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When Did You First Get Into Metal?


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  • 3 weeks later...

The first album I bought was Brave New World by Iron Maiden. It was new, and I bought it because I liked the artwork and had heard that they were a popular metal band.

I was truly blown away by the music - the melodies, the epic choruses, the scale of the songs...

To this day it's one of ym favourite albums - I have very fond memories of it.

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My first metal album was Trilogy by Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force. The last two tracks (Dark Ages, Trilogy Suite Op. 5) basically put me on the path for good. 

Malmsteen's Rising Force - nice one! I wouldn't have listened to that album or band since...dunno....20 years ago. Need to revisit, Marching Out my fav.

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  • 1 month later...

First Metal album, I bought when I was about 14 maybe a lil younger, and was actually all 8 of the Original line up of Black Sabbath xD [was my birthday, had money] i had recently got into Heavy Metal properly and just threw myself into the deep end and haven't looked back since :) \m/

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When I was 13 in August 2001 I went to a local record store because I wanted to buy a KISS cd. I had decided that they were gonna be my favorite band based on their look. The shop only had two: "Greatest KISS" and "Alive II". I wanted to buy the latter, but went away with the former because I clearly remember thinking this: "if my parents find out that I bought a CD with a picture of Gene Simmons spitting blood, they gonna throw it in the trash straight away... maybe I can get away with the more sober cover of the greatest package".

About two months later I used all my money to buy "Alive II".

My first non-Kiss related CD was "Ace Of Spades" by Motorhead in february 2002. I remember it fondly because I used my birthday money for it. All of 13.90 €.

Through the course of 2002 I used lunch money to buy at least one CD from each of the following: Manowar, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Dio, Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot, Black Sabbath, Helloween, Gamma Ray and Blue Oyster Cult.

It took me a full year to move on to thrash metal. Got me "Ride the Lightning" first, then "Kill Em All", then "Master of Puppets", then "Rust in Peace", then "Peace Sells", then "Among the Living". It took me another year to be able to digest "Slayer". Got me a ripped copy of "Reign in Blood" and then one day I bought "Seasons in the Abyss", "South of Heaven" and "...And Justice for All". That's probably why to this day I do not like "AJFA" that much... it got overshadow by my first taste of proper SLAYER!

No wonder I was a skinny kid then. Heavy Metal now, food later.

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11 hours ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

When I was 13 in August 2001 I went to a local record store because I wanted to buy a KISS cd. I had decided that they were gonna be my favorite band based on their look. The shop only had two: "Greatest KISS" and "Alive II". I wanted to buy the latter, but went away with the former because I clearly remember thinking this: "if my parents find out that I bought a CD with a picture of Gene Simmons spitting blood, they gonna throw it in the trash straight away... maybe I can get away with the more sober cover of the greatest package".

About two months later I used all my money to buy "Alive II".

My first non-Kiss related CD was "Ace Of Spades" by Motorhead in february 2002. I remember it fondly because I used my birthday money for it. All of 13.90 €.

Through the course of 2002 I used lunch money to buy at least one CD from each of the following: Manowar, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Dio, Judas Priest, Saxon, Iron Maiden, Quiet Riot, Black Sabbath, Helloween, Gamma Ray and Blue Oyster Cult.

It took me a full year to move on to thrash metal. Got me "Ride the Lightning" first, then "Kill Em All", then "Master of Puppets", then "Rust in Peace", then "Peace Sells", then "Among the Living". It took me another year to be able to digest "Slayer". Got me a ripped copy of "Reign in Blood" and then one day I bought "Seasons in the Abyss", "South of Heaven" and "...And Justice for All". That's probably why to this day I do not like "AJFA" that much... it got overshadow by my first taste of proper SLAYER!

No wonder I was a skinny kid then. Heavy Metal now, food later.

Nice story. Also, amazing that even in 2001/2 you were going after the 'classics' first. Especially KISS! It's like your first ten or fifteen bands were from some sort of time warp! 

One minute you're listening to 'Strutter', the next you're the goddamn Skull_Kollektor!! 

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Ahah thanks, I'll explain how this phenomenon occurred.

Back in those days (2001) I was in junior high school here in Milan.

