Metallica has been dead for years. Sometime after their late 80′s epic …And Justice For All, the members of Metallica took their epic metal noodlings out behind the woodshed and shot them dead. Then they came back into the studio, and wrote an album of interstital music for sporting events. That album made them unfathomably rich, and Craptallica was born.

Craptallica has gone on to release several more albums that were barely worth downloading. Their idiot drummer flew into rage at their fan base for stealing. Then their idiot leader went into rehab, and they made an movie that played like an epic two and a half hour therapy session. The album, and its “anger from a positive place” , all but vanished.

In the face of epic failure, they hired uber-guru Rick Rubin to produce a “comeback” album; which is a misnomer, since Craptallica hasn’t succeeded at anything, they have no place to “come back” from. Mr. Rubin encouraged the band to get back to their roots, and Craptallica happily complied.

That album is Death Magnetic, and it’s positively craptastic.  From the get-go, it simply sounds horrible. Numerous audio engineers complain that the album is overly compressed, giving it a high, thin tone. It sounds like you’re listening through an empty can of soda. The low end of the audio spectrum has a spectral presence at best. The airy whump of the drums doesn’t move a thing, and provides a vaporous foundation for the rest of the music. Similarly, Kirk Hammett’s guitar soloing has never been weaker. Even with a full stomp of wah-wah pedal, there’s no bite behind it.

After multiple listens, the songs simply fail to make an impression.  They’re weightless grab-bags of guitar riffs, tied together seemingly at random.  Hetfield’s lyrics have the authenticity of a Prada bag in a Chinatown market. The only thing that sticks to Death Magnetic is boredom.

The root of the problem isn’t just Metallica, it’s our culture as a whole. We’re a culture of zombies, refusing to let anything die. Metallica shouldn’t have existed beyond 1990. If they stopped at the ‘black’ album, few people would begrudged their cashing in on their legacy. But everything beyond that is reprehensible, and should never have existed.

The things that fuelled Metallica’s greatness in the early albums died with the success of the ‘black’ album. Alcohol fuelled twenty-one year olds with anger issues are primed for crafting angry music. Forty year olds who are wealthier than Croesus cannot do it. Until we are culturally primed to accept death with dignity, we’re going to be stuck with these endless, pointless retreads.

Imagine that Van Morrison is singing in a band with Lou Reed and that they’re playing songs that Neil Sedaka wrote while drunk and manic depressive.  Now imagine that this event was recorded.  In 2008.  Also, imagine Morrison with a heavy Bronx accent.  That’s what Vic Ruggiero’s solo album “Something in My Blind Spot” sounds like.

The album was recorded in Germany and released by the German record company “moanin’ music,” and has seen a limited release, making it difficult to find.  It features Lisa Müller from the German ska band Black Cat Zoot on a handful of songs, doing adorable duets with a spotless American accent.

Vic Ruggiero is best known for his keyboard work and singing for popular ska band The Slackers, and has also performed with the legendary Rancid on two albums.  We’ll try to ignore his participation in the rock-rap travesty known as The Transplants in light of his relatively honorable history and apparent awesomeness.

This solo album is extremely well-done.  The instrumentation isn’t intricate, but it’s impressive due to the fact that Ruggiero played all of the instruments – save the horn section, courtesy of Fanfare Kalashnikov, and the drums, provided by Andrei Kluge, another ska musician.  That leaves guitar, banjo, bass and keyboard.  That’s a pretty good repertoire of instruments to be skilled with.

Listening to this album is an eerie experience.  The composition, the singing… so much of this album sounds like it should have been recorded some decades before.  The biggest problem with that perception is the good recording quality, and also the song, “Is It You?”  This one’s taken straight out of Tom Waits’ 2004 album “Real Gone.”  The rest of it is a big old throwback.

The best thing, though, is that the throwback nature of the album fits the music contained therein.  The songs don’t sound like they were written to appeal to the modern kitsch market, but just written, and the composition came afterwards.  With such bands as Wolfmother (circa 1973) gaining notoriety these days, it’s a wonder Ruggiero’s album hasn’t flowered.
The problem is that the distribution is entirely German.  Whether Ruggiero is searching for a release in the United States is unknown.  What is known (by me) is that he damn well better be or I’ll have to write a strongly worded letter to my congressman.

