The Mosh Pit 10.31.09: Heavy Metal For Halloween

Posted by Dan Haggerty on 10.31.2009

Time again for the Mosh Pit’s picks on the best heavy metal albums to play on the darkest day of the year. This year we look at classics from Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Grim Reaper, Slayer, Grave, Helloween, and Opeth. Click the link for all the details!




It's that time of the year again for the Mosh Pit to look at everyone's favorite themed holiday through the lens of metal goodness. Like previous years, I'm going to pick some albums that fit either by name or tone, all around great albums to shake the plaster and wake the dead. And really, if you're going to do it, then do it with metal.

Before we move on though, I'd like to remind everyone that in previous years I have already taken on:

Black Sabbath
King Diamond
Mercyful Fate
Type O Negative
Ahab
Venom
Black Widow (the 70's band)
Candlemass
Carcass
Dead Can Dance
Danzig

In keeping with tradition I'm picking all new bands this year again. Those are all great choices (which is why I picked albums from them already), but to keep thing fresh for long time readers we'll pick some new themed albums for your fine perusal. Plus, just to make it interesting, I'm going to go across subgenres and eras for some variety.

Enjoy!



Some Metal To Wake The Dead!



Alice Cooper – Welcome To My Nightmare

To start things off, here is one of my top five candidates whose lack of presence in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is ridiculous. Really Cleveland, get it together!

Welcome To My Nightmare has two distinctive firsts of Cooper, the first being this is his first album as a solo artist (the band had dissolved previous and Cooper marshaled on) with the second being this is his first concept album. The songs form the journey of a guy named Steven… through his nightmares. This was also put into a TV adaption and a movie a year later.

This is really a transition album for Alice Cooper, the more rock based full load of previous efforts are starting to give way to the more thematic style of later Cooper monster mashes of the late 70's and early 80's. Here it all mixes in fun and wonderful fashion with style and substance to form treasures still making the man's live set list today. The title track being an iconic song that also fronts as the man's musical mission statement, a bizarre combination of 70's psych, disco-funk, rock and roll, and Alice leering and jeering at you. "Devils Food" rolls into "Black Widow" which rocks for combining rock, Iommi, and a Vincent Price speech on the joys of the Black Widow. And let's face it, Vincent Price makes everything better. Put him with a Sabbath lick and Cooper's style of thespian antics and you just can't loose. Fun Fact: The black and white picture of the actor in the top right of my previous banner was Price.

"Cold Ethyl" was a song I wasn't expecting live when I saw the man, but was happily surprised to see. It's the kind of jam that shows what Cooper can do when he feels like a rocking in style, the song an example of party rock keeping its integrity in both directions. Other songs like "Some Folks" go far into obvious concept album/stage show filler but make up for it in sheer style. It's a fun break with horns before breaking out into guitar solos, the sort of thing where you can picture Alice dressed in the showmen garb of the album cover strutting. The album as a whole flows between these styles with great aplomb and abandon, Cooper ranging from his top hat to face paint, both opposites working due to great song construction and Cooper's excellent showman style.

Special mention needs to go to the abusive relationship ballad "Only Women Bleed", a song that is out of place but certainly a welcome change up. Basically Cooper uses his imagery to highlight the real life horror tales for wife abuse. It's quite the good ballad, becoming one of the man's biggest early hits.

So much fun and good music here, this is a classic into itself as well as being the fun party album for Halloween. Beware of those Black Widows!




Grim Reaper - See You In Hell

Between NWOBHM and straight up traditional 80's metal, this is one of those albums that are tightly pocketed between two styles so well its surprising people don't (properly) site this as a transitional album for those styles. But tight and steely British invasion this is, toughened up with plenty of finger flying metal bottom to come too, the total package one wicked release. Crisp, no nonsense metal that could be seen as occupying the nitch Angel Witch would have gotten to in a couple of years if they stayed on course. Yes, I think this is worthy of that level of praise.

The only real issue here is the production, which certainly ties the album to it's era but an issue they would fix on their second offering. Otherwise the real story is this is built top down for fans of early 80's metal. Lead man Grimmett delivers some blood thrust screams that cuts like wild fire, almost overpowering guitar slinger Bowcott who shreds well but comes unglued arena rock style come solo. The Rhythms section a tight blitz of traditional metal meat that the leads ride into glory. Songs like "Wrath of the Ripper" literally a case of truth in advertising while "The Show Most Go On" demonstrates shredders can certainly me melodic.

This is the kind of honest metal album I love, filled with such straight forward integrity that stays true to itself despite trends. It shows how criminal success can be since these guys struggled through the 80's to stay afloat, likely victims to the fact they never put style over substance, the performance coming first and damned the consequences despite the nitch they commanded, even when the band had to take other jobs just to keep going. Raise a shot of the good stuff in honor as well as the horns… and testify!



