As The Crow Flies 12.05.08: From Plaid to Baggies - The Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Three (1992-1998)

Posted by Chris Crowing on 12.05.2008

Alas, Grunge came along and killed Heavy Metal stone dead. Or did it? Look inside this week's As The Crow Flies to find out!

Before I get back into the timeline, I'll address some criticism I received for last week's column. First of all a AndrewCrow chastised me for not delving more into how hardcore punk was an influence on the thrash bands (especially Anthrax) and to a lesser extent on today's metalcore scene. Likewise, testamentfan said I have served the mighty Testament badly by not talking more about them in the genesis of thrash.

I agree wholeheartedly with both your points, but as for hardcore punk, I did say in the previous week's column how punk as a whole opened up new vistas of aggression and more confrontational attitude for metal, especially the nascent thrash bands, but there is simply no room or time to do a full retrospective of 80s hardcore punk in the middle of a column on heavy metal. I accept the influence the bands you mentioned had, and maybe I'll get around to that scene in the fullness of time. As for Testament, yeah, they deserve loads of column inches, but compared to the 'Big Four' they have to be a footnote in a column of this scale. I did mention them, and I did put them on my mixtape, so anyone suitably interested to dig into metal they may not have heard of before, might well take a risk on them. I hope so.

Lastly, I was pulled up by the_fiXer for including "Love Bites" by Def Leppard in my mixtape, because it's not very metal at all. Yet again, I agree, and if you actually READ the column, you'll know I agree with that

BUT a great many folks think that such saccharine nonsense IS heavy metal because it has guitars and is played by white boys with big hair and an impressive lightshow. Go figure, but if I'm being fair I have to include the shameful poppy stuff with the meaningful thrust and underground murk of the whole metal pantheon, m'kay?

Anyways, let's get into it..


As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Three

By 1992, what could be considered as 'metal' had evolved almost out of recognition from the original blues rock roots, and a new musical wave, far closer to those same roots threatened to sweep metal off the face of the musical map as Grunge became the hot new scene for the kids of the day. Or that's the conventional wisdom, but when I look at the mid 1990s, I see an explosion of metallic creativity and diversity in a time of supposed downturn. What is the truth of this?

NOTE: Yet again, metal is too convoluted a subject to apply a coherent timeline to the column, so I'll deal with the various bands as they group together in my mind, which is now of course increasingly affected by my own prejudices as we quickly approach the bands who were 'current' to me in my education, all those years ago..

The mid 90s were not a fertile time for the established heavyweights of heavy metal. Iron Maiden did have the rather good Fear of the Dark record in 1992 (which was better received than No Prayer for the Dying in 1990) and a pair of predictably decent live albums but eventually the long time coming split with Bruce Dickinson happened, and the Irons were forced to take stock and recruit a new singer, eventually selecting Blaze Bayley from Wolfsbane.

This resulted in the X-Factor album, which was easily Maiden's worst selling and worst received album in a long, long time, and the memory or 'The Air-raid Siren' lived long in Maiden fan's memories, especially in the UK, and they did not take well to Blaze's, shall we say... reduced vocal capabilities. Never a group to bow to adversity, maiden plugged on and released the similarly uninspiring Virtual XI album in 1998. I remember this one, and after having discovered more current, vital metal by that point (we'll get to them later) I watched the overblown video for the execrable "The Angel and the Gambler" and wondered what all the fuss was about with this tired old Iron Maiden rubbish. Fortunately someone pressed a mixtape of their earlier stuff into my eager sixteen year old hands...

In their official autobiography, Maiden all put the lack of success of these albums to metal as a whole being down at the time, but I have to say that they just were not up to scratch, and there's barely a handful of half decent songs over each album. It would take a resurrection of sorts to salvage Maiden's flagging career.

Maiden's contemporaries Def Leppard, continued on their chart baiting arena-rock ways with albums like Adrenalize in 1992 and Slang in 1996. I don't want to talk about them any more, because I don't like them, I don't think they are metal, and apparently neither do you, or at least those of you who bother to comment. Bye bye Leppard....

Long term carriers of the metal flame Judas Priest had like Maiden, lost a singer and gained a new one and the resulting album, 1997's Jugulator, like the X-Factor received a pile of criticism. In fairness, I quite like Jugulator, and it could well be the heaviest Priest album to date. However, in losing their iconic singer in Rob Halford, Priest (like Maiden) had offended their long term fans, and the new breed of metal fans had a whole new set of heroes (we'll get to them, later!)

