By Andrew Bansal

35 years ago, classic hard rock luminaries Rainbow released their third studio album ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’, in what would turn out to be the late great Ronnie James Dio. Despite the short lived tenure of Dio as the frontman of this band, the partnership of Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Dio on vocals as the creative force of Rainbow was simply magical, and gave us three fantastic albums that are still savored by hard rock fans, to this day. White the first two ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’ and ‘Rising’ certainly laid down the foundation for Rainbow, the band hit their creative peak and with ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’, they came out with their best album of the Dio era. It was released on April 9th 1978, and even though I wrote this piece on the 35th anniversary itself, I’m posting it today on April 14th to coincide with Ritchie Blackmore’s 68th birthday. Continue reading →

By Andrew Bansal

Exactly 25 years ago, British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden unleashed their 7th studio album, ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’. That was during the period popularly known as Iron Maiden’s ‘golden years’. They were releasing albums for fun back then. They put out six albums from 1980 to 1986. ‘Somewhere In Time’ was the last of those albums, and the band followed its release with a massive tour, as usual. But so what? They said, ‘let’s make another album immediately, a concept album no less!’ Despite being so successful with their early albums, they never rested on their laurels and wrote the same album twice. That was the beauty of Maiden, and still is to this day. There was something new on every album. But even for their own lofty standards, this particular album was an audacious effort in every sense of the word. Continue reading →

By Andrew Bansal

It’s been exactly 40 years since British rock legends Led Zeppelin released their fifth studio album ‘Houses Of The Holy’, on March 28th 1973. Forty years! It’s hard to even imagine such a long time period, specially for those who weren’t even born yet at the time. It’s even harder to imagine a rock album carrying itself through 40 years and still feeling as fresh to the ear as it probably did in ’73. This album certainly succeeded in doing so, and today it celebrates this amazing milestone in its never-ending journey through generations of music listeners all over the world. No amount of words can ever do justice to the magnificence of ‘Houses Of The Holy’. Nevertheless, I’ll make an attempt here to put forth my thoughts on the album, and its impact on the band and their fans. Continue reading →

By Avinash Mittur

American power metal often has a vastly different connotation than its European counterpart. The folks on the other side of the Atlantic were happy to show off huge, anthemic choruses with fantasy based imagery to along with it, while the guys in the states featured a tougher, rougher image and wrote songs with more of a bite to them. Both styles of power metal have their merits, but in the late ’80s one band just couldn’t seem to reconcile that dichotomy. That band was Riot from New York City, and their album Thundersteel is a power metal record in the European mold, but with an American sense of swagger and aggression. Twenty five years ago on March 24th 1988, this gem of an album was released, and a whole new brand of American heavy metal was born. Continue reading →

By Andrew Bansal

On my most recent BandCamp exploration earlier today, I went into the ‘classic metal’ tag and decided to check out what the site had in store for me this time. In the list of most popular classic metal releases, the name ‘Invadür’ caught my eye first, and upon visiting the band’s page, I discovered they had just self-released an eponymous album, digitally on BandCamp itself. This album was recorded in Medford, Massachusetts (US) last month, where it was tracked live to 2″ tape, and then mixed to 1/2″ tape in a 100% analog process. This heightened my curiosity further. I went to their facebook page and learnt that they started out only in late 2011, and that this is their debut album. There is no location mentioned on their facebook, but since they recorded in Medford MA I’m assuming that’s where they’re based out of. Looking at the band’s classic one-word name (complete with the umlaut in the name a la Motörhead and Mötley Crüe), the logo, the album art, and the vintage four-piece lineup of one vocalist, guitarist, bassist and drummer, Invadür ticked all the right boxes, and they came across as proper old-school to me. Now, it was up to their actual music to deliver the goods and live up to the expectation built up in my mind. Continue reading →