Metal Assault: Album Reviews

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 “Retrospective: 25 Years Of Iron Maiden’s ‘Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son’”

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 “Retrospective: Led Zeppelin’s ‘Houses Of The Holy’ Turns 40”

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 “Retrospective: Riot’s Thundersteel Twenty Five Years Strong”

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 “Album Review: Invadür – Self-Titled”

By Avinash Mittur

When one thinks of epic concept records within the heavy metal genre, a few albums immediately come to mind. Operation: Mindcrime, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Nightfall in Middle-Earth are but a couple of the amazing records that have not only successfully told an entertaining story, but also delivered an outstanding collection of music. However, one album that always seems to be unfairly left out of that conversation is The Lord Weird Slough Feg’s Traveller. This album is a true epic in both a musical and narrative sense, and remains Slough Feg’s magnum opus. Ten years ago on March 24th 2003, Traveller was unleashed upon the world, and it stands as a masterpiece of traditional American heavy metal. Continue reading “Retrospective: Ten Years Of Slough Feg’s Traveller”

By Andrew Bansal

One of the very first bands of their genre hailing from Greece, extreme metal band Rotting Christ began in 1987. Withstanding and overcoming obstacles undeservedly thrown at them because of their name by some staunch Catholics, Rotting Christ has maintained a worldwide cult fan-base. They started out as more of a proto-black metal band in their early years, ventured into different styles and sounds through their career, and moved to an atmospheric, mystical and melodic brand of extreme metal with their past few albums like ‘Sanctus Diavolos’, ‘Theogonia’ and ‘Aealo’. They just released their 11th studio album ‘Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy’, which means ‘Do What Thou Wilt’ and is taken from Aleister Crowley on his writing of the Aeon of Horus. It’s also the same sentence can also be seen on Jim Morrison’s tombstone. The album came out on March 5th via Season Of Mist. Having enjoyed their past albums as well as their one live performance that I got to witness, plus having interviewed frontman Sakis Tolis in the past, this was an album I was looking forward to. I finally got a chance to listen to it thoroughly, and here’s my review of it. Continue reading “Album Review: Rotting Christ – Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy”