License To Kill - Malice

 

Provenance: Another present, either birthday or Christmas (one arrives hot on the heels of the other, alas), but not anything out of the blue. I had included this on some list or another. Why, I'm not so sure, but it's called License To Kill and the band's name is Malice, all of which is suitably metal.

Having said that, what a bait 'n' switch it is to call yourself Poison, a very cool name, only to dribble out crap like 'Unskinny Bop'. Any other examples spring to mind? If you were going solely on the cover art, you'd expect Molly Hatchet to sound like Manowar instead of workaday southern boogie. Meat Loaf falls into this category a little, doesn't he? Quite metal album art, songs that sound like showtunes. 

Incidentally, if you're stuck with buying me a gift, an album or two always does the trick. Not hinting at anything, but yeah, just think about it.

Review: Thank fuck Malice don't sound like Poison.

Thank fuck, instead, that License To Kill sounds like a cross between Riot, Ratt, Y&T and especially Killing Machine era Judas Priest. In fact, on opener 'Sinister Double' I felt compelled to (sinister) double check the liner notes to make sure Priest main man Rob Halford didn't have a hand in any of the wailing. This is meant as nothing other than a compliment to actual vocalist James Neal (Halford is my favourite metal vocalist), and his performances throughout are consistently excellent.

More good news - License To Kill is fat free, coming in at a taut thirty-nine minutes-and-change; it's nine tracks of beefy heavy metal with nary an acoustic moment or prog flourish to be seen. It's a diesel-charged, palm-muted chuggathon with all the elements for a rollicking good time present and correct: sticky hooks, laser-cut guitar soloing and positively brobdingnagian power chords festoon the nine tracks on offer here.

If I could offer the most muon-sized criticism, it's that Malice, on the basis of License To Kill at least, sound so comfortable because they remind you of other bands you probably also like. I've already mentioned how close Neal cleaves to Halford in the screaming stakes; in addition, some of the guitar tones resemble those of Dokken's George Lynch; and there's a moment in the intro to 'Chain Gang Woman' where the whole package comes together to sound like vintage Motley Crue. (Incidentally, 'Chain Gang Woman' features backing vocals by Daves Mustaine and Ellefson of Megadeth fame, alongside Jaime St. James(!) and Jeff Warner(!!) from Black 'N' Blue(!!!!), and current Kiss guitarist / Easter Island head life model Tommy Thayer - wowza!).

The star of the show is the title track, 'License To Kill', which could have easily been one of the stronger cuts on Priest albums like Point of Entry or even Screaming For Vengeance. See what I mean? Even when praising them, I can't help but slip into comparisons with other, better known, acts. Failure to establish a distinct identity may have been what ultimately holed Malice below the waterline, because on the basis of License To Kill alone they should've been a force. Nonetheless, it's 2020 and here I am thoroughly enjoying the whip-crack riffage of 'Breathin' Down Your Neck', so by no means can we consider this enterprise a failure.

Frankly, any metalhead worth his, her or their salt should own a copy of License To Kill. It combines so many classic and recognisable aspects of what built the genre in the first place, and executes them with aplomb and no little flair. In addition, unlike many metal releases of the era, there's simply no filler to be found. Tight songwriting, good singing, good playing - what more could one want? Perhaps they could've upped the Black 'N' Blue quotient a little?

Lastly, I've just tweaked something in my neck nodding along to 'Breathin' Down Your Neck'. Irony aside, 'License To Kill' failed to injure me, so I'm declaring the former song to be the strongest joint on the album. That's how it works with metal - I don't make the rules! (But yes, 'Breathin...' is probably the better track thanks to its neat chorus and the fact that bits of it sound like a good UFO number.)

Angry Machines - Dio

Provenance: This one's a bit weird.

A few of my colleagues at work know I'm a bit of a metalhead; nonetheless I was surprised when a pal in another department emailed me to ask if I wanted eight Dio albums for free. Of course I did.

According to the people in that office, a ratty old carrier bag had been left lying around containing eight Dio albums for about six months. Nobody knows from whence they came or who might have owned them. I'm thrilled that a Dio fanatic may have been moving quietly amongst their ranks this whole time.

Anyway, my theory is that the late Ronnie James Dio sent them through a timewarp from an alternate dimension to round out my Dio collection. These holes in the space-time continuum are a bit fuzzy and offworld-RJD probably didn't realise I had four of those albums already (since palmed off to my brother), leaving me to enjoy the span of Dream Evil to Angry Machines releases, generally considered a fallow period.

