Chapter 538: Voivod Walks Through The Protective Mine Field of Mercury's Mind To Deliver A 5 Star Classic, and Breathe Fresh wonder and Inspiration Into His Life
or, how a Thrash Metal band delivered a Prog-Psych-Metal-Sci Fi Album which manages to be perfect in every way.
or, The Story of Voivod Evoking the Existential Dread of Mercury while also making him smile and get misty eyed with happiness, while also making him wonder if he is just a cyborg...
or, how in the year of Death and Thrash Metal dominance, Voivod went against the grain, in a heady prog way and delivered the greatest Metal album of the year (I can't possibly know this as I've only heard about 10 of 'em)
etc, etc,
What I'm saying is that this album is playing again and I honestly am stunned. I am stunned becuase I was mostly familiar with Voivoid's earlier (slightly earlier) Thrash work and I really really liked it. And so when I went in to revisit this after easily over a decade of just not listening to much thrash, I was expecting a somewhat run of the mill (if GREAT cuz the band is legendary) crunchy speedy metal album. I woke up in the mood for metal and started with this just to get it off my long list of Metal albums to listen to. Then I lsietened and I couldn't believe how indescribably PERFECT the whole album is.
Perhaps I'm overhyping this album. Maybe. But damn, this album is so intensely vibrant and creative, and I never in its 50 minutes get bored or feel like I'm just listening to technical virtuosos flex their muscles. I also never feel like I'm being talked down to either. The vocalist is so unpretentious, sounding more like Tom Verlaine or something on this album than some growling, shouting or Dickinson/Halford-esque wild man. At the ame time the vocals are , again, PERFECT. I mean they are stunning! They convey the agitated existential "story" of the album and the themes of robotics and manipulation.
The band is so weird. They have no fear of just breaking it down into these strange Psychedelic jams for a bit and then veering off into some mind-bending change on every level. The solos are few, there are not these 2-3 minute solos, but there are these intense break outs of explosive guitar interchange which always work to forward the song and the message of it.
This album is just...OMGOMGOMG! This is my new Number 1 of 1989. Yep, ahead of even Disintegration (which is only album thus far which is on the same level in my mind...including incredible albums from Kate Bush and The Pixies etc).
To do a song by song breakdown would be fun but redundant and I doubt I'd be able to put into words either the individual joys of listening to the songs or the whole experience of this album.
I suppose the stand outs are the weird punk rock blast beats of the opener with its shouted anthemic chorus sounding like something from an Offspring album, if The Offspring were androids. The solo and the interlocking rhythms of this song and the bass line etc a is all mesmerizing.
You Barrett-era Pink Floyd fans will LOVE this cover of "Astronomy Domine". Its amazing! (this coming from someone who is not a fan of Piper..., mind you.)
The title track is an eerie epic, with again some of the coolest vocals in metal. The changes between chorus and verse are stunning and unexpected even now on my 3rd straight listen.
"Into My Hypercube" sounds like Nirvana would sound a few years later, but better and it builds into its own thing - - its own incredible thing.
and yeah this is actually a 44 minute album, I think I may have said 50 minutes earlier. And yet each time it ends I'm so freaking fast to push play again and I am surprised its over. Its that engaging, inventive and brilliant, I never once think, "Okay, get on with it.".
This is the greatest album of the year 1989 that I've heard and its comparable in first-listen AWE it inspired in me to the first time I heard "Close To The Edge". Perhaps I wouldn't go so far as to say its as great as prime Yes. But with time there's no saying how high it will rise in my appreciation.
it gets the coveted and mathematically almost certainly inaccurate label of 10/10. And it goes to
#1 of 1-9-8-9!!!! _________________ -Ryan
This is like a mix of Yes-style symphonic Prog (the singer is basically Jon andersson) and strangely free-wheeling abstract free jazz. It’s got the pop, upbeat, inspirational aspects of Yes but without the thump. It’s thinner (no Burford and Squire) but again those Yes elements mixed with a never quite settled, ever-moving, hummingbird-like transcient quality which keeps it ever interesting.
Very happy to find a Prog album of such merit I this year. Bummer they never did much after this album.
