An old promise made true

It was announced 2 and a half years ago that there would be 18 Grateful Dead songs released as DLC. The last 6-pack was finally released this week. We'll be playing these, as well as the new DLC and RBN singles.

We're about 22M points behind "Ride Sally Ride" in the "All Songs" Leaderboards, so we'll make good progress catching up this week. We'll also improve on our average points per song (currently at 994K) by playing our worst songs by rank, stars and spread to #1.

Here is my top 3 DLC from last week (once again less detailed as I only had time to play them on voxtar with the band, plus on solo drums):

3. "Steeler (Live)", by Judas Priest: While "Rapid Fire (Live)" was also fast and fun to play, "Steeler (Live)" was my favorite Judas Priest song due to its great "Painkiller"-like beats and riffs. Watch out for a crazy amount of bass pedal, making it difficult to keep a streak near the end.

2. "I'm Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?", by A Day To Remember: This song has great energy, being quite heavy for a punk song. I love the tempo change near the end. The drum chart was great, with lots of pedal and some tough fills. The indie rock song "Tongue Twister Typo" also had a couple of interesting drum patterns, but I give this one a slight edge overall.

1. "Mordecai", by Between the Buried and Me: The 1st half of this song is insane on all instruments except on vocals due to its chaotic and ultra fast riffs. It then shifts dramatically to a slower melodic groove for the 2nd half. I love bands that can hit such musical contrasts at will and pull it off (ex: Opeth). Although I prefer when the heavy sections are a bit more melodic, this song delivers due to its originality. I had to play drums on Hard difficulty due to the crazy intro. Another section sounded like it would be extremely difficult on Expert a bit more than halfway through the song.

Honorable mention. "Breaking the Law (Live)", by Judas Priest: Normally I don't like Live versions as much, but last week's pack was an example of a great Live release. This is quite evident for this early metal classic, which is enhanced by a great performance by Rob Halford (good energy and crowd interaction). The drum beat is pretty constant, but there are also a few interesting fills with varying note speeds.