
Certain Death – Paranoid
It’s hard not to smirk a little bit when hearing all the internet personalities advertising a lifestyle where a greater quantity of fruits and whole grains are consumed. Surely, these people are Luddites. What’s next? Do I have to show my own Iron Maiden T-shirt?
On the other hand, we modern folks are known to have terrible memories and little interest in history. The average sugar consumption globally in the 1950s was 20 kilos per person in a year. It’s three times that now, and if you ask most kids what strawberry is they’ll run away in disgust.
Things do change, but not always for the better. That’s especially easy to see in the way we consume things. Back in the 19th Century, a doctor would’ve suggested a bit of opium and laudanum to treat the cold that’s been bothering me. Say anything about opium, but it’s hard to smoke it like a gentleman.
You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone, and most people won’t remember they had it in the first place. That’s a curse of classic hard rock, too. Certain Death’s “Paranoid” attempts to bring some of that back. The band is using all of the genre’s aces, all of the things you may have missed without really knowing, and all of the things that make it a healthier alternative to AI-generated pop.
Just like pouring healthy food into your body all of a sudden, you may receive it all as a bit of a shock. You may even get jittery. But don’t worry! That’s just your body fighting to stay alive. Classic rock is good for you. That much we’ve studied. Certain Death want you to stay alive and thriving!
Chapel of Roses – It’s not Nothing
You may have giggled at seeing two people kissing each other when you were a kid and may have even called it “gross.” Doing the same thing as an adult is viewed by others with considerable more suspicion.
And you probably snickered the time that one of your bandmates in the rock group you set up in high school came up with an original that they dubbed “Love Song.” That thing is for Tesla and for wimps. You may have even advocated for your own original piece, “Motorcycle Skulls on Fire.” Your bandmates probably nodded in approval.
But, hopefully, you’ve grown out of that phase as well. You may realize now that what was good for ol’ John and Paul is good for you. You may have even started to believe that the world needs more earnest, decent, imaginative songs about love. There are plenty of tunes about war and pillaging, some of them written as far back as when English and French monarchs still had their heads on their shoulders.
Chapel of Roses are an imaginative, retro-loving music group. They bring the classics into their sound and a big dose of psychedelia. But they ain’t singing about puffing no magic dragon or flying on magic carpets. “It’s not Nothing” is a love song, and the lyrics won’t let you forget it. Such personal confessions, when honest, have become rare in pop-rock music. It took me a while to get comfortable. But not that I am; I think that this is a far better song than “Motorcycle Skulls on Fire.”