Black Tide's Light From Above is totally off the charts Old School Metal!

Them Magic City kids can kick your teenybopper asses anytime of the day.

  

I must say, it ain't that frustrating after all, quittin' on the idiot box and all its mighty crap. People talkin' shit left and right 'bout who's winning the fuckin' elections, the NBA games.. never gave a dirty rat's ass about basketball.

But it was cool 'accidentally' seeing the final American Idol episode, with Bret Michaels finally back and rockin hard!

Hell, but look at what dwellin' in my filthy wormhole has gotten me into. Longliveheavymusic discoverd Black Tide! A tad too late for some metalhead who's been out hunting for some real music as of late, I know. But pardon me, I've been lookin' at the other direction, re-exploring the Hard Rock side of the word 'heavy'. That's what I do whenever I feel jaded about evil stuff, the Devil's Third, camo shorts and unkempt hair- i switch back to fun rock n roll! 

These past few weeks got me takin' a crack at the few hard rock items I had been waiting for, and it has been a long wait since the last output from Airbourne. Yet I still have this yearning to dig up quite some more after one spinning of No Guts, No Glory. True I can't go anywhere near as 'judging' it, and I won't. It's just that everything sounded too simple and basic from start to finish..

 

So forward I went to catch up on some of the more complex rock that's been out there for a while but I haven't checked out yet. I can give this self-titled one from Black Water Rising additional stars, maybe, after a couple more times I sit around with it. But I guess it's my longing for raw energy, power or chi..or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, that seems to never dwindle down.





Thank heaven for the parents who squirted out Black Tide.

More than a million hits on You Tube and I might still be playing John Corabi-era Motley Crue when all of these are happening! 

My ultimate memory of kids playing real heavy music was that of Death Angel's video from way before when they were just starting out. Andy Galeon was14 years old at the time and he ripped skins not thinking that his arm may only be as thick as those Vic Firths that we have today. I was blown away. Completely.


Had I seen that before the upper fucking echelons of the music business decided they would cash in on Silverchair ( and eventually Hanson, Moffats..  p'Tui! apologies all you alternagrunge lovers but I see no difference in them all ), it might have been a less boring time for me during the early 90's. I could imagine just how many people I would have debated that those kids aren't the be-all and end-all of teenage musicianship.

Well, we got a new breed here. 


from Wiki:

"The band started touring and gained a position on the second stage of Ozzfest, but were kicked off the tour because the stage was sponsored by Jagermeister and all of the members of Black Tide were under the legal drinking age. Although the band was no longer appearing on the second stage, Black Tide was able to be the opening act on the main stage in some areas...They are well known partly due to their age. They are all under the age of 21 and two members are still in High School. Also the lead singer is still 15."

Totally stoked. From first to the last track, Light From Above is full-on high velocity old school metal! It's been a long time since I had last gotten my hands on one album where I just kept on clicking 5 star ratings,  track after track, in my iTunes Library.

Sure enough everything is so ProTools these days, and I see where the skeptics are coming from. But hell we can always check with live footage. Try that one on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Man, do they deliver! Only complain on them live was the singing, which seemed to be low-pitched already. But I can't whine any much further about someone who's not even old enough to buy liquor and play really technical stuff!  

Also, don't crucify this author for branding them heavy metal, I must admit I was thinking sleaze rock when I first heard them. Some had even gone as far as '..sounds like Guns N Roses' in their reviews. But I'll pass on that. It's the riff-driven definition of 80's metal (virtually forgotten these days) that really grabs the music of this band if you listen more closely. Not so textbook on their part however, which means it can also be dubbed... FRESH. Hell, I don't even know how to explain the possibility of that. All I know is I fear maybe someday they will 'mature' musically, and experiment too far. But that's stating ahead of everything, might as well get fired up first with what they have to offer at the moment. 

This album is killer, man. I can't even find the words. I may be old school, but I have always believed that this same formula of heavy music is what we all true fans battle to push forth to the next century. If this can't be labeled as carrying the torch, I don't know what else can. Justin 'Gay Beaver' Beiber? Gimme a fuckin break.



EDIT 9 June: yes that last sentence baffles logic and obscures the flow of thought coz he's not even metal, but i'm not editing it for bashing purposes..i dont even know who he is :)