Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part 1 (1987) LP Noise International

There are few records I have listened to as much as this one, though I originally owned it on cassette, like most music I owned in the 1980's. It's an amazing record, somewhere between Iron Maiden and Metallica, melodic, but fast, hard-hitting but fun. They are criminally over looked and this record, along with Part 2, is some of their best work.

When I was about 13 or 14, I saw the video for 'I Want Out', a melodic metal anthem with a very Maiden-like triumphant chorus. It summed up my early teenage discontent perfectly and I went out and bought that EP, which started a love affair with Helloween. The EP was a live EP and so I tracked down their LP's - most notably this record and Part 2 as well. Both are anthemic and exciting, positive and electric. At a time in my life when I was more interested in the Misfits, Minor Threat and Ministry for their anger and directness, Helloween became the pick-me up when things got me down. At the time, among my group of friends, thrash was king, punk right behind and we laughed at bands like Maiden and their old-school melodic output, listening to bands like Coroner, Forbidden, Destruction, SOD, Metallica, DRI, Slayer and Anthrax for their hardcore thrash and fresh take on metal. But, Helloween always stayed in my listening rotation, even though I didn't pass the cassettes around to my friends, knowing that they would turn it off as soon as they heard the high vocal tones, keyboards and orchestral openings to each album. That didn't stop me from absolutely loving this band though.



The above youtube link is for the intro track and the first cut on the record, 'I'm Alive', a true melodic metal classic. The playing is virtuosic and just mind-blowing. It's a perfect representation of what this band can do, operatic vocals, soaring, technical guitars and such a fast, driving song you just feel like going out and taking on the world. At least I always do when I hear it.



'Future World' is a side 2 cut, one of my favorite from their entire catalog. Such a tremendous track and again, so triumphant and fun, its hard not to want to sing along. It also highlights their fantasy/sci-fi leanings for lyrics and album themes, if the wizard on the cover of the album didn't already key you into that fact...

This band will always be close to my heart and mean more to me than any of their melodic metal counterparts, like Maiden. They made an intense impact on me and I still love this band like few others.

I found this record and a new favorite record store on my last trip to Seattle at a shop called Zion's Gate, which sounds like a head shop and half of the store is dedicated to Reggae and dub, but the other half is metal, which seems like a strange mix, but the owner is also the owner of Kreation Records, a metal label and the very label that repressed Sleep's 'Holy Mountain' to give you some idea of their street cred. I bought something like $300 in metal records and cd's when I was there and it is an absolute must-visit if you are in Seatown.

Alan Silva And His Celestrial Communication Orchestra - Luna Surface (1969) LP BYG/Actuel

Free Jazz is kind of the haven of total music nerds and serious jazzmo's and it seems to range from completely wild recordings of almost indecipeherable nature to excellent examples of what really good players can make of a totally free musical piece. I'm constantly drawn to it and the range of expressive sounds from some of the better records out there makes an indelible mark on me that I cannot deny.

Alan Silva was mostly known for his work as a sideman for guys like Sun Ra and Albert Ayler and only recorded a few records as leader, most notably for his work on Luna Surface and Seasons on the short-lived French Actuel label and on Skillfullness for the ESP Disc label.

Here, Alan Silva has some excellent talent backing him, including Malachi Flavors from The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Grachan Moncur III, Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp, Claude Delcloo and Dave Burrell. The mass of talent is apparent when you listen to the record and they play so well off each other that it at times feels like a rehearsed and structured piece, at least, moreso that it surely was!



It's less agressive than most other free jazz records of the time, which sometimes feel punctuated with an urgency that leaves you feeling empty as if someone was shouting, but not really saying anything. Here, you get a much more mellow feeling, more stylized and melodic, less fire music and more hypnotic. It's a stellar release for the Actuel label.

I snagged this copy at Logan Hardware from my friend Zespy for a very reasonable price. It's a great store to stop into, one I certainly recommend if you are planning on hitting Chicago on a record buying spree.

