Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth (2012)

I was very surprised after listening to this. I was stunned that a band that had largely altered their sound from its original incarnation and had not performed together in over 20 years (well, 3/4's of the original line-up, anyways) could pull off such a convincing return to form. After hearing the rather pedestrian single, 'Tattoo', I was almost led to believe that conjuring fourth "hits" was the last thing on the band's mind as the majority of this album finds them getting down and dirty by going back to their roots, which they have done in fucking spades.

Again, not only am I surprised with how close this sounds to the band's "classic" era, but I am also astonished to hear that Diamond David hasn't lost a fucking thing as well. It does seem as if he cut down on some of the more gratuitous aspects of his approach, but this hardly takes away from the finished product.

Both Eddie and Alex sound just as great as they did in their prime and being that I don't usually pay much attention to bass guitar, I guess Eddie Junior did a great job as well, I mean, I don't hear any "suck" coming from out of his corner, so...

Now I understand that some people got butthurt that this album didn't live up to their expectations. I'm not exactly sure what it was that they had expected other than perhaps the band revisiting the ultra-gay "Van Hagar" era, which I am fucking ecstatic that they did not! I'll just pretend that the albums between '1984' and this did not exist altogether.

Bravo.

Zior - Every Inch a Man

If you can somehow bring yourself to inch past the colossal gayness of the album title, you'll be quite surprised to discover that this is one of the heaviest albums to be released during the early 70's.

I'm actually shocked that this has safely remained in the shadows all this time, especially with the whole 'stoner doom/Sabbath worship' craze that's been going down for the last few years. Some of the songs on here give Sabbath a serious run for their chump change, such as the the first track, 'Entrance of the Devil' (yet another example of the band's knack for homosexual wordplay). The sound of this album is top fucking shelf, especially if you're in the habit of going "ga-ga" for all things 70's. The usage of the wah pedal on 'Angel of the Highway' is un-sur-fucking-passed. This album oozes with that old time 'Charles Manson acid orgy/Drive-in movie madness' vibe from beginning to end. The vocals of bass guitarist, Barry Skeels, are probably the sickest to have ever been spat fourth during that time. The ghoulish laughter in the first track pisses all over anything that Ozzy attempted to muster fourth during his tenure in Sabbath.

The main difference between bands like this and the current crop of so-called "stoner" bands that try so hard to emulate the sounds of ages past, is the fact that the old bands were way more diverse in how they got their point across. Nowadays a band will simply plug into their "prized" Orange amp and lazily down pick a note until a good 5 minutes passes by before moving on to the next note. Back in the old days, bands like Zior were well aware of and fully capable of dispersing a wide array of dynamics into the equation.

It's a damn shame that Zior never enjoyed the success that Sabbath had or even at the very least, the cult notoriety of Pentagram as they were well worth their weight in gold. If you have a genuine affinity for the sounds of old, than do yourself a favor and snap this righteous little nugget up as quickly as you can.