 I think- Did you hear okay? Yeah, I can hear you good. I can hear you good. Here we are, live on The Metal Voice today. Again, part two of our show, top 10, the greatest albums of 2021. Of course, Todd LaTorre will be joining us shortly. Everybody, thank you for tuning in. You didn't get dressed up. This is a spacious occasion, Jim. I did, I did. No, no, no, Alan, I did. Oh, okay, I'm sure. I did, you just didn't see because the black, the shirt. And this is my new Gus G shirt, by the way, everybody. And what shirt are you wearing, Alan? Well, I can't tell you, it's a surprise. Okay, you'll tell us later. And again, everybody, just so you know, this is what we're talking about. Alan? It's all about the night. It's all about the night. Polished my night today. Little too much information. Let's just, let's just recap, Jim, because people are writing in, they might have missed the first show. Okay, go. So it will go from 10 to six, and then, of course, today's show, five to one. So it was Crystal Viper. The cult, yeah. Thor Alliance, which came in at number 10. Number nine was Ordon Organ, with Final Days, and David Reese, Blacklist Utopia, was Jim's choice for number nine. Number eight was Voodoo Circle, Locked and Loaded, and then Agent Steel, No Other Gods Before Me. Number seven, Bloodbound, Creatures of the Dark Realm, and Jim Cho's Mastodon. And Grim. And then coming in at number six, I chose Dream Theatres of You from the Top of the World, and Jimmy went with Blaze Bailey, and his fame wore within me. So now we're going from five to one. Five to one. We're gonna also get Todd Latoury's top three in the process. Yeah, it's a bonus. But before we begin. The Ultraman's last week, last time, when you got the Ultraman's top three or five, or I lost count after a while, now we got Todd's top three. Neil Turbin's top 20. It's my top 20. Yeah, Neil also sang Acoustic, so if you wanna hear a little acoustic bit, just go back to the first episode of part one. All right, first things first, Alan. Before we begin the show today, you know, a very sad passing of a friend, a mutual friend of ours, and I'm gonna put the picture here. You maybe wanna speak to it early first. Yeah, yeah, we, Jim called me with the sad news, and I mean, she was a lovely lady, sister of the, you know, of our ever famous Stiff Rod. If you were watching the show, you've heard of Stiff Rod. Well, unfortunately, his sister Mona passed away today. Someone I've known since the age of 13. Jimmy and his wife, who are extremely well as well. A bit of a sad day here, so it's gonna be a little bit of a somber note to the show. She was a huge Rolling Stones fan, the biggest Rolling Stones fans I have ever met. And it's just a sad day that she had passed, that we have learned of her passing earlier today, so. Yeah. We dedicate the show to Mona. We dedicate the show to Mona, and I've known Mona for eight, since I was 18, and my wife has known her since elementary school. They had played kids, they were kids playing together, you know, in the streets of Montreal. All right, and there we go. Again, to Mona. And it was just, so everybody knows, there was no conspiracies or anything like that. This is just a sad passing, that's it. There was no, I don't want people to start, you know, saying stuff. All right, let's talk about something more uplifting, and let's go to our top 10, or top five albums. And Alan, I guess I'll let you start things off with your number five. Well, a band, as you know, Jim, I've liked for a long, long time. We tried interviewing them once, but the air conditioner and the bus kind of destroyed the whole interview. Evergrey, I'm going with Evergrey Escape with the Phoenix. So again, everything, this band, I still scratch my head to see how come they're not bigger, because the musicianship, his voice alone, the lyrical, maybe it's the lyrical, because he's a little bit of a dark guy. Tom is a bit of a little bit of a dark guy. He's been, you know, in interviews, he's spoken quite frankly about it. Maybe it's because of the lyrical content. I don't know, but it's got everything you love about Evergrey. We're August Morn, that's a classic Evergrey sound. Stories is my personal fave. You've got the piano, his voice, the heartfelt, and there's even the beholder with James Lebray. We had the Jackson, earlier, just the whole soaring vocals, the runs that he does with James Lebray on that, it's just a great album, and I've chosen it for number five. All right, here's my number five, Alan. An album that was just recently released, if you can say that, Exodus Persona Non Grata. Wow. You know, a lot of people say Exodus, the first album was great, or, you know, the earlier stuff in their career was great. I personally think now they're sort of peaking in their artistic-ness. This is their 11th studio album released. The last one was in 2014. Wow, this great sound, thrash, aggressive, Zetros at his best. I don't know, I just think this is an overall thrash. This band is getting better as the years go by, just like Testament, in my opinion, is getting better as the years progress, so hats off to Exodus for number five. Alan, what you got for number four? An oldie but a goodie, except two mean to die. Coming in at number four, we were able to interview Wolf, and I would like to say Wolf and the boys, but really it's Wolf and the- Wolf. And the singer, I just- That's Mark. Mark, so hello. So, it's got the overnight sensations, got the pure 80s feel to it. Undertaker, you got the classic chance. Sucks to be you is kind of the blood of