Ruthless – The Fallen
The Rods – Rattle the Cage
Judas Priest – Invincible Shield
Blitzkrieg – Blitzkrieg
Cloven Hoof – Heathen Cross
Firewind – Stand United
Bruce Dickinson – The Mandrake Project
The Obsessed – Gilded Sorrow
Acerous – The Caliginous Serenade
The Chronicles of Father Robin – Book III: The Songs & Tales of Airoea
Beardfish – Songs for Beating Hearts
Ritual – The Story of Mr. Bogd Part 1
Frost – Life in the Wires
Nektar – Mission to Mars
Hawkestrel – Chaos Rocks
Hawkwind – Stories from Time and Space
Accept – Humanoid
Demon – Invincible
Necrophobic – In the Twilight Grey
Darkthrone – It Beckons Us All
Friends of Hell – God Damned You to Hell
Hellbutcher – Hellbutcher
Distorted Reflection – Doom Rules Eternally
Tarot – Glimpse of the Dawn
Lords of Black – Mechanics of Perdacity
Warlord – Free Spirit Soar
Rhapsody of Fire – Challenge the Wind
Freeways – Dark Sky Sanctuary
Kerry King – From Hell I Rise
VLTIMAS – Epic
Inquisition – Veneration of Medieval Mysticism and Cosmological Violence
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
Praying Mantis – Defiance
Deep Purple - =1
Stryper – When We Were Kings
The Dictators – The Dictators
MC5 – Heavy Lifting
The Jesus Lizard – Rack
Flotsam and Jetsam – I Am the Weapon
Hawklords – Revelation
Victory – Circle of Life
Todd Michael Hall – Off the Rails
And, then, below, you get my top ten albums of 2024.
10. HUMAN IMPACT – Gone Dark
In fact, if guitarist/singer Chris Spencer of UNSANE, the CUTTHROATS 9, and CELAN or keyboardist/electronics guy Jim Coleman from COP SHOOT COP are wondering, I was the guy at the show who was talking to you guys before the set about that documentary Underground Inc.: The Rise and Fall of Alternative Rock. I’m sure you guys remember me as one of the ten people who showed up and was wondering how you could be showing footage of people being arrested for not showing their Covid pass, and then requiring people to bring their Covid pass to the show.
The other two guys – drummer Jon Syverson and bassist Eric Cooper – wouldn’t know me, since they’re new. Actually, neither would Jim Coleman, now that I think about it, since he wasn’t at the merch table when I was talking to the band; it was the other guy, the balding dude in the button-up cowboy shirt.
Anyway, yeah, Human Impact is great, and this new album, Gone Dark, is no exception. It’s like, it has songs with titles like “Collapse”, “Destroy to Rebuild”, “Reform”, and “Corrupted”, so it’s kind of political, but it’s the kind of political where you can read anything into the lyrics, which by the way, DIDN’T come with the CD version, which came in this cheap ass paper sleeve, which is annoying as hell, since it’s hard to keep the CD from getting scratched, and, well, wtf, I paid full CD price, and I at least want a lyric sheet and some photos, so it’s actually WORTH IT to buy the CD.
But, as for the music, Chris Spencer plays thick, distorted, chord-based riffs, kind of like what HELMET does, along with these creepy little melodies, as Jim Coleman piles on the computer sounds, giving it that, trapped–in-the-dot-matrix vibe, and the drums and bass hold it together with whirling, tribal rhythms.
If nothing else, it evokes the 90s, where conspiracy theorists were neither left nor right, but just thought there was a secret cabal pulling strings.
Though, given the events of the last few years, I’m not sure if Human Impact is sending the message they think they’re sending.
9. MAGNUM – Here Comes the Rain
What’s with lesser-known, but still super-loved lead guitarists dying at the beginning of the year? This year it’s the legendary John Sykes, and a year ago, it was Tony Clarkin, one of the two permanent members of British AOR cult legends Magnum. Clarkin and his partner in crime, lead singer Bob Catley, led the group since 1972! And, initially Catley wanted to disband Magnum, but he had a change of heart, because he knew I’d show up to see them at the Token Lounge.
And, I know it sounds strange pairing the words “cult” and “AOR” together, since AOR is short for “adult oriented rock” or “arena oriented rock”, depending on who you ask (I know it also stood for “album oriented rock”, but that seems like an outdated term), and is thus meant to appeal to as broad base as possible. But there are a bunch of cult AOR bands with dedicated fans and labels, such as SPV, Cleopatra, and Frontiers, that make sure these bands that are like second-tier FOREIGNERs, SURVIVORs, LOVERBOYs, and JOURNEYs – in popularity, but certainly not in quality – can keep pumping out album after album after bloody stinkin’ album until every last member has left this mortal coil; and, even then, they’ll just pass on the name to a new group of guys and make sure to keep the band going!
