NLTM March '12 Update

http://www.nolifetilmetal.com/updates.htm

Haven't really had a chance to proof the text or check the links yet, so if anyone notices anything glaring, please let me know.

You forgot to add the links to the newly added bands to the index (Chickenfoot, Cold Fate, The Cars, Jaguar, Shadow King).
Why did you get that Vandenberg comp, though? Pretty useless IMHO, considering there's already the far superior The Definitive Vandenberg which you already have, and you still have to get their other two studio albums.
Anyway, will you get any stoner stuff in the future? You still have to complete your COC and Kyuss collections...I'd also recommend Monster Magnet and Mike Amott's Spiritual Beggars.

That Toto album is the weakest one I've heard. However, don't give up on them. Entering into the 90s Toto redeemed themselves. While they could never really be called hard rock, those later albums are certainly not the light, sappy pop albums from the 80s.

Good reviews of Black Sabbath's Headless Cross and the new VH!

TheGreatDuck wrote:

You forgot to add the links to the newly added bands to the index (Chickenfoot, Cold Fate, The Cars, Jaguar, Shadow King).
Why did you get that Vandenberg comp, though? Pretty useless IMHO, considering there's already the far superior The Definitive Vandenberg which you already have, and you still have to get their other two studio albums.
Anyway, will you get any stoner stuff in the future? You still have to complete your COC and Kyuss collections...I'd also recommend Monster Magnet and Mike Amott's Spiritual Beggars.

The Vandenberg was a gift from a friend.

From the updated Anthrax review...

Quote :

"Persistence of Time" is Anthrax at their time and one of my all time favorite albums.

I think you mean "prime".

Nice shout-out to Vargas on the Candy-O cover too. That dude was amazing.

Thanks GreatDuck and MetalGuy. Appreciate you finding those miskates.

DallasBlack wrote:

That Toto album is the weakest one I've heard. However, don't give up on them. Entering into the 90s Toto redeemed themselves. While they could never really be called hard rock, those later albums are certainly not the light, sappy pop albums from the 80s.

Agreed, even as the big Toto fan that i am, i can't stand Fahrenheit. Way too mellow and 80's pop (Fahrenheit the song was actually written for Michael Jackson, another reason why i'm not really a fan of it). It's in my oppinion their worst album after Through the Looking Glass and Tambu (i could never get into it, except for 2-3 songs)
Fahrenheit would be better if they had included Last Night and In a Word, both songs rock a bit more and would've made the album better (They're featured on the "XX 1977 - 1997" Compilation)

As for Hard Rock, i would say that Kingdom of Desire is Hard Rock, songs like the title track, Gypsy Train, Unchain my Heart and so on are clearly in that classic 70's Hard Rock style.

Oh and it says below Isolation: "A bit of trivia about "Isolation", this is one of only 2 Toto albums that feature all 3 of the Porcaro brothers (Jeff on drums, Mike on bass, and Steve on keys) as full members of the band."

Which is actually wrong. Jeff, Steve and Mike were featured on 4 Toto albums: Isolation, Fahrenheit, The Seventh One (he officially left the band at the end of the recordings, at the beginning he was still a full-time member) and the Dune Soundtrack.

And i completely take offense at that line: ". I can't imagine many fans of hard rock, progressive rock or even classic rock fans taking a shine to this."
I like Metal, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock and Classic Rock and think The Seventh One is awesome

ShadowAngel wrote:

And i completely take offense at that line: ". I can't imagine many fans of hard rock, progressive rock or even classic rock fans taking a shine to this."
I like Metal, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock and Classic Rock and think The Seventh One is awesome

Why take offense? I didn't say EVERY fan, just MANY fans. You are one of the few, as am I. But then again, I like stuff like Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel as well.

ultmetal wrote:

Why take offense? I didn't say EVERY fan, just MANY fans. You are one of the few, as am I. But then again, I like stuff like Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel as well.

