languor.us

Most deth fans look at Megadeth's last album with Marty - Risk - with distaste. However, with the exception of a couple of tracks, I quite like it, even if it isn't vintage Megadeth.

I've been listening to Metallica's latest release, Death Magnetic. With everybody touting it as a release to their 80s form, here is a track by track review of the album.

1. That was just your life: A thrashy beginning that wouldn't be out of place on Kill 'em all.

With its distinctive opening, high energy riffs and extremely political lyrics, RATM's Killing in the Name (of) is probably one of the most well known metal songs of the 90s and their albums are seeing a strong resurgence in my playlist considering my general mood nowadays. "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me" is a sentiment that frequents my clenched brain very often these days and this song suits my demeanour very well during these times.

While checking the link to United abominations in my previous post, I came across a link to a "rebuttal" from the UN to the title track of the album.

The UN blogger, Mark Leon Goldberg, takes the song apart and exposes all of Mustaine's drivel for what it is. An excerpt:

Poverty in their kitchens
Held hostage by oil-for-food
Yet their own plates are full off the fat of their lands
There's no blood on their hands, right Kojo?
They promised to tell the truth
Without leaving a fingerprint, but
They will lose the UN one way or another
The victim, I fear will be us, sisters and brothers.

Assuming the antecedent to the pronoun "they" refers to the UN Secretariat, lead singer and guitarist Dave Mustaine (whose voice we now hear) seems to be implying that UN staffers are enriching themselves while the poor in their country suffer. His evidence is the alleged corruption in the Oil-for-Food program, which allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian items. The rarely stated truth about the Oil-for-Food program is that it did what is was intended to do -- prevent a humanitarian crisis in Iraq while exerting economic pressure on Saddam Hussein and keeping weapons of mass destruction out of his hands.

Today's song of the day is Megadeth's Black Swan, a bonus track from their last album, United Abominations. The song, even though it didn't make it to the album per sé, is one of its strongest tracks and reeks of some vintage Megadeth class.

Today's Song Of The Day is an instrumental from the OST of the anime Kenichi. I'm not sure of the artist's name, but what a killer riff! I've been listening to it non-stop for the past couple of hours and I'm still not tired of it!

Today's Song of the Day is the aussie band Wolfmother's big hit - Woman. It and much of the other Wolfmother songs harken back to the glory days of the 70s and they are apparently heavily inspired by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Moreover, for a three-piece band, they sound fucking tight, and the vocalist, though he looks like a nutter, has a very Plant-sy voice.

A promo copy (with voice-overs) of the new Nightwish album - Dark Passion Play has been leaked on the Innernet. This is the first album with their new lead singer - Anette Olzon - after their previous (famous) lead singer Tarja Turunen was kicked out.

While this song off Bruce Dickinson's Chemical Wedding is pretty catchy etc. etc., it's the solo by Roy Z that has me constantly coming back for another listen.

Good shit.

The unfortunate few of you out there who have nothing better to do than to read this blog are well aware of my disappointment with Megadeth's latest album United Abominations. You might also remember me mentioning and looking forward to the Japan Disc which was to contain a bonus track - a cover of Led Zeppelin's Out on the tiles. Well, as far as I can tell, it hasn't been leaked anywhere just yet.