Happy 1998

It's 1998 in the Year-a-Month Project.

Iron Maiden: Virtual XI - Blaze Bayley returns as the lead singer on this album, and he's growing on me. I find him as easy to listen to as Bruce Dickinson, and his influence hasn't seemed to hurt the Iron Maiden style very much. But in a couple of years (2000) Bruce will be back, and that's just fine with me, too.

Anthrax: Volume 8: The Threat Is Real - The critics didn't care for this album (2.5/5), but I thought it was a pretty good offering by Anthrax. Of course, any album without Joey Belladonna on vocals automatically gets an extra star in my book. The 46-second track Cupajoe ("I really need a cup of coffee/go get me a cupajoe!") will probably be cycling in my head every morning for the foreseeable future.

KoRn: Follow The Leader - Every month, KoRn gets a little stranger. This album starts with 12 tracks of silence, each about 5 seconds long, and the last track has the 1990s obligatory long silent stretch followed by some stoner spoken-word. In between, the circus-like insanity-metal is nearly as pronounced as Mr Bungle, and is broken up by some truly bizarre metal-rap featuring Ice Cube.

Stabbing Westward: Darkest Days - This felt like a continuation of Wither Blister Burn and Peel, but without the passion. I hope it helped to finance their heroin habit, because it wasn't good for much else. Some consider this to be Stabbing Westward's best album; all I can say is, "Meh."

Happy 1997

It's a short list of albums this month on the Year a Month project.

Judas Priest: Jugulator - When I first started this project 3 years ago, I didn't think I would like Judas Priest, and I hated Rob Halford's vocals. Over the years, he has grown on me like a screechy fungus; and today I'm listening to the first Judas Priest album without him. I don't dislike Ripper Owens, and the rest of the band has the same groove metal flavor I love. But Priest just isn't the same without Halford.

Megadeth: Cryptic Writings - This is a post-Youthanasia album, and Youthanasia seems to be some kind of sell-out turning point for Megadeth. There are a few tracks that sound like the old angry  band, like Vortex, but there are others that seem to be trying to capture a mainstream audience by way of being washed out and sissified. Where Metallica goes, Dave Mustaine follows, I guess.

Overkill: From the Underground and Below - I was struck by how much the drums and guitars on this album sounded like Metallica's style, at least in terms of rhythm. The vocals are totally different, of course, since Blitz Ellsworth sounds like he's gargling a glass of water and is starting to choke. I'm not a big fan of Overkill's vocals; but the guitars make up for it.

Happy 1996

It's 1996 in the Year-a-Month project, and at first I thought I would be splitting this year up over two months, but a combination of Freegal and laughably expensive albums whittled the order down to a reasonable level. I skipped albums by Danzig and Staind for price reasons, and scored Dio and ZZ Top through Freegal. Although in fairness, I doubt I would have bothered with ZZ Top if it weren't free.

Pantera: The Great Southern Trendkill - the opening scream on the opening track of The Great Southern Trendkill lets you know you're listening to Pantera: the band that invented the heavy metal scream vocals. They're really turning into the band that they were destined to become. It pains me that there is only one more album coming.

Dio: Angry Machines - picked this album up off of Freegal a month or two ago over the course of a couple of weeks. I love how Dio manages to change so much between albums, but still maintain the basic 70s-era sound that he's famous for. I forgot, as I listened, that this was a 1996 album (until the heavy synth on Stay Out of My Mind, of course).

Korn: Life Is Peachy - this one is shipping... but it's been a long time, so I'm not going to delay this post any longer for it. It's Korn. I'm sure it's awesome. Maybe I'll update the post with a review after it shows up.

Tool: Ænima - Say what you like about Tool, but their arrangements and production are second to none. Every song paints a unique picture, and yet the whole album hangs together in tone and feel.

ZZ Top: Rhythmeen - also scored this album from Freegal. It took 3 weeks to download it all, since Freegal only allows 5 songs a week. But since I rarely can find things I want in Freegal's inventory, it's not like I have a big to-download queue.

Overkill: The Killing Kind - This was a controversial album for Overkill, with two new guitarists and the addition of backing vocals. The press loved it, but fans predictably polarized into two camps: those that loved it, and those that hated it. I guess I'm not an Overkill fan, because I didn't even notice a change from the 1994 album WFO.

