Graveyard Rodeo - On the Verge (1994)

 

$2.00

This album was hastily done with a mostly-new lineup to fulfill contractual obligations with Century Media, since Graveyard Rodeo had imploded after their first album. I know the story is that a lot of the album was material already composed by the old lineup, just with rewritten lyrics, but because of the extreme stylistic change (and how well the new vocals completely fit the style of supposedly previously written material), I honestly find that very hard to believe. 

So unfortunately, they've jumped on the groove metal bandwagon, and all other influences that had made their first album such a weird mixture have been pushed far to the fringes of their sound. Vocals are the expected aggro style. While I do slightly prefer the vocals from the debut, those were very hardcore punk-styled, so it's really just choosing the lesser of two evils. Also, to be fair, both vocal styles fit in with the sound of their respective albums.

Speaking of HC influences, that was a major element on the first album, but here it's limited to closer "Nothing to Say" and a few sparse faster parts spread throughout the disc. But by far the worst thing about the album is how much they scaled back the doom and death metal influences from the debut. The best part of the album is right at the beginning, with the great doomy riffage that starts "Self Holyness" off. It made me quite optimistic when I first put the CD on, as I thought maybe not much had changed aside from the vocals. The death metal influence is almost completely gone--the aforementioned beginning of "Self Holyness" is heavy enough to qualify as doomdeath for me, but otherwise, there's really only the fast parts that at the start of the verses in "Taught Well." That's pretty much it for anything DM-like.

If you were to ask me if I liked this album, I wouldn't hesitate to say no, but because of the price, it's not that big of a letdown, and it's not so bad where it feels like a total waste of two bucks. The guitar sound is pleasantly heavy, and there's just enough residual doom and sludginess left in the sound where it's not just generic Pantera cloning. I'm not a huge fan of Sowing Discord in the Haunts of Man, but it managed to mix varied influenced in an interesting way. Most of On The Verge just lets the groove sound dominate lazily.

Haieeta - Mvemjsun (p) (2007)

 

Cost: 99¢

This is too varied for a comprehensive general description, so a quick track-by-track:

1. Dragonflies Terrain

This wasn't a great first impression, because while there's a sludgy, stoner-y feel to the music, the bounciness and vocals give off strong groove metal vibes.

2. Freeze the Flame

The intro has a super-heavy, doomy riff which are easily the best musical idea the band comes up with on the entire CD. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes more of a groovy rock song, and the vocals often have a sort of swaggery rap-adjacent delivery. At least the heavy riff recurs a few times. 

 

3. Haunted Gangster

More of a Southern metal vibe here, still with sludge/groove/stoner metal influences. While not my favorite kind of thing, the vocals and music mesh better here than on the other tracks.

 

4. White Knuckle

More upbeat and rocking, perhaps with some Black Label Society influence. 

 

5. Telepathic Love

Groovy stoner metal/rock, the closest they get to straightforward stoner rock on the disc. 

 

6. Residual Hill 

Stoner metal with some sludgy and even slightly doomy undertones. It's a 15 minute track containing nothing to justify that length, though. I was amused that there's a recurring riff that starts getting used about halfway through that has a chord progression that made me think ever so slightly of Metal Church's eponymous song.

 

This has a barcode so I'm not sure if it ever got legit distribution, but the presentation and even overall musical feel are much more like a demo CD. Can't say I was impressed by anything on here, but for 99 cents, I can't really complain. Don't think it's something I will ever listen to again, though.

Dio - Holy Diver

 

Cost: $1.99

I had completely forgotten I found a copy of Holy Diver at the end of 2022 and had already blogged about it. I would have bought this as a tradeable anyway, so that's what it will end up being.

I gave the disc a listen before I even realized I had already covered the album on the blog, so without the bias of reading or remembering my old work, I can say my thoughts about the album are exactly the same. I can give myself a pat on the back for consistency, I guess. So yeah, first 2 tracks and "Rainbow in the Dark" are the strongest songs, and the middle of the album gets kind of weak. The recurring melody from the intro from "Shame on the Night" is kinda neat, so while I wouldn't call it one of the best tracks, it's probably one of the more interesting middling ones.

The band were capable of crafting some fantastic individual tracks, but I think the first two Dio albums fall short of reaching the sheer excellence of old Priest/Maiden/Saxon/etc. in terms of being all killer, no filler. Ironically I feel this is also the case for Sabbath (regardless of singer) and Ozzy's solo stuff as well. In some ways, I wish the material of the first two Dio albums had been amalgamated into one excellent album instead of two pretty good ones.

Skullwinx - The Relic (2016)

 

Cost: $2.00

Awful band name. Especially when you consider the band name versus the actual music, this could easily rank as one of the worst ever. It immediately evokes associations with Winx Club, which I assume was not the intent. The logo they used for this album doesn't do them any favors either, since it looks like the generic graphic design you'd see from a hard rock band (their older logo is just an Old English font with wings, which I think looks a lot cooler).

The band combine epic heavy metal with speed metal parts. They call themselves epic speed metal, which is a fair enough way to cover both bases, although since the epic stuff greatly outweighs the speed, and only "Carved in Stone" might really qualify as a pure speed metal song overall, I personally wouldn't feel comfortable calling them speed metal without an extra descriptor. As far as the speed component goes, they never get super furious, so think influences from the slightly less lead-footed German bands.

The epic metal influences vary depending on the song. "Hammer of the Gods" is a re-recording of an older track, and is the most overtly old US metal-sounding. Most of the other tracks remind me a bit of the more epic side of Grave Digger's '90s/'00s material, though Skullwinx aren't as power metal-ish.

