"Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath""Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath"Released in 1994, this is the album responsible for the sudden flood of (mostly shit) tribute albums we've since had to suffer through! The quality here is a bit uneven, the best songs being the ones by Megadeth, Sepultura (especially!) and Type O Negative. White Zombie's contribution is okay, and Ugly Kid Joe does not disappoint either. Oh, can't forget "Supernaut" by 1000 Homo DJ's, which is a mind-blower! The rest ranges from banal to putrid--Biohazard's song loses it's oomph halfway through the intro, C.O.C.'s track plods off into nowhere, and Bruce Dickinson could have mailed his in. The Faith No More live version is HORRIBLE--Mike Patton even forgets the words! (Faith No More has never been worth shit live.) Bullring Brummies, a one-off project featuring Geezer Butler, Bill Ward, and Judas Priest's Rob Halford, is hardly worth mentioning. Surprisingly, by far the WORST song here is the one done by Ozzy!
"Nativity in Black II: A Tribute to Black Sabbath"Word of advice...never, EVER pre-order anything from CDNow! Every time I've done it, I've gotten fucked. When I pre-ordered this particular CD, the dorks sent me the EDITED version and then wouldn't own up to their error. Although they happily refunded my money, they refused to exchange it for the proper version. (Yeah, not a big deal, but it's the fucking principle of the thing here...besides, I eventually found a used copy for a lot cheaper.)
Anyhoo, this is the long-awaited followup to the original Nativity in Black which spawned this whole insane tribute craze. As always, they chose "name" bands with actual TALENT, and although many of the songs fall solidly in the horrid nu-metal genre, for the most part it's pretty damn good, with the best selection being System of a Down's funky rendition of "Snowblind". Megadeth's contribution is also quite interesting (Dave Mustaine sounds more like Ozzy here!), and Soulfly (ex-Sepultura Max Cavalera's new band) rips a heavenly groove on "Under the Sun", but I gotta admit I was disappointed with the Slayer song. The only song that absolutely does not belong here is Busta Rhymes' ludicrous gangsta-rap breakdown of "Iron Man" (which Ozzy contributes vocals to as well, and actually is the only song severely affected on the "edited" version of this CD.) Oh yeah, I've heard that the Japanese import adds a bonus track by some unknown band that I've completely forgotten the name of, but I can't information on that sucker ANYWHERE...
"Tribute to Black Sabbath: Eternal Masters"Yet another Black Sabbath tribute album! This time the contributing artists are mostly from the death-metal genre, and many of them I've never heard even of before. The Sacred Reich tune, which I've owned for a long time on the Surf Nicaragua EP, isn't particularly great, and neither is the Jesters of Destiny song which I used to own on crappy vinyl a long, long time ago. Some interesting renditions DO exist here, though--The Clay People's interpretation of "Paranoid" is rather trippy, and the hypnotically ambient, screechy-vocals version of "Who Are You" by Old sounds phenomenal! The remainder of the songs aren't really to my liking...especially the Cannibal Corpse song, which is HILARIOUSLY bad.
"Masters of Misery: Black Sabbath: An Earache Tribute"
[domestic & import versions]I came very close to paying $40 for this as a Japanese import, solely for the Godflesh song; finally it was released domestically, and boy was I glad to have saved my money. "Zero the Hero" is disappointingly slow, with lazy guitar and somnolent vocals...must have been recorded during their Selfless sessions. Overall, the album isn't too spectacular, although there are a few interesting tracks: Scorn's "The Wizard" is a VERY extended, ambient-sounding mix; Fudge Tunnel does a curiously HEAVY version of "Changes", and Ultraviolence's "Paranoid" sounds like a hilarious mix of '90s industrial and early '80s new wave! One wonders, though, why they had to include TWO songs from Cathedral, possibly the cheapest, most pathetic, wanna-be Sabbath clone band around!!
Of course, I later found out that the Japanese import version, although it has fewer songs, DOES have a song not on the domestic version, "Shock Wave" by Cathedral. So I had to buy it anyway...but picked it up dirt cheap for $6.25 or so. EBAY RULES!!!!!
