The Batlord

Well that is certainly one rapetastic cover. These guys were nothing if not classy. And from what I can tell it seems there was an even more explicit cover for this album out there. **** it. I'm too curious about what's inside the cover to bother with worrying about a little bit of cretinous stupidity. And some heavy-as-**** drumming right out of the gate is making any disingenuous guilt go right away. Aw, man. They got rid of the old singer for one that's not nearly as good. He works, but...*sigh* Musically though they're definitely going into full-on power metal territory. You know, the music is all well and good, but without a knock-out singer this band just doesn't have the chops to compete with Jag Panzer or Omen or Savatage. Not bad, but I'm losing interest.

Trauma - Scratch and Scream - 1984

I wasn't particularly impressed with Trauma, but I just wanna see whatever happened to Cliff Burton's original band. They only had the one album, so obviously not much, but I'm still curious. They're the kind of band that you listen to one song and go, "Meh," then you listen to a few more and you're like, "You know that's actually kind of cool," then by the end your head is banging quite respectably. It helps that they know how to change up the tempo between furious speed metal riffing and a more mid-paced, heavy approach that seems to be as much influenced by Priest as by the Bay Area thrash scene of which they were a part (even if they had a bit more in common with Iron Maiden than Exodus). Really helps to add some dimension to their song-writing. As time goes on you see that, though you assume them to be just generic speed metal, these dudes really have a grasp of songcraft. I wasn't expecting to like these guys as much as I do, but Trauma kind of rule. This is totally an undiscovered gem of an album.

Also, the singer does a fair job of a Bruce Dickinson impression.







I completely forgot what this band sounded like, but I remember digging them. The ****? I don't remember them being some hard rock band. I'm not even entirely sure how to categorize them. I guess I'm getting kind of an Aerosmith vibe at times, but they have little to do with glam metal. Maybe Unknown Soldier would be better at talking about this band. Kinda sweet though.

Hyksos - Hyksos - 1982

At heart I guess these guys are proto-power metal, but soundwise they have more in common with more seventies metal bands. Maybe a bit of Sabbath at their least doomy, or maybe Blue Oyster Cult (can't really say since I'm not that familiar with them). I'm assuming there's something proggy going on here, cause there are quite a few tempo and songwriting shifts. Dudes are kinda fun, but they're not rearranging my ******* or anything.

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