Category: Uncategorized

By Avinash Mittur

It’s been thirty years since Iron Maiden walloped the world with their fourth studio record, Piece of Mind. With the album that came before, The Number of the Beast, the band had to prove to the world that they could still record great material with their new singer, one Mr. Bruce Dickinson. Well as we all know, they went and shattered the expectations of every Maiden fan back then. In 1983 though, the band had to show the world that The Number of the Beast was no fluke. With new drummer Nicko McBrain in tow, Iron Maiden did just that with Piece of Mind, a forty five minute monolith of smoldering heavy metal. Continue reading “Retrospective: Three Decades of Iron Maiden’s ‘Piece of Mind’”

By Avinash Mittur

As most of you all know, as of May 2013 the music world has two bands calling themselves Queensrÿche. The version led by vocalist Geoff Tate has been touring the nation performing the original lineup’s classic Operation: Mindcrime album, but not before spending about six weeks in the studio putting together a new effort, Frequency Unknown. Many amazingly talented musicians got the chance to throw an ingredient into this musical gumbo, including a handful of the best the Bay Area has to offer. Sadly, the resulting record is a fundamentally mediocre hard rock album. While Frequency Unknown is extremely far removed from the sound that Queensrÿche established its legacy on, this album isn’t the trainwreck that many were expecting it to be. Continue reading “Queensrÿche – Frequency Unknown”

By Avinash Mittur

Calling Sodom the German Motorhead is a mistake too many journalists make these days. Motorhead have undergone basically no musical evolution in their thirty odd years as a band, while Sodom have flirted with the likes of black metal, death metal, hardcore punk and of course, classic thrash. Calling Tom Angelripper the German Lemmy would be a bit more accurate though. Why does that analogy work a bit better? Both Lemmy and Angelripper give no fucks. The two men have always done what they want, when they want, and the results have been uniformly stunning for decades. With their new album, Epitome Of Torture, Sodom have refused to buck their admirable trend of writing some of the most brutal thrash metal around. There isn’t anything too different here, and frankly Sodom fans probably wouldn’t want it any other way. Continue reading “Sodom – Epitome Of Torture”

By Avinash Mittur

A little over thirty years ago, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal changed the landscape of heavy metal entirely. The movement was the direct precursor to thrash, and that of course evolved into what we now call ‘extreme metal’. Everyone knows the common names from this era: Iron Maiden, Saxon, Angel Witch etc, but the NWOBHM’s supply of killer bands is practically endless. One of the quicker acts on the market was Newcastle’s Satan. With a name that was bound to cause trouble and a late entry into the declining scene, Satan just missed out on heavy metal immortality. The band’s debut record, Court in the Act, remains a gem from the era but a pile of name changes and inconsistent material led to Satan fizzling out near the end of the ‘80s. Thirty years later, Satan’s original lineup have reunited and released Life Sentence, an album that proudly lives up to the legacy of their debut. There’s nothing on here that hasn’t been done before, but on Life Sentence the band does classic, traditional heavy metal better than most of their peers and just about all of the retro-minded bands around today. This album is a wonderful throwback to one of the coolest periods in metal history, and a fine slab of classic heavy metal in its own right.  Continue reading “Satan – Life Sentence”

By Avinash Mittur

Don’t call VHOL a supergroup. The members of this special band have been friends and peers for years- to them, this is more than likely just a fun long-term project. For the rest of the world looking in though, it’s hard to see this band of truly remarkable individuals as anything but a ‘supergroup’. Guitarist John Cobbett managed to write one of the greatest American black metal albums ever, The Tenant by Ludicra, and a near-masterwork of modern progressive metal in Hammers of Misfortune’s 17th Street. Every musician even halfway serious about their craft wishes they had the skill, passion and discipline of bassist Sigrid Sheie- a university professor from 9 to 5, and a bassist/keyboardist/vocalist/flautist for a handful of great acts whenever she pleases. Aesop Dekker needs no introduction; the man was the drumming powerhouse behind Ludicra and has been ably propelling Portland, OR’s Agalloch since their breakthrough release, Marrow of the Spirit. Continue reading “Album Review: VHOL – Self-Titled”

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 “Retrospective: 35th Anniversary Of Rainbow’s ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’”