Indeed, the granddaddies of them all, Black Sabbath realised that after a string of increasingly unconvincing and poorly received records with singer Tony Martin, that nostalgia was the way to go for them, and the live shows with original frontman Ozzy Osbourne were well received and the Reunion album seemed to cap their career nicely. But they weren't done...

Ozzy on the other hand, had had a productive 1990s, driven by the business acumen of wife Sharon and the guitar skills of Zakk Wylde, he toured extensively in support of 91's No More Tears album, produced an awesome live record (Live and Loud in 1993) and followed up with the decent Ozzmosis in 1995. More importantly, when he was refused a slot on the Lollapalooza tour 'because metal isn't cool now,' Sharon decided to set up her own mega tour. The result of that snub and piqued decision, the annual Ozzfest ended up being mildly successful... OK, it's been a MASSIVE success, and could be credited as one of the reasons behind metal's mainstream, resurgence in the late 90s. It's more than enough good to forgive Ozzy some of his weaker ballads, in my eyes anyway.

So the 'old guard' of heavy metal were not having a good time of it in the 90s, as Grunge took over the popular imagination of the alternatively minded youth. But how were the upstarts of the previous generation, the 'Big Four of Thrash' getting on?

Megadeth continued on from the impressive Rust in Peace with 1992's Countdown to Extinction, seemingly untouched by the tinge of grunge, although like Metallica they had slowed the pace somewhat, but nowhere near as much. Songs like "Symphony of Destruction" and "Sweating Bullets" show Mustaine's enduring songwriting skills and they continued to plough their furrow as a 2nd tier band, retaining their 80s fans, while being quite acceptable to the kids. The follow-up Youthanasia was poppier and less overtly 'metal' with the standout track being the power ballad "A Tout Le Monde." 1997's Cryptic Writings is also good, but by this stage Megadeth were becoming marginalised by younger, more valiant acts.

Slayer were the indisputably 'for real' member of the big four, with their commitment to speed and brutal heaviness garnering them a committed fanbase. However many cite the loss of their amazing drummer Dave Lombardo after 1992 for the fact that while still heavy as a very very heavy thing, they never recaptured the aura of Reign in Blood, South of Heaven or Seasons in the Abyss. That said, 1994's Divine Intervention is not a bad album and 1996's Undisputed Attitude pays worthy homage to hardcore punk's influence on Slayer (happy AndrewCrow?) although both suffer from being rougher than an ageing drag act first thing on a Sunday morning. 1998's Diabolus in Musica seems to divide Slayer fans, some hating it and some saying it's their favourite. I'm not especially a Slayer fan, but it seems pretty ordinary to me, especially compared to the POWER of their earlier stuff. I remember it getting good write ups in Kerrang! at the time, but then, Slayer always get good reviews from the music press, because they're Slayer...

Supposed whipping boys of the Big Four Anthrax followed on from 1991's collaboration with Public Enemy on "Bring the Noise" and hooked up with a new singer (John Bush, formerly of Armoured Saint) to release the well received Sound of White Noise, but which continued the trend of the thrash bands slowing down a bit. Follow-ups Stomp 442 and Volume 8 - the Threat is Real were progressively poorly received, to the point where Anthrax became an afterthought. For my money, Anthrax have never been bad, but they failed to adapt to a changing climate, but also didn't stick to their thrash guns and as such got lost in the shuffle.

As for Metallica, there have been a million words written about Load and Re-Load and as I've said before, i think a full column needs to be devoted to the Four Horsemen. Load was the album that introduced me to heavy music (although due to there being some time left at the end of a C90, they guy that copied it for me put "One" on the end, so I thought it was the last song on Load for a few years, until I bought the CD and got round to buying And Justice For All...as well) and as such holds a dear place in my heart, but i don't think I can discuss either record as 'heavy metal.'

I love both albums, but it's partly for emotional, associative reasons, and as 'metal' records, they just don't hold up. Sure, there's speed and aggression on "Ain't My Bitch" and "Fuel" but the majority of both albums is either almost grungy or flat out classic rock influenced. Now that is not a bad thing, but it does somewhat disbar them from being regarded 'metal.' I do think it's quite hilarious the abuse that Metallica got for wearing eyeliner in the album photos, given the tendencies that were later to rise up in nu-metal and emo...

