That Fatal Violence CD is hard to find... I wouldn't be averse to Stormspell reissuing it again.

YES!

Damn what a crazy brain fart.

Exorcist, the Virgin Steele side project at one point is pretty Venom-esque as well from what I can remember.

Yeah, I remember that comp being recommended to me when I asked for something crazy and shrieky here. It's bloody demented.

looking for metal with influence from early Maiden. Straight forward, in your face material with galopping riffs and lots of melody!

Savage Grace is a great example, but I also hear hints of it in stuff like Omen and early Fates Warning.

Also newer ones are accepted, Enforcer kicked me here for example.

thanks!

The first WOLF album?

Still looking. Any recs would be appreciated.

Valkyrie's album "Man of two Visions", Its doom metal Iron Maiden.

If you don't mind non-english lyrics, try russian Aria. To me it's the best Maiden clone ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxgmUIE9CKk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLr6cR2P7Tw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1OF91ZDaoM

I'm back at another terrible warehouse pharmacy job, but luckily get to listen to my ipod. Been blasting more metal than I probably have in year(s) this week haha. Not sure what happened.

Manilla Road's Atlantis Rising is really blowing me away, absolutely loving it. I hit up Spiral Castle and it remains to be one of my favorites too, maybe the highest production with that one? Not in a bad way though, everything just sounds monstrous. Gates of Fire wasn't doing anything for me though and lost me about halfway in, though the vocals were a nice standout, I never realized... it sounded like both Mark and the other guy were singing a lot of stuff together throughout, least I think so? Lots of cool layers there. I'm not sure about much on Voyager, and the two newest ones didn't really seem all that interesting to me to be honest. I'll have to give them a fair shot sometime.

Until then, Atlantis Rising has clicked and I'm digging the hell out of it.

The other major standout (somewhat fits here since they were kind of a hybrid in style), would be Flotsam and Jetsam's first two. But I've praised them for years and always been a huge fan, but damn. I wasn't even feeling Artillery's By Inheritance which felt tame in comparison to F&S's No Place for Disgrace (which also has a lot of Middle Eastern styled riffing/leads going on at times, coincidentally). It's too bad nothing else they did seems to be of that caliber or similar style. Hard to say which I prefer, No Place for Disgrace has a much cooler darker tone especially with those badass guitars and leads, the vocalist sounds refined and better, and yeah it's amazing. The debut is simpler but just nonstop awesome speed/thrash with some great solos and bass work. Amazing albums. Pretty awkward my review for No Place for Disgrace is from early 2008, haha what the hell. I think I was writing one up for the debut but never finished it or something. I always recall the debut more and it truly was one of the earlier thrash albums that got me more into the genre, but whenever I revisit No Place for Disgrace ... it consistently kicks my ass all over again every time.



That guitar tone...

Anything else come to mind when you guys think of Flots & Jets? Maybe Toxik? I can never really think of much. Such an awesome blend of melodic/speed/thrash.

^ Some of Paradox' early stuff reminds me of that as well as Heathen's debut. I can't think of anything more obscure, but it's closer or as close as Toxik to my ears.

Yeah Heathen does come to mind too, longtime fan of them as well.

Good call on Paradox, their new stuff is badass as well.

BandS that remind me of F&J: ENERTIA (check out "Dear God") and BORN OF FIRE

@colin040
I'm listening to that Prodigy/Oracle demo right now. Holy shit is this good. The production's not the best but it's a demo....that's an hour long. lol The music is very USPM with a little prog in there and the vocalist reminds me of Lizzy Borden.

Fucking awesome demo, only problem is that the guitarist thinks he is slightly better than he is (especially on the Oracle album versions), still great its just a bit forced. you should check out Mystic Force's Eternal Quest and Shipwrecked with the Wicked if you haven't already, very similar, though a bit more proggy.

I have Shipwrecked. I grew up in Baltimore and remember Mystic Force before they started recording music. From what I understand the Oracle version is the same recording just renamed. There was no re-recording of it so not sure why the Oracle version would sound different.

