Slayer - "Dead Skin Mask" - From the Album Seasons in the Abyss

Don't get me wrong, because I'll say it upfront, this is a good song, one of Slayer's best. And--as if it had to be stated--I'm not squeamish, not about lyrical content, anyway. But "Dead Skin Mask" is a little bit disappointing to me, too. It's mostly about the child's voice, which is it seems mixed purposely, the first time you hear it, to scare the crap out of you. I'm no production expert, but something about the way that voice is mixed, makes it seem as if it's coming at your ears from outside the song. One moment you're listening to thrash metal, the next there's a kid caterwauling in the corner of your bedroom, or in the back seat of your car. It continues to startle you even after the first time.

And that's to the good. But there are a couple things. 1) is that the child's voice is no child's voice, but belonged instead to a buddy of the band who read through and then had the results digitally hiked in pitch. So sounds good, just not real, and that's where I think Slayer maybe failed the authenticity test, that, I don't know, someone like Cop Shoot Cop passed, when they splattered pig's blood on the sleeves of their 7" EP.

But also 2) which is that Ed Gein, I know hard to believe given how famous he is in punk rock and metal lyrics, only killed two people, and more to the point here, didn't kill any children. And he didn't lock people up in basements Buffalo-Bill-style, either, from whence you might hear a voice whining "I don't want to play any more" if that's how it goes.

And let me stress: it's their song, they can arrange it how they wish, but it's here that Slayer perhaps fails the gory research test that they themselves passed so notably with "Angel of Death." Part of the thing, at least for me, about the-metal-band-sticks-all-the-lived-with-horror-back-in-the-face-of-society thing is that it's gotta be true.

Otherwise, they're just Steve Albini.

File under: Ed Gein, star

Robin Trower - In City Dreams

Until, like, last week, I didn't, and actually had never owned any physical copies of Robin Trower's music, or at least with a couple exceptions, I hadn't. My gutar-playing buddies in high school, Mike and Tony, had turned me on to BLT with Jack Bruce when I was in the tenth grade, and I picked it up at Spec's I think, and that was indeed a very good record, though understood by me at the time, so close to having first discovered Cream, as important because of Bruce's participation, rather than because of the L, or the T. And when I purchased the follow up record Bruce and Trower made, Truce, I didn't think much of it, and that was the end of that for me and Trower for quite a few years.

Until I met my buddy Alan the Metalhead. He was a few years older than me, and yes, he liked Slayer (and as importantly, hated Bruce Springsteen) but he was also old enough to have known Robin Trower in the first flush of his solo career, when he was about as popular in America as any hard rock act you could name. So he pretty much in his C-90 archives had the Robin Trower collection, and was not afraid to mix in Bridge of Sighs or Twice Removed From Yesterday into the cassette tape playlists otherwise featuring Metallica, and Anthrax, and King Missile (!) that he ran through as we put out the vendor and newsrack copies of the Miami Herald five mornings a week.

So I pretty much becamse familiar with everything Trower put out while he was with Chrysalis records, and a few of his albums thereafter, when his popularity had ebbed, James Dewar had split, and he was reduced to recording for an indie label. I considered his first three albums classics, and the next six or so also very good, but there was no reason to pick 'em up when I could d hear 'em anytime at work just by the asking. So in my music purchases of the time, I concentrated on shit I didn't think Alan would like, like Big Black, and Sonic Youth, and The Replacements.

And then I stopped working for Alan, and then had the relationship with Donna, during which my music consumption dropped off the table, and then by the time she's out of my life, it's the internet era, and music had become downloadable. It was at this time that I downloaded Trower's Chrysalis works, and that had served me well until just recently, when I've decided to get physical copies of some of my favorite records I previously only had digitally. I've recently bought several CD box sets, like the one covering Voivod's Combat/Noise albums, and this other one encompassing the albums Caravan made for Deram, etc etc.

And continuing this trend, about ten days ago, I picked up The Studio Albums 1973-1983, a box set comprised of the ten studio albums Trower made for Chrysalis. And I've been going through them, listening to an album on the way in and back from work each day. Safe to say I knew the first four well, but while I'd heard his fifth record, In City Dreams, it was not the one that ever got played the most. So today was not new music for me, but it did dig up some well-buried musical memories.

This album is a rather dramatic change for Trower. Not only does the cover look like they'd've used for a 12" disco single, there is definitely a sleazy patina of echoplex and smooth jazz lacquered over everything. Just learned today that they'd actually brought in a bassplayer more familiar with the funk; James Dewar, whom anyone familiar with Trower knows was quite the serviceable bassist, is only singing on this one, and the bottom is provided by one Rustee Allen, late of Sly and the Family Stone. The Robin Trower Band, no longer Power, and no longer a trio. In a way, the circumstances remind me of the way Jeff Beck went from BBA to Blow by Blow. Trower, too, is softening up, leaving the blues rock behind but taking all his technique with him.

And certainly, a player of Trower's talent and stature should do whatever the hell he wants to try. But where the Beck comparison breaks down is in that Blow by Blow is in no way slight, and has plenty of tuneage. Maybe if Trower had covered, oh I dunno, something from Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, In City Dreams would have had a little more gravitas, and a little more songsmithery, both of which it is decidely lacking. It's not a terrible album; if you're fully aware of the album's origin point in time coming in, it's certainly a decent listen, and Trower is always always always going to be a guitarist of tremendous feel and dexterity. The title track I actually think hangs with some of his best. But maybe the second best tune on here might be "Sweet Wine of Love," and that one is only as good as it is because of the unabashed cheese factor . . .

Next Up: Caravan to Midnight

File under: Re-listenings Still in Progress