RECORDS

RECORDS

FRANCHISING FLIPPER

BON JOVI

Slippery When Wet

(Mercury)

Poor Jon Bon Jovi tries so hard to play the tough hetero rock guy, but invariably comes out sounding like he’d be more comfortable helping mom with the dishes.

For three straight albums now, Mr. Jovi (you can call him Bon) and his namesake Jovi ensemble have turned out soullessly efficient medium-heavy productrecords so startlingly unambitious, so completely oblivious to the qualities necessary for good rock ’n’ roll, that, aside from the occasional medium-lewd sexual reference, they could have been blueprinted by the PMRC as models for safe under-18 consumption.

The rock medium can be used to express all manner of important ideas, but Bon Jovi’s rock expresses nothing headier than the group’s own vanity and petty lust for stardom, offering only vague notions of a good time in return for their bamboozled fans’ allowance bucks. Hunky bozo Jon-Bon makes all the usual noises about rockin’ the night away and takin’ his baby away from this mean ol’ town, but in reality he’s as docile as Punky Brewster, and all the more sinister because of his attempts to sell himself as rebellious rockin’ dude.

Growing up as he did in New Jersey, Jon-Boy was undoubtedly exposed to lots of healthy musical influences; the fact that he’s managed to funnel all that inspiration into music this narrow is a tribute to the resiliency of human dopeyness. And you just know that once he’s finished sowing his hormonal wild oats, he’ll trade in rock ’n’ roll for something more dignified, like game-show hosting. A regular Chris Atkins, that Jon-Jon is.

Just for the record, Slippery When Wet (the third Bon Jovi LP, but who’s counting and who’ll notice the difference?) contains the usual self-glorifying would-be anthems (“Let It Rock,” “Raise Your Hands,” “Wild In The Streets”), a bit of feeble misogyny (“You Give Love A Bad Name”), and a healthy dose of melodramatic teen trauma (“Livin’ On A Prayer,” “Never Say Goodbye”). There’s also the public-service-minded “Social Disease,” which helpfully informs us that “love is a social disease.” Thanks, Jon!

Even bands like Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. possess the virtue of sounding like they believe in the drivel they’re spouting. But Bon Jovi sound as if they’d abandon their macho-wimp posturing in a minute if they thought Swedish folk tunes would make them famous quicker.

Bon Jovi obviously want to be Big, Really Big, and they’re not about to allow little details like moral and artistic bankruptcy keep them from their career objectives. Bon Jovi are Semi-Big already, and they’ll probably become BigBig very soon. Not for long, though. JonFace will lose his looks, and his fans will grow up and take responsible places in society. Except, of course, for the few who, inspired by the Bon Jovi example, will form groups of their own. And just think how insipid those bands will be.

Alexandra Staunton-James

DISCHARGE Grave New World

(Rock Hotel/Profile Records)

Discharge is back, and it’s real good to have ’em again. Discharge was one of the first English punk bands, back when the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks and all the rest were out and about, and one of the few to make a graceful transition (well, as about as graceful as it could possibly be) from the original Britpunk to hardcore.

Now, it seems, these English boyos have made still another transition, once again proving their ability to flow with the times. Perhaps a less kind reviewer might rephrase “flow with the times’’ into “shamelessly sell out by copping the latest style.” It all depends, one supposes, on whether one likes the record or not, ne c'est pas?

What we have here, is another punk band that went metal. A lot of punks I know were putting down Discharge for being a heavy metal band in drag all along, and there is/was some justification to that claim, as they never really lost that Sex Pistolish metallic edge to the guitar playing. I always thought that the guitar sound was a major part of why I always liked ’em.

This album, albeit with new guitar player Stephen Brookes, is true to the Discharge tradition of having absolutely the best guitar sound in all of rock ’n’ roll. Now listen carefully...l by no means am saying that the good Mr. Brookes is the best guitar player in rock ’n’ roll (that honor perhaps belonging to a pair of Californians with barely pronounceable names, but who cares?). I am saying that the two Discharge albums that I own— this new one and 1983’s Never Again, just have the guitar sound that sounds so cool on the car stereo at 100 mph on a clear moonlit night.

