I would recommend checking out:

"Salt" by Wuthering Heights, "The Black Flame" by Wolf, "Suffer Our Pleasures" by Tarot, "As Darkness Reigns" by Oracle/Prodigy, "Collision Course" by Paradox, "Condition Red" by Iron Savior, and that's all I got for now.

Will definitely look into those bands, thanks.

Well, it seems I fulfilled my own request to an extent, albeit with an album that's not particularly obscure. I've always liked the guitarwork on the first two Cirith Ungol albums, but Tim Baker's just not for me. I checked out Paradise Lost though, and his performance is much more traditional and enjoyable for me. And listening this album just confirms to me how much Skullview sound like them! Excellent stuff.

Graven Rite demo is awesome.

Graven Image are pretty cool too.

DEADLY BLESSING - "Ascend from the Cauldron"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=677rorZtnKQ

TALISPHERE - demo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuwPnBEC ... ure=relmfu

Add Mendes Prey

Anyways, i dunno how you guys can suggest apt recs based on someone's rather ambiguous request about rifts AND choruses, but good work. If anyone can do it, it's us elitist snobs!

It was simple really, as Solstafir demonstrated the correct recommendation is always Cauldron Born.

New Manilla Road album cover. A lot better than that mess of a cover Metal turned out to be.

Pretty fucking sweet.

Holy crap that is awesome! I may not be trusted on the issue though, because I thought that Metal reworking looked pretty sweet actually. Really comic-booky but somehow it just worked for me. This one is above and beyond though. I love how its the complete antithesis of the "Playground..." cover. That one was very slick, this is raw and unpolished, just like it should be.

Super excited.

Pretty much this.

Shit, that does look good. Obviously I'd be picking it up as soon as it came out regardless, but now I feel better about it. We're certainly hearing a lot from Shelton these days!

Loving the MR art.

Thoughts on the new Icarus Witch, "Rise"?

The fact that the image is hosted at a site that is blocked by my work and I can't find it elsewhere is slowly killing me right now.

That new cover artwork is great and I'm stoked about how Shark and co. have been so active lately. The Metal reissue artwork was cheesy, for sure, but that's the charm and intent - certainly a superior version of the original.

Bah. The original Metal cover in all of it's simplicity is way better than the new cartoony one.

Christ that's ugly. I've seen much better from year-1 graphic design students. What was stopping them from getting a proper painter like they had for a lot of their older albums?

It's anything but ugly. You're ugly!

So true!

I'd like to see a Manilla Road album with Lionel Baker cover art.

The new Satan's Host approaches!

October 29th, not too far away. I'm psyched for sure, it seems like this lineup can do no wrong.

I drunkenly demanded a song leak from the album on their facebook page and they said "Closest thing to a song leak from the New album is the video of "Island of the Giant Ants" from our Aug. 30 performance. Should have something from the actually studio sessions up soon. " So I'm hoping for a little taste before the album comes out. Also no word on pre-orders yet so hopefully they can make that date fine.

I'd like a new Titan Force album, instead!

English Dogs are alright. I think I like their UK hardcore meets epic metal sound better on paper. Certainly, they're not bad, though... it's a cool style, certainly, it would have been cooler if more English bands went in that direction rather than just copying Metallica/Anthrax (I'm looking at you, Xentrix!).



What, like the amateur jobs on Crystal Logic and Metal? Don't get me wrong, I like those old, slightly goofy covers... but this one is fucking awesome. Up there with The Deluge/Open the Gates.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Deluge had some incredible detail (Open The Gates too) and the artist really seemed to know what he was doing. The horse on the new one looks like one of those horse costumes worn by two people, like he had a vague idea of what a horse looks like, and instead of referencing it, just took a shot in the dark, Hell, the whole thing looks like a nixer. Looking through his other work, it really seems hit-or-miss, with some decent album covers and concept designs, but I definitely think this was one of his "off-days".


Nuh-uh, your a ugly!

ICARUS. WITCH.
Why won't anyone talk about them? I asked for your thoughts about their new album guys.
I mean I love Manilla Road but we currently have three (plus this one) threads discussing them now.

Icarus Witch on the other hand keeps getting ignored. "Capture The Magic" (Frank Aresti played on that record! OK guested but still...) and "Draw Down The Moon" are both decent albums.

Their new one is called "Rise" and is quite a significant change in sound. I like it (not to a great extent) and I am curious to what the rest of you make of it.
A few samples;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3siRzjhsEA
http://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/I ... se/343636/

They used to be a good band. Songs for the Lost is commercial but also really awesome and contains some excellent songwriting, and Draw Down the Moon is really short but also has some awesome tunes with great riffs. The new one is pretty much crap. Really bland.

Wow that Icarus Witch song was terrible.
It sounds very modern and commercial and I thought this band was supposed to be more of a roots and trad band.
The first two records were good, not great. Overall, they have been a pretty decent band but nothing overwhelming and if they continue with this new sound they will soon be forgettable.

Because they suck. A lot.

This is pretty good;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSgVnixu5-A

That album had some incredible riffing but clearly they have moved on.

That wasn't too bad. I might give that song a 7/10, which admittedly is a lot better than most of their stuff. Fairly underwhelming, though.

I tried to give a couple songs from Rise a chance on youtube recently because for whatever reason I REALLY love the new album cover (I think it strikes a balance between occult and sexy, which isn't something I see very often). It's just really really bad though. I think the title track was ignorable at best, the other two I heard were aggravatingly bad. The guitar sound is an instant turn-off for me, and then there's those shockingly generic "hard rock" vocals. Even if the riffing was incredible I'd struggle with it, but luckily that wasn't the case.

Not for nothin', but "professional" is the last thing I'm looking for in a heavy metal album cover. Battle Cry is my shit.

Hm, based on that track I think I might actually have to go back and give Draw Down the Moon a chance, I think I based my dismissal of the band based on their other stuff. "Black Candles" was pretty solid, though. Also I agree Jonpo, the newest one sounds like a really second-rate version of Iommi's material with Glenn Hughes, with a bad production and mediocre songwriting.

I guess i'll check out that new MR once it drops. I never really got into Playground of the Damned to be honest. Is it just me or is the production kinda weird/shitty?

It was painfully average all round, for a Manilla Road album.

Maybe you downloaded the dodgy vinyl rip that was circulating before it was actually released? The CD sounds fine, to me, really appropriate for what they were going for. The drum sound is still kinda weird, though. I think the album's great, myself.

I think Playground of the Damned is actually the best post-reformation Manilla Road album. I certainly like it a lot more than Voyager, which just never grabbed me all that much.

It took me awhile but I can now say, without question, Spiral Castle is my favorite of the newer stuff. It might have something to do with it being the least "new" sounding, but I don't really think that's the whole reason. It doesn't just sound older, it sounds kind of timeless to me. None of the other albums since the reformation have even a tenth of the atmosphere for my money. Everything is so BAND oriented on that album, as opposed to just one awesome riff after another. Part of me wants to lament how short-lived this quirky lineup was but I know in my rotten heart they wouldn't have been able to capture lightning in a bottle twice.

It's one of those albums that mean so much to me I hardly listen to it unless conditions are perfect and I know I can listen to the whole thing front to back undisturbed.