As someone 100% in the bag for all things Yes, this is easily a 8.5/10 and goes to number 11 of 1989. _________________ -Ryan
Has all the markings of a classic pop album which helped define its time and place. The hits are catchy, fun, memorable, and great overall. The interludes are faux-serious political and mostly alright. The sound is dated to my ears, but still maintain some sort of unique freshness. Janet managed to release a classic here, free of the sound of MJ or Prince or anything of the superstar peers of the 80s. As a result, if one wants a good grasp of this year in just, Rhythm nation needs to be heard. It’s pretty freaking solid through and through. Holds up nicely.
Reminds me somewhat of the new Janelle Monae. A super talented young female artist releasing a politically charged yet vibrant and beautiful pop gem.
8.1/10 goes to about 20-25 on my chart. _________________ -Ryan
[img]https://albumart.besteveralbums.com/albumart/album_large_10068_4e285aff389d5.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?a=10068]No Control by Bad Religion [/url]
There is no denying how tight and in sync the guitars are here. But man, the album and the sound as a whole does nothing for me. I don’t even get amped up by this form of punk rock. Idk. I used to really like this album. But on returning to it, it’s not doing much for me. Some of the guitar breaks are pretty cool. The vocalist is about as bland as can be.
But vocals aside the twin guitars are nearly virtuosic especially for punk. It’s quite impressive. Guitar work gets a 85/100 arbitrary grade. Vocals get a 25/100. The beats and the lyrics and structure of the songs are a 50/100. The whole album is a 60-65.
Didn’t dig it as much as I thought I would. _________________ -Ryan
So next I was planning on doing the following: taking the highest rated and most classic album of the big 3 extreme metal sub genres of 1989 - Death Metal, Black Metal, and Grindcore and listening to them, comparing and contrasting, reviewing, etc. also, Sludge and Industrial Metal is cool and pretty extreme, especially if the Streetcleaner variety, so I’ll throw sludge in there too. A nice “Big 4” Of brutal and intense extreme metal of 1989 and yeah so, not tonight, but maybe tomorrow or Sunday I’ll listen to these 4 back to back to back to back...
As I listened to Streetcleaner I had this sudden urge to listen to Ministry. In particular the album that I was obsessed with the most when I was about 14, and the one which is often thought of as not good (was panned by critics). This one:
I’m almost done listening now and my goodness, this album is a treasure! Why is this not given it’s due as a great album. It’s sludgey hateful heaven. Even trying as best as I can to look past the pure bliss of nostalgia this album evokes, I hear an album which is oppressively loud like really REALLY loud and brash and as hateful as it gets. And the riffs are slow heavy harsh slabs of molten lava, in a mission of destroying your ears!
The songs which are great? Reload, Filth Pig, Lava, Crumbs, Gameshow, Dead Guy, Useless, The Fall, Lay Lady Lay (incredible if out of place Bob Dylan song which unbeknownst to me was my introduction to Dylan at 12-13!) and Brick Windows. If you’re wondering if I listed every song, I did. Good observation.
This is one of my fave albums of the decade. And I am on cloud nine listening to this again. God damn this is a CLASSIC! _________________ -Ryan
So next I was planning on doing the following: taking the highest rated and most classic album of the big 3 extreme metal sub genres of 1989 - Death Metal, Black Metal, and Grindcore and listening to them, comparing and contrasting, reviewing, etc. also, Sludge and Industrial Metal is cool and pretty extreme, especially if the Streetcleaner variety, so I’ll throw sludge in there too. A nice “Big 4” Of brutal and intense extreme metal of 1989 and yeah so, not tonight, but maybe tomorrow or Sunday I’ll listen to these 4 back to back to back to back...
As I listened to Streetcleaner I had this sudden urge to listen to Ministry. In particular the album that I was obsessed with the most when I was about 14, and the one which is often thought of as not good (was panned by critics). This one:
I’m almost done listening now and my goodness, this album is a treasure! Why is this not given it’s due as a great album. It’s sludgey hateful heaven. Even trying as best as I can to look past the pure bliss of nostalgia this album evokes, I hear an album which is oppressively loud like really REALLY loud and brash and as hateful as it gets. And the riffs are slow heavy harsh slabs of molten lava, in a mission of destroying your ears!
The songs which are great? Reload, Filth Pig, Lava, Crumbs, Gameshow, Dead Guy, Useless, The Fall, Lay Lady Lay (incredible if out of place Bob Dylan song which unbeknownst to me was my introduction to Dylan at 12-13!) and Brick Windows. If you’re wondering if I listed every song, I did. Good observation.
This is one of my fave albums of the decade. And I am on cloud nine listening to this again. God damn this is a CLASSIC!
