Cage - Supremacy of Steel review

Year : 2011
Genre : Aggressive Power Metal
Label : Music Buy Mail (EU) Heavy Metal Media (US)
Origin : United States
Rating : 9.5 / 10

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Engaging monumental overheft right from the beginning to the end, ancient power metal formation Cage does not give you a single, tiny solitary gap to form any of your worthless, puny, insignificant doubts regarding their latest variant of music, and you truly must suck tremendously to do so, as I just realized. Cage's latest contribution, called "Supremacy of Steel" - there you have it all right - plays a game fueled by nothing less and nothing else than crystal clear cheese-honesty and heft-intent, as this 1 hour and 6 minutes fistpumpa' affair - European Bonus track "Skinned Alive" (as a start, I suppose) - included - paints up the exact limit signs in a way to form the region that the stone-traditional heavy metal fan would likely feel most comfortable on.

This is Iron Maiden's brand of power metal, but, hell, imagine that the members of Iron Maiden are coming to play for you tonight with their mindset being ready to kill, and truly, have no other primer interests, either. It is the hot as hell-, flamethrower grade power metal of hyper-aggression, the variant that enjoys the position to declare itself factually unblemished and awesome even as serious matter and as brilliant parody of itself. Yes, this is a molten cheesefest and unalloyed epicness, they become the same during this spin to form that silly little thing called "fun" you are in this for at the first place. You can join in virtually anytime, - why not from the start, though? - because the music is deeply similar / deeply great in character throughout. Read on to find out more about this.


My number 1 Iron Maiden analogy already has been used up, so I take number 2 to paint the percepts regarding the sound. This record is positively and obscenely thick as a sonic fabric, and its primal charm lies in the fact that it shows no interest whatsoever in embracing recent day glitter-production 111 metalcore release of 100 sports, nor in the bombastic analogue classic sound you can hear on this or this great respective pieces. Cage brings the epitome of the "oh, this is the pair of my trusty oldshool monolith amps" sound and provokes the Animal out of the dangerous things. The bass is the mere safety of the pilot chair of a casual battlecruiser under your ass, the drums-, regardless how they contained within true sonic maelstrom all the way through - summon and pack the relentless Presence to CUT through the mix with the snare, and the tams produce a rumble that even this galactic bass finds itself humbled by, and this is the whole fucking idea, to be honest.

The guitar work-, when not delivering a nice, traditional coffee grinder solo - is coming to you in the mid-range as a substance-presence to coat the vocals in. The riffcraft, for the most part, is very similar to the Iron Maidenish ethos of being happy about inviting THEN kicking a random melodic emphasis in the face with a roundhouse kick - AND a crash cymbal - for inescapable instant effect. The lead singer dude gives a trusty likeness-performance as far as the requirements go, in my opinion. He sounds to be a diligent fan of both Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford, and delivers the content accordingly. The musical mannerisms of the record, though quick to reveal their favorite doings and methodologies, emerge as the actual pure gold benefits of the release, because Cage's Supremacy of Steel can safely say about itself that it serves your aggressive power metal needs out with 111% efficiency. By the end of the release, you are chrome, Dear Lady, your legs are silhouette symphonies and I want your number.

Rating : 9.5 / 10

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Steel Panther - Balls Out review

Year : 2011
Genre : Glam / Penis Metal
Label : Universal
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.0 / 10

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Steel Panther does not make the miserable critic's life easier, as it is not enough that the band's latest contribution is an unblemished hair me... penis metal delivery when witnessed from the angle it wants you to entertain along, - meaning nothing more or else than hearing, you little rascal, you! - it also features lyrics that sooner or later WILL start to kick one hysteric laugh after the other out of you, no matter how hard you tried to resist like a respectable stock-civilian. This, first and foremost, is a commercial microwave product solely engineered to immediate consumption while it tolls the idiotic giggle out of you via the oh!, so naughtyness it wettily swims - gihi, gihi! - in. This is '80s, early '90s glam metal galore with a relentless comic-book sex fixation. Legs, lips, tits, meat, more legs, more tits, more lips, more meat, until you need 5 magical minutes to recuperate. This is the Life of Your Rock Star God who Has It All and Fails to Give a Shit Anymore, until he has the opportunity - again - to witness two drunk chicks - others, this time - licking out cocaine from each other's ass, now THAT still demands a minute or so of attention. This is the underlying parody-ethos of this decently presented commercial product, and deciphering it any other way will make you look kind of bitter and super-miserable, which is a pretty clever trick of the album. You can't oppose it without coming across as a tool, because it is the deliberate comic-book caricature of a lifestyle the judger probably has zero access to.

