Metal Classics

Iron Maiden-"Powerslave"



There is a sound that Iron Maiden makes that no other metal band I've ever heard can make. It's this galloping "duh-duhduhduh-duhduhduh" motif that sounds like an armored panzer division on the march. Maiden uses this sound in most of their songs, albeit in various speeds, and yet, it never really seems to get old, mostly because no other band can do it quite like them.

It's debatable which one is best, but there's no disputing the impact of Maiden's first five albums on metal. They pretty much define what power metal is. The first two - "Iron Maiden" and "Killers" - were made with singer Paul Di'Anno, who was replaced by one of metal's great characters, fencing enthusiast Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson then fronted the band through the peak of their commercial popularity, with 1982's "Number Of The Beast," 1983's "Piece Of Mind" and 1984's "Powerslave."

"Number Of The Beast" may have more hits, but for me, "Powerslave" is more consistent. There's only 8 songs but every one of them is top notch. "Powerslave" begins with the propulsive "Aces High," a narrative of an aerial bomber in the middle of a dogfight. The track gets the album off to a rollicking start and it never lets up.

Next up is the politically charged "2 Minutes To Midnight," one of the band's biggest hits. The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, which counts down to the probability of nuclear war. Dickinson's lyrics don't mince words: "We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies," "As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song." It's easy to see why the song is one of the most popular in the band's ouevre. It has the driving guitar riffs and solos but with a memorable hook in the chorus.

"Losfer Words (Big 'Orra) is the last instrumental that Maiden has done and serves as a transition between the almost pop-metal sounds of the first two songs to the darker and more progressive stuff that follows. Nonetheless, it's a strong track that showcases the band's virtuosity. I have zero idea what the title means but does it really matter?

"Flash Of The Blade" was written by Dickinson and clearly references his love for fencing and swordplay. The lyrics are a bit ridiculous, with goofy nods to iron masks and dragons but Dickinson sells them with his absurdly high singing range and the ringing guitars of Dave Murray and Adrian Smith.

Another song with swords as a theme is "The Duellists," which is about the old custom of challenging someone to a duel. This track gives one of the best demonstrations of that signature Iron Maiden sound I talked about early. The rhythm chugging along while Smith's guitar wails over top of it, adding extra depth to the story being told in the lyrics.

Things keep rolling with another fast track, "Back In The Village," another anti-war song, which seems to be about a soldier's flashbacks to killing villagers in war. The song is highlighted by Dickinson's rapid fire shouts at the end.

The album closes on a high note with the best examples of the signature Maiden galloping rhythm, with the title cut, a song about Egyptian pharoahs or some such nonsense. The lyrical content is unimportant though compared to how the whole band interacts on this track. Dickinson's singing is right in lockstep with the rhythm section and Smith's guitar keeps up the motif, especially with the Egyptian-theme on the pre-chorus. The song then does an abrupt U-turn into a fierce instrumental section before coming back to the main riff. "Powerslave" is definitely one of Maiden's more underrated cuts. It show off the band at its finest: the dueling guitars, Dickinson's powerful yelp, the goofy mysticism and of course, that rhythm section.

But the band then saves its best for last with the 13-minute "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner," a song based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem of the same name. Theoretically, there's no way a song like this should work. It sounds like something straight out of Spinal Tap. But work it does. After five-minutes of pure Maiden-ness, the song cuts to a atmospheric, watery guitar solo, augmented by Dickinson's spoken word passage before kicking it back up again. The song really is an impressive feat and even though it's 13-minutes long, you don't really notice that. The song would foreshadow some of the more progressive experimentation the band would use on later releases. One of the best things, to me, that you can say about a song is that there isn't anything out there quite like it and in the case of "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" that's true. You'll never hear a song like this before or after.

