pretazzo

A record of disconcerting relevance. The first half of the opening suite is stunning: Temple of Syrinx was unprecedented for its time and still today leaves one awestruck with that volcanic rhythm... the same goes for Passage to Bangkok... Lessons, on the other hand, reminds me of the Zeppelin-esque Ramble On... But the highlight is, in my opinion, Twilight Zone, one of the most cryptic, unsettling and yet desolate songs in the entire history of metal: Voivodian.

One of the fundamental albums of 1976, a blessed year for metal, with three milestones to its name: 2112 by Rush, Sad Wings of Destiny by Priest, and this Rising. These three albums mark a point where hard rock, in a certain sense, emancipated itself from the zeppelin/purple blues matrix, assimilating it, deepening it, and transposing it into more complex, articulated, "symphonic," sumptuous, and epic forms. Epic/power is born here (only to degenerate in the 90s, but that’s another story…). A splendid album from start to finish.

One of the most overrated metal albums ever. It was a bitter disappointment. All style, little substance. And where’s the prog? This is derivative classic metal, polished, inflated, on the brink of AOR (yes, that’s right). Critics called it the metal’s The Wall: that’s exactly the problem! :-D In the same year, a few miles further north, a certain Nothingface by Voivod was released: now that’s “thinking metal.” Regards.

Between glam and punk, hedonism and nihilism, Stones and Pistols, a fundamental album that served as Charon between two profoundly different musical epochs. Or perhaps, much less different than they may appear? Yes, because if there's one thing that the Dolls have taught us, it's that in the end "it's only rock'n'roll!" Indeed, rock'n'roll: here lies the common denominator of all (or nearly all) the incarnations of that dark object of desire known as "rock." Rock'n'roll (the one from Chuck Berry) is a malleable musical language, capable of adapting to the most disparate needs: blues-rock and garage-rock; hard-rock and punk; metal and hardcore, and so on... always mediating these "ideological clashes" is the good old damn rnr!!! Rnr in which the Dolls were sublime interpreters. The first three tracks of this album prove it. That’s all it takes. But there’s also a sweet post-drunk ballad (Lonely Planet Boy), a powerful Trash (which is already punk), a guns’n'roses-esque Subway Train. It’s the attitude, the execution, the raucous singing of Johansen that is proto-punk, more than the instrumentation and compositional style.

Before them, the hard'n'heavy world and the garage-punk scene were like cat and dog; their music, seemingly trivial, opened numerous doors in the '80s and represented a substantial advancement in the development of rock in an extreme sense. A distinguished predecessor could be the seminal MC5, but aside from that, in 1980 no one had yet made hard rock with the spirit of punk. It went, in no time, from the Heepian baroque to the Lemmy-like whips. And Road Crew kicks ass. Like a beast.

One of my favorite metal albums from the 90s.

Right, Odra! The vote... I completely forgot about it... sorry... :-(

Instead, the opposite happens to me: I find it easier to listen to Van Vliet than the Surfers... And anyway, the music of the Surfers (like that of the Captain) is deeply rooted in the blues...

But the drummer is not T.G. Fischer!!! Fischer is the real name of T.G. Warrior, the singer/guitarist! The drummer of C. Frost is Reed St. Mark. Anyway, while this album is important for the development of extreme metal (death more than black in this case: they drew inspiration from Obituary to Sepultura), I believe it is not the best album of the Swiss band... Much better is Into the Pandemonium, more mature, richer, more complex, more atmospheric, more experimental, more gothic... After all, the element that distinguished the Frost from other thrash/black bands of the time was precisely the "experimental" component (like the extended instrumentation), almost completely absent in Morbid Tales, except for Danse Macabre.

...and all those from Fugazi (judging by your profile...) :-D Anyway, the comparison with Stones, Zep, and Floyd seems a bit forced to me... they are completely different eras and genres!