I once said, that from the two Load albums together you could get ONE good Alice in Chains album. So the biggest metal band in the world went undisputedly 'alt rock' in this timeframe. It is truly a dark time for metal...

Except that it wasn't.

The established acts foundered or changed in the phase change that came with grunge but there were a clutch of bands, breaking through from the underground with a new and powerful fire in their belly, waiting to grab the metal flame and carry it into the next century.

If Thrash and Speed were the metal words of the 1980s, then the early and mid 90s would be the time of what (I am told) is termed Groove metal. Essentially, this is the attitude of thrash metal and punk, mixed with the slower, sometimes downtuned ethos of grunge, although that's a weak and perfunctory definition. What can I say, I don't like them!

Sepultura had earned a committed following with their uncompromising brand of thrashy death metal and they further cemented their reputation with the crushing Chaos AD in 1993. However their greatest moment was to follow with the awesome Roots in 1996.



Unfortunately tragedy befell the Cavalera family, and Max left Sepultura to found Soulfly who released their debut, in 1998 while the rump of Sepultura recruited former bodyguard Derrick Greene to front the band and released the Against album, to a mixed response.


Texas metalheads, Pantera had been making some incredibly cheesy glam metal since 1983 but a new singer in Phil Anselmo and a new attitude resulted in the awesome Cowboys from Hell album in 1990, followed up with the searingly brutal Vulgar Display of Power in 1992. Followed up, with surprising mainstream success (#1 album in the Us and Australia) by Far Beyond Driven in 1994 and to a lesser extent the Great Southern Trendkill in 1996, Pantera are (for my money) the beating heart of 90s metal, making a bridge between the thrash of the previous generation with the nu-metal to come, full of aggression, technical ability and genuine passion. Pantera remain one of my favourite, and with my objective head on, the most important metal bands of the past forty years.





From the same Bay Area haunts as Metallica former Vio-lence man Robb Flynn finally got a major release for his new act Machine Head, whose Burn My Eyes debut in 1994 was a clarion call for everyone who still wanted fast heavy riffage. Who feels like letting freedom reign with a shotgun blast?



The follow up, 1997's The More Things Change was less celebrated from a critical point of view, but sold better than the first album. The road ahead through increasingly nu-metal waters would be rocky indeed for Machine Head...

But Groove wasn't the only variation on the metal theme to break ground. Following the New Romantics and the evolution of electronic music, largely in a dance environment through the late 80s and early 1990s it was inevitable that metal would start to utilise the electronic side of things and would happily classify Ministry as a metal band, and recommend their Psalm 69 record to any fans of things loud and offensive to the moral majority.



Likewise Nine Inch Nails elaborated on the implied heaviness in their Pretty Hate Machine debut with 1994's seminal The Downward Spiral. Metal traditionalists wouldn't class NIN as metal, but listen to the riffs on "Mr Self Destruct," the openly offensive, establishment baiting on "Closer," "March of the Pigs" or "Heresy" and add it to the fact that NOBODY who really loves no-brainer chart music will ever get it. That's metal in my book, every single time.

More indisputably metal were Fear Factory who moved on quickly from their raw and brutal debut Soul of a New Machine in 1992, to the heights of Demanufacture in 1995. FF married the uber-aggresive vocals and jagged guitars of groove metal, to electronic beat mixed with super-tight blast beat drums. The fact that Burton C Bell can really soar with the vocals as well as growl was just the cherry on the cake. While I regard Demanufacture as the height of FF's career, their concept follow up, 1998's Obsolete is also well worth a look, as are their more dance-orientated remix albums. Due to the graphic nature of this programme, listener discretion is indeed advised...



I have to throw a bone to one of my favourite bands here (I don't how well known they are in the States) but Nottingham's Pitchshifter have long been at the forefront of brutal industrial music. Adding an increasingly punk element to their sound, their mid-period albums Infotainment (1996) and www.pitchshifter.com (1998) are both well work a look. Don't believe me?