the nation's era. It's got everything you love about except, and again, just the regular, very high quality except album being released the earlier this year, and so my number four is two mean to die. All right, here's my number four. Uh-oh, uh-oh, KK is back. Sermons of the center. KK's priest, a lot of people argue. You know, I don't like him using the word priest. How dare you use the word priest? I don't know, I think it's a kick ass album. And you know what's interesting about this album, and I have it right here. When I first got it, I go, ah, it was okay, but I find that the more times I listen to it, the more melodic it is to me, the more I, it's a grower. That's what it is, it's a grower. I listen to it over and over again. I find this better than a last priest album. I know a lot of people hate me for that, but I do. And people say that lyrics are really cheesy, but you know what? A lot of priest lyrics are cheesy anyways. This is a fun album. Don't, this is not no, you know, I gotta sit down and think about the lyrics too much. No, it's a fun melodic and ripper, rips on this album. A pity Lesbings wasn't on this album, but maybe next time he will be, all right? That's what he did before. The out-priest priest on that one. Oh man, look, hellfire thunderbolt, sermons of the center, sacramonte diablo, raise your fists, brothers on the road, and I love return of the sentinel and hail for the priest. Yeah, there's a lot of priests in there, but you know what? It's Kiki's priest. All right, we're gonna bring on Latore, Todd Latore. Let's bring him on. Let's admit him. Let's admit him. Number three to one. Here comes Todd Latore. Let's see. He's coming on. Yo. There's the man. First time on the, well, you've been on our show many, many times, but this is the first time. We didn't warn you about the suit. You have to sort of wear a jacket. Ah, I got a jimmy. It's like going to the Grammys. Yeah, right on. Yeah, cool. All right, so just to recap Todd, I'm not sure if you're paying attention or not before you got on. I wasn't. Okay, so we're gonna recap here for you. Okay. Alan chose Evergrey. Okay. What was the, I'm called again Alan. What's that? Evergrey, escape from the phoenix. Alan chose Evergrey, escape from the phoenix as five. I picked number five. I picked Exodus, persona non grata. Right on. I picked for number four. We picked, Alan picked accept to mean to die. Okay. He's a little thrown off there, but I see, okay. And then I picked for number four, KK's priest. So that leaves us with number three. What's it gonna be? I know it's the, I know what your number three is, but you tell us your number three first and then we'll tell you ours. Okay. My number three is a band called Nervosa. They are like a kind of death thrash. They're really brutal, like full guttural, all female band. My very good friend, Mia, plays bass with them. She played with Abath, which people might know from Immortal. And yeah, it's just a, it's a really kick-ass record. So the drummer is from Greece. Mia is from Italy and the vocalist and guitar player, I believe, are from Spain. But yeah, they're full-blown touring and really good band if you guys aren't familiar with them. This is a whole fresh new lineup, but their new album called Perpetual Chaos is a really great record. And in fact, Eric from Flotsam sang on that record with them. He did a cameo on the record. But yeah, it's just a really heavy, brutal-sounding record if you guys are into that, but I enjoy it. And that's my number three. It's death metal, right? It's got a lot of the death metal vocals, harsh. Yeah, the music is death thrash, but the vocals are, you know, all gutturals. It's not like singing, it's, that's- The music took, I listened to it thanks to you, Todd. And the music took me right back to the early, early like new album, you know, the very early, the first ones coming out during the new wave of British heavy metal in the early 80s, the guys like Axe Witch, you know, it really kind of gave me that feel to the music-wise. Okay, well, yeah, so if you guys aren't familiar with Nervosa, go check them out. Good, good. All right, Al, let's get your number three going there. My number three is Halloween. Oh my God, I lost the picture. Okay. That was a great album. I just love the interplay between all the vocalists, Andy Daris, Guy Hansen, and of course, Michael Keyscake. You know, at Halloween, they're one of the bands that's like every album is just consistent quality, you know, there's never really been a drop, I think as far as I'm concerned, and, you know, best times, I love that best time is one of my favorite, Skyfall, isn't it? Absolutely epic. I agree. And we had the chance to interview Michael Keyscake very early one morning, earlier this summer, and it was a great interview. And, yeah. Since I lost the graphic, it's really clear. It's a nice case here. Yeah, I love the album cover too. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, that's a nice, that's like their box set, I take it. Yeah, it's kind of like their box set. There wasn't really that many goodies on it, but still, nevertheless, it was a sort of box set, yes, yes. Yeah, that's a nice presentation. It looks clean. Yeah, it is. It's good. All right, here goes. My number three, you ready for this thud? Sure. You ready? Number three. Yeah. All right, here we go. Alan, show the shirt. Boom, baby. Nice. There it is. I love it. Are you familiar? Ah, nice. There it is. There it is. Oh, cool. There it is. So number three, we had it lower, but then I was listening to it this week and I go, you know what? It's got to go higher. So go Alan, Alan, stop the press. We're cheating. This, this, this both made, this Alan, both made both of our lists this year. Yeah. I'm pleasantly surprised. Thank you very much. Yeah, yeah. And we're not doing that because you're sort of like our friend and we have you on the show all the time. No, no, look. You got to give credit where credit is due. We're not kissing ass here. We, we don't kiss ass, me and Alan. That's one thing we don't do. I know. Maybe our wives ass, but nobody else's. What I love about it is, you know, I'm still hearing black Sabbath, verb mock at 27, you know? What you do on this album is every song is different. We, we had the pleasure of interviewing it when it came out, you know, your inner health, Halford's been released. You've got all the different vocal styles and we just don't know what the next song is going to be. It's a different style. And that's what I found extremely interesting and it makes it for a great listen. You know, Alan texted me this week and he goes, Jimmy, man, Todd's album is really frigging good, man. That's great. And then he inspired me to re-listen to it because, you know, I haven't heard it for a while, right? And I go, Fred, man, it really is. And I'm going to speak to this. And again, pretenders, it's, it's, you know, I mean, if you're going to say painkiller-ish style that somewhere there, rejoice in the suffering, incredible, crossroads to insanity. Like it's just, just another, another world and vexed from the video that you made that just right on the tip of chaos, you know? It's, it's just, you know, you're working the vocals. You're, you're kind of, it's in the queen's right box, but it's still at the same time, you're a little more raw and more aggressive. And maybe you want to talk to the album though. Yeah, you know, when, when we, when Craig and I did that, you know, we would, he would just come up with these riffs and, you know, and I would have drum parts and we were just like, yeah, that's killer. And, and one of the things that I really wanted to do was to be able to show different vocal styles because most, you know, a lot of bands and singers that you hear, they kind of have one sound or one sound that they're known for. And maybe they can do other stuff, but you just never get to hear that. So this allowed me to do a lot of different things. And that was really kind of the biggest joy that I had making it was if I want to sing, you know, Pretenders, which is in that Rob Halford style, you know, it's got that gritty shrill kind of delivery. And then a lot of bands aren't, you don't really hear like those good ballads like you used to. And so Crossroads to Insanity was just a way to, to, to have a dark, melodic, very pretty, but powerful ballad. And I, you know, I, I like to think that the record that we made is really something you really don't hear much of anymore. Maybe you say, oh, I hear this kind of guitar part, but it's usually over constant screaming the whole time. Or if you're hearing the power metal vocal style, it's pretty much just like this very typical power metal music. And I didn't want to have, I didn't want to be any one of those things. I wanted it to be facets of all of the things that we like about heavy metal. That's all that it was, was a love of, of what do I like? I love fight. I love Halford's Resurrection. That's one of my all time favorites. I love, you know, the Queen's Rite things and Crimson Glory things and, and Iron Maiden things. And it's just like, if the music called for that, I didn't want to be afraid to, to do, you know, okay, let me, let me do that. I'm going to sing like this because that's what that music makes me feel like the delivery should have. And so- That's what it is, that's what it is, Todd. You see this? This is the Great Walnut. That's a big nut you have there. This is a big nut. This is what it's all about, Todd. You're part of this now. You're part of the Great Nut. Okay. This is our award. This, we don't have the Oscars, little man, or the record player like the Grammys, we have the Big Nut. Okay. There you go. You're part of- Welcome. Welcome, Todd. Welcome. Yeah, thanks. That's what you're aiming for, Todd. It's a great success. You've got 100% grade on that one because that's exactly what you did and that's exactly why we love that album. Well, thank you very much to both of you. I'm, you know, I know that you got, you know, we have our differences and we do our top 10 stuff together and it's always fun. And there's certainly no pandering. And so I know that if you guys really didn't feel it was up to par for whatever list you guys have, I know that respectfully, you wouldn't have put it in. You said, look, we like it, but, you know, there's a lot of other music out there that, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I would have told you- We wouldn't have given you the cold shoulder. No, no, no. Well, Todd, yeah, no, no. Todd, it's a great album, but you know, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Everything is subjective and, you know, I think that, and so I'm thankful for you guys putting it in that top five and hopefully, you know, people that listen to your show that haven't heard it will listen to it. And I think it's one of those records that are hopefully just gonna grow in time. And one day it'll be considered a classic metal album. And you know, Todd, me and Alan, probably one of the first times when we've ever spoke to you, you're playing us on your phone, the demos of this