That’s right, if it was 1983, and Johnny Lawrence went to Dearborn Music in Farmington to find music to cruise around to with the top down in his Ford Mustang, he’d buy new albums by DEMON, PRAYING MANTIC, VICTORY – who I guess are more heavy metal, but it’s still pretty relative – and this here band, Magnum; whose album covers look nothing like what the music sounds like. Nearly all of them have fantasy or science fiction imagery of wizards, monsters, and weird creatures of all kinds, giving the impression that Magnum is a prog or power-metal band.
But, NOPE! These are ten very commercial songs meant to immediately hook you with basic musical arrangements, passionate and bittersweet vocal deliveries, and catchy choruses, along with lots of soft piano parts, keyboard tinkles, a few hard rockin’ guitar riffs, pretty acoustic guitar passages, and in the case of “Some Kind of Treachery” and “The Seventh Darkness”, Chicago-style horns.
There are a few moments, but really only one full song, of out-and-out hard rock; that one’s “Blue Tango.” The rest of it is rather more on the sappy, saccharine side; especially on the back end, with “Broken City” being a soft ballad that’s immediately followed by a louder, slightly heavier ballad called “I Wanna Live”; even if the latter has a great keyboard solo. Otherwise, most of the songs, such as the excellent opener, “Run into the Shadows” and album-closer “Borderline” fall between rockers and ballads. I guess you could call them “anthems.
But that’s what you get with Magnum, and clearly it’s a working formula, since Here Comes the Rain is the group’s 23rd studio album. Though, I guess I was wrong earlier, and any concerts they perform now are just memorials to Clarkin, and they’re not going to make any new albums.
Well, poop.
8. BLAZE BAYLEY – Circle of Stone
Well, first of all, how can I talk about former IRON MAIDEN singers if I don’t mention PAUL Di’ANNO, who, as you’re reading this, is railing his harem of angels, while also presumably doing some rails, in heavy metal heaven; right alongside Lemmy. But, what’s really cool is that, prior to shuffling off to Valhalla, Di’Anno had this to say about Blaze Bayley, who is most famously known for replacing Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden for a few years and singing on the albums The X Factor and Virtual XI, “What's funny is that everybody thinks that I'm unmanageable. But when I met Blaze, he had an enormous shiner! Obviously, he'd been into a fight the night before in Germany. So it seems that I wasn't the only complete nutter to have fronted Maiden!”
Coming from the late, great Paul Di’Anno, that’s, of course, a compliment!
I guess Bayley’s tenure in Maiden helped him find his more operatic voice, because, seriously, if you listen to WOLFSBANE, the band Bayley was in before Iron Maiden, you’ll have NO IDEA how Steve Harris thought Bayley would have been a good fit in Iron Maiden! And I love Wolfsbane, but they sound like VAN HALEN, and Bayley sounds like David Lee Roth! If Van Halen had gotten Bayley, rather than Gary Cherone from EXTREME, in the late 90s, the Van Halen III album maybe wouldn’t have sucked. But then Iron Maiden would never have immortalized the Michael Douglas vehicle Falling Down in “Man on the Edge.”
And, if Bruce Dickinson hadn’t returned to Iron Maiden in 1999, then Blaze Bayley wouldn’t be up to his eleventh studio album, the stunning Circle of Stone! I’m not sure why his first three albums were released as "Blaze" before he started slapping his last name onto the cover, but let’s get something out of the way; I would have given Circle of Stone a perfect score just because the title track has a guest vocal from Niklas Stålvind of the greatest heavy metal band of the last quarter century, Sweden’s mighty WOLF.
In fact, I was quite pleasantly surprised listening to the song’s galloping rhythm and catchy riffs and then hearing the high, but gravelly Stålvind sing an entire verse of the song. On top of that, I should include EVERY Blaze Bayley album on my top ten best albums list for every year he releases an album, just for wearing a Token Lounge t-shirt in the photos for his previous album, 2021’s War Within Me.
But, even if it were not for these “Easter eggs”, the Blaze Bayley discography is a fiercely consistent series of just classic heavy metal that borders on power metal; though, in recent years, he’s cranked out a couple albums with Wolfsbane to fulfill the cock rock side of his musical oeuvre. His current band consists of brothers Christopher and Luke Appleton on guitars, Karl Schramm on bass, and Martin McNee on drums, and, if I didn’t make it clear, Bayley has the most distinguishable voice in basically all of metal by it being this unique, barrel chested-baritone. I am not even kidding; if he ever needs to pay a few extra bills, he should consider joining a professional opera crew.
I can only imagine going to the theater with my dad for a third time to check out Turandot, and seeing Bayley in Oriental face— Er, let’s talk about the album… actually, speaking of opera, the last track, “Until We Meet Again” is a lovely acoustic duet with some chick named Tammy-Rae Bois, and it features another chick named Anne Bakker playing violin; so maybe this opera thang isn’t too far off the mark! And, if you’re all about chicks doing non-metal things on metal albums, there’s ANOTHER chick named Vicky Kennerley who plays bagpipes on the instrumental “The Call of the Ancestors.” And, if you want more proof that Bayley could be a professional opera singer in the baritone range, there’s even a kinda boring, but heartfelt ballad called “Broken Man”; which most listeners will probably skip over.
