Five Albums That Changed My Life: Jon ‘Metalion’ Kristiansen of Slayer Mag

During the '70s I was mainly listening to whatever my brother was listening to and even as a little brat, I had already a few favorites on my own. This, the fourth album by UFO, is still one of my all-time beloved hard rock records. There are tons of great melodies and extremely awesome guitar work by Michael Schenker. His tone on this album is fantastic.

Of course as the years went by I got into the more extreme side of metal. I decided to go for the first Bathory album to symbolize this era for me. They perfected what Venom started and perfected it with their blasphemous art of black metal. 'Bathory' might not even be their best album, but the experience of having this vinyl in my hands is something I'll never forget.

I think I actually got this album through a tape trade from Ian Christe. He's the guy who also released my current book. At the time, I was more interested in the extreme side of music, but discovering a band like Swans changed everything. This was a different kind of heaviness and the band didn't limit themselves to a said set of rules when it came to writing their music. It opened my ears to other type of artists like Dead Can Dance, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Laibach, and so on.

It was on one of my trips to New York City that my friend & co-author (Tara G. warrior) suggested that I check out this album. It actually took me a little while to figure out that this was the band of former Daisy Chainsaw singer KatieJane Garside. I had the 'Eleventeen' album for years and I kinda recognized her voice without figuring it out right away .Anyway, this album gave me a new kick and the female vocals fit so well into the songwriting. Every time I listen to this album I always get the "Wow!" factor. KatieJane is one of my favorite singers and I am in love with all her other projects too.

I decided to end this with a somewhat recent release as I find it very inspiring that a current band can make such a magical album. As far as black metal goes, Watain certainly is one of my personal favorites artists playing the style. They take the essence of the classic Bathory sound to the next level while maintaining their own flavor through it all. It pleases me that a band like Watain gets stronger with each album despite many of their so-called wallow in a sea of s---.