NEW METALLICA ALBUM REVIEW!!! --Ryan @Speedway

The Day That Did Come (For The Most Part)

By Ryan Clark


Well folks, the new Metallica album, "Death Magnetic", certainly isn't "Master of Puppets Part 2". If you were expecting this of their newest effort, I suggest you buy the new AC/DC album when it is released next month. If you want more of the same, you aren't going to get it with the new Metallica album, and therein lay one of its main strengths. Considering the artistic hole they put themselves in with "St. Anger", this new record is an amazing achievement. I saw that as a huge challenge to overcome, and they did it with "Death Magnetic". Of course there are those who will bash it and claim everything about the new album is "all hype", saying Metallica hasn't done anything good since "...And Justice For All", which I have found to be one of the main talking points of the metal "purists". Who on this mortal earth appointed these internet trolls the judges of all things heavy is still a mystery to me. I know, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it seems as if many made up their minds about this album before even hearing a single note of it. I think that's pretty dishonest. Hey, good for you then, go listen to your Burzum records and count the days until Varg is released from jail, I'll sit here and enjoy hearing one of my favorite metal bands rise from the ashes and show that they aren't done yet. Okay, time to focus!

The starkest thing I noticed upon listening to "Death Magnetic" for the first time is the vocals and the song structures. James doesn't sound like a wreck, his singing is strong, clear and he even has a bit of his old snarl back. Did he start drinking again? Did Rick Rubin slap him around in the studio? Doesn't really matter, all I know is that it sounds good. The songs are arranged like a lot of older Metallica material, and this is great to hear, since the last few albums were all over the place, and this one eschews all the filler to be tight and focused, an album experience versus a disc with one or two good songs surrounded by throwaway tracks.

Shifting focus to the musicianship, I think they remembered that they have two of the best metal guitar players in their band. James and Kirk bring the goods. There are plenty of tasty riffs, blazing solos (yes, guitar solos have returned to Metallica, and Kirk still loves to use the wah pedal on a lot of them), harmonies, and bass. Yes, you can hear the bass guitar on this album, and we all know that this band has been "allergic" to this instrument being heard in the mix on some of their other albums. Robert Trujillo does a fine job on his first studio album with the band, and it's great that he didn't get mixed into obscurity. Next on the list is the drumming of everyone's favorite dude, Lars. All I can say is that his playing is competent and straight forward, he didn't reinvent the wheel, but he played real drums instead of pots and pans on this one, and that is a blessing. The album has a much better recording quality than the last one, and if you have heard some of the latter Slayer albums that Rick Rubin produced, "Death Magnetic" has a similar sonic palette to those recordings.

If you were to ask me what Metallica album the songs on "Death Magnetic" resemble, I couldn't name you one album. This new record is an amalgamation of pretty much all eras of Metallica, though I hear a lot of the "Black Album" style in here. The biggest surprise would have to be the almost ten minute instrumental track, "Suicide & Redemption", where Metallica forays into groove heavy stoner rock for a good part of the song. All in all, for this band to go from the "St. Anger" disaster to the quality of this album will please many fans or at least take the edge off of their hatred for the world's biggest metal band. The highlights of "Death Magnetic" as I hear it: "End of The Line", "Broken, Beat & Scarred", "The Judas Kiss" and "Suicide & Redemption".

So there it is, and I hope some of you will hear this album and be pleasantly surprised to know that another group of old guys can still shred, and that with Metallica adding their album to assault, it's one more nail in metalcore's coffin. VOTE THIS NOVEMBER: DIO FOR METAL POPE.

Sleeper DVD of the Week -- by Travis @Tempe

The Hill (1965)

Some film-goers have yet to realize how great an actor James Bond-famed Sean Connery is. I’m not talking about his other work in the action genre like Entrapment and The Rock, but I do mean a string of films he made in between the Bond pictures like The Anderson Tapes, The Molly Maguires, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. One of those films is The Hill and it is a perfect gem.

