Temple of the King - Early New York Metal and Fester Blackheart

New York metal brings to mind many things, but in my mind it mainly brings to mind hardcore influence thrash bands like Anthrax, Nuclear Assault, and Overkill. Not to mention lunkhead metalcore grandfathers like Cro-Mags and Agnostic Front. And also brutal fucking death metal bands like Suffocation and Immolation. But dig back a little deeper, and you'll find a legion of traditional metal bands who haunted the bars and clubs from Queens to Hell's Kitchen in the early 80's. Tonight, we looked at the some of the cream of the crop from that scene.

First up, Riot's Fire Down Under. This was the most NWOBHM inspired and also the winner of the night. It's a Priest/UFO inspired riff fest with an emphasis on AOR radio anthems, though they were probably just a little too rough edged for the masses, back in the day. There really aren't many surprises on this album, just a straight forward set of rockers, and not a ballad to be found. The lyrics focus on heavy metal concerns like fighting, livin' fast, swords, and with swords comes Tequila, of course!  A pretty good document of HM circa 1981. But what's up with the cover? A man with a white, furry seal head as mascot? Really?

Chronicles of the North Part 3.1 - Of Woods and Trees

The candlelit chamber where we enjoyed an evening’s repast with Chanthoth was small and glowing yellow. Bloodmace sat to my right and across from us was the mystic stranger who should not be. Chanthoth was the last of the T’Chah Karnac, a line of sorcerers who once ruled Jenkabala through their power over the Wyverns. They had bound the wizened creatures to the bloodlines of the ruling houses of the land and thus held sway over this whole region. Blue eyes gazed out of a dark hood at my brother and I as we enjoyed our rice, a rare variety cultivated by the lizard people of northern Jenkabala on the banks of the river Trimpor. As the solemn wizard finishes his grain he begins to speak to us in our ancient earthen dialect, “Your father was here. He was a friend to the order long ago and so I shall honor our promise to him and teach you the secrets of the denim and leather you now wear. You,” he says looking directly at me, “have fallen prey to the foolish trap of overestimating your power in this realm. When your friend Zodron the mystic was taken by Headron, you rushed blindly into his trap, dragging your friends and the rest of this blasted world with you. 

Yes, I will teach you the power of the vestments and more, but you will never unlearn them, do you 
 understand this?”  He looks gravely at both of us and we know that great trials await us both. Bloodmace opens his mouth to speak but Chanthoth raises his hand in a gesture of silence and continues, “You, Bloodmace must go back into the Time Desert and mend the tear in the dimensional shell that continues to disturb the spiritual dimensions. Your special skills will be augmented by your father’s jacket. Take the one you call Lady Steel and travel across the arid wastes to defeat the hordes of interdimensional beings sprung from this rupture. Demon scourge, you have much to atone for and I will personally see to it that you are mentally ready to do battle with the thief of minds but first we must visit another of your father’s acquaintances.” Chanthoth puts his bowl on the low table before us. “Come, the hour soon approaches when he will awaken” Through empty halls we rushed, down endless staircases illuminated by tiny, dim lights. Finally, we reached our apparent destination. We were in a room that differed from the others. In sharp contrast to the tidy appearance of the rest of the hidden complex, the floor was covered with junk. Cast off remnants of generations lined the floor. Through the middle of the chaos, a path had been cleared that led to another door. Chanthoth steps lightly across to the entry and raps forcefully upon its surface, scrawled everywhere with ancient curse words and rude pictures. From behind the door we hear a hoarse shout. “Graaagh! What the hell?” The heavy door swings open to reveal a tall, unshaven human holding a beer can, squinting into the light of the chamber, “What the fuck you guys want? You got any beer?”   

Virgin Steele's 1982 self titles debut is a bit disappointing. All the sword and sorcery elements are there; the songs are epic; and the musicianship worthy; but the production ruins what otherwise might have been a stellar album, making the guitars clanky and tinny; they keyboards too resonate, and the bass too trebly. It's like the production guy was mixing a Chaka Khan album instead of  the screaming iron fest that it should be. Virgin Steel would go on to correct these mistakes. This is an album that screams for a remix; otherwise, it's a decent power metal album.

