Týr

There are countless Viking and Pagan images used in heavy metal culture but there are few that really seem to know their true meaning. Týr, a heavy metal band from the Faroe Islands, are one of the few who really appreciate what the symbolism represents and how best to covey it in their music.

I first heard of Týr through a very metal friend of mine, Ed, who happens to spend a lot of his time running around fields with sword, shield and an army of Viking enactors, so I have it on a good authority that the subjects that Týr cover in their albums are accurate to the Norse legends and traditions that are the subjects. It was Ed who also lent me their album "By The Light Of The Northern Star" which very effectively blends elements of folk music with good old heavy metal. I can imagine the lyrics be perfect to chant and drink flagons of mead to. Songs like "By The Sword In My Hand" and the title track "By The Light Of The Northern Star" both feel very epic but still a personal story at the time - though I stagger to think that it's from personal experience.

It's hard to think of who to compare heir music to without being too obscure, so instead I've embedded a YouTube video of my favourite song of theirs that I've heard, "By The Sword In My Hand"

Rammstein

Since their formation in 1994, Rammstein have grown to become the power house of German industrial metal. Unfortunately for me, I hadn’t heard any of their music until once, round my friend Alex’s, we were playing Call Of Duty and he suggested that we listen to some music whilst killing the Nazis that were heartlessly attacking our positions. I was immediately drawn in by the aggressive and dark sound this band, that I had never come across before, was making.

After finding out what the band was called I went on a search to find one of their albums. The favourite song that I’d heard whilst playing Xbox (and the one that most increased my Nazi killing abilities) was Ich Will, so I ended up getting their 2001 album Mutter, a good choice. Mutter quite honestly one of the best heavy metal Albums I’ve heard in a long, long time. The killer songs and the combination of traditional metal instruments, guitars and drums, along with synthesisers give this album, and indeed Rammstein in general, a sound that makes it stand out from a lot of other metal out there today.

One of the big things that Rammstein have going for them is their choice to sing in German. Not only because German is quire honestly one of the most brutal sounding languages – The rolling “R” and throaty tones are so well suited to heavy metal that you’d think it’d have been designed for the purpose – but I also respect that they don’t want to sing in English, even if it would widen their audience, they’re going to write their songs in German, because it’s their language.

Patches

Back before my time, it was common for rockers to wear denim jackets covered in studs and patches. Now a days it’s near impossible to get studs anywhere but the strange world of the internet, however, if you’re lucky you can still find patches in some smaller shops that sell alternative clothing, here in Swindon I’ve been lucky enough to stumble across two such shops, The Little Rock Shop and The Trinket box. Unfortunately these shops didn’t have a huge range of patches but their proximity to me made up for that and I able to make a start patching my jacket (see the picture to the right). If given a larger choice of patches I might not have chosen to have Green Day or “Parental Advisory” patches, but this is what I had to work with, they were only £1.50 each and I secretly quite like Green Day.


My good friend Chris (who wrote the Blaze Bayley live post) had patched his denim jacket months before me (you can see it below here), however he had risked delving into one of the dark recesses of the internet, eBay. Here he came across a huge range of patches that were only slightly more expensive than the ones I had bought from the shops at £2.50 not including p&p.


It seems to me that the best place to find the best patches would be online, even if this means spending a little bit more, and in hind sight I probably should have gotten mine offline. But what ever your preference, I would strongly urge you too patch your denim jackets and show your support for your favourite bands, or at least ones you can get patches for.

Blaze Bayley live at 12 Bar (Chris guest writes)

Well it was dark and stormy night... not really, just dark, but on the night of Thursday 11th February a certain ex singer of metal legends Iron Maiden was due to gig at The 12 Bar Swindon. The man who would not die had returned to Swindon on tour for his latest album, Promise and Terror.

The gig opened with Blazes support, Sinocence, who were also advertising an album, Scar Obscura, although not massively known they put on a very good show, with songs such as perfect denial from the latest album and songs from their previous albums. After coming offstage all mingled with the audience until Blaze took to the stage, this included signing autographs, chatting and selling merchandise.

