One of the beautiful things about these Peel Sessions is that they sort of let the listener (me, in this case) get a peek behind the curtain of what was going on as these bands progressed, changed, or whatever between albums. I was just a boy when this shit was happening, so I sure as hell wasn't there.
When I first received these CDs, I was familiar with the Napalm Death, Heresy, and Extreme Noise Terror, and Intense Degree Peel Sessions already. So, I was really excited to dig into the Godflesh, Carcass, and Bolt Thrower sections. Upon first listen, I wasn't really feeling the first bunch of Bolt Thrower tracks, and I quickly forgot about them, and favored some of the other discs in the set. The thing about the first Bolt Thrower Peel Session was the vocals. They're not what I know and love. The vocals are way more punk sounding, not as deep, and definitely not angry sounding. They're more desperate than anything. The one really cool thing in the first session (the In Battle...one) is that in the beginning of Attack in the Aftermath, the part with the toms (ugh, love me a bunch of toms!) is when the singer whispers rise, RISE, RISE BAABAA BAP BAAAAAAA. That sends me into a frenzy every time! Another thing I've come to appreciate in the first session is the drumming. I love hearing the hi-hat going full-tilt in the background of all the songs chitCHITchitCHITchitCHIT. The whole drum performance comes off more blasty than on the album. I've come to accept the vocals, and these other few treats are enough for me.
The second session really stands out to me. I really really love Realm of Chaos. It's a great compromise between grindcore and death metal, which is what grindcore is all about in my opinion. I love the choppy blast beats, and how awful the guitars sound. It's really murky, and some of the riffs are totally obscured by it all. It's amazing to me to see that the dates for the first and second sessions were only 3 months apart. It seems like a huge leap to change so much in song structure, guitar tuning, and vocal tone in such a short time. Listening to the first two sessions back to back makes a little more sense out of the drumming, though. It seems like a logical step to have so many blasts on the Realm of Chaos stuff as opposed to the earlier material. On the album, the progression of World Eater, Drowned in Torment, Realm of Chaos and Prophet of Hatred is one of the best of anything I've ever heard. With that in mind, I think the four songs that they chose for the second session were pretty good. I love the part of Drowned in Torment where Karl sings through the catches and into the full riff with the drums that's on the album. On the Peel Session, he doesn't quite have the timing right yet or something, but I love how it came out. I was never crazy about Eternal War, but this version sounds better to me. It must be the way it's mixed or something. Haven't quite figured that one out yet. The big question mark is Domination. Either I'm oblivious, or that song doesn't appear anywhere else. Oh well.
Finally, the War Master-era Peel Session- not crazy about this one. I like the album pretty good, but the Peel Session isn't doing it for me, except maybe Lost Souls Domain. This session doesn't really have any tasty morsels for me, but instead just sounds like the regular album stuff but maybe not quite as rehearsed or something. The great thing about bands like Bolt Thrower is that if I overplay any one album at any given time, I can just listen to a different album from a different era without being sick of it. Giving these Peel Sessions a listen this last week gave me a break from the recent spurt of listening to only Realm of Chaos.
I guess one of the cool things about the War Master session is that there's a chunk of the middle of the song War Master that's totally different than the album version. It's like the whole thing wasn't quite ironed out yet. Admittedly, I really have only been listening to the In Battle... and Realm of Chaos sessions, and sort of skipping the War Master one, which is why I didn't have much to say about it.
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