album. If you really remember going back, you took your phone and you go, guys, listen to this. That's how excited you were. You're playing the demos and it was just something new and exciting. And we've seen the development over the years of this album, you know, it come to fruition that is, right? So we're happy. Me and Alan always believe, you know, if someone really gives it their all and they really put something out great, we should recognize it, no matter how monster of an act they are or mid-level or whatever the case may be, right? Yeah. Yeah, well, thanks again. I really appreciate the acknowledgement and yeah, that's spectacular. All right, Alan. Let's go to Todd's number two now. Let's go to Todd's number two, which is the same as my number two, actually. Okay. But I'll let you see. So my number two album was Flotsam and Jetsam, Blood in the Water. Yep. And that was just a really unexpected listen. I didn't know what to expect really, but it was full force, you know, they definitely didn't hold back and Eric's voice is still prime and I just, I really enjoyed it. And it's tough because there's a lot of music that people were putting out and creating and it's hard to put a list together, especially when you're ranking them. I almost like to say, here's my top picks, but I can't put them in an order. It's really hard to put them in an order because Nervosa is nothing like Flotsam. So in their own right, they're just as great in their own kind of genre. They're not quite in the same subgenre. Yeah, for sure. But if we have to do a level thing here, that was my number two and it's a great record and I got to be on that when you guys were talking with your friend, the guitar player. Michael Gilbert and AK, it was you and me, actually, we talked to Flotsam. And yeah, they were telling us about the album. That's right. Look, blood in the, I mean, this is big wall of thrash sound, right? And the differentiator between Flotsam and all the other thrash bands out there is the vocals. It's always, it's the vocals. Not to say the music is not superior, it's just the vocals are just that good. And you know, the creative ideas, the songs, the lyrics, these guys are coming out, swinging hard. And that was my number two as well. So, Alan, what's your number two? Well, I just want to go back to that album. I mean, it's not something I would have exposed to myself, but I know Jimmy's a huge fan. And since it was a major list, I went back and listened to it. And again, four out of five stars. It for me was like a little bit of an armored St. Phil. It's got a masculine sound. If that makes any sense, you know, it's a meeting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a great listen. Thanks for putting that on the list, guys. Usually those thrash vocalists are never like of high level. Or, you know, they're not as good as all the other vocalists and the other genres. But when it comes to Flotsam, man, he's up there. He can do anything. All right. See, that's what's kind of nice and different. It don't get me wrong. I love. Yeah, it has its place. I love the vocals of your typical thrash. But when you listen to like vicious rumors, you know, those are very melodic. Singer Metal Church had a, you know, that singer kind of singing, but also had that other kind of delivery that's kind of more dominant in the thrash genre. But when you listen to the music of that Flotsam record, it's really heavy, but it's also very melodic. And then the vocal is kind of what changes it in that thrash sense. Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Speaking of great voices, Alan, you're number two. Night number two, I have to say, was my number one for almost the entire year. Okay, right up until a couple of weeks ago, this was gonna be my number one pick. The Dead Daisy's Holy Ground with none other than Glenn Hughes taking over on vocals and bass. We had a great interview with Doug and Glenn. It was one of the highlights for me and I'm doing the show for over a decade and having the voice of Rock himself on it. And it just got everything, just the bass playing like no other on bass line, just that song and the closer far away are two of the highlights. But it's got a completely different field than what the Dazies have done in the past. And it's just so heavy and just so good, the production and everything. It's, like I said, it was my number one. It got beat out in the last, in the ninth minute and you are celebrating the number two on my list of Dead Daisy's Holy Ground. All right. Okay. Now we're gonna go to talk about the number one. Actually, we played with the Dead Daisy's at, oh God, what's the big festival in Belgium? Grass Pop. Okay. Grass Pop. We played, that was when Mendoza was in it. It was the other line, the older lineup. Karabi was singing, but yep. And you know, Glenn Hughes, I mean, good grief. That guy, his voice, it just, it pisses me off. He's so good. He's just, he's just another level. He's like got the fountain, he's got the fountain of youth. I mean, he's aging so well. He just, he kicks ass and Doug Aldrich on guitar. Yeah, it's just a great outfit and I'm happy to see them having continued success for sure. One of our most famous interviews, right Alan was with the Dead Daisy's in Montreal and things are getting out of hand. Anyways, everybody could go and check that one out. All right, let's go to number one for Todd. Todd, your number one pick. This'll be your walnut that you give to your number ones. All right. That'll be your walnut. You can- So my number one pick, I'll say it