I didn't it was just a joke
No offense taken, though i have to wonder about the line, as at least from my experience, the people who like Classic Rock or Progressive Rock usually also like Toto (they are extremely popular in Europe, mostly in Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands), mostly because of the live concerts. They are always a blast, i've seen them 12 times live and even though they also play their standard songs, they always make something new out of them. Expanding Hold the Line to over 10 minutes with a jam, changing the music (in 2002 they played a very funky version of I won't hold you Back) and always experimenting. Of course they are also a lot harder then, because Steve Lukather just let's loose and plays like there's no tomorrow and they're loud as Smurf (in 2007 they blew up their entire PA in munich during the encore and it was so lout it felt like a minor earthquake, not even Iron Maiden or other Metalbands did this at the Olympiahalle in Munich )
I think it's a shame that Toto never gets the recognition they deserve, especially in the USA where they are looked down onto. But as said they're are usually loved and get played on classic rock radio stations around here, so i really don't understand that sentence.

Yeah. I had the same thoughts about this line as well.
Ult, now that you got Chickenfoot, will you also get any solo Sammy Hagar or Montrose?

EDIT: Also, regarding Shadow king, how about Riverdogs, another early '90s hair band Vivian Campbell was in? Or Lou Gramm's late '80s solo efforts? Although it isn't heavy at all, but it's still pretty enjoyable AOR IMHO.

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Yeah. I had the same thoughts about this line as well.
Ult, now that you got Chickenfoot, will you also get any solo Sammy Hagar or Montrose?

EDIT: Also, regarding Shadow king, how about Riverdogs, another early '90s hair band Vivian Campbell was in? Or Lou Gramm's late '80s solo efforts? Although it isn't heavy at all, but it's still pretty enjoyable AOR IMHO.

Love to get some Montrose one of these days. Have some Sammy Hagar, just haven't reviewed it yet. Sammy's solo stuff is rather dull and vanilla-as-can-be IMO. Montrose was better.

Dunno, never listened to any of his solo albums. He's got a fair share of great songs, though...Might be a "greatest hits" kind of guy (but I still think he's much better than Tuff or PBF )...Speaking of which, are there any other classic hard rock (or metal) artists besides Sammy and Bon Jovi you don't like very much?
Anyway, how about Death SS?

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Dunno, never listened to any of his solo albums. He's got a fair share of great songs, though...Might be a "greatest hits" kind of guy (but I still think he's much better than Tuff or PBF )...Speaking of which, are there any other classic hard rock (or metal) artists besides Sammy and Bon Jovi you don't like very much?
Anyway, how about Death SS?

Heck no. Bands like Nitro, Tuff and PBF have a ton of attitude and can hardly be called 'dull' or 'vanilla'. They are glam rock for sure, but that's what they were going for. They were all about attitude, pzazz, hooks and looks. Hagar is straight-forward, middle of the road hard rock. Nothing wrong with that really. He has some good songs, I agree, but I tend to enjoy albums, not just songs and thus my problem with Hagar's solo material.

I'd like to get some Grand Funk Railroad on CD one of these days as well. Have some on vinyl. Might just have to add those. I just don't get a chance to hear vinyl as much as CDs.

Can't stand Rod Stewart. His voice...something about it. Didn't like him much in Jeff Back either, but it's Jeff Beck so I tolerated it. Haha.

This is just a minor stylistic point, but in your review of the self-titled Cars album, you write, "While they are generally held as a classic rock band, back in 1978 they were usually referred to as a new wave band."

I think it'd be a bit clearer as "While they are now..."

ultmetal wrote:

Heck no. Bands like Nitro, Tuff and PBF have a ton of attitude and can hardly be called 'dull' or 'vanilla'.

Nitro sucks, in my oppinion, it was all show, no substance. Michael Angelo may be fast and can play 2 guitars at the same time but he sounds dull. The Band was bad and Michael Angelo continued it on the solo albums. 90% of the music sounds like it belongs to some Sega Genesis Shoot 'em Up game

ultmetal wrote:

I'd like to get some Grand Funk Railroad on CD one of these days as well. Have some on vinyl. Might just have to add those. I just don't get a chance to hear vinyl as much as CDs.

