heavy metal

Death metal bands are at a disadvantage before I hear a single note of their music. Just by the nature of what they play, it's extremely difficult for any of them to stand out from the pack. Unlike every other genre, where voices and tones vary wildly, death metal is confined to a set of standards that make everyone sound more or less the same. While that's great for fans who are immersed in the music, and can pick out those small differences and magnify them, it leaves people like me weary from listening to album after album, band after band, that all blend together.

Listen to any of Buckcherry’s previous five studio albums and you get the idea they’ve done their fair share of sinning. That isn’t to say they’re promoting poor behavior, but…ok, maybe a little bit.

A few years ago, I thought we were about to experience a revival of 80's sleaze rock, to the size and scope thrash is currently seeing. Guns N Roses managed to finally put out “Chinese Democracy”, Motley Crue managed to resurrect themselves with a new album and an endless string of touring, and there were new bands like Hardcore Superstar that seemed poised to break out and become what their name already proclaimed them to be. It was that band, and in particular their song “Dreaming In A Casket” that made me believe in the sleaze renaissance.

A double album is one of the riskiest propositions in music. They are not constructed or regarded in the same manner as typical albums; not as a collection of singles surrounded by a supporting cast of others songs, but as marathon stories that must traverse the grounds of mood, message and tone. Double albums must hit multiple notes and resonate at periodic intervals. The truth that must be accepted is that no double album is perfect.