During my last year of elementary school, 1999, MTV Italy was created and was being broadcasted as a regular tv channel (you did not need satellite TV to watch that, but you needed satellite TV for the American and pan-European MTV's and, of course, I did not have satellite TV). When I discovered that channel, I dived deeply into contemporary music, which, at the time, meant Britney Spears, TLC, Backstreet Boys, Five, Ultra, Boyzone (and half a dozen of other boybands that emerged in the wake of New Kids on the Block in the US and Take That in the UK), Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Cranberries, Corrs, the occasional new video of established artists like Blondie, Roxette, Madonna, David Bowie, REM, U2, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams. I was exposed for the first time to music big time and, most of all, to the visual aspect of it too. As an 10-11 year old kid, I was very pleased to watch videos like "Ooops I did It again" (some years later I found out that hair metal was also obsessed with school-themed videos... see Twisted Sister and Britney Fox). Occasionally the Italian MTV would air some heavier music like Guano Apes (from Germany), the Offspring (back then they had just hit it big with their album "Americana"), KoRn, Marylin Manson and Kid Rock. For some reason Italy was not exposed to stuff like Limp Bizkit until later on. Remember that the biggest metal band in the world, Metallica, did not have a new record out in this period (they only had the Garage days stuff and the symphonic album, but they were NOT rotating because the video for "Whiskey in the Jar" with chicks making out, binge drinking and puking the hell out of their mouth simply couldn't be aired on Italian tellie's). Also bear in mind that Maiden was currently irrelevant, having put out the useless "Virtual XI" and being about to reunite with Bruce.

So, for a while I was as mainstream and contemporary as I could get! I managed to get a few CD's as a gift over the course of the next few years. In chronological order:

New Radicals, Vengaboys, Lenny Kravitz (5), Eagle Eye Cherry (his second album) and, most of all, "CALIFORNICATION" by Red Hot Chilli Pepper!

See? At the tail end of my last year of elementary school, RHCP reunited with John Frusciante. I had absolutely no idea who the fuck they were, but suddenly their video for "Scar Tissue" was all over the place. That video was the most vintage glorifying thing I had ever been exposed to. Actual instruments, some slide guitar and a video that looked straight from some sort of crazy exploitation movie of the late 60's early 70's (obviously I had no clue about the existence of exploitation movies back then).

The Kravitz album was also very important because it featured GUITAR SOLOS and, in particular, a cover of the Guess Who's "American Woman", a sort of hard rockin' track from the early 70's that some years later I also found on a Krokus record!

Now let's move on to 2001... my best friends in my classroom were starting to alternate hip hop and nu metal. A classmate bought the "Starfish Chocolate and Hot Dog Flavoured Water" CD by Limp Bizkit. I borrowed it and ripped it on a tape. Listening to it my thought was: "fuck, I like energy, I like it loud, but I want musicianship, I want melody, I want guitar solos and I want some singing, I can't stand this rapping bs... I can't find what I have in mind on MTV now and I cannot find it on the radio, but I am sure that in the past something like this must have existed and must have been BIGGER THAN LIFE".

The reason why I thought that had to do with my dad. He had a record collection that included Cream, Led Zeppelin and Mountain. He even had a Deep Purple record. One day he bought a VHS about Cream and we watched it together. THAT was the pivotal moment. Amidst the video footage of Cream jamming away on stage with fury, there were interview snippets with Eric Clapton himself and two dudes named ALEX VAN HALEN and SLASH. At some point Eric Clapton (then going by his Armani suit phase and trimmed beard) said: "I THINK CREAM WERE THE FIRST HEAVY METAL BAND... LED ZEPPELIN FILLED THE VOID LEFT BY CREAM". THAT'S when I thought: I NEED TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS HEAVY METAL THING! Between Cream and Limp Bizkit there has to be a MISSING LINK. That missing link meant two decades of solid HARD AND HEAVY GUITAR OBSESSED MUSIC: the giants (dinosaurs if you will) of the 70's and the 80's!

