Trollheart

Over the course of three years I put together what I believe to be a fairly comprehensive look at the phenomenon of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. It's in five parts, four of which have been written, and you can access them here:

Part I: Features Angel Witch, Praying Mantis and Trespass
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1107941

Part II: Features Venom, Raven and Cloven Hoof
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1132041

Part III: Features Saxon, Tank and Wolf
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...st1211687(Tank
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1212201
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1212518
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1212918

Part IV: Features Sweet Savage, Girlschool and Diamond Head
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1332505
http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1335844

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Tales from the kingdom of Fife --- Gloryhammer --- 2013 (Napalm)

Hold on just one minute there squire: a power metal band from Scotland? Well, not quite. Apparently this is a) the side project of Chris Bowes from Alestorm (who are, or were, Scottish) with some other international members on board and b) meant to be something of a piss-take on the often po-facedness of some power metal bands we could mention. This I did not know when I pressed play, and to be perfectly honest it doesn't matter. Others may scoff at their version of power-metal-by-numbers, or wildly predictable lyrical content like dragons and unicorns (and princesses) but I still think this a great album, especially for a debut. It certainly is capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the bands in the genre, even kicking the arses of some.

If you can stop tittering at the hilarious name, we'll get going then shall we? No? Still laughing? All right then, go ahead. I can wait. But not that long. Time to get this show on the road if I want to be home in time for tea.

Starting off with a big booming orchestral sounding intro, a dark voice intones "The prophecy is written: Dundee shall fall!" though why anyone would want the small Scottish city is beyond me, and rolling drumbeats punctuate layers of keyboards with choral vocals as "Anstruther's dark prophecy" gets us in the mood with a very Game of Thrones feel, then the unbelievably hilarious "The unicorn invasion of Dundee" hits, and the tempo goes up about ten levels. Great shredding and sonorous keys is the order of the day, and Thomas Winkler has a rough, ragged edge to his voice that often suits this kind of music, while nobody can deny it's catchy as all hell. It does sound derivative, but apparently that's the idea, so if so then it works perfectly. Just to add to the send-up feel of the album, the band have all taken elaborate fantasy-themed stage names which apparently identify them as characters in the story. But if you look beyond that you'll find some really competent musicians who seem to be having a blast doing what they do. This must be how Manowar felt when they first recorded "Battle hymns".

Fans of Rhapsody or Freedom Call will feel Gloryhammer are copying them --- pehaps mocking them --- on "Angus McFife", and they probably are, but there's a great sense of fun about it and the guitars from Paul Templing are certainly serious enough. Great keyboard backing from Bowes, who surely is winking at the audience as he runs his fingers up and down the keys delivering arpeggios and runs, and Winkler belts out the cliched lyric which you still can't help but smile at. "Quest for the hammer of glory" has Manowar's fingerprints all over it, and maybe Virgin Steele's too, and is a slower, slightly grindier piece telling of the quest to, oh you know... It has a very triumphant and majestic air about it, one of those songs you imagine playing as armies ride to battle, preferably against insurmountable odds. Some good orchestral style keyboards utilised well on this song, with trumpets and fanfares thrown in too, and I must mention the heavy basswork of James Spicemaster Cartwright --- no, that's not his stage name!

Great neoclassical piano starts "Magic dragon" and then it kicks into high gear in true power metal style, and even though it's hard to believe that you're listening to a song that includes dragons, wizards, demons and warriors in the lyric, somehow it's just too good to ignore. Almost like the cliches --- and this album is packed so full of them it's bursting at the seams --- don't really matter. It's all about a feeling, an atmosphere being built, and just having a good time without worrying too much, or at all, about the semantics. Great keyboard solo here too, wouldn't be out of place in a progressive rock album, and followed by a super one on the guitar. Bliss. And then of course there's the, as Fish once wrote, obligatory ballad.

