There are two things I know about power metal: that all the best power metal bands are Australian, and that all the best power metal is simply thrash metal in disguise. If there’s any doubt concerning either of these axioms, one listen to Fallen Idols—the fifth full-length from Sydney’s Lord—should…
The anxiety of waiting for a sophomore album from a band that put out a great debut is unlike anything else on the planet. There is no other cocktail that blends excitement and trepidation in quite the same measures, and the more one loves that first taste, the more potent…
Power metal! Love it or hate it, it’s easy to agree that there are very few bands who can justify its sound in 2019 without adding some sort of embellishment to it. For some, this addition comes in the form of progressive ideas and flourishes, making the music more complex.…
The more music I listen to, the more I appreciate EPs. It used to be that I didn’t have the patience to listen to EPs, as much as that sound counter-intuitive. Something about their shorter run-time just annoyed me; I felt like I couldn’t sink my teeth into the music…
This month, I thought I’d do something a little different. Eight months ago, I met the most wonderful woman. We’ll call her Hilldawg. She’s the best thing ever in so many ways. One of those myriad ways is not only does she support my work with Heavy Blog, but she’s also a metalhead herself. We’ve had great times just introducing each other to music we love. Some of it is slammin’ (like when she told me Roots Bloody Roots is her favorite record and I remembered Sepultura was a band), some of it is less so (I’ll never get her into Municipal Waste). But we appreciate each other’s particular tastes.
In celebration of their fantastic second album, Beyond Celestial Echoes, we caught up with the members of the Greek four-piece Sacral Rage to delve a bit deeper into the albums that changed their lives and which continue to play a vital role in the sound of one of modern music’s most…
The best part of writing about music for Heavy Blog is being exposed to brand new bands and artists. You get a much better understanding of how bands can grow and evolve if you were there at the beginning. Sure, that can sometimes mean you get a promo from a…
What qualifies an album for this feature? Its name hints that it has something to do with chronology, with old albums to which we return. And that’s definitely a part of it but, for me at least, it’s more about the grandeur of an album and its importance for the genre in which it was released. In that regard at least, there are few albums more deserving of the feature than Nightfall In Middle Earth. While the Blind Guardian albums which preceded it had already established a lot of the modern power metal sound, Nightfall in Middle Earth still represents one of the peaks of the band’s style. It is one of their most complete albums, blending the heavier, thrash influenced sounds of their earlier career with the polish and dexterity of their latter career. It was also the first Blind Guardian album distributed in the US, leading to Blind Guardian’s subsequent international success and massive career. It’s also just a damn fine album, filled with memorable moments.
Hello and welcome to Maps of Meaning, a monthly column written by Eden and Simon! If you’ve been following either of our writings, you’ll know that we tend to go for a verbose style and that we both care very deeply about literature, philosophy, music and the influences of those…
Success, the cliché insists, is a double-edged sword. History (and the Encyclopedia Metallum archives) is littered with now-defunct bands who toiled away for years in storage units and near-empty basements, yearning for record deals and the elusive larger acclaim that remained just beyond their grasp. But what of the bands…
