Saturday Morning Shuffle - August 8

This week’s shuffle opens with perhaps the oldest song to appear so far, hits on a few of my newer favorite bands and closes with the rare ballad that I actually really like. (Note: Links are Amazon affiliate links, and I make a small commission on any sales.)

1. “Riders on the Storm,” The Doors. I went through a phase in my teens, as I’m guessing a lot of kids who dreamed of being artistic rockers do, where I was obsessed with The Doors. At that age, Jim Morrison was such a captivating and mystical presence for me, even though he died more than a year before I was born. And, sure, a toke or two before listening probably never hurt either, not that I’d ever do anything like that.

2. “Train,” Avatar. If you asked me to name my favorite band at this very moment, the answer would probably be Avatar. I love what they do, experimenting with everything from death metal to disco to, in this case, a dark doo-wop number interspersed with blasts of pummeling metal. This horror story was one of my favorite tunes from their 2023 album Dance Devil Dance.

3. “Crown of Horns,” Judas Priest. Talk about a band that’s found themselves again. Priest’s last two albums have been incredible. For my money, they’re having their best run since 1990’s Painkiller, my personal favorite. This tune, one of the early releases from Invincible Shield came as a bit of a surprise because of its religious overtones, something that continued to play out through the course of the album.

4. “We All Taste the Same,” Dominum. Here’s another newer band that I’m really digging over the last few years. On the surface, their zombie gimmick seems really cheesy, but they deliver some fantastic tunes that blend classic metal and poppy hooks. This song from their debut album Hey Living People was my introduction and remains my favorite of their songs with flavors of Savatage and Queen.

5. “Best of Friends,” Dangerous Toys. Ah, the power ballad. Also known as the song that I skipped on nearly every rock record I owned in the 1980s and early 1990s. But there were a few exceptions. There was something about this tune from Dangerous Toys’ second album Hellacious Acres that always spoke to me. I guess it hit at just the right time where I was starting to see a lot of the friends that I’d grown up with drift away.