like in the American English way is Angulus Apetrita. I think it's pronounced Angulus Apetrita. I'm pretty sure that's how they would say it. They are from Spain. They're like the number one band in Spain. They're huge there. This is their, they're actually the new record they put out. I stumbled across them from Zeus, our producer in Queens right, because he mixed and mastered this record that I'm talking about. And it's just a self-titled album. It's just the band name. But I believe this is their seventh record. And they're just, man, it's just killer stuff. If you like overkill, if you like that kind of groove and guitar, the singer plays guitar. They do great dual leads together. It's again, it's a very brutal thrash vocal delivery. But the grooves, the musicality of what they do, you could definitely hear some mega-death influence on the guitars, but just a killer band. And I always like to hear new stuff. And sometimes I'm like, yeah. And this was one that particularly caught my ear. And I've been listening to them a lot. And really great band, if you guys aren't aware of them. Yeah, I heard them. They were great. For me, it had a bit of a Pantera feel as well. Yes, yes. Okay, yeah, I could get a little bit of that. But they're, you know, they're doing really well. And like I say, they're huge in their home country. In fact, I remember I was talking with Zeus about them and he was telling me that Jamie from Hatebreed, I pretty sure it was this band that they were referring to was that like, I don't think Jamie quite knew who they were back then. He's like, every time we come here, like their build way higher than we are. And like, you know, he didn't know that they were that big of a deal. And it's like, well, yeah, this is their home country. They are the number one metal band in that country. They're gonna get top billing or higher billing than Hatebreed, even though Hatebreed's massive. But it's interesting how, you know, it's like maybe a Canadian band and then here comes a European band that might be perceived as much bigger. But in Canada, it's like, no, no, no. These, this is the Holy Grail. These guys are gonna be higher on the billing on a festival than the band you might think would be higher. But that's my number one pick, awesome band. I can actually type it in the chat here on your YouTube so that people can check it out. Todd, on another note, I heard you quit smoking. Yeah. Don't believe everything you hear. Thought you were gonna have like five of them. Okay. And Eric, it's funny cause whenever we go to Arizona, Eric from Flotsam will come out and we'll hang out. Or if I see him on tour, you know, like if we're playing a festival together, I'll go out to get a coffee or whatever and I'll see him there smoking and having a coffee. And I'm like, you know, we joke about the whole smoking thing because that guy still sounds incredible. He smokes all the time. Didn't Pavarotti smoke? I thought Pavarotti smoked his whole life. Till he died of lung cancer probably. Anyway, yeah, that's my number one. Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up. Okay. I thought it'd be a fun joke. That's all. Okay. These little fun jokes get out of hand sometimes. Okay. All right, everybody out there, give us your number one before we reveal what's inside. It's in here. It's in here. The number one's in here. It's been fermenting for at least a week. The security guards who bring the walnut to my house, they put it in there, they welded it together. Now I had to remove the welding and it's in here. Everybody give us your number one pick and we'll read them out before we reveal the last. Number one pick. So just to get, okay, we're going to recap since people are writing in. That's right. Number five today was Evergrey, Escape of the Phoenix. Jimmy had Exodus, Persona non-Gratis. Number four was Exceptumine to Die and Jimmy had Flotsam and Jets, sorry, had the KK Priest, Servants of the Center. Then Todd jumped on with number three, Nervosa, Perpetual Chaos. My number three was Halloween and Jim's was Todd LaTorre. That was number three. That was number three. My number two was Flotsam, yeah. Number two was Flotsam as well as Todd's. Mine was the Dead Daisy's Holy Ground. And then Todd's number one is Anglis Apetrida, self-titled album. And now we're going to number one, which was a consensus between Jim and I. So we agreed on the number one spot and it's inside the nut. So what are you seeing, Jim, what are some of the other? Well, I'm seeing what Demarcy's saying, three tremors I like just got it digging it, but was it your number one? Kevin's saying Rejoice in the Suffering is still my number one, Todd. Look at that, look at that. I got a lot of love, lot of love. Knuckle Dragon saying Exodus, AKS is saying the Dead Daisy's Holy Ground is probably my number one. Ring on your parade, smoke weed, not cigarettes. Somebody said, somebody said, demand a recount, Rejoice in the Suffering, number one, stop the steal. Stop the steal, stop the steal. Oh, that's too funny. That's the comment of the day, stop the steal. I hope that helps out Bruce, the little recap helped out Bruce because apparently he just got off work and he was wondering what he missed. So, TMC saying Maiden proved they were number one again. Accept, Sylvain says accept deserves number one. We put it as number four, Allen, is that what it was? Number four? It was up there. It was a last minute change. We added accept last minute just so everybody knows. Emos are going back and forth. Sleep betrays me with just Mike. Todd