Chronicles of the North Part 3.2 - I Believe in Anarchy

Chanthoth steps forward, past the lonely dweller and motions for us to follow. Inside the room, bedding is pushed into one corner, next to an antiquated tape player. Cassettes are piled everywhere. The stranger and our host exchange greetings in the doorway, then Chanthoth turns to us, “This is Fester Blackheart, sons of Bloodhammer. His realm is the underground, where his people were driven by the Wyvern many years ago.” Bloodmace and I exchange a look of amazement, and my brother gives voice to our thoughts, “I have never known the Wyvern to attack without provocation. What quarrel did you have with those noble beasts?” Chanthoth has produced a can of beer and offers it to

Fester who sits down among the stacks of brightly colored plastic cases on a bench attached to the wall. As he pulls back the metal tab, he begins to speak, “That’s bogus, The Wyverns fuckin’ suck. You’re way too young to remember but it was back in the days of your father,” he pours the contents of the can down his gullet in one quick swig then slams the empty can down on the bench. “We used to live here near the river, along with the Sarcon. When the Wyvern made their power play, they elevated the Sarcon above us and made them our masters. Most of them became dicks right away, they took our homes and made us live outside the city. Some humans went along with them and accepted the Wyvern as gods. Your friend, Hellmaster, his family was one of the ruling houses before his journey to the Time Desert. Some of us would never go along with this. We said fuck that, and rebelled. Now we are scattered throughout Jenkabala and Samur, living in fear of the Wyvern’s minions.”  Chanthoth produces another silver can from inside his garment.  Fester rises, grabbing the beer in one hand and picking out a yellowed cassette case from a nearby pile with the other. Chanthoth addresses us, “My people held the minds of the Wyvern in their hands, but we had not reckoned the consequences of such control. As we put more energy into manipulating the royal houses through the creatures, they were becoming stronger all the time until they no longer needed us to control the royals, their minds were one. When their revenge came it was like a swift blade, sharp, separating us from everything. We were held prisoner here in the forest canopy for generations, until there were only a few of us left, unwilling to leave what was now our home. Fester found the passage to the inside of the tree while being perused by the religious zealots and made it his new home.”  Behind us, the tousle-haired Fester Blackheart has clunked down the play button on the cassette deck and the raucous music blasts the small room.

Shoot you down again and again
want to live, your biggest sin
Fight the system, only to die
it’s hard to live with hate and lies

Settling back on the bench he shouts over to us, “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!  I ain’t even got to the part where I waste some guards and escape the camp!” Chanthoth produces more beers and hands them to us. It’s going to be a long night.

Lastly, we heard Twisted Sister's 1982 debut, Under The Blade. This surprised us with its no bullshit approach, a far cry from the 80's cartoon metal band that they would become in a few years. This is a stripped down version of Judas Priest filtered through punk raucousness, though Dee Schneider's rugged baritone keeps them from being clones. It's an enjoyable album, a bit lunk headed, as the lyrics can be un-consciously misogynistic. But these are just rock n roll anthems, meant to be shouted drunkenly at live shows, where this band is truly in its element.

So the truth about the Wyverns and T'Chah Karnac has been revealed to Bloodmace and Demon Scourge. The illusion of history has been peeled back to reveal the skull beneath the smile. There are no good rulers. Their power must constantly be challenged and broken that the voracious appetite for control  does not devour everything. Call out to the elders! IA! IA! Lord Headron's empire is but the pebbles you crush down as you trod across the cosmos! Now Bloodmace and Demon Scourge must go their separate ways and raise an army against the threat that has been looming over them since that fateful night when Headron took over the body of Zodron the minstrel. What terrors will befall them and what revelations will be unveiled as they travel the breadth of Centon?

Until next week, children of Morpheus 

Horns

Lords of Change - Hellmaster does 2011 and Vorthon Does Thrashstone.

