...And Justice for Metallica: the defence

Damage Inc.: The Case For Metallica

Better Than You

There's a reason Metallica have done a lot better than the other 'Big Four' bands (Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer), and certainly those that didn't quite make it (Exodus, Testament, Overkill): songs. Less prolific than any of the others (even Anthrax, who seem intent on replacing at least one band member between releases), Metallica take time and care over their releases. All of them struggled through 'challenging' 1990s: Megadeth shat out the lamentable Risk and Cryptic Writings albums, Slayer compromised for once with Diabolus In Musica. Anthrax arguably fared best with Volume 8; a fine album but hardly representative of their former sound. All has been forgiven for those, but Metallica remain (pun intended) unforgiven in the eyes of many. Load and Re-Load have irrevocably damaged their status for many. Choose the best 14 songs from the 27 on offer and you'd have a better album than any of the others mentioned above. Compare this to Megadeth's approach of throwing lots of shit at a wall and releasing the results, yet nobody was out there decrying this year's Utopia album before it even came out. For every 'Peace Sells', Metallica have a 'Master of Puppets', a 'Blackened', a 'Fade To Black'. For every 'Reigning Blood', a 'Damage Inc' and a 'Struggle Within'. Songs trump heavy every time.

Fight Fire With Fire

Is there another band that does what Metallica do, with the same presence or size? Many have come and gone during their impressive tenure as biggest metal band in the world. Guns n Roses vanished up their own arses, having released 3 good songs 30 years ago. Several 'grunge' bands came and went, leaving only Pearl Jam in the same league, and only really Soundgarden and Alice In Chains embracing the metal. Pantera came, blew it, and went. Likewise, Sepultura. Of the nu-metal crop, Korn take the prolific Megadeth approach and as such are never as good as they should be; Slipknot can comfortably fill arenas are are probably the only band I can think of to compete. Linkin Park? I might as well suggest Bon Jovi. Avenged Sevenfold have graduated from ripping off Guns n Roses to ripping off Metallica, but do neither especially well. I would make an argument for Machine Head or Mastodon, but they're never going to sell even a quarter of what Metallica does.

Iron Maiden, once Metallica's idols, are now their peers, and one of the few with the same cultural presence. Maiden's music, while incredible, is easier on the wrists (more chords and melodies, less palm-muted riffs and speed), and they don't exactly stretch themselves musically. With five albums on the bounce produced by Kevin Shirley, I can almost predict what their next record will sound like. Don't get me wrong, I'll still buy it, but wouldn't you rather have a band that can surprise you, even if it is with Saint Anger?

The Outlaw Torn

From 1984's Ride The Lightning onwards, Metallica have steadfastly refused to take the easy option. Adding acoustic sections and mid-paced songs when the scene demanded ferocious speed was a brave move and they have always had something their peers lacked (or took a while to catch up with): artistic freedom. Following Ride with the genre-defining Master Of Puppets and the crushing but complex ...And Justice For All (the best album/worst production combination you'll ever hear), they were comfortably the best, most consistent thrash band. Collaborating with Bob Rock, they slowed things down and beat Kurt Cobain to the punch with the biggest album of 1991. The point being, they had the balls to try something other than 'let's just play as fast as possible'. It's no coincidence that Megadeth's Countdown To Extinction and Anthrax's Sound Of White Noise were slower and more groove-oriented than their predecessors.

Fast forward and they again had the guts to express some influences other than Iron Maiden and Motorhead with Load and Re-Load. And I should really address the furious elephant in the room that is Saint Anger. I liked this album on its release, the rough, unfinished production an extension of the wounded animal emotion of the songs. Yes, there are concessions to trends and the album is a criminal waste of Kirk Hammett's talent but pick through the drum sound and fury-over-focus approach and you'll find some gems: 'Frantic', 'Some Kind Of Monster', 'Invisible Kid', 'Sweet Amber' and the title track are absolute beasts. To bring us up to date, it's my contention that Death Magnetic is one of the finest metal albums of the last decade. Metallica don't like to repeat themselves and I'm excited to hear what they do next. There aren't many bands I can say that about.

Hero Of The Day

Even considering the bands that didn't make it to Metallica's level of success, few are subject to the same degree of scrutiny. How many bands follow up a career-defining album with another classic? Pantera followed A Vulgar Display of Power with the patchy Far Beyond Driven, Rage Against The Machine couldn't match their debut with the minor Evil Empire, Alice In Chains (probably because of heroin...) followed Dirt with the filler-filled Tripod album, and can anyone say that Tool's Lateralus is as good as Aenima? It happens but it's rare that bands can repeat the trick. So why, then, are Metallica written off when they don't release a new Master of Puppets every two years? How come Iron Maiden can get away with churning out four patchy-to-poor albums on the bounce (No Prayer for The Dying through to Virtual XI) and still be considered legends every time they make good but interchangeable records? Can you name the album Fleetwood Mac made after Rumours? (it was Tusk, but I had to look that up). And who can honestly tell me that they'll go see Black Sabbath on their upcoming farewell tour and hope to hear any songs written after 1975? That's only 5 years of songs taken from a 46-year career. So how come Metallica suck if they can't write another 'Seek And Destroy'? They probably could, it's just already been done.

