Astral Rider - NWOBHM hijinks and the Great Spirit Lake

Put down the spikes and chains and your bloody vengeance against the Christ!!!! Stop raping the necro baby for once! Pick up some beers and listen to some NWOBHM with us, dude!!!!!!!

Cloven Hoof's A Sultan's Ransom is one of the reasons why Metal Night exists; to discover obscure gems like this. Released in 1989, and thoroughly out of style by that time, and despite a shitty album cover and lackluster production, this album out-Maidens Iron Maiden's output at the time. The songs are clear, concise, and somewhat poppy, with a dash of Dokken in the vocal work and Jake E. Lee era Ozzy in the guitar work. Songs like Silver Surfer and Astral Rider are shiny gems that might have been considered classics had this album been released in 1982 instead of the heyday of thrash and condemned to haunt the bargain bins of yore. Damn shame. Winner of the night!

 Adventure in Samur Part 6.1 - Into the Veil

The Spirit Lake was misty as our long boat cut through the cold water, its carven bow guiding us through the strange waters like a dragon flying through the clouds. At the helm was Lars the Berserker, his long beard crystallized in the frozen mist. His robes whipped in the wind, revealing the denim and leather armor of our ancestors. Bloodmace and I were huddled on one of the benches directly behind the captain. Behind us, Lars' phantom oarsmen rowed. The rough barbarian turned to us and spoke, "Do not look too closely into the lake, for it is not simply water, but a living being that hungers for souls. Without your skins, anything could happen." Indeed, it was strange not being in my body. Bloodmace and I had to discard our physical forms back in northern Samur, when Mistress Crowbastard transported us here. It certainly didn't feel like we had no bodies, we didn't look any 

different to one another, but I felt it as a dreamy weightlessness. Magic is much stronger here than in the temporal world, as we discovered in our last battle. Lars turns to us and speaks again, "We reach Va in one of our days. We will have to camp on one of the islands." He produces a tauriat from inside his robe. "This works just like the ones back on Centon, we will look for an island that has not been enchanted by Headron. Be ready for danger, I know this lake well, it spit my people onto that spectral shore when the Wyvern elders banished us at the beginning of their epoch." With darkness closing around us, Lars the Berserker removes one of the buttons on the pocket flap of his denim and tosses it into the air. Slowly a light dawns over us, illuminating the area around us with a yellowish glow as we plunge into the darkness like a steel blade through scented flesh.

 I fucking hate Def Leppard's Hysteria. What a soulless blot on the scrotum of the metal, every tone underlining it's pure sonic maggotry. But, I will not turn this review into a review of that album and I will not judge it by the evil perpetrated by that cum stain upon music. Def Leppard's first album, On Through The Night, is an enjoyably light and breezy slab of NWOBHM goodness. This is just a loud and catchy hard rock album, nothing more and nothing less. Wine, women, song, good times, the folly of youth, and rock n roll dreams. My pretentious ass, so rooted in the dark and experimental, tried but simply could not hate this album. I found myself, fueled by alcohol, bellowing along to 'Hello America' quite enthusiastically. That's what it's all about. It's not a screaming iron fest, just fun. Three albums later(Hi & Dry and Pyromania are classics), they became complete shit for the rest of their career.


 Adventure in Samur Part 6.2 - Master of the Stones

For what seemed like an eternity, we headed towards a mammoth shape on the horizon. When we finally slid onto the rocky beach, the light that was surrounding us went out and we used our Dio patches to light our way up the rocky incline leading to a cave at the base of the cliff. As we approached the yawning egress, Lars held up his hand for us to stop and held his hand to his ear. I could just barely make out a sound. We crept slowly into the the cave. Ahead there was a light and I could now make out the unholy melody of Witch's Sabbath. Just as we passed into the cavern, there was a footfall behind us. At once the three of us whirled to see the great crow, wings outstretched, 

beak slashing towards our party. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a bolt of energy burst from Bloodmace's denim as he and Lars tumble to the rocky ground. Laughter echoes around us and the bird disappears. Dusting myself off, I reach for my jacket to light the room again, but a fire flares up nearby I can just make out a familiar figure. Lars and Bloodmace spring up, ready for action. Mistress Crowbastard is still chuckling as we approach her near the fire. She motions to us to follow down further into the passage. We venture further, reaching the source of the music and light we saw earlier. We have arrived in a small room with a makeshift altar of bones and silver. A fire blazes in a small hearth to one side, on the other there are several greenish stones emitting a dim glow. Emperor plays in the background as she speaks, "Sorry if my little joke startled you. I have finished my other business and I know you will need some help when you get to Va, so I though I would just meet you here. Lars, you already know what to do with the shapti stones," she turns and addresses us, "you two, you will not be able to sleep without your bodies, but these stones will renew your power." Lars puts his hands upon the weird stone and it begins to glow brighter and slowly his body disappears. "Go into the stone," she says, "You will need all the power you can muster for tomorrow." When I put my hands on the smooth surface, a warm feeling rushes over me as I flow into the cosmos.

Samson, if you didn't know, was the band Bruce Dickinson was in before Iron Maiden, when he had the daft moniker, Bruce Bruce. They had a goofy drummer who wore a bondage mask and played in a cage. Their image was playfully glam in an era of denim and leather, which may be the reason the never really took off, relegated to the second tier of otherwise fine NWOBHM bands. Their 1980 album, Head On (their first with Dickinson), is blues rockin' thing, kind of like Fog Hat with an opera singer. Songs like Vice Versa hint at ol' Bruce's future with Maiden. This album is a nice warm up to their classic Shock Tactics album. Worth a few listens.

 Words of the Elders

What fire burns inside the seeker? What quest drives one further on after the dark has come and the cold chills their bones? No one can know that fire that singes the minds of the wan and feeble beings of the physical world, so fragile and yet so tenacious in their determination to master what they cannot even begin to understand. Wolf I call to you, spirit of the lightning in the sky, hear me! Waves splash on both sides of the lake's surface, and even the sleek longboat cannot hide long from the deep, watery being that holds these specks of land in its bosom...

Until next week, titans of stone and steel, 

Horns