Especially since the nine other songs are just great metal with a singular mentality about perseverance and terminally optimistic lyrics like, “I am ferocious/I am resolved to become unbeatable/it’s never hopeless/I’m positive we can become unbeatable” and “wish it, dream it, be it/we will find a way/think it, see it, do it/we will find a way/we can live our dreams/the time to start is now” and “they won’t break me/they won’t stop me/they don’t know me/I’m not scared at all.” Well, “Tears in the Rain” is about Blade Runner, and “Rage” is about a Welsh folk tale, and “A Day of Reckoning” is about some battle that sounds like something out of Braveheart, or something. But you get the point. It rocks, and it’s not too taxing on your time at 45 minutes long.
Yeah, I also got the new Bruce Dickinson album. What of it?
7. RIOT V – Mean Streets
For the uninformed out there, the reason Riot added a “V” to their name is because original lead guitarist Mark Reale died in 2012, yet the group wanted to keep the name and the legacy going, even though there are no original members.
But first, let’s break it down. There are three main phases in the Riot career.
1975 – 1984: the classic hard rock and heavy metal era. Albums during this period include Rock City (1977), Narita (1979), Fire Down Under (1981), Restless Breed (1982), and Born in America (1983). It’s characterized by the group’s shift from a driving hard rock sound that was already proto-80s metal, right into an American equivalent of the NWOBHM.
1986 – 2012: the power-metal era. Albums during this period are Thundersteel (1988), The Privilege of Power (1990), Nightbreaker (1993), The Brethren of the Long House (1995), Inishmore (1997), Sons of Society (1999), Through the Storm (2002), Army of One (2006), and Immortal Soul (2011). At the start of this era, lead guitarist Mark Reale re-started Riot with all new members, but more as a late-80s, European inspired epic power-metal/speed-metal band, while occasionally calling back to the old sound, and continued to make albums in this style right through the 90s and 00s, completely ignoring the trends like grunge and alternative as if the 80s simply never ended.
2013 – current: the Riot V era. Albums during this period are Unleash the Fire (2014), Armor of Light (2018), and the current one we are about to discuss, Mean Streets (2024). Following Mark Reale’s death, bassist Don Van Stavern, who joined Riot in 1986, and lead guitarist Mike Flyntz, who joined the group in 1989, continue to keep the Riot legacy alive with new singer Todd Michael Hall, and two other guys who you can look up online if you so care.
By the way, Todd Michael Hall also released a superb solo album called Off the Rails, which features the guitar work of Kurdt Vanderhoof of METAL CHURCH, this year, and I was at the album release party. Please try to better hide your jealousy.
Also, isn’t it wild that Todd Michael Hall is from Bay City, MI? So, it’s like Riot V have this New York-by-way-of-Michigan-by-way-of-Texas connection, since Don Van Stavern is also in the other SLAYER, the one from San Antonio.
Okay, I’m starting to ramble.
Mean Streets by Riot V is just a great heavy metal album that, like the previous two Riot V releases, recalls the classic hard rock, the proto-NWOBHM, the speed metal, the power metal, the Rocky Balboa training montage music, the big choruses, and the great solos you always expect with Riot. And, in typical Riot fashion, the songs are about bikers returning to their old stomping grounds and seeing how much has changed, the customary cowboy song, the uplifting song about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, warriors fighting for glory, and a song about driving on an open road, which could be either taken literally or as a metaphor for life.
And, of course, the cover has the very 80s painting of their seal mascot, this time on a motorcycle, with his seal woman behind him and her seal boob all peeking out from behind her leather jacket, because even seal biker bitches ride around wearing nothing on top but a leather jacket.
6. SAXON – Hell, Fire and Damnation
Some people gave me guff for saying that the new Saxon album has Christian messages on it. But just look at that cover; it looks like something STRYPER would do. Oh, yeah, and the album is called Hell, Fire and Damnation.
But, okay, fine, the title track is the only song about the biblical struggle between good and evil, and the rest is literally about everything you’d expect Biff Byford to write songs about.
But, first, we have to address the elephant in the room. When I saw Saxon live, they didn’t even feel compelled to inform the audience that lead guitarist Brian Tatler of DIAMOND HEAD replaced original lead guitarist Paul Quinn. But even that’s kinda confusing, because the CD booklet says that Quinn did play on a couple tracks, and that, though he stopped touring with the band, he never officially left.
I dunno, as far as I’m concerned, Tatler replaced Quinn, and singer Biff Byford is the only original member of Saxon, delivering as always that unique, nasally voice that sounds just as strong in the man’s old age as it ever did. But, that’s okay, since the rest of the band – other lead guitarist Douglas Scarrat, bassist Nibbs Carter, and drummer Nigel Glockler – have been in the band for a very a long time. And Saxon is as consistently great as always.
