What makes The Devil’s Blood successful is its masterful gift for restraint. The band knows how to hold back, painting a partial musical portrait consisting solely of shadows and allowing the listener to infer the details using that most horrifying of artists: the imagination.

Tate Bengston gives us a great review of the latest output from traditional metallers, The Devil’s Blood.

A lot of bands attempting to pull off the same thing simply wind up sounding too eclectic to get anything of substance across. But Dark Ages, varied though it is in influence, is still a focused and precise monster, and it’s likely to be another one of those records that will wind up on many a Best-Of list come year’s end.

Are You Ready? is an interesting visual document of Thin Lizzy during what is one of the lowest periods of their original run. While the band was still a good live act and a decent draw, by the time they released their Chinatown album in 1981 there were many cracks in the machine that spurred the band on. Filmed live in Loreley, Germany by WDR for their Rockpalast program, one of the coolest live music programs on the planet, this nineteen song set is good but not great.

Released in 1978, Thin Lizzy’s Live & Dangerous is considered essential. An about-face to the band’s hit-and-miss studio output of the time, that offering boasts a tight, almost untouchable act. Therefore, news of a follow-up effort recorded around the same time, Still Dangerous: Live at the Tower Theater Philadelphia 1977 comes across as a double-edged sword.