High On Fire - Surrounded By Thieves (2002) LP Relapse Records

It's hard for me now to distinguish between my two favorite High On Fire records - on alternate days it could be 2000's The Art Of Self Defense (which I have already reviewed here) or this - 2002's Surrounded By Thieves. Both are heavy stoner classics, with Surrounded By Thieves being a slightly more expansive record.

The tracks here are crushingly heavy and the tone is classic High On Fire Green Matamp-on-10, drop C# tuning and the song writing is just stellar. It's one of the few records where I can't choose my favorites - every song is good. The only bummer being the long intro to the record on 'Eyes And Teeth' that takes too long to lead into the song.

'Speedwolf' is a slight bit of a departure for the band with its nearly acoustic opening, but quickly gets down to business and gets a stoner-thrash kind of thing happening that just kills.



'Thraft of Caanan' is a track that Pike himself says 'is about life on tour' and does feel like a journey with its many parts and tone of a travel tune. 'The Yeti' has the same kind of thing happening, but darker and heavier.

If I absolutely had to pick a standout track, I would probably have to pick the side 1/cut 1 of 'Eyes and Teeth' which also kills live on a bootleg I have of them in 2002 and the power of this one track is enough to make me listen to the boot again and again. It certainly doesn't have the complicated chord structure the other traks tend to have as the verse sections are basically one single chord played in time with the beat, but it is still stellar, more like 'Dopesmoker' than say, 'Snakes for the Divine'.



Really though, every track is masterful, a super-solid release from High On Fire, a total must-own.

This was their first album for Relapse Records and this is the first pressing of that record on red vinyl, the single LP instead of the later 2xLP that you can find now. I picked it up in Seattle at Silver Platters, one of two must-hit record stores in Seatown, with the other being Jive Time.

George Benson - Bad Benson (1974) LP CTI

There are few jazz guitarists I like, namely Sonny Sharrock and George Benson. Benson is just so talented and so incredibly versitile, playing jazz, funk, rock, pop, covering 'Take Five' (on Bad Benson) with a slightly psychedelic and cooled out vibe and then covering 'Greatest Love of All' (on Live in LA) with total sincerity and focus. It's hard to nail down jusy why I like George Benson so much, but this album pulls together all the stuff I love about his playing.

Bad Benson came out in 1974, right in the middle of CTI's most fruitful period, one year after Deodado's Prelude reached #3 on the Billboard Top 40. One of the best things about CTI was that the session players were all top notch always, with guys like Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter frequently playing supporting roles. It's all over the place in terms of types of songs - love ballard soaked with 1970's strings right out of a disco soundtrack on track 2, side 1 'Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams' to smoothed-out Latin soul jazz on 'My Latin Brother' to bitchin' funk jazz on 'Full Compass' - which happens to be my favorite track.



He also sets the tone perfectly for the record with the cut 1/side 1 track of 'Take Five', a 1970's take on a 1950's West Coast cool jazz classic. It's got a lot of edge and sharp beats, more akin to free jazz than cool jazz and its punctuated by blistering solos by Benson which just leave you slack jawed.

George Benson has so much talent and lack of pretension that he seems to give each track he plays all his talent on tap, not playing favorites. Even live he was fun and selfless, often smiling through whole sets, chilling and killing it on guitar.

Good thing about CTI recordings from this time is that they were pretty popular so even your high end jazz shops should have these LP's for 2-3 dollars and pretty much anything by Benson, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard (including 1970's Red Clay - a CTI masterwork) and Milt Jackson being essentials in any good collection. Bought for $3 at Dusty Groove in excellent shape and on my turntable a lot on Sunday mornings while I'm drinking coffee and chilling hard.

Egg - The Polite Force (1971) LP Deram

Ever since I heard Egg for the first time, I have loved them. A three-piece English prog rock group, they are a more cerebral band than say Emerson, Lake and Palmer, less showy than Genesis and less serious than Yes - but certainly extremely talented.

