User
Reviews 19 Approval 93%
Soundoffs 29 Album Ratings 417 Objectivity 63%
Last Active 10-30-22 11:20 pm Joined 06-28-18
Review Comments 280
| Wikipedia page for Sputnik?
Did anyone else notice that the Wikipedia for Sputnikmusic has apparently been nuked? Not the whole page, but I thought someone went back last year and worked on it, and I remember it having a lot more content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnikmusic | 1 | | Nuclear Assault Survive
Maybe not their very best work, but my personal favorite, as it was the first album that came out when I was really into them. | 2 | | Nuclear Assault The Plague
My vote for their best album, just because it's short and every song is awesome, making it a perfect release. And this is the album I have in mind when I think "perfect": Its perfectly INTEGRATED, and best listened to in one session, from start to finish. I'm not consistent on this -- not all my Classic albums fit this criterion -- but this is the one album that comes to mind when I think about the meaning of "perfect" and "Classic" on Sputnik
And it has the best slow thrash song ever written, imo | 3 | | Nuclear Assault Game Over
Probably has their best music, but I occasionally skip a couple tracks here and there when I go back to it, or just listen to part of it, or just listen to "Sin" then some other thrash, making it not quite perfect in comparison to Game Over. But rating stuff gets seriously hair-splitting sometimes, so as I write this it feels trivial. It's a killer album. | 4 | | Nuclear Assault Handle With Care
My friend picked this one up and I wasn't impressed with it enough to buy it myself, so I've never given it enough time. To my ears it has the crappiest production, and that was for a band whose production was never first-rate to begin with. But Critical Mass is one of Thrash's greatest songs, so maybe 2024 will be the year to try it again | |
Drifter
02.05.24 | the consequences of johnny's sleep token review are [hilarious] | kildare
02.05.24 | @ArsMoriendi: Thanx for bringing balance back to the force...ehrm, I mean "balance" in the peaceful Buddhist sense, not the misunderstood "prophecy of doom" sense when the Sith came back and all that | FrozenFirebug
02.05.24 | we should save face by nuking that album of the year chart too | ArsMoriendi
02.05.24 | Whoever revised the article did a good job doing so, but if anyone wants to pick apart the sources to make sure they line up with the article's content so another wikipedia-dick can't make a similar claim when deleting sources, it could be helpful
I might myself try to find notable sourced content to add to it as well, but yeah | JohnnyoftheWell
02.05.24 | Had a quick look at the (generally encouraging) discussion from the elimination debate, and they apparently found a few mainstream sources I hadn't seen before, which ig nice. Shame none of them appear on the page | ArsMoriendi
02.05.24 | You, or someone, should add them | someone
02.05.24 | i wont | ArsMoriendi
02.07.24 | Boo someone boo | Flugmorph
02.07.24 | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sputnikmusic
mr mustache putting in the word | kildare
02.07.24 | New 2024 resolution: Watch Wikipedia tutorials and get fluent with that stuff. Have wanted to for years, but this is the first time I've seen a really good point to do it | kkarron
02.07.24 | > And it has the best "slow" thrash song ever written, imo
If you mean Butt Fuck, the god yes. | kildare
02.07.24 | @Flugmorph: A perfectly written defense on Wikipedia -- mr mustache nailed it | kildare
02.07.24 | @kkaron: "Butt Fuck": no, I meant "The Plague." True, butt fuck has some slow sections, but the speed of the chorus is almost blast-beat, so I guess I wouldn't consider it a slow song. Also, at the time it was good for a chuckle and all, but it's a really light track -- it's just them fuck'n around, trying to be funny by being dicks in the chorus and a couple lyrics. I knew of exactly one person two grades ahead of me in high school who had come out, so we didn't really even think about lyrics like this at the time.
Just for the record, and for readers who don't know the song, the body of the lyrics have nothing to do with anal sex. He's talking about someone getting shitfaced and driving like a reckless asshole and getting a friend killed and then going to prison for it. This is followed by a bluesy section, where he and his buddies are just sitting around complaining about recording the album in Hollywood.
So I guess it's not THAT light. But it's not the frightening gloom of the human species being utterly annihilated by a hyper-lethal disease (think Ebola-Zaire crossed with the flu). Stephen King's The Stand was written during my generation's youth, a book about a virus engineered in a lab, so I assume that's what they had in mind. Not that drunken driving ending in the manslaughter of a friend isn't serious, but on a Sputnik-list that ranked seriousness, it wouldn't qualify as apocalyptic like a weaponized super-flu would.
