Fozzy - Fozzy (2000)

Cost: $1.00 

Was vaguely familiar with Fozzy's schtick and knew Chris Jericho was the frontman, but it was mildly shocking to find out the rest of the band were Stuck Mojo members.  Who would have thought?

 

The cover songs are all well-executed and faithful renditions, but as they're all extremely popular '80s anthems from classic bands, there's zero chance of Fozzy bettering them.  They're just good covers and nothing more. In that sense, it would have been nice to see what they could have done with deeper cuts or more obscure band choices.  Chris isn't a bad vocalist, but all of the songs they cover had very charismatic vocalists (to say the least) and he just sounds rather generic in comparison. 

Given the whole Fozzy "backstory," I was honestly expecting the two original tracks to be in a Steel Panther vein, which while not my first choice, would have been acceptable. Instead they're a mishmash of rock/metal influences and sound too modernized and out of place surrounded by classic metal covers. "End of Days" mixes up a simple metallic guitar lick with saccharine hard rock choruses and occasionally Bon Jovi-esque vocals. "Feel the Burn" sounds like the sort of groovy stuff a hair band would have released trying to survive in the post-grunge '90s.

So yeah, if you're into actual heavy metal, you're probably only getting this for the covers.  I was quite entertained getting those for a dollar, so good score.

Also have to mention, when I saw the band pic, for a second I honestly  thought the bassist was Peter Steele trying to be incognito in aviator sunglasses until I realized the serious height issue. The guy on the far left also looked slightly older and wiser, so I was wondering if it was a somewhat famous veteran drummer, like Bobby Rock of Nitro or something.  Nope, they're both just Stuck Mojo guys.

Crashtime - We Rock (2011)

 

Cost: $2.00

 

Feels like a bit of an odd release, especially considering the band are now playing pretty standard power metal stuff a decade later. The intro is the only thing here that resembles their later material, and it's just a short speed metal version of the first verse of the Swiss children's song "Roti Rösli" ("Red Roses"). It ends up being the heaviest and purest metal on the entire EP. The two original songs are both slower-paced and kind of meander on. "The Pulse" has very mellow verses and then a more hard-driving riff during the chorus, but the song is also very hard rockish. It's not until the solo section and the preceding bass run that it feels like proper metal. "Hymn" is an attempt at an epic anthem celebrating Switzerland (I think?).  Considering the female guest vocals, the brief spoken word/narrated vocals, and the slightly folksy/kitschy feel, I suppose there's a very vague similarity to something you might typically find on a fantasy power metal album, but again, despite the distorted guitar, things feel very rockish and unheavy.

I'll tackle the cover songs individually:

 

Schrei nach Liebe (Die Ärzte) - The most straightforward cover and probably the best in terms of sounding like the original.

This is the Life (Amy Macdonald) - Never heard the original song so I had to briefly check it out. Seems recognizeable but due to my unfamiliarity with the track I'm not really invested in it.

La Isla Bonita (Madonna) - I was expecting this to be highly amusing either in a very good or very bad way.  While not terrible or anything, it's rather punky and fairly unrecognizeable aside from the lyrics.

Das Model (Kraftwerk) - Stripped down cover, no electronic effects here. Obviously quite a different feel from the original, but just as a guitar-based rock/metal cover, pretty admirable.

To be fair, I'm not sure how the band were marketing themselves at the time. Based on the variety and selection of covers, this disc feels more like a promo release to help Crashtime book gigs as a cover band. The covers are decent from a purely technical perspective but as a metal fan, I found both the original songs and the cover song choices to be underwhelming and a bit disappointing. It is kind of heartening to know they heavied up and didn't waste the potential in that intro track!

Elixir - Knocking on the Gates of Hell (2005)

 

 Cost: $1.00

 

Quite happy to find this. The only Elixir material I was familiar with was the band's first album, and while curious what this EP would sound like, I wasn't particularly worried about any drastic style changes. The title track is more rocking and seems more in line with standard Saxon-ish NWOBHM than much of the epic metal of the Son of Odin album (which I always thought more closely paralleled USPM most of the time than NWOBHM). All of that said, it's still NWOBHM from a veteran band, and quite pleasant to listen to. Then "Death Toll" is vaguely reminiscent of newish Cloven Hoof. I suspect the "live" tracks are at best, live in studio--the Lethal Potion/Sovereign Remedy-era song is ok, and then of course the opening track from the debut album is my favorite thing on this. Nice little find.