Maybe because its ripped from tape to that video sounds a little different, I have always listened to the cd version and it seemed like a much more obvious problem to me than the youtube videos of the Prodigy demo, also most of my listening takes place while driving for work so the settings have been different, cant really blast music in my apartment, listening to it again now I still think the solos sound slightly better. Ill listen to the Cd version at work today though, it has been a few months.

The guitars are too far up into the mix. It's a demo and the quality is going to be iffy. You definitely hear the mistakes in some of those solos. lol Nonetheless it's a nice demo and decent USPM.

Yeah they were one of the first USPM bands I ever listened to that wasnt Omen, Fates Warning, or Queensryche a couple years ago because of a post on this thread and i love it, just gets a bit wanky at times. just about everything else is perfect.

Oracle/Prodigy fuckin rule man. Yeah he biffs some notes in a few solols - who cares? It's not immaculate Dream Theater style crisp prog metal, it's balls-out, riffs-to-the-wall USPM. The production isn't perfect but man, it's a million times better than that of many demos I regularly listen to and enjoy. Check out Oblivion or Oblivion Knight or Serpent Knight or some shit if you want to hear a bad production.



Still rad though.

I have heard Oblivion and Serpent Knight, ill check out Oblivion Knight though thanks. Quest For Power is even better than Prodigy I think, Production might be worse but the riffs are also amazing and the solos are better I think. Just heard Serpent Knight for the first time a few days ago actually, I liked it but I still dont know what to think about it yet, only heard it once. I dunno Prodigy came at a weird time in my life and I listened to it (and Mystic Force) constantly for like 4-5 months, I still love it just not as obsessed with it anymore. I understand its only a demo but when I listen to the super long solo on No Faith For the Liar, it gets old fast. My favorite song is As Darkness Falls by far, Killer riffs, Awesome solo thats kept short, sweet, and well within the guitarist's ability to execute. Fantastic Lyrics throughout the whole album though.

Doesn't get much better than Oblivion.

Does anyone know what Dan DeLucie is up to? One of the mega Gods of modern day USPM by far. Did they never release that third unfinished Crescent Shield album?

Funny to see new Helstar with high ratings on the site. I had no idea they put out one this year... any thoughts? I predict I'd still take Distant Thunder over it and it's just not even fair to compare modern Helstar to Destiny's End. It's just funny how a mix of both Distant Thunder and Destiny's End is what modern Helstar should have been. Assuming Distant Thunder is mostly Rivera's work, he probably had the right ideas. But I'm guessing the guitarists for Helstar do most of the material now... I'll never forget them trying to argue somewhere that they hated solos or something.

But yeah, I need more Dan DeLucie metal in my life. Some kind of mix between Destiny's End and Crescent Shield would be epic.

Destiny's End "Transition" ... hells_unicorn - "Solid USPM. - 85%"

Says the flower metal king. lol

Not yet, to my knowledge. Last I heard a couple years ago, they had Michael Grant's vocals already recorded and were just working on recording the instrumentals and doing all the other shit. But who knows, they were good friends and maybe DeLucie and the other guys needed some time to get over his death. Must be pretty heavy shit, playing along with the voice of a dead friend.

Seriously, yeah I wouldn't blame them at all. Would love to hear the material, but if they want to keep it that's perfectly understandable. And I kind of figured maybe he needed a break. Just really hope he makes a comeback after awhile. I guess the collective timeline of both bands does cover a lot and everything he's ever done has awesome production values. Just gotta wait for him to churn out more gold.

It'll be tough to fill those shoes. I still think Michael Grant compared strongly to Rivera, so that's probably the kind of voice Dan likes to stick to. No idea who else could pull that off.

Rick Mythiasin?... maybe get him in a good band for once?...lol

Fucking Cyriis.

Rick Mythiasin is in lots of good bands you bastard!

