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9/12/2023 0 Comments metallica: through the never
As a longtime Metallica fan (albeit somewhat lapsed in recent years), I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t catch the band’s splashy, high-concept 3D concert film Through the Never when it first released over a decade ago. Perhaps I just failed to grasp the project’s unique level of ambition at the time. At any rate, a recent screening at LA’s Academy Museum offered a rare opportunity to see the film exactly as it was intended - on a massive screen, with the sound mix deliberately calibrated to pulverize your eardrums into sawdust. Directed by Nimrod Antal (Predators), the film chronicles a Metallica show for the ages at an unknown venue in an unknown city (in actuality BC Place in Vancouver). The set, however, is juxtaposed against the narrative misadventures of roadie Trip (Dane DeHaan), who’s pulled aside as the band shreds their way through opener Creeping Death and told he has to venture into the urban underbelly in order to refuel a truck that’s carrying an item of “supreme importance.” A simple enough task, but one that quickly turns into a surrealist nightmare as the city descends into apocalyptic anarchy… seemingly fueled by the concert’s unrelenting intensity, which begins to destabilize the very fabric of reality itself. The project was clearly conceived as Metallica’s version of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, though the narrative component is wobbly at best. You’re much better off simply allowing Antal’s meticulously-staged and expensive-looking high-def imagery (the film reportedly cost over 30-million) to wash over you as an abstract visual expression of the music, rather than trying to make any particular sense of the arbitrary plot turns. The limitations in approach are self-evident. The movie is virtually dialogue free (choking off any temptation for expository interludes), while the story was designed not to interfere with the concert’s propulsive pacing; the band powers from one track to the next like a boxer hurling haymakers - there’s barely time to breathe. Nonetheless, the dramatic shape might have been more thoughtfully honed… the ending limps into anticlimax with no particular payoff (the leather bag Trip eventually obtains from the stranded truck is never directly addressed… I had to Google to determine whether it was simply a cheeky Pulp Fiction-type situation. Apparently it isn't).
Metallica’s set list proves sturdy, if unadventurous. Their classic catalogue is well-represented by the iconic likes of One, Battery, Master of Puppets and For Whom the Bell Tolls (the title tracks from Ride the Lightning and And Justice For All are slightly more unorthodox inclusions), while Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters serve as the obligatory Black Album mega-hits. Fuel and The Memory Remains are the lone representatives of the polarizing (though beloved by me) Load/Reload era, Cyanide splices in a welcome bit of Death Magnetic flavoring, while St. Anger is (thankfully) ignored altogether. The only sour note comes when Trip finds himself caught in the middle of an impending police riot and the opening riff of monolithic epic Wherever I May Roam (one of my three favorite Metallica tracks all-time, if not my outright favorite) effectively underscores the hell about to break loose… only for the song to be abruptly abandoned. Boo. (Is it strange that the film is called Through the Never and that particular song is never actually performed? I mean... perhaps?) The concert itself is really the main attraction… the sort of elaborate, face-melting stage extravaganza that would never be feasible (either in terms of cost or logistics) if you were obliged to service 180 tour dates. A massive electrical chair descends from the rafters during Ride the Lightning as pulses of blue current crackle across the Tesla coils. Pyrotechnic bursts, air raid sirens and simulated fighter plane gunfire strafing the crowd signify the beginning of One. Giant coffins with LCD displays orbit the arena throughout Cyanide, while illuminated graveyard crosses rise from the stage during the second half of Master of Puppets. Most impressively, a life-size statue of Lady Justice is erected by the stage crew in real time during And Justice For All, only to fracture and collapse into chunks of masonry by the end (a stripped down rendition of Hit the Lights after the arena loses power feels like a deliberate reminder that the band doesn’t actually need any of these multimedia bells and whistles to rattle your back molars, however). Even at age 50, frontman James Hetfield still cuts a particularly impressive figure on-stage… head bowed, jaw clenched, enveloped in white smoke against one of the aforementioned crosses. One wishes the production might have indulged the heightened fantasy of metal stardom a bit more though… as it does when we see bassist Robert Trujillo warming up, shifting from side to side, his instrument sending reverberations through the arena’s foundation like earthquake aftershocks (if you want to feel old, consider that Trujillo has now been Metallica’s bassist longer than Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted combined). As a concert film, Through the Never is undeniably a full-throttle experience, though the impact is likely blunted when confined to one’s living room. If you like the band’s signature blend of muscular thrash and blues-tinged groove-metal though, the music will still rock you straight down to your blood vessels.