However, it is Anthrax's collaboration with Public Enemy that may have been the greatest harbinger of things to come, as the previously most alien worlds of metal and rap started to eye each other up like teenagers at a Catholic school dance. Rage Against the Machine's eponymous debut in 1992 joined a furiously heavy, almost groove metal backing with Zach de la Rocha's bitingly passionate rap delivery to awesome, memorable effect. They continued with the less-imposing Evil Empire in 1996, but remained the hard-line conscience of the metal scene throughout the decade.

Phrases like rap-metal and latterly, nu-metal entered the public consciousness with the early leaders being Korn with their eponymous 1994 debut, swiftly followed by the Deftones' Adrenaline in 1995. Both albums were a powerful display of downtuned riffs, vocals which were plaintiff and jagged by turns and some awesome bass playing and drumming. Korn's second album Life is Peachy was less powerful than the debut, but did have the super-catchy single "A.D.I.D.A.S" in the plus column.

On the other hand, the Deftones went from strength to strength and quickly made steps to evolve from the straights of the rap-metal label with their second album Around the Fur showing a more restrained, progressive approach to the songwriting especially on "Dai the Flu" and "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)," while maintaining the momentum on the floor-fillers like "My Own Summer (Show It)" and the collaboration with Soulfly's Max Cavallera "Headup." They would do even better in the years to come...

Korn would produce their best work in 1998 with the Follow the Leader album having some of the best drum sounds and most infectious riffs I've ever heard.

The trend had been set and the likes of Limp Bizkit, Flaw, Coal Chamber, Mudvayne and Taproot all flocked for a piece of the action.

While branded along with the nu-metal crowd, LA/Armenia's System of a Down brought a wholly new dynamic to the table, with their ethnic rhythms informing their off tempo metal, and Serj Tankian could NEVER be described as a rapper! While it took me a LONG time (the airplay for the Toxicity album) to see past the make up to the awesomeness at the core of SOAD, I know consider songs like "Suite-Pee," "Sugar" and "War?" to be among the best and most important of the era.

While I'm veering far from the previous template for heavy metal, I'd just like to say that for all that many folks would say, hand on heart that grunge was anti-metal and killed metal off, I think that's pretty narrow minded, given that if you listen to "Them Bones" by Alice in Chains or "Jesus Christ Pose" or "Rusty Cage" by Soundgarden, they are every bit as heavy as much that was considered 'metal' in the 1980s. I'll come back to this thought.

Over the Atlantic, there was a trio of British bands finding a creative outlet in a kind of metal which wasn't death metal, or doom metal or as light as what was considered 'Goth' music - so they created a sound that would become Gothic Metal. The definition soon spread beyond those bands Paradise Lost, Anathema and My Dying Bride to soon include the works of Type O Negative, Therion and Moonspell. Paradise Lost's 1997 record One Second would embrace cleaner production and a more poppy use of keyboards which would prove to be (in my eyes) a huge influence on the very successful likes of Evanescence, Within Temptation and Nightwish.



Death Metal also continued to develop through the 90s, with Carcass and Entombed doing some great work (with Carcass' Heartwork in 1993 cited as a major influence on the growth of what would become known as melodic death metal.) New bands like Opeth and At the Gates pushed DM far further than the originators of the genre would ever have intended. Opeth even use acoustic guitars with frightening regularity! Heresy! Or should that be not-heresy....I am confused.

Death metal then evolved a sub genre, now called Melodic Death Metal, which is essentially (as the title would suggest) a less abrasive form of the genre, more given to choruses and riffs - call it a halfway house between death metal and the mainstream. Former Carcass guitarist Michael Amott formed Arch Enemy while bands like In Flames and Dark Tranquillity formed around and from At The Gates and created a scene and sound that would soon be know as the 'Gothenburg' sound. The final import of this would not be felt until the next decade..

It is my belief that the 90s saw the high water mark for Black Metal, with the early fumblings of Venom and Bathory utterly outshone (outdarkened?) by the heaviness and (for want of a better word) blackness of the likes of Mayhem and Burzum. I'm not going to go into all the controversy around burning churches or various frontmen stabbing each other to death, but believe me there is some seriously dark stuff going on here...

However, for me the best BM has to offer would be Emperor's stunning Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk only closely followed by it's predecessor In The Nighstide Eclipse. In a genre rife with cack-handed attempts at darkness and making 'evil' sounds, Emperor stand head and shoulders above, making the truly adventurous and epically dark sounds that all BM claims to be, but so little of it is.

