Fear Complex

or driving music, part II

Holy crap. I’d forgotten how intensely awesome this album (and band) was. Thanks to the OS bogans thread for rekindling the spark.

Cult of Luna – Somewhere Along the Highway

Inspired by a recent post on a forum I lurk on: what are your favourite driving songs?

I’d personally be hard pressed to name mine as there are so many, but if there was one album I seem to find myself listening to over and over again, it would be Damnation by Opeth. This merry little record has kept me company on many late-night missions back to Auckland from places like Hamilton and further afield.

And it’s not even particularly ‘pulse-pumping’ music. Instead it’s ultra chilled out, melancholy prog-rock dripping with gothic influences. Take this track for instance, which happens to be my favourite off the album:

heck, it’s not even a particularly cheerful song if you pay attention to the lyrics, but the music and overall ambience seems just perfect for when you’re travelling lonely stretches of state highway in the dead of night.

…according to Tony Iommi, who guested on Bruce D’s radio show on BBC6 this Friday just been. And if you read between the lines of what was discussed during the interview, it’s highly likely that the remixing/remastering process will eventually extend to include Seventh Star and the whole Tony Martin era.

I approve of this and so will GaR, I’m guessing.

‘course, half the appeal of Born Again was the sludgy, muddy mix – and Ian Gillan’s awful screeching vocals, in a curious So Bad It’s Good kinda way, that it seems almost sacrilegious to tamper with it. I mean, just listen to the glorious doomy affair that is the title track.

oh, and the album art.

One day I’ll have a print of this hanging on a wall in my house.

spare a thought for The Haunted. Releasing a new album in the same month (September, to be exact) as another, somewhat well-known thrash band – to use the term lightly – was never going to be easy. Fortunately, Versus is enough of a return to the formula of the first two albums to satisfy anyone who thought The Dead Eye was a pile of shit (for the record, I loved TDE and all its melancholic bitterness).

so about that other thrash band? Death Magnetic has been out for over a month now and I’m slowly warming to the concept of “Metallica after St. Anger“. Given moar time I reckon this album is gonna grow on me to the point where I’m not ashamed to appreciate it, sorta like Load, and Reload, and that one with all the funky cover songs.

It’s definitely not Puppets II, though; time has not been kind to James’ voice at all and the album’s tempo still ‘grooves’ along bluesily like Load in parts. Is it just me or is Ulrich’s snare still somewhat resemblant of a trash can lid?

of course, GaR would probably disagree with me over the whole kerfuffle and tell me to listen to the damn thing for teh musics, and forget all about Metallica trying to prove a point.

comeback album of the year? Unfortunately, no. I think I’m gonna have to award that status to Testament’s The Formation of Damnation instead. Pity they cancelled their appearance at Southern Amp, and thanks to my plane tickets being of the non-refundable variety it looks like I’ll be stuck in Christchurch over the weekend of Nov 9th – 11th with naught to do but curse my luck…