Motörhead: Overnight Sensation - this the only Motörhead album I know of that shows the band members on the front instead of the usual "war pig". That's Lemmy in the middle. I think the war pig is better looking. But fear not... the cover is the only thing different about this album.

Happy 1995, part 2

There was a long list of artists in 1995, so I split them up into two groups. Last month, I covered Maiden, Ozzy, Anthrax, and Filter. This month, we conclude 1995 with a foray into a couple of new bands, and more of the same from Motorhead.

Deftones: Adrenaline - Just like Filter last month, this is not metal. It's firmly in the "Alternative Rock" category, but it's good music to program to. I first found the Deftones after falling in love with The Matrix, buying the soundtrack, and then going out and buying albums from most of the artists on the soundtrack. Consequently, I have the next release, Around the Fur, so we won't be hearing from the Deftones on this blog until I cover the year 2000.

Acid King: Zoroaster - this is the first "stoner metal" album I have ever heard, so I didn't really know what to expect. It turns out that "stoner metal" means, at least to Acid King, a heavy baseline, distorted guitars, and a raggedy-voiced singer. Sounds good to me! This is also the first album I've downloaded for free (and legally) using the Freegal music service that I have access to as a member of the Poudre River Public Library district. Free music is good.

Motorhead: Sacrifice - I have a really hard time finding new things to say about Motorhead every couple of months. These guys' sound doesn't really change much from album to album, and I find them disappearing into the background when I listen to them while I work. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, and I keep them on the list because I do like their formula. I've gotten some flak for including Motorhead and not Kiss or AC/DC, and it really just comes down to my own personal taste.

There was also supposed to be a new stoner-metal band called Mushroomhead in this group, but I couldn't find their eponymous album for less than $28. Not willing to spend that much money on a band without ever hearing them before, I'll skip their 1995 debut album. Reminds me of the early Pantera days.

Happy 1995, part 1

Even after trimming the list some, I had eight albums to pick up for 1995. So to control the monthly outlays on this little project, I've split 1995 into two groups of four. There is no rhyme or reason to the split - the bands are just in the order in which they appear in my band list.

Iron Maiden: The X Factor - Blaze Bayley from Wolfsbane replaces Bruce Dickinson in lead vocals on this album. The moment he opened his mouth on Sign of the Cross, I started missing Bruce. He's not terrible, but he has some huge shoes to fill. Otherwise, this album follows the same winning formula as previous Maiden albums. I'll get used to Blaze eventually.

Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzmosis - Ozzy seems to have decided that he has earned enough heavy metal street cred, and now is the time to cash in with some mainstream "rock". I can't really blame him that much... Metallica started their two-album cash-in projects Load and Reload in 1996, just one year later. The economy was recovering, and people were buying whatever dreck was being released by their favorite artists, in the hopes that it would take them back to their teen years. But really, Ozzy, this album sucks. Shame on you.

Anthrax: Stomp 442 - There is something about the vocals in Anthrax that usually drives me crazy, but this album has John Bush instead of Joey Belladonna on lead vocals, and I found myself really enjoying it. The heavy guitars that I love are still there, and the groove-metal sound, but without the heavy New-York-rap sort of vocal style. Highly recommended.

Filter: Short Bus - Let's get this out of the way first: this isn't metal. But I added it to the list because I had fond memories of Filter's hit Hey Man Nice Shot, and I wanted to see how they sounded on the balance of the tracks. It's clearly a first effort, but the general sound is good, and I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of their stuff in future months (aka future years!).



Amazon rolled out a brand-new service this month called Auto-Rip. They take all your past and current CD purchases and automatically add them to your Amazon Cloud Player as MP3s, which you can directly download. It's a new service with limited coverage, so they are focusing on the most mainstream albums first. This month, only Iron Maiden made the cut, but it was nice not to have to rip the CD. I have to wonder what this will do to Amazon MP3 sales... I frequently find that the hard CD is much cheaper than the MP3 album; now, I get MP3s either way (most of the time). Further proof that the content-licensing industry's prices continue to make no sense at all from a cost-margin standpoint.

Now if I could just somehow get Amazon to charge me the lower rate for a physical CD, auto-rip it, and then not burn the resources to ship it to me, I'll be all set. Or... maybe MP3 prices will fall to reflect their nearly zero cost. Yeah, right.