"Hell Rules: A Tribute to Black Sabbath"Holy shit, it's Sabbath tribute #4!! (Or #5, if you count both versions of "Masters of Misery".) About the best thing I can say is that at least it covers a few songs from the Dio/Gillan era, with Steel Prophet's "Neon Knights" easily the best tune here. As for the rest...well, I'm getting a little miffed at how these compilations always use no-talent grindcore/death bands covering songs that have already been covered a billion times (and BETTER, might I add!) The song by Tyrant (hey, they're still around??) is okay, but the newly reformed Agent Steel's "Sweet Leaf" is pretty annoying. I guess the umpteenth version of "Paranoid" here is better than most.
Oh yeah...isn't it interesting how these tribute albums always say, "File under [name of band]", yet every store I go to has them in a separate tribute section! I should probably notify the record companies and have them boycott the stores until they get it right...
"Hell Rules 2: Yet Another Crappy Tribute to Black Sabbath"Ok, I embellished the title a bit. :) Truly, Dwell Records is notorious for releasing tribute after tribute of pure CRAP. About the only good thing I can say is that it covers a lot of tunes that haven't been covered before: "Under the Sun", "Don't Start (Too Late)", "Johnny Blade" and "Mob Rules" (has that one really NEVER been covered before??) Oh yeah, there's yet another version of "War Pigs" here, which makes it something like 15 or 16 versions I own of that song. Cool, huh?
"The Legacy: The Sabbath Continues"This Swedish import of unsigned Swedish bands was the hardest tribute CD to find...some years ago, my order at Amazon sat unfilled for EIGHT MONTHS, until I wrote them and asked, "Umm, hasn't this come in yet?" They sent me an apologetic reply that it was no longer available. Then, about three years later, it showed up in CDNow's catalog, "Currently In Stock," even! Must be a reissue on a different label, or something.
This is also the most eclectic Black Sabbath tribute to date, with a mix of songs featuring hip-hop, new wave, country rock, and metal. Some of the tracks completely suck (especially the pseudo-rap "War Pigs"), but there's a few good'uns here and there. Plus, it does feature a couple exclusively covered songs: "Tomorrow's Dream", "FX" (which has "Embryo" tacked on the end, not sure if it's part of the song or a "hidden" track, though), and "Evil Woman" (which makes NO sense at all, since it's a Crow song that Sabbath only covered!!! Why do tribute albums do this?)
"Hail to the Stonehenge Gods"Ooh lookie here, another crappy Black Sabbath tribute!! This one seems to focus mostly on post-Ozzy songs, offering up unique covers of "Lady Evil" (good job, that one) and "Born Again". That's about it -- all the rest have been done much better by other bands, although New Eden's contribution is all right. Some of these bands really need to find better lead singers if they want any hope of getting signed...the vocalist for Born of Fire REALLY SUCKS, for example! (Same goes for the Imagika lead singer, though some of my Perpetual Motion friends will lynch me for saying so.)
"Dehumanized Witch: A (Mk 2) Black Sabbath Tribute"This very hard-to-find tribute CD focuses solely on the "Mark II" era of Black Sabbath; that is, it only covers the three albums where Ronnie James Dio was the lead singer. Remarkably, it's quite a good one! The songs by Forsaken and Syris are powerful and direct, yet avoid the trap of sounding too "clone-ish". The other bands do kind of fall into the same style (not familiar with most of the names, but I'm guessing most of them are "stoner rock" bands); and occasionally I wonder, "Did each band use the same singer??" Heh. Also, due to its narrow scope, this is the first tribute album to feature selections from Dehumanizer, as well as versions of "Wishing Well", "Die Young", "Lonely is the Word" and "Falling Off the Edge of the World". I got my copy from GEMM, and it is a GEM, indeed!
"In Memory of Celtic Frost"Yet another tribute album, this time to the legendary (and defunct) Celtic Frost, done by a bunch of speed, death & black metal bands. (Actually, the last two tracks are Hellhammer songs.) Nothing here really stands out, but it's a nice collection of music since Celtic Frost's music kicks ass no matter who plays it! As a matter of fact, Apollyon's Sun is Tom Warrior's new band.
The liner notes contain brief descriptions of the bands who play here, and they are quite interesting ...did you know that in the band Mayhem, one of the early lead singers, ironically named "Dead", killed himself under mysterious circumstances? Then, a few years later, the bass player STABBED THE GUITARIST TO DEATH?!?!! Mayhem, indeed!
