For those familiar with Metallica through their self-titled 1991 album, also known as the black album, their 2nd album, released in 1984 will sound a lot different. This was Metallica in their true thrash / speed metal days. It opens up with some gently plucked guitar before Kirk Hammett's enormous bludgeoning guitar riff comes in, played at breakneck speed for opening track Fight Fire With Fire. James Hetfield bellows out the barely decipherable lyrics, frantically trying to keep up with the music.

The title track follows, with an exhilarating opening, a pounding drum beat from Lars Ulrich and a great guitar riff from Hetfield. He mostly sings about death here, like a lot of the best metal, notably in the bridge when he roars "I don't want to DIIEEE!" The portentous atmosphere is added to by For Whom The Bell Tolls, which starts with spooky bells before the guitars come in. The opening riff changes a couple of times, each one better than the last before the vocals come in.

Fade to Black provides a bit of a breather. It's Metallica's first foray into slower music. Again it's largely about death, but features some really nice sounding acoustic guitar and a great lead guitar, as Hetfield does a bit of proper singing, "I have lost the will to live, simply nothing more to give". Things speed up a bit in the bridge as the heavy guitars come in as Hetfield returns to his metal roar.

Back to speed for Trapped Under Ice, with more frenzied guitars, while Escape is a bit more mid-paced, almost sounding like a good song from one of the rubbish metal bands that were around in the 80s (Def Leppard/Van Halen). Creeping Death has yet more breakneck speed and high intensity with yet more hammer horror atmosphere, while closing instrumental The Call of Ktulu opens with a pretty picked guitar part before the heavy guitars come in and riff away for 8 minutes or so before the pretty opening part returns, then the album closes in dramatic style with all guns (and guitars) blazing.

One criticism is that the production does not allow much of Cliff Burton's bass in the mix. However, this album was a breath of fresh air for metal at the time in comparison to the aforementioned rubbish that was around.

After the dispiriting experience (for the band at least) of Mercury, American Music Club went another direction for 1994's San Francisco. Which is not to say it's a mainstream album. Indeed as an album of 15 tracks, many of which are quite disparate, it's nothing short of sprawling.

Fearless, the opening track, kicks off with Bruce Kaphan's steel guitar prominent in the mix before Mark Eitzel's moody vocals come in, singing "lost again..." in a lovelorn lament. It's a lovely sounding song, though for my money the lyrics on this are a little obvious. In fact the lyrics on this album in my opinion are a little disappointing when compared with previous albums.

It's Your Birthday appears to be a response to touring with Pearl Jam and the prevailing grunge sound of the time as it is a kind of self-consciously aggressive sounding song, while Can You Help Me? is a more pleasant sounding song. It sounds quite commercial, but it's actually a really good song, with a `proper' verse and chorus. It should have been a hit, but perhaps Eitzel and co weren't wearing the right plaid shirts and goatees.

Love Doesn't Belong to Anyone is another track featuring prominent steel guitar, and again it's quite pretty, with delicate picked guitar. It does not, however, feel important, in the same way that some of their previous work does. After the fairly ordinary Wish the World Away we get a kind of left turn with the classicly titled How Many Six Packs Does It Take To Screw in a Light, which is a sort of quirky kind of song. Cape Canaveral which follows is a lot more downbeat as the bands instruments coalesce into a magnificently gloomy murk.

After Hello Amsterdam which is the requisite AMC `clunker' on this album, the rest of the album features a great streak of really strong songs, musically in any case. The Revolving Door has a soaring melody and a great vocal performance from Mark Eitzel, The band sound quite polished on this one, whereas next track In The Shadow of the Valley is another slab of gloomy murk in the vein of Cape Canaveral.

What Holds The World Together is an acoustic led, almost torch song, slightly reminiscent of the Smiths but featuring a gloriously big chorus where Eitzek sings that "the world is held together by the wind that blows through Gena Rowlands' hair." Clearly. I Broke My Promise is another quite polished track which references muse Kathleen Burns. The Smiths are invoked again on sparse acoustic track The Thorn In My Side Is Gone, and I'll Be Gone is a pleasing slab of melodrama.

It's a curious collection which features some very strong songs, but not sure it `holds together' that well as an album.