"Silent tears of frozen princess" has a lovely violin and strings opening, with soft piano and perhaps harp in there too, although I suppose these could all be synthesised. They sound real though. Slow, heavy percussion then cuts in and the song's moved into its second minute before the vocal comes in. As expected, it's a restrained croon, but demonstrates at least that Thomas Winkler can handle ballads as well as bellowing anthems to power and glory. And he handles it well I must say. I have to say I like this, and it could be a decent single, if chosen, though I doubt any of the tracks here will see the light of single release. Foot hard down on the accelerator and we've off roaring down the highway with "Amulet of justice", triphammer drumming driving the song, and "Hail to Crail" is good fun too while "Beneath Cowdenbeath" is a fast and furious instrumental driven on racing guitar and powerful keys.

We end on, perhaps rather predictably, the final cliche. An epic song, which even has "epic" in the title! "The epic rage of furious thunder" starts off with a big bombastic introduction, choral voices and a deep, rich vocal from Winkler, almost operatic as he praises the city of Dundee and the band winds up behind him. I have to say, it's hilarious when he sings "Mighty Dundee!" I mean, Rome, London, even Avalon, okay, but Dundee??! You might as well sing mighty Dublin! It rocks out then for a minute or so, fades down to a female spoken vocal and then kicks off again. Good vocal harmonies and great pounding rollicking percussion with a slick little guitar solo in about the fourth minute. I'll give it this much: the lyrics may be contrived and cliched all through this album, power metal-by-numbers, but they make more sense than many a German or Danish power metal album I've listened to. The whole thing would appear to follow a basic concept which ends with the taking back of "the great city of Dundee", and the rippling soft keyboards in the seventh minute presage a triumphant power metal climax (ooer!) that carries through to the end of the song, although it does end with a rather silly dark voiceover (presumably the same evil chappie who foretold the doom of Dundee at the beginning) and a rather unnecessary acoustic guitar fade.

TRACKLISTING

1. Anstruther's dark prophecy
2. The unicorn invasion of Dundee
3. Angus McFife
4. Quest for the hammer of glory
5. Magic dragon
6. Silent tears of frozen princess
7. Amulet of justice
8. Hail to Crail
9. Beneath Cowdenbeath
10. The epic rage of glorious thunder

Okay would you please stop laughing? Thank you. Now, it's true this can be seen as a parody --- which is, I think, how it was intended --- and a sendup of the often up-its-own-arse-ness of power metal, but you can't fault the musicianship, the hooks in the songs or the overall production and execution of the whole thing. Let's look at it this way: if this was the first power metal album you'd ever bought or heard, you'd probably think it was great. And in many ways it is. You can laugh at the cliches all you like, but the fact is that this is a well put-together and cleverly-written piece of power metal that, while it's not exactly going to dethrone the likes of Hammerfall or Blind Guardian, and won't find a place alongside "Keeper of the seven keys" or "The marriage of Heaven and Hell" in the annals of power metal, is still an album that no metal fan should be ashamed of owning. And it's a rollicking good ride, into the bargain.

Anyway, how can you resist an album with a song title like "The unicorn invasion of Dundee"? Come on! Give in! You know you want to...

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloryhammer

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Are you dead yet? --- Children of Bodom --- 2005 (Spinefarm)

"Melodeth" is apparently the accepted name for melodic death metal, and by all accounts Children of Bodom have risen to the melodeth throne. This is their fifth album, on which I'm advised the previous influence of power metal and keyboards was toned back, so it'll be interesting to see how the album sounds. CoB come from Finland, which is known for some of the best power and progressive metal out there, but then it is also part of Scandinavia, where both black and death metal are enjoying something of a revival.

Hmm. Starts off like a new wave electronic band with bippy keyboards and squidgy bass, then guitar kicks in properly and the tempo goes skyhigh, so you're in no doubt you're listening to Metal. Screamed vocal from Alex Laiho but it's not too bad and the music is certainly heavy, after uncertain beginnings as "Living dead beat" gets underway. There's certainly more than an element of Power Metal in the title track, with some good keyboard work from Janne Wirman, but it's quite grindy in its way too, however the next one up could not be described that way at all, as it flies along on twin guitar rails and thunder drumming from Jaska Raatikainen.

