Has anyone else heard Italy's Wotan? No, I'm not talking about the shitty recent MR-wannabe, I'm talking about the guys from the '80's who recorded this. Other than a couple of obscure gems like Adramelch and Battle Ram, I've never heard anything this solid from Italy. Thoughts?

Edit: Interestingly, it seems like Wotan are one of the few bands that transitioned pretty seamlessly from traditional heavy metal to more extreme stuff. The first demo is heavy/speed, the second demo introduces some thrash influence, the third demo is pretty much full-on thrash metal, and the last two demos are death metal. The first two are the only ones I like, but if you like thrash or death, check out the later demos, as from what I listened to the songwriting still seemed pretty solid.

Sorry to double post, but I just encountered the recent all-Italian tribute CD to Omen. Has anyone else heard it? It's pretty fucking hilarious, not to mention a couple of covers that don't completely suck (Icy Steel and Red Warlock particularly). The intro to "The Axeman" is pure gold.

Oh god, the Termination cover is hilariously awful.

Red Warlock are cool in general, sort of modern-ish dark power/thrash, vaguely in the vein of Morgana Lefay. Lot of energy, good songwriting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgGkfB9fGBs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMuqx6tl ... e=youtu.be - what the hell is going on with Cloven Hoof? Apparently, this video was uploaded by their guitarist, too.

WARNING: Contains falsetto!

Holy fuck...

It's a little odd that they have this video uploaded by the guitarist and then they've released a new song with the said guitarist singing on it. Apparently, there's talk that they were trying to oust Russ North from the band anyway. At any rate, I'd rather hear Russ North's drunken wailing than the new Cloven Hoof material.

Here's a terrible new song from them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTOCpnT0SHw

Edit: yep, he's out of the band.

Honestly that new song isn't that bad, especially compared to the last new song from them. The vocals are good, it's just the downtuned groove chugging with pinch harmonics is really, really generic, and nothing like what I want out of Cloven Hoof. If they want to get more aggressive because they have a more aggressive singer, fine, but shit, just write more aggressive power/NWOBHM, not this crap.

Wow.

I posted a comment on that Russ video calling that Joe guy a cunt. Hopefully I get a response.

It's not like the Definitive Part One album was any good anyways. They're completely out of fuel and it's time to stop.

Feast your ears on the mighty Wrathblade! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQysVKpztxs

Huge, meaty, hammering riffage. Awesome shit.

Nice! I thought the band had split-up already and here they come with a full album! This is good news.

He's threatened to beat you up.

So I called him out and he posted this "Lol fair play you got me there! I think Russ has some demos he is facing inside, and i do feel for him to be honest... as you can probably tell from any video of us live since i have been in the band that i had great chemistry on stage with russ and was trying to support him through this gig...I have been also asked for legal reasons to disable the comments on contaion...and i am going to remove this video out of respect for russ' character. I just wanted to reply first...I am here for the music"

He obviously means contagion but yeah, not sure who is orchestrating this, Lee Payne? Who knows?

http://shadowkingdomrecords.com/store.p ... 67&action=

Iiiiitsssss heeeerrrrreeeee! Just placed my order for the CD/Book combo (seems to be the only one available at the moment). I'm really hoping he's going to let me get away with just ordering one item, I think he did away with the "2 at least" rule but it still says before you check out that you're supposed to have at least two items. I can't afford that shit at the moment but you know I had to snatch this up. I hope he's willing to be flexible on this. Really can't wait to hear the full album, those first two songs on bandcamp really got to me.

edit: He confirmed on the NWN boards that the "must order 2" rule is no longer in effect. Whew.

Cool, well, that's the vinyl version ordered from High Roller...

Ordered the CD. I haven't even heard the sample tracks - didn't know there were any...but I'm sure this will be fucking cool.

Well, I'm behind the times but I finally got Riot's Immortal Soul. Looks like Hellwell will be next!