In fact, I think of Saxon as the clean-living version of MOTÖRHEAD; just blue collar mechanic types who prefer the speed of cars and motorcycles to the speed that you ingest. Or as the song “Strong Arm of the Law” from 44 years ago goes, “the only speed we use is on cars.” I dunno, maybe they partied more than they let on, but Saxon seemed like old work-a-day family men even when they were young rock ‘n’ rollers.
And Byford’s lyrics, which deal with some of the least edgy, most mundane topics in all of rock, are testament to this. “Madame Guillotine”, which Byford pronounces as GILL-o-tine because he’s a blue collar yob, is about a female guillotine used during that time that people cut other people’s heads off; “Pirates of the Airwaves” is about pirates who went to radio stations and massacred disc jockeys in pursuit of pirate bootie; “There’s Something in Roswell” revisits the UFO topic that he’s sung about in “Watching the Sky” and “Lights from the Sky”, but still fails to mention anal probing; and “Witches of Salem” is about the witches who spook the paying customers at the Salem Hills Golf Club in Northville, MI.
Oh, oh, and there’s a song called “Kubla Khan and the Merchant of Venice”, which is clearly anti-Semitic, because any time you mention Merchant of Venice, you’re being anti-Semitic. And “Super Charger” is about driving fast. And “1066” is a year, so it’s probably about something that happened in that year.
You get the point. Biff writes from his non-university educated point of view. And, we’re better off for it, because Hell, Fire and Damnation smokes; it’s just full of short and punchy hard rock, heavy metal, and speed metal songs, and the solos and riffs are more creative this time around, possibly due to due to Tatler’s joining the band.
I mean, I love every Saxon album, and their newer ones are just as good, solid, and enjoyable as any from the classic era, but this one is even better than a lot of the later ones.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that “Fire and Steel” is about the unapologetically brutal, metal-as-all-heck topic of SMELTING!!!
5. TUSMØRKE – Dawn of Oberon
Talk about some misleading artwork! One look at the cover art for Dawn of Oberon (no relation to the alcoholic beverage), with its black and white illustration of four long haired hippie heads with blank eyes and some vaguely Occult-ish angular designs behind said heads, and another illustration of a Satanic looking goat’s head atop a spiked mace under the CD tray, and one would assume that Tusmørke is some kind of black metal band. That’s not helped by the fact that bassist/singer Benedikt Momrak, who amusingly gave himself a whole paragraph of instrumental credits like pennywhistle, recorder, vibraslap, and bell, goes by the pseudonym of Benediktator.
But, nah, not only is Tusmørke not a black metal band, let alone a heavy metal band, or, really, heavy at all, but Dawn of Oberon is about as dark as a brightly-colored children’s book full of elves, wizards, fairies, and trolls. You can throw words like Canterbury, Nordic folk, and psychedelia at Tusmørke all you want, but all you need to know is that Dawn of Oberon just sounds like a classic 70s progressive rock album with lush, colorful instrumentation, which, inevitably, will make you think of going to the Renaissance fair, as any progressive rock album with flutes and chanting, “la-la-la” backing vocals will make you do.
And, although the group’s history has little in the way of concrete info, I was able to figure out that Tusmørke formed in 1994, and the group’s other key member is Benedikt Momrak’s twin brother Kristoffer Momrak, who goes by the nickname Krizla and plays all the things you blow into. Tusmørke was also recently joined by a drummer named Kusken and a keyboardist named (sigh) Herjekongen (I’m not going to research what those guys’ real names are); oh, and the credits list Aya (2 years old) as doing the spoken words. Whether this Aya is actually two years old, or if this is some kind of inside joke, I don’t know or care.
Also let me stress; this is NOT heavy prog. It’s JETHRO TULL without the distorted guitar; it’s every song from In the Court of the Crimson King that comes after “21st Century Schizoid Man.” And, in true prog fashion, it has a quirky track listing. The opener is the album’s title track that clocks in at a paltry eighteen minutes, though is not boring for a second. It comes in with a hypnotic bass groove, and we’re off to the races with lovely flute and keyboard passages that immediately make you think, “Hey, this really doesn’t sound like what the cover looks like!”
It’s true too, because if you look at all of Tusmørke’s past albums, they’re all really colorful. Apparently, Dawn of Oberon is a “dark fairytale”, but you sure could have fooled me! This album has nothing but lovely pastoral flourishes across its six tracks; the rest of which annoyingly are called “Dusk of Tawblerawn part 1: Born to be Mild”, “Dusk of Tawblerawn part 2: Dwarven Lord”, “Dusk of Tawblerawn part 3: Midsommernattsdrøm”, “Dusk of Tawblerawn part 4: People View”, and “Dusk of Tawblerawn part 5: Troll Male.” And, I swear, I didn’t hear a SINGLE minor note that would give the album even a hint of darkness.
