Yoth Iria - As The Flame Withers

Wow, this is a fuckin great album! This shit speaks to me. EVERYTHING about it is awesome, classy as fuck. I've been slow to get this album and really it should've been in my top 3 for 2021.

Holy Moses - Dont Mess Around with the Bitch

Snagged a High Roller repress of Queen Of Siam when i was shopping on another label.Gotta admit i wasn't familiar with this one and liked it immediately.Released in 2006 i think but sounds way earlier and HR have given it the VIP treatment.

edit 1986 original release.

I was just listening to it last night. Great band, great album, but that production... even the remixes sound like shit (I prefer the original). I can get past the shit production but I'd imagine most folks couldn't. The songs are there tho, Black Plague, Evil Rising, Alpha Omega etc, all top notch. Holy Terror are definitely one of my favourite bands from the B team, Mind Wars fuckin rules.
I could never get that original copy on CD of T&S when I first got into em over 20yrs ago, too expensive, even back then, but I've got an original of Mind Wars, which I'll never sell!

Yes, it is. It spoke to me soon enough to become my favourite release of 2021 better later, than never!

NP: Vorga - Striving Towards Oblivion

A well received German melo-black band release, let's see if it lives up to the generous reviews.

Tarot - Twilight Fortress

Love this band!
So dreamy and relaxing.
Catchy tunes!

Hope they are working on something new...

Actually I think a band like Holy Terror needs a slightly messy, raw underproduced sound. There is a swirling chaos there that you have to parse but it is part of the charm. This is not your well-produced-major-label-thrash-for-everyone. As far as T&S it was one of my first "rarities" that I ever bought and one that I had to wait years to grab. That japanese CD sounds great to my ears BTW. As far as Mind Wars goes I have got both japanese release CDs in mint condition. No OBI for those though.

Eternity's End "Embers of War"

Sounds pretty good so far, will have to revisit their first 2 albums soon. This album is as much of a love-letter to Germany's 90s/00s PM heyday as it is Hibria 2.0 to me.

Exodus - Exodus

Raging thrash mania that's not for the faint hearted!

Sacrifice - Forward To Termination

I own the Fringe pressing of this CD and while the music is amazing I think this one is among the quietest discs I have ever heard. Does anybody have the Metal Blade/Restless version and know if it is also this quiet?

Yeah a lot of the writing is very old school and simpler than the earlier stuff, just with a lot of flashy musicianship overtop.

Budgie - Slipaway

I really love this album.

Great news!!

*kicks the facebook algo for not showing band updates on time*

Samhain - Macabre

Danzig the ghoul at his most obnoxious evil best.

Uriah Heep - Tales

The Magician's Birthday is just class from start to finish. Maybe wrong to call UH underrated, but they should be up there with Zeppelin and all that shit.

Marduk - Echoes From The Past

I'm putting Those Of The Unlight up there with my top 3 from this band.Quality all the way through and this is a high point instrumental with simple effective musicianship.

Sacrifice - Torment In Fire

Love this early Slayer-worship album but is has NO production to speak of. None. One of the worst sounding thrash discs I heard (talking about the original Fringe pressing).

Druid Lord - Relics of the Dead

Nice stuff. Deeply rotten, but with musicality underneath the filth.

mTORR - Guardians Of Light

Getting my annual play in before Winter is over.Battle songs from the nordic north.Yes all roads lead North with this one.

Blood Incantation - Inner Paths (To Outer Space)

Love this record, can't wait for the ambient album

WASP - Dying For the World
This band has quietly maintained the quality throughout their entire career. "Dying" is an especially strong collection of tunes.

Vltimas - Marching On

I'm a fan of Rune Eriksen's playing and if anything this is a masterclass of technical metal riffery.Forearms of steel required here,but still after it's all over i'm struggling to remember a song or two.It all goes by in a blur.
Don't want to disrespect it because i wish i could play like that,holy shit.

Hallows Eve - Monument

I do not know why people dislike this in. To these it ears it sounds great. No as manic as the previous records but the compositions are tight and riffs are definitely there.

Great stuff!


Øksehovud - Neubaufahrzeug over Hardangervidda

First spinn on the lp, sounds good!

The Quill - In Triumph
Best described as a combination of more recent Spiritual Beggars & Jake E Lee's Badlands with vocals influenced by Chris Cornell.
If you like the modern Spiritual Beggars, this band is worth your attention.

Funebre - Shiver

Robotic, yet sludgy death metal that could only originate of Finland. I dig it.

Kukulcan - Cacaxtla

Digging all this O.N.S.P. stuff!

Caveman Cult - Putrid Earth

Glad to report they have not lost their utter disgust with humanity.An audio equivilent of the Cannibal Holocaust.
I don't often venture as extreme as this but i cannot resist the relentless battery.

Panopticon - Dead Loons

This song has some of the best use of space and silence I've heard in a metal song... it just crushes when it starts rolling out that big doom part and then the more searing pagan-sounding melodies later. True drama.

Witchcraft - Lady Winter

There was an interview with Pepper Keenan after they recorded Over The Under when he was asked what was the inspiration to get back together and record a third album.
He said one of the reasons was Anselmo turning up on his doorstep clutching a copy of this album saying we have to continue on.Listen to this.
I don't know much about metal lore,but i remember that one.

Steel Angel - Born in the Ocean

Killer French heavy metal!

Armored Saint - Revelation

I swear this band never disappoints. Bush is on point here and the riffage is solid and crunchy. What is not to like?

E-Force - Mindbender

Don't tell anyone... but I like E-Force more than modern Voivod.
This is another one that if I got the CD earlier it would've made my top 10 last year.

Stereo Nasty - Black Widow

This band is so awesome!
Vocals are really cool!

2 albums only, but hell they rock!

Black Sabbath - Wishing Well

Currently trying to find out which of these classic two Dio-fronted albums I prefer, I've been through Mob Rules before this one and it's currently in the lead, if not by much

Children of the Sea, Die Young, Neon Knights and the mighty title track make it a no-brainer for me. Those 4 songs alone (and I really dig the others too) make Heaven and Hell one of the GOATs.

Sort Vokter - Sonn Av Skyggers Skygge

The 'fizz' seems to calm down towards the end but still..
Fjellstev saves the day.Perfect ending.

Nah, after listening to both in succession I'm still rooting for Mob Rules, if only slightly.

Turn Up The Night
Falling off the Edge of the World
Voodoo
Sign of the Southern Cross
Country Girl

------

Die Young
Children of the Sea
Lonely is the Word
Heaven and Hell
Neon Nights

...these are my personal highlights (in order) of each album and Mob Rules just leads because for example Turn Up the Night having the best fucking chorus ever with that tapping lead.

Yeah, but not so much. I like all of their albums, including Apsû, but Tara is my favourite. By coincidence listening to the self-titled at the moment.

Could never get into Mob Rules. ''Turn up the Night'' reminds me too much of ''Neon Knights'', too. Heaven and Hell is almost killer from the beginning until the end and I even dig some of those rockier tunes.

NP: Sacrifice - Light of the End

Nothing extraordinary for 1987; as it recalls a mish-mash between early Slayer and Destruction, but this has enough energy and fire to it to make it work.

Mob Rules, as cool as it is and as much as I like it, is almost a carbon copy of H&H but just not quite as good.
My favourites off it are Country Girl, Turn Up The Night, Sign Of The... and the title track.

NP: Varathron - Patriarchs of Evil

Greek black metal at it's finest.

Motorhead - Back at the Funny Farm

This might be close to my favorite album from them; maybe only next to Overkill.