In the second installment of our new feature which runs every Sunday we are asking the bands that make our contenders for album of the year to list their Top Ten albums of all time. As part of our four-part series featuring every member of SUiCiDE BOMBERS next up is C. Slim. SUiCiDE BOMBERS new album ALL FOR THE CANDY is out now and you can grab your copy in the links that follow the TOP 10.
Take it away…
THE ROLLING STONES – STICKY FINGERS
The Rolling Stones was one of many artists I found in my father’s record collection as a kid. I started out just jumping from Chuck Berry Cover to Chuck Berry cover as they probably did more of them than any other band, but after a while I started listening through the rest of it as well. As opposed to Motorhead and AC/DC, The Rolling Stones have very much changed throughout the years, and I keep coming back to them and diving into new parts of their career. Is a close call between Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed as their best album in my opinion, but Sticky Fingers draws the slightly longer straw.
This is an album with feel to it. The songs are varied, all strong, but all different and they all have this strange feel to them like it’s all coming out of the record and into your living room as you listen to it. A feeling lost on most modern albums, digitally recorded and fine tuned to where there’s no life left in them.
Fave songs: Brown Sugar, You Gotta Move, I Got the Blues, Dead Flowers
MOTORHEAD – 1916
I first saw Motorhead on a metal music-video show that was on in the early 00’s when I was in my late teens. What a dirty bunch of bastards, I thought to myself, this is great!!!. They’ve been with me since and I saw them live every time they were in Oslo after that.
But how to pick a Motorhead album? Lemmy always said that he never really thought they did a bad album, and he’s right. I won’t say that they’re as stationary sound wise as many other claims though. There is definitely more 70’s rock in the early days and more metal in the later years and a bit of rock n roll coming and going throughout all of it.
1916 is about halfway both timewise and soundwise and It’s a massive step up from the previous pair of albums. It’s also the first Motorhead album to contain a ballad, and there were actually quite a few of them following over the years. Apart from that you’ve got some really fast ones, a boogierocker, an experimental one and the title track that shows Lemmy’s knowledge and interest in war-time history.
Fave tracks: I’m So Bad (Baby I Don’t Care), The One To Sing The Blues, No Voices In The Sky, Make My Day
STATUS QUO – ROCKIN ALL OVER THE WORLD
Status Quo is a band I got into as a little kid. Then they kind of got away from me in the teens as I searched for harder and heavier music, but then I rediscovered them in my mid 20’s and they stuck with me ever since. I mean, how can you not like Status Quo? It’s just a good-time rock n roll band. For some reason this album is considered by many of the old fans, as well as the original bass player himself, as the beginning of the end for the good old Status Quo or the first step down in a downward spiral. At the same time “Rockin All Over the World” has become one of their biggest hits and still to this day serves as the grand finale in their live-set as well as the opening anthem for live-aid back in the day so there must be something to it. Be that as it may, I think this is a great Status Quo album. There is definitely a change in the sound on this album. You still got their trademarked boogierock, but unlike their earlier albums the sound is more polished and produced and the songs are more focused on straight up rock tunes and less mucking about. Also, there is a very interesting series on YouTube with the original Co-Producer John Eden going in depth on each track as he remixes them. Well worth a watch.
Fave tracks: Can’t Give You More, Let’s Ride, Dirty Water, Hold You Back
BLACK SABBATH – HEAVEN & HELL
Black Sabbath was the first band that turned me on to more than just the music. Now it was all about growing long hair, getting black clothes and becoming a metal head and freaking out your pop-oriented classmates with what they thought were satanic-music. Looking back at it now they weren’t remotely close to satanic, the music wasn’t THAT heavy compared to what we discovered later and for much of their career they didn’t even wear that much black clothes. But anyway, the music was, and still is, good. And groundbreaking for an entire genre off course.
I’ve chosen a Dio fronted album, but still, I consider myself neutral in the whole Ozzy vs Dio debate. There is tons of great stuff with Ozzy, and Master Of Reality or Sabbath Bloody Sabbath would be my top picks of his catalog. But as an album Heaven & Hell pretty much stands out as pure solid with no weak points and a very strong comeback from a band that was pretty much burned out in every way and found new life with a new frontman.