Slowing right down with a marching, thumping beat is "Punch me I bleed" and you can definitely hear the "melo" part of melodeth coming through here, quite a bit of progressive metal too in the last minute or so. A machine-gun guitar riff and sparkly keyboards carry "In your face", and there's some good shredding in "Thrashed, lost and strungout", but generally a lot of this sounds quite similar, leaving me unfortunately not all that much to write about it. At least they made me smile with their cover version of Britney's "Oops ... I did it again!", which I already featured.

TRACKLISTING

1. Living dead beat
2. Are you dead yet?
3. If you want peace ... prepare for war
4. Punch me I bleed
5. In your face
6. Next in line
7. Bastards of Bodom
8. Thrashed lost and strungout
9. We're not gonna fall

Yeah, not a lot to say really. Not music I hate but nothing terribly original about it and nothing that much that stands out for me. A decent album, but not that much more.

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Bodom

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Bastards --- Motorhead --- 1993 (ZYX)

The godfathers of thrash, the original noise merchants, the metal elite, call them what you want, Motorhead have been around a long time. They've seen it all and done it all --- and probably given some of it up! --- from the birth of metal in the late sixties/early seventies through the NWOBHM and on into the rise of grunge and the decline, then partial rebirth of metal, and through it all they've adapted, changed their sound and moved with the ...

Hold on just one fucking minute! This is Motorhead we're talking about! Motor. Head. These guys never have, never will, change to suit any fad, trend or changing attitude. As immovable as a mountain, as unchanging as the tides, as stuck in their ways as a constipated elephant, Lemmy and the boys have charted a career down over thirty years which has never wavered, never changed, never fucking adapted one little bit, and they're as popular now as they were back at the height of their career, when albums like "Ace of spades" and "Overkill" were giving Metalheads wet dreams. Some things never change, and never should.

But though the music doesn't change, the lineup has. Conceived originally as a power trio, Motorhead built their popularity on that model, but in 1982 their beloved guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke departed to form Fastway, and was replaced originally by Thin Lizzy's Brian Robertson, then later by Phil Campbell, also joined by Wurzel as a second guitarist for a period lasting two years, and even Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor was replaced on the drumseat, leaving the band in 1991. This album is the first to feature their new four-piece lineup, a short-lived one to be sure.

There's an almost slower sense to the opener, with a boogie rocker more reminiscent of a faster, dirtier ZZ in "On your feet or on your knees", and you can't help feeling that "Fast" Eddie might think this a little limp. It chugs along nicely though, Lemmy's sandpaper-raw voice as powerful as ever. Right off I don't hear a huge difference in the extra guitarist but we'll see as the album goes on whether it was a good idea or not. It's a short song, the shortest on the album at barely over two and a half minutes, then the real speed kicks in as we hit "Burner", and new guy Mikkey Dee does his best to follow in Taylor's shoes --- yes, Tommy Aldridge played the drums on the previous "March or die", but we all knew he was little more than a placeholder, and were still mourning the loss of "Philthy", weren't we? It's more like the Motorhead of old as we steam rather than chug along, the pace reaching frenetic levels, another short song as we plunge into "Death or glory".

The tempo, once reached, seems likely to keep going and in a similar vein lyrically to Lizzy's "Angel of death", this track seems to be written from the standpoint of an immortal being who is doomed to fight forever through history. The lyrics namecheck various historical figures, such as Hitler, Napoleon and Roman gladiators, and the song somehow both reviles and glorifies war with a sort of fatalistic acceptance. Powerful percussion from Dee on this one, then Lemmy puts on an almost death metal growl for "I am the sword", which paradoxically sounds more thrash metal and even has its own sense of melody going on. Not too often you mention that word in conjuction with Motorhead! And it fades!

The only song on the album written by the big man solo, "Born to raise Hell" starts with a drumbeat quite akin to the opening of "Run to the hills" then rocks along steadily in an almost commercial rock vein, again I could hear ZZ singing this. Shot of the Ramones and Slade in there too. Next up is a real departure for the guys in the acoustic ballad "Don't let daddy kiss me". With a title like that it's going to come as no surprise that we're talking about child abuse and paedophilia/incest here, and Motorhead have my respect for tackling such a serious and taboo subject. It works really well, the drum kicking in halfway through as the electric guitar also pounds in and the song takes off on the back of a searingly emotional solo, underlining the seriousness of the situation Lemmy is singing about. As for the man, he puts in a brilliant, restrained and low-key yet menacing performance. Superb song.

