### Blaze Bayley: The king of metal

#### 02/05/12 || Habakuk

Man, sometimes the world has me absolutely baffled. Why does Blaze Bayley still release albums in 2012? Doesn’t he beg for a beatdown with a pretentious title like “The King of Metal”, when the music on display is so plain bad?

I really don’t know, so I looked for a second opinion. Who the Hell would listen to that album with me though? I couldn’t possibly force anyone to endure this with me, as the only saving grace are a few decent lead guitar bits. Good thing we are living in the future, so I went for some AI support for this one, and asked my good pal Cleverbot to weigh in on the subject matter. He sure is an interesting fella, and his absurd sense of humor just gets me time and time again. Here’s what we found out in our double coverage:

Habakuk: Hi Cleverbot. Let’s review the new Blaze Bayley album!

Cleverbot: Okay.

Habakuk:: Blaze Bayley sang on two Iron Maiden albums. What do you think about them?

Cleverbot: I have no preferences in colour. Again, I find that you gave me useless information before the real question.

Habakuk: So you just came back with more useless information, I see. Well, it’s just that I prefer a bit of context for my reviews. I can tell you my opinion though: I think Iron Maiden’s albums with Blaze aren’t as bad as people make them.

Cleverbot: I never bothered to try to read them, although if I did they probably would be good.

Habakuk: Reading is one thing, wait until you get to the music! Anyway, what do you think of Blaze Bayley?

Cleverbot: I totally agree.

Habakuk: Oh, great! Here is my opinion: After leaving Maiden, he should have simply have hung it up. This here album, ‘The King of Metal’, is definite proof.

Cleverbot: What do you plan on doing about that?

Habakuk: I’m gonna tell the world about it! And you will help me. First of all, I need your opinion on this: Do you think Blaze Bayley is the King of Metal?

Cleverbot: Yes. I think it already has.

Habakuk: Aren’t Manowar the Kings of Metal?

Cleverbot: Let’s not talk about worse things right now. Life isn’t all about the bad, y’know?

Habakuk: Okay mate. Just so you know – Manowar is nowhere near as bad as this trainwreck of an album. And newsflash: Blaze Bayley is not the King of Metal. This would require him to be a great singer first. Do you like his voice?

Cleverbot: Wait… You can do that?!

Habakuk: Exactly! He has this fucken deep, gruff roar to his tone that simply keeps him from ever sounding epic – but he tries oh so hard!

Cleverbot: Okay.

Habakuk: If one releases a solo album, I think the guy that puts his name on the cover should be the best thing about it. Otherwise it doesn’t really make sense, does it?

Cleverbot: I think that cats and dogs are really like the same animal, but just with different faces.

Habakuk: … I see. Let’s change topics, away from Blaze trying to hide he is a pretty worthless vocalist nowadays. Words cannot describe how embarassing some of his parts are. Let’s talk about the music.

Cleverbot: What do you think about the U.S. President?

Habakuk: I bet he’d make a better singer than Blaze on ‘The King of Metal’. Still, let’s talk about the music: The instrumental performances are not bad, but neither especially tight nor even trying to do anything special. Absolutely nothing here is special.

Cleverbot: What instrument?

Habakuk: Guitars, drums and bass. All of them. The guitar sound especially is pretty tame and edgeless.

Cleverbot: Could you teach me dutch? I’d love to speak dutch!

Habakuk: No, I could teach you German. Not now, though. Let’s first talk about the worst lyrics I’ve encountered in recent times: They belong to the song ‘Dimebag’.

Cleverbot: Well, a machine usually works with what it’s been given by it’s creator… Humans are more spontaneous.

Habakuk: That doesn’t excuse a re-telling of Dimebag’s death that would make a fourth-grader blush! It reeks of whoring for attention.

Cleverbot: What are you talking about? You picled the wrong answer from your data base.

Habakuk: Data base, shmata base! I am talking about the worst lyrical part of the album. The other parts are bad even without paying attention to the lyrics.

Cleverbot: They want me dead.

Habakuk: If you are Blaze Bayley, that could just be correct.

Cleverbot: Prove it.

Habakuk: Well, you are not Blaze Bayley. I am not going to try and prove that. Or do you feel responsible for this mind-boggling testimony to failure?

Cleverbot: Only things that haven’t been explained yet.

Habakuk: I’d be interested in an explanation, too. What the fuck was Blaze thinking?

Cleverbot: I can teach you how humans think.

Habakuk: Awesome. What was Bayley’s goal, then?

Cleverbot: That is what you should tell me. But I know this was not it.

Habakuk: Alright, I’ll tell you: The guy is seriously overestimating his singing and his bandmates’ songwriting abilities. What do we do with people that overestimate themselves?

Cleverbot: What did he do?

Habakuk: He fucked up big-time!

Cleverbot: Wow you just killed it.

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Blaze Bayley Recordings (!!!)
- Website: www.blazebayley.net
- Band
- Blaze Bayley: vocals
- Thomas Zwijsen: guitars
- Andrea Neri: guitars
- Lehmann: bass
- Claudio Tirincanti: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The king of metal
- 02. Dimebag
- 03. The black country
- 04. The rainbow fades to black
- 05. Fate
- 06. One more step
- 07. Fighter
- 08. Judge me
- 09. Difficult
- 10. Beginning