I debated in my own mind which Maiden release I wanted to do for this series. While its impossible to do a series called "Metal Classics" without Iron Maiden, it's equally hard to pick which Maiden album to do. I suppose I dig "Powerslave" the most because it's an album where you don't skip tracks. You can put it on "Aces High" and just sit back and listen for the next 50 minutes. It's also, to me, the best demostration of who Iron Maiden is and why they are the preeminent power metal band to ever exist.

Metal Classics

Slayer - "Reign In Blood"

I'm not sure there has ever been a more intense 30 minutes in the history of recorded sound than Slayer's 1986 album "Reign In Blood." Like a bar room bully, it grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go for its duration. People think Metallica is fast? No, with all due respect to Lars, James and the guys, THIS is fast. I have no clue how Slayer plays as fast as they do on "Reign In Blood." But what makes this record work is that it is truly an album. The songs all fit together, usually running right into the next one. The album is relentless, but in a good way. By the end of the audio assault Slayer has just unleashed on "Reign In Blood," you either loved it or hated it. Thought it was either a brilliant piece of metal music or was completely satanic and evil. Either way, your jaw was on the floor at the sheer velocity and intensity Slayer brings on this record.

Looking back, 1986 was quite a year for metal. Metallica released "Master Of Puppets," which has gone on to greater and greater fame as the years go on as the definitive metal record. It was also the year "Reign In Blood" came out but it doesn't get the same level of accolades for some reason. It should. "Reign In Blood" marked the point when the two thrash metal titans formally went off on their own courses. Metallica to being the biggest metal band the world has ever known and Slayer to being the mischevious younger brother who liked to set things on fire. Slayer developed a cult following so dedicated they came up with their own version (facetiously, of course)of the "Clapton Is God" sign...


All my babbling would be moot if the songs on "Reign In Blood" did not hold up so well. The band is amazingly tight, as Dave Lombardo punishes his drum kit while guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hannemann shred with reckless abandon. Bassist/vocalist Tom Araya brings the madness to a fever pitch with his rapid fire vocals and piercing scream. It's that scream which officially announces Slayer's arrival on the opening "Angel Of Death." King and Hannemann start off with simple guitar riff that builds up to Araya's yell, which starts off as a high-pitched wail and gradually gets lower until it literally sounds like someone descending into hell. The band kicks in behind him as Araya's lyrics describe the gruesome crimes of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Araya has always said he wasn't glorifying Mengele's crimes in this song and by listening to the way he recites the lyrics, I agree with him.

The next two songs, "Piece By Piece" and "Necrophobic" fit together and each plays like a horror film. 20 years later the work of Eli Roth would turn Araya's narratives into film reality with his "Hostel" movies. Each song is barely two minutes long and the band crams as many time changes and guitar solos as is humanly possible to fit into that amount of time.

After that, we get another double-sided suite with "Altar of Sacrifice" and "Jesus Saves." It's impossible to think of these two songs apart. "Altar" keeps up the furious momentum the band has built up to this point. Araya's vocals sometimes seem to struggle to keep up with the music but that effect works to the band's advantage: the snarling chaos of the vocals matches the band. "Altar" then slows things down for the badass guitar riff that opens up the ironic "Jesus Saves." This is the point in the album where a first-time listener probably says "fuck yeah!" That slowed down tempo lasts, oh, 20 seconds, before the band launches into an attack even faster than what they just did in the previous four songs.

"Criminally Insane" comes next and also has a slowed tempo to start, this time with a snare and hi-hat countoff by Lombardo before the band is at it again. "Reborn" keeps things going, while "Epidemic" shows off a style more reminicent of later Slayer releases "South Of Heaven" and "Seasons In The Abyss." "Postmortem" goes on a bit long (odd on a 10-song 30-minute album) and might be the weakest track here but it helps lead into the crowning moment of the record, the closer "Raining Blood."

"Raining Blood" has one of, if not the best intros in heavy metal. It starts off with a clap of thunder and the rain falling. Then Lombardo hits the tom-toms.
"Duhduhduh...duhduhduh...duhduhduh"
It's an eerie sound. Then the guitars come in and the band explodes into the song. Once Araya finishes the verses with the lines "Awaiting you reprisal/your time slips away," the band goes into a military stomp before one final thrash metal freakout, which reaches its crecendo with the thunder and rain again. Its a perfect way to end the album, like you're leaving Dante's Inferno behind.