There are liner notes that tell the story of the album, and I tried to read them, but some of the text is on a band photo which makes the black text hard to read, and I didn’t feel like straining my eyes to read the whole thing, so I’ll never know what it’s about; not as if I care, since music is something you listen to, not read. On top of that, some of the lyrics are in Norwegian, making the point all the more moot.
What is not a moot point is how fantastic Dawn of Oberon is. 2024 gave us lots of great prog albums, such as Songs for Beating Hearts by BEARDFISH, Mission to Mars by NEKTAR, Life in the Wires by FROST, and The Story of Mr. Bogd Part 1 by RITUAL, but dammit, I’m sticking with Dawn of Oberon!
I don’t know what you Norwegians, and especially the bands on the Karisma label, are ingesting, but whatever it is, keep on doing it!
4. PHIL MOGG – Moggs Motel
Well, it turns out that, just because UFO is done, doesn’t mean Phil Mogg has to be! First of all, Moggs Motel isn’t the first non-UFO release that Phil Mogg has done. In the late 90s, he made two superb hard rock albums with UFO bassist Pete Way under the confusingly named Mogg/Way; both of which could, by all intents and purposes, be called UFO albums.
And now he’s unleashed his first solo album, and, really, that too could just be called a UFO album. I mean, why the heck not? Phil Mogg is UFO. When UFO broke up in 1983, Mogg just brought together a new group of players, called it UFO, and put out Misdemeanor in 1985. When UFO released High Stakes and Dangerous Men in 1992, Pete Way was back, but the other two guys joined for one album and were gone again.
So, given all that, I don’t see how a Mogg/Way album or a Phil Mogg solo album that features past UFO members is any different from a “proper” UFO album. And, to be sure, Moggs Motel features one returning UFO member in Neil Carter on keyboards, guitar, flute, and I guess some vocals. And all I gotta say is, “Where were you for the last twenty years of UFO’s career?” I mean, geez louise, that last batch of albums, You Are Here, The Monkey Puzzle, The Visitor, Seven Deadly, and A Conspiracy of Stars, are decent enough bluesy hard rock albums, but they just seemed so, I dunno, uninspired, maybe?
Moggs Motel, on the other hand, came as quite a surprise to me and a lot of people! And I love Phil Mogg’s low, bluesy, tough guy croon, but his album is only going to be as good as the musicians backing him. So, good on ya mate to Neil Carter and a group of guys from other bands! Though, I suppose it’s worth noting that guitarist Tommy Gentry, bassist Tony Newton, and drummer Joe Lazarus all play together in VOODOO SIX, so I’ll probably check them out.
You know what I like about Phil Mogg? He’s one of those old timey kinda guys, the kind of guy ALICE COOPER tries to be by playing golf with old people and performing show tunes, but Mogg does it in a cooler Henry Miller or beat writer kinda way. In fact, the eggheads who like their BOB DYLAN or their LOU REED or their TOM WAITS or their NICK CAVE might be shocked at Phil Mogg’s literary and film references.
In fact, my friend Michael Dean, who was in the band BOMB and directed Hubert Selby Jr.: It’ll Be Better Tomorrow, the documentary about the author Huber Selby Jr., claims that the UFO song “On with the Action” from UFO’s No Heavy Petting album might actually have references to Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn, while Phil Mogg sings about Buster Keaton in the UFO song “Out in the Street” from the album Force It. Doesn’t this totally fly in the face of hoity-toity hipsters and arty people who think of UFO as just a dumb rock band?
HOLY SHIT!!! The song “Other People’s Lives” has the line, “It was a good night for Bukowski/drunk and falling down.” See? He makes references to Bukowski. Even though Bukowski is shitty and overrated.
But, yeah, this is just really great metallic hard rock with basic, driving, catchy riffs and the customary solos that go with them, along with a few softer spots.
HOLY SHIT!!! The song “Storyville” has the line, “Play me that sweet tune/from the black metal saloon/down in death valley/under a paper moon.” See? He’s making references to black metal and Paper Moon in the same song! Poet!
Man, “The Princess Bride” is really heavy. Hell, it’s so heavy, some might call the style of music they’re playing heavy metal!
HOLY SHIT!!! The song “Shane” is about that one classic Hollywood Western Stagecoach.
“Harry’s Place” is a cocktail jazz bossa nova piece!
HOLY SHITT!!! The song “Tinker Tailor” has the verse, “I hear the rattle, I hear the cough/they’ve given baby a Kalashnikov/load up the wagon and let’s have a toast/I’m going drinking with John Wayne’s ghost”!
That sounds like something a guy who wears pressed slacks, a button-up shirt, and a porkpie hat would write!
Okay, Phil “Old Timey Cool Guy” Mogg! When do we get the spoken-word album?