There are of course many more BM bands I could talk about, but in truth it's not my realm and I'll trip myself up if I try and wax lyrical while being a tad uninformed. Suffice to say that the scene flowered in the underground during the timeframe, with the likes of Dissection, Summoning and Darkthrone all producing good albums.

The same period also saw the first output from two of recent times most successful BM bands, with Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon both coming into the scene. Dimmu's Stormblast album from 1996 is particularly worth a listen (although the re-recorded version from a few years ago is easier on the ears.)

I can't leave the darker side of metal behind, without paying homage to MY favourite black or death metal band from my youth, the awesomely cheesy, ever entertaining Cradle of Filth. From their 1994 debut The Principle of Evil Made Flesh through 1996's Dusk and her Embrace to 1998's Cruelty and the Beast, Cradle have never failed to come up with some of the best theatrical chuckles going in metal, not to mention some VERY underrated songs - their more recent stuff is pretty good too. I'll leave this section behind with a video of a song I LOVED when I was sixteen, and the thought that any band who can produce a t-shirt which reads 'JESUS IS A CxxT' (I'll give you a hint,. it doesn't say Cart) and have it mentioned in Parliament is doing something very, very right!



Lastly before I sum up for this week, I'll touch on the idea that metal, grunge, prog rock and such supposedly diverse genres (well, that's what the industry and magazines and such would love for us to believe) were actually merging together during this period, and produced some bands who defied all attempts to pigeonhole them into a neat genre. This uncomfortable grouping, of course has a name, which is the ridiculous double-positive 'alternative metal.' Various sources state that bands as varied as Tool, Faith No More, Deftones, the Melvins and Mr Bungle (basically anywhere Mike Patton lays his mikestand...) can be grouped thus. While it's a little silly, it does go to illustrate the point I'll make in my summing up, and allow me to add in a Tool video...



Oh, and a FNM one as well, just for kicks....




As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Three

So, the nineties is widely held to be the death of heavy metal. Um... no.

What happened was that the NWOBHM/Thrash formula had run it's course as the thing on top and it stagnated. Hungrier bands who had been plying their trade underneath the likes of Motley Crue and Def Leppard used their inactivity and increasingly banal product to leap over them into the spotlight.

In the process, metal evolved even further from the 'faster, blacker, darker' evolution of the eighties and started incorporating urban elements (by the end of the decade the 'metal' uniform was baggy pants and hoodies, rather than stonewash denim with matching jacket) and metal became increasingly cross-cultural as it increasingly borrowed from hip-hop, punk and in the case of Sepultura/Soulfly and System of a Down, ethnic beats and rhythms.

The truly extreme scenes also expanded, with the heavy edge of them going off the richter scale of heavy and dark, but many bands like Opeth and the Melodic Death Metal and Symphonic Black Metal scenes started tending back towards melody.

Fear Factory and Machine Head are very different, as are Tool, the Deftones, Iron Maiden, Opeth, System of a Down, Metallica, Korn, and Emperor, but I remember as a sixteen year old kid being handed records by almost all these acts and not being told 'this is real metal, and that isn't.' It seems to me that the whole alternative scene responded to the overdominance of grunge-lite and the tediously weak indie and pop of the 90s by gelling together as a unit.
I grew up as a wide eyed, hungry kid and consumed everything that was handed to me - it was only when nu-metal became over pervasive that I started to develop a filter for 'real' metal and 'fake' metal, and since then, I've grown out of that, there is just stuff I like and stuff I don't.

Perhaps metal needs to be on the back foot for our supposed 'sense of community' and 'us against them' thing to really come out?

I've mentioned before that the various genre divisions in music, and particularly the pedantic ones inside metal bug the ever-living hell out of me. The whole concept of there being an 'alternative metal' genre fills me with some much incomprehensible wrath that it almost defies words. Metal, by it's very definition is an alternative to easy listening, no passion, no thought saccharine pop music. Now if there is a genre that isn't quite metal, but it isn't pop, then it isn't 'alternative metal' because that would be pop music again, wouldn't it?

I am deviating from the point, I do apologise, but I am quite tired and my deadline is hurtling towards me like Vicki Guerrero towards an 'all you can eat' buffet.