Outside of random Steel Prophet, what's good? Last I remember I didn't like much. He deserves to be in a band of Destiny's End level or something. I'm still butthurt over the hilarious Agent Steel drama with him and Cyriis. It's both a miracle and a mystery as to why Juan Garcia and company even bothered to stick with the Agent Steel name when they could... sales I guess? They should have created something entirely separate. Cyriis is taking that to his grave.

I think all the Steel Prophet I've heard is at least good if not great and both Taraxacum albums are first rate power metal, though I guess those latter ones wouldn't be to most peoples' taste in this thread...ah well.

Yikes, yeah.

I guess he's another Urban Breed to me... would be 100x better in a darker more aggressive band in my book.

Even though there's nothing new on the Crescent Shield front, apparently Toby Knapp dug up some recordings they did for the fourth Onward album. The vocals definitely sound pretty demo-quality (though still cool), but the rest sounds album-quality, at least. It's pretty fuckin ambitious stuff, even more so than The Neverending Sun, but cool.



I haven't picked up the album yet, but if that track is anything to go by, I definitely will be.

The new Crystal Eyes is pretty...killer.

I was sad about the departure of Nico on vocals, but the new guy is good. And there are some pretty wonderful vocal lines.

Glad they're carrying on the banner of riff-based Europower/heavy metal.

Any of you guys Morningstar fans? They came up in a conversation with JM and he recommended Weight of the Hammer. Apparently they started out as a black metal act, and then I guess Ari either fell in love with Manilla Road or had been a fan for awhile and decided to tap into that sound. There's nothing even remotely black metal left in their sound, at least on this album moving forward. I think most of you will instantly pick up on the same thing I did the first time I heard them: Holy SHIT these guys sound like Ironsword! Except, they are far more self-aware as songwriters. They keep everything nice and compact, don't get lost in their own songs, stretching them like a rotten rubber-band. The drumming is fantastic, the vocals are bad but in an endearing "warrior tone" sort of way. They want to be Manilla Road but they're nowhere near as weird or grand in their vision. So what you end up with is just some killer barbaric heavy metal with broadsword swinging riffs.

Can't find much on youtube from this album, just this one song:

I actually had the opportunity to see PRODIGY/ORACLE play live when I was young and I still kick myself that I didn't go.

And by "new guy" you mean the guy that formed the band 20 years ago?

Since this is already incestuous, how about Bruce Hall? I love that guy!

Sure, lots of good bands, like Steel Prophet, Taraxacum, and Redemption..... >_> You're crazy. I do still like "Inner Ascendance," though. Shame Mythiasin hasn't kept with a good project since then.

As to Morningstar: great riffs, shit vocals. So yeah, pretty similar to Ironsword! Oh wait, Ironsword don't have great riffs. Never mind, then.

Will look into the new Onward, I don't even remember the third album that well, will need to check out both.

I never heard any Redemption material with him, but yes, those other two are good bands.

Morningstar sounds pretty cool, a lot better than Ironsword for sure. I don't mind the vocals at all.

Yeah I'm a fan of shit vocals I honestly dig them. The band was a nice surprise and the album flies by when I spin it. That's definitely not the best song on there. Northern Summer opens really strong, and there's another jam called Traitors Over the Edge.

I did find one other song on YT from the album, Manala. It's about where Finnish warriors go when they die. The drums make me think maybe it was their stab at a Ninth Wave kind of tune. Obviously it's not even a tenth as great as that, but it's one of the only moments on the album where they really throw themselves into the spirit of epic heavy metal:

He is great too, yeah. Unfortunately, he CAN sound a tiny bit like Cyriis at times, which probably ruined everything for him. If he were a different flavor that might have worked out better... but he rocks as is, so it's just a shame. I don't blame him for saying fuck it and leaving like he finally did. The band is doomed, really. Maybe we'll get more material with Cyriis if some miracles happen, otherwise I think he'll make sure they never get to do anything and any other vocalist who tries to fill those shoes will be drowned in that stigma.

What are some good, catchy, falsetto-y, heavy, fast paced, speed metal anthems? I need more to annoyingly hum to my self.
Thanks