Eye Of The Beholder

Do they deserve the pre-emptive, almost forensic scrutiny they're subjected to? Look at it this way: any band who puts their music out there will do so with the intention of selling at least some records. If you set out making heavy, aggressive music, you might naturally expect to sell fewer records but the hope would still be there. Metallica have been phenomenally successful at making heavy, aggressive music so the question should be whether they have compromised or 'sold out' by becoming so. Yes, their music has changed, but bands get bored and change. Yes, they have made music videos, played massive stadia and put themselves out there but success in their industry dictates that this happens. The only major bands I can think of that don't actively promote their own stuff are Pink Floyd and Pearl Jam; everyone else tows the line. So the only suggestion I can make for people who don't like what Metallica do to promote their own music and thus keep heavy metal in the pubic eye, is don't buy it. The Master Of Puppets days are not coming back. If you want 1986 over and over again, by all means listen to Slayer churn out the same album every few years. They didn't build the pedestal they're on; you did when you bought the Black Album. Don't begrudge them enjoying the spotlight you put them in. For me, it's good to know that there's one rock band out there that eats all the others for breakfast.

...And Justice For Metallica: the prosecution

91 million Metallica fans can't be wrong, can they? Let that sink in: 91 million certified album sales over 35 years, for a band whose music has its roots in thrash metal. That' more than Fleetwood Mac, more than Rod Stewart, more than Prince and certainly more than Guns n Roses (whose 'rock legend' status seems to be based entirely on 3 songs from 1987). That's a monumental success story, but with it comes baggage. Right now, that baggage is taking the forms of countless keyboard warriors who seem intent on demolishing anything they do, often before they even do it. Metallica are gearing up to release a new album, their first in 8 long years, and it seems the internet's knives are being sharpened in preparation for skewering whatever might emerge from LA's finest. My question is this: are they right?

The Gods That Failed: The Case Against Metallica

The House That Jack Built

There's a famous line in The Dark Knight Rises where Bane taunts Batman's fading abilities, saying “Victory has defeated you.” Throughout the 1980s, Metallica were increasingly successful but hardly a household name. When they broke big, and I mean Pink Floyd in the 70s big with 1991's Metallica album, they had nowhere else to go.

If a band is successful on their first release, it can either rob them of their momentum (Bush, Feeder, Guns n Roses), or drive them to bigger and/or better things (Pearl Jam, Weezer, Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails). When a band works for album after album to earn their success, it poses a difficult question: more of the same, back to our roots, try something new? How many bands have successfully followed up a huge album? Green Day followed Dookie with an good but not as popular album, Def Leppard followed up to world-conquering Hysteria with the appalling Adrenalize and Metallica took 5 years to follow 1991's Metallica. I'm a fan of 1996's Load, less so 1997's Re-Load, but they represent a further progression away from their thrash roots and a dilution of the slower, more low-end groove-based rock that made them huge. While both feature strong songs they also feature absolute turkeys ('Slither', 'Bad Seed', 'Ronnie', anyone?), producer Bob Rock's influence perhaps coming through more than it should have. The accompanying band image, never previously a consideration, seemed contrived at the time, and is now best forgotten.

While all of their 'Big Four' contemporaries strayed from their original paths and endured 'challenging' 90s (although Anthrax' 90s output is actually brilliant, it's hardly thrash), Metallica, the biggest, strayed the furthest and for some have yet to find it again. There is a lack of focus here Kirk Hammett's leads are too restrained and Hetfield's vocals, while stronger than they ever had been before, had lost some bite and menace.

Holier Than Thou

While none of us really know what Metallica are like, they certainly haven't done themselves any favours when it comes to public image. Such is the erosion of public trust that the supposedly naked honesty of the Some Kind Of Monster film (for the record, one of my favourite documentaries) has been perceived as the opposite: a vanity project, attempting to humanise their public persona. They key piece of evidence: the scene where Hetfield graciously gives new bass player Rob Trujillo a 25% stake in the band, against their lawyer's suggestion. I like this scene, but it's been turned into a stick to beat them. Admittedly vanity projects like this, the poorly-received Through The Never, staging their own festivals, and bizarre collaborations with Lou Reed, have made them seem out of touch with anything but their own dicks. Owning original art by Basquiat does somewhat separate you from your average fan, I suppose.