Latorre, number one again. There's a second, stop the steal, stop the steal. I think there's a lot of people out there think Todd Latorre's album should be number one. Did we get it wrong, Allen? Did we get it wrong? Yes, so many albums to listen to. We went back and revisited and when revisiting it, Todd's album jumped up tremendously in the rankings. That's right. All right, I'll take it. Gabriel says, Alcatraz, that would be his number one. Vix Praxit, Fall and Sun, The Wake of the Fall. Marcy says, number one, Rejoiced. Oh, look at this. You're third, number one. Then second, Tremors. Todd, you're getting a lot of number ones. A lot of number ones. We're very early with our list. So we're kind of destroying everybody. People's Choice Award. Yeah, yeah. Joshua is saying, Agent Steel, Manimal, I have not heard of Manminal. Accept, then on to others and then 1914. Have you heard 1914? No. Me neither. Alcatraz is a mixed bag, says AKS. Grace of God is a great track though. All right. Let's get to that. Should we do the honorable mentions before number one or not? Yeah, sure. Gojira. Okay, Gojira. That seems to be a popular choice in the comments as well last weekend this week. Not Gorilla, Gorjira. Gojira. Gojira, Alan, do you have another one that you'd like to mention? I think we, D. Snyder, when that came out, that was a pretty heavy album. A great follow up to his previous album. That's why they could have made it as well. Yeah, I have this band. They're Canadian, they're all female. They're called Bad Waitress, No Taste. And I didn't put on the list and I'll tell you why because they were a little more on the punk side and the alternative rock side, but I thought it was like a, it's a great album. And I like to see a young band, you know, try to get up there and do something. And I think they're gonna do some great things in the near future. So pick that up or have a listen, Bad Waitress, No Taste. Okay. Anybody else with some honorable mentions? No, we're good. My mind's a little blank at the moment, but I'm sure there's a ton of them. Well, there's an Udo. What about Udo, Alan? Was that one of your honorable game over that I make your honorable mentions? It was a good Udo album, but it didn't make one out. It just kind of fell off a little bit. D. Snyder, I would agree with you. No scars. Was it no scars? Was it called again? Leave a scar. Leave a scar. I thought it was that too. That's an honorable mention right there. Yeah. All right. You guys ready? All right. There was a problem this year, by the way. I just got to make sure it makes. Dang it, not here. I'm getting my nut. Hold on. There's a print in that. Typically we do this in person and now it's at my house and there's this sort of like procedure. He hands it off to me. Then I take it and then I open it and I reveal. So, but we can't do that now because we're virtual. So we have to do the process. I have to pretend. Alan, pretend like you're giving me the nut. Go. Go on that side. On that side. That's it. Oh, thank you, Alan. Okay. There we go. All right, there we go. All right, there we go. What? What? This is how it goes, Todd. So now the nut is here. I've opened it a little bit because it was very difficult to close. Is everybody ready for the top album of 2021? Drumroll, yeah. They get the drumroll, they're the drumroll. I will reveal it right now. Here it goes. I'm opening it up. I'm looking at it, making sure it is the right one. They didn't screw up at the security office. And here we go. Here it is. And this is the way it is. It's in Jitsu by Aron Maiden. All right. That's a great cover. It is a great cover. A great cover. A great album. Now, yeah, I get it. A lot of people saying, oh man, they came out with two discs. There's too much. Can't take it. Can't do much information. Over 80 minutes. Yeah. I mean, it's a bit of a grower. I heard the early singles and I'm like, ah, I made an okay. They're doing what they always did. But man, the back half of this album is, you know, we've got acoustic guitar intros. We've got soulful, soulful guitar solos. You know, the heavy metal community, that's something that we get criticized for. Where's the soul? Where's the emotion? Well, there's tons of them on the backside. Darkest Hour being my favorite song, not only the lyrics great, but it's, you know, you got the beat sounds at the beginning, the lyric of content. And you got, like I said, the soulful solos. Bruce's voice. I've struggled with the last beta now. I'm just like, here, stick him in a room and he has to out sing three guitars, drums in a bass and let him screech all he wants. I don't know if they changed the recording process, but it's like he's back in a range where he feels comfortable and it's just nice to hear him singing that way again. Yeah. I love it. I mean, his voice hasn't led up to me. It's still so rich and powerful and there probably isn't a better, I think, you know, Bruce Dickinson's energy on stage is unparalleled. You know, and then you have like that mysticism, coolness of Dio and how he would slowly move on a stage. The two opposites, but just both so amazing. But yeah, I mean, his, he's not singing anything that sounds strained or it's like, you know, I mean, it doesn't get more seasoned than somebody like Bruce Dickinson. So I'm glad to see that they still are putting records out and they just announced the tour, which is awesome. You know, so yeah, congrats to them. And yeah, yeah. So Jutsu, to me, the song with that drum pattern, like you'd expect an ace is high to start off the album, but no, it's the