"Reign In Blood" is one of those albums that doesn't seem to age or get stale. It's just as ass-kicking on the 100th listen as on the 1st. The album took thrash metal away from the more progressive vein it had been going at the time and gave it more of a punk rock feel. Like many things in life, "Reign In Blood's" innovation was a happy accident. Supposedly, producer Rick Rubin shaved the band's songs down to such an extent that the entire album could fit on one side of a cassette tape. However, the band loved the result, which was a much more intense experience than if the songs had dragged on with lots of solos and tempo changes. The band and Rubin were correct. If you don't believe me, listen to the "Hell Awaits" E.P. which is much more of a progressive album but doesn't have the electric chair energy of "Reign In Blood." This was the album where Slayer turned into SLAAAAAYERRRRRR!!!!

The band loved the album so much, they played it in its entirety for its 20th anniversary, complete with a raining blood effect on "Raining Blood." Here's a clip.

"Kill 'Em All" Postscript

I meant to put this up at the end of the "Kill 'Em All" piece but by the time I finished it, YouTube was doing site maintenance (as always). It ended up working out since the piece ran quite long and none of you fuckers read anyway. But if you did read the piece, you might find these clips illuminating. It's a three part interview with James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich talking with Metal Blade Records founder Brian Slagel about the making of "Kill 'Em All" on it's 25th anniversary last year.

Metal Classics

Metallica - "Kill 'Em All"
(Ed. Note- This little section used to be called "Albums I Am Addicted To" but I'm changing it to the slightly less cumbersome "Metal Classics", sort of my version of Roger Ebert's Great Movies pieces, only written by me and about heavy metal albums. Enjoy)

Has there ever been a more metal song than "Seek And Destroy" off Metallica's debut album "Kill 'Em All"? Sure, there have been better metal songs - Metallica themselves have several - but as a pure, unadulterated expression of what "metal" is, as a summation of an entire musical philosophy, there isn't anything better.

I think part of the reason some people turned on Metallica a little bit in recent years was what some fans probably felt was a loss of this "Seek And Destroy" ethos. As early as the massive selling "Metallica" (aka "The Black Album") in 1991 people were yelling sellout. Oh sure, there were other things along the road: the haircuts for the "Load" album, the more blues based music of "Load" and "Reload," the Napster lawsuit, the sprawling mess that was "St. Anger" and the well-documented group therapy sessions.

The band came full circle though this year with "Death Magnetic," an album that was not just a return to form but also helped put the preceeding 17 years in perspective. As the band members got older, they didn't want to be limited by the manifesto they helped lay out. You can't be a raging beast forever. Certainly some bands have survived for 30 years by doing essentially the same thing - Slayer, AC/DC and Motorhead all come to mind. But even those groups experienced their share of lean years - Slayer in the 90s, AC/DC for most of the 80s and early 90s and Motorhead has never had much commercial success in America.

Metallica was never that sort of band anyway. As early as their second record, "Ride The Lightning," they had begun to branch out with elaborate instrumentals and even a ballad ("Fade To Black"). This was a band that has always been willing to stick their necks out there and try something different.

So having looked ahead, we can now look back on "Kill 'Em All." In hindsight, it really sounds like no other Metallica record. It's sort of like watching the James Bond film "Dr. No" again after having seen all the other Bond movies that came after it. There's a DIY, raw, hardcore feel to "Kill 'Em All." The sound of young band in their garage trying to piss off the neighbors. They looked like four guys that just emerged from a hail of pot smoke in a basement.

Metallica makes clear what they are all about from the very first lines of the very first song, "Hit The Lights" - "No life 'til leather/Gonna kick some ass tonight." Obviously, the first thing that jumps out is how high James Hetfield's voice was on this record. He sounds more like Mercyful Fate's King Diamond (an early influence on Metallica) than he ever would again.