This new fellow, Mr. Brookes, adds that typical heavy metal make-the-guitarwhinny-like-a-horse style of lead guitar to the Steve Jones-type rhythm riffs that made “Never Again” such a great record. Like Keith Richards laying into a Chuck Berry song, he doesn’t do anything new, but he just does it with such balls that it doesn’t matter that it’s nothing you never heard before.

Add to this mix a new singing style for singer Keith Morris—who no longer rants and raves like Johnny Rotten’s bastard child with Henry Rollins but now sings like King Diamond on speed—and a rhythm section that still kicks butt like they always did, and you have the makings of a classic metal record.

The songs are even longer. Never Again, being the good punk LP that it was, had 17 songs. Grave New World has seven, each one a gem.

Another thing about these tunes, while we’re on the topic, is that, even though these lads “went metal,” they still sing about the things they used to; social reform, how bad the world sucks, etc., so you can listen to this record if you have a social conscience and have a real cool time without feeling guilty.

Paul “Doctor X” Nanna

VINNIE VINCENT INVASION

(Chrysalis)

Kiss has contributed many wonderful things to this wacky culture of ours, but commercially successful ex-members ain’t one of ’em. Like, when was the last time you saw Ace sharing a donut with Lita Ford, or Peter chatting it up on the Letterman show?

Following in the grand tradition is guitarist Vinnie Vincent, whose tenure in the band no one actually seems to remember. Given the jinx attached to Kiss spinoff projects, I’ll assume that Vinnie’s telling us the truth about this. So, as a former Kisser, the Big V’s got a historical strike or two against him. But then, Vincent’s new combo is no mere band; it’s an invasion.

After what must have been at least an hour’s worth of careful consideration, Vincent has assembled an elite group that he knows is just gonna impress the hell out of you. First, there’s singer Robert Fleischman, a man so talented he was once booted out of Journey in mid tour. At his best, Fleisch sounds like a lesssubtle Kevin DuBrow (if one can imagine such a thing). At his worst, you start to wonder if he hasn’t spent too much time listening to Hoovervacs rather than other vocalists.

In marked contrast, the rhythm section of bassist Dana Strum (who co-produced the LP with Vincent) and former Payolas drummer Bob Rock (who also engineered—must have long arms), are a model of restraint and good taste.

And then there’s Vinnie, who (surprise!) shows considerably more interest in masturbatory displays of technical facility than in projecting any sort of emotional nuance. This is metal of course, but Vincent’s tendency towards overkill works against his songs, which are for the most part fairly well-constructed and reasonably tuneful. Vincent’s melodic playing is A-OK, but his solos are too' often messy and ill-conceived.

Though presumably intended as a showcase for Vincent’s axe work, it’s the emphasis on pyrotechnics, ironically, that renders Invasion just another competent, unimaginitive commercial disc of moderate heaviosity. Though the material is structurally sound, the lyrics are generally pretty rotten. Song titles like “Boyz Are Gonna Rock” and ‘‘Shoot U Full Of Love” are tipoffs that we’re in sexually-threatened-male-ego territory Here. The macho balladry of ‘‘Back On The Streets” and the bogus S&M of ‘‘I Wanna Be Your Victim” is almost as icky.

Rest easy, Gene ’n’ Paul. The jinx is still in effect. Step forward, Mark St. John, we know you’ve got it in ya...

Alexandra Staunton-James

THE LEATHER NUN

Alive

(Wire import)

Being nowhere near privy to the lingo of non-heteromonogamous and/or onanistic psychosexual subculture, I can’t be entirely certain, but I’ve got a queezy feeling that Swede menage-a-funf Leather Nun is about as dangerous (in a sociological sense) as a soundwaveproducing entity can be in this age of lethal bloodstream-fluid-transmitted viri. Image/visual-wise they rely on none of the effeminate/andogynous stereotypes those of us on the other side of the fence have come to associate with said alternative lifestyle (though hardly exclusively anymore, as post-Alice/Dolls latencypandering-via-makeup abounds amongst the twisted mister misters in certain Hollywood quasi-metal crues). More relevant, though, are Leather Nun’s tendencies (both sonically and lyrically) toward heretofore uncharted extremes of excess. No fashionably effete post-AIDS sell-thestraights-fantasy-suppression or gay-oneon-one—these guys want the meat, all the meat, and they want it now. They know it’ll kill ’em, but they don’t care.