Helloween - The Walls Of Jericho

From NWOBHM s to speed and power, here comes Helloween to open up a can of fast paced German engineering that is for all intents and purposes early Accept on Red Bull. Man, this baby smokes, the band's coming power metal close on the radar but distant as they go balls to the wall in the fast lane, storming the gates of complacency in a scene where everything was changing constantly and fast. Sure, there is the future of power metal here, but the story is the clear aggression and rising forces within the sphere of straight up clean metal. This predicts the coming power metal and speed metal scenes in ways people are still sorting out.

For those bristling I'm not talking about the dual Keeper of the Seven Keys albums, fear not, there are coming another time as I wanted to take the time to talk about them together. Since this is the first much over due entrance of Helloween in the Mosh Pit we needed to start at the beginning. Unless you want to talk about the excellent EP, which is all speed!

Clearly Helloween is standing on the shoulders of the great bands that gave rise to this album: Priest, Accept, and Motorhead. The styles fused and retooled to fly on the highways with the cruise control set to 10. Just listening to the opening track, "Ride the Sky" confirms this as it sets history for the most ambitious speed riff to it's date, Kai Hansen (of future Gamma Ray fame) vocals soaring to distant horizons while the guitars earn a spot in the metal history books. "Phantoms of Death" is NWOBHM breaking the speed limit, while "How Many Tears" shows that you can have melody and great lyrical subjects while shredding apart lesser forms of primates. To shake things up, "Gorgar" thumps mightily as a monster anthem while "Metal Invaders" is to ridiculously catchy for something that shoots straight to the red zone on the RPM and doesn't stop.

Whether it's how the band captures everything great about metal at that time, then improves it, or how they predict metal scenes to come, this cacophonous barrage of shredding (poor Hansen still gets buried, even with his voice!), this album is a key moment in metal. All hail to the mighty pumpkin kings for the great 80's metal they owned.



Rob Zombie – Hillbilly Deluxe

Rob zombie represents the kind of metal that I should dislike. A blatant combination of nu-metal, industrial, and camp that lines the most scathing critiques I might give an album. Or even worse, force the comment section to open fire on me in Top 5. Not only is that not real metal because of it's lack of real structure, but its simple and cheesy assembly of songs is to contrived for it's own good. I mean, the interludes get old after a few spins.

But god dammit I like this album. Maybe it's because the groove is catchy enough to overcome the fact it's a simple riff structure. Maybe it's the artificial percussion sound (I know he's real, tell it to the producer) insistence in driving like an out of control Ferrari with a great paint job. Maybe the camp in the subject matter works since its Zombie's admitted love of the Saturday morning matinee creature feature. Hell, maybe it's because I've seen the man live and the eye candy was just too much fun. Bonus points for Nazi-cheerleader dancers live. I don't know. I just love this thing and it's a fun trip through the fun side of Halloween.

"Dragula" was the big hit and a wonderful combination of heavy groove filled bedlam ripping throats apart. There is a lot of style over substance here, but the ambience that wins, for instance the radio set bad while you work in the garage "How to Make A Monster" is endearing, those tricks adding tons of gravitas to an album. Although the songs that pound, pound mightily and are great. "Spookshow Baby" is a top notch combination of atmosphere and rocking. But my favorite would have to be "Superbeast", with it's ridiculously over the top White Zombie meets neon-signed "Night of the Living Dead" meets the Industrial Revolution bulldozer rollercoaster ride of bombast.

Oh hell, my elitist metal card just got depleted. I don't care. Halloween comes once a year and it's time to have fun. Sometimes music should do just that, and this does that.



Slayer – Rain In Blood

Well here is an album that needs no introduction. Instead of going for any of the other fine and often debated releases, but I figured I was due to pound the soap box with one of the defining albums in the metal kingdom (metaldom? Metaldoom?). Black Sabbath and Deep Purple created heavy metal proper while Judas Priest sharpened it into a modern weapon. Metallica was the next step of evolution, taking metal into directions that killed. Then we come to Slayer and Reign In Blood, part next step in the chain of metal evolution, part step to the left by creating the extreme soundscapes of metal to come, mostly just carving out its own weapon of mass destruction that never was seen before and few have feared to tread since. There is only one Slayer for the metal gods haven't has the balls to go to that well again.

This album just shreds your ears off at high speeds of ripping riffs, a chaos with purpose that laughs at you from the corner for your vision. "Angel Of Death" skips all pretense of introducing you slowly to the onslaught, shoving the axe work right into your head blade first. But it's not all a wall of axe slicing, halfway in the band settles into a great slow thrash-tastic riff that crunches along with the velocity. And that is the secret of this album. It combines speed, deeps wells of aggression, solos that will cut your arm off and cauterize the stump, but still maintains riffs that kill. Metal is all about the riff and too many bands today forget the riff work. Aggression and speed is fine but without that guitar riff to fuel ye ole headbanging you're losing the foundation the music is built upon.