"Hit The Lights" leads into the first huge Metallica anthem, "The Four Horsemen," a song which the band would keep in their live set fairly consistently ever since. The song was so popular amongst fans that band took on the title as a nickname. Interesting thing about "The Four Horsemen" is that it was originally written by the band's first lead guitarist Dave Mustaine under a different title( I won't rehash the band's history. If you don't know it, why are you reading this? But if you need a refresher, here's their Wikipedia page for quick reference.) When Kirk Hammett took over, he added probably the key part of the song - the slow bridge in the middle. It was the first hint of the more sophisticated arrangements the band would perfect in later years.

From there we get "Motorbreath," a song written by Hetfield before he started Metallica and is done in a style similar to Motorhead. It's a celebration of all things metal with its defiant chorus, "Motorbreath/It's how I live my life/I can't take it any other way." "Jump In The Fire" is next and almost certainly bears the influence of proto-black metal pioneers Mercyful Fate and Venom, both contemporaries of Metallica. Lyrically it's like nothing Hetfield would ever write again, with its narrative of going to hell, told from Satan's point of view.

That brings us to the most musically extraordinary track on the record, Cliff Burton's bass solo, "Anethesia (Pulling Teeth)." I listen to this now and still can't believe Burton used a bass guitar to make all those sounds. While Cliff just noodling around is a case of "how did he do that?" When Lars Ulrich's drums enter the picture the instrumental jam becomes a song and yet you still can't believe that its just drums and bass doing that. Burton and Ulrich alone could have been one of the heaviest bands on the planet if this song was any indication. It was unfortunate for Burton's successors (Jason Newstead and Robert Trujillo) that they had to follow this act. Besides being one of the unique bass players to ever walk the Earth, Cliff looked like he came out of heavy metal central casting. It must be like following Sean Connery as James Bond. No matter what his successors do, they will always be measured up to Burton.

After that is "Whiplash," which, along with Slayer's "Angel Of Death," can pretty much be called "Thrash Metal 101." You wanna know what thrash metal is? Listen to "Whiplash."

Following that, the album loses a little of its momentum with "Phantom Lord" and "No Remorse," two songs that aren't bad on their own but in the context of this album, seem like b-sides.

Then we come full circle to "Seek And Destroy," with one of the most famous opening riffs in all of heavy metal. But as opposed to Metallica's other famous opening riff, the one for "Enter Sandman," this one signals not the coming of some huge monster, but of the gunslingers riding into town. Of four punks storming into a bar full of rednecks, looking to raise hell ("We're scanning the scene/In the city tonight/We're looking for you/To start up a fight.") The song has a swagger to go with its heaviness. It all leads to the fist-pumping chorus, "Searching/Seek and destroy," that would remain a staple of the band's live set. It's "Seek And Destroy" where Metallica separated themselves from the Motley Crue's and Def Leppard's of the world. Those bands, while great in their own right, were always more about good times, good drugs and sexy women. Metallica made it clear their only goal was to be the biggest metal band the world has ever seen, "Our brains are on fire with the feeling to kill/And it won't go away until our dreams are fulfilled."

If "Seek And Destroy" is the battle call, then the closer, "Metal Militia," sets the troops in motion - "Oh through the mist and the madness/We're trying to get the message to you/Metal militia." However, the key verse in the song is the last one. It really sums up why people like myself love heavy metal, why millions of people throughout the world love this form of music. No matter what kind of people try to put down metal, whether it be parents, teachers, government officials or the religious right, it's this verse that explains why metal will never die. Why it unites people from Baltimore to Berlin, from Orlando to Oslo.

"We are as one, yes, we are all the same
Fighting for one cause
Leather and metal are our uniforms
Protecting what we are
Joining together to take on the world
With our heavy metal
Spreading the message to everyone here
Come let yourself go."