I was sure that was gonna be my music genre of choice. I went to record stores and gazed at the covers in the Hard'n'Heavy department. I went to bookstores and read all I could in music encyclopedias. One day I got to see the Kiss video for "Psycho Circus" (which originally came out in 1998). Another day MTV aired a video of KISS playing "I Was Made for Loving You" live in Germany in 1996. I thought the song was kind of odd compared to the look (compared to"Psycho Circus", which was reasonably heavy), but the look and the fact that they were playing for real was it for me!

But there were also two very important factors in my heavy metal development, although I was unaware of their influence back then. See, as a very little kid I was a fan of Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan in wrestling (I am talking 1991-1994, before the 'roids scandals) and my favorite cartoons were anthropomorphous post-atomic no non-sense crazy shit like Teenage Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks, Biker Mice and Swat Kats. Now go look for the theme song of the Biker Mice... yes, it's pure heavy metal from 1993 and it is actually sung by Jeff Scott Soto, the dude who sung on the first 2 Malmsteen records and tons of others! Many years later I rounded the circle when I actually found the soundtrack to that cartoon in a record fair! I still own it.

So, my love for classic heavy metal had been SUBLIMINAL and had been silently growing within me like a symbiotic parasite all along!

Check this out! It as cheesy and HEAVY METAL as it fucking gets:

Biker Mice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbwaib1wbk

Swat Kats (riffs galore at 0:26):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_AdxJWFUh4

Street Sharks - the shark and roll episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JfI0F03eIs

 

I tell you what must have happened. Heavy metal got kicked out of the mainstream in the early 90's. It was all grunge this and alternative that. But the dudes who drew cartoons and comics were all metal fans, so they slipped heavy metal into themes for kids cartoons. Very few kids must have been influenced, but I was for a fact :D

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Ahah thanks, I'll explain how this phenomenon occurred.

Back in those days (2001) I was in junior high school here in Milan.

During my last year of elementary school, 1999, MTV Italy was created and was being broadcasted as a regular tv channel (you did not need satellite TV to watch that, but you needed satellite TV for the American and pan-European MTV's and, of course, I did not have satellite TV). When I discovered that channel, I dived deeply into contemporary music, which, at the time, meant Britney Spears, TLC, Backstreet Boys, Five, Ultra, Boyzone (and half a dozen of other boybands that emerged in the wake of New Kids on the Block in the US and Take That in the UK), Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Cranberries, Corrs, the occasional new video of established artists like Blondie, Roxette, Madonna, David Bowie, REM, U2, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams. I was exposed for the first time to music big time and, most of all, to the visual aspect of it too. As an 10-11 year old kid, I was very pleased to watch videos like "Ooops I did It again" (some years later I found out that hair metal was also obsessed with school-themed videos... see Twisted Sister and Britney Fox). Occasionally the Italian MTV would air some heavier music like Guano Apes (from Germany), the Offspring (back then they had just hit it big with their album "Americana"), KoRn, Marylin Manson and Kid Rock. For some reason Italy was not exposed to stuff like Limp Bizkit until later on. Remember that the biggest metal band in the world, Metallica, did not have a new record out in this period (they only had the Garage days stuff and the symphonic album, but they were NOT rotating because the video for "Whiskey in the Jar" with chicks making out, binge drinking and puking the hell out of their mouth simply couldn't be aired on Italian tellie's). Also bear in mind that Maiden was currently irrelevant, having put out the useless "Virtual XI" and being about to reunite with Bruce.

So, for a while I was as mainstream and contemporary as I could get! I managed to get a few CD's as a gift over the course of the next few years. In chronological order:

New Radicals, Vengaboys, Lenny Kravitz (5), Eagle Eye Cherry (his second album) and, most of all, "CALIFORNICATION" by Red Hot Chilli Pepper!

See? At the tail end of my last year of elementary school, RHCP reunited with John Frusciante. I had absolutely no idea who the fuck they were, but suddenly their video for "Scar Tissue" was all over the place. That video was the most vintage glorifying thing I had ever been exposed to. Actual instruments, some slide guitar and a video that looked straight from some sort of crazy exploitation movie of the late 60's early 70's (obviously I had no clue about the existence of exploitation movies back then).

The Kravitz album was also very important because it featured GUITAR SOLOS and, in particular, a cover of the Guess Who's "American Woman", a sort of hard rockin' track from the early 70's that some years later I also found on a Krokus record!

Now let's move on to 2001... my best friends in my classroom were starting to alternate hip hop and nu metal. A classmate bought the "Starfish Chocolate and Hot Dog Flavoured Water" CD by Limp Bizkit. I borrowed it and ripped it on a tape. Listening to it my thought was: "fuck, I like energy, I like it loud, but I want musicianship, I want melody, I want guitar solos and I want some singing, I can't stand this rapping bs... I can't find what I have in mind on MTV now and I cannot find it on the radio, but I am sure that in the past something like this must have existed and must have been BIGGER THAN LIFE".

The reason why I thought that had to do with my dad. He had a record collection that included Cream, Led Zeppelin and Mountain. He even had a Deep Purple record. One day he bought a VHS about Cream and we watched it together. THAT was the pivotal moment. Amidst the video footage of Cream jamming away on stage with fury, there were interview snippets with Eric Clapton himself and two dudes named ALEX VAN HALEN and SLASH. At some point Eric Clapton (then going by his Armani suit phase and trimmed beard) said: "I THINK CREAM WERE THE FIRST HEAVY METAL BAND... LED ZEPPELIN FILLED THE VOID LEFT BY CREAM". THAT'S when I thought: I NEED TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS HEAVY METAL THING! Between Cream and Limp Bizkit there has to be a MISSING LINK. That missing link meant two decades of solid HARD AND HEAVY GUITAR OBSESSED MUSIC: the giants (dinosaurs if you will) of the 70's and the 80's!

I was sure that was gonna be my music genre of choice. I went to record stores and gazed at the covers in the Hard'n'Heavy department. I went to bookstores and read all I could in music encyclopedias. One day I got to see the Kiss video for "Psycho Circus" (which originally came out in 1998). Another day MTV aired a video of KISS playing "I Was Made for Loving You" live in Germany in 1996. I thought the song was kind of odd compared to the look (compared to"Psycho Circus", which was reasonably heavy), but the look and the fact that they were playing for real was it for me!

But there were also two very important factors in my heavy metal development, although I was unaware of their influence back then. See, as a very little kid I was a fan of Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan in wrestling (I am talking 1991-1994, before the 'roids scandals) and my favorite cartoons were anthropomorphous post-atomic no non-sense crazy shit like Teenage Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks, Biker Mice and Swat Kats. Now go look for the theme song of the Biker Mice... yes, it's pure heavy metal from 1993 and it is actually sung by Jeff Scott Soto, the dude who sung on the first 2 Malmsteen records and tons of others! Many years later I rounded the circle when I actually found the soundtrack to that cartoon in a record fair! I still own it.

So, my love for classic heavy metal had been SUBLIMINAL and had been silently growing within me like a symbiotic parasite all along!

Check this out! It as cheesy and HEAVY METAL as it fucking gets:

Biker Mice:

Swat Kats (riffs galore at 0:26):

Street Sharks - the shark and roll episode:

 

I tell you what must have happened. Heavy metal got kicked out of the mainstream in the early 90's. I was all grunge this and alternative that. But the dudes who drew cartoons and comics were all metal fans, so they slipped heavy metal into themes for kids cartoons. Very few kids must have been influenced, but I was for a fact [emoji3]

 

...wait, so you and I are the same age?

 

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using Tapatalk

 

 

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I grew up listening to Scorpions, Kiss and Iron Maiden from my parents. My first ever concert was back in 1988 when I was 2 years old :) and Iron Maiden came in Athens. However, the first metal album which I bought with my own money (after cleaning and ironing at home...) was the ''Paranoid'' of Black Sabbath at the age of 13. 

When I listened to the CD for first time, I was so surprised and happy! I guess this moment marked my whole life... Since then, I remain loyal to metal!

36 minutes ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

Teenage Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks

Loved them so much :D 

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Woah it's the tour from which they shot "Made in England" with the iced stage!

My first concert was Gamma Ray in Milan in October 2002. I went with my dad because I did not know any metalhead at the time ahah.

My dad brought me there because he thought this "alright I'll bring him to see this shitty thing, my son will see how shitty this whole metal world is and he will give up on it".