Filth Pig is my favorite one too
I double-checked to see if I had it in my 1996 chart, and I sure did. Lay Lady Lay is my favorite Bob Dylan cover song.
Chapter 538: Voivod Walks Through The Protective Mine Field of Mercury's Mind To Deliver A 5 Star Classic, and Breathe Fresh wonder and Inspiration Into His Life
or, how a Thrash Metal band delivered a Prog-Psych-Metal-Sci Fi Album which manages to be perfect in every way.
or, The Story of Voivod Evoking the Existential Dread of Mercury while also making him smile and get misty eyed with happiness, while also making him wonder if he is just a cyborg...
or, how in the year of Death and Thrash Metal dominance, Voivod went against the grain, in a heady prog way and delivered the greatest Metal album of the year (I can't possibly know this as I've only heard about 10 of 'em)
etc, etc,
What I'm saying is that this album is playing again and I honestly am stunned. I am stunned becuase I was mostly familiar with Voivoid's earlier (slightly earlier) Thrash work and I really really liked it. And so when I went in to revisit this after easily over a decade of just not listening to much thrash, I was expecting a somewhat run of the mill (if GREAT cuz the band is legendary) crunchy speedy metal album. I woke up in the mood for metal and started with this just to get it off my long list of Metal albums to listen to. Then I lsietened and I couldn't believe how indescribably PERFECT the whole album is.
Perhaps I'm overhyping this album. Maybe. But damn, this album is so intensely vibrant and creative, and I never in its 50 minutes get bored or feel like I'm just listening to technical virtuosos flex their muscles. I also never feel like I'm being talked down to either. The vocalist is so unpretentious, sounding more like Tom Verlaine or something on this album than some growling, shouting or Dickinson/Halford-esque wild man. At the ame time the vocals are , again, PERFECT. I mean they are stunning! They convey the agitated existential "story" of the album and the themes of robotics and manipulation.
The band is so weird. They have no fear of just breaking it down into these strange Psychedelic jams for a bit and then veering off into some mind-bending change on every level. The solos are few, there are not these 2-3 minute solos, but there are these intense break outs of explosive guitar interchange which always work to forward the song and the message of it.
This album is just...OMGOMGOMG! This is my new Number 1 of 1989. Yep, ahead of even Disintegration (which is only album thus far which is on the same level in my mind...including incredible albums from Kate Bush and The Pixies etc).
To do a song by song breakdown would be fun but redundant and I doubt I'd be able to put into words either the individual joys of listening to the songs or the whole experience of this album.
I suppose the stand outs are the weird punk rock blast beats of the opener with its shouted anthemic chorus sounding like something from an Offspring album, if The Offspring were androids. The solo and the interlocking rhythms of this song and the bass line etc a is all mesmerizing.
You Barrett-era Pink Floyd fans will LOVE this cover of "Astronomy Domine". Its amazing! (this coming from someone who is not a fan of Piper..., mind you.)
The title track is an eerie epic, with again some of the coolest vocals in metal. The changes between chorus and verse are stunning and unexpected even now on my 3rd straight listen.
"Into My Hypercube" sounds like Nirvana would sound a few years later, but better and it builds into its own thing - - its own incredible thing.
and yeah this is actually a 44 minute album, I think I may have said 50 minutes earlier. And yet each time it ends I'm so freaking fast to push play again and I am surprised its over. Its that engaging, inventive and brilliant, I never once think, "Okay, get on with it.".
This is the greatest album of the year 1989 that I've heard and its comparable in first-listen AWE it inspired in me to the first time I heard "Close To The Edge". Perhaps I wouldn't go so far as to say its as great as prime Yes. But with time there's no saying how high it will rise in my appreciation.
it gets the coveted and mathematically almost certainly inaccurate label of 10/10. And it goes to
#1 of 1-9-8-9!!!!
Wow! Will need to get on this obvs.
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
okay, the wait is over everyone. Take a seat and read up. I am back.
Tilly, yeah, let me know what you think of Nothingface. I really love it.
and bobby, I'm glad we agree. I saw you were one of the few on thgis site with Filth Pig on any charts.
-----------------------------------
as for this chart and my listening to music, its a nightmare. I find it hard to focus on 1989. All weekend I have been listening to metal of various kinds. and I have had a lot of good experiences there. The sudden interest in metal came from my last post about Black, Death, Sludge Metal and Grindcore from 1989. So i will do that little listening project i think still.
