Shotgun Messiah

REVIEW: From Our Crypt to Your Crib – Various Artists (1992 promo cassette)

FROM OUR CRYPT TO YOUR CRIB – (1992 Sony promo cassette)

I used to love getting promo cassettes in the mail.  Occasionally they’d just come free with my month issue of M.E.A.T Magazine, like this one did.  In other cases I requested a free sampler.  They were usually pretty diverse collections.  From Our Crypt to Your Crib is a collection from Sony subsidiaries Relativity and Earache.  Heavy stuff!

Two new Corrosion of Conformity tracks lead it off:  “Dance of the Dead” and “Vote With a Bullet”.  The year was 1992 and that means Karl Agell was the lead singer of C.O.C., but Pepper Keenan sang on “Vote With a Bullet”.  The underrated punk/metal band were definitely more on the metal side by ’92.  Both tunes are aggressive rockers with wicked solos and musicianship, but the grungy “Vote With a Bullet” sounded more current.  What a riff!

Also playing musical chairs with lead singers:  Sweden’s Shotgun Messiah!  Original singer Zinny Zan departed and bassist Tim Skold took over the frontman position.  “Heartbreak Blvd.” is a fantastic, slick example of sleazy hard rock gone right!  Harry K. Cody had a good handle on writing a catchy guitar hook.  Their non-wimpy ballad “Living Without You” is a snot-nosed lament rather than a goofy love song.  “If there’s a tear in my eye, it’s not for you, don’t lie to yourself.”

It’s full-on punk next with Murphy’s Law and their comedic take on “Ebony & Ivory”.  This pales in comparison to the true heaviness of Death with “Lack of Comprehension”.  So progressive, so brutal, so ahead of its time.  Their ’91 album Human was a giant evolutionary step for the genre and you can hear why on this track.

Flipping the tape over, the heaviness continues with thrash giants Exodus.  It’s the live version of “Brain Dead” from Good Friendly Violent Fun.  John Tempesta on drums, Steve “Zetro” Souza on vocals — primo Exodus.  It’s a simply slamming affair.  The metal continues with Carcass (“Incarcerated Solvent Abuse”) and holy shit is it heavy!  It stomps rather than speeds…except when it goes breakneck!

Cathedral are up next with their unique brand of Sabbath-influenced metal.  Gutteral Lee Dorian is the stuff of nightmares.  “Condemned” by Confessor is sharp and heavy, but the high pitched “Geddy Lee on acid” vocals are offputting…if not downright hypnotic.  The pendulum swings back to punk on “Over the Edge” by Agnostic Front.  Asses are kicked all over the house, with precision!  Finally we return to Sweden.  It’s Entombed and “Living Dead”, and by now you are completely deaf, beaten and bruised.

Not bad for a free tape, eh?

3.5/5 stars

 

Part 192: Mix One

MIX ONE

RECORD STORE TALES Part 192:  Mix One

Blank discs are so cheap, and musical tastes so fleeting today, that I wonder if anybody but me still has the first mix CD they ever burned?

I’m hoping some of you have, and I’m hoping to hear it about from you too.  My first disc was made in early 2001 when we got our first burner.  It was made for a very specific purpose.

At the store, there was an informal rule that if you were closing one day and opening the next, it was “OK” to borrow a movie overnight, watch and return it.  So if that was true for movies, why not a CD?  Why not a dozen?  A few nights after having the CD burner installed, I borrowed a bag full of discs and burned this compilation on a Maxell CD-R 650.  74 minutes!  Up to 16x certified!

I returned the discs the next day, all albums that I wanted one or two songs from, but not the whole album.  Many were soundtracks and tribute albums.  I ended up buying The Strokes’ album a few weeks later, an ill-advised purchase that yielded only two or three listens.  I don’t have that one anymore.  But I still have my mix CD with “Last Nite”!

The Robbie Williams + Queen track is taken from the soundtrack to A Knight’s Tale.  I shall maintain the anonymity of the store employee who had the crush on Heath Ledger and inundated us with this soundtrack.  The same disc also yielded “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly and the Family Stone.

Track 3 is an industrial-rock hybrid tune called “Violent New Breed”.  I later purchased the Violent New Breed album by Shotgun Messiah.  Industrial rock fans will know that Messiah’s original bassist/singer was Tim Tim, aka Tim Sköld of KMFDM, Marilyn Manson, and his eponymous band.  I liked the title track enough to later buy the album and the prior one too.  Both were keepers.

I’ve been a Goo Goo Dolls fan for a while so I thought I would grab their INXS cover “Don’t Change” from an Ace Ventura soundtrack.  Their cover of “Bitch” came from the 1993 No Alternative compilation album.

Apparently I was on a Warrior Soul kick at that time as well.  Shame that there isn’t a great Warrior Soul compilation album that suits all my needs.  I bought and sold their studio albums.  As for Michael Jackson, I later decided to add a single disc compilation to my collection, offsetting my burning of “Billie Jean”.

This being a real odds n’ ends disc, it’s not a spellbinding listen today.  It’s fun to remind myself of some oddball tracks that I liked enough to burn but not enough to buy.  I’m also amused by the title Mix One, the first of many!  And I was even doing cover art back then, too.  On the cover is myself dressed up as the alien from Part 148: Navigate the Seas of the Sun!

2/5 stars!

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES…

The return of the Dandy!