They sound like what would’ve happened to Motorhead if they’d veered in the direction of the aluminum-sheet-soaring of Hawkwind (Lemmy Kilmeister’s old band) instead of the brick-chucking of the Pink Fairies (old band of original Mo’head axedude Larry Wallis and tubsdude Lucas Fox).

Leather Nun makes Balls To The Wallera Accept (their nearest HM attitudinal peers, considering the German aggro’s fascination with ‘‘spurting in the dark/head over heels”) sound as flaccid and boring as Van Hagar. Leather Nun cruises at you like a snowball made of tar, expanding exponentially as it rolls. When it’s over, you want real bad to wash it off, but you can’t.

Alive (Wire import, 35 Queen Anne St., London, UK W1M 9F8), while hardly the band’s best record, is probably the best place to start sullying yourself with Leather Nun’s muck—it has more songs than other Nun discs, and serves as a live best-of of sorts. (The group has no fulllength studio albums, and though something called Leather Nun At Scala Cinema was supposedly released In 1979, I’ve never seen it.) Alive revives both sides of the combo’s great 1981 “Primemover”/‘‘F.F.A.” single, which backed the ultimate automobile-asphallus metaphor (‘‘Rolling down the street like a heatwave/Like a nuclear blast/Burning your body/Burning your soul”) with the most explicit depiction of sadomasochism I hope I ever hear (‘‘F.F.A.” doesn’t stand for ‘‘Future Farmers of America”; its chorus goes ‘‘let’s fist again/fist and shout”). There’s humongous Raw Power-Stoogesque thud-rockers like ‘‘Fly Angels Fly,” ‘‘Son Of A Good Family,” and ‘‘On The Road,” slimy mid-tempo sucktunes like “Busted Kneecaps” and “Lollipop,” and an incredibly pretty lonely-heart ballad called “For The Love Of Your Eyes” (dedicated to—surprise!!—“a very special girl”) that wouldn’t have been outclassed or out of place on the second Velvet Underground LP.

In the fast tracks, Anders Olson’s bass and Gert Claesson’s drums sway like E Pluribus Grand Funk, and the guitars of Bengt Aronsson and Nils Wohlarabe ejaculate over the rhythm section’s big bottom. Singer-songster Jonas Almqvist has the harshest, deepest northEuropean accent I’ve ever heard on vinyl—he always sounds like he’s got a mouthful of some phlegmy substance. And his words provide clues as to what that substance might be.

In addition to the album, the Nuns have released three non-LP 12" singles this year. Their latest, a deconstruction of Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” that piles freight-train grunge guitars and chiming cowbells atop an almost-disco synthbeat, is merely clever. But the seven-minute-plus “Desolation Ave.” and “506” are indispensable takes on the droning-voxand-fuzz’n’phase’n’feedback-above-wallof-rhythm psychotic-dirge-epic aesthetic previously explored by Black Sabbath in “War Pigs” and “Hand of Doom,” Pere Ubu in “Final Solution” and “30 Seconds Over Tokyo,” Nazareth in “The Ballad Of Hollis Brown,” Hawkwind in “The Psychedelic Warlords,” the New York Rock Ensemble in “Gravedigger,” Neil Young & Crazy Horse in “Shots,” the Velvets in “I Heard Her Call My Name,” and probably a few others I can’t remember right now. (Only non-Nun recent utilization of this modus operandi: I can think of is “Desperate Hours,” off Aussie band Died Pretty’s Next To Nothing EP.) This is brilliant stuff, simultaneously depressive and inspirational, and it’s as close to the apocalypse as heavy rock or any other kind gets. Though, for an even heftier kick, you might want to check out Leather Nun’s electronically funereal 1984 Slow Death EP, which includes the anarcho-punk classic “No Rule” (covered live of late by the Butthole Surfers) and an impossibly intense 15-minute in-concert version of the title track, guaranteed to permanently alter your way of thinking.