In 1993 Red House Painters confusingly released 2 self-titled albums, known anecdotally by their cover art - Rollercoaster and Bridge. While Rollercoaster was an epic 14 track album, Bridge felt at the time like an afterthought, like left over offcuts. The album is initially quite uninviting, starting with Mark Kozelek emitting a grunt and then his heavily reverbed voice. The opening track, Evil, is an odd-sounding, draggy, ponderous track which has the devastating chorus line "God do you look evil in the dark". The song creeps up on you, particularly when the low, clean electric guitars come in. And it sounds great. It's certainly not derivative.

Bubble which follows is more conventional, but I Am A Rock is Kozelek's first foray into cover versions, or should I say, song reinventions. He takes the Simon & Garfunkel track and completely retools it as a gloom-rock anthem. A lot of the tracks on the album sound anguished and Helicopter is no exception. It starts off sounding quite relaxed yet the music builds to a climax as all the while Mark Kozelek's vocals sound more agonised.

New Jersey featured on the "Rollercoaster" album as a gentle folky track. Here it is reinvented here in a rockier format and sounds more fully realised with a full band treatment featuring buzzing electric guitar. Uncle Joe is a somewhat self-pitying misery by numbers track. That's not to say it isn't good, it's just more conventional than the other tracks here.

Blindfold is the longest track here and is probably the most difficult to get into. It starts with a somewhat plodding verse, before speeding up with a guitar part that sounds like it is trying to catch up with itself all the time. The last 2 or 3 minutes of the song though are positively harrowing as Kozelek unleashes goose-bump inducing guttural howls which are both disturbing and devastating.

The album ends with a relatively calm treatment of Star Spangled Banner. I kid you not. It bears no resemblance to the Jimi Hendrix version, but instead is a rather grim two and a half minute march, which leaves the album sounding curiously unresolved at the end.

Definitely not one for newcomers to the bands work, as of all his albums it contains no immediate sounding tracks. This album doesn't grow on you, it attaches like a leech, sucking away unpleasantly at first before you realise how good it sounds.

Mark Kozelek's first album of original material in nearly 5 years, this was released in April 2008. The album doesn't break any new ground, Kozelek has been fairly single-minded in his vision since his Red House Painters days. The album starts somewhat underwhelmingly with 2 fairly mediocre tracks (for him), though The Light features a nice buzzing Neil Young-esque guitar tone. Lucky Man kicks the quality up a notch. It has Kozelek's peerless finger-picking to the forefront with a very fine melody, backed up by his characteristically lazy vocals.

Unlit Hallway is a lighter track, evocative of lazy summer evenings with its languid stride. Again the guitar is quite fine, and the chorus features pleasant backing vocals here from Bonnie Prince Billy. Even better is the moment about halfway through when a banjo enters, merging perfectly with the rest of the music. Heron Blue is far more austere-sounding, with delicately picked classical guitar over Kozelek's lower register vocals. The guitar in the bridge is devastatingly pretty.

Totally different is track 8, Tonight the Sky, which is 10 minutes of electric guitar heaven in the style of Crazy Horse with a great dirty distorted guitar riff. The track is undoubtedly self-indulgent but lopes along very pleasingly. The track doesn't feel anything like as long as it is, indeed there air-guitar moments all over this track, particularly as the bridge reaches its thrilling climax. I was lucky enough to hear Kozelek play this track live with his band and it didn't disappoint.

Tonight in Bilbao is another long track at over 9 minutes, and is basically a travelogue set to more lovely guitar work. Some gorgeous strings enter the song about halfway through which adds to an already great track.

One of the best is saved for last. Blue Orchids is another laste summer evoking track set to beautiful classical guitar. The midsection of this is quite something to behold, while the closing few minutes is heartbreakingly beautiful as Kozelek laments a departed lover with some beautiful imagery, singing "soft light pours into the room, fingers glide over my face.... how could I walk these old dim halls again, how could I leave this room... piano music weeps quietly" over a magical addictive guitar part. It's quite lovely and a great way to end the album.

One of the finest albums of the last few years, it won't convert naysayers to Kozelek's work but is one for his fans to embrace and enjoy.

Smog's 1997 album saw mainman Bill Callahan team up with producer/multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke to flesh out the sound with French horns, trumpets, piano and steel guitar featuring prominently in a bid to shrug off the `lo-fi' tag. Whatever lo-fi means.

