IRON MAIDEN - "SOMEWHERE IN TIME" (EMI, 1986)
I was twelve years old. I received for my birthday a cassette player, that works with dozens of battery, like the Ghostbuster’s proton pack backpack. So, I need a cassette to try this little brother of a ghettoblaster and I went to local music store called Ricordi. In that period I was a sci-fi fan and when I saw the cover art of this album, an Eddie dressed like an interstellar bounty hunter, I took it without thinking. Hours of compulsive listening later, I entered the tunnel of heavy metal!
BLIND GUARDIAN - "NIGHTFALL IN MIDDLE EARTH" (VIRGIN RECORDS, 1998)
I love Tolkien. When in 1998 this masterpiece went out, I was playing M.E.R.P. (find out the acronym and win a trip into Moria) and was also playing the first L.A.R.P. experience in Rome, that is running around the Castel Fusano’s Pinewood, dressed like dwarves and elves hunting friends of us dressed like orcs, often meeting up drug addicted people that disturbed, stalking us with syringe in hand ( the famous D&D poisoned darts) or also meeting up secluded couples of lovers: ”sorry, we think you was Uruk-hai orcs! Your painting is the same!”. “Into the storm” was our song, right for the battle and also for the retreat!
MANOWAR - "KINGS OF METAL" (ATLANTIC RECORDS, 1988)
One of the most beautiful albums in the history of metal! You can only love it. And decapitate who doesn’t love it. "Kings of Metal" marks the period when I was a voracious reader of R.E. Howard books, all the Conan the Barbarian saga. This band perfectly embodies the barbaric power of the characters created by our beloved writer. Who doesn’t desire to handle a battle axe listening to “Heart of Steel”?
NIRVANA - "NEVERMIND" (GEFFEN RECORDS, 1991)
Ok, it sounds like an off-topic. It’s a grunge album, but I need to consider in this playlist because it remembers me one of the most beautiful days in my life. When I was fifteen, I went to the concert at the Castello in Rome. My parents let me go because they thought that Nirvana was a sort of buddhist band. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” leads to illumination indeed…
OFFSPRING - "SMASH" (EPITAPH RECORDS, 1994)
This album featuring the craziest times of my youth, when I worked in a skate shop, meeting every day the coolest people of Rome, that unconsciously started an urban revolution, occupying abandoned spaces and turning into skateparks. “Come Out and Play” was an hymn of freedom, a punch in the eyes of bigotry!
NAPALM DEATH - "UTILITARIAN" (CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS, 2012)
The album of my adulthood. Although I’m not really consider me an adult, however by passing time, I need to find a musical landing, and songs that confirm my actual line of thought. “Utilitarian” faces up very actual thematics: economic and social crisis, insecurity, authoritarianism. Almost a musical translation of Noam Chomsky and Zygmunt Bauman books. "The Wolf I Feed" is absolutely my favorite song.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - "THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES" (EPIC RECORDS, 1999)
Prelude to the fight against globalization and to the need of revolution, this album is a political manifest. I was at the concert, renamed The Battle of Rome. It was like a call to arms to go in the first line against capitalism and his evil intent to killing culture. And it was damn prophetic! “Calm Like a Bomb”, so to speak…
PROGENIE TERRESTRE PURA - "U.M.A." (AVANTGARDE MUSIC, 2013)
I cannot insert this album in a particular period of my existence. I consider this work like a passport to a mental trip, a lucid dream, a dreamlike introspection. When I feel the need to disconnect with real, I listen to "U.M.A.". I think that it’s one of the deepest Italian black metal works. There is a cosmic wisdom that pervades the entire album, disturbing but captivating. I feel like the crew of the Alert boat, when they land in the cursed city of R’lyeh, suspended and cradled by a comfortable nightmare.
SEPULTURA - "CHAOS A.D." (ROADRUNNER RECORDS, 1993)
The album of an insane summer holyday in the far 1993 spent into a lost village, where T.V. channels are only three, if you’re lucky, where the Peroni beer is considered like an holy beverage send by the gods, where typical Italian cards game, first of all Tresette, ends up in the blood, and where shotguns loaded with salt resolve any issue, here formed a gang with the purpose to subvert the quiet of the village. With metal of course, spreading “Refuse/Resist” out of the car speakers against the local sound of accordion!
FEAR FACTORY - "DEMANUFACTURE"(ROADRUNNER RECORDS, 1995)
One of my other passions is cyberpunk literature. From William Gibson’s "Neuromancer" to Bruce Sterling’s "Schismatrix", this fictional world thrilled me and gave me a new point of view: neural plants, altered bodies, transhumanization, net runners and so on. It’s impossible can’t dream a new future, although dark and decadent, but really fascinating. Industrial metal music, with Fear Factory and songs like “New Breed” or “Replica”, was the best frame for this context.
SLAYER - "DIVINE INTERVENTION" (AMERICAN RECORDINGS, 1994)
It’s pure violence, it’s a piece of corrupted soul, the corrupted soul of thrash metal. When I saw “Dittohead” videoclip, I wished to take an hammer tearing down something! Also this masterpiece doesn’t represent a particular moment, it’s only fucking passion for this band and, ending this post , I want to quote this:
“Unafraid of punishment
with a passive government
There’s nothing to you to regret
Nothing to regret”
See you next time, my dear pretty rogue headbangers!
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