Album Spotlight: The Dead Deads: For Your Obliteration...

Weaving in and out of and around and through punk, metal, pop, rock, bubblegum, grunge, Americana and all things in between, sometimes in the same song, sometimes in the same verse or chorus, The Dead Deads refuse to be pigeonholed into anything.

The Dead Deads' latest release, For Your Obliteration... is one of the most interesting albums I've heard this year.

Lead vocalist Meta Dead (Leticia Wolf) can go from a sweet bubblegum voice to heavy metal growling to punk attitude to melodic hard rock seamlessly and often. I have no doubt that she could sing in any genre she wanted.

For Your Obliteration... is bottom heavy much of the way through. This is to be attributed to the the heavy pounding of drummer Billy Dead (Angie Lese) and the bass playing of Daisy Dead (Mavis Turner). They lock in together form a formidable foundation for the soundscapes of Hella (Mandy Wolf) and Betty Dead's (Erica Sellers) keys and guitars.

Want a label? Rock. They rock, unabashedly and unashamedly. Enough words, here is some music. "Animals", which is my favorite song on the album:

Album Spotlight: The Temperance Movement: White Bear

Southern psychedelic grunge rock. It took me a while to find the right descriptors for The Temperance Movement's new album White Bear. This is another in my quest to prove that rock is indeed not dead.

Living on the harder edge of Southern Rock (yes, I know they from the UK, but Southern Rock has been around for 40+ years and is a fairly ubiquitous term that can be applied regardless of locale of origin), White Bear takes you on a psychedelic rock journey that makes a lengthy stop in Seattle for some Soundgarden/Alice in Chains inspired 90s rock.

Here is the song "White Bear" from the album:



While the album is chock full of rockers like "White Bear", when you get to last song the nuance and depth increases dramatically. "Time Won't Leave" reminds me of a song that would not be out of place on any of the Eagles iconic records. Have a listen to this live acoustic version.

Saraya: When the Blackbird Sings

Sometimes stuff gets missed for whatever reason. The second album by the band Saraya was missed by me and apparently 99.99% of the world's population. And that's a shame.

Saraya was a hard rock band named after lead singer Sandi Saraya and had couple of minor hits from their self-titled debut that came out in 1989. I bought the cassette (yeah, I'm that old) for the first album based off "Love Has Taken It's Toll", which I still love. Great hard rock song.



The rest of the record, along with the other single "Back To The Bullet" was even more pop metal than this song and not near as good. One good song, I thought. Therefore, I kind of forgot about the band.

Saraya's second album, When The Blackbird Sings, was released in 1992. Classic case of bad timing. Nirvana and the Seattle grunge movement was in full force. This fantastic record fell through the cracks, and that's unfortunate.

This record is over 25 years old and I just heard it for the first time a few days ago. And I must say, it's one of the best hard rock albums, cover to cover, I've heard in a long time. Sounds fresh and not dated. If you like Lita Ford, Queensryche, Whitesnake, Badlands and Halestorm, then you just might find something here for you.

Unfortunately there are no videos, but here's a youtube audio of what I think is a great representation of the entire album.