My favorite song on this album would have to be “Lovely Beginning,” which is a very 60’s pop samba song about a bizarre, violent relationship between the two singers.  The chorus sounds trite if heard isolated, but when heard in the context of the song, the words suddenly jump out evocatively.  It doesn’t hurt that there’s a beautifully lopsided harmony, as well.

My hope is that, someday, Ruggiero will get this released where I can buy it without having to fear for my budget.  God damned imports.

 [editors note:  Something In My Blindspot is available on iTunes and most other digital download services. It is also available from the American distributor Cobra Records.]

A quick guide to In Rainbows.

I like Radiohead. “Creep” was a fluke that would have, no, should have been a footnote in pop music history. It’s a silly piece of mopery, with an unironically majestic chorus that caught the ear of the mainstream. Unfortunately, these guys are “smart” – something that is deadly in their chosen profession.

And that’s the tragedy of popular music: If it weren’t for “Creep” somehow seeping into the American mainstream these poor “chaps” would’ve never had the chance to grow – and growth is essential to all important and relevant art. The remainder of Pablo Honey is sub-standard, The Bends is adequate at best, but the formulaic depression of “Fake Plastic Trees” and the MTV friendly video with it’s silly anti-consumerist stance helped Radiohead beat the odds of fading into oblivion. They scored just enough hipster popularity to stay relevant long enough to record OK Computer, and it isn’t until then that they really make an original mark.

OK Computer is basically lauded by every critic in the world as the second coming, and generally they’re right. So once you live up to the hype, what happens next? They put out Kid A in an attempt to find an identity, all the while knowing you’ll never live up to your previous success. They put out Amnesiac saying “Hey, man, it’s b-sides.” But then your real slump is Hail to the Thief. I can’t even begin to go into what a schizophrenic morass that one is. [ed. note - I agree 100%, HTTT is so terrible that playing it at someone should be considered a war crime. Perhaps the interrogators at Guantanamo Bay should use it frequently.] After that your lead singer decides to sequester himself with a laptop and a microphone and vomit out a solo record with bleeps and farts.

Time passes, Yorke returns, Greenwood does a soundtrack, and Radiohead has fulfilled they’re obligation to the big bad record company which is supposedly a sign of hope. A few new songs leak out live, and they serve up In Rainbows. When I first hear the title I think “if this doesn’t suck I’ll be surprised.” Then I hear that they’re going
to release it “on the internet” and that you could “pay what you want.” So then I think “if this doesn’t suck I’ll be surprised.” They put out a bunch of YouTube videos, blah, blah, blah…

All this is bullshit – totally superfluous – a great “marketing ploy.” And all the history is bullshit, too. The question is: “Is the music good?”

Here’s the deal with Radiohead 2008 – they are incredible musicians. They are incredible song arrangers. They are incredibly smart, and they are finding a real, unique identity and voice. A niche, if you will. It’s not the second coming all over again, but they have made a record that is strong, textured, occasionally soulful, and almost always beautiful. But they still are pretentious bastards who have their heads just far enough up their own asses that they can’t leave the mediocre ones off the record and then sequence it correctly.

So, yeah, it’s good.

But you have to do a little work. As I said, I like Radiohead, but I couldn’t get into this record until I figured out what was holding me back. First, you have to ignore the titles of the songs. They took to this semi-retarded naming scheme on Hail to the Thief and some of it seeps through here. Then you have to start with #4 “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, skip “Faust Arp” (see what I mean about the names?), then play through the rest of the record. After you’ve become thoroughly familiar with that sequence, play the first 2 (which means skip “Nude,” too). Eventually, you’ll come to start at the beginning and simply skip 2 and 6. Too esoteric? Well, that’s what happened to me.

I can nearly guarantee that they’ll come out with a ‘b-sides’ companion. We can fill in the blanks then.

If you like Radiohead, In Rainbows has the gold, but ya gotta mine it.