"For the Masses"A Depeche Mode tribute, which at first I was excited to find because I'd been unable to find the Smashing Pumpkins song (which was recorded a long time ago, actually, appearing on one of their Siamese Dream singles I think, and is nearly impossible to find.) Well, the bad news is that the Pumpkin-heads play that song in their slow-and-quiet mode (would have been sooo much better if they rocked out on it!) And the worse news is that the rest of the album TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKS!!! I mean GOD, you'd think that at least ONE track would sufficiently portray the power & talent of Depeche Mode's music! Well, okay..."Enjoy the Silence" has some decent energy to it, injecting a hard-rock edge that was absent in the original, disco version..."Monument" also sounds good, basically coz I'm totally unfamiliar with the original...and Rammstein does an interestingly bizarre take on "Stripped"...but that is IT, I tell ya! Even The Cure's contribution totally falls flat. And what IS it with the ridiculous band names here?? JEEZ!! What a TOTAL WASTE of money!
The ironic part is, this CD helped me win a contest some months ago -- one edition of Borric's Ultima Online Real Audio Show played a portion of Rammstein's "Stripped", and asked the listener to identify the artist, song title, original artist & original album it was from. I had just purchased this CD a few days ago so of course I knew it immediately! Well, after sending the guy my real name & address (to get a copy of the Ultima Online: Second Age CD, which was the prize) I never heard from the guy again, and numerous emails went unanswered. So I guess this CD caused me even more grief & annoyance than the purchase price. Oh yeah...FUCK YOU BORRIC!!!!!!!!!
"Holy Dio: A Tribute to the Voice of Metal"Well, the good thing about Century Media tributes is that they generally pick "name" artists, instead of unsigned crap bands. And to make it sweeter, this 2CD set came priced as a single CD! Still, a lot of the songs sound mostly like carbon copies of the originals -- or worse (such as Doro's putrid offering, and the obvious "cover bands" Catch the Rainbow & Holy Mother.) By far the best entry is Yngwie Malmsteen's blistering rendition of "Gates of Babylon" (as you can see, the songs not only cover Dio's solo work, but his songs with Rainbow and Black Sabbath); Blind Guardian also does a surprisingly good job with "Don't Talk to Strangers", and the death-industrial version of "Country Girl" by Dan Swanö (that Edge of Sanity guy) is a nice toe-tapper.
"The Duran Duran Tribute Album"Another example of impulse buying. Duran Duran is hardly a band worthy of a tribute, but I listened to this one in-store and just about DIED laughing. 90% of the songs are done in punk-metal style with many ska/reggae influences, which is pretty damn funny at first, but the joke wore of quick once I got home (definitely not my style of music AT ALL!) Oh well; it's one saving grace is Deftones' version of "The Chauffeur", done in a slow, nearly gothic style that ever so gradually builds to a swelling crescendo. As for the rest...well, just look at the band names! Speaks for itself.
"Encores, Legends & Paradox: A Tribute to the Music of ELP"Another tribute done by Magna Carta, who are pretty good at what they do, but have the annoying habit of not specifying each song with a particular band or artist name; normally I just pick out the "key" artist in each song, but with so many no-names here, I had to get a little more descriptive.... Well, since these guys are attempting to "tributize" the greatest band of all time, let's see what we get:
"Karn Evil 9 (1st Impression)" starts off strong, much more guitar & bass oriented and missing many of Keith Emerson's trademark keyboard fills. A few edits made in the song are quite glaring, but Robert Berry does well with the vocals (quite well, in fact...makes one wonder why the 3 project w/ Emerson & Palmer was so downright horrible!) A nice interpretation, and since they're covering the #1 greatest song of ALL TIME, they really had their work cut out for them.
John Wetton sings on two tracks, "The Sheriff" & "Bitches Crystal". Both are done well musically, but Wetton unfortunately has trouble matching Greg Lake's vocal style and range. Quite a surprise, considering both Wetton & Lake were members of King Crimson and Asia, and in those bands their voices sounded quite similar. Glenn Hughes, on the other hand, totally butchers "Knife Edge" -- my *second* favorite ELP song, dammit! (Incidentally, Peter Banks & Igor Khoroshev are past & present members of Yes.)
