Old Corpse Road – ‘Tis Witching Hour…As Spectres We Haunt This Kingdom’
Hellbound Metal: The best new British band since The Meads of Asphodel, I can give no higher praise!
“Rainbow”
A Metal Blade quartet
Metal Blade celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2012. While the label has already released a plethora of classic and genre-defining albums, and fostered and supported our dearly loved heavy metal community, it remains, to this day, as active and energetic as ever. What the metal realm would have looked like without Metal Blade’s steely presence over the past three decades is a frightening thought indeed.
To help celebrate this, here are four new reviews of new Metal Blade titles by our New Zealand based writer Craig Haze, who tackles the new releases by Angel Witch, Exhumer, Ram and OSI
Opeth–Heritage
As it’s still unforeseen where Opeth are heading to next, Heritage stands out as an eccentric anomaly in their catalogue. But this doesn’t diminish the quality of the album one bit. Heritage is a fantastic album, although it’s not without its flaws. However, those flaws have nothing to do with Opeth’s decision to become preoccupied with prog. They are simply slight musical missteps, and who hasn’t stumbled when finding a new path?
Tyr – The Lay of Thrym
This album isn’t breaking any new ground, but if you’re a fan of clean-voiced heavy/melodic/viking metal (with some power metal mixed in) this album is for you.
Iron Claw – A Different Game
This is a solid, dynamic, vintage rock ‘n roll record, 13 tracks spanning 57 minutes yet hardly a dull moment to be found.
Deep Purple – Phoenix Rising
If rock and roll debauchery is something you are into, definitely pick this up but if you are a fan of the classic In Rock / Machine Head era of Deep Purple then you are better off spending your money elsewhere.
Live to Win: Motörhead Revisited
Part 1 of a 2 part series in which Adrien Begrand reviews the 2005 Sanctuary deluxe reissues of the first four MOTORHEAD studio albums after s/t.
Various Artists:Snakebites – The Music of Whitesnake
Every cover is so irritatingly faithful to the original version it’s aping –right down to sounding overproduced- that it’s painful. But try as they might, none of the covering vocalists here appear to possess an nth of the swagger and soul that Mr. Coverdale conveyed in his prime (even if he did nick it from Robert Plant).
Dio – Holy Diver Live
While it is nice to see this upgraded to a higher quality format, as the redefinition of it has improved the picture quality over the original DVD release, I must admit that this release is not without its faults.
Heavy metal pioneer Ronnie James Dio dies at 67
After battling the cancer that he was diagnosed with late last year, Ronald James Padavona (better known to his passionate fans as Ronnie James Dio) succumbed to his illness earlier today. He was 67 years old.