“The time has come to crush the old values...The old gods are fading fast,” Jonas Almqvist chants in “Prime Mover.” If Leather Nun’s sleeze-rock doesn’t achieve that goal, ain’t no music made by mere mortals going to.

Chuck Eddy

POISON

Look What The Cat Dragged In

(Enigma)

Poison’s debut LP, titled Look What The Cat Dragged In, is black and round with a hole in the middle. It has 10 cuts on it. The people in Poison wear funny clothes & BIG HAIR, but not as big as that gal in the Thompson Twins. Look What The Cat Dragged In’s cover is square & features photographs of band members. Not the bands’ members, which would be dreadful, as there are enough pictures of TINY WEENIES as it is.

I like my job. I get to say horrible things about people I’ll never meet. Or would want to. Plus, I get paid lotsa money for my opinion. Which is definitely more than you can say. You know why YOU don’t get paid GOOD AMERICAN MONEY for YOUR OPINION? Never mind. Pretty obnoxious, huh? Are you MAD yet? Huh?

YOU’LL NEVER, EVER be as SMART as MEEEE or the TRIUMVIRATE O’ METAL WISDOM. Then again, you’ll never be as boring as Poison, because you’ll read this review AND KNOW BETTER.

Yes, YOU LUCKY YOOHOOS, it’s Uncle Mark here to tell you Look What The Cat Dragged In is BORING. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s not even MEDIOCRE.

Ya want “real, serious” criticism? OK, fishface, suck on this: WAY BEFORE RICK DERRINGER (WHO IS WONDERFUL, THIS AIN’T A SWIPE AT YOU, MR. DERRINGER, YER ONE OF MY FAVE FAVE GUITARISTS, SO RELAX, OK?) EQUATED HEAVY METAL TO BIG TIME WRESTLING, I WAS SAYING THE SAME THING ONLY I SAID THAT WRESTLERS HAVE TO BE IN SHAPE TO THROW EACH OTHER AROUND LIKE THEY DO, BUT IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT THEY CAN DO ANYTHING THAT TAKES ACTUAL TALENT LIKE HITTING JACK MORRIS’S SPLIT-FINGER FASTBALL. HEAVY METAL GUITARISTS CERTANLY CAN PLAY THEIR INSTRUMENTS, SOME OF THEM ARE EVEN GOOD, BUT THEY SURE AS HECK DON’T KNOW A THING ABOUT SUBTLETY. Plus, if you traded someone “like” Blackie Lawless for Gene Simmons of Kiss, would anyone be able to tell the difference? I don’t think so: IT IS MY PAID-FOR OPINION that the majority of HM records could be made by the same dozen or so “people,” AND THAT THE PUBLIC WOULD NEVER KNOW THE DIFF. Aside from “vocalists,” that is. Berry Gordy knew this. Hadda whole stable of talented but faceless musicians cranking out backing tracks, and no one ever complained. INSTEAD OF WASTING TIME PUTTING A GROUP TOGETHER, WRITING SONGS, PRACTICING, SHOPPING FOR CLOTHES, BLAHBLAHBLAH, YOU COULD JUST CALL “THE HM TALENT AGENCY” & GET A PICK-UP BAND TO YOUR SPECIFICATIONS.

So what has that got to do with Look What The Cat Dragged In? To begin with, if there was indeed a “HM TALENT AGENCY,” Poison would be listed under “Bar Bands.” Because they’re not bad, they’re just not STELLAR players. BAR BAND BAR BAND BAR BAND. Secondly, their debut LP lacks all the way across the board in production values. Thirdly, the one good song “I Won’t Forget You” is a ballad, fer Chrissakes, what kinda crap is that? Fourthly, W.A.S.P. & Motley Crue, dude, ' ARE MUCH BIGGER WEENIES, THEREFORE BETTER. Poison are not Geniuses like Nikki Sixx & Blackie Lawless, dude. Go wash your faces, oh Yoohoo Legion!!!