And so boys, girls and friends beyond the binary, here it is - 1996's Angry Machines.

Review: My word, those machines do look rather peeved!

The whole deal with robots turning on their creators is not only bound up with their conception - the word, of Czech origin, was introduced into English via a play by Karel Capek called Rossum's Universal Robots, which ends when the robots, er, turn on their creators. This is a very cool and heavy metal thing to do, as some rockin' tunes have come out from this ceaseless conflict - Black Sabbath's 'Iron Man', Judas Priest's 'Metal Gods', a bunch of Clutch stuff, UDO's 'Man and Machine':

Dio - the man - is not usually associated with this kind of jazz. Or, more accurately, he's very closely associated with a particular strain of lyricism - magic, wizards, dragons, rainbows and such. This is also pretty metal, but also absolute nerd shit, so Angry Machines is a welcome swerve into unfamiliar territory. He does this with a slightly rag-tag band, borrowing bits of Dokken and Love/Hate alongside hard rock's very own Zelig, Vinny Appice, the Man of a Thousand Projects.

All the stars are here...Jeff Pilson...Vinny Appice...Tracy G...

But enough crap about robots and personnel, what's the muzak actually like? Long-time readers might be surprised that I listen to my albums more than once (or even at all), and I had Twitter opinions on Angry Machines over a year ago:

Am I going stir crazy? I'm coming to the end of Dio's much-maligned 1996 album Angry Machines and enjoying it. The majestic Magica aside, I can't hear much difference in quality between this and his late period, so-called 'comeback' albums

— Alex Callaghan (@AlexWMCallaghan) March 19, 2020

Yeah, I quite liked it. And I quite like it now. Listen up Jack, it's no Holy Diver (what is?), and it's not even in the same tier as Dream Evil (because that's got 'Sunset Superman', which rules) but Angry Machines is a perfectly decent metal album, albeit replete with the pinched harmonic guitar sounds that seemed to riddle the genre at the end of the last millennium (NB: this tended to be something 'legacy' artists adopted to sound legit, when they weren't doing shamelessly chasing the nu-metal bandwagon).

As with most Dio cuts it starts off on a plodder, but 'Don't Tell the Kids' is the most bitchin' tune about divorce (lol) I've yet to hear; the next track after that, 'Black', is even better, with a nagging vocal hook and pounding lockstep riffing. Really - as per my tweet - this is all pretty solid, even if the lyrics reach a new zenith in gibberish. I have listened to 'Double Monday' (huh?) more than most humans and I still haven't the first idea what it's about. Meanwhile, 'Big Sister' is a slapdash appropriation of Orwell's Big Brother, except the gender has been changed from male to female and...that's it. It doesn't go anywhere or explore any interesting potentialities that could occur from framing this universal overseer into a maternal figure.

Besides, who's listening to Dio for lyrics? You're in the game for natural minor riffs and that gigantic, operatic, hammy bellow that was RJD's unique instrument. I can even look past the fact that there aren't that many angry machines actually depicted in the lyrics. What fucking sucks, though, is the last track, 'This Is Your Life'. Ronnie can really deliver on a rock ballad when the fancy takes him - 'As Long As It's Not About Love' from Magica is superlative, whilst one of his efforts in Rainbow, 'Rainbow Eyes', stands as one of the greatest examples of the form. 'This Is Your Life', on the other hand, is garbage.

The production on Angry Machines isn't too bad - a little dry, as was the fashion, but not anything radically different from any other Dio release until that point. Odd, then, that 'This Is Your Life', a piece for voice, piano and baby's first Casio keyboard, sets my teeth on edge. For obscure reasons it sounds really clangy and even out of tune - as if close-miking Mrs Mill's beer-slopped old upright was exactly what the closer to Angry Machines needed. To compound matters further, Dio - man capable of great subtlety when required (seriously, check out 'Rainbow Eyes') - positively moos all over this shit. He sounds like a bison with a headache, and drags the song into fresh realms of atrociousness.

Yes, there are missteps - two(!) songs introduced by nursery rhymes, a breakdown in 'Stay Out of My Mind' that sounds like a Looney Tunes cartoon - but these are venial sins in the grand scheme of it all. 'This Is Your Life', however, is a real dud, even more soporific and tiresome than Michael Aspel ambushing some c-list 'sleb with a poxy red book. Put it in the bin. Still, Angry Machines is worth a listen, though keep that finger at the ready to stop the show after track nine. Why ruin a good time?