In the end he enjoyed 4 minutes of it: the drum solo by Dan Zimmermann! Everything else he thought it sucked, I thought it rocked.

Too bad he had me leaving before the encores... 

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13 minutes ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

Woah it's the tour from which they shot "Made in England" with the iced stage!

Yes! The Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour! Unfortunately, I don't remember many things because of my age then... however, I feel proud that my parents took me in there! 

19 minutes ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

My dad brought me there because he thought this "alright I'll bring him to see this shitty thing, my son will see how shitty this whole metal world is and he will give up on it".

Hhahaha nice story! Hopefully you remain metal :D

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13 hours ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

Ahah thanks, I'll explain how this phenomenon occurred.

Back in those days (2001) I was in junior high school here in Milan.

During my last year of elementary school, 1999, MTV Italy was created and was being broadcasted as a regular tv channel (you did not need satellite TV to watch that, but you needed satellite TV for the American and pan-European MTV's and, of course, I did not have satellite TV). When I discovered that channel, I dived deeply into contemporary music, which, at the time, meant Britney Spears, TLC, Backstreet Boys, Five, Ultra, Boyzone (and half a dozen of other boybands that emerged in the wake of New Kids on the Block in the US and Take That in the UK), Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Cranberries, Corrs, the occasional new video of established artists like Blondie, Roxette, Madonna, David Bowie, REM, U2, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams. I was exposed for the first time to music big time and, most of all, to the visual aspect of it too. As an 10-11 year old kid, I was very pleased to watch videos like "Ooops I did It again" (some years later I found out that hair metal was also obsessed with school-themed videos... see Twisted Sister and Britney Fox). Occasionally the Italian MTV would air some heavier music like Guano Apes (from Germany), the Offspring (back then they had just hit it big with their album "Americana"), KoRn, Marylin Manson and Kid Rock. For some reason Italy was not exposed to stuff like Limp Bizkit until later on. Remember that the biggest metal band in the world, Metallica, did not have a new record out in this period (they only had the Garage days stuff and the symphonic album, but they were NOT rotating because the video for "Whiskey in the Jar" with chicks making out, binge drinking and puking the hell out of their mouth simply couldn't be aired on Italian tellie's). Also bear in mind that Maiden was currently irrelevant, having put out the useless "Virtual XI" and being about to reunite with Bruce.

So, for a while I was as mainstream and contemporary as I could get! I managed to get a few CD's as a gift over the course of the next few years. In chronological order:

New Radicals, Vengaboys, Lenny Kravitz (5), Eagle Eye Cherry (his second album) and, most of all, "CALIFORNICATION" by Red Hot Chilli Pepper!

See? At the tail end of my last year of elementary school, RHCP reunited with John Frusciante. I had absolutely no idea who the fuck they were, but suddenly their video for "Scar Tissue" was all over the place. That video was the most vintage glorifying thing I had ever been exposed to. Actual instruments, some slide guitar and a video that looked straight from some sort of crazy exploitation movie of the late 60's early 70's (obviously I had no clue about the existence of exploitation movies back then).

The Kravitz album was also very important because it featured GUITAR SOLOS and, in particular, a cover of the Guess Who's "American Woman", a sort of hard rockin' track from the early 70's that some years later I also found on a Krokus record!

Now let's move on to 2001... my best friends in my classroom were starting to alternate hip hop and nu metal. A classmate bought the "Starfish Chocolate and Hot Dog Flavoured Water" CD by Limp Bizkit. I borrowed it and ripped it on a tape. Listening to it my thought was: "fuck, I like energy, I like it loud, but I want musicianship, I want melody, I want guitar solos and I want some singing, I can't stand this rapping bs... I can't find what I have in mind on MTV now and I cannot find it on the radio, but I am sure that in the past something like this must have existed and must have been BIGGER THAN LIFE".

