Now that all the new wave convulsionaries have allowed their initial crazed dervishes to lapse into the pipsqueak squawks and hollers of power pop, it’s time, once again, for the semi-shy, but always lurking, Romilar angels of Heavy Metal to leap out from behind their misanthropic confessionals and whip it out! Gasp n’ thwack!
It’s time to let these flabby custodians of the sonic necropolises tidy up the gardens of torpor and make them inhabitable for all of us techno-rastas, titupping Vapo-rub thudders, and maundering mutants of metal mania. All us noise junkies with our middle fingers unabashedly plugged into the nearest wall socket; our eyes and ears trickling greyish blood as a result of repeated listenings to old, scratchy copies of “Space Truckin’,” “DOA,” “Iron Man” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at volumes loud enough to move the ancient pyramids of Cheops around like Rubber Ducks in a bathtub. All of us skull-gnawing, nail-biting, rock croupiers who’ve been patiently wallowing in our grubby little piggeries playing endless air-guitar symphonies while making exotic rock star faces in candle-wax encased mirrors, (hoping against) hope to affect some mystical conjuration that’d call up those illusive, highly seductive, succubi of noise that’d make us feel rock’n’roll was alive again.
What with the steady influx of new HM bands like Van Halen, Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Krokus, etc. who play a new kind of metal sound—more thudding than power pop, less sentimental than straight pop, and totally ignorant of the social and political ideologies of punk—the old standbys from the bygone times of cough syrup hosannas and valium breezes have deemed it necessary to flounce back into the fray and attempt to show the new beasts on the corner just how it’s supposed to be done. One, Black Sabbath, succeeds, the other, Ted Nugent, fails. The Great Mandala spins and spins—huh?
Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, sans the industrial warblings of urban balladmonger Ozzy Osbourne—the absolute master of the HM banshee wail and a nonpareil Khan of metal zen—is a strange mixture of this new pop metal and the old flagging buzzes of trad-metal that works more often than not. And despite the cries that the album is too “arty” for a Black Sabbath LP, Heaven and Hell keeps alive the psyche of darkness the Sabs started with “Electric Funeral” and “Paranoid.”
At first it’s actually unpleasant to hear the Sabs sound without the skirling textures of Osbourne’s voice, but after awhile things settle down and you’re once again rockin’ with the Children of the Grave and crawling through the murky slipstreams of consciousness with Tony Iommi’s guitar fractiously soundtracking the way with physicianly certitude. Iommi, as usual, is the key factor here. His guitar, which has always been layered and dubbed into infinity, thus creating that BS sound, has been left relatively alone on Heaven and Hell, resulting in some of his most haunting and lupine passages to date. This sonic tenderizer cooks with cannibalistic fury throughout, but he’s especially clangorous on “Die Young,” “Lady Evil,” and the title track.
Ronnie James Dio ain’t no Ozzy Osbourne, but he’s sufficiently well-versed in the high-stepping metal wail to rank highly in the pantheon of powerphobes. His voice doesn’t get in the way of the sonic panavisions being projected, like say Dave Roth’s does in Van Halen. And this is definitely a proper attitude considering who he’s replacing. All in all Heaven and Hell isn’t as spectacular as some of the Sabs’ earlier stuff, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction—forward.
Taking two steps back and teetering on the brink of collapse is Ted Nugent. His imperial guitar wheedlings and his sense of humor about heavy metal made him the acknowledged top banana of sonic paganism. When he was blazing out songs like “Stormtroopin” and “Stranglehold” he was at the top of his form. He was almost as rude as his Amboy Duke days. It was refreshing. But Nugent has apparently unraveled into an odious clown who’s beginning to give metal a bad name. Forsaking the felonry of his earlier guitar gonzoisms and donning a fool’s cap is a road few ever expected him to take. But he’s nonetheless taken it, and his last few LPs have de-emphasized the noise and over-emphasized the chuckles. Now a rock-star comedian isn’t a bad idea, but he’s gonna have to get better writers if he wants to pull it off. Scream Dream is Ted Nugent doing a parody of Ted Nugent doing a parody of...y’know what I mean. It doesn’t work. “Hard as Nails,” “Flesh and Blood” and “Scream Dream” are downright silly in the context of ha-ha sentimentality.
“Wango-Tango,” on the other hand, goes beyond the ridiculous almost far enough to become sublime. Almost. A stoopid song with potential, it rambles on and on with no visible means of guitar support and Nugent spouting rhymes right outta the rhyming dictionary. Real art. Boo. A scream of incompetence. I hate it.
If Scream Dream is a harbinger of things to come, I’d just as soon see a Ted Nugent sitcom, or Ted becoming a guest for talk shows attempting to terrify his guests with his learned rock madness. Personally, if there is going to be comedy-rock in the future I’d love to see a band comprised of George Martin, Henny Youngman and Rodney Dangerfield. They’d be better than the Strangeloves. Later. Much later.
Get your own Free Home Page