Leper Messiah

There is always going to be a strongest personality in any group, and a main creative influence in any band; you rarely hear Chris Novoselic getting much credit for Nirvana's songs, nor Charlie Watts for the Stones. While every Metallica song is a James Hetfield joint, Lars Ulrich's influence on the band is huge. And people hate him. Justified or not (none of us really know him), he rarely does himself any favours: when people watch your film and end up sympathising with Dave Mustaine, you are clearly doing something wrong. Since Cliff Burton's death, Lars' influence on production has been vast. On a sonically balanced album, one instrument should not immediately jump out at you as dominant; the drums on Metallica albums have become more and more prominent and unless you're as good as Dave Lombardo or Brann Dailor, they really shouldn't. Lars definitely isn't.

Broken Beat & Scarred

Sad but true, Metallica are just not the live band they once were. Time waits for no man and Metallica are no exception. When you consider how well their staple live songs are known by the fans, any deviation or error will be noticeable. Some years back, I saw all-female Metallica tribute band Misstallica play. They were better than the real thing back then, and clearly very drunk while doing it. These days, there would be no contest. Metallica, to use a football analogy, have lost a yard of pace and this is at times painfully obvious. It will come to a point where people go to their shows purely for familiarity rather than quality.

Consider Metallica's influences and the big rock bands that preceded them: Kiss, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Motorhead, Black Sabbath. Not as fast, not as tight, often more bluesy and loose. Music that is arguably less demanding to play. But if you're in front of 20,000 people and you're expected to play 'Master Of Puppets' or 'Battery' at full tempo, it's a different proposition than having to play 'Paranoid' or 'Iron Man' (I can play those songs and I suck). If one of the four musicians is ever so slightly off, it's going to tell. Lars is not the greatest drummer, and James Hetfield's powers are fading. Hell, even Slayer were losing their touch before the tragic loss of Jeff Hanneman forced them to replace him with an admittedly better guitar player. Don't get me wrong, Metallica are still a commanding live act but considering how good they used to be, that extra yard of pace makes all the difference.

The Thing That Should Not Be?

With the weight of expectation, largely placed on their own shoulders, Metallica will surely be expected to tour, play festivals and be very very public once the new record finally arrives. Will they be able to physically pull this off? Emotionally, they have very publically struggled with this but the expectation from their huge fanbase is that they will be an all-conquering heavy metal juggernaut. Will they attempt another fast, modern thrash album like Death Magnetic or push things in another direction that might make things easier for them. Or does the fact that I'm asking these questions suggest that they should give it up before they start damaging their considerable legacy? Maybe these keyboard warriors are right when they suggest that whatever they do next just won't be good enough.

Cattle Decapitation vs. Beverley Knight: my week in weird gig combos

Think Tank, Newcastle, 21/06/16

The Sage, Gateshead, 22/06/16

Well this was a strange week and one that, musically, could only be described as 'eclectic'. I had never been to a show at Newcastle's impressive Sage venue and seeing that one of my wife's favourite singers was playing there, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone: seeing the venue for the first time and chalking up some serious brownie points. Alas, Beverley Knight cancelled her show (some flimsy excuse about a sore throat. Pfft...) so the wife and I ended up drinking cocktails all afternoon instead.

Knight's rescheduled date, only a couple of weeks later, turned out to be the day after a show that I definitely wasn't going to persuade my wife to attend. San Diego's finest death/grind exports Cattle Decapitation were playing one of Newcastle's better small venues, Think Tank. I'm not the world's biggest death metal fan and probably couldn't describe where the genre lines lie, but I do enjoy the heavier side of things. Cattle Decap being a band that rarely makes it to these shores, I just couldn't miss it.

Cattle Decapitation are not as nasty as the name suggests. Whereas death metal bands have a tendency to write meaninglessly about unpleasant subjects (early Carcass, any Cannibal Corpse song), and Cattle Decap play up to that at times, they also carry a strong ecological message in some of their work. Originally an all-vegetarian band, their songs tell stories about nature (often in bovine form) reclaiming the Earth from humanity. There was a guy next to us smoking a vapour cigarette, apparently dry ice flavour, and I'm voting for nature to start with him.

Playing as a five-piece tonight, they make some pretty exacting requests for monitor settings and plunge headlong into some pretty fierce DM/grind, played at a speed that would enable them to travel through time. The musicianship on display is impressive as they go through breakneck tempo changes and some of the finest riffs the genre has to offer. What sets them apart from many of their rarefied scene is that their songs are memorable, brought alive by Travis Ryan's vocals. More than just a DM screamer, his voice easily alternates from low-end growl to pitched scream, giving the songs actual choruses. Alas, tonight the sound wasn't great (the make-everything-as-loud-as-possible mix doesn't help) and some of the more technical elements of their songs are lost in the mud, but it's still easy to tell that these guys have some serious talent, and it's great to seem them put it to use writing songs about the end of humanity.

