Newsted - Heavy Metal Music
Jason Newsted is back
Through the many side projects and cameo appearances he has put in since leaving Metallica, Jason has finally hit back big time with a new Project named Newsted and with an album simply called Heavy Metal Music.
This is a straight forward chugging heavy album very similar to the work he did with his side projects IR8 and Sexoturica where he collaborated with Devin Townsend, Tom Hunting (Exodus)and Andreas Kisser (Sepultura).If you’ve never heard any of the few tracks put together by those guys definitely go check them out, you won’t be disappointed.
Newsted definitely shows how much Lemmy is an influence on him in this album with his vocal style and song structure. He goes as far as covering “We Are The Road Crew” during live performances.
Some of the tracks even seem like an example of what Load/Reload would have sounded like if they had stripped the songs of the blues elements and retained the straight forward rock.
It’s worth noting the guitarist for this band is Mike Mushok. Yes, the guy playing these fantastic solos and thundering chugging riffs was the guitarist for the super wussy post grunge act Staind. I would never have figured that under those dreary ballads was guy with these kinds of chops.
The Album kicks off with a fantastic track “Heroic Dose.” A nice thundering track with lyrics that speaks of making life changes to avoid betrayal and back stabbing. It seems to me as though this is Jason’s way of looking back at his past projects and wanting to make this album something special, void of any interpersonal problems that may have haunted his contributions in the past.
The second track, and lead single “Soldier Head.” I feel this is one of the weaker tracks on the album, almost seems to be missing something compared to the other tracks. There’s some level of heaviness that’s not quite coming through and the lyrics are almost generic metal lyrics 101. With lines like “I make the devil sell his soul” and “By the teeth of my skin” it just seems a bit silly.
Next up is my favourite track on the album “As The Crow Flies.” This is the stand out track of this whole album to me. It’s such a heavy chugging riff and Jason barking out the lyrics, much like he did when he would take over when Metallica performed live.
In some of the tracks the lyrics do seem a little cliché and by the numbers. For example,“long time dead” does seem like he just sat there with a rhyming dictionary to come up with some of the lines. But that being said, most of the tracks are still very solid lyric wise, it just seems it’s not Jason’s strongest trait.
Other stand out tracks Are the big heavy ugly chugging “Nocturnus,” and then there is slight echoes of “Of Wolf and Man” from the Black Album in “King of the Underdogs”
This is a great, straight up solid metal album from Newsted, and very promising for a debut release. Hopefully he sticks with the project and we see them grow and evolve over the coming years. Jason has been missed and still has a lot to offer the metal community.
Heavy Metal Music was released August 6th and is available now. Newsted will also be touring Australia for Soundwave 2014
Newsted line up Mike Mushok, Jason Newsted, Jessie Farnsworth & Jesus Mendez Jr.