"Piece By Piece" is two minutes, while "Necrophobic" is only a minute-forty. The first comes out of the gate chugging at speeds reserved for centrifuges, while the second works you into it before ripping your face off with an inhuman solo. But the real key is that they keep the songs short. They don't try to extend the song out and repeat everything or add pointless bridges or interludes. Reign In Blood has a Mission Statement that reads: "Hit you fast and hard." They do that and get out. Then again, at these speeds your basically getting an hour album crammed into your senses at twice the speed.

Solos just blaze all over this thing. "Alter Of Sacrifice" features axe work that I'm sure caused trauma on the poor amps. But the great thing is that this album doesn't repeat itself. The uninitiated in extreme metal might beg to differ, but if you listen and get to know the genre, things like the beginning of "Jesus Saves" stands out for the chugging melody. Well, if this was doom it would chug. Here it's more of a drive by shooting. "Criminally Insane" brings such a neck wrecking crunch to it's the opening, I'm sure concert goes single handedly keep spine surgeons employed. God that's a great deal of awesome – And your not even to the solo yet!

There is a reason this album is of such historical value, and that is not just the extreme landscapes Slayer pushed metal into. Metal Darwinism aside, this pushed the envelope precisely because of the pure epic bloodshed each track delivered. From the opening blast of shrapnel in "Angel of Death" to the hunting carnivore killer "Reign In Blood", which drops napalm on the competition from the height of several miles, this album tore the throat out of an unsuspecting public. It reorganized what metal could do and where it would go all the while delivering pound for pound one of the best reasons to be a metal fan. If you like heavy metal, it's not a matter of if you will like this album, but when.




Opeth – Ghost Reveries

The ultimate expression of progressive music in the metal genre, or at least that is what the fans will tell you. Hard to argue though, since the bad is a sublime and flowing display of death metal, melodic death metal, traditional metal, hard rock, rock, jazz, journeys through tapestry drawn corridors, flights of fancy, dreams and nightmares, the whole shebang's only possibility being labels prog for nothing else can be wrapped around the vision let alone the sounds. The structure alone is unfathomable, and earns this band the love or hatred of metal fans for that alone.

I could easily pick any album for this as the atmosphere plays well, but this album gets it for the title fitting along with the killer opener. "Ghosts of Perdition" flows from death to clean acoustics is the kind of thing people don't believe is possible until I play it for them, and surprises all around because lead man Mikael sounds great in those parts. From contemplative dreams to rolling thunder, often worked together when the band turns on a dime, this song is great.

You get the mellow and deep contemplative pieces, "Hours of Wealth" pouring on grand pianos and an amazing mellotron (?!) before the music virtually stops with a stunning (clean) vocals from Mikael before wrapping up in an amazingly unmetal blues-like solo.

That just sets you up for getting crushed however, "The Grand Conjuration" opening up two ton barrels to deliver the heaviest thing on the album. A bass driven monstrosity where the band actually lets a dominant riff carry things (most songs wonder more in true neo-progressive fashion), probably due to the fact they kick back and go pure death metal at times. Toss is some odd percussion work, distant and haunted vocal job, speed beating 90% of the bands catalog, and you get a winner.

Brutal to beautiful, rhythmic to unpredictable, technical majesty to ripping riffs, this is less an album and more a statement. This is a stunning album. Music as art truth be told and likely influencing the bands of tomorrow. Believe the hype and check this out.



Grave – Into The Grave

My vote of the best gateway album for people exploring the brutal end of death metal, this is a bad ass album that is easy ground to see if you want to go further in this style. This is pure Swedish death, carrying all the caustic crunchy goodness you want to make your ears bleed, but also carrying the riffs and rhythm to be the most accessible of this style. Pound for pound, torque to driver shaft, this is still a greasy speed out of control crash of gears. A little sloppy at times, a little tight at times, mostly the band just ripping through head banging rhythms in style and (guitar) tone that shows all the promise of the coming Swedish death metal storm.

Opener "Deformed" tells you exactly what your going to get, and that would be run over by several hundred armored warhorses clad in spiked iron. Not so much a rhythm as it is one hellish guitar tone that shots machine gun style all over the neighborhood. The album repeating itself to much in many ways, but then again this is the Swedish death scene circa ground zero so it was all new and bloody then! Besides, the student of extreme sill find pockets of flesh like groove hiding under blast beats in songs like "Day of Mourning". Or hell, just go for the title track and just watch this album turn into a beast that stalks your family while they sleep. Think Entombed with satanic guitars but less song craft, and your there.

This is an evil, violent, angry album where guitar tone makes up for production, tenacity beats down technical might, and attitude rips out the throat of melody. It's less about the riffs and more about ripping out someone's arm and beating them senseless with it. I'm not sure if this is perfect for Halloween or anger management, but hell, it's a bloody good time!






It's been another fun look at music fit for Halloween. Keep it real, play it one 10, and raise those horns high!