Callahan still had his rickety buzzing guitar at this point, and a fair degree of vulnerability (gone in his most recent work) remained in his vocals. This combination, along with generous helpings of horns and piano is how the album kicks off with the track The Morning Paper. The music mirrors the subject matter, sounding a bit like dawn breaking, the piano in particular here is quite lovely. Callahan's vocals on this one sound a little `generic singer-songwriter'. Things get a little darker with Blood Red Bird, where Callahan retreats to his electric guitar and his lower register for a somewhat brooding number.

Red Apples is a pretty sparse gothic dirge featuring mainly piano as he sings about going "down to the river to meet the widow" and sleeping "in her black arms for a century". I Was a Stranger picks up the tempo and the country influence with prominent steel guitar. To Be of Use is as vulnerable as Callahan gets as he sings in a high register for him over gently plucked guitar, with some borderline disturbing lyrics: "most of my fantasies are of to be of use." Red Apple Falls, the title track continues with the `red' theme in the song titles, and combines some warm countrified music, again led by steel guitar, with harrowing subject matter ("when I think about my brother dying and my parents trying to slowly do themselves in"). You almost feel like you're intruding, eavesdropping on a private catharsis.

Ex-Con lightens the mood, an almost jaunty, trumpet led song backed with some gentle synths, though lyrically it's far from light, this time singing about kidnap and abduction, Inspirational sounds like a country song written by Lou Reed, strange to say as he hasn't recorded any country music to my knowledge, before the final number, Finer Days, which is sparse enough featuring mainly bass and guitar and some muted horn. The atmosphere of this track is like the coda to the album, taking the musical themes from The Morning Paper and putting a nice twist on them to resolve the album.

Avoid this one like the plague if you're a country music hater.

After a brief flirtation with the mainstream with albums Goo and Dirty, they followed up with the poorly received Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. This album is denser than the 3 aforementioned albums, with more layers to decipher.

The album opens with blistering opener becuz. It's sung by Kim Gordon, but her more dissonant tendencies are kept in check here. It's a good driving rock song with a fair degree of squalling guitar noise in the bridge. Later in the song there is a great melodic outttro. Junkie's Promise follows, a sort of tough number sung by Thurston Moore. The album becomes calmer with Lee Ranaldo's Saucer-Like which features great guitar work before a dischordant ending.

After the noisy title track, things get calmer still with Thurston's unwind. The odd nursery rhyme sounding Little Trouble Girl follows, featuring not only Kim Gordon but also Kim Deal (Pixies). The melody of this is rather child-like, and something which I can't explain about the tone of Deal's vocals sounds very 90s.

After some noisy, more difficult tracks the album finishes with the 19 minute long opus that is The Diamond Sea. It starts off as a fairly conventional Thurston rock song, with a good melody and nice guitar parts, before the guitars take over and transform the song into a kind of noise piece. It's kind of in the vein of the Velvet Underground's Sister Ray, except with a sweeter melody and less drug references.
Washing Machine is a lot less immediate than Sonic Youth's early 90s album. It's dense and can be hard work to listen to, but it's an important step on the journey to the artist they have become.

This album is possibly more accessible than Kid A. The opening track, Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box, is a thoroughly original piece of music, driven by a wonderful bassline and a great chorus of 'I'm a reasonable man, get off my case'.

This momentum is spoiled a little by the next track, the funereal 'Pyramid Song'. Not a bad song in itself, but the plodding pace of it jars after Packt. And the less said about the next track, Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors, the better. It's kind of a drum 'n' bass experiment with some warped vocals thrown in, minus any melody worth speaking about. You and Whose Army comes as a welcome relief, which starts with Yorke singing over some sparse electric guitar, before the rest of the instruments come in and build to a great little climax. I Might Be Wrong grooves along nicely, leading into Knives Out, the most 'normal Radiohead' sounding track on the album. It's a great tune, all long drawn-out syllables and jangly guitars.

Morning Bell is reprised from Kid A, but with a totally different arrangement. The serene Kid A arrangement is replaced by an almost child-like arrangement. It sounds a little throw-away until you realise that you can hear the lyrics even more clearly as Yorke's voice is right out front, giving more emphasis to lines like 'cut the kids in half'.

It's followed by Dollars and Cents which to my ears is less interesting and a bit more old-school Radiohead. Hunting Bears is a nice instrumental led by electric guitar which builds a nice healthy bit of tension before the warped sounding Like Spinning Plates, where it sounds like the keyboard line was played backwards.

