Bill & Ted Go To Hell

The Bill & Ted films are not necessarily the greatest movies ever made, but they are good fun and I've enjoyed them both. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (Bill & Ted Go To Hell was the working title of the film for a while) is my favourite of the 2 and has a killer soundtrack to boot.

The album is chocked full of big name artists doing a number of original songs and some previously released ones and all of them are great. These songs don't feel like toss away tunes and some are the best I've heard from the artists.

As I mentioned in the previous post that Slaughter kicks off this album with there solid rock effort "Shout It Out" which takes the raw guitar sound of their debut and the fancy sound effects of their sophomore release and well ... did it right. The song is huge and fun and rockin'. A great way to start this album.

Winger, Kiss and King's X bring their brand of rock n roll here with some heartfelt anthems. Winger's "Battle Stations" is a catchy groove laden hard rock number that gets right in your face. King's X offers up "Juniors Gone Wild" which is dark and aggressive, heavy and passionate. One of their best songs.

Kiss does a cover/remake of Argent's "God Gave Rock N Roll To You" called "God Gave Rock N Roll To You II". With the help of Steve Vai doing some lead work, they packaged together the winning song of the Battle of the Bands "performed" by Wyld Stallyns (Bill & Ted). The song is your standard ballad-like rock anthem melodic and catchy and very much appropriate for this film.

Ritchie Kotzen brings to the CD his guitar driven virtuoso-ish "Dream Of A New Day" and little known band Love On Ice's "Showdown" is blues infused rock ballad. Quite catchy. Neverland tossed them "For The Love" for the movie, but gave the listeners "Drinking Again" on the soundtrack. "For The Love" for the record is a jam-like rock number with some fine guitar work, but fairly unmemorable where as "Drinking Again" is just shy of being my favourite song on this collection. It is a ballad with some cool guitar work and nice solo's and a passionate performance by vocalist Dean Ortega. A great song.

Primus plays a role of competitive band in the movie performing "Tommy The Cat" and losing to the Wyld Stallyns' "God Gave Rock N Roll To You II". I think they should have won. "Tommy The Cat" is a killer bass driven tune with a narrative story-like vocals by guest Tom Waits in a brilliant performance. It's a funky guitar squealer and uber catchy. Faith No More do not hold back with "Perfect Crime" one of their best songs to date. Mike Patton is in fine form and the tune is darkly aggressive and super melodic. A very passionate performance.

My favourite song here is Megadeth's "Go To Hell" which I can with all honesty say is their best song ... ever. It is a heavy thrash song with dark riffs and killer solos and Mustaine spews forth vehemently about the doom of humans. It's utter bleakness is enhanced by the brutal heaviness of the song. Absolutely brilliant.

I'm not very familiar with the "...Excellent Adventure" soundtrack, but understand that it is more lesser known works and artists and more intimate with the film. However, despite the big names here, I sense no feeling of ego or commercialism. Just a brilliantly selected collection of great rock and metal songs.

Coming up I'll be delving back into the extreme end of metal so stay tuned!