Happy 1994

1994 was a very special year for me, because I started it engaged to the love of my life, and ended it on our honeymoon. She married an unemployed bum, because I had left my job at Andersen Consulting and was taking much of December off before starting my new one at the Chicago Stock Exchange. We were still living downtown and saving loads of money for that first house. Here is what was going on in hard rock and metal that year.

Stabbing Westward: Ungod - This was Stabbing Westward's debut album, and although they aren't strictly metal, they've earned a spot on this list. I thought Stabbing Westward had entered my consciousness with Wither Blister Burn & Peel (1996), but of course I recognized Control when it played. This is a good disc, but I recommend keeping the razor blades out of reach while listening to it. Pretty standard for Stabbing Westward, I guess.

Pantera: Far Beyond Driven - Every Pantera album is heavier than the last. In this one, the vocals start bordering on the growling that I find so annoying in "modern" heavy metal. These kids and their growling heavy metal singers, have they no respect!? It's still a groovy sound, and I happily added it to my playlist rotation, but I have to say I liked Vulgar Display of Power quite a lot more.

Korn: Korn - One word: Issues. Korn's blend of heavily distorted guitar, pounding base, and lyrics that alternate between sing-song and rage-growl paint a picture of a deeply distorted main character. Whether this is a self-portrait, therapy-rock style, or a Pink Floyd-like fictional character is largely immaterial. It's impossible to listen to this album, especially with the lyrics in front of you, and not feel sympathy mixed with revulsion for the pro(?)tagonist.

Overkill : W.F.O. - I know so little about Overkill, since they were unknown to me until I started this project. But their music never fails to get me headbanging. There is a secret track at the end with a little practice material where they play a couple of snippets from Dio's Heaven and Hell and Judas Priest's Ripper, which is fun and cool stuff. Why they insisted on sticking 90 tracks of 1-second silence in front of it is a mystery. Korn did the same thing. Must have been all the rage in 1994 or something, but it's very annoying.

Danzig: 4p - This CD was delayed because it was shipping all the way from the UK, so I had written the above two paragraphs about Korn and Overkill making the annoying decision to include a bunch of silent tracks at the end before a hidden track. Then this album arrived, and lo and behold, 53 empty tracks between track 12 and the hidden track 66 (Invocation). I remember having a CD player back then that would physically adjust the heads every time it switched tracks. I can only imagine what these discs would have done to it, if I had played them over and over.

CS|MACO Wakes Up

On Thursday morning, the American Association of Individual Investors' Sentiment Survey showed that 38.5% of their (paying) members reported being bullish. This was up 2.8% from the previous week. At the end of the trading day on Thursday, SPY closed below its 200-day moving average, down $5/share, or 3.5%, from Tuesday's close.

This close below the 200-day moving average caused CS|MACO to signal a position-closing trade. Don't remember what CS|MACO is? I don't blame you - it's been very quiet since May, when it went long SPY. As a primarily trend-following trade, the longer it holds a position the more likely it will make serious money. But unfortunately, it also means it will give back a large proportion of its profits when the market turns against it.

This position was typical. CS|MACO signaled a buy on May 10 when the folks who feel obligated to pay AAII for the privilege of filling out a weekly sentiment survey reported that they felt profoundly un-bullish (only 25.4% of them were optimistic). That entry at 136 was about 1/3 of the way through a down-move in the S&P that bottomed on June 4 at 128 (closing price), only to rally throughout the summer to a high of 147.20 (closing price) on September 14 - one of my favorite days of the year. Since then the volatility of the S&P has been increasing and it has been drifting lower through a series of bounces. I knew it was only a matter of time until the 200-day moving average was crossed.

CS|MACO will stay out of the market until one of the following occurs:

• AAII comes out with a bullish number below 27.5% (buy signal); or
• SPY closes above the 200-day moving average again (buy signal); or
• SPY closes below the 200-day moving average, and it in turn closes below the 300-day moving average (short signal). That will be a while.

Just for fun, here's a little chart that plots the weekly prices of SPY (taken on Wednesdays) and the AAII bullish sentiment number. I've limited the time range to be the period of CS|MACO's latest position; that is, May 10-Nov 8.

Including dividends, CS|MACO is up about 4% on a Return on Investment basis since its inception in September 2010. Not a great track record, but I'm sticking with it for now.