Traditional metalheads would argue that half of what I talked about above (between the first mentions of Machine Head and Carcass probably) is NOT metal, but forms of weaker, slightly contemptible alternative music. That is their right, but I regard all the above as alternative music, some because it is heavy, some because it is thought provoking and ALL of it because it would damned well frighten my gran if I played it to her loudly.

Metal is no longer a particular way of playing, no longer one specific look, but an attitude, an intent to provoke a response, be it the desire to mosh my head off, so I wake up the next day feeling like a bobble head with migraine, the sudden urge that 'I REALLY wish i could play like that' or a lyric that really makes me think or moves me emotionally.

Such things do not respect the lines drawn by industry insiders, magazine editors, or the tired and twisted lines drawn by those who will only ever accept what they already know.

For me, the period 1992-98 really showed this. Metal was supposed to be down and nearly out, but a supposedly tired old has-been like Ozzy managed to start the most successful annual summer tour EVER. Pantera of all bands managed to get a no.1 album, with probably their most uncompromising album. At the same time, metal grew and evolved, incorporated new sounds and elaborated on old ones. Some of the heavyweights changed - Metallica reacted by deciding to see what it would be like to be a alt.rock band for a while, paying homage more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Motorhead - Iron Maiden and Judas Priest tried to press ahead with new singers, but less inspired songs in the same old vein. Some like Megadeth and Slayer stayed the same, but suffered diminishing returns. Metal had never been more widespread, more vibrant or more hungry. In truth I look back on this as a halcyon, wonderful time, but how much of that is me looking back on my own childhood, I can't tell.

However the industry was starting to take notice of the depth and width of metal's fanbase again, and was already assigning labels to the as yet natural and unforced rap-metal cohesion. How would the creativity and diversity survive? Would the big guns come back for another shot at glory, or fade into obscurity? Well, next week we'll find out...

The Murmur Round the Murder

The Murmur Round the Murder Mixtape
The Evolution of Heavy Metal 1992-1998

Side A - Detune, Then Pull Up Your Baggy Pants!

1- Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark - "Fear of the Dark"
2- Megdeth - Countdown to Extinction - "Symphony of Destruction"
3- Slayer - Diabolus In Musica - "Deaths Head"
4- Sepultura - Chaos AD - "Refuse/Resist"
5- Soulfly - Soulfly - "Eye For an Eye"
6- Pantera - Far Beyond Driven - "I'm Broken"
7- Machine Head - Burn My Eyes - "Old"
8- Ministry - Psalm 69 - "NWO"
9 - Fear Factory - Obsolete - "Smasher/Devourer"
10- Pitchshifter - www.pitchshifter.com - "Genius"
11- Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine - "Bombtrack"
12- Korn - Follow the Leader - "It's On"
13- Deftones - Around the Fur - "Be Quiet & Drive (Far Away)"
14- Coal Chamber - Coal Chamber - "Loco"
15- System of a Down - System of a Down - "War?"
16- Tool - Undertow - "Prison Sex"

Side B - Black! Black!…They Watch Me In The Woods, You Know!

1- Paradise Lost - Draconian Times - "Forever Failure"
2- Type O Negative - October Rust - "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend"
3- Carcass - Heartwork - "Blind Leading the Blind"
4- At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul - "Blinded by Fear"
5- In Flames - Whoracle - "Jotun"
6- Mayhem - De Mysteriies Dom Sathanas - "Funeral Fog"
7- Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk - "Ye Entrancemperium"
8 - Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant - "Mourning Palace"
9- Cradle of Filth - Dusk and Her Embrace - "Malice Through the Looking Glass"
10- Paradise Lost - One Second - "Soul Courageous"

(Why is it that Black metal albums always have the best songs at the start?)

I'll be honest, I was badly rushing to get this in before deadline, so my mixtape was a little rushed, so sorry - please feel free to make suggestions as to better choices or ordering!

Also, I'd like to say that the closer I get to my own timeframe of experience, the more I realise I must be missing out due to time and space considerations. This is meant to be an overview, please don't get all offended and uppity if I've missed out a band you think are just the most awesome and influential band ever...

Unless you're going to lambast me for not mentioning Sugar Ray, because then we'll all just point and laugh at you.

Until next week, listen to the children of the night, what beautiful music they make!

Chris