HI there US: sorry for the late comment, but as you can see I have been/am exceptionally busy, what with Irish Week and now the Pollys to get ready for!
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Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier
Hey Trollheart glad you like my comments and as I said before, this journel is a real goldmine as I've found somebody on here with a very similiar taste in rock.
Sure Roger Hodgson supplied the happier tones to Supertramp and his voice one of the most unique of its time, I forgot to mention the other classic track off Crime of the Century is the opening track "School" always a favourite of mine and I think of that album as one of the best prog albums of that era, sadly it never really gets recognized by proggers who are probably put off by the Supertramp name.
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I love Crime of the Century but my two favourites on it will always be the title, and closing track, and "If everyone was listening". I love the way it's so quiet and restrained compared to the rest of the album (big heavy piano chords, loud voices, heavy guitars etc); it's a little island of calm in an ocean of powerful, loud, and exceedingly great music. Just love the juxta on that.
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I've not listened to the new Cars album but with no Benjamin Orr, I've no real desire to do so, but its good to see Ric Ocasek back and bloody Todd Rundgren out I've made a note of your Ric Ocasek page and will jump there and comment on it a bit later.
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Be interested to read your comments on Mister Ocasek indeed...
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Anyway despite still being on about page 7 am briefly jumping to page 32 for the NWOBHM.
Page 32
First up what a great name Witches, Bitches, Maidens and Monsters
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Thanks (blush!)
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Praying Mantis: Great to see you've kicked off with Praying Mantis one of the most interesting of the NWOBHM, now I've constantly mentioned on MB that NWOBHM was extremely melodic and just not hard edged and Praying Mantis are the perfect example of that melodic feel and they were a band that sat perfectly between metal and AOR, their debut is an album that has recently grown on me and is a real gem and I love the tracks "Lovers to the Grave" and "Panic in the Streets". You've summed this band up perfectly with their constant rebirths, this is often the death knoll for most bands anyway.
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Yeah, I wanted to make sure to avoid just doing the usual Maiden/Saxon/Leppard thing, though Saxon will feature in the third part. I intend to give coverage to bands who may not be automatically linked in most people's minds with the NWOBHM, but who were nevertheless a central and important part of it, and I think PM fit this bill. They were pretty damn good, weren't they?
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Angel Witch: The debut album has to be in the top 5 best ever NWOBHM albums and I finally got around to buying it on CD recently as I saw it dirt cheap and brand new, again its melodic but it has a dark intensity about it (territory that Diamond Head also covered and you must listen to their debut album!!!) and when I was doing my NWOBHM reviews this album came up as one of the most popular by people looking at the thread and Kevin Heybourne was a great talent, it was mentioned that live he couldn't handle both vocal and guitar duties (I don't know how true that is) which is why a couple of years later the other vocalist was brought in, I never liked any of their other material and Angel Witch were sadly a band that never built off their classic debut.
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AW I must say didn't impress me that much, but then it's not about what I like or don't like, as you'll see when I cover Venom in part 2! It's about doing the most comprehensive coverage of the era that I can, and that means including all bands --- ALL bands --- that I can, who were instrumental or important to the movement.
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Trepass: Now I've never heard of them and its always great when I see a band like this as I know most of the bands from the NWOBHM, even if I don't remember all the albums that well without re-listening, I'm really looking forward to listening to this band as well.
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I only ever heard two songs from Trespass, those being "One of these days" and the far superior "Stormchild". I just loved that: heard them both on the "Metal for muthas Vol II" album, but could never find anything more on them. Finally tracked down a CD of their music, looking forward to listening to that once I get a free moment.
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At the moment I'm listening to a lot of North-American metal bands that were around in the early 1980s at the time of the NWOBHM bands like Anvil, Rail and Riot etc who were very distinct to the grassroots sound of NWOBHM and focused more on what was then the traditional stadium style sound. I've kind of christened these bands as arena metal or proto-power metal, point is I think these bands provided a good balance to the bands of the NWOBHM.
As a footnote you need to listen to the debut Manilla Road album Invasion its a grassroots sounding metal album from 1980 by an American band but its unique in sound and totally different to the arena style metal sound that was around at that time
Anyways, will check out part two of this section next week and I'm going back now to page 8 and continuing from there.
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I remember Riot (didn't one of their albums have a white seal on the front? Like, seal as in animal?) and recently reviewed Anvil's "Juggernaut of justice" --- they've still got it!