TED NUGENT - Kills Swedish Death Metal Dead!
by Martin Popoff

The Nuge returns this Spring with a new live CD, one that celebrates his appearance at Sweden Rock - er, so he calls it Sweden Rocks, and then extols the fine qualities of the Northern death crew in attendance between classic numbers and new classics alike (namely 'Raw Dogs & War Hogs' and 'Still Raising Hell'). OK, not much to the packaging, and it's a little rough around the edges (this is the Ted band as a power trio), but Ted live is an electrifying experience, and you can hear it whistling and bristling in the grooves...

"I so crave all my throttling music that it is a mind-dusting challenge every tour to choose which kids I toss out of the boat," says Ted, asked about the track listing, most notably the inclusion of four songs from the debut solo album from 1975. "Lately we have been cramming many masterpieces into elongated dance-a-thon medleys. This live CD just happens to include a list of songs I decided to celebrate then and there. I can't go wrong."

As fierce a power trio as Ted cooks up hither and thither (here's he's got Dokken's Mick Brown on drums and the rock solid journeyman Barry Sparks on bass), it is nonetheless a trio, which is supposed to pose certain challenges. Er, or not... "I also crave tasks and challenges when it comes to milking blood from my amazing Gibson and PRS guitars. My instincts to approach - attack - each piece of musical adventure are primal and pure, so I cannot really adjust or hold back in any way. It is this demand to flow freely on each song that brought me to the ultimate application of this six string carpet-bombing approach as defined by the trio setup. Though Derek (Holmes - longtime collaborator from the classic Ted era) is amazingly gifted and soulful, a good friend and extremely gratifying to jam, perform and collaborate with, clearly this grease-some threesome power trio is ultimately where I belong."

TED NUGENT - Kills Swedish Death Metal Dead! Page 2