The Ruffled Crow

(My original post is at shelftalk.spl.org)

As promised in part 1 of our journey into the dank recesses of the library’s metal-clad hallways, here are a few examples of what SPL has available to feed your head-banging habit.

Army of Anyone : Take the lead vocalist from Filter, add the guitars from Stone Temple Pilots and a stellar studio drummer (who cut his chops with Devo) and you’ve got a great album. Unfortunately it’s the only disc they ever made… “Father Figure” is probably the best track. No relation to George Michael’s song of the same name. In fact, AoA’s version regularly kicks that versions butt and takes its lunch money.

Finger Eleven : They have a couple albums out and are considered alternative metal. “Paralyzer” on the “Them vs You vs Me” album put them on the map. “Paralyzer” pulls its main riff out of Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot” and actually pulls it off. Keep an ear out; we’ll be hearing more from these guys.

Puddle of Mudd : Think Nickelback without all the self flagellation and a better sense of humor. “She Hates Me” from the Come Clean album hit the charts, but my fave is “Psycho” on the Famous disc. Questioning one’s own sanity is always entertaining.

Chevelle : Formed by 3 brothers and named after their Dad’s favorite car. Nice boys, that. Later along, one of the brothers was replaced by a brother-in-law. Talk about playing with fire… Sounds a bit like Tool except Chevelle doesn’t wander off into the theatrics and self-absorbed long jams.

Breaking Benjamin : Named for an incident where the lead singer (yes, Benjamin) accidentally broke the microphone during an open-mic show. Alt metal in the same vein as Chevelle. “The Diary of Jane” off the Phobia disc got some airplay – rightly so.

Seether :  First saw them in a music video for “Remedy”. Excellent post-grunge metal and the best album covers of the lot by far. I’d buy them on LP just to have the album covers full sized. Bonus track on the Disclaimer II disc is “Broken” featuring Amy Lee from Evanescence.

Three Days Grace :  If you’re throwing a heavy metal pity party then this is the band to crank. Their second album, One-X, is wonderfully depressing and angry. Myself, I prefer the lighter ‘peevishly irritated’ tone of the self-titled first album.

Saliva : Awful name but completely and seriously heavy ‘kick-you-in-the-nards’ metal. These Memphis boys decided they were going to be rock stars and they meant it. “Cinco Diablo” is their newest release and is excellent, but any of their discs are worth listening to. Several times. In a row. Really, really loud.

This only lightly scratches the surface and more is left out than can be included here, but it’s a place to start.

Rock on, dudes and dudettes!

(WARNING!: If you are looking for music to play at the weekly Bridge get-together or if the worst epithet you can think of is “darn” then you may not want to listen to ANY of this music. If, however, you want to learn new words… Suffice it to say there are advisory stickers on just about all of these albums.)

(My original post is at shelftalk.spl.org)

Way in the back of the library, behind the rows of Mozart and Etta James, Jean-Luc Ponty and Steely Dan, in a place where even Frank Sinatra’s ghost won’t tread is a huge, iron-studded door. Locked inside are the dirty little secrets the Librarians don’t want you to know about. They remember the horror and gut-wrenching terror when Pat Boone returned from his brief foray into its depths.

Yes, it is (gasp!) The Heavy Metal Room. Full of Tool(s), Nine Inch Nails, and Chevelle(s). It can make one quite Disturbed. A place where the amp stacks can be turned up to 11….

Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit here. Ok, maybe I’m making it up completely, but someone needs to point out that SPL has more heavy metal than a 1957 Eldorado.

It’s a given that SPL carries classic metal artists like Motorhead and Led Zeppelin, as well as a good bunch of Seattle folks such as Jimi Hendrix, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. (We were ground zero for grunge metal, after all.) And what a myriad of metaldom! Thrash, progressive, death, nu, groove, gothic, symphonic, Viking (is Pirate metal far behind? Arrrrr!), Christian (yes, Virginia, there is such thing as Christian metal), funk, glam, neo-classical. You name the metal and SPL has it.

If you’re like me, an old school head-banger who bought all the Aerosmith albums when they were new releases, the big hair band and rock ballad years were tough ones. When Ozzie Osbourne put out that duet with Lita Ford I was inconsolable for days. Only huge doses of Rush (2112 specifically) got me through it and ZZ Top helped erase many of the scars left over, but I was still certain that it was one of the signs of the apocalypse.

Fortunately metal got through that phase and grunge helped re-focus the general genre back onto what us metal maniacs were thirsting for; heavy riffs that put an air guitar in your hands and smacks you up-side the head.

Several bands deserve, no, require, full posts of their own (Tool, NiN, Zeppelin, Judas Priest, to name just a few), so I’ll try to restrain myself while we look at some of the newer purveyors of metallic mayhem that you can find here at SPL.