The View From Hear - A Heavy Metal Family Values Column by Paul Hanson

While simultaneously listening to the pelting of a hard rain against my windshield and a demo tape from Psycho Current, a young rap/metal band from a town thousands of miles from Seattle, on my way to my day job as a technical writer at a software company, a black Volvo, driven by a 40 something business man, swerved into my lane, sped up, quickly slowed down, accelerated again, and burst off of Interstate 380 at exit 19A. As I approached the intersection at the bottom of my exit, my drama for the day was unfolding. Would the Volvo successfully negotiate the intersection before the light that had been yellow for five seconds changed to the tyrannical red of evil?

It is that kind of uncertainty that greets listeners of the latest CDs by three bands that had varying degrees of success throughout their career: Dokken, Slaughter and Metal Church.

Dokken made the biggest splash with their CD, Under Lock and Key, which generated a couple of videos, including "It's Not Love" and my basement band's favorite, "In My Dreams." However, after the awful Shadowlife, which even vocalist Don Dokken admits to not liking, I didn't think I would ever listen to another Dokken CD. Always maintaining a soft spot in my heart, mainly because the band was my first concert, supporting Loverboy, I placed their latest release Erase the Slate (CMC International) into my player.

Unlike the cliched reactions that add nothing about this CD elsewhere on the internet, this CD did not 'immediately blow me away.' This is the band, after all, about whose last CD I described as being so awful that "the blood is dripping from my fingers as I type[d my review.]" It wasn't pretty. Having finally parted ways with volatile and moody (per the media) guitarist George Lynch, Dokken recruited former Winger guitarist Reb Beach.

Winger? Oh come on-- Kip and company's cover of "Purple Haze" and their quite outstanding performance on MTV's Unplugged come to mind-- but no one is screaming for a reunion album from them, are they?

So, unlike the 80s pop metal that Kip and company created on their self-titled and less-than-stellar In the Heart of the Young, Dokken hired Beach to play guitar. You know, shredding the axe and bending six strings to create riffs you find yourself humming when you wake up at 4 AM to give a 1 year old a pacifier or to soothe the bad dreams of a three year old who

coaxed that extra helping of ice cream because she ate all of her green beans.

It should go without saying, then, that opening track Erase the Slate easily outdistances anything Winger could have ever created. That's fine and dandy, but what about George Lynch, the guitarist that constructed such memorable riffs as the ones in "Mr. Scary," "Unchain the Night," and "Don't Lie to Me." All concerns are satisfied as Beach firmly flexes his musical talent throughout the disc. His riffs are in the standard Lynch style of being based upon an 8th note rhythm, but there is something in his riffs that bring out the best in the other band members.

Erase the Slate rejuvenates a band I had written off as far beyond its time. Tracks like the haunting "One," the acoustic driven "In Your Honor" and the a capella introduction to "Change the World" firmly return the band to the prime it captured on Back for the Attack.

While those tracks stand out, this CD is also the first time drummer Mick Brown sings lead on a Dokken recording . May it be the last. The promo copy I received didn't list songwriting credits for the song he sings "Crazy Mary Goes Round" but whoever wrote it should have had a good webmaster kick their ass. Hopelessly retreading the "I want the girl" with such awful lyrics as "There's a girl next door/ with a leather coat/ and she looks pretty good to me/ My friends all say that you better watch out/ There's a side to her you haven't seen."

And metal bands from the 80s wonder why no one takes them seriously.

Barring that horrific mistep, Erase the Slate fully recovers from the utter disgrace that was Shadlowlife.

Another 80s band looking for a bite of the recent metal resurgence is Slaughter. Bet you can't name the CDs that this band has released since their debut Stick it to Ya. Would you believe this is number 7? Slaughter, like Dokken, is one of those bands that I have a fondness for. I caught the band in 1991 sandwiched between Don Dokken (as a solo artist touring in support of Up from the Ashes) and Poison. Guitarist Tim Kelly won me over as he was playing a guitar solo, ran to the front of the stage, slipped and fell into the bouncer's area. Did he stop playing?

Hell no. He disappeared behind the stage and reappeared as his solo ended, wearing the largest smile I've ever seen. Guitarist Tim Kelly died, so his memory is all I have left of him.

