FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
Ever hear of The Year Of Our Lord? Kudos if you have, because they were damn good. Some readers might have caught their 1999 EP or the 2002 self-titled release From Willowtip . I hadn’t heard any of their music until recently but I’m glad the Dead To You compilation showed up on my doorstep like an early Christmas present.
Black Breath is the kind of metal that’s devoid of any pretension whatsoever, just five scruffy guys hunkering down and coming up with some of the most bracing, rewarding circa-1985 retro metal you’ll hear these days.
The first of several Drudkh reissues from Season of Mist, Forgotten Legends captures the band’s early rumblings – a small collection of long songs recorded in the summer of 2002 and released as the band’s official debut.
Album review by Laura Wiebe Taylor
A lost classic no longer, this hidden gem deserves to be heard!
Prior to The Fire is earnest but it’s easy to like, solid and tight. Everything just falls into place for Priestess in a charmed way on Prior to The Fire; it’s the ideal introduction to the band, and a calling card release.
The overall sound gives me an image of Viking Goths parading around in Scandinavia. On most of the songs they manage to sound well balanced between classical and metal without sounding too rock opera cheesy
The biggest surprise in regards to mountain boys The Sign Of The Southern Cross (SOTSC) and latest effort …Of Mountains And Moonshine is probably its absolute absence of surprise.
They might be called Southern Cross, but don’t let the name fool you. This ain’t no southern rock band.
With a roster of talent that is hard to match, Shrinebuilder’s Shrinebuilder is an impressive debut.
Incredibly upbeat and dominant despite the overuse of operatics and keyboards—they still sound stuck somewhere between Diary Of A Madman and The Neverending Story soundtrack—Utopia is an indelibly catchy affair even if it refuses to advance the state of metal.