Having just arrived off the back of a gig at the Nags Head in High Wycombe the day before you would think Blaze Bayley’s show would suffer, but no, it was as energetic as ever, the Swindon gig being the 3rd gig in 3 days and the middle of 6 in 6 days.

Blaze and his group, self named as Blaze, played songs from the new album and old albums, quoting along the lines of “This is for all of you who have kept me going throughout everything, I am the man who would not die” also playing songs from the last album such as ‘Voices from the Past’ and ‘Samurai’. As part of the tour Blaze would play some of his songs from his years in Iron Maiden, one maiden song at each gig, 2009 marking the 10th year of his departure from the band, in this case he played ‘Lord of the Flies’.

A truly energetic (and loud) performance from all members of the band, Larry Paterson (drummer) and David Bermudez (bassist) especially, there was some real crowd pleasing going on. And from seeing him live it is clear why Blaze Bayley was chosen as Bruce Dickinson’s replacement in Maiden in 1994, the man has unlimited stage presence, he really got the audience going.

Another amazing thing is the scale of the gigs that the band have played in for this tour, there must have been less than a hundred people at 12 bar that night watching, and for £8 entry really got their money’s worth, this was an exciting and lively performance that made you wonder if the foundations of the 12 bar were strong enough to cope, I would recommend seeing Blaze if you can, as well as being an amazing artist he is a genuinely nice guy and finds the time in his busy schedule to talk to the fans, sign autographs (signing one in order to wish Matt a happy 18th ‘birfday’), etc.

I hope Lightning Strikes Twice and he returns to 12 bar in the near future.

Looking back on November 2009 (part 2)

As I said in my last post, I went to the head-bangingly awesome Motörhead gig on the 15th November 2009. that was soon to be followed by an Alice Cooper gig on the 29th of the same month. At this point I didn’t have a ticket to Alice Cooper but, still with the ringing from Motörhead gig in my ears, I scrounged enough cash together to get the ticket to go see him. Even more enthusiastic than I was before seeing Motörhead, we were all expecting a repeat performance of hard rock.

There was only one warm up band called Man Raze, by the time me and my mates had gotten in they were already doing their set. It was average rock, not totally inspiring but not bad. The crowd at this point didn’t seem too interested and it felt to me that many of them were getting annoyed with this trio on the stage. The lead singer was trying to engage us, although having taken his top off he’d elevated himself to the level of “tit on stage” to me and the few friends I was there with.

When their set was done it was a long wait as they put up a curtain to hide them assembling a set behind it. Suddenly the lights went down and we were presented with a suite of a man on the curtain that was then sucked down into the corner of the stage as the music started to play. The crowd started the shout and jeer as Alice Cooper and his band started to perform for us. The performance was one classic song after another, each one telling some vague story through the rightly famous death scenes, such as hanging and being injected with a massive needle. Although all this was very impressive I never really felt engaged with the music or him. Where as Motörhead, Girlschool and The Damned had addressed the crowd and made the crowd like them, only spoke the crowd at the very end. The best way I can think to describe Alice Cooper’s performance isn’t as a rock concert but as a rock musical, and if I'd been expecting that, I'd have enjoyed it much more!

This Sunday we’ve got a treat, my good friend Chris is guest writing telling us all how he got me an awesome 18th birthday present in a review of Blaze Bayley’s concert at The 12 Bar Swindon.

Looking back on November 2009 (part 1)

In fine month of November 2009 my home town of Swindon was graced by a little wave of rock gods, Motörhead, one of my favourite bands, and Alice Cooper, who I’m seeing again at Sonisphere. Being the budding young rocker that I am, I went and saw both of them along with my motley crew (no relation to the Mötley Crüe) of metal heads.


The first of them playing was Motörhead, who were being supported by another two great bands, The Damned and Girlschool, as well as another lesser known band, Straight Lines, that were also pretty good even when compared with the others. Straight Lines were the first ones on stage with a performance that was full of energy but suffered from being in the shadow of the other support bands as well as Motörhead. This early on people were still getting in the mood, and getting people into that mood is what a warm up act’s job is.