Suffering through the next day with ringing ears and, being at the age where you're genuinely not sure if your hearing will fully recover, I spent the day worrying that my hearing would ever fully recover. With a curious mind and a very excited wife, I headed to the Sage. Having only walked through the vast, pristine foyer before, I was suitably impressed by the wood-lined hall known as Sage 1. Deigned for perfect acoustics, it looks unlike any venue I'd been in before and we took our seats high up in the top gallery with a bird's eye view of the stage. Having arrived early, we were 'treated' to a DJ set from a DJ whose name I can't remember. His modus operandi appeared to be to badly mix songs that you might hear at a wedding, adding ill-fitting beats at seemingly random intervals. So jarring were the rhythms at times, it made the previous night's entertainment sound like Coldplay.

The stage, adorned with a staircase separating drum riser and keyboard banks, lit up and Knight emerged at the top. Opening with 'Soul Survivor', she sounds impeccable and puts on a hell of a show. Please bear in mind that I have no real affection for soul music, and that the previous night I willingly went to see a band called Cattle Decapitation, but I was seriously impressed. The only song of hers that I really knew was 90s hit 'Shoulda Woulda Coulda', and it's not a song I would immediately associate with a powerful singer, more a well written pop song. As Knight started going through tunes from her new record Soulsville, it was clear that I was in the presence of a serious talent and there were times when the voice went straight through you to give a little shiver down the spine. The Sage's sound quality was impeccable and suited her voice to a tee.

Ably supported by an 8-piece band (a soul Slipknot, anyone? Didn't think so) we get hits like 'Gold', 'Greatest Day', 'Get Up' and 'Flavour Of The Old School' (yes, I had to look this up). She's grateful to the (admittedly somewhat diminished, given the rescheduled date) crowd throughout and the main theme from the stage throughout is fun: the band join in with synchronised dancing and use the stage to it full effect, and Knight herself is a consummate performer, giving her all both vocally and physically. The crowd lapped it up.

Bravely, Knight gives us a note-perfect Whitney Houston cover as well as her rendition of 'Hound Dog', showing the versatility in that wonderful voice, before ending with an uptempo 'Come As You Are'. People leave the venue smiling from ear to ear, myself included. While I've probably not had my narrow musical horizons widened too much, I've been treated to a reminder of a time just 15-20 years ago when pop stars were actually singers, and the good thing is that lots and lots of other people here remember it too. My overriding feeling is one of bemused pride that my little city can attract such diverse musical quality as the last two nights have shown, and has the venues to do it justice.

Cinema Ruined My Life: or, How I learned to keep worrying about the ending

Cinema has ruined my life. Ok, maybe a shade of hyperbole there, but if you'll hear me out I'll try to explain. Cinema has not entirely ruined my life, but it has certainly affected my enjoyment of it and helped shape my somewhat warped perception reality. I love films, and I've spent much of my life watching them instead of doing something remotely useful. It's got to the point where I base entire conversations around stuff I've noticed in films that references stuff I've noticed in other films, and for this I apologise to anyone I regularly talk to. Watching a film is one of the most enjoyable things I ever do; I enjoy it more than I do most conversations, most interactions, and normally feel more enriched by the experience. And herein lies the problem and my arrested development.

Endings. Movies have them, life is ongoing. This has created a schism in me between expectation and reality and it's all come down to endings; after the ending, a character doesn't have to do anything else and whatever was a problem is now no longer so. In life, you still have to get the bus home and pay the gas bill. Imagine for a second that you've resolved an issue in your life that meant you could start a new relationship, or save an existing one. You celebrate by going out on a date. A final compromise is made, tensions are resolved, epiphanies had by all, and to finish you kiss in the rain or look longingly at each other across a table. It might also help to imagine that you're Emma Stone or Ryan Gosling. In a film, the camera pulls away and leaves you to it, credits roll. In reality, you're soaking wet in the rain and end up with a cold, your starter ends up stuck in your teeth, and when you inevitably jump into bed later on, you inevitably don't look like Emma Stone or Ryan Gosling. Endings are bullshit and life pales by comparison because the evening burns out rather than fades away.

Take the ending of Die Hard as an example. John McClaine, reunited with his wife, drives away in a beaten up limo. It's a perfect, if a little tongue-in-cheek, Hollywood ending. In reality, he's been beaten up, shot and his feet have been cut to shreds. There's no way that evening isn't ending in a long queue at A&E, and he's definitely not getting laid. If you extrapolate that narrative, as you would in real life, endings are bullshit.

The happiest endings often leave the biggest black holes if you look beyond them. Elliot from E.T. is surely to be subjected to a barrage of tests and interrogations from the same government agents who were apparently willing to shoot him just ten minutes from the end. It's A Wonderful Life's ending, while not condemning to George Bailey to “prison and scandal” still leaves him condemned to a life in Bedford Falls, never daring to leave lest everything falls apart in his absence.