The Polite Force is Egg's second record, and it expands on their first effort with better production, deeper songs and a stellar side two long epic, '
Long Piece No. 3.' It's fun and also intellectual, much like classical pieces that change time signatures and tone to keep your brain in tune and not just your fingers tapping.



There isn't a bad track on the record and each one is just so different from the next that if you listened to 'Long Piece No. 3' - the album ender - and then the side 1, cut 1 track 'A Visit To Newport Hospital', you'd probably wonder if you were listening to the same band. Which in this case, works supremely well.

Egg only released three albums, 1970's Egg, 1971's The Polite Force and a later release two years after the band broke up, 1974's The Civil Surface. All are fantastic records, cerebral and fun and inventive and very much their own thing. When I feel like listening to prog, I listen to any one of four or five favorites, but when it comes to Egg, I find that when I want to isten to them, its only them that will do - no one even sounds close.

Ten Years After - Cricklewood Green (1970) LP Deram

Ten Years After is a rarity in the world of British Blues, having pioneered a style equal parts psychedelic rock and British Blues led by guitarist and blues virtuoso Alvin Lee, who plays a style similar to a combination of Eddie Van Halen and Eric Clapton, a killer, riff laden hard-hitting blues with a tint of late 1960's psychedelia.

Cricklewood Green is their fifth LP and one of their finest efforts, coming out in 1970 and remains a powerful and driving British blues record, one I believe to be one of the genre's best and an album I put up there with Free's Tons Of Sobs.

Ten Years After were a commerically successful band in their native UK, scoring 8 top 40 albums between 1968 and 1973, arguably the best years of the band. Cricklewood Green was the bands last raw-feeling album and with their next effort, 1971's Watt, they moved in a more commercial direction.



The side 1/cut 1 track of 'Sugar the Road' is a mix of hard rock ala Zeppelin and heavy blues ala Cream. Its got a mellow, driving beat with a killer guitar sound - slightly atmospheric and loud and crunchy, like a Marshall Bluesbreaker on 7. The bass is high in the mix and very driving. It gets you tapping you fingers and nodding your head like a great rock song should.

There are a few other tracks like '50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain' and 'Love Like A Man' that have a more psychedelic feel, complete with sitars, congas and spaced out fuzz-tones, but all the tracks still part of the same album and that cohesiveness is what shines though - they are not trying to do anything but play what they want to and it shows. No mimicry, just good song writing, no matter the direction of the song.

This is my favorite Ten Years After record and one that you can find on the cheap as it was a pretty big record for Deram back in the day. Highly recommended.

Armageddon - Armageddon (1974) LP A&M Records

Armageddon is just one of those bands where you wish that so much more could have happened with their career. They flamed out early, due to drugs and terrible relations with their management, though a reunion was later impossible due to the untimely death of their lead singer, the former front man of the Yardbirds, Keith Relf.



What they left behind is a surprisingly direct early mix of heavy rock and psych contained in their only album ever released, this, their self-titled debut. They only ever played two shows as well and those that were there must feel very fortunate indeed. The line-up was full of talented, seasoned players and even with only one studio release, its easy to see that they could have been something impressive - especially in '74, close to the birth of heavy metal. There are some really good, crushing tones on this record, even in the acoustic strains of 'Silver Tightrope'. They were powerful and driving, especially on the cut one/side one track of 'Buzzard' and the side one closer, 'Paths And Planes And Future Gains'. The did venture into somewhat of a prog tone on the side two closer, 'Basking In The White Of The Midnight Sun', especially with its four-part construction, but its certainly more of a stoner vibe than anything else.

Musically, they are not here to impress with any super-crazy solos or wild vocals, but they stay focused on making a powerful heavy rock record. There is a lot of wah-wah, but its not over used and certainly compliments the long passages in 'Basking'. It's a tremendous first record and quite a powerful statement from such a short-lived band.