Nuclear Assault - Game Over (1986) LP Combat Records

In 1989, I was 13 years old and got turned onto metal and early punk in equal doses, but really clicked with thrash and metal bands of the day. I watched Headbanger's Ball with abandon and me and my friends compared bands we discovered there and in Metal Maniacs, a great metal magazine of the day. Nuclear Assault released 1989's Handle With Care and produced a video for it with the band playing in front of an oil rig in the desert and that, along with the crushing sound of Dan Liker's bass made this album a must get for me. I bought it, got super into the band.

This is their first LP, 1986's Game Over, which is a searingly fast and direct thrash metal record. It's a great first record and its easy to see how Combat signed them after hearing a few of these tracks of their earlier demo tape. It's 13 tracks compacted into 33 minutes of sheer speed and aggression. The cover is as unrelenting and brash as the music with nearly day-glo colors and apocalyptic imagery and as a 13-year-old, I was drawn to it like afternoon cartoons after school.

As with a lot of cassettes I had back in the day, I listened to it religiously, but it never took over the top spot as Handle With Care became one of my favorite records.

There are a number of classic tracks here like "Live, Suffer Die", "Betrayal" and "Sin," all standouts and all excellent.



"Sin" is a great standout track and whenever I listen to it, I remember the whole of the genre and how fresh and exciting it was compared to glam metal and commercial metal. It really gave me a good understanding of the underground and how music not on the radio could still be amazing and moving, which was a bit of a revelation to a 13-year-old.


"Betrayal" is still one of my fav's on this record and its an anthemic piece, good for singing along with after some imagined slight, but mostly just awesome at anytime.



There's few times when I feel the need to have three youtube links, but I couldn't leave off " Hang The Pope," a Liker vocalized track and a humorous mid-album excursion and one of those songs that always seemed to make it onto a metal comp cassette you'd make for a friend.

Bought at Laurie's, which just goes to show they are the kings of having just about anything in their New Release bin.

Possessed - The Eyes Of Horror (1987) EP Relativity/Combat Records

For a band who only released three records - 1985's Seven Churches, 1986's Beyond The Gates and this stellar EP - Possessed made a huge impact on the death/thrash/crossover scene in the 1980's. They have been referred to as the first death metal band by many, but I really feel like they did their own thing - combinding thrash with darker themes, using the raw skate punk/crossover sound as their platform, mixing it with great speedy riffs.

Possessed are much more melodic than their contemporaries, faster than Metallica and have a vocal edge that is super raw and gutteral, more akin to skate punk than metal.



As a kid, I was a huge fan of Possessed's Seven Churches and its super-rough production and fast-paced thrash. I actually had this record on cassette along with Beyond The Gates and didn't really gell with it. Coming back to it later in life, I find that this is easily my favorite of their releases.

Unfortunately, the band broke up shortly after the release of this EP and three years later singer Jeff Becerra was shot and paralized from the waist down. They did reform in the early 1990's briefly and then disbanded again. Luckily for us, they are again reformed with Jeff who performs in a wheelchair, which does nothing to diminish the power of them live.

I got a chance to see Possessed last summer they just floored me. My fiancee Linda bought me the Seven Churches hoodie and bought herself a girly Possessed T with the logo in rhinestones. No shit. Awesome.

I highly recommend any fans of death metal and early thrash to check this out. It's a bit cleaner in terms of production than Seven Churches, but damn powerful.

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.