So, I’ve been listening to metal for about , oh 18 years now. For some reason, back in the day, Exodus got lumped into the category of “stupid crappy bands” while I was listening to Metallica and Anthrax. I think it’s because the only Exodus I heard was from the live album Good Friendly Violent Fun, and, really, the only thing from that I listened to was the cover of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. I remember thinking it was pretty cool that a metal band was covering AC/DC, until I listened to it and it sounded different than the original, at which time I’m pretty sure I decided it was crap.
In fact, I think I just inadvertantly pinpointed the whole reason I’ve not liked Exodus.
Anyway, now I’m finding the fact that I didn’t like them for so long kind of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it, I suppose), because it turns out they’re pretty awesome.
I discovered this, probably not surprisingly, via Reuben. He happened upon the Shovel Headed Kill Machine album a while back and played some of it for me while we hanging out in Buffalo Wild Wings before a show at The Myth (Megadeth, maybe?) and it’s a whole bunch of awesome.
A few months ago, after listening to the album again, I decided to go back and check out older Exodus. They’ve had a long and varied career, so I consulted the internet to try and determine what would be considered their “classic” album. It turned out to be Bonded By Blood, a fact I now find kind of amusing.
Anyway, after listening to Bonded By Blood, I was less than impressed. To my brain, it sounded pretty much like really old Anthrax, back when they were still with Neil Turbin, which IMO, is not a good thing. So, that was the end of that… for a while.
Today, as part of my alphabetical-by-artist listening strategy, I came back to Exodus. I had three albums in my iTunes: Bonded By Blood, Shovel Headed Kill Machine, and The Atrocity Exhibition – Exhibit A. While listening to Bonded By Blood for the second time ever, I decided to do some research on Exodus, because I vaguely remembered that the former lead singer of Testament was once in the band.
As it turns out, Exodus has one of the more interesting band histories I’ve ever read. Paul Baloff, the singer from Bonded By Blood only sang on that one album before being replaced by Steve Souza, who got replaced in Testament by Chuck Billy. Steve did 5 albums with Exodus before leaving in the 1993 to be replaced by Paul Baloff, the singer from Bonded By Blood. Exodus broke up not long after that, and then reunited in 2001 for a benefit for Chuck Billy. A year later, Paul Baloff died, to be replaced, once again, by Steve Souza, who then quit the band after one more studio album.
And then basically everybody left, which is when Exodus recorded Shovel Headed Kill Machine. Since then, they’ve basically had the same line-up, although the original drummer came back.
And, as it turns out, they rerecorded Bonded By Blood with the new lineup, so now it’s possible to listen to the album, which has some awesome songs on it, performed in such a way that makes them not sound like crap. So yay!
Anyway, after reading all that, I decided I have to listen to more Exodus, which is what I’m doing now.
And guess what? Aside from Bonded By Blood, they’re totally kick-ass!
And I think I’ve figured out where Exodus went wrong and why they never got recognition that other thrash bands of the time did (like, oh say, Metallica, Megadeth or Anthrax): every album, up until Force Of Habit, in 1992, started out with either silence or someone talking. If one were to gauge the band based off of 10 seconds of the listening to the first track off each of those first four albums, you’d have no idea whatsoever what the band sounds like.
[...] invited me to go seem them in January, along with Exodus, who I believe I’ve told you about before. I figured I should familiarize myself with their music. I had downloaded a couple albums [...]