traditional metal festival, Frost and Fire. Coinciding with the announcement of next June’s Irish installment of the fest Frost and Fireland, we sat down with festival founder, Night Demon frontman and Cirith Ungol bassist Jarvis Leatherby to talk about the festival’s history, as well as what he has in the works for next year.
This article is the first in a trilogy of guides chronicling the United States power metal (USPM) scene. This first section focuses on defining the sound and providing listening essentials. It also includes excerpts from interviews with Mike Sabatini of Attacker and Howie Bentley of Cauldron Born.
In Solitude is one of those bands from the 00s that managed to tap into the musical DNA of Mercyful Fate. To understand why they deserve this title, it is important to carry a cross-comparison between their beginnings on their debut and their shift with 2011’s The World, The Flesh and the Devil.
It’s December and the year is now coming to a close. With new releases drastically slowing down, it’s the perfect time of year to take a step back and jam some of metal’s most classic and influential bands. For the rest of this month, the Ride into Glory team will be looking at some of our favorite songs from metal’s finest artists. Up first are the legendary Manowar!
Ultimately, the greatest NWOBHM album of the movement always deserves to be noted, and as far as I’m concerned, that album is Court in the Act.
In the ’80s, you could find a heavy metal band in every neighborhood, in every city, all over the United States of America. Many of them might have listened to Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, or just saw Ozzy and Iron Maiden live during their early US tours, or just witnessed a Kiss live show, so that was enough. You can’t imagine the kind of impact those bands had back then on the metal youth of America. The passion was there, creativity too, so you were only missing the skills. The young bands that had the complete package recorded songs that stood the test of time.
You ask most Lebanese (myself included) what they think about their country and they’ll tell you about its immense beauty and potential. Despite the countless tragedies and constant state of crisis, the average Lebanese stays positive and full of humor. That’s what Nightchains represent to me – the tenacity of Lebanon.
Looking back, it’s hard to view 1984 as anything other than a banner year for heavy metal. The sheer amount of world-beating releases across a wide range of styles is almost unmatched by any year to follow. So then, with metal exploding worldwide on an previously-unmatched level, with this article we’re taking a look at what happened after – in the wake of the NWOBHM.
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) is one of metal’s most iconic and influential scenes with bands like Iron Maiden and Venom forever shaping the future of heavy metal. With the recent revival of interest in the traditional branch of heavy metal over the last 10 years, there’s been more than a fair share of bands taking heavy influence from their NWOBHM heroes and many of them fall flat. It’s tough to match the quality and spirit from that time, but every once in a while a band gets it right – Coltre are one such band.
Opening the album with paying due respect to Hammerheart-era Bathory, Malokarpatan take their time to tell you their stories – and such dark and grimy stories, they are. The longer-form songs build up to smooth, galloping leads or choruses; they keep taking twists and turns as the story unfolds with the use of interludes varying from synths to acoustic passages. But at the heart of it all lies the signature “dark heavy metal” riffage of the band.