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5/18/2023 0 Comments adrenalize - def leppard So in retrospect, ruminating about a 31-year-old Van Halen album probably wasn’t the freshest choice in terms of launching the site’s music section… so I decided to do something a hair more relevant for my follow-up piece - by focusing on a 30-year-old Def Leppard album instead (though my dithering in terms of actually writing and posting said piece has proven costly - as said album technically released in March of 1992, so is now also a, uh… 31-year-old album. Whoops).
Def Leppard, of course, ascended to towering heights of rock superstardom in the 80s, thanks to the massive popularity of their albums Pyromania and Hysteria… though I had little familiarity with either growing up. Instead it was Adrenalize (their first release in the wake of guitarist Steve Clark’s death) that found its way onto my radar… and basically represented the English outfit’s last gasp of mainstream popularity before the musical landscape permanently shifted (my interest in the band never extended significantly beyond this album - though I eventually downloaded most of their earlier hits from iTunes - but to this day, its music evokes powerful memories of summer trips to California, middle school dances, reading comic books, and other nostalgia-tinged, Wonder Years-type BS). I suppose you’d still technically categorize Adrenalize as some sort of melodious hard rock-hair metal hybrid, but the songs are so aggressively harmonious and hook-heavy (borderline assaultive in their sonic catchiness), the production and power riffs polished to such an immaculate sheen of radio-friendly grandeur, the album is practically bursting at the seams with unfettered, out-and-out pop vitality. It’s the musical equivalent of amphetamine-laced Red Bull. Even one of the more generic rock offerings, such as the cringingly-titled Make Love Like a Man, is still blessed with an infectiously toe-tapping groove. Likewise, Personal Property is a bit of a frivolous throwaway (particularly with lyrics that range from the vaguely misogynistic (“She’s personal property / off limits, out of bounds, under lock and key / confidential, for my eyes only”) to the flat-out braindead (“You could be king of the jungle / or you could swing in the rain / but she don’t need no monkey, not my babe / because I’m her Tarzan and she’s my Jane”)) but is nonetheless powered by high-grade rock ’n roll propulsion fuel. It has an irresistible bounce to its step - I find it a very difficult track to skip. The album’s biggest outlier is likely the seven-minute White Lightning - the band’s dedication to Clark’s memory. The track has a certain dark sense of drama and a relatively muscular chorus, but starts to feel a bit plodding when stretched to almost twice normal song length. Meanwhile, many regard the power ballad Tonight as a minor classic, but I have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with it. It comes so close to greatness, but just as the chorus starts to soar it pulls back for reasons I find endlessly frustrating. It’s almost worse than just sucking outright, even if it still technically earns a conditional thumbs up. Let’s dig into the good stuff. Opening track Let’s Get Rocked sets the tone and establishes the mandate (it’s spelled out right there in the title - I mean, I didn't say it was an ambitious mandate). Yes, it has that certain vapid quality that tends to manifest itself in arena-sized rock anthems, in addition to a lot of obnoxiously cheeseball showmanship (when the barrage of classical violins kicks in and Joe Elliott sneers “Turn it off - that ain’t my scene”… oy)… but damn is it catchy, like a more complex We Will Rock You with actual layers of aural craftsmanship. And speaking of aural craftsmanship, it’s impossible to resist the sumptuously overblown production of steroidal power ballad Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad… which is like the go-to anthem of middle school crushes and boy-girl birthday parties (I’d love to say it’s the definitive 8th grade slow-dance track of the early-90s, but this is still a universe where Don’t Cry and End of the Road exist). Nonetheless, don’t even *think* about presenting me with any sort of playlist of hair metal ballads (definitive or otherwise) if this song ain’t on it (or I Remember You by Skid Row - the rest is negotiable). The album’s pop influences flex the full force of their muscle on Heaven Is, a sugary pixie stick of a song with a majestically melodic chorus (“Heaven is a girl I know so well / She makes me feel good when I feel like Hell / Heaven is a girl that I’ve got to have / And she makes me feel better when I’m feeling bad”). Meanwhile, I Wanna Touch U (admittedly another atrocious title) is a pop-rock earworm of unbridled infectious fervor, guaranteed to tattoo itself across your neocortex. Both these tracks ruthlessly target the brain’s pleasure receptors with icepick-like efficiency - you might be able to maintain a lousy mood through one of them, but certainly not both. My favorite song, however, has to be Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion), an absolute banger of a ballad that's like the perfect fusion of the gloriously addictive power chords and tempo of Heaven Is and Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad’s overripe, heart-on-the-sleeve bombast. Much like crystal meth, you won’t be able to shake that chorus once it gets its hooks into you. And last but certainly not least, Tear It Down is a perfect, full-throttle party anthem to close out the album in a