Also I have been listening to Close To The Edge again and re-fallin g for it... its basically perfect.
I have been thinking i will do a redux of my overall chart and all my decade charts... which takes time. Time I don't have starting soon with a couple new work projects.
I also wanna write notes/reviews for my overall. seeing the long loooong notes (but pretty good and interesting also) on antonio's chart inspired me to write some on all these albums. Also maybe go back to one album per artist (yes, including Dylan and Miles and Prince Oh My!).
what I just did was look over the metal chart on RYM and look at the top 100 studio albums and look at what were the most prominent Metal bands of all genres on that top 100. and I broke it down like this:
Rage - 15
Alice - 18,
Electric Wizard - 25
Converge - 27
Faith No More - 29
Ulver - 37,
Morbid Angel - 42,
Dio - 47
Dissection - 49,
Atheist - 53
Boris - 58,
Mayhem - 65,
Queensryche - 67,
Deftones - 68,
Edge of Sanity - 69,
Gorguts - 72,
Immolation - 73,
System of a Down - 74,
Immortal - 75,
Bathory - 80,
Dismember - 81,
Autopsy - 82,
King Diamond - 83,
Cryptopsy - 84,
Helloween - 87,
Blind Guardian - 88
Coroner - 89,
Entombed - 93
Vektor - 94,
W.A.S.P. - 95,
Diamond Head - 96,
Gojira - 97,
Soundgarden - 98,
Carcass - 99
Dream Theater - 100
as you can see i seperated the artists with 3 or more to a different tier. and anyone with 3 or more I also went to see how many if any were also in the top 200. I then divided the number of albums in the top 100 by their combined position to find there avg placement on the metal chart. I gave slightly more weight to artists with more in the top 100 and I also ranked them based off how many in the top 100. I found Sabbath dominates, then Maiden. But it got tough with Priest vs Death. Death had a higher avg rank, and the same amount in top 100 but Priest had another one (British Steel) in the top 200 metal albums so I gave a slight edge to Priest. Then Death. Then Metallica and Opeth had 4, but Metallica's first 4 albums were all ranked sooo high so I gave them the edge for #5 over Opeth despite Opeth having slightly more in the top 200.
The 3 album tier surprised me due to Slayer only having 3 (thought they'd be top 5 band just behind Sabbath, Maiden, Priest, and Metallica - wasn't thinking Death.) Also, Neurosis seems to be the greatest and most adored of the Sludge Metal genre.
From this nerdy and pointless exercise I took away some things: I must listen to more Death, Neurosis, and Opeth. Also, Rainbow is a band I need tro check out more. Heard their debut and quite liked it.
Okay, so the genre representatives which will meet in a dark, secret room to discuss metal in my make-believe kingdom of music, will be Death (for Death Metal), Maiden for NWOBHM, Burzum for Black Metal, Opeth for Progressive Metal (all the other members look down on them for some reason, fucking uninteresting upstart!) Metallica for Thrash (Slayer is pissed and many others are too, as they sold out), and Neurosis for Sludge Metal. Grindcore community is held out and they are pissed. There is open-revolt.
They all meet and at the head of the table which they meet is Black Sabbath, wise and old. Priest, Sabbath's trusted confidante, is sitting to his right, whispering in his ear.
Okay, and there ya go.
---------------------------
Currently listening to Through Silver In Blood by Neurosis and I like it. Hasn't totally clicked yet, but yeah I like it.
and its great on relisten. Its a cold, calculated, strange masterpiece. But yeah I moved it to #2 behind disintegration. IOts still nicely and prettily up at the top the year.
and its a good debut. Its more post hardcore agrressive and less starkly serious than Spiderland. But yeah its really solid. Very cool and dischordant riffs. Its an interesting thing seeing how much they changed from Tweez to their classic 2 years later. There are indicators of what they had in their future, but the fact that they put it all together for a near perfect album is quite amazing methinks.
and I appreciate and admire this album more than I love it. Its a really really beautiful, varied, virtuosic odyssey through this existential world Gabriel created. The melodies just absolutely stir something in my soul. The rhythms are dense and complex but always rooted in the moment of the message. The lack of Gabriel vocals is good. He breaks out his distinct voice a few times and that had a tendency to break the spell of the album. Cuz the other hour and 5 minutes of this album you aren't aware you are listening to Gabriel or that you are even listening to an album. Youre just walking through the desert, alone and moved spiritually and shit. So when he comes in and you say "hey that guy sang Sledgehammer! What the fuck is he doing here in the isolated desert with me?!?" it tends to be a bit jarring for me.
