50. Edge of Sanity-Crimson
Released: April 2, 1996
Produced by Dan Swanö and Edge of Sanity
Track Listing:
1. Crimson (40:00)
Number 50 on my list is the insanely ambitious, single track album Crimson. 40 minutes of well realized, keenly delivered progressive melodic death metal that touches on several recurring musical themes with perfect structure, with guest vocals by Mikael Akerfeldt long, long before Opeth was a blip on the American metal radar. No one who hears this should be shocked by the progressive directions Dan Swanö took his music in after this.
49. Slayer-Reign In Blood
Released: October 7, 1986
Produced by Rick Rubin and Slayer
Track Listing:
1. Angel of Death 4:51
2. Piece by Piece 2:03
3. Necrophobic 1:40
4. Altar of Sacrifice 2:50
5. Jesus Saves 2:54
6. Criminally Insane 2:23
7. Reborn 2:12
8. Epidemic 2:23
9. Postmortem 3:27
10. Raining Blood 4:51
It is difficult to express to people who weren’t there in 1986 just how extreme this album was. At the time of its release, Reign In Blood was one of the few thrash metal albums to be released on a major label, albeit Rick Rubin’s primarily at that time rap label Def Jam (yes, that’s right, Slayer’s major label debut was on a rap label. Imagine that happening today.) Bookended by the longer, yet no less aggressive “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood”, this album eschewed the longer, more complex approach of Metallica to offer up 30 minutes of hardcore punk influenced speed and anger that made most people who listened to this say “what the fuck is THIS?” I remember very well the look of disgust, flat out disgust that I was given from the girl who sold me this album. Slayer was out there in 1986. WAY out there. You didn't have death metal or black metal as we know them now, so when you walked into a mainstream record store and bought a Slayer album, people looked at you funny. I also realized as I went looking for the track lengths just how much of this album Jeff Hanneman wrote, and how much Slayer is going to miss him.
48. Helloween-Keeper of the Seven Keys Part One.
Released: May 23, 1987
Produced by: Tommy Newton and Tommy Hansen
Track Listing:
1. Initiation 1:20
2. I'm Alive 3:22
3. A Little Time 3:59
4. Twilight of the Gods 4:29
5. A Tale That Wasn't Right 4:42
6. Future World 4:02
7. Halloween 13:18
8. Follow the Sign 1:46
Welcome to the birth of power metal. While earlier Helloween releases owed as much to thrash metal as the traditional, twin guitar Maiden/Priest sound, the arrival of Michael Kiske and his insane range and vocal prowess moved Helloween away from their thrash-influenced beginnings and gave birth to a new subgenre of heavy metal in power metal. In 1987, people heard the guitar tandem of Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske doing the classic Maiden harmony guitars, only played roughly twice as fast, and freaked the fuck out. Familiarity with what power metal has become has dulled some of the edges of this album, but in 1987, this album’s sheer speed was amazing.
47. Gary Moore-After The War
Released: January 25, 1989
Produced by: Peter Collins
Track Listing:
1. Dunluce Pt. 1 1:17
2. After The War 4:17
3. Speak For Yourself 3:42
4. Livin’ On Dreams 4:14
5. Led Clones 6:07
6. The Messiah Will Come Again 7:29
7. Running From The Storm 4:45
8. This Thing Called Love 3:32
9. Ready For Love 5:39
10. Blood of Emeralds 8:19
11. Dunluce Pt 2 3:50
After The War was the late, great, criminally underrated guitarist Gary Moore’s last stab at being a hard rock/metal star before he released a series of fairly successful blues albums for the vast majority of his career before his death from a heart attack in 2011. In many ways, this album pretty much throws everything the man could do at the wall, from blazing fast metal to catchy hard rock to the Celtic influenced sound of the massive sounding tribute to Phil Lynott, Blood Of Emeralds. Led Clones is a tongue in cheek jab at the bands in the 1980s who sounded like Led Zeppelin, with vocals by Ozzy Osbourne, and it also earns the Jaq seal of approval for having Cozy Powell drum on it. But the must be heard track, which prefigured the rest of Moore’s career, is the stunning cover of Roy Buchanan’s The Messiah Will Come again, which is essentially seven minutes of Moore playing a blues guitar solo. As a swan song to Moore’s hard rock/metal career (though I always thought the blues albums started as a bit of an one off and became a career when they were more successful in the US than his rock albums) it’s hard to fault it. It's also worth noting that this was one of the earliest albums I personally recall where the format determined the songs: the listing above is the listing of the CD release. Both the cassette and vinyl releases had fewer tracks, which made this one of the first albums I bought where the "bonus tracks" were format based, unlike today's region or sales outlet based bonus tracks.
More coming later in the week, after I ice my fingers down from formatting these entries!
Topic: Jaq's Top 50 v. Massive Infodump (15-1!) (Read 9752 times)