Grand Funk is pretty good. There's a very good 3 CD (40 songs) best of called 30 Years of Funk 1969-1999 and a very good 2 CD Set that features "We're an American Band" and "Caught in the Act" (great live album) that goes for 7,41€ on Amazon Germany

Well, I do like these bands, Ult...But I really think those were pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it comes to hair metal, and the reason why a lot of people consider it to be a disposable and bland genre... Hell, Rock 'n Roll (Is Gonna Set the Night on Fire) even sounds as bad as some of the pop punk stuff that came later!
Regarding Nitro, while they weren't that good, I still like them for the novelty value.
I know Sammy isn't that similar to these bands...But they can all be called hard rock, I guess, and so far, everything I've heard by Hagar was far better than anything by these bands.
Rod Stewart...Dunno, I still have to give him a proper listen, though I like that Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? song....Should probably stay away from the later stuff, I've heard it's really bad...

Also, how about Fleetwood Mac? Their later stuff is pretty good pop-rock, but I think you'd like the Peter Green era, as some of that stuff gets kinda close to early ZZ Top at times...

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Also, how about Fleetwood Mac? Their later stuff is pretty good pop-rock, but I think you'd like the Peter Green era, as some of that stuff gets kinda close to early ZZ Top at times...

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac is awesome blues-rock, Black Magic Woman (Santanas version is horrible), Oh Well, Green Manalishi (Judas Priest covered it....very badly, i know a lot of metal fans like it and it's considered one of the best covers of all time but really...Peter Green wrote it after a LSD-influenced nightmare and sang it just that way and nothing can touch his version, it was the song that got him thrown out of his band, because the green manalishi was money and after that dream and the song he thought making music for the people without charging money was a good idea, he went down the same lsd-way as syd barrett), Need your love so bad, Dragonfly, Albatross, Man of the World...awesoem songs.
I also like the Pop version of Fleetwood Mac from 1975 on, i think it takes a lot of balls to release a album like Tusk after at the time the best-selling american music album (rumours), Tusk was too experimental and a commercial flop of course, even though it's an awesome pop-rock album

Good call on buying Invection! It's a fantastic album and I'd been waiting quite a while to hear it. There is one mistake though; there are only 6 new tracks on this album. "Invection", "Two Faced Lie", "Derealization", and "Noetic Affliction" were all previously recorded.

ShadowAngel, I must say i disagree with you o the two covers ... And speaking of Santana, there's another band I forgot to ask you about, Ult...Also, how about Mountain? I recall you talking about them in some thread, so I guess it's just the usual lack of money, time & space.

TheGreatDuck wrote:

ShadowAngel, I must say i disagree with you o the two covers ... And speaking of Santana, there's another band I forgot to ask you about, Ult...Also, how about Mountain? I recall you talking about them in some thread, so I guess it's just the usual lack of money, time & space.

Like Grand Funk, I have some Mountain on vinyl. Nothing on CD as of yet.

Great reviews, as usual ult!

When will you add steelwing to your collection?

TheGreatDuck wrote:

ShadowAngel, I must say i disagree with you o the two covers

Lot of people do, especially with Priest, i just like the more 'raw blues' sound more than Halford screeching his way through the lyrics like fingernails on a chalkboard (while i recently and after seeing them live two times got to like Judas Priest, they have some awesome songs and albums, i don't like Halfords voice)

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Also, how about Mountain? I recall you talking about them in some thread, so I guess it's just the usual lack of money, time & space.

We can agree on them, great band

If we're able to give suggestions? I don't know how far ultmetal is into Doom and Death but if, check out Forsaken (the band from Malta, Evermore and Anima Mundi are awesome albums, great Doom Metal band) and Nile (Annihilaton of the Wicked, In their Darkened Shrines)

Pffff. Nitro is so over the top they are awesome. And I usually ignore hair metal.

I can kinda agree with the first part... Although I think I'd get a headache from listening to them for too long...
There are tons of better "hair metal" bands, though (which also depends on what you consider to be hair metal, but I find it to be a pretty stupid term that's not an actual genre of music).

Ult, how about Jefferson Starship? I think you'd like them, seeing you like bands such as Journey, Boston, Styx and Foreigner... Maybe also Airplane, but I don't know if that's your thing (although you obviously dig some psychedelia).
I don't think you'd be interested in the Starship era, though... Probably too poppy and mellow for you, although they had some songs that are much better than We Built This City, but are unfortunately lesser known (like Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight or It's Not Enough, but pretty good AOR songs with great songs from Craig Chaquico).