Back rocking then with "Bad woman", a lot of Lizzy in this along with a smattering of the Crue, the tempo not quite as fast as it has been before the ballad, but pounding along nicely, till they go all Metallica with "Liar", Lemmy's growl one of anger and derision, with sharp guitar from the boys backing him up. Keeping it slow, for Motorhead that is, "Lost in the ozone" reintroduces acoustic guitar and could in some ways qualify as a ballad, though not in the same vein as "Don't let daddy kiss me". Nice sound to it overall and another quite introspective vocal from our man Lemmy. Oddly enough it's almost steel guitar adding a Country sound to "I'm your man" -- thankfully not a cover of the old Wham! song! --- which reminds me of those old campaigners, Blackfoot, and keeps the tempo relatively low.

Dare I even say that "We bring the shake" sounds more AOR than metal? Yeah, well it does. Really rocks along but I could hear this on radio and some DJ coming on afterwards going "Uh, that was ... Motorhead? No, I'm not reading this incorrectly. Definitely Motorhead. The guys who brought you "Ace of spades". Yeah, them." Way to stick it to the establishment, Lemmy! Love this. Sadly we're almost done as "Devils" wraps the album up, but at least it is the longest track, six glorious minutes of pure rock'n'roll goodness with a feel of Gary Moore-era Lizzy about it, some fine guitar work from the two boys and a growling, snarly vocal from Lemmy. Sweet.

TRACKLISTING

1. On your feet or on your knees
2. Burner
3. Death or glory
4. I am the sword
5. Born to raise Hell
6. Don't let daddy kiss me
7. Bad woman
8. Liar
9. Lost in the ozone
10. I'm your man
11. We bring the shake
12. Devils

For those who find it hard to contend with the "wall of noise" Motorhead are usually associated with, "Bastards" is a good chance to hear what they can really do when they tone back the noise a little and really play. Despite its iconic status, "Ace of spades" never really did it for me, and though I love "Overkill", "Bomber" and others, this album comes across to me as the closest to an almost commercial side to Motorhead. Not saying it would play on any top forty station or anything, but there's a lot of the melody I like so much in this album.

Again, not a word you would expect to link with this band, and given the title of the album you would be expecting a no-holds-barred, all-out fret frenzy that just puts its head down and charges through the tracks till it reaches the end, breathless, sweaty and grinning. Although it's no slouch in that department, it's probably the most accessible I've heard Motorhead. And I've heard a lot of Motorhead. If all you know is "Ace of spades" then this would not be the worst place to begin your journey into the wild, loud and wonderful world of Lemmy and Co.

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mot%C3%B6rhead

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Powerstars

Actually, how 'bout this?

Straight up TH ripoff month! I make my own versions of several of your segments. Whaddya think?

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Trollheart

Sure, why not? Just make sure you put one of these on each entry...


http://www.trollheart.com/copyright2.png

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Sound of white noise --- Anthrax --- 1993 (Elektra)


Another giant in the Thrash Metal arena, Anthrax have been around for over twenty years now, and indeed their debut "Fistful of metal", was an early purchase of mine and I loved it. This is their sixth album, almost ten years later, and featuring not Joey Belladonna, beloved of the Batlord, but John Bush, who would stay with the band for three more albums up to 2003. I haven't heard this one, but it's said to show a different side of Anthrax with a change of direction musically. Does it then belong here? Let's see.

"Potter's Field", the opener, despite sharing a title with a Tom Waits song, is not a cover of that track but their own composition, and opens with a very English cultured voice remarking "This is a journey into sound". There then follows some sort of ambient noise until Dan Spitz's guitar hammers into the tune, then Bush comes in but I must say, heavy though the song is it has an unmistakable hip-hop rhythm to it, this possibly confirmed by "scratching" on a later track. It's Anthrax, Jim, but not (quite) as we know them. A decent song though and I would harbour the hope Bush is not going to bring rapping to this, one of the "big four" thrash bands.

"Only" has a good hammering drumbeat from Charlie Benante and some powerful solid guitar, and John Bush is certainly a strong singer, but I have to wonder does this still qualify as thrash metal? It's a bit, how you say, melodic? Still heavy as hell but rather catchier than I would expect from a band of Anthrax's reputation. Hmm. Well, "Room for one more" has more of the hard punching sound we've come to expect from the guys, with some fine soaraway guitar. Nevertheless, the vocal still puts me in mind of what a metal rapper would sound like, if such a thing existed. I know Limp Bizkit exist: I said if a metal rapper existed! Holy hell! Is that a version of the "Magic Roundabout" theme opening "Packaged rebellion", or is it just me? Just me then.

Yeah this is more like it. It's like ZZ and Bad Company got together and invited Lizzy along for the ride. Good old-school heavy metal with some great guitar licks and what I'd consider a proper metal vocal this time round. My worries were fading about the influence of hip-hop on the album but they're kind of back a little with the rap-style vocal on "Hy pro glo", though it's still a heavy song certainly. Great staccato guitar that punches like a studded fist, John Bush sounding a little like Ozzy on occasion! There's a real heads-down, kick-it-out fretfest then in "Invisible", really gets the blood pumping, while the freight train gathers speed and hurtles down the track as "1000 points of hate" rattles by, and at this point you'd have to admit John Bush is a decent replacement for our man Joey.

There are synthesisers, of all things, on "Black lodge", wherein the band enlist the services of composer Angelo Badlamenti, who I know best for the theme music to "Twin Peaks", and it's the first, probably only, ballad, the title itself based on a location in that TV series. It's not so much a ballad really, but for Anthrax it's about as slow as it's likely to get, with definite grunge influences in the melody and rhythm. It's good but very reserved for Anthrax and just doesn't really suit their sound. I'm not going to write down the chemical formula that forms the title for the next song, so I'll use the actual name, Sodium Pentathol, which is of course also known as truth serum. It gets things rocking and racing again, back to the kind of Anthrax I grew up with. One of Bush's best vocal performances on the album: he's absolutely manic!

That just leaves two tracks to close with. "Burst", the shortest track on the album at just over three and a half minutes, opens with an odd little synthesiser "chime", then thunders along on galloping drums and sharp guitar with a growling backing vocal thrown into the mix. The album ends with a nod to the movie "American psycho" (which I personally hated) as the boys warn "This is not an exit", a sort of a slower grinder with heavy feedback guitar reminding me rather a lot of Metallica. It's quite long for a closer, in fact the shortest track is followed by the longest, as this just falls short of seven minutes. It's a good grindy, snarly way to finish the album and it speeds up as it nears its climax, ending in something of a cacophony of noise, with a (to me) pointless little sound sample tacked on right at the end.

TRACKLISTING

1. Potter's Field
2. Only
3. Room for one more
4. Packaged rebellion
5. Hy pro glo
6. Invisible
7. 1000 points of hate
8. Black Lodge
9. Sodium Pentathol
10. Burst
11. This is not an exit

There are definitely new influences leaking in on this album --- vestiges of hip-hop as I already mentioned, and which will probably be laughed at for, and grunge too --- but "Sound of white noise" is still a major heavy album. John Bush brings something different to the sound of Anthrax, and there are some surprises here, but basically it's still the same band I learned to love and who helped teach me to headbang way back in 1984.

I don't headbang anymore --- no hair, you see, or at least not the luscious mane I had in my teens --- but I can still be rocked. And this album rocks me. Still deserving of their place among the big four, even after all this time.

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrax_%28band%29

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So here we are, in the closing week of our month of metal, and our final edition of "The Meat Grinder". The series has been less than generous to us over the course of this last three weeks, so let's hope we can go out on a bang, eh? Hope springs, as they say...

Well on the face of it we would seem to have done well, but I'm not taking anything for granted. I know how this works. It's like a sexy woman who beckons you into her bedroom and just as the door closes a heavy object hits you on the back of the head, and when you wake up your wallet is gone. I ain't falling for that one again! Well, not for the sixth time, anyway...

