(Un)Official Metal Thread

[Hellraiser]

http://www.revolvermag.com/news/powerwolf-premiere-new-song-army-of-the-night.html

New Powerwolf single. Fucking awesome.

I wasn't as blown away by this as I was by "Amen & Attack" but I still enjoy it.

[lari]

^

I didn't even get the previous one yet. I have the two History of Heresy box sets.

Anyway, best news of the week right here. Bruce Dickinson is cancer free.

Now bring on the new album! Earlier I heard it was basically done and waiting for a release date.

[Hellraiser]

I'm happy that Dickinson has beaten cancer but I stopped caring about Maiden a long time ago. Brave New World was a good comeback but everything after that has been terribly uninspired and long-drawn-out drivel and I doubt that will change with the new album.

[lari]

Brave New World was a good comeback but everything after that has been terribly uninspired and long-drawn-out drivel and I doubt that will change with the new album.

I think A Matter of Life and Death is the best album they ever did. Monster track after another. There's nothing not to like. Okay, maybe Pilgrim and Benjamin Breeg are "only" 4/5 stars (they get tedious after a few listens), but the rest is just perfection. I also love the sound of the album, not just songwriting.

Powerslave would otherwise be on par, but "Life and Death" is 70 minutes long. Similar quality material, but much more of it.

[Hellraiser]

Brave New World was a good comeback but everything after that has been terribly uninspired and long-drawn-out drivel and I doubt that will change with the new album.

I think A Matter of Life and Death is the best album they ever did.

Wow. How different perceptions of music can be. For me AMOLAD has to be the worst post-reunion Maiden album. I mean what were they thinking? I mean even Final Frontier had "The Alchemist" which was a kinda enjoyable song while AMOLAD is a stinker from beginning to end. It's Maiden trying to be "progressive" at their absolute worst.

My favourite is Powerslave. Followed by Number Of The Beast and the self-titeled debut album. I never understood the hype about "Somewhere Back In Time" and "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" albums. They're not bad by any means. Really good actually but a lot of fans seems to consider them the best thing the band has done peroid which I can't agree with.

[lari]

"Life and Death" is just near-perfection in music in my opinion. Just listening to Lord of Light or For the Greater Good of God, and I'm thinking they haven't really reached those heights since, well, Powerslave.

Final Frontier has the best set of 4 songs to conclude an album. Otherwise it's lacking a little. For the most part I love the comeback-era Maiden. In fact, I find something to love in all eras of Maiden. Di'Anno, golden age Bruce, Blaze (X-Factor is a masterpiece!). Just that some albums click with me more than others. My least favourite is probably No Prayer for the Dying. Lacking power, too many forgettable songs, and it's also during that "bad-Bruce" era (though Fear of the Dark rocked). It still has a few good tracks and is worth owning. Virtual XI is probably my second least favourite, it kind of wears off fast.

Seventh Son I like a lot (Clairvoyant rules! A top 10 Maiden song for me), but I agree Somewhere in Time doesn't quite match the level of the first 5. But they are a damn consistent band and I'm anxiously waiting for the new album. I doubt I'll be disappointed.

[Hellraiser]

I enjoyed everything they did up until including "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son". "No Prayer..." was weak. "Fear Of The Dark" was a tad bit better and gave is the title-track which is as good as anything they did during their golden age with Bruce. The Bruce left and Blaze joined. "X-Factor" is awesome and a return to form for the band. "Virtual" IX not so much. A terrible album. "Brave New World" was a decent comeback and left me hungry for more. Then came "Dance Of Death" and I was very disappointed. Then came "AMOLAD" and I decided to stop caring about what they do.

If you like Blaze Bayle I recommend you check out his solo stuff. Very enjoyable music.

[lari]

If you like Blaze Bayle I recommend you check out his solo stuff. Very enjoyable music.

Oh I have all his solo albums, a couple of them autographed. I've seen him live - awesome show, great frontman. Got a picture taken with him, too. Blaze is not just an awesome singer-songwriter, but a great guy as well.

Having said that, King of Metal was kind of... well, bad. All the other solo albums before that were amazing though. Tenth Dimension was my favourite a long time until The Man Who Would Not Die came out. Now THAT is a monster album. Awesome, aggressive songs combined with a great sound and performance.

But the others are very good, too. Silicon Messiah had the best set of songs. Just a little clinical sounding, but still great. Blood & Belief had the best band performance... just a really underrated band/musician. There definitely aren't enough Blaze Bayley fans around.

[Hellraiser]

If you like Blaze Bayle I recommend you check out his solo stuff. Very enjoyable music.

Having said that, King of Metal was kind of... well, bad.

Agreed on "King Of Metal". That was a strange album. Especially coming after a great album like "Promise & Terror". I mainly blame that Thomas Zwijsen guy for it.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Hellraiser

[K]

Yeah man, chalk me up in the Matter of Life and Death owns column. Love that album.

[Hellraiser]

Helloween - My God Given Right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7D7ynntNbg

I LOVE that kind of cheesy video. Reminds me of why I like this band sooo much.