Don't mean to lecture, but, fuck, I guess I can't help it. Just my nature. Am I lecturing, or being defensive? Honest answers welcome. I love psychology. If anyone out there has been itching to troll me -- and I KNOW you're out there -- now's probably a great time. | kkarron
02.08.24 | Mate I know, it's about Vince Neil and his shitty driving skills. I just appreciate its musical shitpostery in an age where thrash band were so ridiculously self-serious about themselves. | kildare
02.08.24 | Oh, it's about Vince Neil! Fuck a duck, I never saw that. The hair bands were their tribal rivals back then, so that makes total sense.
Yeah, I was pretty sure I was overreacting. You can tell I don't roll with social commentary very smoothly; about as smooth as the Canadian cars do in South Park. Society is pretty fractious these days, and I'm paranoid when talking about a lot of the music I grew up with. Back then some of the lyrical content just wasn't that big of a deal when hanging out with friends, but today it's considered wildly offensive and contentious. I'm embarrassed to write this, but I'll write it anyway because it's kind of funny now: I went to your profile and saw that you hadn't rated Nuclear Assault, so I imaged the possibility that you were baiting me and setting me up to crush me. I read about people getting stressed and depressed over trolling, but I'm far more comfortable with outright combat than the kind of sophisticated, nuanced piss-taking that so many long-time Sputniks excel in. I've never been good at the latter in verbal dialogue, and it's become an even more valuable skill in social media. Sometimes I remind myself of the scene in Happy Gilmore when he's drinking with a rival in the country club bar, and he flips out and breaks a bottle over the bar and threatens the guy with the broken end yelling "let's do it!"
Anyway, I haven't given that song a hard listen for decades, but you summarized its tone far better than I could have done, even if I'd spent a week thinking about it. Hmmm, does that mean that I'm too "self-serious," or just "too serious?" Cheers! | budgie
02.08.24 | nuke assault is so much fun | kildare
02.08.24 | "so much fun": Yeah, I never really looked at them that way until yesterday. It's been a few decades, but better late than never, I guess.
It occurs to me that Anthrax and Overkill, say, are also more "relaxed" than the early West Coast thrash bands. And Anthrax was willing to tour with non-metal bands like Public Enemy and Corrosion of Conformity, which was seriously -- is there a better word for this? -- transgressive for its time. (And those tours were disasters. Fans were too tribal back then).
But Billy Milano isn't very relaxed, and a lot of nazi skin-head bands also come from the East Coast, so it's probably more about personalities than scenes. | kildare
02.08.24 | I just went back and listened to Survive all the way through for possibly the second or third time ever: I almost ALWAYS skipped the Zeppelin cover at the end. I never really got the placement or reason for that track. But now that I see their fun side better it makes total sense. They're just not the type of guys that wanted to end the album in darkness. Thanks to kkarron and budgie for the enlightenment! | kkarron
02.09.24 | No biggie and lots of love, but...
> I went to your profile and saw that you hadn't rated Nuclear Assault
I totally have! Game Over is one of my rare 5's even! Nuclear Assault is, like budgie said, such a fun thrash band and I always have a soft spot for them. | kildare
02.10.24 | Yep, it's totally right there, "Game Over" in the Classic group. Sheesh.
Sorry about that. Go ahead and say it if you want: "Can't you read, dumbass?" No hard feelings if you do! | BAT
02.10.24 | i rememberr seeing someone doing like a sputnik lore wiki but it was only 3 pages and one of them was the dude who wrote it, wonder whatever happened with that or if it was just some sort of nightmare.
also always kinda slept on nuclear asssault, have one of their tour vhs somewhere. i doo dig dan lilkers grindier stuff like brutal truth/blurring. also reminds me i've still never given anthrax a proper listen either lol, think the only album i ever tried was sound of white noise which was aight. | kkarron
02.10.24 | hey I ain't got no beef with anyone that's into John Connely and Dan Lilker, we cool!
While we're at it, is it just me or has Connely turned into Udo Dirkschneider? As in
https://www.flickr.com/photos/td1761/20054368272
and
https://www.alamy.com/udo-dirkschneider-at-the-29th-wacken-open-air-festival-w-o-a-2018-wacken-02082018-usage-worldwide-image214359230.html | budgie
02.10.24 | anthrax is unlistenably mediocre to my taste | BAT
02.10.24 | i mostly just know madhouse from playing a shit ton of guitar hero 2 back in the day, always felt like it was a bit cheesier than the other 80s big four stuff so kinda just dismissed them based on that alone. that sod albums okay though | bellovddd
02.10.24 | 0.5 on the sleep token review is all that people need to know about sput | kildare
02.11.24 | @kkarron: I don't know Udo Dirkschneider, but judging from the pics Connely just needs a few gray hairs and he'll simulate Udo perfectly! | kildare
02.11.24 | @budgie: That a lot of people find them mediocre on this site surprised me when I first got on Sputnik, but I have to admit that in comparison to a lot of the metal that has come out since their heyday I guess I can see why ya'll find it mediocre. And they've aged about as well as Metallica and Megadeth, which is to say not great (Slayer, Testament and Death Angel have all aged better according to my listening habits).