Life in A Glasshouse is the closing track and it sounds like an old jazz band after taking a load of downers. Yorke sounds almost too bleak on this one before becoming somewhat dismissive at the end ('of course I'd like to sit around and chat'). It's an unsettling way to end the album. Nevertheless the album rewards repeat listening. It's less of a cohesive listen than Kid A, but probably contains more impressive individual songs.

In 2001 Hope Sandoval released an album under the banner Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions. Bizarrely, it was entitled Bavarian Fruit Bread and largely featured a collaboration with Colm O'Ciosoig, ex-drummer with the wonderful My Bloody Valentine. There's minimal percussion here though. The sound of the album, while not a major departure for Sandoval, was a lot more stripped back than Mazzy Star, featuring a lot more acoustic guitar and touches of cello, bells, harmonica and xylophone here and there. Hope sounds totally unenthused, but in an utterly bewitching way.

The album begins with Drop, a Jesus and Mary Chain cover (she used to go out with William Reid) and Hope's voice is centre stage over a strummed acoustic guitar. It's followed up by the narcoleptic Suzanne. This and Butterfly Mornings are perfect sunny Sunday morning music. On the Low picks up the pace a bit and reminds me slightly of less cringe-y Serge Gainsbourg (without the male vocals). Feeling of Gaze doesn't quite work. Hope's singing is great but the cello and piano competes rather than complements leaving the track sounding disjointed.

The stronger melodies are actually backweighted towards the second half of the album. Charlotte is another sleepily graceful track, while Clear Day is a quiet triumph. The vocals here are particularly enticing, lines like "gonna take all your troubles, gonna send them away"wouldn't work with other singers but they suit perfectly here. Around My Smile is probably the strongest track, a slow-burning torch song with Hope Sandoval at her most alluring. The chorus is like a ridiculous come-on, the line is "I got going on". Writing about it doesn't do it justice. The final track is an extended shoe-gazey type piece, Lose Me On The Way.

Avoid this album at all costs if you prefer rockier stuff or like your music to actually go anywhere.

Vlautin's voice can grate a bit and some of the overtly country songs I can take or leave. One of the main problems with some Richmond Fontaine songs is they work well as stories but feel forced into songs with the music grafted on. Vlautin is, however, an excellent story-teller (his 2nd novel, Northline is a must-read).

This album opens with the title track, a gentle song, very relaxed where he depicts a crummy lifestyle, where they lived next to an abandoned house with a broken pool full of shopping carts, and they pretended it was their swimming pool. After a short instrumental (Northwest), there follows one of their more upbeat songs, You Can Move Back Here, which sounds a little like REM. This is followed by the unsettling The Boyfriends, where the protagonists realises his new girl has a child, and he imagines how the kids feel, all to the accompaniment of a sad mariachi trumpet.

The Pull is an another sad story delivered over relatively quiet backing, and is followed by a barely audible instrumental. Maybe We Were Both Born Blue is, despite the title, one of the more upbeat numbers with a kind of wistful countryish backing. Watch Out is another quiet song, consisting mainly of Vlautin whispering 'watch out' but the next track 43 is more intense, possibly the most intense on the album.

Lonnie is as close as they have come yet to mainstream rock, while towards the end of the album Two Alone is another intense moment, with a simple but driving melody. The final track, A Letter to the Patron Saint of Nurses (great title) is a spoken word piece over a quiet backing which is surprisingly effective.

Overall this won't convert anyone, but is a good addition for fans of their music.

David Sylvian continues his retreat from the mainstream with his latest album. Entitled Manafon, which is a parish in Wales, the music within is unconventional to say the least. Almost all of the 9 songs take the same form, sparse instrumentation, made up of some brief snatches of classical music, occasional acoustic guitar and other random noises, with Sylvian's voice centre-stage on all but one of the tracks. Upon repeated listens, his voice becomes almost intrusive in parts. The music is compelling, in that it does not follow linear, 'song-like' forms, though it's a stretch to say it's thoroughly enjoyable.

The overall effect is that of Sylvian warbling over almost random music (all the backing tracks were improvised with a large cast of collaborators). It's possibly his most difficult album, you need to be in a certain frame of mind to listen to it. It's light years away from his solo work of the 80s and 90s.