Sunday, June 17, 2012

Top Albums of 2012 (So Far)

I've been really impressed by some of the albums that have come out so far this year. So here's a quick list of my favorites so far. 

1. The Cult - Choice Of Weapon. Hands down the best album I've heard so far this year! The rest of these albums are interchangeable, but The Cult is tops...for now.

2. Overkill - The Electric Age

3. Marilyn Manson - Born Villain. A definite step back in my opinion after the huge albums Eat Me, Drink Me and The High End Of Low. But still a very strong and sharp album from this Goth Metal Diva.

 4. Van Halen - A Different Kind Of Truth. I wasn't expecting much from this after I heard the single "Tattoo" (as previously posted), but I was extremely blown away by how strong this album actually was!

5. Goatwhore - Blood For The Master

6. Epica - Requiem For The Indifferent

7. Job For A Cowboy - Demonocracy


Scorpions / Geoff Tate

On June 11th I went with my Padre to see the almighty Scorpions on their "The Final Sting" farewell tour... but I also saw them in 2010 on their "Get Your Sting & Blackout" farewell tour. I'm pretty positive that I'll see them again one day, I don't think it will be a long retirement.

It started around 8 with Geoff Tate of Queensrÿche. It was suppose to be the entire band, but apparently the other members up and started a new band, leaving Geoff behind. The new band is called Rising West and is fronted by the singer of Crimson Glory. But here's what I don't understand: the band Rising West only does covers songs from the first 5 Queensrÿche albums... why not just stay with Geoff and say, "Hey man, I wanna play more old stuff"? Anyways, Geoff did something pretty cool. He did an acoustic Queensrÿche set with his solo band. It was very bluesy and much slower paced, but his voice was amazing. That's all that really matters. I would pay big bucks to hear Geoff Tate sing even acapella, so acoustic was fine by me.

Around 9 Scorpions came out on stage. Their set was interesting, it was extremely different from their 2010 set, which is cool. They are such great musicians, they are one of my favorite bands. I just hope they make at LEAST one more amazing album, because (as I've posted before) I don't feel like "Sting In The Tail" was a good farewell album. It took a couple of songs for Klaus Meine's vocals to get warmed up to the range we all love, and for a man who is 64 at the time of this concert he is still an amazing Metal vocalist. They played for about 1.5 hours and did a 3 song encore. The only two things I didn't enjoy about the concert were that they didn't play long enough and they weren't loud enough!

So Scorpions, please enjoy a few years off, but at least one more album and tour before you get too old. That would be much appreciated, sincerely The Metal Missionary.