BLACK FLAME Nuclear Messiah (Cleopatra) *****
This riff-tastic monster of a metal album is just… too fucking cool. Nuclear Messiah is project led by former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland and features no less than 36 metal stars, most of whom you’d recognize, and Black Flame is their first outing. This thunderous all-star project is truly worthy of the term ‘super group’.
Black Flame, with a spoken word intro by no less than William Shatner, is billed as “uniting 36 legendary musicians from across five decades of rock & metal into one cinematic, apocalyptic statement”, and that sums it up nicely. This is more than classic metal and yet it’s not as obnoxious as the black or extreme stuff. If this kind of rock & roll is your thing, then the guest list will give you a chubbie. Just a few of those throwing down here include former Megadeth members Marty Friedman and Dave Ellefson, plus Mick Box, the Appice brothers, Bob Daisley, Rick Wakemen, Ronnie Romero and lots more. The legendary Arthur Brown provides vocals on the single Ride The Sky.
Black Flame is driven mainly by Poland’s fluid and experimental rock guitar playing, but you can feel lots of chefs in the kitchen too. It has an unrestrained power thanks to the participating musicians, but also thanks to the production by Brian Perera, Derek Hughes and Jurgen Engler for the label… everybody understands how this type of rock & roll should sound and feel.
No need to worry about pussy ballads here, Nuclear Messiah is all about the power and drive that makes Black Flame an aggressive joy to listen to. Summer is coming and when you hit the highway for a road trip, crank this is an album and get there faster.
HOT TRACKS: She’s So Evil, Ride The Sky, title track
IF LOVE DON’T BREAK YOU Ryan Dart (independent) *****+
Dart is a Colorado-based Americana songwriter, farmer and father, and If Love Don’t Break You is a stunning, quietly exuberant gem of an album. The songs as you would expect on a record like this are about love, loss, and hard earned wisdom. Some great quotes about this set on his website, and this one from Vents Magazine is my favorite; “There is a particular kind of country music that does more than entertain. It settles in. It speaks directly to something personal, and it lingers long after the song has ended.” That’s If Love Don’t Break You.
Ryan lists folks like Townes Van Zandt, Dylan, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits as influences, and one spin through If Love Don’t Break You makes that perfectly clear. I’m even feeling a bit of Steve Earle. The album has a sort of classic country feel to it with gently strumming acoustic guitars, fiddle and pedal steel, but the lyrics go so much deeper than the classic country I’ve professed a love for previously in this column. If you’ll allow me another quote, Country Music News International says that this is “the breath of dusty Rocky Mountain air we didn’t know we were suffocating without.”
No guitar histrionics on If Love Don’t Break You, just a warm, pleasantly weathered voice dolling out gentle life wisdom as the album proceeds at an unhurried pace. There is some tasty guitar here to be sure, like the solo on Masters Of Time, but it’s always in service of the song itself, not ‘watch how fast and fancy I can play.’ This is one of those albums where every note is exactly where it needs to be, and when a song ends you find yourself thinking “yep, I wouldn’t change a single thing about what I just heard.”
If Love Don’t Break You is a gently exquisite album you’ll want to spend considerable time with.
HOT TRACKS: Masters Of Time, title cut, These Horses
RANDOM MADNESS Billy Price (Get Hip Records) *****
Smooth, groovy and soulful… that sums up Billy Price’s follow-up to 2024’s Person Of Interest. Random Madness, produced again by Tony Braunagel, has a late-night downtown feel, and recording with his own band in their hometown of Pittsburgh was clearly the right move.
“It was important to me to be able to work at home with the band I’ve been playing with for decades” Billy says. He uses his longtime drummer Dave Dodd although producer Braunagel, a fine drummer himself, sat in on a few cuts too. Price’s voice is deep and rich and the band stays in that velvet pocket all the way through. Price says these songs “from lighthearted to confessional to serious are the most personal of my career and the natural evolution of what Tony and I started with Person Of Interest.”
Random Madness, to me at least, has a very 70’s soul vibe that is nostalgic and refreshing at the same time, like something Curtis Mayfield might be doing if he were still around. Many times when listening to albums for review a couple of things will stand out- vocal buried in the mix, drums not recorded well- but on this one the sound is frankly magical. From Tony’s production choices to the mix from sound engineer Sergio Rios, this is what perfection sounds like… drums, keys, bass, guitar and horns exactly where they need to be.
Both Billy and Tony bring long histories into the studio with them; Price was lead singer for the legendary Roy Buchanan in the mid-70’s, and Braunagel was the house drummer for Island Records for a spell and was in Paul Kossoff’s band Back Street Crawler. So a lifetime of musical experience has led them to this soulful groove with R&B, rock, soul and blues elements.
At the end of the day Random Madness is just a joy to listen to, and isn’t that what we’re all looking for?
HOT TRACKS: Rent Free, I Was A Fool, I Said What I Said