Girlschool were next on, and as soon as that lady played the first bar on her beautiful, white dean flying V the crowd went wild! I will be honest and admit that I haven’t always been convinced by women in the rock industry, partly because of the way women present themselves in other branches of music. I had heard of Girlschool and hopped that could change my opinion on that and, boy, did they change my opinion! They are most definably a band I could go see again, on their own or supporting someone else. Their performance was only slightly damped for me by a fat, balding man shouting the very original lines of “get your tits out love” at Deirdre Cartright (lead guitar).

After a short interlude The Damned were on stage and were again a phenomenal success with the crowd. Immediately having a connection with us. Their punk rock sound went across the hall and livened everyone up. Both Captain Sensible (guitar) and Dave Vanian (vocals) had a real stage presence so not only their music was good but just watching them talk was entertaining, the line of “it’s quality not quantity with the Damned” when referring to the number of albums in recent years was a particular favourite of mine. Even what was going wrong was entertaining to watch, when Captain Sensible’s guitar was coming loose it was fun to watch a roadie run on stage and try and fix the problem with duct tape.

When the Damned had done their bit it was final time for Motörhead, the band all these people had come along for. One of the first things Lemmy did when he got on stage was turn all the amps up to full, I could feel each of the notes he played echoing in my chest. At this point adrenalin kicked in and me, my friends and all the rest of the crowd went mental. We pushed our way foreword as much as we could and the three of use that had made it that far started to headband, shout, and throw our fists in the air, everything you should do at a rock concert. At one point, during a solo, the drummer started producing tons of sticks that he hurled, over his shoulder and into the air. Twice my friend Chris clambered upon one of my other friends shoulders, something that got the attention of the band and (so we believe) resulted in a drum stick getting thrown our way towards the end of the gig. We all went home with ringing in our ears, sore throats and still pumped from the evening, it was an evening well spent!

No Guts. No Glory.

In 2007 the Aussie hard rock band Airbourne released their first full album “Runnin’ Wild”. This album was a great success in the rock and roll world getting good reviews pretty much across the bored, being praised for the adrenalin pumping and all round solid sound. However, it was inevitable that comparisons between them and probably one of the biggest bands in history, AC/DC (who also happen to come from that land we all like to call Australia), were going to be made. And Airbourne did little to avoid such comparisons, having done little (if anything) in the way of innovation in that album – to the untrained ear you could easily mistake much of it for AC/DC.

Three years on Airbourne have released their much awaited second album, “No Guts. No Glory” and in all honesty nothing has changed, their sound is still very much Aussie pub rock that their heroes AC/DC pioneered years before them. However, have you ever heard the phrase “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”? And if it applies to anything, it applies to this album. Yet again Airbourne have pumped out fast, all action tracks with everything rock and roll requires – sex, drugs and rock and roll. Many of these songs, such as “No Way But the Hard Way” and “Back on the Bottle”, have rapidly found their way into my most-listened-to list on my iPod and I often find my self silently singing along with a frown of concentration on my face during my bus journeys to and from college. One of the odd downers with this album was that as soon as I ripped it into my iTunes library it insisted it was “pop” instead of rock, this made me very upset and I promptly changed it.

The big question you should be asking is “is it worth getting this album”. This album may or may not appeal to you, it depends on a few things:

• Do you like AC/DC?
• Did you like Airbourne’s last album?
• Do you like good music?

If the answers to all of the above were yes, then I’d say get the album. I did, and I was bloody pleased with it!

Hello Metal Heads and Rockers!!

The world today seems to be getting ever more content with mediocrity. Content with music like the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana. But there are still a few of us who stand proud. Donning jeans, band t-shirts and leather. With our fists in the air shouting “No! We will not surrender to The X-Factor”, “No! We don’t want to listen to 50cent” and “No! We will not turn our music down!” All to the sound of Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and many, many more metal gods.

Hello one and all and welcome to the Metal Head Matt blog. I'm Matt, I’m one of the few, and over the next weeks, months and years I plan on bringing you all I can from my rock and roll world.

Some of the things you have to look foreword to are me reviewing my extensive album collection, seeing my experience at Sonisphere 2010 (and if I can get the cash together Download and Hellfest), updates on my quest to get my band to actually practice so that maybe one day we'll be able to get a gig and much, much more! So stay in touch and subscribe!