But in the 80's I got into thrash from hardcore punk as opposed to the more typical Iron Maiden/Priest/Ozzy route, and Anthrax, Nuclear Assault and Slayer -- not to mention S.O.D. and the Germans -- sound punkier to my ears than any of their contemporaries (by punk I mean stuff like Black Flag, not Green Day), so I think that's why Among the Living especially clicked with me. They're not a band I'd recommend to someone interested getting into metal today, though. In fact, I only barely know today's metal, except for the old guys, so I'd probably just get them onto Sputnik | budgie
02.11.24 | you really feel like megadeth hasn't aged well? KIMB still sounds fresh and i'm pretty sure peace sells is the objectively greatest metal record of all time 😇. i agree with metallica though, after 20 years i really only think the debut holds up | budgie
02.11.24 | also, i like the punkier side of thrash too, check these recent crusty releases...
https://runstatetapes.bandcamp.com/album/after-the-bombs-complete-discography
https://runstatetapes.bandcamp.com/album/napalm-raid-wheel-of-war
https://krashpunk.bandcamp.com/album/devastation | kildare
02.11.24 | I guess I was being more of a dick about Megadeth than I let on: I don't even care much for Peace Sells(!).
I love -- LOVE -- like five Megadeth songs total (title track and Conjuration from Peace), and they're all from the 80's and early 90's. I know, I'm a bad metal fan (or is poser the more common word here?) And I even saw them live when they toured for Rust, and live music almost always opens things up for me like a drop of water in scotch. They sounded killer, but when I came home and popped them in, I just got....bored. Don't know why exactly.
But I think it has to do with the Punk vs. Heavy Metal elements in the music. If there's a spectrum (I've wanted to put this into a review for years) with Iron Maiden on one end and Black Flag on the other, I tend to think of Megadeth close to the Maiden end, and Slayer (and the Germans) closer to the Flag end. Mustaine is possibly the best guitarist in the bunch, but I've never much loved his solos; If I knew theory well enough to prove it I suspect that their too bluesy. I love those five songs, but whenever I've tried to get into the whole albums they...just...doesn't....ping!
Thanks for the recs. The first track on After the Bomb rocks. I'll definitely spend more time with those | budgie
02.11.24 | yeah i totally understand what you mean about the punk - metal gradient. that's why first 2 iron maiden albums are BY FAR my favorite, and punkier d-beat black metal is so much more fun than the emperor / dissection variants which sounds so sanitized
but wow, megadeth is just religious, but yeah their tradition is more "traditional heavy metal" guitar worship à la angel witch instead of early hardcore
and yeah, a list idea about that spectrum would be a lot of fun. i made a "black, speed, dbeat" list that's just a bunch of punk flavored metal with some hardcore sprinkled throughout, but a proper list examining the gradient would be worth making and worth reading | kildare
02.11.24 | "is more traditional heavy metal": It's VERY fucking cool to see someone who knows heavy metal make this statement. I've been thinking it without good confirmation for, like thirty years or some shit.
"a list idea about that spectrum": Yours would probably be better than mine. You clearly know the metal side better. On the other hand, it's cool that we came to Megadeth from different paths, so it would be complementary for the two thrash metal/hardcore factions (they didn't used to be factions!) if you focused on the NWOBHM path and me on the Hardcore. I'm no hardcore authority, but I could do it justice better than I could Maiden and Priest and those guys. It's only recently that I've really spent time with them :-(
But if coordination sounds interesting to you, it's gotta wait. Life is gonna catch up with me tomorrow. See the comments on my upcoming Joplin post | ToSmokMuzyki
02.11.24 | megadeth sucks balls
the more punk in metal the weaker it becomes, less carbon in the steel | kildare
02.11.24 | Wattie Buchan kicks Bruce Dickinson's ass any day. No matter what their swords are made of. | ToSmokMuzyki
02.11.24 | in that case theyre about even yea | kildare
02.11.24 | I mean, these days they'd probably look pretty pathetic, like Deniro in The Irishman, trying to look like dangerous bad asses but actually just shuffling around the ring looking unstable. But it might fun to watch for all that |
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