[Moment of Silence] Slaughter's last CD, Live Eternal was a fitting tribute to Kelly as it attempted to capture the spirit of their fallen guitarist. Like Dokken, the band was forced to look for a new guitarist when preparing to think about their next move.

Enter Jeff Blando and the new Slaughter CD Back to Reality (CMC International).

Immediately, longtime fans will notice a more frequent use of the whammy bar, used in several guitar solos to bend notes just a little longer and to coax just a little more feeling out of them. The stellar "All Fired Up" is easily the band's best effort since the wild and care-free spirit on Stick it to Ya. While listening to the CDs since Stick, it always struck me that the band was taking themselves too seriously, trying to be more than what they are. All they can be is what they are: a rock and roll band.

Drummer Blas Elias is also back to pound the skins. While publicity mongrels like Motley Crue's Tommy Lee claimed votes for "Best Metal Drummer" awards in such prestigious magazines as Modern Drummer, Elias has been largely overlooked. And while Lee was worried about doing somersalts during a drum solo, Elias was loudly pounding a solid backbeat with a flair for intricate double bass triplets. Haven't heard Lee do an interesting drum pattern since 1984's Shout at the Devil, including two concerts I've attended.

Like Dokken, though, there is a serious misstep on Back to Reality.

Entitled "Dangerous," it embodies all the elements that make music critics bemoan the 80s as an era of cliches. While Blando makes the most of the song with a well-crafted riff, vocalist Mark Slaughter brings the song to a miserable halt with his out-of-pitch (not just out-of-tune) wailings of "You're so dangerous, Living so dangerous/ Dangerous, all night long." Later, Slaughter enlightens us with the prophetic "Rock-n-roll is a one way street/ That's where me and the boys can be found."

If I hear one more reference to "me and the boys" or another reference to rock and roll being 'anything' besides music . . . But no threats here. Then with 31:23 minutes left on the CD, "Trailer Park Boogie" begins, followed by the obligatory ballad "Love is Forever," (done quite well) and before long, the faint odor of the 60s ballad on "Nothin' Left to Lose" closes the CD with vocalist Mark Slaughter's best performance.

In all, then, Back to Reality is a welcome regurgitation of the excellent material Slaughter created with Stick it to Ya.

Finally, one 80s band I never listened to, in the 80s, is Metal Church. I listened to their album Blessing in Disguise during my 'anything heavier than Billy Joel, KISS, and the Xanadu soundtrack sucked' phase in life. (BTW, that phase was followed in later years with the 'Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax and Alice in Chains all suck' phase in 1991, when thrash metal's "Clash of the Titans" tour came through town.

You first notice the guitar on the cover of Masterpeace. It is the kind of guitar mid-80s editions of magazines such as Circus and Hit Parader plastered their publications with in the hopes of continuing the mid-80s tough man guitar player motif.

You notice the guitar again when you put Masterpeace (Nuclear Blast) into your CD player and you hear music that pays tribute to riffs of other 80s thrash metal bands like Exodus and Master of Puppets era Metallica.

Speaking of the famed San Francisco quartet, Metal Church is the band from which Metallica extracted guitarist John Marshall when James Hetfield suffered a burned arm on their 1992 tour.

Clocking in at exactly 54 minutes, it is the guitars that carry this CD above the average mark. Failures such as "Into Dust" which toggles between vocalist David Wayne screaming way outside his range and an interesting acoustic and violin section, are counterbalanced against an interesting guitar riffs in "All Your Sorrows." This track spends a full minute in thrash metal heaven. Oh sure, Exodus and others played similar riffs on their stellar Fabulous Disaster (now who the hell can forget "Toxic Waltz" and their brand of "friendly, violent fun?")

And just when the band seems ready to thrash out, the band slips into an acoustic and dreary track called "They Signed in Blood" with the prophetic phrase "Cause if you're gonna die, die for what you believe in." C'mon! In the 80s, bands didn't seem to know better. This is November, 1999. METAL CHURCH should know better.

But if they do, they left their best riffs on the cutting room floor. Not even their cover of Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic" can save this CD for me. Let Marshall play his guitar on his every song, not just the opening track and a couple peppered throughout the disc. Though I've not ever revisited Blessing in Disguise, I'm wondering if I should.

As I passed the flashing red lights of one of Cedar Rapids, Iowa's finest, I saw the black Volvo had successfully negotiated the intersection in time to land in a police sting.

Email Paul Hanson

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