3. CRYSTAL VIPER – The Silver Key
I know I refer to a lot of female-lead traditional heavy metal bands as “simp-metal”; where a group of nerdy hipsters LARP like they think it’s 1982 and simp for their cute female friend, who has questionable singing abilities, but looks good in dominatrix, prostitute, or bad biker bitch clothing, even though she’s got the politics of Anita Sarkeesian, and play rote traditional, speed, and thrash metal in hipster and punk clubs, rather than in real metal clubs.
I’m talking bands like SAVAGE MASTER, TOWER, CROSSED HEARTS, and VICIOUS BLADE. I knew something was wrong when Vicious Blade had easily available small size t-shirts when I saw them. That just doesn’t happen at real metal shows.
I was doubly disheartened when I saw Crystal Viper guitarist/bassist/pianist/keyboardist/singer/songwriter Marta Gabriel palling around with Julien Fried of Savage Master. But, hey, gotta keep things professional! Plus Gabriel more than made up for it by wearing a DESTROYER 666 t-shirt. I mean, if you’re wearing a Destroyer 666 t-shirt, you’re clearly not worried about the “cancel culture” or political correctness! Also Gabriel is Polish, and English is her second language, resulting in adorable grammatical errors in her lyrics.
Rachel and I can’t stop singing and giggling at the line “I’ve seen too much pain and suffer” from the song “Neverending Fire” from 2019’s Tales of Fire and Ice album. I’m serious! Listen to “Neverending Fire” by Crystal Viper and then check the lyrics! That’s how it’s printed, and nobody felt compelled to correct it to “I’ve seen too much pain and suffering”!
Foreigners trying to speak English is funny!
Nah, but, see, I know this whole “simp-metal” thing sounds like crude sexism, but it isn’t, I swear! I could not care less if a band consists of men, women, intersexes, transvestites, or transsexuals, so long as they’re, ya know, GOOD. But, with a lot of these new old school heavy metal bands, having a chick singer seems rather gimmicky; especially if she can barely sing.
And Savage Master is not good, and Tower is only marginally better. And Vicious Blade has black metal vocals which any guy could sing.
On the other hand, Crystal Viper is one of the best lesser known, modern old school heavy metal bands of the last two decades, and Marta Gabriel’s voice is a force of nature; so much so, in fact, that she even did a detour with an AOR/pop-metal side project called MOON CHAMBER, which is also fantastic.
Crystal Viper technically formed in 2003, and almost from the start, has featured Gabriel with right-hand man, lead guitarist Lukasz “Andy Wave” Halczuch, along with various lead guitarists, bassists, and drummers; Gabriel herself switched from guitar to bass recently. And The Silver Key is their ninth and latest studio album, and what a tasty Pączki it is! Listen to how those “oh-oh-oh” parts enmesh with the KILLER, mean-ass riffing in “Escape from Yaddith”, and tell me that they’re not just one of the best metal bands ever! Then have the next track, which starts with marching drums and Middle Eastern intro and turns into a raging, pounding, speed-metal monster called “Cosmic Forces Overtake”, kick your ass through your face and come around to kick your ass through your face again.
And, before you ask, yes, Gabriel admitted that she became obsessed with H.P. Lovecraft prior to making the previous album, 2021’s The Cult, and decided to keep writing songs about his stories for The Silver Key. And, before you roll your eyes at song titles like “Old House in the Mist”, “Heading Kadith”, and “Book of the Dead”, and say, “Oo, how original!”, remember, you don’t listen to metal for lyrics, dummy. And, before you ask, no, she doesn’t do a song about “On the Creation of N*****s."
The Silver Key opens with a really great synthesizer piece called “Return to Providence”, which shows, if nothing else, that Crystal Viper didn’t need to outsource their synth pieces like BLOOD INCANTATION did and be all like, “We’re sooo cool! We got the TANGERINE DREAM guy on our record!” And then we’re off to the races with “Fever of the Gods”, which both incorporates blast beats and has Gabriel doing her first ever death growl. But Gabriel and her zioms can also deliver a slow, passionate plea to the cosmic powers as well, such as on “The Key Is Lost.”
There’s also a piano ballad called “Wayfaring Dreamer”, because every Crystal Viper album has a piano ballad. And the album ends with a cover of “God of Thunder of Wind and of Rain” by BATHORY, because every Crystal Viper album ends with a cover of a classic metal tune. And, in all honesty, Marta Gabriel is a better singer than Quorthon!
And there you have it. Crystal Viper creatively works within the traditional heavy metal framework, so the songs are as catchy, melodic, skillfully executed, and memorable as any classics of the genre.
Even if their singer is a chick. KIDDING!!! KIDDING!!!
2. SATAN – Songs in Crimson
Last year, when I listed lead guitarist Russ Tippins’ other band TANITH’s second album, Voyage, in my top ten albums of 2023, I mentioned how I felt bad that I had neglected to list Satan’s previous album, Earth Infernal, in my top ten albums of 2022, so I’m here to rectify that mistake. And, yes, I’m aware that Satan singer Brian Ross also had an album out in 2024 with his other band, BLITZKRIEG, and I think it’s very good as well, but, ya know, there are a lot of albums that I enjoyed and could have listed that came out in 2024, and I guess I’m punishing Blitzkrieg for not getting a deal with Metal Blade like Satan, so that the new Blitzkrieg album is only available as an ass-expensive import from the U.K. that I never actually bought and only listened to on Bandcamp (https://blitzkrieguk.bandcamp.com/album/blitzkrieg).