People really don't give Tony Moore enough credit for being as spirited as he is... and the pub I was at played Riot's 49'er!

Wow, Hellwell's finished already?

Oh yeah, apparently there's gonna be a new Manilla Road album this year, too.

Nice, hope it's better than the last one, though. Playground of the Damned wasn't bad, but... it was just lacking a certain je ne c'est que.

Yeah, I think Playground of the Damned came off a little flat to people after such a vibrant and violent album like Voyager. I honestly think Hellwell is going to be the other half of the coin that felt like it was missing. The two sample tracks are so good to me.

I think Playground... was really good. Probably better than Voyager for "everyday" listening purposes anyway.

No question that it's a lot easier to digest. I don't really have anything negative to say about Playground, but at the same time it has never floored me the way I expected a new Road album to do. I had no idea they were supposed to have another one out so soon. Very curious to find out what that's all about.

Playground was fun. I like the groovy old school proto-metal style riffs and I think the songs are enjoyable. But overall it is one of the weaker MR albums, which in itself is almost a paradox anyway, so it doesn't matter much. I still like it better than Atlantis Rising and Gates of Fire, though.

Like I said, it isn't bad, and I probably haven't given it enough chance to sink in, but Voyager sounds... bigger to me.

In any case, I wonder why he wants Hellwell separate from Manilla Road anyway? The samples don't sound that far apart to me. Is it really because of the keyboards?

It's because he's collaborating with another guy whose name is Hellwell, and who wrote the lyrics/story to the album, if I remember right.

If I had to take a stab at wild speculation I would say it has more to do with Shark trying to give his buddy some of the shine. Apparently he had a pretty heavy hand in the lyrics department and I mean...the band is named after him. A noble attempt I suppose but I'm still giving all the credit/glory to Shelton because that's just what the fuck I do.

They kept marketing this as Manilla Road with Deep Purpleish keyboards and I still haven't heard anything that makes me think that. I wonder if one of the tracks is going to have wild trade-off soloing between the keys and guitar....doubtful.

I read about Hellwell in the blurb, didn't realise he had that much of an impact though.

Going back to the Cloven Hoof talk, just expect a post on the bands website late in the year "Cloven Hoof would like to welcome back Russ North"

Sub article "We've remastered Dominator and A Sultan's Ransom again for a double pack release coming out in a few months! WE SWEAR, WE FUCKING SWEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"'

They are dead to me.

Without Russ I wonder if all their gig offers will dry up? I mean, people go to those gigs to hear mostly material from Dominator/A Sultan's Ransom and with some other modern rock singer it just isn't half as good. Firing a guy after awful gig seems a bit odd, too. Then again, we don't know the whole story.

I once saw Cloven Hoof with Russ North at this club festival and even though they played only few songs they were absolutely the best band of the evening and it's not like rest of the lineup were crappy or anything. Russ North sang godly!!!

Pretty sad how the uploader of that Cloven Hoof video disabled the comments. I guess criticism isn't allowed then.

I think Russ is probably a main selling point with the band as far as live gigs go. Before deleting everything the guitarist said that "We had 68 practices and Russ showed up to 2". So if that's true perhaps the firing was a long time coming. I guess we'll never know.

You guys ever hear of Seax? This speed metal band just released their first album and it is good speedy fun throughout.

Check their Facebook band page for a listen. 'Need for speed' is a real scorcher and a nice little Riot Homage in that intro riff: http://www.facebook.com/seaxmetal/app_2405167945

Needs some polishing in the vocal department and the songs could flow better, but the riffs are good and they're certainly an energetic bunch. It's cool to hear a band playing this kind of thing these days, they sound very genuinely 80s in that raw, amateurish way. I'll be keeping an eye on them.

Yeah vocals definitely kind of suck, but cool stuff beyond that.

Exactly what kind of a band name IS that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seax

Just my guess. Leave no archaic weapon band name unturned?

Seems they're fairly local. Will have to check it out.