headbanging frenzy. That rock ’n roll propulsion fuel that powered Personal Property? It’s twice as potent here, with an extra dash of nitro for good measure. Listen in the car at your own risk - you’re almost certain to have damaged the steering wheel by the time the song reaches its final, resounding howl of “ALL NIGHT” (as in “If only you could stay…”). All-in-all, a rather remarkable achievement, given that the band was without longtime producer Mutt Lange (architect of their previous three albums) and elected to go into the recording studio without a replacement for Clark (Phil Collen assuming both the rhythm and lead guitar duties). Honestly, Adrenalize is such a compulsive encapsulation of its era - and lives up to its title with such auditory aplomb - at some point we might need to have a serious inquest over whether grunge was guilty of crimes against humanity for bringing the decade's preening pop-rock party to such a premature and undeserved close.  When I was around 12 or so, my music collection basically consisted of Weird Al Yankovic, Michael Jackson, and various movie soundtracks (Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc...). Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (also known as F.U.C.K. - heh heh… get it??) was my first proper “rock” album and I can’t even remember why exactly I asked for it as a Christmas gift (thanks Aunt Nancy & Uncle Dave!) - on cassette, mind you, just to date this review of a 31-year-old recording even more (maybe it was because of all the Eddie Van Halen references in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure?). But man… whatever the impulse, I sure blasted the heck out of that tape back in the day, and it’s the main reason I’ve always been kind of partial (*cough* on-the-downlow) towards the Sammy Hagar era, even if Diamond Dave’s tenure was objectively superior.
Listening to it now… divorced from the bias of childhood nostalgia… it’s a pretty uneven effort, even though I’d still argue it’s the best of the four Hagar albums (offering up a straight slice of no-fuss hard rock, after Eddie got the synthesizers and other 80s experimentation out of his system). It certainly opens strongly, with the sonic power drilling of Poundcake setting the tone… if you can get past the somewhat inane lyrics (and lame double entendres), it’s an awesome opening track. The momentum carries over to the muscular Judgement Day, a chugging rocker with Hagar pirouetting vocally throughout the surprisingly nimble chorus and Eddie chipping in with one of his better solos on this collection. The album suffers its first hiccup, however, with the dopey Spanked (as Hagar low points go, it’s no Big Fat Money, but it’s pretty damn weak all the same)… a promising opening quickly unraveling into a mess of discordant hooks and yet more cringey lyrics (“All you bad bad boys / Call her up on the spank line - aw yeah!” I mean - come on, guys). But it’s easy enough to shake off, because the band rebounds quickly with the fast-paced and energetic Runaround. Like a lot of these tunes, there’s a slightly generic sheen to the songwriting - stripped of David Lee Roth’s outsized charisma, Van Halen’s output often tended towards functional formula in those days - but this track seriously bounces all the same. An easy thumbs up. Unfortunately, the next three songs basically grind things to a straight halt. Pleasure Dome rambles on for a good seven minutes without ever offering an identifiable melody, while it turns out In ’N Out is more than just an overrated burger chain… it’s also six minutes of sound and fury, signifying nothing (the riffs in this particular stretch are always complicated, but rarely catchy). Man on a Mission, meanwhile, is as generic as off-brand store cereal and frankly warrants no further comment. The good news is that the final three tracks (excluding the 90-second instrumental 316) include the two best songs on the entire album… and believe it or not, one of them *isn’t* the arena-sized keyboard mega-ballad Right Now, which is almost certainly F.U.C.K.’s best known effort, and one of the bigger hits of the Hagar era. Maybe it’s the preening air of self-importance (or infamous association with that Crystal Pepsi ad campaign), but it’s never really been a personal favorite per se… though it’s undeniably catchy, and represents a much-needed palate cleanser on an album that rarely deviates from its standard hard rock architecture. Instead, the stars align on The Dream Is Over (in spite of the corny "Hey, c'mon man - wake up" opening salvo), which features a massively addictive chorus that captures Hagar’s gravelly vocals at their fist-thrusting, belt-it-at-the-top-of-your-lungs best (not to mention possibly Eddie’s finest guitar work on the entire album). But the group saves the best for last with Top of the World, one of my very favorite Van Halen songs of all-time - a canorous rocker that lives up to its name with a soaringly infectious melody that’s impossible to resist. Even the Roth loyalists who crap on basically anything associated with “Van Hagar” on principle tend to have nice enough things to say about this particular track - begrudgingly, I might add… but nice, all the same. Ultimately, the flaccid middle section is a little too damning for For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge to stake any sort of legitimate claim to classic (or even semi-classic) status, but it opens and closes with legit force… and remains well-represented on pretty much any Van Halen playlist I’ve ever put together. |
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