But, oh, man, Satan, what a band!
First of all, in spite being called Satan, the group’s lyrics do not deal in the occult whatsoever. One might wager that calling their band Satan in the early 80s was perhaps a mistake, since bands like VENOM and MERCYFUL FATE, who were very much into the Occult, became way, way more popular than Satan.
Nope, Satan is about as “Satanic” as an adorable puppy; or, perhaps a cute fox; something that Brian Ross can’t stop talking about. When we saw Satan live with HAUNT and NIGHT DEMON, Ross went on a whole tirade attacking FOX HUNTING!!! He’s so dedicated to this cause, that he even wrote a song about it called “I Am His Voice” on the latest Blitzkrieg album.
Secondly, Satan were one of the many fine lesser known NWOBHM bands, releasing a handful of singles and then a debut album called Court in the Act in 1983. They changed their name to the less controversial BLIND FURY and replaced Brian Ross with Lou Taylor and released a good, but more commercial album called Out of Reach in 1985; yet surprisingly they didn’t become huge rock stars.
So they changed their name BACK to Satan, got Michael Jackson on vocals, and released a third, still very good, and very much less commercial album called Suspended Sentence in 1987. But, even with Michael Jackson singing, the band couldn’t break out of the underground. They changed their name once again, this time to PARIAH, and released three more albums which also didn’t sell very well, but are very good, and that was kinda it…
… until 2011 when they got the Court in the Act lineup back together, and in spite being older and fatter (though, not balder, bastards!), came back with all of the righteous energy and creativity they had way back in the early 80s! And to make it clear, Satan ain’t no band that calls itself by the old name but has only one or two guys from the classic lineup, or in the case of TANK, has ZERO original members, yet slaps the Tank logo onto festival posters, tricking hapless metal consumers into thinking they’re getting a legit product!
NO ALGY, NO TANK!!!
But, as far as Satan goes, singer Brian Ross, lead guitarist Russ Tippins, other lead guitarist Steve Ramsey, bassist Graeme English, and drummer Sean Taylor have cranked out nothing but killer album after killer album since they got back together in 2011; five to be exact! You’ve got Life Sentence (2013), Atom by Atom (2015), Cruel Magic (2018), Earth Infernal (2022), and now this here latest release in 2024, called Songs in Crimson!
What can I say? If you know what Satan sounds like, you do know what you’re getting, but if you don’t, let me explain what makes Satan so unique in the world of heavy metal. It’s bizarre that Iron Maiden get slapped with the “progressive” tag just because their albums are long, while Satan stuff more unique riffs and melodies into ten songs and 45 minutes than Iron Maiden could stretch for nearly twice that length. And, needless to say, it doesn’t get boring for a second.
Opener “Frantic Zero” and sixth track “Turn the Tide” might technically be speed-metal, but they ain’t no kind of speed metal you done heard before! And then “Era (The Day Will Come)” utilizes some wonky guitar playing that channels BLUE ÖYSTER CULT, while “Whore of Babylon” is all galloping metal, except for those weird chords. See what I mean? I don’t need to describe EVERY song, but you get it, right? Songs that have a natural flow and sound good, but at the same time, make you go, “Huh, I didn’t see THAT coming!” In fact, on that last song, I was surprised to hear a normal blues-metal lick for like two lines before the oddball leads return, and then there’s a couple seconds of show-offy bass, ‘cause why not?
And how can anyone deny the wicked hammer-on fret craft of “Captives” or the near – ready for this? – ZAPPA/BEEFHEART-esque guitar/bass interplay of “Curse in Disguise” or the total jazzy PINK FLOYD/King Crimson-ian breakdowns in “Truth Bullet”, hooee!!!
So, who you calling progressive again? And, yet, it still fits within the framework of METAL with lots and lots of riffs that NEVER get repetitive or predictable.
By the way, if Satan isn’t into the scary occult stuff, what does Brian Ross sing about? Well, you got lots of “captives without chains” type metaphors, along with philosophy about society and people’s inability to think for themselves and people who succumb to snake oil salesmen and blind fools who won’t change their beliefs, even upon being presented with contradictory information; along with some too-late-to-save-the-world apocalyptic science fiction. However, my personal favorite “message” song is “Martyrdom”, in which Ross states that, in some cases, it’s okay to pick your battles and what hills to die on; or to just be careful what causes you hitch your wagon to.
In other words, HAIL SATAAA… er, I mean, ONE OF THE BEST, UNIQUE, UNDERRATED, AND ORIGINAL HEAVY METAL BANDS OF ALL TIME THAT ARE, POTENTIALLY, KNEECAPPED BY THEIR NAME.
