Under The Influence

First, Hi there! I'm Will. Longtime reader first time poster. I'm definitely not going to be able to compete with the likes of Aidan and the Kevster on the history of music and what inspired the particular artists they are writing about etc so I'm going to stick to a niche that hopefully some of you will appreciate and infrequently re-write the tag line for this site to "Mummy... it's hurting my ears".

Metallica's 'Master of Puppets' in fact needs no introduction suffice to say it's one of the greatest metal albums of all time. I was lucky enough to attend the 2006 Rock Am Ring festival in Germany when Metallica marked the 20th anniversary release of this legendary album and played, for the first time, every track, in full, one after the other. The instrumental track Orion, one of my all time favourites, had never before in their 25 year history been played live, in full, and it was one of the most memorable festival moments I've ever experienced.

The track I've attached is a live recording of that stunning virginal performance and begins with a short bass solo by Robert Trujillo, who replaced their former bassist Jason Newsted in February 2003. Incidentally and unfortunately Kirk Hammett's lead guitar wasn't working for the first part of his solo, so if you're not familiar with this track, don a pair of heavyweight headphones and seek out the original.

Rock on.

It's always dangerous revisiting an album that you fell in love with when you were much younger. Luckily for me Sepultura still kick ass. I would love to have seen these guys live (with Max of course).

Unlike many other metal bands, they've always had good reasons to be angry, and it shows in the music. The whole album is very political, Kaiowas is a touching interlude about Brazilian tribe that committed mass suicide in protest of the government trying to take their land.

The music itself has a lot of room to breath - the guitars don't suffocate the mix. Igor's drumming is beautifully tribal. I'm pretty sure this will forever be considered one of the classic metal albums.

Cheesy to the extreme... though just look at the name, it's a dead give-away. I can't believe people still make music like this (in 2006?!). What's up with the moonlight sax?

Over the top guitar solos form the foundation of every song. Just more Satch style guitar wank when it comes down to it. Haha - Blood Of The Snake, what does that even mean?

52 minutes of self-indulgent guitar work is a bit hard to take - though once one submits to the cheese it's enjoyable enough and there's gold at the end of the painbow - Billy Idol and Slash join them for a light cover of In The Summertime.

All I can think is either I've gotten the dates wrong (reissue?) or there's a pocket of people out there somewhere who have been cut off from the rest of the world since the early 90s. Now, that's just sad.

Another beauty picked up from my Bristol experience. Recorded, I believe, in the same place with the same people as Ivory Springer, and the influence shows. This 3-piece definitely have a harder edge to them. They have the same intelligent-rock feel as Tool.

It's short - only 20 minutes long, but a good 20 minutes. Quality over quantity. I've always said that when we moved to CDs albums became too long.

If nothing else this album reminds me that I still love a good bit of metal.

Oh yeah. The artwork really kicks ass too.

I almost don't want to mention this track - purely for selfish reasons. It's been high on my covers list for months now. I mean, a trash cover of an ABBA track - what could possibly go wrong?

High energy doesn't even begin to describe how powerful it is, with metal guitars backed up extreme synth action. Layers of vocals in the chorus and wailing guitar solos. Lord it's good!

I always think to myself that next time I'm going to do a party this song would be the acid test for acceptance. Not that I'm elitist or anything but you could guarantee that a party full of people who enjoyed this song would make for a hell of a fun night. If I played this at a party in London right now it would probably clear half the room - though it's probably a good thing ultimately.