I wouldn't have minded a much higher concentration of speed metal, but otherwise, all I can really critique are a couple spots in the vocals. They're in a rougher mid-range which works just fine most of the time, but there are a couple places where he drifts outside his range trying to hit high notes. I was expecting the worst, so this was quite a pleasant surprise. Since I found this so enjoyable, I can't help but be harsh on the band name--it seems like a huge impediment in an already overcrowded metal scene. $2 well spent.

Action - Overload (1988)

 

Cost: 99¢

Was quite shocked to find this. Even the early Action stuff has quite a lot of rock-oriented songs, though they definitely had some metal in their repertoire too. Unfortunately by this album, they went the route of other Japanese bands like Blizard and Reaction by ditching any sort of real band logo on their covers and switching to hard rock. And for hard rock, this is fine. There's some residual heaviness in the guitarwork, and opener "Blow the Night Away" and closer "Violence" are pretty good. Not my musical preference, but it was worth checking out for 99 cents.

For Those About to Rot: A Tribute to AC/DC (2000)

 

Cost: $2.00

The title suggests much more of a death/extreme metal-focused tribute than it ends up being, although compared to some of Dwell's other tributes to non-metal bands, there is, well, surprisingly little non-metal on here.

1. Locomotive - Highway to Hell

Groove metal (with sped-up death metal chorus sections) version with ultra-forced aggro vox. Not the best way to start things off.

 

2. Dementia - Back in Black

I assume this is the same band from the Mötley Crüe tribute I covered on the blog years ago. I was a bit surprised at first, as they look like a nu/alternative band in their booklet photo, but instrumentally the cover was excellent. The singer smartly stayed away from Brian Johnson emulation aside from some mild swagger in the vocals, and while they aren't great, they're serviceable. I should have trusted my instincts about their picture, though...Two-thirds of the way through the song, they put in a angst-y Rage Against the Machine-style rapped section. I wish I was joking! Ridiculous. 

 

3. Colp - T.N.T.

This is somewhat similar to Locomotive's cover, as it's groove metal heavied up with death metal influences. It comes off far better, though. That said, I don't think it's quite as good and definitely not as fun to listen to as Six Feet Under's version. 

  

4. Wasteland - Riff Raff

This is the mid '90s German thrash band. Great musically but the extreme black metal-sounding vox aren't a great fit.

 

5. Assisting Sorrow - Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

Very interesting melodic death interpretation. Rather than typical death or black metal vox, the vocals here are gruff, shouty, and even kind of aggro, with a reverb effect. As with the previous track, they're an odd fit and feel weird.

 

6. Lesser Known - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Solid cover musically. I found the vocal affectations and effects slightly distracting at first, but they're not nearly as bad as some of the vocals on the other covers.

 

7. Neurosilence - Who Made Who

Very disjointed death/deaththrash version, light years away from their decent cover on the Death tribute. If it wasn't for the song's title right in the chorus, I don't think I would have recognized this at all. Worst track on here.

 

8. Deamon - Hells Bells

Again, aside from the bells intro and the main riff, it was very hard to hear "Hell's Bells" in here. Since this sounds pretty much like an original death metal song, it kind of defeats the purpose, although because they transformed it so much, it works a little better as an extreme version than some of the other songs.

 

9. Necrology - You Shook Me All Night Long

I was expecting this to be played closer to the original tempo, just downtuned and made extreme ala Six Feet Under. Instead, it's quite sped up, which I do admit I found funny. I think this would have worked better as a hidden bonus track on their own album than on a tribute CD, though.

 

10. Vladimirs - If You Want Blood (You Got It)

Musically, a cool punk-infused cover, but not a fan of the uncontrolled shouty vox.

 

11. Enertia - Walk All Over You 

One of the more faithful versions musically, but unfortunately the band uses regular clean vox, robbing it of any Bon Scott feel whatsoever. 

 

Blessed Agony - Confined Slaughter (2006)

 

Cost: $2.00

Unremarkable death metal EP. Sounds like late '90s "plain" death metal in that there's not really an extra descriptor (technical, brutal, melodic, old-school, etc.) that really fits it. If it were simply generic, I'd probably feel neutral about it, but there are enough little missteps that I feel it's slightly below average. Although I wouldn't hesitate to say it's not that good, it is cohesive enough where it's not terrible.

It doesn't happen too often throughout the course of the CD and it's not even that prominent, but occasionally there will be kinda chuggy riffs that rub me the wrong way and give this a slight metalcore or groove undercurrent. The vocals sometimes accentuate this, because the switches between gruffer shouted lows and forced manic near-BM screams come off very much like -core vox. The band also attempts to use shreddy melodic solo sections in songs like "Remnants of Humanity" and "Torment," but the solos come off as disjointed and amateurish. It's a shame, because they could have been a potential highlight, but it sounds like they were just too far beyond the guitarist's ability to effectively pull off. Even with all my criticisms, I thought "Torment" was an alright song.

After I listened to this I looked up the band on Metal-Archives and happened to notice they were categorized as "black/death metal." Judging by the shirts in some of the band photos, at least some of the members are into black metal, but it doesn't reflect in the music much. I suppose considering some of the tremolo picked parts together with the higher vocal style, certain riffs might have some slight black metal undertones. But calling this black/death overall seems like a stretch.

So yeah, it doesn't quite feel like I completely wasted two bucks, but I've done much better in the bargain bin.