legacy is wrapped up in that fine but terribly overplayed song. Thin Lizzy is massively underrated and under-appreciated.
RIP guitarist John Sykes, whom we lost back in December. I'm pouring one out on the curb for you, man. You tore this one up.
This Metal Friday, a toast to the great Nicko McBrain, who last week called it a day after a career that spanned more than 40 years behind the drum kit with Iron Maiden.
When Nicko joined Iron Maiden in 1982 there were skeptics. He was replacing Clive Burr, a terrific player who had been there since Maiden’s debut album, and joining a well-established band that had just put out the wildly popular Number of the Beast.
Nicko had to make an impression. And he did, on the very first song of his first studio album with the band, “Where Eagles Dare.” An awesome, driving tune kicking off side A of Piece of Mind (1983).
It’s telling that the first sounds you hear on this classic album are Nicko’s thunderous drums. He brought a new level of heaviness and intensity to the band, and remained Maiden’s drummer for 42 years, until age and the residual effects of a 2023 stroke forced him to hang up the drumsticks.
At 72 Nicko has more than earned his retirement.
I’m glad I got to see Maiden and Nicko one last time earlier this year. Our metal heroes are aging, no guarantees of tomorrow.
Grave Digger... a legendary band with whom I was only lightly acquainted until I saw them open for Blind Guardian circa 2017. I very much enjoyed what I saw, prompting me to explore a bit more of their back catalog. Including this week's selection for Metal Friday.
No frills on "Season of the Witch." Atmospheric opening, a nicely building song with a great guitar tone, heavy, with a wonderful little chorus supported by excellent backing vocals. Given the subject matter of the song I suppose I should have slotted this into October.
Observation: These German power metal bands (Edguy, I'm looking at you) have slightly off-beat lyrics, occasionally non-sequitur, betraying English as a second language. Its slightly word salad and generic fantasy, but nevertheless carried along by the wonderful instrumentation and a powerful vocal performance. Enjoy.
Metal Friday returns with simple, hard-driving metal. Metal Church and "Start the Fire," off The Dark (1986).
Nothing subtle about this one, just a great example of classic mid-late 80s metal. The main riff kicks ass, decent guitar solo, and the late David Wayne puts on a terrific vocal performance.
In the late 90s heavy metal was in shambles. A Mad Max wasteland, fans squabbling over the little juice that remained like savage, scavenging bikers. The mutated blight of grunge and nu metal (Jesus I hate even typing nu metal) had dropped a steaming deuce on anything resembling taste, talent, or actual heavy metal. It was a dried out, sad, creatively bankrupt, pathetic wasteland of terrible music, suffused in the outflow of the great septic tank of post hair-metal apocalypse.
God I hated this period.
And please don't try to change my mind. It sucked, hard. I saw it all, first hand, at multiple Ozzfests and a lot of shitty listening sessions in college surrounded by assholes in flannel. Yes, I gave it the old 'college try,' for FOUR YEARS, and can confirm it sucked, Pearl Jam and all.
I saw Limp Bizkit come out of a toilet, literally, at Ozzfest. They should have stayed there. I'd gladly hit flush, as the world cheered.
Spare me your nostalgia and stories; this was fucking dark times for heavy metal.*
And then came 2000.
Iron Maiden came roaring back with Brave New World, and Rob Halford came out of a post Judas Priest funk with Resurrection. And suddenly the world tilted back on its correct axis, and all was right again.
Heavy metal was back.
"Resurrection" was Halford telling the world, "Fight and 2wo were interesting ... okay not 2wo. But I needed these albums at this point in my life. I've gotten them out of my system. Now? Fuck that noise. I'm back, with legit music."
This was a repudiation of the 1990s. Don't believe me? Here's the lyrics:
I'm digging deep inside my soul
To bring myself out of this god-damned hole
I rid the demons from my heart
And found the truth was with me from the start
Holy angel lift me from this burning hell
Resurrection make me whole
This song is awesome. It resurrected heavy metal.
Listen and enjoy. And remember how fragile it all is, boys.
* I don't hate you, I just think you have terrible taste in music.
That it is told in the language of fantasy is not an accident, or because Tolkien was an escapist, or because he was writing for children. It is a fantasy because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.
--Ursula LeGuin, “On Fantasy and Science Fiction”
The critics who have dismissed fantasy as juvenile escapism have failed to recognize that fantasy grapples with real and eternally pressing issues, albeit wrapped in metaphor and fantastic trappings.
The same critics who worship at the altar of realism and extol the virtues of novels about average people in familiar times cannot admit their darlings have rapidly aged and are fast losing their relevance. While the classics of fantasy remain as fresh today as the day they were written.
That’s because the language of fantasy is unbound by time, or place. It deals with the big issues—conflict within and without, love, sorrow, friendship, the inevitable march of time, pain, decay and death—in poetic abstraction, and in heroic meter and timbre. Modern novels that reference an author’s time and place will confuse the modern reader with surroundings that grow increasingly abstract and impenetrable with the passing years, while the Hyborian Age or Middle-Earth remain eternally familiar and inhabitable even as their authors slip further into the past. They are distanced from the ordinary, but close to the human heart.