The end of the 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Time for a review of all things metal. On this night, instead of listening to albums, we made a playlist of tracks we liked. First, we listened to Hellmaster's choice of top tracks for 2011. Hellmaster, as the youngest metal head, is Metal Night's ambassador of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal. A a crusty, grimy old Gen Xer, I am supposed to scoff and look down upon such candy assed nonsense. I mean, I first sprouted public hair to Slayer and Exodus, first masturbated to the rhythms of Possessed, sodomized a goat to Morbid Angel! How can these newbies possibly compare to the old masters. As the Judgement of Metal Night, the resident Tyrant of Taste, ambassador of  death metal, black metal, scuzz metal, ect ect, I shall now scrutinize this list.

Thantor the Bard

Thantor the Bard stepped out of his van into the burning sun of the Time Desert, blinked his eyes and spit on the black sand. The tarmac had not disappeared during the night and that was a pleasant surprise. Ever since the roads had appeared in the time desert, Thantor and other tradesmen had been traveling between the northern forests of Jenkabala and the southern mountains of Waylor to provide services for the strange inhabitants of that rocky coast. The increased trade had begun to make a few wealthy but the dangers were many. Great stretches of pavement had indeed materialized, perhaps uncovered by the great wind storm or transplanted from one of the adjacent dimensions but they were liable to disappear. Many have perished without the aid of magical device called the tauriat. Fashioned by the legendary Bloodmace in deepest Waylor, the tauriat detects the ever-shifting dimensional fault line that the road always follows. A cryptophysicist called Hell Wraith had managed to reverse engineer this invention and made six such devices before disappearing in the mysterious Time Desert. Even with a tauriat, safe passage is not guaranteed. Mutants lurk in the kaleidoscopic sands; water is always hard to come by and if you wander too close to the fault line dimensional friction will tear you apart. Leading a caravan of traders and craftsmen to Waylor was steady income for Thantor, as he possessed a tauriat, but today he was alone. Today he had a very strange and well-paying job for the Baron Lotar in the Zanthon Mountains of northern Waylor. He could make it there by dawn if the road held out.

 Deicide: Witness of Death-So we start out with a slicing new track from old school death metal band Deicide. Fuck! I didn't even know they had a new album out. This does not sound as evil or dissonant as the old stuff. I believe the only original band member is Charles Manson wannabe Glenn Benton, but its good stuff. Best thing I've heard from Deicide in a while.


















3 inches of Blood: Lords of Change-The new 3 Inches definitely has a thrashy, NWOAHM vibe to it, the guitars are a bit crunchier, the drums a bit punchier, but this still definitely sounds like 'em. Cam Pipes' pipes are unmistakable. Good track from the new Ep.

 

The suns were at their highest point as Thantor’s black, rusty van sped across the sandy wasteland leaving a cloud of glittering dust in its wake. As he hurdled across the barren desert, his thoughts turned to this strange job he had been offered. Many spoke the name of Baron Lotar as one of the cruelest tyrants, for many had been tortured in his dungeon or made to work in his oil field after being waylaid by his henchmen who patrol the nearby lands looking for lone wanderers.  The Baron wanted his services as a guide in the Time Desert, but not to just anywhere. He was looking for a ruined castle, destroyed in the cataclysmic windstorm that shook the whole region a year ago. Lost in thought, Thantor didn’t notice the wind picking up force and before he knew it the road had disappeared in the crimson sands. Looking down at his tauriat, he began to curse softly under his breath. The green crystal suspended inside a frame of polished metal had gone dark; there was no way to know where the dimensional fault line was. Turning the weathered transport west, he sped into the tempest in hopes of avoiding the slowly advancing rift. When the stone wall emerged out of the cloud of sand around him, he swerved, but too late. The force of the impact threw the lanky driver against the passenger door. Everything was suddenly silent and just before the black hand of sleep closed his eyes, Thantor caught sight of a dark shape moving in the cloud of silver sand.

Iced Earth: Dystopia-I've never been able to warm up to Iced Earth. I don't hate them, but i don't really give a shit about them either. That's not their fault and its really hard to put my finger on a reason why. I think that I like more bombast in my power metal. Gimee some Blind Guardian or Manowar. This is good power metal; flawless, really, if a bit generic, kind of meat and potatoes. They are a band that has been around forever and have a solid core following. But I don't care.