But anyway, yeah this is an immense, ambitious, gorgeous, artistic acheivement. Not one of my absolute faves of 1989 as of now. But an essential album to check out.
and it was good. Its not as good as early Rancid. But its got an unbridled, no-fucks-given vibe which is endearing. Yeah, its good. Not really in a punk mood lately. But yeah this was able to breakthrough.
Also, in terms of the canon of 1989 and the 1980s I listened to this again
and It actually mostly clicked this time. Every one of the first say 6 songs was just a gorgeous pop rock gem. The harmonies and melodies and the whole everything was great. The second half didn't blow me away but was actually really solid and at no point did I dislike it. I moved it to the top 10 of 1989, and I no longer think its overhyped mediocrity.
and stopped quickly cuz I had a bad reaction to every aspect of it. I don't know exactly why. But had something to do with the production being so sleek. I just was meh on it.
and boy does it hold up. I thought maybe I was overrating it on my chart based off the name. But no, its fantastic. The production is classic Lanois, and the vocals aren't great. But the songs are consitently fantastic and the whole record was such a return to form for Dylan. Most of the Time is one of the best songs of the 80s. Shooting Star is another song I have a soft spot for. And there are other good goooood songs here. Its really quite great. Stayed where it was on my chart which is surprising cuz again I expected to react to it somewhat the way I reacted to In Step, but less violently. But no, much like the Kate Bush album of the year I came away appreciating all the more the album.
okay, and now I am listening to a really interesting Prog/Goth Rock/Metal/Symphonic album by Devil Doll which I had to add to the site and its really fascinating... and I'll talk about it breifly. _________________ -Ryan
Holy shit. This whole album is a trip. It really is a mash up of Goth rock and heavy metal and Progressive rock and symphonic prog and the vocalist is this italian gut who goes by the name Mr. Doctor who, until recently, was not know about at all in terms of his real name. This band existed for a long time and never was signed to a lable, they were just so nondonformist whoa. And they released this which is there debut (there was another album they made apparently but they only made one copy of it and so can't be heard from what I can tell.)
Oh and its "one song" which lasts 66 minutes and 6 seconds. i think thats a biblical reference or something. The vocalist sounds somewhat demented, but always is a pleasure to hear. The album is just strange. Its a 40 minute or so song, then there about 22 minutes of silence and then they do the theme music for the TV show "The Prisoner" which includes at the tail end of the album the same vocal snippet as what is used at the beginning of Iron Maiden's song "The Prisoner" from The Number of the Beast"... only its much longer and you get more context for the lines I have heard and (maybe) you have heard from Maiden a hundred times. Its really quite fascinating.
Actually the name of the album is the name of an episode of The Prisoner apparently (never seen a second of the show, so I am just taking people's word for it ). And the lyrics touch upon the themes of the episode.
the whole album is sort of a dark cl;asssical type thing with lots of heavy prog and gothic themes thrown in. There are eerie choirs and strings and then explosive prog/heavy metal break downs. There is a sick as fuck violin solo with this charging metal bass line underneath. Then it stops on a dime and the vocalist not from this earth comes back to sings morunfully about something. Its a trip.
and more about this vocalist Mr. Doctor. when you first hear him he sounds like a vampire, and a black metal vocalist when said bm singer isn't screaming. and the vocals just go in all kinds of erratic directions. Also, the vocals by Jason Segel in his dracula play in the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" are very similar to this italian/slovenian guy...not sure his nationality. I heard the band is italian and slovenian.
When the album gets heavy and metal, it goes full metal in short blasts, with gorgeous solos, and heavy drums. This album is soooo strange and unclassifiable, that I am having a hard time deciding who will love it. I suppiose if you love Symphonic Prog, Iron Maiden, Gothic Rock, and want to hear what may very well be a masterpiece (i still haven't decided fully what I think, I just know I love it), then you will LOVE hearing this album! Listen to this album
I am listening again to really try to pin down my liking of it. and I am enjoying it more on second listen. Its a-going to number 3 on my chart as one of the best. Its incredible. Listen to it. Its on youtube. let me know what you think....
and yeah I'm going to listen to everything by Devil Doll I can get my hands and ears on. Its a mind-blowing discovery for me, this band and album. _________________ -Ryan
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