Metal Messiah Radio have done an interview with Gus G, talking mostly about Firewind (and their just released Days of Defiance), and a bit about Ozzy. A few questions that have been repeated everywhere like how he came to be Ozzy‘s guitarist, but still worth a listen.
Archive for October, 2010
Manowar have announced that they are re-recording the entire Battle Hymns album and calling it Battle Hymns 2011. It’s set for release at the end of November 2010, and on top of “reinterpretations” of their debut album, it will also include two unreleased live tracks from a show in 1982. The track list is:
- Death Tone
- Metal Daze
- Fast Taker
- Shell Shock
- Manowar
- Dark Avenger
- William’s Tale
- Battle Hymn
- Death Tone – Live (Bonus)
- Fast Taker – Live (Bonus)
Joey DeMaio has made a point of noting (several times) that current technology will allow fans “to hear the songs … with the massive sound and production that has become [Manowar's] signature.”
We’ve all seen re-releases from movies, TV shows, and bands, so this is nothing new or particularly special. But we’ll see. I’ll still get this because Battle Hymns was (is) a great album, but was a little raw on the production side. And either way, it’s far better to buy a re-release than the last two shitty albums they’ve made.
This is an album worth getting, simply because I think that Battle Hymns was one of the albums that helped pioneer the way from traditional metal to power metal. To me, it is to power metal what Venom‘s debut album was to black metal.
I’m still really buzzed about the recent Metallica gigs. For one main reason, well make that two…
Whatever you think of them, a Metallica show is a good fun rockin’ & metallin’ time.
What’s really got me and kept me excited is the changes in setlist from night to night, often quite radical changes.
I really want to jump on a plane to Aussie and see them yet again before they leave this part of the world. But lack of time and money means I need to be happy with the 3 times I did see them (one of those was pure luck that I was going to be in Melbourne at the time).
Take this journey with me…
Melb Sept 16 – Nothing from Load to St Anger, heaps off the black album, only 3 from Death Magnetic, and tracks like …AJFA, Battery, Four Horsemen, and Helpless as their encore cover track. I’m a fan of the black album so I was plenty happy.
Chch Sept 21 – I wasn’t at this one but they played the likes of For Whom The Bell Tolls, Fade To Black, Stone Cold Crazy, and Whiplash. Overall pretty cool but not as cool as Melbourne and I’m glad I was at the 2nd night in Chch…
Chch Sept 22 – A night of surprises and generally great selections. Harvester Of Sorrow, Through The Never, The Memory Remains, Turn The Page(!), The Judas Kiss (one of my favs from the latest album), Damage Inc, not to mention Blitzkrieg and Hit The Lights in the encore. Holy shit!
Akld Oct 13 – This was the night I was at, including For Whom The Bell Tolls, Wherever I May Roam, No Leaf Clover(!!), …AJFA, Blackened (holy fucking crap yeah!!!), and Breadfan as the encore cover. Pretty damn happy with that, but then they changed something like 12 of the 18 songs on the 2nd night…
Akld Oct 14 - Ride The Lightning, Fade To Black, Of Wolf And Man, All Nightmare Long (another of my favs from the latest), Orion(!!!!), Fight Fire With Fire, then Phantom Lord amongst the encore tracks.
Since those gigs I’ve seen that they’ve been busting out even more selections rarely played on the current tour… Disposable Heroes and Unforgiven III in Japan, The God That Failed (meaning that on this leg of the tour they’ve played every track from the black album except The Struggle Within) one night in Brisbane followed by The Thing That Should Not Be, I Disappear, and My Apocalypse the night after.
(I should add that the tracks they play every single night are – Seek And Destroy, Puppets, Sad But True, Nothing Else Matters, Sandman, and That Was Just Your Life)
Think what you like about Metallica, but I’ve had a great time seeing the gigs I did, and also collecting the complete live recordings of the above 5 shows as 192kbps mp3s.
I’ve made myself compilation discs of those gigs, no track appearing more than once. In almost 220 minutes over 3 discs I still haven’t included at least half a dozen tracks, testament to the huge amount of material played.
Iron Maiden could learn something from this!
Grand Magus have released a video for the second single off their recent Hammer of the North album. It’s for At Midnight They’ll Get Wise.
Despite the exceptionally silly name, this Canadian act knows what they’re doing. Sounding like the Canadian interpretaion of Testament with a touch of OverKill thrown in, their debut, Metal Forces, is a hell of a lot of fun. Nothing new, but one of my favorite anti-poser songs (after “Flag of Hate”), “Marching”, as well as the first track, with a video entitled “Speed Kills”.
Based on my ability to type in the search field of Metal Archives, these guys formed in ’03 and remained unsigned, and with the apparent peak of the neo-thrash scene they’ll probably remain that way; a shame really, I would love to see them, but Ottowa is a bit of a distance from Washington DC.
This group is a bit different from my usual posts, with these guys being practitioners of the Bay-Area style, rather than my preferred Teutonic style. They know to not overstay their welcome, their full length lasts a digestible 27 minutes, with nine tracks; and no bullshit intro piece.
Again, this album isn’t going to convert anybody into Thrash, but for fans, this is a fun romp.
Municipal Waste have just released a new video for their song Wolves of Chernobyl. If you haven’t heard them before, their style is thrash/punk crossover. I’ve heard them called successors to the Suicidal Tendencies throne. The musical sound may be similar, but MW‘s theme is much different. They’re more of a piss-take band. Some of the stuff is hit and miss, but this isn’t bad. It may even motivate me to buy one of their CDs one of these days.
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