call of war that starts off the album with those tribal drums at the beginning. And yeah, you're right, Alan, there's a little bit of country guitar there or blues or whatever you want to call it. And Bruce is singing in his range. And the topics are always, you know, interesting topics, you know, be it war, be introvert, or be it some sort of, you know, lost in a lost world or days of future pass or the time machine. There's always, you know, some sort of novel related theme to their songs, right? I don't know, I dig it. And they are who they are today and they fill up the stadiums and the arenas because of their performances, their consistency in music, maybe half the Iron Maiden tribe doesn't dig this, but the other half loves it. So I'm part of the- Hey, do you want to hear something funny? Sure. Did you ever play with Maiden on a tour? But go ahead. Queens right, Kaz, before I joined the band. So I personally have it. No, I've met Nico and Steve Harris before and but I've never met Bruce Dickinson or Dave Murray or Adrian Smith or, you know, I've never met them, but anyway. So what was the name of the song Days of Future Past? Yeah. What's it called? Days of Future Past, yeah. Okay, so years ago, Michael sent me a demo for a Queens right song and the working title was called Future's Past. And I thought, and then when I heard that, I was like, why does that sound so familiar? And that was a working title of a song that, you know, a title we didn't use, but it's kind of weird how you think, how many people would really name a song that? And it's pretty close. Anyway, I just found that kind of the irony of that. Yeah, in the Queens right camp, how do they, do they look up to Iron Maiden? They look up to Rush? Like, is Iron Maiden one of the bands that the guys in Queens right say, you know, that's like the standard of metal out there. I don't think that they look at a band and say that's the standard. I think they say, you know, they are, you know, those are pop, that's those are cream of the crop bands within, you know, that genre, for example. I mean, they're huge Rush fans, huge Pink Floyd bands. You know, they love Iron Maiden. They love Judas Priest. Basically that whole new wave of British heavy metal, Queens right guys love that stuff. And so, you know, I do too. So, I mean, but really, I mean, it's, they're the top, you know, they are, they are that top cream, you know, and it's interesting because you don't want to write records that sound the same, right? But at the same time, when you've written enough material that you end up having your sound, it's kind of this weird double-edged sword where you say, you know, if Iron Maiden wrote different sounding records, you'd be like, I don't really know what their sound is. There's some common threads in some of the stuff, but. Yeah. Iron Maiden, when you hear an Iron Maiden song before he even sings, you know it's Iron Maiden. How many bands can you really say that now? When you put on some of these satellite radio stations that are all about metal and you just hear the music and you're like, that could be a thousand bands. And then, and then you're like, that could be a thousand singers. I have no idea. Unless that singer has a very distinct tone, like Bobby Blitz from Overkill or Chuck Billy from Testament or, you know, Slayer, Tom Araya. Well, their music sounds like their music. They don't sound like anybody else, but my point is, Iron Maiden is the biggest band, them and Metallica are the biggest metal, rock metal bands in the world selling out arenas and stadiums. And they never really changed the formula. They know what they do, they excel at what they do. And, you know, you will hear these nuggets of, oh, that sounds different to my ears, but they really didn't change the recipe. Kind of like ACDC, you know, when you hear them, like it's immediately identifiable. And there's a lot to be said for that, because as a creative person, sometimes you say, you know what? I wanna do orchestration. I wanna do strings, I wanna do certain keyboard things or other things, voicings that are meant to color your music in a way that you never did before. And Iron Maiden, you don't hear that kind of stuff. I mean, they just have always stuck to their guns and, you know. They just do what they want, yeah. They just, yeah, they just do what they do. And I'm gonna show my shirt here. I'm gonna show my shirt here. And this is my honorable mention, and I should have submitted, this is Gusty. Gusty's new one. Oh, right on. Right, and look, look, official merch. It's like some sort of- What a great shirt. I'm part of like some sort of space cadet program with this. It's like that, great shirt. Look at that, look at that. It's the mallocas. It's the mallocas. Mallocas. Mallocas. Mallocas. Mallocas. And you know, I'm reading the comments. I agree with a lot of people, you know. This is far from the days where we'd be in line to get the first Maiden album. It took me months to go out and get it. I wasn't, you know, the first couple of singles. You're like, yeah, it's interesting. But, you know, but honestly, this is a grower. The more I listen to it, like I said, my number one all year long, but listening to Maiden, it's really, especially like I said, the last four songs really did it for me and pushed it into the number one slot. But I understand what people are saying. There's a lot of comments saying, hey, you know, Maiden, they're getting a little long into two, nothing too new there. Personally, I've been listening to the song all year, like since it's