Let's see. Death Sentence come from the Czech Republic, so expect many names with "z", "v" and "k" in them. They are signed, so that's a plus, and they have albums. Can I find any? What a surprise. No. Doesn't help that there's some punk band of the same name. Here's the only video I could find of them. Sounds okay. They're described as "melodic death/doom metal". Could have been interesting. Oh well, up stumps and on we go.


Down south we go, and we come to the sub-continent, where from Bangalore we find Eccentric Pendulum, a name perhaps better suited to a progressive metal or even rock band. But these guys are described as thrash/death metal/metalcore. Hum. They have an album. Can we find it? Well, praise be to Dio, we can! Some kind soul has put the whole thing up on YT! Well, I say kind soul, but of course I don't know what the music is going to sound like. I may regret this. In any case, we're gonna focus on these guys so here goes.

This is them. Founded in 2008 in Karantaka (how's that for a prog-rock reference?) in Bangalore, India, and I can't really tell you much about them, other than that one review describes them simply as "weird". Hmm.
Band name: Eccentric Pendulum
Nationality: Indian (Bangalore)
Subgenre: Not sure -- elements of progressive metal, groove, funk, ambient, more...
Born: 2008
Status: Active
Albums: "The sculpture of negative emotions" (2009) "Winding the optics" (2011)
Live albums: None
Collections/Boxed Sets/Anthologies: None
Lineup: Nikhil Vastarey (Vocals)
Arjun Mulky (Guitars)
Arjun Natarajan (Bass)
Vibhas Venkatram (Drums)

Like I say, there's not too much information about these guys. They did play the Wacken Festival in 2010 and seem to have gone down well, but other than that: hey, they're a metal band from India! Whattya want? Let's see if their music can do the talking for them.

Winding the optics --- Eccentric Pendulum --- 2011 (Self-released)

First thing I notice here are the odd names of the tracks, which make this seem more like some sort of psychedelic album than metal, and the opener is no exception. "The axioms of aphotic expression" starts off with heavy guitar and drumbeats, kind of mid-pace, then it all gets ruined by a growly vocal, for me. Ah well. Decent music and Arjun on the guitar certainly knows what he's doing, while Arjun on the bass keeps it tight with Vibham on the drumstool. The addition of a new guitarist here in Faheemul Hassan shows, particularly in "De-engineer the prevalent" (yeah...) which rattles along nicely.

"Paragon impermanence" (again I say, yeah...) is a faster, more uptempo and heavier song with driving drumbeat, but I must admit I see nothing of the jazz, fusion or ambient influences alluded to in the review I read, nor do I find these guys weird. In fact, if anything I find them generic thrash metal, nothing progressive about them at all, not to me. Ok, nice bit of acoustic guitar there, that's a little different. Some nice ambient guitar too in "Become me". Yeah yeah, okay: It's quite progressive, I'll give you that. "My eucalyptine depth" (what?) is a faster track but nothing much to write home about, while "Mathematicans of ambient waters" is an interesting track, rocking along with a very Dio-esque arabian style rhythm, touches of Maiden in there too. Great guitar solo. Speeds up a bit and gets a little crazy at the end. The closing track is a ten-minute instrumental, but the only version I can find online is a live one and I think it loses something due to the sound quality, so I won't comment on it.

TRACKLISTING

1. The axioms of aphotic expressions
2. De-engineer the prevalent
3. Paragon impermanence
4. Become me
5. My eucalyptine depth
6. Mathematicians of ambient waters
7. Anonymous existence



Yeah, again this is not my thing, though the musicanship is quite good and the ideas are there. The vocals put me off as usual. So it's not been the greatest of successes for this month of "The Meat Grinder", but it's been interesting. We now return you to what remains of Metal Month.

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MMXIII --- Stormbringer --- 2013 (Transcend Music)

Do you know how hard it was to track these guys down? There are, according to my good friends at Encyclopaedia Metallum no less than fifteen metal bands called Stormbringer, many of which are defunct, some of whom have -- perhaps wisely -- changed their name to something else. I found them through a process of elimination, as any band who is split up will hardly have an album coming out this year! Turns out this is in fact the debut for this particular Stormbringer, who hail from the UK.

