Voices: Games Without Frontiers

After a week home sitting in heat most of the days I'm really having trouble getting used to being outside again in bi-polar weather. When I left home yesterday it was 28 degrees with grey skies all around threatening... something at any moment. Halfway down here it was sunny with temperatures in the low 70's. What a difference a few hours and a couple hundred miles can make. It stayed that way until the sun went down, then somehow dropped to the low 20's overnight and stayed that way until 10a.m. this morning. Finally it hit its high of 32 around noon and stayed that way with brutal winds and, once again, threatening grey skies. I heard talk of an ice storm coming this way on Wednesday, but I put no faith in that. I fully believe ice storms are common here in the winter, and I expect them during my time here, but I also know you can't trust the forecasts here on any given day.

Did some Black Friday shopping and came back with some new music to listen to. Picked up In This Moment's 'Blood' and 'Black Widow'. I can't stand Maria Brink's voice. She has a good screaming voice, but her clean vocals just make me laugh. And the music itself isn't much better. I listened to both albums back to back on the way down and nothing stood out other than what's already being played on the radio. I don't even remember any of the other songs to be honest with you. Except their cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Closer", which could've been great considering 95% of what she sings about is sex and desire and her vocal deliveries. That's a song that just begs for a female vocalist to cover it and make it even more sexy than it already is. They do a good job until she decides to scream the chorus. At this point I'm convinced they'd be nothing without her looks to carry them. I'm surprised they haven't re-named the band yet. They might as well.

Also picked up Machine Head's 'Bloodstone & Diamonds' special edition, whose packaging is fucking massive and takes up a lot of space on the shelf. It's got good artwork though. The record itself is ok. I enjoyed it much more than 'Unto The Locust'. "Imaginal Cells" is great. I don't care if they didn't write the spoken word used in it, the effects they use on the spoken word is fantastic. A very moody track.

And picked up Judas Priest's 'Redeemer Of Souls', which is the best of the bunch I got. It's classic Priest, representing all eras in the way 'Angel Of Retribution' wished it could. And 'Angel' was written and recorded with the intent of being a love letter to the past. Halford kills it like no one else can. There's a part about 4 minutes into "Halls Of Valhalla" where Halford, in his mid 60's, let's out the best scream he's done since the 'Painkiller' days back in the early 90's. It doesn't have the wind behind it, but it's got the range. His voice has aged well more than almost any other vocalist I've heard. Even Bruce Dickinson's voice hit a turning point in the mid 90's. Not for the worse, mind you, but it was a change. I don't know what it is he does to maintain it, but I wish he'd tell other singers the secret. And from the first note to last "The Beginning Of The End" is hands down the best slow-tempo Priest has ever done. And it's vibe and tone could've easily made it the best track on 'Sad Wings Of Destiny'. It's the best record Priest have done since 'Jugulator' in '97 or '98, K.K. Downing in the band or not. Great album cover as well.