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Tarantula is the self-titled debut album from this Portuguese band. I’ve never heard or heard about them before but decided to give it a go. The Cover art got me hooked. It’s ugly as hell but it has some of that 8+s charm to it after all. Music-wise it sure sounds like to 80s. I would have guessed even earlier than 1987 actually. It’s a pretty awful-sounding album. Some of the songs are good though,...
Rising Force was the first solo album by Swedish guitar-virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen. I remember getting this back in the day on vinyl. I was blown away by the fast runs and the neoclassical style combined with heavy rock or Hardrock. Of course, you can argue that it’s not a solo album at all, that the band itself was called Rising Force and so on. And, given the fact that Yngwie’s discography hasn’t been consequent when...
Automaton is the sixth studio album by Swedish rockers Crashdiet. I have heard them before but only the occasional album. Generation Wild from 2010 I think. Lots of things has happened since then. Or maybe not so much, but that have at lest swapped vocalist since then. I like what I hear, it’s just as I want this kind of Glam Metal to sound. There are catchy melodies and some arrogant attitude (with tongue-in-cheek). It...
Paranoid is Black Sabbath’s second album. It isn’t hard to hear why these pioneer rockers were such an influence on Hardrock and Heavy Metal. Although the music is obviously based on blues scales they manage to make heavy hifs and nice singable melodies out of it. With ease, it seems. During this time it sound a little psycadelic, meaning that it sounds a bit experimental still. They still have not decided what they are or...
Battle of the Ancients’ biggest enemy is the production. If the band had just found a better producer who could make it sound less tinny, it would surely have been much better. For my part, there’s far too much bass and overall a dull, rumbling sound that I don’t enjoy at all. I never thought I would say this, but it needs a bit of air and separation between the instruments to work better. Musically,...
Humanoid is the seventeenth studio album by German Heavy Metal band Accept. It’s the band’s sixth album featuring vocalist Mark Tornillo. The familiar sound is there, the male choir background vocals and the classical touch in the compositions. It’s hard to top their previous album though. I thought Too Mean to Die was their best album ever so I guess I was bound to be disappointed. But it’s a good production featuring three guitars. I...
The Village Lanterne is the fifth studio album by Blackmore’s Night. Here, Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night have found a perfect blend of bard-inspired folk music and more traditional and harder rock à la Deep Purple. The concept flows seamlessly into each other, and one almost doesn’t think about the fact that the songs differ quite a bit musically. They even weave in the Purple classic “Child in Time,” and it’s actually a really good...
Under the Sign of the Black Mark is the third album from the legendary Bathory. It starts to slowly incorporate symphonic elements. For example, Woman of Dark Desires apparently is about the woman whom Bathory took its name from – Erzsébet Báthory. There are also considerably more melodies hidden within the brutal arrangements than on the previous record. It’s not quite as wild all the time as last time around. It’s a delight when the...
When I first encountered Beatalica, I thought it was a silly joke. However, it turned out after closer investigation that there are actually some albums, and substantively, it manages to avoid becoming silly. It probably helps if you’re a fan of both the Beatles and Metallica, of course, since the whole idea of the band is to make Beatles songs as if Metallica had done them! I’ll readily admit that at first, I didn’t quite...
I would argue that Blood Fire Death is less extreme than its predecessors. The sound quality is still pretty poor, but there’s much more variation than on the earlier albums. Additionally, the musical style has shifted somewhat, at least partially, and the intro to the album suggests, at least in hindsight, that the transition to the Viking Metal that would characterize later albums was underway even here. Overall, the melodies are longer than what we’ve...
From Hell I Rise is the debut solo album of former Slayer guitarist Kerry King. He has gathered a new band around him for this. I guess it’s inevitable since Slayer is no more, even though they’re apparently doing a couple of festival gigs this year. For me, personally, there can’t be Slayer without Jeff Hanneman (who is dead) and Dave Lombardo so I guess I’ll have to settle for something else. Kerry King’s solo...
Armageddon Boogie is the first album in a series of three (that I know of) from Amerikan Kaos. I’m not sure if you should call it at project or a band, or even if it’s Jeff Waters hiring other mucisioan to make the albums. I’ve read in his own statement that the three albums will differ musically and personnel-wise. But it’s hard to make any conclusion so far. The genre of Armageddon Boogie is more...
