For all of you Metallica fans....that are left

[Arnold]

I like Dave Grohl ok, but he doesn't have the balls necessary to write a good Sabbathy tune. Zakk keeps Oz grounded in his metal roots while being able to branch out.

Have you checked out Probot? It's not bad..One of the better metal albums I've heard in a while. As for Sabbathy tunes, there's one on there he wrote with King Diamond on vocals (yes, King Diamond..Doing a pretty good Oz impression).

The whole Dave Grohl thing got blown out of proportion because most of his fans can't seem to differentiate between the BLS-Alcoholic-Viking-Biker-Zakk and the real man.  I've seen a more recent interview where he said Dave was cool and a good player, but the song submitted to Ozzy was some sucky leftover material.  That's the real Zakk (and yes, Zakk is his legal name) speaking.

[Sky]

Rust in Piece, now THAT was a Metal album.

Agreed. One of the paucity of old metal bands I'm updating to cd. I used to have (and still have the remnants of) a massive early metal vinyl collection, built from 1981-1986 or so thanks to my guilty dad and import vinyl bins in the back corners of record stores.

An old band that just reunited and released a new album is Exodus.

Their first album was part of the holy canon here where I grew up, along with Mercyful Fate's Melissa, Slayer's Show No Mercy and Venom's Black Metal. That's the trough my old band gorged ourselves on, and our early music was pure thrash, all original, in an area of KISS tribute bands and cover bands. Man, I was a lucky kid.

Have you checked out Probot?

On my fye.com wish list, near the top.

[Fraeg]

I listened to the Probot album, and I have to give credit where credit is due (although grudgingly) Dave did an admirable job.  However, in some sense this just feels like a compilation album.  The songs are done so well in the style of the artists who do the singing (even though Dave says songs were not written with a specific artist in mind) that the album just felt like a Metal mix tape I might have had in high school.  

Again, the album isn’t “bad” it just doesn’t really push any boundaries or explore any new terrain.  The bottom line for me is that if this was a gift I would listen to it, but I would sooner dig up some old tapes then shell out the cash for a nostalgia trip.

-fraeg

[squirrel]

...And Justice For All and Master of Puppets are pretty much untouchable as far as metal goes.  

Hmmm. See for me it was primarily Kill 'em All (unbelievable album, not at all polished...and better for it) and Ride the Lightning. Justice and Master were sort of post metallica although i own both. The black album is made by anal probing aliens who normally create reality TV scripts but needed another avenue to communicate with the young. Even the aliens consider it a failure.

EDIT: Oh yeah, ded thred res for teh win!