I know, I know. Things have been sparse all up ins here. Things have been busy. Way Mega Busy™: 50% work, 50% alcohol, %20 football, -%25 sleep. My body is run down, I need rest.
Anyways, I picked up albums by two of my favorite old-time heavies, Iron Maiden and Tom Waits.
In 2000, we saw the return of Bruce Dickinson to Iron Maiden in Brave New World. I was wary and skeptical at first. Then I hit play. Bruce Dickinson was back, in All His Glory™. It was wondrous. I’m going to skip over 2003’s Dance of Death and proceed directly to this year’s A Matter Of Life And Death.
Maiden, you have let me down. Almost every track is a lyrical and slight musical re-arrangement of BNW. Seriously, guys. ITS THE SAME DAMN STUFF! Write something different! Am I the only one that hears this?
I’d just like to say this: Repent you fucking savages, for the end is nigh. Metallica had it wrong; the third horseman of the apocalypse is not Pestilence, but instead Bruce Dickinson. You want proof? Check the lyrics for For the Greater Good of God:
He gave his life for us he fell upon the cross
To die for all of those who never mourn his loss
It wasn’t meant for us to fell the pain again
Tell me why, tell me why
Please, please tell me that the ‘Maiden didn’t find Jesus. Nothing against the JC, but come on. We’re talking about Iron fucking Maiden. The Number of the Beast? Remember that little track? Yeah. Go dust it off and crank it to 11. It makes you want to slap your mama, and now it makes me want to slap the stupid out of this band.
Okay okay, enough of that. Now onto that gravelly-voiced bastard of men, Tom Waits.
I swear Tom is the first cyborg. I think he swapped his larynx out for a Dispose-all.
He’s got a new album(s) out named Orphans, which is broken up into three sub-albums: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards.
Is there an force in the ‘verse that can stop him? I doubt even River Tam could.
There is so much to this new offering, that it really will take a while to pour through it. But so far, the favorite track is the opener to bastards: What Keeps Mankind Alive. The song’s message? Hunger dictates morality.
But seriously, at the end of the day, it’s a new Waits album. And you know as well as I that there are two types of people in this world: those that like his music, and those that don’t. The ones that do are also usually whiskey fans.
Oh, and he does a dynamite cover of Frank Sinatra’s Young at Heart to close Bawlers.