Even films without particularly happy endings are prone to leaving frustrating voids if you care to look beyond the credits. In Apocalypse Now, does Capt. Willard stand any chance at all of making it back down the river in that fucked up boat alive? And while the unknown advice from Bill Murray is rather the point of Lost In Translation's ending, the natural assumption is that they both go back to their miserable lives. One happy ending that I do like is that of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia; a cat's cradle of a film about interconnected lives which ends with a slow zoom culminating in a very well earned smile from Melora Walters' downtrodden character. It leaves you believing the next episode of her life will be good.

I like films where the ending either forces you to think about what happens afterwards, be this directly (despite it kind of cheating, I'm a fan of Inception's ending as it forces you to choose between optimism and pessimism), or indirectly.

The ending of John Carpenter's peerless The Thing is brilliant because it has primed you with the knowledge that for there to be any sort of victory, both remaining characters have to die. A victory for humanity, but not so much for Kurt Russell and Keith David, either of whom could be an alien interloper.

The Coen Brothers' brilliant Cormac McCarthy adaptation, No Country For Old Men ends with Tommy Lee Jones' sole moral character reminiscing, having withdrawn from a world which is too brutal and immoral for him to cope with. While it's sad to think that a good man couldn't defeat the evil in his world, at least we know that he's safely away from it. I'm also a fan of Burn After Reading's ending, which basically tells you that nothing you've just seen really mattered and the joke's on you for trying to work it out.

David Fincher is great at leaving you to deal with with weight of the climaxes of his films. Seven, like No Country leaves the moral veteran character, and therefore us, to ponder and cope with John Doe's complete act. We aren't supposed to think that the good guys have won and everything is ok, we are supposed to still feel the gut punch as we leave the cinema. Fight Club, a modern equivalent of The Graduate IMHO (more on this later), leaves the distinctly unromantic pairing of 'Jack'/Tyler Durden and Marla Singer watching the world burn, pondering what the hell to do next. Wouldn't you do the same? The ending to Gone Girl leaves more planted in the viewer's mind than it shows on screen: Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike's reunited couple are held together by the web of lies spun throughout the entire film, the only thing that keeps them as man and wife is their fear of each other, and as it ends you're meant to wonder about your own relationship and what lies beneath its surface. The ending plants that seed.

Stanley Kubrick's pitch black comedy Dr. Strangelove: or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (the film after which this article is named) features what I consider to be one of the best, and darkest, endings ever to feature in a comedy (originally to feature a custard pie fight). Imagine if you will, the events that would follow the end of that film: America nukes Russia because of an unhinged General, Russia's 'Doomsday Machine' retaliation destroys the rest of the world. We are invited to laugh at the man riding the bomb like rodeo bull, and the President and his advisers bickering about how to survive the holocaust and repopulate the world. Very dark satire of the highest order and one of my favourite endings, although I do wonder that that says about me...

My favourite ending, however, and one which silently addresses the notion of 'what do we do after the ending?', comes from my favourite film. The Graduate addressed contemporary countercultural issues but also expressed the kind of detachment and ennui experienced by many people in the age bracket of Dustin Hoffman's titular ex-student, Ben. You've spent years building your life towards something and not knowing what that something is can drive you in the opposite direction. The youthful impulse is to rebel against the expectation and do something destructive. In Ben's case, this means to screw the legendary Mrs. Robinson, alcoholic wife of his father's business partner. Much like Fight Club expressed the anxiety felt by many purposeless 30-something men and the impulse against a life of inertia, the impulse to destroy overtakes the one to create. After Ben 'rescues' Mrs Robinson's daughter from her ill-conceived wedding, they escape at the back of a bus full of nuns. As the smiles fade from their faces, their laughter gives way to the realisation of what they've just done. The look on their faces says more than dialogue ever could. The camera pulls back, leaving them to ponder the question that's written all over them: what the hell do we do now?

I think I've had that look on my face for most of my life.

Funeral For A Band: my fanboy tribute to Funeral For A Friend

I hated these guys when I first heard them. I was something of an elitist douchebag (still am) and the whole 'screamo' scene just got on my nerves: seemingly more about haircuts than songs; every band seemed to have a singer who screamed and another member who did all the singing. It wasn't quite metal, it wasn't anywhere near hardcore, and it seemed to be what all the cool kids were listening to, so naturally I hated it (please refer to my douchebag comment above). Funeral For A Friend were, for me, the worst offenders.

I think it was the vocals. I don't have a problem with rough or screamed vocals, but these guys just sounded contrived, like it didn't come naturally, like they were doing it because it was expected of them. Some record company exec had spent a fortune making sure they had cool music videos and a bunch of paid-for attention in the music press. Arrogant and contrived, no tunes: not interested.

Well, it turns out I was wrong.