Set in the North African desert in a prison for the British military, it tells the story of torture, justice, integrity, and punishment. Sean Connery leads the cast as an officer who has been imprisoned for hitting another officer. He and his fellow inmates, including the young, boisterous, excellent Ossie Davis, are forced to run up and down “the hill”. The primary punishment at this prison is simply a steep mound of dirt which soldiers must run up and down repeatedly in the dead of heat, until they collapse of exhaustion.

As you can guess, Connery’s character doesn’t stand the shit for long and soon we are witness to a full confrontation between the strict Bristish establishment and our favorite spy, now a sandy-sweaty-angry rebel. Tension stays high till the very end, and the end couldn’t get any better. This is the kind of finish no one could forget.

Shot in glorious Black & White, the film looks about as perfect as can be. It was directed by Sydney Lumet. Somehow I feel audiences have been convinced to worship directors whose trademarks and style are obvious from project to project. However, Lumet is one of our greatest filmmakers: he disappears into his film. I might not be able to see the connection from one Lumet film to another but he consistently creates the most powerful stories we have.

The Hill is a sleeper that should be a classic. Please give it the chance to let it prove to you the worth of its star, director, and existence.

If you liked this one, check these out:

The Name of the Rose (1986)
The Verdict (1982)
Sahara (1943)

Taking Zia Downtown For Some Vinyl and Flapjacks--by Little Horus

The Historic Hotel Congress in downtown Tucson was the place where the infamous John Dillinger lived in the 1930s, and today it is the site of not only a hotel, but a hip bar and concert venue. Being right at the place where two worlds collide, the tight knit downtown area and greater Tucson, it’s like the Mos Eisley Space Port in Episode IV, though the scum and villainy have vacated up the street to city hall in this case. This is the place where the HOCO Record Fest went down today, like a bunch of Jawas hawking their wares in a desert setting. Okay, I’ll stop with the Star Wars references.

The Record Fest is part of a Labor Day weekend festival downtown devoted to being green, and by re-cycling many used records through the exchange of another kind of green for them fits right in dude. Many of Arizona’s well known record stores and second hand dealers were in attendance, including those lovable little fuzz balls from Zia Records, and we came loaded for bear. We brought crates and crates of new and used vinyl, plastic vinyl sleeves, vinyl cleaning kits, mystery used vinyl grab bags, and a special t-shirt made just for the event that we sold for $5 a pop.

When the event kicked off at 9 AM and dozens and dozens of avid vinyl fans and collectors entered the hotel, it became an archaeological dig to find the rarest pressings, the coolest picture discs, and that one record by The Rippingtons. I observed just how dedicated the collectors haunting the crates are to vinyl. They examine the record and the case like the finest quality control specialists on an auto assembly line. Every aspect and angle of a record is scrutinized for anything out of place, many of the buyers would spend fifteen minutes looking at one piece of vinyl, making ABSOLUTELY certain it is the one they were looking for before peeling off those dollar bills and slapping them down. Yes, I can see those fighter planes. Okay, sorry, got off the subject again, I have ADD, there is a program on TV about the development of the U2 spy plane, I dropped my cigarette on the floor, there is no Santa Claus, the bond market is really crappy right now.. oh, sorry, there I go again.

Seriously, back to the Record Fest!

As the day wore on, the shopping continued in frenzied bursts as more and more shoppers came by to try their luck at finding their personal Holy Grail. We had a younger guy bring up an Elvis Costello record we were selling for $9.99 and he looked near to tears as he examined his wallet and found that he had only $7 left to his name. He REALLY wanted this record, and we sold it to him for $7. He was a happy camper after that for sure. It’s a great thing when you can make a customer’s day by going the extra mile to take care of them. The smile on their face makes you feel good, and you form a better connection with them, you feel like part of the community, and that’s what the whole thing was about. Bring the music fanatics together, so they can mingle, do some business, and go home and freak out to some James Brown on wax.

You might ask why this article mentions flapjacks in the title and why there is no mention of said objects in the body of this work, but that is a story you aren’t prepared to hear…yet.