Mark J. Norton

DESTRUCTION

Eternal Devastation

(Metal Blade)

Kneejerk boho/fag/intellectual/yuppie/geezer condescending rock-crit reaction to most speedmetal would no doubt be that you can’t in any way develop an aesthetic-type standard for the stuff because, well, you know, “it all sounds the same,” see, and (tho pe’haps it’s a wee bit, um, speedier than heavy metal recs used to be, thanks to the Sex Pistols, who were too hard in the first place but at least they acted like Commies so we pretended to like ’em) all heavy metal sucks the private parts of large equine mammals anyway, being sexist and mystical and JUST TOO DAMN LOUD an’ all, so why not just put on some real rock ’n’ roll, like a Carly Simon or Smiths or Air Supply record, and relax, ya know? Or you could be like noted “smart” guy Bob X-gau, self-assigned Dean of the rock-crit racket and act kinda openminded, and write (like he did re Black Sab’s God-like Paranoid LP back in 1970, when I was 10 years old and maybe you weren’t even born) “I suppose I could enjoy them as camp,” thus distinguishing himself from the masses of lumpenproles (like yours truly) who REALLY DO GET OFF ON THIS KINDA BRAIN-ROT, and not in any sorta “ironic” way, either. Or you could be like most of the frustrated hacks who scribe for this particular rag, and not even write about this type record at all, because you’d rather kiss the music biz’s butt and pretend you’ve got some place in your life for Keel albums, when really you haven’t put on a record not somehow connected with a paycheck for a good five years. Or you could show how hip you are by actually “reviewing” speed/death/black-metal discs, and saying they "summon the wrath of all Thor’s arch-enemies,” as if that meant something. Any way you look at it you lose.

Or maybe not. Connoisseur of gutwrenching horrible noise that I am, I’ve been listening to a lot of the stuff lately, and I’m realizing that most of the more marginal speedmetal bands (beyond Venom, Slayer, Metallica, Motorhead-ifthey-count, that is) do indeed have recognizable personalities and/or aural/textural characteristics; Celtic Frost is almost pure chaos, classified as HM only ’cuz there’s no other word for what they do (I call ’em “nuke-rock”); Voi Vod are fast glop-rockers a la Motorhead and early Venom, only with, funnier names (Away!! Piggy!!); Flotsam & Jetsam have one of the biggest beats in metal history; Cirith Ungol (who I don’t like very much) get off on all that bombastic mid-to-late’70s “progressive” crap; Trouble reconstructs early Sabbath (though not terribly well) as if Ozzy had been a Joy Division fan. Then there the poseurs—the Hiraxes and Deaf Dealers and Running Wilds and Bloodlusts—who I guess figure pretending they’re speed-metal will cause a lot of virile young boys to come to their shows, and maybe one or two of ’em will be willing to offer “favors” to the band. I’ve got some unplayed promo copies of the new Crystal Gayle and Gordon Lightfoot LPs for whatever questionably masculine person at Metal Blade decided Bloodlust’s abysmal Guilty As Sin album consists of “devastating heaviness combined with blinding speed.” They’ll probably figure Crystal is the reincarnation of Satan himself.