They opened for Iron Maiden at Newcastle Arena. With some degree of predetermined apathy I stood cross-armed and watched them walking onstage, preparing to suck... And, in-keeping with the universe's ongoing plan to prove me wrong, Funeral For A Friend were fucking amazing that night and a new fan was born. Playing to a hostile crowd they were fierce, passionate and full of reverence for the headliners. The perfect set should leave you wanting more and that's exactly what they did.

I started listening: debut album Casually Dressed And Deep In Conversation was and still is an absolute stunner. From start to finish there is not a second of filler and it shows the confidence of a band that knows its own talent. It's emotional without being twee or trite, it's heavy but memorable and tuneful; what the hell had I not been hearing before? Tunes like 'Juneau', 'She Drove Me To Daytime Television' and 'Bullet Theory' are all incredible but the stunning 'Escape Artists Never Die' is a dynamic, catchy modern rock song. I couldn't get enough.

'Difficult' second albums affect bands differently, but for FFAF they took the pressure in their stride with 2005's Hours. Bigger, more complex, sometimes darker, sometimes more hopeful, they had released an album that admittedly took a while to appreciate. First single, 'Streetcar' is an anthem and 'History', like Pearl Jam's 'Daughter', is a bittersweet uptempo ballad that will mean something different to every listener. Best of all is album opener 'All The Rage': with a twisting riff and melody holding it all together it's a brilliantly arranged song and one of my favourites of any band.

And then something awful happened. Now a fully fledged fan, I was listening intently when the first single from third album Tales Don't Tell Themselves made its debut. My heart sank on hearing 'Oblivion'. So simple, so over-wrought, so middle-of-the-road. My reaction at the time: “Fuck me, they've turned into Bon Jovi.” Indeed it sounded like they had either pandered to studio pressure to become more accessible, suffered some serious writers block and churned out filler, or got old before their time. 'Oblivion', however, kept nagging away at me and I found myself humming it at work. I gave in and bought the album and found myself quite taken by how brave it was for them to all but abandon their early style, releasing what was essentially a melodic concept album about a tragedy at sea and its effect on a community. It's a beautiful and moving album, but one that takes time to adjust to.

Their 'next big thing' status now abandoned by record label and impatient music press alike, they self-released Memory and Humanity in 2008 and for me reaffirmed their status as one of my favourite bands. It's a more immediate album, full of big riffs and dynamic choruses. Such a shame that it was so under-promoted because this, and 2011's Welcome Home Armageddon contain some of their best work. Some of the riffs on display on these albums are worthy of Metallica, but they never lost the melodic flourishes that guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts brought to the mix. And while their gig attendances seemed to dwindle over this period, they were still a fine live act. Singer Matthew Davies, never less than an energetic performer, had an uncanny knack of never missing a note and the band were tight and always fun.

Their final two albums saw them return to a more aggressive style, probably not evident since their first few EP releases before Casually Dressed. For me, the Conduit and Chapter and Verse albums are good but not great, Davies' vocals less powerful and perhaps no longer suited to the rawer scream he often adopts here. While pleasingly heavy and angry, the subtlety and flourishes that made their earlier songs so successful are missing from a lot of tracks. They could still knock out a killer chorus, but something had faded.

I was disappointed to read that they were calling it a day, but ultimately it made sense. I think the band themselves knew that it was over and decided to call it a day with heads held high. Ending with a series of concerts in which they played Casually Dressed and Hours from start to finish, it's good for a band to acknowledge what the fans wanted to hear and leave the stage with some dignity. As an interesting post-script, I missed their last show in Newcastle because I was given tickets to see Slipknot play (ironically) Newcastle Arena the same night. Funeral were consigned to a much smaller venue, which they failed to fill. I know where I would rather have been.

I really loved this band and it's sad to see them go, but probably the right time for them to do so. Some lyrical clunkers and a terrible cover of 'The Boys Are Back In Town' aside, they rarely put a foot wrong and have me hours of entertainment along the way. 

Thanks guys.

Straw Dogs: still biting or tamed by time?

Having not seen the film for many years, I was curious what I would make of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. Controversial on its 1971 release and later banned, would the years have diminished its? Standards of controversy change over time and what might have been too much for audiences back then, might seem tame now. Much like gross-out comedy, the shock value of hyper-violent films wanes with time and exposure; the power, therefore, lies in the foreground, the build up, and the context. Peckinpah was a product of his time; a talented director and still peerless in his use of editing even years after his death, however his various explorations of masculinity might not sit well with modern sensibilities. Would Straw Dogs still have an impact? Would it seem like a relic?

Straw Dogs is a work of art. Art can depict horrible subjects but can do so in a manner that shows the medium at its finest. Take Picasso's 'Guernica' or Slayer's 'Angel of Death' as examples (oh yes, I used Picasso and Slayer in the same sentence). Yes, Straw Dogs is a horrible, hideous film, and one with such moral murk as to leave you wondering if any character has a shred of merit, but it also stands as a textbook example of how to build to a cinematic crescendo.