Solitary Confinement - Einzelhaft (1996)

 Cost: $1.00

 

This was quite an obscure find from the dollar bin. There's certainly enough decent material on here to make it worth the buck, but the album also feels a bit unfocused and never fully resonated with me. Most of the songs are based in thrash/death metal, with some punky/HC influences as well (they're especially fond of throwing in fast crossover passages, especially on the shorter tracks).

Initially I was disappointed by the vocals because they're in a gruff, more HC-appropriate style on the opening track, and they're in a kind of jokey style on the short second track "Acid." Farther in there's thankfully more of a focus on growling (quite solid) and also some BM-style rasping, but sadly the squawking and other sillier vocals still occasionally persist, and make it difficult to take the music very seriously.

Things also get surprisingly extreme towards the end. I suppose the short "Sense of Death" is just a downtuned crossover riff at heart with death metal vocals over it, but it still feels very deathy and relentless compared to the preceding songs. Even with that preparation, I was slightly shocked by "Geballer," which is just total death/grind, something I wasn't really expecting so late in the album.

There are some pretty cool tracks on here, like "Red Button" and "Qual," but almost all of the appeal of this disc comes from fairly generic examples of speed and aggression rather than any great songwriting or riffage. However, for a buck, I'll gladly take it.

Skapegoat - Skapegoat (2004)

Cost: $2.00

 

Somewhat rockish groove metal--the sound is in the ballpark of what you'd imagine based on the back cover bandpic. There are a couple instances where they seem to be going for more of a Godsmack style sound. Main vocals are actually less aggro than I was expecting, and just somewhat gruff, maybe approaching Hetfield style. The secondary vocals are ultra forced, reminding me somewhat of Oderus from Gwar, and they're even sillier when they have nu- rap inflection like in "Killswitch."

A couple sections have a generic Metallica-esque sort of thrashiness to them (particularly considering the vocals), and I'm sure the guitarists have heard and maybe even consider themselves fans of most of the classic mainstream metal bands. Still, I don't think any of this reflects in the music enough to interest most thrash or traditional metal maniacs. And even though I'm not a big proponent of the style anyway, the groove metal stuff on here doesn't seem particularly hard-hitting or inspired for the genre.  Perhaps this was something more commercially viable around the time it was released, but I'm not quite sure who would gravitate towards it nowadays.

Venom Inc. - Avé

 

Cost: $2.00

 

Was a nice surprise to find this in the bargain bin, although I was a little bummed out when I saw the barcode has been marked out. Initially I was kind of meh about it. The production is, expectedly, modern, and there is a lot of modernity and grooviness to the music (which I'd say Cronos' Venom also suffers from as well). Even during the Calm... era or the more straight up thrashiness of the Demolition Man era or even the early classic trio reunion stuff in the mid/late '90s, I'd argue they retained more of a uniqueness even though they were integrating far more contemporary influences than on their early trailblazing stuff. Also, it's not all the time, and I don't expect him to sound exactly like on Prime Evil, but there are several points where I'd be hard-pressed to identify the vocals as Demolition Man's.

All that said, after the fast intro riff to "Time to Die" the album picked up quite a bit for me, and the songwriting on the second half seems to be a bit more interesting, if not stronger in quality. In general I feel the faster songs on here are the best ones, particularly "Time to Die" and "Black N' Roll." So overall, far from terrible, yet not that great--I'm not even sure this is much of a truly positive step in continuing any of the band's legacies (I'd personally prefer to hear them doing old songs live and limiting new output to particularly inspired material). Still, enough solid material to meet my expectations, so a good find.

Slayer - Show No Mercy (1993 reissue)

 

Cost: $2.00 

 

Not going to bother with needless musical descriptions here. Absolute CLASSIC--one of the greatest metal albums ever. This is actually the first time I've ever had the album on CD by itself, as my OG '80s copy adds Haunting the Chapel as bonustracks, and my later European "Metal Classics" version has "Aggressive Perfector" and "Chemical Warfare" inserted at the end of each side of the album. Also nice to have something a bit more substantial to look at on the back cover, even if it's just a close-up of the swords logo.