Armored Saint - Win Hands Down

https://vimeo.com/124445204

James Hetfield once asked their singer John Bush (who also fronted Anthrax during the 90s and early 00s) to sing for Metallica after "Kill 'Em All" was released. Could you imagine how awesome that would have been?

Edited June 2, 2015 by Hellraiser

[LUKIE]

Pre-Ordered the new Powerwolf album.

It may or may not have already leaked.

[DFF]

Bloodstock have started announcing bands for next year. They've just announced that Twisted Sister will be playing their only UK show of their farewell tour as the Friday headliner at the festival. Also on the Friday are Behemoth and Venom. Earlier this week Mastodon were confirmed as the Saturday headliner.

[DFF]

Bloodstock have started announcing bands for next year. They've just announced that Twisted Sister will be playing their only UK show of their farewell tour as the Friday headliner at the festival. Also on the Friday are Behemoth and Venom. Earlier this week Mastodon were confirmed as the Saturday headliner.

DragonForce, Rotting Christ and Paradise Lost added.

[Liam]

Mastodon are awesome live. I wouldn't mind seeing Paradise Lost either - their live CD was pretty good.

[DFF]

I'm really digging the line-up so far. Almost all the bands are UK exclusives for 2016, and Twisted Sister's is their only UK show on their farewell tour.

[DFF]

On ‎29‎/‎10‎/‎2015‎ ‎11‎:‎11‎:‎36, DFF said:

I'm really digging the line-up so far. Almost all the bands are UK exclusives for 2016, and Twisted Sister's is their only UK show on their farewell tour.

 

Here's the line-up so far...

 

Friday
Twisted Sister (headliner)
Behemoth (sub-headliner, playing The Satanist in full)
Venom

Saturday
Mastodon (headliner)
Gojira (sub-headliner)
Paradise Lost
DragonForce
Rotting Christ

Sunday
Slayer (headliner)
Anthrax (sub-headliner)
Satyricon (playing Nemesis Devina in full)

All the above are on the main stage. Early bird tickets (£120) are on sale for about another week.

[lari]

I got tickets to see Helloween and RAGE in February. I've seen Helloween multiple times, but I'm really excited to finally get to see Rage, another one of my absolute favourite bands ever.

It's 2016, so it's been 20 years from this:

 

 

[DFF]

I saw Rage at Bloodstock a few years ago - very good band. I'm sure you will have a great time

[Hellraiser]

There have been a lot of changes in the band since last you saw them. Victor Smolski, who has been with the band since he helped save it in 1999 when everyone but their singer/bassist Peavy left to form the alternative rock group Sub7even and has since become the creative driving force of the band and probably influenced their sound more than any other guitar player they had, as well as their drummer Andre Hilgers, who has been with them since 2007, have both left the band in the spring of last year.

According to Peavy him and Victor where never that close privately and their professional had eroded in recent years since. Apparently he became hard to work with in the studio and was unable to include the other members into his creative process. Victor on the other hand cites missing feedback and inspiration from the other band members as the main reason for the split. Which I find weird. I was under the impression that Peavy was happy with Victor doing most of the heavy lifting when it came to songwriting and that likewise Victor liked the creative freedom he had in the band. But that apparently changed in recent years. It looks like all the little problems they had accumulated until it became impossible for them to work together anymore. Which leads us to another thing that happened: Refuge

Refuge is the 1987-1994 line-up consisting of Peavy, Manni Schmidt and Chris Efthimiadis that was reunited in 2014. After Peavy and Chris buried the hatched from their split in 1999 they were asked to play a gig during a small festival organized by the owners of the rehearsal space that them and a lot of other local bands used back in the day using the "Tres Hombres" moniker. It was supposed to be a one time gig. Somehow word got out, a lot of fans came to the gig, the offers started to fly in and they decided to officially re-unite. This isn't a full-time thing though. Both Chris and Manni still have day jobs and they've said that they're doing this for the old time's sake.

Which brings us back to Rage: This also seems to have contributed to the split. First of all you couldn't find anything about the Tres Hombres gig on the official Rage homepage and social media channels. Which is strange since this line-up is considered by many fans to be the definitive line-up. Also, according to Peavy, when he wanted Chris and Manni to play with Rage during their 30th anniversary tour later that year both Victor and Andre disagreed and Peavy had to threaten to quit the tour for them to concede. 

But Rage do still exist and have a new line-up consisting of guitarist and long time fan Marcos Rodríguez as well as drummer Vassilios "Lucky" Maniatopoulos, who is a student of Chris Efthimiadis and was also his drum tech in the 90s. They will release a new EP later this month and a new album in May. They said that they're not going to ignore the musical evolution of the band in the last 15 years but that they're trying to make the new songs less experimental and polished and more raw and straight forward as they did in the late 80s and particularly the mid-90s. As a result of that they're going to play a lot of the songs from that era live that they ignored when Victor was in the band. So I hope that you are down with that.

Edited January 13, 2016 by Hellraiser