Dustin Hoffman's meek mathematician David Sumner transforms from coward to brutal Western hero after suffering at the hands of the locals working on his house. He embarrassingly struggles to start his car, shrinks in the face of a pub scuffle, and is the frequent subject of ridicule. This culminates in a ruse, the purpose of which is to get him out of the way on a shooting trip so that local thug Charlie Venner (Del Henney) can pay David's wife (his ex girlfriend) Amy a visit. For several of reasons, this is the most unpleasant part of this film (and probably most others). Firstly, Susan George's character Amy is subjected to a protracted and complex rape. While not clear, she appears to eventually consent to sex with Charlie, however one of Charlie's friends then joins in while Charlie holds her down. Even considering this type of content in films since 1971, take Irreversible or The Accused as examples, this scene is horrific and has lost none of its potency.

It's also particularly bad in the context of the rest of the film because it barely considers the effect on Amy, nor show her viewpoint. She is barely presented as a victim of a crime or allowed to have feelings on the matter, nor is she presented as having the strength to rise above it. Save for some PTSD at a town meeting, more a narrative convenience than acknowledgement of the effect, her horrific ordeal serves only as further humiliation for David. Peckinpah, not exactly known for creating female characters, strong or otherwise, outdoes himself here. Without doubt, this is a misogynist relic; a product of its time and director. However in a narrative sense, this awful scene is hugely effective in creating a schism between David and Amy, later exploited in the climax, and creating tension between David and the locals. As far as build up goes, Peckinpah is the master; using something so appalling as a rape not even as a central narrative event but simply to ramp up the tension for the ending.

And so to the ending. Much like the unhinged, still-unmatched shootout that brings The Wild Bunch to a close, Peckinpah stages a siege in which David refuses to turn mentally handicapped accused child murderer Henry Niles (David Warner) over to face the wrath of the drunken mob. Instead, he takes his bloody revenge on his tormentors, honourably defending a man he barely knows and defying his wife. Peckinpah's attitude to women is prevalent here too, as Amy repeatedly orders David to turn Henry over to save her own skin. Her reward for such self interest? A slap from David. The fact that Amy has been raped by two of the mob is acknowledged but is barely a motivating factor for David's defence of his home.

Peckinpah, while probably not a man you'd introduce to your wife, shows what an artist he was in this sequence. Set against the unsettling sound of an impossible amount of breaking glass, we are subjected to an assault on the senses as David fends off intruders with boiling water, crowbars, shotguns, and a massive bear trap. The editing is dizzying and the effect is one of sensory chaos. You can't really concentrate but you can't look away.

As endings go, it's up there with the best, and works so well because of the build up. David, so belittled throughout the whole film, finally takes a stand. While hugely effective, this presents a terribly conservative, traditional viewpoint: David, an aloof intellectual, unable to relate to the 'real' men in the world, can only finally express his masculinity through violence. While Susan George is brilliant and makes more of Amy than the coy antagonist/helpless victim she easily could have been, she is left with the short straw (and cleaning up the mess) as David turns his back and leaves her.

Driving away with Henry towards an uncertain future, having lost his wife and home but found something in himself, David really shouldn't look as happy as he does. He's just killed a lot of people and isn't who he was at the start, but that's Peckinpah for you.

Gig review: Pearl Jam, Madison Square Garden, 01/05/16

Pearl Jam are awkward bastards. Not really participating in 'the business' since the immense success of their first records perhaps frightened them into reducing exposure to the limelight, they are not the most... available band when it comes to touring. They sell out large venues around the world without releasing an album. They only tour when they want to, and play where they want to. Singles and music videos? Not often. TV promotions and adverts? Forget about it. They know the rules and choose to ignore them.

I have a DVD of said awkward bastards playing Madison Square Garden. Shot on their 2003 tour, it shows them at their very best and I've probably seen it more times than any DVD, save maybe Die Hard. It never fails to make me smile. So when it came to planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to New York, Pearl Jam's tour dates played heavily into my thinking. Could I possibly get time off work, flights to New York and notoriously elusive tickets to see one of my favourite bands in an iconic venue? Thanks to the combined efforts of my wife, my American host Chris, and myself, you're damn right I could.

A few weeks before going I realised that there wasn't another band in the world that I would do this for: Therapy? are my favourites but they tour regularly; Metallica seem to have vanished up their own arses but whenever they reappear they do tend to tour heavily. Clutch, Every Time I Die, The Wildhearts or Mastodon either don't have the same place in my heart or are relatively easy to see. I have crossed an ocean to see Pearl Jam play, such is their importance to my life.

Finding myself a block away from The Garden I bumped into some friendly Norwegians shared drinks and Pearl Jam memories with them in a nearby Irish bar. We discussed the tricky subject of their set list. In a career dating back to 1991, the only dead cert to be played tonight is 'Even Flow' from their debut Ten. Even uber-single 'Alive' isn't guaranteed. We all took a stab at which song they'd open with (last time out it was slow number 'Sometimes' and they have a tendency to open from left field). We were, as it transpired, all wrong.