Fave songs: Neon Knights, Wishing Well, Die Young, Lonely Is The Word
D:A:D – NO FUEL LEFT FOR THE PILGRIMS
A band I discovered in my young adult years and immediately became very fond of. The long running Danish band has been back and forth between different styles over the years. After two nationally released cowpunk albums under their full name Disneyland After Dark the band had to change their name to the abbreviation D-A-D as their 3rd album drew international attention and the Disney company denied the use of their original name. The Unique combination on this album between classic hard rock backing and echo-driven, spaghetti-western twang lead guitar topped off with Jesper Binzer’s clever wise guy’s lyrics makes this and the follow up album “Risking It All” a one of a kind thing and a great one at that.
Fave Songs: Sleeping My Day Away, Jihad, Point Of View, Girl Nation
CHUCK BERRY – BERRY ON TOP
Chuck Berry was my very first rock-idol. Don’t ask me why. It was the early 90’s and he hadn’t been relevant for the music industry in decades and no other kids for miles around even knew who he was. But I liked him anyway. And if asked, I will argue for why he was more the king of rock’n’roll than Elvis ever was.
Albums weren’t really a thing in the 50’s. As a recording artist you did two songs for a single. If it sold well you did two more for another single and so on. After 5 or 6 of those the record company might pile what they had of an artist on a 12” record and call it an album. Chess Records, the blues label fortunate enough to stumble upon the gold mine Chuck turned out to be, was for some reason a bit more album focused ahead of its time. And as Chuck was spewing out hit songs faster than an average man in the 50’s was smoking cigarettes for their health benefits, this album combines a collection of single hits with some album-only deep cuts
Fave tracks: Almost Grown, Johnny B. Goode, Maybellene, Roll Over Beethoven
BACKSTREET GIRLS – SICK MY DUCK
The pride of the Norwegian hard rock n roll scene, but sadly not that well known outside the Norwegian borders. The band did a few classic albums early in their career, in the late 80’s, but I picked a strong one from this century. A more hard-hitting sound than most of their other albums, but still packed with good-time boogie rock for you and your neighbors to enjoy.
Fave Songs: Black Boogie Death Rock ‘N’ Roll, Boogie My life Away, Damn That Man, Hiroshima Shakin’
DEEP PURPLE – MACHINE HEAD
As I searched for harder and heavier music as a teenager Deep Purple was the natural step between The Rolling Stones and Black Sabbath. Very much a musician’s band as everyone in the band was long above average skilled on their instrument. Still, they managed to make songs that worked as just songs without going all out on just showing off their skills as many prog rock bands tended to do. Machine Head Is generally considered the masterpiece of their classic lineup and it seems about right, I think.
As a bass player I would point out that the album, and the opener Highway Star in particular, got one of the best bass sounds ever recorded. The album also contains the best rock ballad ever written. No, it’s not Nothing Else Matters or Don’t Cry. It’s When A Blind Man Cries. Forget the lurking clean guitar playing alone on the 1. Verse followed by the 8 tom drum brake and the over the top guitarsolo to finish it off. It’s just a sincere and tender melody with some tasteful organ and bluesy guitar tones on top and it makes just about everything else fade in comparison.
Fave Songs: Highway Star, Pictures Of Home, When A Blind Man Cries
JUDAS PRIEST – DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH
A band I’ve always been familiar with, without being the biggest fan in the world. As I started looking deeper into their discography as an adult, I found a particular taste for this album. Rock solid all the way through and a benchmark for classic 80’s heavy metal.
Fave Songs: Freewheel Burning, Jawbreaker, The Sentinel
ZZ TOP – RECYCLER
I’ve seen ZZ Top live a few times. You just gotta love looking at those middle-aged people looking confused as the band shuffles its way through their 70’s blues rock material and they thought they bought tickets to a we love the 80’s show. If the Rolling Stones had some changes in style over the years, ZZ top has somehow been different bands in the 70’s and 80’s. I kind of like both of them, but what I like about this album is how they in the 90’s and 00’s blended them together. We’re back in the blues-rock field, but we still got the big production, some electronic elements and effects and as always Billy Gibbons magic guitar picking.
Fave Songs: Concrete and Steel, My Head’s in Mississippi, Doubleback
SUiCiDE BOMBERS LINKS:
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American fans save shipping on CDs from here (they also have signed CDs):
https://frontlineentertainment.bigcartel.com/
International ViNYL and CD orders are placed here:
https://tigernet.no/artist/154857-suicide-bombers
Anyone who wants signed records, CDs, t-shirts, pins or hoodies… mail the band directly on SoMe… we also made a video you can look up on our platforms with all the merch available.