You, who judge, are only angry at it because you are not part of it.

As such, brutally negativistic notions about this harmless commercial product are not only unnecessary, they simply can not have significant weight on this LP, either. Quite the contrary : they are making it only more notorious, and more sellable. Which is part of the plan, of course. If you are crying out "this is the desanctification of metal!" - then you are 1. wrong, 2. have been brainwashed, and you are making money for the creators. Not believe me? Hah. Not a single person who has been brainwashed, has knowledge about it. If you think metal can't take a parody like this, - and an EXIGENT parody, mind us, because

Steel Panther is legit glam metal

- then your current conception of metal should be wasted, in my opinion.

Steel Panther's Balls Out is not at all pretentious - positive - nor utterly relevant enough - negative - to develop a largely bullshit-based valuesystem-hate for, yet, being enthusiastically blown away by this product, which is primarily out there to make you a Buyer via serving out your most superficial soul-content and deluding you to think that the album is not about the creator's bank account but about YOU, on the other hand, is the equivalent of you tattooing "ATTENTION! I'm a retarded fucking turd and I like fantasy too, and I also am the guy who likes to get slapped around!" on your forehead. This is why and how this LP has the potential - haha, haha, ahahaha! - to be somewhat relevant to the genuinely staggered - smaller group - and to the drunk-ass audience that mainly looks to pump fists while throwing up on each other during a live show. Read more about this marketing attempt, or don't.


The record knows and utilizes - in an enjoyably realized manner, musically speaking - all the clever harmonic mechanics and the proven-, ever-vigorated pattern-platitudes of the glam metal genre, and, what is totally respectable from the album, is that it does not want to offer anything else or anything less than the 101% fulfillment of the - by the way : quite steep - requirements of still-enjoyable classic hair metal you prefer to deny you - sometime - enjoy.

Yes, the most cheapest form of the ethos of glam metal is kind of directed to the 13 year old girl -, who else does feel anything but the urge to shed a tear for perplexing lines like Poison's "Talk dirty to me", OMFG - but we should never forget that the glam metal vibe also could produce much more relevant popcultural deliveries, Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine, for instance. (I know all Guns N' Roses songs by heart, and I feel secretly embarrassed about it a little, this is the magic of glam metal.)

Steel Panther's Balls Out shows equal interest in delivering along the more intense form of the style, while also making valiant and relevant attempts to revive the Aerosmith / Bon Jovi glam metal ballad with lyrical themes fixated on harmless comic-book porno. As hinted, the whole album is about explicit, harmless comic-book porno, and this direction is quite suitable to make you look more and more idiotic as you even ATTEMPT to oppose it. As hinted, the lyrics sometimes will get you completely off-guard, which simply is the most efficient quality of the release. An example : "Tomorrow I'll go to a party, tomorrow, I'll get myself some pussy, but, tonight : I'll jerk off."

In my opinion, you need to be an exceptionally sad person if you do not laugh at such a line. Mike Patton comes to mind who says : "Slayer. What can you tell about Slayer? I do not trust ANYBODY, who doesn't like Slayer."

There is a track on this album with a superb sequence. Track 11, called "I like drugs" has a powerful harmony/vocal melody collision from 1:42. If the album would feature ideas like this instead of the microwave glam it is primarily fond at, I would give the 8.0 even if the lyrics were : pussy!, cock!, pussy!, cock!, pussy! all over. But "I like drugs" is a pretty decent track, and it reeks classic Guns 'N Roses, Aerosmith glam-intensity all the way. Nothing you have never heard before, but very authentically, muscularly and properly done for that.

But, the reality of related things is that the more jokes a man offers about his genitals, the less interested I am in those jokes. And I show ZERO for the cock itself, OK?? Anyway. Steel Panther's Balls Out should be among your number one picks to surprise your feminist friends with. It is not the tragedy of this album if it produces millions of sales, it is the tragedy of humankind, but hey, life goes on.

Rating : 7.0 / 10

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Steel Panther - Balls Out review

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