The reason why I thought that had to do with my dad. He had a record collection that included Cream, Led Zeppelin and Mountain. He even had a Deep Purple record. One day he bought a VHS about Cream and we watched it together. THAT was the pivotal moment. Amidst the video footage of Cream jamming away on stage with fury, there were interview snippets with Eric Clapton himself and two dudes named ALEX VAN HALEN and SLASH. At some point Eric Clapton (then going by his Armani suit phase and trimmed beard) said: "I THINK CREAM WERE THE FIRST HEAVY METAL BAND... LED ZEPPELIN FILLED THE VOID LEFT BY CREAM". THAT'S when I thought: I NEED TO FIND OUT ABOUT THIS HEAVY METAL THING! Between Cream and Limp Bizkit there has to be a MISSING LINK. That missing link meant two decades of solid HARD AND HEAVY GUITAR OBSESSED MUSIC: the giants (dinosaurs if you will) of the 70's and the 80's!

I was sure that was gonna be my music genre of choice. I went to record stores and gazed at the covers in the Hard'n'Heavy department. I went to bookstores and read all I could in music encyclopedias. One day I got to see the Kiss video for "Psycho Circus" (which originally came out in 1998). Another day MTV aired a video of KISS playing "I Was Made for Loving You" live in Germany in 1996. I thought the song was kind of odd compared to the look (compared to"Psycho Circus", which was reasonably heavy), but the look and the fact that they were playing for real was it for me!

But there were also two very important factors in my heavy metal development, although I was unaware of their influence back then. See, as a very little kid I was a fan of Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan in wrestling (I am talking 1991-1994, before the 'roids scandals) and my favorite cartoons were anthropomorphous post-atomic no non-sense crazy shit like Teenage Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks, Biker Mice and Swat Kats. Now go look for the theme song of the Biker Mice... yes, it's pure heavy metal from 1993 and it is actually sung by Jeff Scott Soto, the dude who sung on the first 2 Malmsteen records and tons of others! Many years later I rounded the circle when I actually found the soundtrack to that cartoon in a record fair! I still own it.

So, my love for classic heavy metal had been SUBLIMINAL and had been silently growing within me like a symbiotic parasite all along!

Check this out! It as cheesy and HEAVY METAL as it fucking gets:

Biker Mice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbbwaib1wbk

Swat Kats (riffs galore at 0:26):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_AdxJWFUh4

Street Sharks - the shark and roll episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JfI0F03eIs

 

I tell you what must have happened. Heavy metal got kicked out of the mainstream in the early 90's. It was all grunge this and alternative that. But the dudes who drew cartoons and comics were all metal fans, so they slipped heavy metal into themes for kids cartoons. Very few kids must have been influenced, but I was for a fact :D

Great story! I love reading this sort of thing. 

By the way, I had a great time in Milan when I visited a few years ago, but, funny story, it was only on the train as we were leaving that I realised that The Last Supper was in Milan, and we missed it!! 

At any rate the Cathedral in Milan is amazing. One of the greatest I've seen (and I've seen a few). For some reason the authorities were not letting people take bottles of water in, so outside were dozens of bottles of water abandoned by visitors.

But yeah cool story! I'm going to write my version of this at some stage!

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Nice! Glad you appreciated, I had a good time looking back on it eheh Curious to hear yours!

I'm also a big fan of my city. Yes the Duomo, our cathedral, rocks big time! I love the gothic architecture. Last summer I went to Normandie. They have some pretty cool cathedrals up there too, but they tend to look very similar among them. Ours is quite unique, but I am obviously very biased. I am lucky because I work close to it, so I see it everyday with the morning light and early in the evening when I'm done working overtime to buy me more metal ahahah

Did you check out the metal cd shop that is exactly below the Cathedral? It's not a joke, there is a heavy metal CD shop in the underground station :D

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57 minutes ago, Skull_Kollektor said:

Nice! Glad you appreciated, I had a good time looking back on it eheh Curious to hear yours!

I'm also a big fan of my city. Yes the Duomo, our cathedral, rocks big time! I love the gothic architecture. Last summer I went to Normandie. They have some pretty cool cathedrals up there too, but they tend to look very similar among them. Ours is quite unique, but I am obviously very biased. I am lucky because I work close to it, so I see it everyday with the morning light and early in the evening when I'm done working overtime to buy me more metal ahahah

Did you check out the metal cd shop that is exactly below the Cathedral? It's not a joke, there is a heavy metal CD shop in the underground station :D

So it looks like I've missed two important sights in Milan: The Last Supper and the metal store! Dammit!