James LaBrie of Dream Theater sings on two tracks, and his voice was the one I was most excited to hear, but...oh GOD what a mess! He's completely out of tune on "A Time and a Place", and only sings one line for "Tarkus" (more on that travesty later.) He must have had a sinus infection or something, because his voice is downright TERRIBLE! What a waste. (Martin Barre & Doane Perry are both from Jethro Tull, in case you didn't already know that.)
The three instrumental tracks are all done well, and provide some very interesting variations on the originals (with a violin replacing the keyboard lead in "Hoedown", for example.) One wonders, though, since these songs were written by other composers, and merely "arranged" by ELP, do they really count as cover versions?
"The Endless Enigma" is the most curious tune here. Very differently arranged, and done quite well, in fact. Curiously, there's no "name" artist as the singer; vocals are done by Trent Gardner, and that's the song's sole weak point. By comparison, though, it's one of the best songs on the CD. Drums are played by Mike Portnoy, Dream Theater guy #2 (well, #3 now that Rudess joined the band); on four other songs, Simon Phillips (Judas Priest, etc.) plays drums.
And now we come to "Tarkus"...this was the tune I was most eager to hear, to see how they handle ELP's 20-minute masterpiece. But then I saw the time length...WHAT THE HELL??!? Yup, it goes straight from the opening instrumental "Eruption" (done very well, in fact), then SKIPS the next 15 minutes of the song to the final verse of "Battlefield"!!! Not even seven minutes total! What's even more disappointing, is that what little you hear of this song is done INCREDIBLY well, with Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater guy #4) providing some excellent keyboard work. Now THIS would have been an amazing track to close the album with, IF they had bothered to do the complete version (and it's not like time constraints were a problem, since the CD's only 64 minutes long!!!) -- but instead, this tribute is full of missteps, disappointments, and, in the case of "Tarkus" leaves me SCREAMING why they didn't do these songs properly!!
"A Call to Irons: Tribute to Iron Maiden"Hey...Steel Prophet??? I remember those guys from WAY back, when they were gigging around the L.A. area! They had a demo tape called Visions of Force which was pretty good (sort of gothic/doom metal) but never heard anything else from them, good to see they're still around. (I checked the band lineup and sure enough it's the same band, although there's only one original member left...)
Well, this is a pretty damn good tribute CD...the only song that truly SUCKS is Vital Remains' "Trooper" (you can't cover perfection, you know, so it wouldn't have helped even if these guys HAD talent!) Most of these bands translate the songs into a death/black metal vein, with lots of keyboards & such thrown in, and selections such as Solitude Aeturnus's "Hallowed", Opeth's "Tomorrow", and Ancient Wisdom's "Powerslave" make the transition fairly well. Morgion's "To Tame a Land" includes samples from the Dune movie (something Iron Maiden wanted to do originally, but Frank Herbert wouldn't let 'em...) Opera IX's "Mariner" is a real trip, with co-lead female vocals and tons of strings & stuff -- I also like how they replace "God" with "Satan" in the final verse. :-))
"To Cry You a Song -- A Collection of Tull Tales"An interesting compendium of Jethro Tull songs done by a variety of little-known folk-rock artists, with a few mainstream rock stars thrown in. On the whole, the album does quite well, though a bit uneven (the liner notes suggest that there were multitudinous problems making it.) The CD starts off with "A Tull Tale", a stupid flute solo which totally butchers "Bouree" (I was thinking I had totally wasted my money when that one played.) Things get better with "Aqualung", which takes a while to get used to but DOES feature a unique flourish at the end...John Wetton contributes a nice blues jam, and Robert Berry's synth-based cover of "Minstrel" is SPECTACULAR! Glenn Hughes, the erstwhile Deep Purple and Black Sabbath singer, screams an acceptable "To Cry You a Song"; Tempest's "Locomotive Breath" also sounds good, though a far cry from the original. Upsettingly, ELP's Keith Emerson turns in a lame organ instrumental of "Living in the Past" (must've still been suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome, I guess.) The remainder of the tracks are all acoustic-based, folksy renditions which are mostly pleasant. On many of these tracks, former Jethro Tull members Clive Bunker, Mick Abrahams and Glenn Cornick contribute drums, guitar & bass respectively.
