Album Review : Birdcloud - Birdcloud 8*

Birdcloud are two sweet looking girls, Jasmin and Mackenzie, who play guitar and mandolin and sing in a country/bluegrass style.  They are also an absolute disgrace, and hilarious.

You might not pick up from the song titles that Birdcloud's self titled debut is a fairly scathing, and bitingly funny, satire on redneck life.  As soon as the girls start singing though I defy you not to laugh, if you can manage it between the gasps of shock.

There are seven songs on the album, and most are fairly short making it more of an EP length in playing time.  The girls sing and play well, in just the sort of strings and voices style that I love in folk music.  In terms of their lyrics though, it's like listening to The Pierces suddenly being possessed by the spirit of The Macc Lads, it is both raunchy and squalid but delivered with a sort of innocent unknowing quality of their stupidity.

Saving Myself For Jesus has been banned by YouTube. Why ? It may be be the lyric 'my hymen belongs to Jesus', or it could be the references to titty fucking, dry humping or being poked in the back door.  The girls have encouraged fans to do cover versions and post them so have a look around.

Other subjects covered in their song range from boasting about their mock native American heritage on Indianer, bewailing the loss of a beloved pet in Bandit, and to be honest Warshin My Big Old Pussy requires no further description.

The music is good, the girls sing well, they shock and entertain in equal measure, it's a short album but you'll get your money's worth of belly laughs from it.

Album Review : Peace Sells Remastered - Megadeth 8*

Image via WikipediaI have made a mistake here, I realised that my vinyl copy of Peace Sells is no longer worth playing, my CD copy has vanished so I thought I would buy a download, and got seduced into buying this remastered version of Megadeth's classic second album.

I only own a handful of remastered albums, and to be honest, they are nearly all worse than the original releases. Marillion's updated Fugazi sounds like the drums were recorded in a telephone box, and on this effort Dave Mustaine has looked back on Peace Sells...But Who's Buying ? and thought to himself that he could make a better job of it, he was wrong.

The thing is, Peace Sells for Megadeth was pretty much a perfect album, it was full of rage and anger and fantastic guitar and drum work, it sounded raw and dangerous and brash and exciting. I think part of the problem with this re-mix is Dave's still not quite resolved problem with being fired from Metallica. In March 1986 Metallica released their finest album, the one that cemented their growing reputation and established both the band and thrash metal firmly at the forefront of popular metal, Master Of Puppets set a template for other bands to follow if they could.  MoP was massive, huge rhythm sections complemented great song writing and the polished, incredibly well rehearsed sound Metallica had achieved pulled their own style of thrash away from its hardcore roots.

In November 1986 Peace Sells was released, and it was a different sort of album.  Megedeth sounded like they walked into the studio drunk and angry, then they pounded out a few tracks in a fit of barely controlled rage. It was that feeling that at any moment Megadeth might go completely out of control that I loved about the band and this album, they always pushed to the very edge of their technical ability. This wasn't Metallica with their endless practise and overdubbing, most of the solos on PS sounds like Dave and Chris Poland just picked up their guitars, let rip at each other and then shouted "Fucking A!" when they'd finished. At any moment on Peace Sells you thought that Mustaine might throw down his guitar, snort a giant line of coke, punch and policeman and set fire to the place (actually, this is more or less what did happen).

So what has happened on this remastering ? Well, some of the vocals sound like they have been reworked, Mustaine's trademark sneering vocal style has been tamed a little, and overall the sound has been cleaned up a little.  This is where the problem lies, Megadeth's second album sounds like music made by men on the edge of sanity, it was an awesome, thrilling musical experience, and this remastered version has trimmed away some of those manic thrills and spills and made the whole thing just a touch too safe and clean.

I still rate this version as 8* as Megadeth have not managed to totally cock up their original sound, but if you are thinking of buying Peace Sells, then search out the original version, it's a solid 10* album on which Mustaine and company threw everything they possessed wholeheartedly into the music and created a quite awesome technical metal sound.