gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Music - Metallica)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2008-09-14 10:37 am

This is Heavy Metal Sunday, calling anyone... Mayday, Mayday...

Anyone else remember those old commercials for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter?" Well, today we have the equivalent effect for me. Traveller and Heavy Metal.

Around 2003 the venerable Traveller Mailing List started discussing an album from a metal band called The Lord Weird Slough Feg that was, as far as anyone could tell, a rock opera based on our favorite addiction game. Before anyone could actually order the CD, the whole thing got embroiled in a copyright argument and vanished.

But happily, sanity overrode the lawyers, an agreement was worked out, and the album was re-released. I got it off iTunes, and of the 12 tracks only one got a three-star rating from me. Everything else is four and five stars. It's not just the subject matter, the album is incredibly tight and well performed. I played parts of it for [livejournal.com profile] kshandra and she liked it. Slough Feg is normally a Speed/Celtic Metal band, so this is a bit of a departure for them, but damn it is good!

The plot involves a pirate running from the Imperial Navy. He gets caught in a battle between Imperial and Zhodani forces, his ship is badly damaged, and he crash lands on a world were a Professor has a mad scheme to create a hybrid of Vargr and Human using DNA-altering spores. This is so a game I'd want to play in. You also have to love an album that uses the word "nucleotides" correctly in the lyrics.

This might be the only Traveller-related product ever to use the Querion subsector for anything. :)

So, enjoy The Lord Weird Slough Feg playing High Passage/Low Passage



Bonus Review!

This morning I downloaded Metallica's new album Death Magnetic. Wow. Forget St. Anger (please) this is how Metallica is supposed to sound. Every single track got a four star rating from me. No radio-ready hits like Enter Sandman here, but if you remember the great days of Ride The Lightning or ...And Justice For All you will love this album. Whereas St Anger sounded like they'd used tin cans for drums, here Lars Ulrich thunders; and where before guitarist Kirk Hammett was missing in action, here the riffs are fiery, speedy and awesome, pushed up to the front of the mix.

The songs are epic, all but one flying past seven-minute mark, while the ominous heartbeat that kick-starts That Was Just Your Life slides into a pumped-up, testosterone-fueled slab of classic Metallica, James Hetfield's V-twin voice rumbling like he's the ringmaster at the end of the world. Patched in the epic thrash and speed, there are the trademark moments of crystal beauty.

Despite being the subject of much eye-rolling and snide comments, The Unforgiven III is a solid track that will demand lighters at the show.

Four very solid stars. Buy this album.

[identity profile] caraig.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 02:59 am (UTC)(link)
I picked up the Vargr Album (I'm sorry, I won't be able to think of it in any other way) and it's got some interesting work behind it! A bit of prog, a lot of metal, fairly minimalist but definitely looking to be a 'metal opera.' And I giggled a bit (okay, a lot) at hearing 'The Imperial Navy can't keep up our pace / They're chasing us into Zhodani space.' =D I liked it a lot, thank you for the suggestion!

[identity profile] lysana.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
Celtic heavy metal? OOOOH!

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 10:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, madam is intrigued by the concept? I'll try to throw some Celtic Metal acts into the mix in the next few weeks.

[identity profile] blackfyr.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Going to get the tracks now. BTW, why did you never tell us you were working at the Large Hadron Collider (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8297787@N03/2845861422/sizes/l/) during its assembly phase? >:-D

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2008-09-15 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Holy crap! Other than the nose out-beaking mine, he could be my twin. Down to the choice of glasses!

(My immediate thought, before seeing the picture, was "hey, when I say my route is 680 and all points east, I mean it!")
Edited 2008-09-15 22:35 (UTC)