But this review is about Destruction, ain’t it? And Destruction rips the heads off full-grown rodents even before their album lands on the turntable. Which is to say these Krauts ain’t no pretty boys— though not exactly devotees of “the Metallica look” (as Barry Hehssler, lead singer of great Detroit riff-metal combo the Necros, now calls jeans and Nikes, like the ones Flotsam & Jetsam wear), Destruction also ain’t inclined to use makeup (or hairbrushes or bathtubs, judging from their LP photos), and that’s fine with me. Thing is, their sound is even more dirty than their bodies—agonized, off-kilter Blue Cheer-meets-Slayer garbage-yowl, hammering so hard it cleanses your sick mind. Lotsa tempo and mode changes, like in Metallica, with those fancy Stonehenge bass swirls like Metallica’s Cliff Burton uses, so when it gets real hard (which it does the vast majority of the time) you’re never ready for it. The LP cover doesn’t say which third of the power trio sings, but whoever it is reminds me of Die Kreuzen’s Dan Kubinski when he’s tearing his tonsils apart and of (here’s one for you old men) Sir Lord Baltimore’s John Garnei; when he’s reaching for those operatic high notes. In fact, quite a bit of Destruction’s modus operandi, like f’ristance the way they combine their blinding sonic gnarl with some kind of warped outsider’s idea of “art-rock,” is refreshingly reminiscent of that whole Sir Lord B./Dust/Uriah Heep/Lucifer’s Friend/Atomic Rooster wave of early-’70s “third generation” trash-metal. And if that ain’t the sort of thing that makes life in this debased world worth living, then I’ll be damned if I know what is. Chuck Eddy

CARNIVORE

Carnivore

(Roadracer Records)

Carnivore are great. They have a concept and everything. Real great players to boot... Let’s get into the concept first, though.

OK, this is the situation. You, Dear Reader, are the descendent of the survivors of the thermonuclear/germ warfare/ chemical warfare holocaust that occured six generations ago. You and your fellows have been living underground ever since then. (Yes, the whole six generations; don’t laugh, this is important to know if you’re ever going to understand why Carnivore are so cool...)

Anyway, the people who run your underground society have decided it’s finally safe to go up to the surface, all traces of radiation, chemicals, and germs having finally been wiped away by the hands of time, etc.

What the leaders of your subway tunnel group don’t know, however, is that some people had survived on the surface, and over the space of these six generations, had evolved into cannibalistic, super-mutant, barbarian street gangs. On the album, Carnivore plays this role. These guys see you and your pals from the subway as nothing more than fresh meat.

This concept is supported by heavy riffs played by the three fine musicians that comprise Carnivore: Keith Alexander (guitar), Louie Beateaux (drums and backing vocals), and Lord Petrus T. Steele (bass and lead vocals).

These guys play so good (just like my grammar is so good) that, if this were 12 or 13 years ago, they probably would’ve been in a band like Marillion or something, singing about peace and love and all that other boring stuff, considering the influences abounding at that time. However, that being then and this being now, their influences are considerably different.

They cite bands as extreme as GBH and Black Sabbath as being influential to their sound, and I can hear it in their music. This all makes for a pretty diverse sounding record, instead of the bangbang-bang/thrash-thrash-thrash one would expect from their concept. The singing’s OK, but not great, but that’s to be expected when bass players sing. (If you don’t believe me, ask Lemmy.) Anyway, I like it when the singer isn’t too operatic, if ya know what I mean.

As far as the tunes themselves go, they’re all pretty good, and one, “God Is Dead,” is great. They all seem to stick in your head, which is all too rare in metal these days. Besides, these guys have a sense of humor regarding their concept. The album’s opening cut “Predator,” has the following Inspirational Lyrics:

“I sense living human beings dwell beneath my feet/An important source of protein; you are what you eat.”

OK, this brings us back to the allimportant concept. This is where it gets sticky. On one hand, the true headbangers, fresh from all the Satanistic fantasy certain other bands shamelessly put forth will eat this up as a change of pace; a fresh reason to continue wearing leather and studs and act dumb/macho/ metal.

On the other hand, though, we have some people (like the good Doctor) who sometimes are conceited enough to demand some reality in our music. We want some lyrical substance to go along with the incredibly heavy riffs that are really what make this record so great.

I was like that until I remembered that The Road Warrior is my favorite movie of all time. Who am I to say mgsic should be any different? We all need a little escapist entertainment, right? Besides, “God Is Dead” is probably the greatest heavy metal song you’re going to hear this year and probably next year, too, so lighten up already and buy this record already, OK?

Paul “Doctor X” Nanna