Wishing each other a good time, we headed in; the excitement as I passed through security and found my seat was uncontainable. Somebody there on the night can probably confirm seeing a lost Englishman grinning from ear to ear if you care to check. I bought a plastic cup of the worst and most expensive beer I have ever experienced and took my seat, befriending some locals while we waited for showtime.

My pick for opening song, the wistful 'Of The Girl', was blown out of the water when Pearl Jam nonchalantly walked on-stage, as though they were strolling into Asda, and open with 'Go', a fast number from their sophomore album Vs . They breathlessly follow with nippy recent song 'Mind Your Manners'. It's clear that they don't intend to fuck about tonight: its going to be a rock show.

Arguably as big an appeal as Eddie Vedder's sublime voice or Mike McCready's insane guitar playing is the sheer unpredictability of their shows. With ten studio albums, an EP, a double album of B-sides and some regular cover versions to choose from (also considering that their two best songs aren't even on a studio album), they can and do mix up their set list. Tonight, they play for three hours and there are a good few surprises, including a Doobie Brothers cover, some Mother Love Bone material (including a moving 'Crown Of Thorns') and renditions of 'Rats', 'Down' and 'Footsteps', the latter of which has several grown men in tears, myself included.

For an arena band, there is remarkably little about Pearl Jam that is showy or screams 'rock stars'. They put on a show this good by being unpredictable, earnest and passionate about what they do; they don't do gimmicks and they don't dial it in. In Matt Cameron they have the best drummer of the 1990s Seattle scene (yes, including him); the band's bedrock partnership of Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard look like they are, respectively, a jock and a nerd who have accidentally started the best band in the world but are tight as you'd want; Mike McCready is a frighteningly talented guitar player, one whose playing just feels natural and real; and in Eddie Vedder they have a frontman with the voice of god and a knack for making a large venue seem small and intimate. He can make you feel like he's singing directly to you in a crowd of 20,000. He must have given up the cigarettes too, because he sounds better tonight than he has in ages. Tonight they are all on top form, full of energy and enthusiasm and it's incredible to witness.

An audience-led 'Better Man' sends shivers down the spine; a song with an unpleasant subject matter is turned into a joyous, hopeful singalong. Anti-grunge anthem 'Corduroy' is as fierce as it was in 1994. 'Given To Fly' is beautifully uplifting. 'Why Go' is angry and rebellious, and 'Wishlist' is a simple and hopeful moment that makes the whole room smile. In an extensive setlist full of highlights, the only low light for me is 'Low Light' but only because I don't really like it to begin with. As well as playing a comprehensive, crowd-pleasing set, 'Even Flow', 'Rearviewmirror', and 'Porch' are turned into extended jams which never feel self indulgent. The expensive refurbishment of Madison Square Garden will prove to be worth every penny if the sound quality is this good every night. If only somebody would plough $1bn into Newcastle arena...

There are moments of sheer beauty in the show; things that will stay with me forever. 'Release' is played early on when for many bands this would be a set closer. It's moving, full of pain and hope. 'Elderly Woman...', sportingly played to the fans sitting behind the stage, is a wistful, fragile song. 'Black', as it has been since 1991, is a heartbreaker and I don't think there's anyone in the room who isn't feeling something when they sing the “I know someday you'll have a beautiful life...” part. The audience helps them out by singing the closing melody over and over until it fades out. It's a beautiful moment and hard to describe how special it felt to be part of it.

By their 2^nd encore, I'm exhausted. Two and a half hours have passed but they show no signs of slowing. After 'Black' they go into 'Alive' and the mob goes wild. Never has the title of a song so aptly described the effect of hearing it live. That the lyrics are personal to Vedder is so strange when you hear them simultaneously mean something different to 20,000 people. He throws a seemingly endless supply of tambourines into the crowd during the solo before bringing the song to a crashing close. It had to be the end, didn't it?

Hell no. Neil Young cover 'Rockin' In The Free World', sounding crisp, vital and fresh, is an anthem for a troubled world and just a great rock song. McCready's leads are piercing and full of soul (Seriously, is this guy possessed? It's like a demon got in him and it an only be kept at bay with face-melting guitar solos). End of the set? Not quite. With the house lights coming up they show things down to close with 'Indifference'; the line “I will scream my lungs out 'til it fills this room. How much difference does it make?” particularly poignant after what's just been witnessed.

How much difference did it make? I walked from Madison Square Garden about ten blocks North to see Times Square at midnight, alone in a strange city. Times Square is an awesome spectacle of advertising and artifice but compared to what I just saw, insignificant and hollow. Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden: it was important, it was emotional, it was worth crossing an ocean for. Awkward bastards, and I wouldn't want them any other way.