He was, however, fortunate enough to capitalize on the fact
that he entered the band at the height of their careers, recording the Grammy
nominated ...And Justice For All
(infamously losing to Jethro Tull)
and then recording what most (but not I) would call the best metal album of all
time; Metallica’s self titled album,
better known as The Black Album. After
releasing the less than stellar Load
and Re-Load albums (by this point
the band said sayonara to thrash metal and concentrated more on the bluesy
metal sound of their self titled album) as well as a few other projects with
the band such as the Garage Inc album
and the live symphony metal album S&M,
Jason was starting to get burned out and (rightfully so) didn’t like the
direction the band was starting to take and suggested a hiatus. The notion of a
hiatus was rejected by the band, so Jason quit, and he says has never regretted
doing so.
After leaving the band, he started his own band Echobrain (which was actually started
while he was in Metallica), joined Canadian heavy metal band Voivod, had that controversial stint on
Rockstar Supernova and even joined Ozzy Osbourne for a bit. Probably the
best thing to happen to him though was getting inducted, with Metallica in to
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He
most recently started his own band, simply called Newsted, with drummer Jesus
Mendez Jr. and guitarist Jessie
Farnsworth, as well as Staind
guitarist Mike Muchok as a touring
member.
The band has as of yet released a four-song EP simply called Metal. The album is unique in that
Jason not only plays guitar and bass, but he also produced it and sings lead
vocals, and you wouldn’t believe me when I say he can actually do a hell of a
job belting out a good old time metal sounding lead vocal. It has a very old
school thrash metal sound to it, almost sounding like Motรถrhead at moments.
The album starts off with a classic Metallica thrash sounding Soldierhead,
with a fast riff and hard pounding drums. Jason displays his vocal range...well
it’s not a range really. Picture Lemmy
Kilmister and the way he sings, not his voice but the way he sings with his
voice, and that’s how Jason sounds in this song, but that just makes this song,
and album, sound even more like a classic metal album. Should he try singing
for another style of music, it wouldn’t go at all, but as long as he is singing
for a heavy metal band, which is the only style Jason would ever play in the
first place, his vocal style is fine.
Godsnake slows down
the pace a bit to fit a more “doom metal” standard. This time Jason hits a few
higher notes with his voice in creepy fashion, matching with the songs
horror-esque riff to make the song sound as dark as possible, with
controversial lyrics to boot.
King of the
Underdogs has a bit of blues-rock influence to its slow intro, which
shows a good deal of musicality. The song turns in to a 6 minute epic. This
song leads in to the albums concluding track, another 6+ minute track called Skyscraper, this time showing somewhat
more of a groove metal sound mixed with the bands thrash sound. For the most
part the song is structured similarly to every other song on the album in terms
of its classic metal riffs and break downs and intense vocals.
The end result is an EP that almost completely rebirths the
sound of thrash metal. When bands such as Metallica
are struggling to find their thrash sound again after years of playing blues-based
heavy metal and other past thrash companions such as Megadeth belt out metal album after great metal album but still
haven’t quite found the thrash sound that made them what they were 30 years
ago, Newsted revitalizes the scene
almost completely. Simple heavy song structures and harsh metallic vocals that
don’t involve “screaming” make Metal
an album that any metal fan sound get and should enjoy. To my surprise it’s widely
available for purchase, and cheap, wherever albums are sold. They will also be
on this year’s Gigantour with Megadeth, Black Label Society, Hellyeah and Device
ALBUM HIGHLIGHT
“King of the Underdogs” – It’s a difficult
task to review a four-song EP, it’s even more difficult to pick a highlight,
but luckily King of the Underdogs made this choice easy. This song, as
mentioned earlier, displays the best musicality. What I mean by that is it does
not maintain the same pace throughout. It starts off like a simply hard rock
song, maybe even a grunge song, slow and low, only to eventually pick up in to
a metal song by all definition. Only it doesn’t end there. The song maintains a
sort of slow doom metal sound during its verses, but picks up to a fast thrash
metal song for its chorus. It may be six minutes long, but it keeps its
listeners attention all the way through, which any six minute or longer song
should.
FINAL RATING
8.5 (Out of 10)
Track List:
1.
|
"Soldierhead"
|
4:16
|
2.
|
"Godsnake"
|
5:16
|
3.
|
"King
of the Underdogs"
|
6:00
|
4.
|
"Skyscraper"
|
6:36
|
No comments:
Post a Comment