albumreviews
Keeping up with the Melvins‘ catalog is a full-time job. Since their debut LP in 1987, the Washington state band has released more than two dozen studio albums, another 20 or so EPs and a dozen live records. In the past decade alone there have been 20 releases bearing the Melvins name. So which ones are worth hearing? It depends on what you want from the group. There are tossed-off records like 2021’s Five Legged Dog, an acoustic covers set of songs from their past as well as cuts from other artists; randomly disassembled and reconstructed, but still relatively straightforward, albums like Wor...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Mark Knopfler‘s One Deep River is an album of lyrical poignancy, with a depth of world-weariness that almost becomes dreamlike. His vocals and most certainly that guitar connect back to Dire Straits, but only in their quietest, most reflective moments. It’s as if he left simply to downshift. In this enduring quiet, Knopfler has done a lot of looking back – but not to his hitmaking former group. No, he’s looking much further back – back into the histories of aging figures and long-ago characters, connecting their struggles, heartbreaks and (only very occasional) triumphs to the present. He’s al...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Blue Oyster Cult has kept busy this decade, releasing their first new studio album since 2001 in 2020 and issuing live records recorded at various tour stops this century. They’ve also remained on the road nonstop since their 1972 debut album. All this has made them one of the most reliable legacy acts of the 21st century, with co-founders Eric Bloom and Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser still fronting the band. Their 15th album – fittingly titled Ghost Stories – finds inspiration from the spirits in the shadows. Collecting unreleased songs dating to the late ’70s – most made by the original quintet...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Since their breakthrough 14 years ago with Brothers, the Black Keys have held steady with a string of albums that have simultaneously tried to expand their limited musical palette (initially only singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney played on their records) while not straying too far from the primal blues-based rock ‘n’ roll that made them famous. All this has made the five albums released since Brothers‘ tightly packed follow-up El Camino a bit similar on the surface, including their 12th LP, Ohio Players. Only on repeated listens do intricacies reveal themselves, and, mor...
Ultimate Classic Rock
So much has been made of Chris and Rich Robinson’s public spats over the past couple of decades that it’s easy to forget that the Black Crowes were once among rock’s greatest revivalist bands. Their bluesy swagger and strutting riffs drew comparisons to Faces and peak period Rolling Stones; at their best, the Black Crowes reminded fans that before indie and before grunge, there was simply rock ‘n’ roll. The last time the Black Crowes recorded an album of new songs in a studio was 2008’s Warpaint; since then they’ve released several live records (including 2009’s Before the Frost … , which pres...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Since the release of Judas Priest‘s previous album, 2018’s Firepower, the metal legends were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, one of the few genre artists to be acknowledged by the institution. Even then, they were instated as part of the “Music Excellence” category rather than as official class inductees. It’s an unneeded reminder and clear example of metal’s often shuttling to second-class citizenship by rock highbrows. Priest’s 19th album, Invincible Shield, probably won’t change too many minds outside of the already converted, but it’s a deserving addition to the esteemed catalo...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Here are the things we love most about Bruce Dickinson‘s new solo album The Mandrake Project. The nearly 20-year wait for the successor to 2005’s Tyranny of Souls is finally coming to an end, with 10 new tracks spanning just under 59 minutes. Musically, the record takes quite a lot of detours, but is still largely reflective of the metallic style that’s been in play since 1997’s Accident of Birth. In the works in earnest for about a decade, with some material here going back a quarter century, The Mandrake Project very much feels like the product of such a lengthy process. It’s some of Dickins...
Loudwire
Bruce Dickinson has always zigged where most artists would zag. He was still flying high in Iron Maiden when he first went solo with 1990’s Tattooed Millionaire, putting his spin on the pop-metal du jour he openly loathed. He quit the group three years later and released a series of increasingly adventurous solo albums with guitarist and collaborator Roy Z. When Dickinson rejoined Maiden in 1999, he refused to go through the motions with nostalgia bait, instead crafting a series of quasi-conceptual epics that challenged fans and the band alike. Now, 19 years after his last solo effort, Tyranny...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Credit where it’s due: Ace Frehley knows how to make headlines. The Spaceman hasn’t been able to make a peep about his latest album 10,000 Volts without also taking a swipe at his former Kiss bandmates. He’s mocked their plans for a virtual afterlife, boasted that he can sing better than Paul Stanley and claimed that his new album will make his ex-cohorts “look like imbeciles.” The bad news for Frehley is that 10,000 Volts isn’t going to make Kiss look like imbeciles. The good news is it doesn’t make him look like one either. The album finds Frehley largely sticking to what he knows best: catc...
Ultimate Classic Rock
At 72, former Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars has finally released his first solo album. First proposed a decade ago, the project was put on hold when Mars, still with the glam-metal band he helped form in 1981, went on the road for what was to be the final time with the group, which made a very public spectacle of announcing its retirement. When they broke their retirement agreement (during another very public spectacle) in 2018 by resuming Motley Crue for another tour – to capitalize on a biopic based on the scandalous 2001 autobiography The Dirt, among other things – The Other Side of Mars ...
Ultimate Classic Rock
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