"A Tribute to Judas Priest: Legends of Metal"Both of these Judas Priest tribute CDs were very hard to find, since they are imports and few stores carry them...as it turned out, I wound up ordering both directly from the distributor (Century Media), at a price less than most domestic CDs! It really DOES help to go directly to the source...
Okay...well as far as tribute albums go, this one kicks major ass! The Helloween track is awesome, and even though both Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske left the band long ago, still contains the power of the "old" Helloween. Another great track is the one by U.D.O. (who is, of course, ex-Accept frontman Udo Dirkschneider.) Doom Squad is formed by members of Anthrax (Scott Ian), Armored Saint (Joey Vera, Gonzo), or both (John Bush). And who the hell is Devin Townsend? He sure can belt out a mean tune... Saxon, on the other hand, puts out a rather weak effort -- they should have used the Pat Boone version instead. :)
"Tribute to Judas Priest: Legends of Metal Vol. II"Volume II of the Priest tribute series is less remarkable than the first, yet still essential for Nevermore's version of "Love Bites", an AWESOME death-metal interpretation that sounds completely different from the original! Another standout is Skyclad's superb version of "Dreamer Deceiver". The rest are mostly a collection of no-name Priest clones (Virgin Steele??? THEY'RE still around??) -- even the contributions by Overkill and Kreator sound like they were asleep at the mixing panel.
(One thing I should note: Since buying this CD, I've become much more acquainted with the music of the lesser known bands here -- namely, Angra, Iced Earth & Stratovarius -- and they've turned out to be VERY good bands. You wouldn't know it from the songs here, though!)
"Dragon Attack: A Tribute to Queen"Ostensibly, I sought this one out for the two songs featuring Dream Theater's lead singer, James LaBrie. He always seems to sleep through these tribute sessions, though -- while "One Vision" works well, on "Sheer Heart Attack" it sounds like he still hasn't recovered from his sinus infection on the ELP tribute (see above). The real standout track is Motorhead's Lemmy + Ted Nugent tearing into "Tie Your Mother Down", a monster of a cover song if I've ever heard one! Other good additions include "It's Late" by those two Anthrax guys, who kick ass all over that song (which also features Joey Vera of Armored Saint/Fates Warning on bass, and "Jason Ian" on drums...related, no doubt?); Glenn Hughes does a fairly soulful version of "Get Down, Make Love"; and the Jeff Scott Soto/Mark Boals tracks (both of whom have sung for Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, who of course also appears here) both sound satisfyingly powerful. The rest is in generic hair metal style (especially the Shortino tracks -- GOD STRIKE HIM DEAD for attempting to cover "We Will Rock You", and everyone else who's tried to cover the most uncoverable of all Queen's songs, too!! Sheer blasphemy!) and doesn't thrill me that much...except I have NO idea who "Adam ?" is. Not even the All Music Guide knows what his last name is.
"Red Star: A Tribute to Rush" 
It seems we have a winner in the never-ending "Worst Tribute Album Ever" contest. Rush songs are notoriously difficult to cover (which is why there's so few of them), so when you get Dwell records dipping into its bottomless tar pit of zero-talent bands, the result doesn't just suck, it's sheer blasphemy! You know there's a problem when the most listenable cover is "Anthem" by Engrave Speed Death, normally a forgettable also-ran on Dwell's other putrid platters. Capital 2 comes up with an interesting idea for "Tears" by interpreting that ballad with a melodic-metal riff, but the opportunity's wasted as that song just goes on and on and ON with no dynamic changes whatsoever. I should also mention Prototype's "Red Barchetta" as a head above the rest, mainly because they appear to have more talent than the other eleven bands combined (alas, that's not saying much.) The rest is absolute garbage -- case in point is "Bastille Day", where the band sticks to only one or two chords from the original, since obviously they're not skilled enough to play that song the way it's supposed to be played! And "Scary German Guy" simply is a waste of a great band name. I don't know what possessed me to trade for this CD except that I was curious to hear if it was really as bad as everyone said...and believe me, it's worse than you can imagine. Save sixty minutes of your life and avoid this album at all costs!
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