1. NASTY SAVAGE – Jeopardy Room
I know, I know, you’re going to say, “But doesn’t Nasty Savage only have one original member?” And, on top of that, you’re going to wonder if I paid the expensive import price to own their latest release.
Yes to both, but what is life if not for the contradictions? Hey, I was concerned too! After all, the only original member of Nasty Savage is the singer, in this case a certain Nasty Ronnie Galletti, whose Florida biker version of DAVID BYRNE, pro-wrestling antics, leather, studs, black makeup, and blood, and photo posing with a pair of Wendy O. Williams clones, might have caused more “serious” thrashers to, well, not take Nasty Savage very seriously!
I’m sure the group’s appearance in this commercial for a local hair salon did wonders for their reputation as well.
I dunno, maybe that’s not the case at all, but one thing that would worry anybody into a band where only the singer is the original member is whether the new group of guys can do a serviceable job replicating the style of the old group of guys. Jeff Becerra faced a similar problem with POSSESSED, and his backing band on 2019’s quite enjoyable Revelations of Oblivion did fairly well, but all they had to do was evil/scary death thrash, a style that’s much easier to convincingly recreate than whatever it is Nasty Savage does.
See, in the classic era of Nasty Savage, which also featured lead guitarists Ben Meyer and David Austin, drummer Curtis Beeson, and several bassists, the group released three albums and an EP – Nasty Savage (1985), Indulgence (1987), Abstract Reality EP (1988), and Penetration Point (1989) – in their engaging, yet confusing brand of prog/power/thrash before calling it a day. They got back together for a similarly excellent comeback album called Psycho Psycho in 2004, but both in the halcyon days of underground 80s metal and its potential revival in the mid-00s, Nasty Savage remained a cult phenomenon and not much else.
Now they’re on their third attempt at fame, stardom and world domination, and at first, David Austin was along for the ride, as was bassist Richard Bateman, who was on Penetration Point and Psycho Psycho, but soon after, Bateman died, and Austin quit, and, much like the aforementioned Jeff Becerra, Nasty Ronnie was left with a whole new band.
And, with such a weird and unique style of metal, it was absolutely imperative that guitarists Pete Sykes and David Orman, bassist Kyle Sokol, and drummer Jim Coker be able to recreate the classic Nasty Savage sound, because, otherwise, what’s the point?
And, obviously, they do, because, if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have listed the latest Nasty Savage album and the group’s first album in two whole decades, as my favorite album of 2024!
It just shows that you can be super wonky, riffy, and technical, but also be catchy! See, death metal, of which Nasty Savage have a direct connection too, is super riffy and technical, but it lacks the catch. So, you hear riff after riff and solo after solo and technical tempo change after technical tempo change, but not a lot of songs that truly stand out. This is obviously not the case with Nasty Savage, who supply riff after riff and solo after solo and technical tempo change after technical tempo change, but nearly every song stands out.
It might or might not have to do with the fact that Nasty Ronnie basically SAYS everything, so, at the very least, you’re not wondering what the words are, or it might be that the songs are just really cool and good and fit together well. Speaking of death metal, the song “Witches Sabbath” features John and Don Tardy of OBITUARY, who, personally, if John Tardy of Obituary sang more like he does here than in Obituary, I’d probably be more of an Obituary fan; but then, that would make Obituary sound less death metal.
Speaking of THRASH metal, death metal’s fast, but slightly less extreme cousin, “Operation Annihilate” is Nasty Savage’s first true, “full-on” thrash metal song. It’s decent war-themed doo-tat-doo-doo-tat speed-thrash, but, Nasty Ronnie, my dude, leave lyrics like “violate the survival rate/operation annihilate” to MEGADETH or SODOM. Your bread and butter is singing about crazy bondage-obsessed broads in “Jeopardy Room”, weird sex and death rituals in “Blood Syndicate”, the lighter side of schizophrenia in “Schizoid Platform”, a hillbilly serial killer in “Southern Fried Homicide”, and, of course, my personal favorite, both lyrically and musically, the Apocalypto-themed, Aztec Indian blood sacrifices in the amusingly titled “Aztec Elegance.”
Ugh, but the song “Brain Washer” appears to have a social conscience about “seeking deliverance from the all the indifference.” C’mon, man, you’re NASTY Ronnie, not NICE Ronnie! I want you singing about stealing cars and giving blood transfusions while knowingly having AIDS and “dungeons of pleasure” and dysfunctional families; not caring about humanity! Also, I thought “The 6th Finger” was going to be a dick joke or about a dildo, but it’s actually an instrumental. But, hey, it’s the music that we care about, not whether Nasty Ronnie is or isn’t as nasty as he used to be.
I mean, it is the current year after all…
Edwin Oslan
Revenge of Riff Raff
17th February, 2025
Also check out by Edwin's lists for 2023, 2022, & 2021
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