Shotgun CD reviews are short reviews on CDs that you can usually pick up for $10 or less. For further explanation, check the FAQ. To have your band’s CD reviewed, drop me a line on my contact page.

Tragedy – We Rock Sweet Balls, And Can Do No Wrong (rock): After writing about Tragedy back in March, the band was nice enough to send over a copy of their album for me to review. It has taken me months to try to figure out what to say about it because even though the album is swimming in cowbell and has a fair number of old school metal windup screams (eeeaaAAaaAAaaAAH!), there is no way to escape the fact that I’m listening to hard rock covers of Bee Gees songs. Yes, you heard me. Hard Rock covers of Bee Gees songs.

I’m not going to pretend that I can sit down and listen to this every day or that it doesn’t come with a massive cringe factor, but like the Golden Throats series, it’s difficult to deny the album is fun. In some respects, it’s the two girls one cup of hard rock: Despite having a hard time turning away from it, you get a sick pleasure from tricking other people into checking it out. Nearly every metal and hard rock fan has the same reaction at that gruesome moment when they realize what they’re listening to, and their faces contort into a confused mixture of amusement and repulsion.

Of course, novelty is the point and the band knows it. If having an album cover that has lightning, fire, an Iron Maiden font, a Led Zeppelin font, and the words “We Rock Sweet Balls And Can Do No Wrong” aren’t enough to tell you that the album is tongue in cheek, then Tragedy’s version of “You should be Dancing” should be more than enough. The track has a breakdown in the style of Spinal Tap’s “Stonehenge” (No one knows who they were… Or what they were doing…) where an evil sounding voice talks about evil pagan babies with hooves for two full minutes. I’m actually ashamed, but I laugh and shake my head at it almost every time I hear it.

It’s pretty clear that the band isn’t taking themselves too seriously, and I can’t help from laughing a lot while I’m listening. This may not be something that you’ll listen to every day, but it’s one of those oddities that is awesome to have in your CD collection to spring on people when they least expect it. B+

The Distillers – (self-titled) (punk): I don’t know if it’s the catchiness of the songs or the novelty of having Brody Armstrong’s raspy female lead vocals fronting a punk band, but I got sucked into buying this album. Unfortunately, after a number of listens, the novelty wore off because the style of the album is a 2000’s era, post punk that is as far removed from punk as glam was from metal. Even though Brody’s raspy vocals have a nice punch and the basslines sound like they were ripped out of the Op Ivy songbook (maybe influenced by Brody’s marriage to ex-Op Ivy guitarist Tim Armstrong?), there’s something missing that I can’t put my finger on. Sure, she rebelliously says “fuck you” a number of times as “L.A. Girl” winds down, but it’s almost like the words are being repeated in the hopes of making them sound as if there’s some actual angst behind them. Look, this album has a nice sound and it’s catchy, but it lacked a spark that left it feeling hollow to me. It’s certainly suitable for fans of 2000 era pseudo punk (Green Day, Rancid, The Offspring) who are looking for a little more edge, but for me, it ends up feeling like a well done forgery of a master painter’s work. C+

High On Fire – Surrounded By Thieves (doom): If Matt Pike’s doom credibility for being one of the founding members of the stoner giant, Sleep doesn’t wow you, then the fact that this release would’ve been released on Frank Kozik’s Man’s Ruin Records (had the label not gone under) should. And while cred doesn’t make music, Pike as a front man for High on Fire really works well on this 2002 Relapse release.

Sometimes the repetition and heaviness of doom can cross the line from feeling like something is bearing down on you into something downright sleep inducing, but this wasn’t really a problem on this album. Surrounded By Thieves has the same downtuned heavy feel that you’d expect from doom, but it’s faster paced than the genre normally allows. Rather than feeling like a lumbering giant, the album feels like a horde of marauding warriors on Clydesdales pounding across a rocky landscape toward battle. Despite the faster pace, it maintains the bare bones doom sound that you’d expect. You’re not going to find any intricate guitar work here, but then, those imaginary warriors probably didn’t need jewels all over their battle axes to be imposing and effective. B+

Amon Amarth – Once Sent From the Golden Hall (death metal): In Tolkien’s middle earth there is a volcano called the Mountain of Fate. In Elvish, that volcano’s name was “Amon Amarth”. Vikings, Hobbits, and metal, oh my! Released way back in 1998, this was Amon Amarth’s first release on Metal Blade records. I’ve written about a couple of the band’s later albums (The Fate Of Norns and With Odin On Our Side), but this release is markedly different from their later material. It definitely tows the Viking line (and even includes Viking battle sounds on “Amon Amarth”), but a fair amount of the album has a pace that has more in common with thrash than the slower, more epic Viking feel that I’ve come to expect from their later releases. If I never heard their other albums, I would probably think this one was fine, but because it seems like the band hit their stylistic stride after this was released, it’s not one of the albums that I typically reach for. If you like Vikings and thrash, or already own some other Amon Amarth releases, this may be an album to pick up, but it’s not something that conveys the epic feel that I normally require when food shopping. Don’t ask (it’s all explained in the With Odin On Our Side Review linked above).C+

Entombed – self-titled (metal): This isn’t actually a studio album, but a compilation of earlier EP’s (Out of Hand, Stranger Aeons, and Crawl) that were originally released between 1991 and 1993. It’s certainly not a bad listen, but the album is simply a bunch of outtakes and singles from their first three albums mixed in with a few covers. While covers like Kiss’s “God Thunder” and Repulsion’s “Black Breath” don’t really add anything new to the tracks, there is a decent cover of Roky Erikson’s “Night of the Vampire”. I hate to discourage people from picking this up because it’s a really good listen once you get past the discontinuity, but there are a number of better Entombed albums to buy before you get to this one. This is geared more toward the Entombed fan who is looking to save themselves from buying three EPs than someone who is looking for a consistent studio release from this Swedish metal band. B

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