Skeletonwitch: Shredding Sacred Flesh-I'm not sure why I'm not more into this. On paper, this is everything I love about metal-evil sound, melodic riffs, thrashy guitars. Leaves me cold. Actaully, I think its because Witchery's first album is the be all, end all of blackened thrash albums for me, and nothing else even comes close to attaining that kind of ferocious majesty. It's not their fault, since this is one of the best bands going today, but I'm an old man and inclined towards prejudice.

Amon Amarth: War of the Gods-These vikings keep putting out the same album over and over again. When it works, like this track, it's mighty and enthralling. When it doesn't, like the rest of the album, it's kind of boring. This is meat and potatoes melodic Viking death metal. Amon Amarth invented the genre.

DevilDriver: Dead to Rights-This is one of the quintessential NWOAHM bands, doing the Swedish thing with American panache, very straightforward, with great riffs to pummel you with. I like this. It's as fucking heavy as fuck cakes.

When Thantor the Bard, poet of Antov, awoke in his crushed vehicle the first thing he noticed was the tauriat, which landed in the driver’s seat. The crystal had cracked and was leaking out greenish fluid. He was stranded. The second thing he noticed was the wild-eyed hermit inspecting him from outside the windshield. Laughing like a madman, the bestial stranger addressees the leather clad traveler “Run into some problems have ye? Only fools travel here…and alone too?  HAHAHAAHAHA!” He opens the driver door, revealing four huge beetles, antennae waving furiously, mandibles gnashing. Suddenly his laughter ceases and he speaks with a stern voice. “I am Vorthon, the Whip of Fate and you will come with me. Can you rise?” Thantor drags himself into a sitting position, rubs his eyes and exits the van. The suns are blinding and the scorching temperature burns at him as he limps behind the hermit surrounded by his insect pets. Involuntarily, a gasp escapes from the mouth of the injured bard as he turns and realizes what he hit in the sandstorm last night. A huge wall rises before them. Great turrets pierce the sky. This vast ruined castle was undoubtedly the same place Baron Lotar had hired him to find. Carved into the crumbling stone walls were sinister looking symbols and the loathsome figures of eldritch gods. “Welcome to Castle Thrashstone, young knave.” Vorthon brushes his stringy locks from his eyes and tugs at the coarse beard that reaches his chest. “I think you may find this place interesting.”  Impatient, his huge beetles scurry into the cracks around the immense stone door Vorthon opens with a wave of his hand. “This is only the beginning. We have much to do.” Vorthon disappears into the gaping doorway as Thantor limps behind.

Arch Enemy: Bloodstained Cross-This is the Swedish death/thrash band fronted by a chick. This song sounds like any other Arch Enemy song. Its fast, its brutal, its catchy, its played with precision and clarity. Most people either really like this band or hate them. I myself, don't listen to them often, but am always glad when I do.

All Shall Perish: Procession of Ashes/A Pure Evil- Encyclopedia Metallum describes this band as deathcore. As a death metal purist, this is supposed to sent me into spasms of hatred and disgust. But that is just my natural mental state, which is why I like death metal so damn much. This just makes me go 'meh'. I just am not inspired by the chug chug chug riffs or the breakdowns. I am not inspired to scissor kick by this, thank the evil satan.
 

Christgrinder: Smoke Crack, Worship Satan-This is a fucking sweet track. Beautiful monikered blackened death metal. This is a new band and I hope to see what they have in store in the future.


After these tracks were played, we played mine. I forgot to write down what was played, but fuck it, I already wrote my opinions about the albums here.

Where is the beginning? Time is a repeating pattern that regenerates cycle after cycle. Some live outside this continuum or in several such zones. When Demon Scourge killed his companions a hole was ripped in the very fabric of reality. From this entryway the chaos dimension is leaking through to the multidimensional lands and the epicenter of this is Castle Thrashstone. If time breaks down there is no predictability, no reference point. All science and magic fall apart without the scaffold of time to hang their tricks upon. The battle of Thrashstone was a turning point in the Gateway world of Centon. The very fate of each dimension beyond it hangs on the dependability of this one cog. What does this have to do with the tyrant, the hermit, the wanderer and the scientist?

Until next week brothers and sisters…

Horns.