So who are these non-smiling metalheads from darkest, er, Northampton? Seems they're a five piece, all of who appear to have been founder members except Mike Stockley, who only joined in 2012. As he's the vocalist, and none other is mentioned, I wonder if they were an instrumental outfit prior to his arrival? Still, this is their first album as I said, so maybe they were just waiting for the right singer to come along. I must admit, I'm not too hopeful, with the sleeve looking like something Venom thought about but discarded as too obvious, and titles like "Gazing at the grave", "Welcome to Hell" and "Destroy"; surely this guy is going to be a death growler? Smart money says yes. But what the hey, let's give it a listen anyway.

Rather cliched opening, I have to say, with thunder, the sound of falling rain, then a big heavy guitar kicks your face in as another harmonises with it, Ash Smith and Dom Wallace setting the music backdrop as Jon Paul Quantrill hammers out a doomy beat on the drums. Glad they're not using any stupid made up names like "Abaddon", "The Destroyer" or "That guy from the Matrix": always seems a little hard to take a band seriously when they use pseudonyms. Right, well the first track turns out to be an instrumental, but to my delight when "Gazing at the grave" opens Stockley turns out to have a clear, sweet voice perhaps better suited to melodic or progressive metal. Hey, this may turn out to be good after all!

Great driving beat and despite the doom metal title the song is very rock, very metal and almost Def Leppard/Bon Jovi in feel, albeit with much heavier backing. This guy could be dropped into any AOR band you care to mention and nobody would know he came from a metal background. Great guitar solo, though I could do without the "metal-rap" (raptal?) but I can ignore it because this band are grabbing me so immediately and positively. And so we head into "Mark Antony", with a screeching guitar intro and a lot of Zep in it; another slightly nu-metal style vocal but there's no way I'd consign Stormbringer to the fate of being a nu-metal band. They've definitely got something. Great rousing chorus in this, and tough grinding guitar characterises "Save me" with a sort of funk/groove rhythm. Great stuff.

With a title like "Destroy" you think you know what to expect, but it starts on a gentle blues riff and then explodes into a powerful melodic metal anthem with a superb performance from Mike Stockley and some incisive guitar from the two guys. Guess I know nothing about stoner metal, as this is supposed to be how it sounds. Maybe I was mixing it up with sludge. Anyway I really like this, it's far more on my side of the melodic preferences I have for metal. Bit of a drum solo from Quantrill then to kick "Grinder" off. This was the lead-in single and it's a whole lot heavier than a lot of other stuff on "MMXIII" which makes me wonder why they thought it would be a good choice? Great low, almost muttered vocal though again it's a little rap-oriented.

"Sanity" is another hard and heavy number, while "Submerged" puts me very in mind of Threshold, with a marching, swaggering, boogey line. "Darker days" and "Control" keep the quality high, the latter with a sort of chanted, shouted backing vocal which is a bit punk-rockish. Above all soars the powerful voice of Mike Stockley, delivering every line with perfect clarity and passion. The album closes on the longest track, "Welcome to Hell", thought I doubt Venom would approve! There's nothing black about this metal: it's as melodic as they come, with nevertheless a hammer punch from the twin guitars and the rhythm section keeping everything heavy, right up to the last riff and note.

TRACKLISTING

1. MMXIII
2. Gazing at the grave
3. Mark Antony
4. Save me
5. Destroy
6. Grinder
7. Sanity
8. Submerged
9. Darker days
10. Control
11. Welcome to Hell

Definitely a case of incorrectly judging a book by its cover. From the album sleeve I had assumed a dark, doomy, grindy thing full of sludgy hooks and plodding bass, with definitely a deep-throated growler or a whispering screamer for a vocalist. Completely amazed by what I found. A really excellent debut from a band who -- given all the other Stormbringers around, living and dead --- may find it prudent to do like some of the others have, and change their name to something less common.

The music, however, speaks for itself, and I for one am already looking forward to their next outing.

Read more here http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/...ger/3540368184

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Powerstars

You got it, TH!

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