The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, though perhaps never as well as this version by Heart. Because we all grasp its emotional depths, and understand the meaning of the plaintive cries.
The apples turn to brown and black
The tyrant's face is red
Oh war is common cry
Pick up your swords and fly
We’re always trying to bring the balance back. It’s the eternal struggle never won, but once in a while we experience the blessed peace of equilibrium.
The Battle of Evermore will still be played 100 years from now, and remain as unspoiled as Lothlorien, because it is the timeless matter of fantasy.
My metal summer continues, and so Metal Friday continues, with Metallica.
"Orion" oozes nostalgia and loss, which I'm possibly projecting knowing that its architect Cliff Burton died just six months after its release. It feels like a dirge--and it very much is. The song was played over speakers during Burton's funeral, and James Hetfield had notes from the song's bridge tattooed on his left arm.
Incredible.
38 years after its release "Orion" remains a beautiful piece of work, haunting and atmospheric and utterly unique. The break at the four minute mark, broken when Cliff comes back in alone with his bass, is perhaps the high water mark on a magnificent album.
I can't even tell you how many times I listened to "Orion" in high school, driving around aimlessly with Master of Puppets in my car stereo. I relish those days.
I'm hoping I might hear it when I see Metallica next Friday at Gillette Stadium. Highly unlikely as Metallica almost never plays it live, likely out of respect for their late bassist. We'll see.
My last Metal Friday post on the passing of Eternal Champion bass player Brad Raub resulted in some recommendations and a brief but pleasant detour into the catalog of a related band, Sumerlands (for whom Raub also played bass).
"Force of a Storm" immediately jumped out at me as an awesome track and a worthy share on this Metal Friday.
I know nothing about Sumerlands, but they're a five-piece band whose sound is "rooted in 1970s hard rock and classic power metal from the 80s and 90s," per their website. They are a new band with a vintage sound, one that sounds very good to my ear. I like the vocalist and the guitar work in this one is excellent.
So on this Metal Friday I honor his memory with “Worms of the Earth,” off their wonderful album Ravening Iron. With its spectacular Ken Kelly album cover (now THAT would be an amazing original to hang on my man cave wall).
Beyond badass.
Still feeling my way out with this band but I’m really starting to dig Ravening Iron. "Worms of the Earth" should be a hit with any red-blooded sword-and-sorcery/Robert E. Howard/Bran Mak Morn fan. Here’s a sample of the lyrics, which are basically a faithful retelling of the tale:
Upon a Roman cross there hangs a man I cannot save
For this, Rome will have to pay
I must find the door to ebon depths where they degenerate
There's nothing I would spare to see Rome howl in pain
Eyes like golden stars shining in the dark
In Dagon's Barrow I will take the stone they must obey
The King of Picts has forced his claim
One of the all-time greats in visual adaptation. Fight me if you think otherwise.
The King of Picts has forced his claim... he certainly did. Love that.
I can’t express how glad I am to see a band like Eternal Champion lend their own artistic interpretation to REH. We’ve got pastiche novels, visual artists, comic adaptations, gaming supplements, and now heavy metal bands, all keeping Howard alive with their own inspiring visions of the greatest sword-and-sorcery author who ever lived.
Raub added his own verse to that roll-call, no doubt.
Slayer and Sepultura… really no heavier than that. There’s no need, from my perspective.
I can’t do cookie monster vocals. That means that Death Metal and Black Metal bands are out.
To be honest, I haven’t made a concerted effort to break into these genres. The barrier to entry is so high that I just can’t bring myself to do it, even though I can appreciate some of the riffs and melodies.
I need to be able to understand what the vocalist is saying, and I can do that with Max Cavalera and Tom Araya.
Sabbath is heavy enough for most mortals, and will raise an eyebrow in mixed company. Slayer and Sepultura will get you flat-out kicked out of parties … but I still greatly enjoy them. As with here, on Refuse/Resist, and South of Heaven.
Both awesome, and really fucking heavy. But I don’t feel the need to go any heavier.
It's been a while since I did one of these. Too long. And I've got Blind Guardian on the calendar tomorrow. So, time for another Metal Friday.
Blind Guardian is great for so many reasons, but starting a song with a lute and either a flute (or perhaps a fife?) is one. Another is songs like "Curse My Name," which could be a number in an alternative metal universe performance of Les Miserables.
This is a great song, atmospheric, melodic, epic... and underneath it all some hard critique of monarchy. We are the nation, we are the law, and we won't take it anymore. How do we depose the monarch? Put him to death, that's what I say.
I wasn't even sure there was an electric guitar in this song... but yeah there it is at 4:38. Yet despite the lack of typical heavy metal trappings it's heavy AF, heavier than many guitar forward tunes.
Very dark.
And awesome.
Hard to believe this came out 14 years ago, on At the Edge of Time (2010). I feel like this album just came out yesterday. But time is subjective. The passage of years is different now than it once was.
