With so many quality releases released over the last decade, we decided to collectively compile our favorite albums. You can find our top 30 traditional metal albums of the 2010s here!
For over 15 years, Athens has been hosting one of the most important Traditional Metal Festivals in the world, Up The Hammers! This guide will provide you with information about the festival, the bands, and the city itself, hoping to make your visit more pleasant and get you ready for the Greek Heavy Metal marathon.
By 1985, thrash metal had become its own bona fide style. The new subgenre pushed boundaries of extremity, taking the galloping rhythm and guitar leads from the NWOBHM and combining it with the furious aggression of hardcore punk. Parallel to the growth of Thrash was Speed Meta.
Ironsword are back after a five year hiatus with their latest album, Servants of Steel. If you’ve ever heard Ironsword before, then you know exactly what to expect from them. They play a brand of epic heavy metal that operates at neck-breaking speeds and their quality and consistency earned them a well deserved spot on our epic heavy metal essentials.
We recently published our Best of 2019 article and a few weeks ago we made a post urging you all to vote for your own favorite album of 2019. Well it’s time to take a look at how you, the reader, voted for the best albums of 2019 and compare!
It’s hard to believe that the year (and decade too!) is over in just one week. As far as traditional heavy metal goes, 2019 has been an exceptional year with one fantastic release after another from the get-go. Now it’s time to look back at some of the Ride into Glory author team’s favorite traditional heavy metal releases from the past year!
While some may prefer English as a sung language (myself included), I also enjoy when bands sing in their native tongues if they feel more comfortable doing so. While there aren’t many noticeable acts choosing to do this, Acero Letal are one of the best Spanish speaking Heavy Metal acts of the past decade. Hailing from Chile and with only a demo and a single to their name, the band has nonetheless caught the attention of many through their unrelenting speed metal assault.
Germany. The country where young people into heavy metal, beer, and Satan in 80s took heavy and thrash metal they listened into its logical extreme and laid foundation to what came after: speedy black/thrash metal attack. To this day the country is still a hotbed for similar hybrid sounds with plenty young bands still playing traditional speed or heavy metal touched by more extreme kinds of metal. Diabolic Night have been one of the most promising of these young bands with their pre-debut material and here they have their first full-length effort to build upon the demos.
Nowadays we are used to albums that try to recreate a particular style, scene or sound. We are also more or less used to bands that try to do their own thing, trying to find their own character to distinguish themselves from the flock of sheep, with mixed results. It’s not that often that we stumble upon a record that respects that old legacy, with obvious nods to certain bands, but still finding their own personality. I feel like Premature Burial would be one of those.
When someone exchanges musical opinions within the heavy metal circle, it is not uncommon to hear expressions like “too rough” or “too melodic”, and more recently “very old school” or with a positive spin “very refreshing”. So if an album had exactly the correct ratio of melodic and rough riffs and sounds refreshing even it was released in 1986, that would mean that it will top the charts and everyone would speak about it right?