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, JadedErotika said:

I am trying to remember, was many years ago when I got my first metal album....It was either Metallica's black album or one of Poison's first albums....my brain is mashed potatoes today, but, I think I am remembering right...8-O 

Good point actually about Poison. I did have 'Open Up and Say Ahhh' when it came out in 88. So I would have been 8 years old which probably makes it my first rock album. 

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    • Whichever tier of thrash metal you consigned Sacred Reich back in the 80's/90's they still had their moments.  "Ignorance" & "Surf Nicaragura" did a great job of establishing the band, whereas "The American Way" just got a little to comfortable and accessible (the title track grates nowadays) for my ears.  A couple more records better left forgotten about and then nothing for twenty three years.  2019 alone has now seen three releases from Phil Rind and co.  A live EP, a split EP with Iron Reagan and now a full length.

      Notable addition to the ranks for the current throng of releases is former Machine Head sticksman, Dave McClean.  Love or hate Machine Head, McClean is a more than capable drummer and his presence here is felt from the off with the opening and title track kicking things off with some real gusto.  'Divide & Conquer' and 'Salvation' muddle along nicely, never quite reaching any quality that would make my balls tingle but comfortable enough.  The looming build to 'Manifest Reality' delivers a real punch when the song starts proper.  Frenzied riffs and drums with shots of lead work to hold the interest.


      There's a problem already though (I know, I am such a fucking mood hoover).  I don't like Phil's vocals.  I never had if I am being honest.  The aggression to them seems a little forced even when they are at their best on tracks like 'Manifest Reality'.  When he tries to sing it just feels weak though ('Salvation') and tracks lose real punch.  Give him a riffy number such as 'Killing Machine' and he is fine with the Reich engine (probably a poor choice of phrase) up in sixth gear.  For every thrashy riff there's a fair share of rock edged, local bar act rhythm aplenty too.

      Let's not poo-poo proceedings though, because overall I actually enjoy "Awakening".  It is stacked full of catchy riffs that are sticky on the old ears.  Whilst not as raw as perhaps the - brilliant - artwork suggests with its black and white, tattoo flash sheet style design it is enjoyable enough.  Yes, 'Death Valley' & 'Something to Believe' have no place here, saved only by Arnett and Radziwill's lead work but 'Revolution' is a fucking 80's thrash heyday throwback to the extent that if you turn the TV on during it you might catch a new episode of Cheers!

      3/5
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    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/52-vltimas-something-wicked-marches-in/
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    • https://www.metalforum.com/blogs/entry/48-candlemass-the-door-to-doom/
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    • Full length number 19 from overkill certainly makes a splash in the energy stakes, I mean there's some modern thrash bands that are a good two decades younger than Overkill who can only hope to achieve the levels of spunk that New Jersey's finest produce here.  That in itself is an achievement, for a band of Overkill's stature and reputation to be able to still sound relevant four decades into their career is no mean feat.  Even in the albums weaker moments it never gets redundant and the energy levels remain high.  There's a real sense of a band in a state of some renewed vigour, helped in no small part by the addition of Jason Bittner on drums.  The former Flotsam & Jetsam skinsman is nothing short of superb throughout "The Wings of War" and seems to have squeezed a little extra out of the rest of his peers.

      The album kicks of with a great build to opening track "Last Man Standing" and for the first 4 tracks of the album the Overkill crew stomp, bash and groove their way to a solid level of consistency.  The lead work is of particular note and Blitz sounds as sneery and scathing as ever.  The album is well produced and mixed too with all parts of the thrash machine audible as the five piece hammer away at your skull with the usual blend of chugging riffs and infectious anthems.  


      There are weak moments as mentioned but they are more a victim of how good the strong tracks are.  In it's own right "Distortion" is a solid enough - if not slightly varied a journey from the last offering - but it just doesn't stand up well against a "Bat Shit Crazy" or a "Head of a Pin".  As the album draws to a close you get the increasing impression that the last few tracks are rescued really by some great solos and stomping skin work which is a shame because trimming of a couple of tracks may have made this less obvious. 

      4/5
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