been released. It was not all year, but for this, the remainder of this year. And I just keep listening to it. And that means something. If you keep listening to something over and over again, just like Todd's album, you know, I've been putting it on since it's been released, you know, every month, once in a while, right? And it says a lot, you know, and there's some albums that were released that I really liked at the beginning of the year. And I wasn't too crazy about later on. So sometimes the excitement of a lot of release takes, you know, brings you to another level. Sometimes then you just drop again. Yeah. I think that a lot of the records that I like the most were albums that, at first listen, I wasn't completely blown away by. And then as of to love that album, you know, whatever album that would be. But a lot of my favorite ones were those albums that were growers that you listen again and you get something new. And I didn't feel bored with it. I felt entertained each time. And yeah, good point. Hey, totally off topic. I'm not trying to hijack your show here, but this guy twice is asked on the comments. TMC asked if I was going to release another solo record. So it's on there. Yes. Okay. Well, you got it. You got the first year official. Yes. We got the scoop as we like to say in the news business. Alan, we got the scoop. We got the exclusive. Todd Lattori, speak to that, please. I think I'm going to do, I think while Craig's already started writing ideas too, obviously I'm in the middle of Queen's Reich stuff and we'll be recording beginning of January. And so that's where everything will be. But once that's all done, I'll dig into my solo stuff. And then I think I might do maybe an EP of the melodic death black metal stuff that I was talking about. But the next record that I do with Rat Pack will be in the vein of kind of my first record, more of that classic, that style. So what kind of timeline are we looking at here? What kind of timeline? Like in a year from now, two years? I have no idea. My year is so booked right now. Next year is booked. And I hear you're on tour. I hear you're on tour. You're going on tour with the Judas Priest I hear. Correct. Hey, now we can not go down. Unexclusive. Unexclusive. Yeah, that's going to be sick, dude. We got about six weeks of touring as, you know, it's just us opening for Judas Priest. So I'm really excited and looking forward to that. And yeah, we have a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff happening that people don't know about and all good stuff. But should be a very solid, busy work year next year. So the first album is Rejoice in the Suffering. The second one is Despondent because of the jubilation. Wow. That's really cool. Now I just have to pick the right font for that. That's pretty good. I'm trying to. You just make that up. Repeat that, Alan, repeat that. How are we going to squeeze it in? Oh, well, if you got Rejoice in the Suffering in there, you can get Despondent in the jubilation in there. That's good. I like that. We'll have like an orange. Okay. And then it'll come with a, you know, the definitions inside, because people are like, what the fuck does that mean? Alan's a thinking man's man. Hey, that's good. We need more of that. All right. And there we go. That's it. The one last time I will show everybody. There it is. There's the walnut. The somewhat controversial picket, number one, it's surprisingly surprising. I mean, it's made it. I'm just glad they made another album. Yeah. I think everybody is. And here's the walnut. And now again, what will happen is the security team will come tomorrow morning to pick up the walnut and to bring it back to the giant tree where it comes from or the shrub. I don't know where walnuts come from, but I guess they come from sort of shrub or trees of some sort. Does anybody know? Alan, you're the thinking man. I saw it in a show recently, but I don't remember. Deep thoughts. Okay. It's not a shrub. It's not a shrub. It's a small tree, a walnut tree. I'm Roger the shrubber. Well, that's it, folks. That's it. We've done our 2020 album albums of the year. Todd, thank you so much for being on. It was a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks for including my record and your last pick. Your number one was Angulus. Apatrida. Apatrida, apatrida, apatrida. Apatrida, yeah. Okay. Yep. And again, we will say, rest in peace to our friend Mona who passed away and a friend of me and Alan's and all the best to our family. And thank you everybody for joining in. And have yourself a great evening. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm gonna go record some final vocal. Yeah, man, good to see you. And that shirt is comfortable, isn't it? It's super soft. I love the feel. I gotta say, the Gus G shirt is just soft. It's just a soft. It's really nice and soft. Stand up. Let me see that shirt. Stand up. Mike or his? Yours. Well, I mean, it's hard to like stand up. Quantum leap. You see that? That's him. He's mad. That's a cool shirt. And you got the space cadet thing here, right? So that's a really cool shirt. Yeah. I'm digging it. After the show, he will have to the show. He was so happy. He goes, I'm gonna send you a shirt. I'm gonna send you a shirt. So I sent him a shirt. That's great. Yeah. That's very nice. Yeah. It was very nice. I need to go on his merch store and just buy one because I really, but I don't know if all that's coming from Europe or if that's probably just from probably, yeah. Greece. Greece. Greece. The Saloniki Greece. All right, guys. Okay.