On the topic of 1984 I have to bring up my favorite heavy metal album of all time (by favorite I mean anything in my top 5 because I am too indecisive to pick a top anything). Witch Cross - Fit for Fight. They are one of the lesser known bands from Denmark and was around the same time as Mercyful Fate and even recorded in the same studio. And while Don't Break the Oath could also arguably be my favorite heavy metal album as well I just find there to be something magical about the Witch Cross album from the album cover down to the songs and the general flow of the album.

The youtube quality is shit and doesn't do this justice compared to the versions I have on CD and tape, I still need a first press vinyl.

That one is alright. Reminds me of Guy Speranza era Riot.

Thank you all for the recommendations, I need some time to get through all of them but I just wanted to say thank you already and give an more informed reply later on.

Fans of Painkiller should definitely check out U.D.O.'s Timebomb album. It's a true stomper and probably Udo's best work aside from classic classic Accept (maybe).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvCmpalg1EE

Am curious why critical consensus seems to be that Tank crashed hard after their first album? Been blasting This Means War & Honour & Blood non-stop for weeks and I think these albums are incredible, if anything stronger than Filth Hounds as they managed to shake the Motör-isms and settle into their own sound.

It isn't.

I've read fifteen different articles, reviews, etc. about Tank in the past month and all of them say that Filth Hounds is their only great album.

Your personal opinion, as mine, might be different but I am looking for insight into why the metal critical establishment feels this way.

Not saying I don't believe you, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of those articles. I would've put money on the general consensus being "Great debut / Sophomore slump / Great set of comebacks". This Means War really is fantastic, the title track especially kicks my ass.

Anyone a fan of their newer stuff? I actually thought Valley of Tears was sort of okay. A little corny and not Motörheady at all, unfortunately, but still had its moments.

Are you telling me that there are people who don't think Honour & Blood is a masterpiece? Sounds like some critics need to have their hearing checked haha.

I don't think they have a single bad album. Actually, one of my favorite Tank songs is "Conspiracy of Hate" from their last album. O:

Despite the stupid lyrics, The War Drags Ever On is definitely my favorite Tank song. Mick Tucker and Cliff Evans are a horribly, horribly underrated duo.

Yeah if you can tune out the parts about Muslims it's pretty great. And Ward sucks at enunciating, so it's easy. Really thick, bleak atmosphere, one time where being repetitive is an asset.

Never seen before Aria video "America I Behind" from their debut 1985 album (traditional Russian heavy metal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAK9TB4n5DU

I like Aria quite a lot, but haven't listened to much of their really early material (I mostly spin Igra s Ognyom).

That video is pretty hilarious.

The Finns are at it again! If Judas Priest had been Germans.
I really hope they go on and make full albums, and not just another one off project.

I don't really hear too much Judas Priest in there, sounds more like NWOSHM to me. Reminds me a lot of their countrymen Mausoleum Gate. Good stuff for sure.

So yeah, Satan's Hallow. I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said at this point. And I'm a few months late to the party. Listened to that album 8 or so times in a row yesterday while I was playing some Path of Exile. Only listened to it once before and wasn't really paying enough attention. Goddamn good stuff. Beyond the Bells is the best song that I've heard in a good while.

Hi to all, long time lurker here.

"Recommendations" tab is very useful but often offers too little. I'd want to find more bands in a trad-heavy vein, maybe with epic tint, in American style of this subgenre, like Skullview - with distinctive fat bassline, gritty masculine vocals, mainly mid-tempo, stomping and pounding sound.

Thanks in advance.

Vainglory's 2050 album. Horribly overlooked album, probably the best rhythym guitar playing I have ever heard.

Thanks, but...



Does Kate French have some similarities with "Earthquake" Lewis?

You thought Ted Brasier sounded feminine? Clean your ears, son!

I didn't listen to them yet, I just read about 'em here on MA. And I thought they had that girl on vocals on both albums, judging by that fact they are compared with female-voice bands like Cobra and the Lotus or Benedictum.
So my ears are fine, thanks for your care, my good old sir.

EDIT: I did a quick listening to "2050" album. Now I start to realize why they have changed the singer He has a kinda clamped or clenched voice (don't know how to say it better in English) that doesn't flow. And their music has not that 80s-feel I seek for, they sound modern and plastic with their overloaded guitars and uninspiring cliche soloing.

Just think of Skullview, Skelator, Visigoth, maybe Jag Panzer - this kind of traditional American heavy-metal sound, rooted in 80s. That's what I'm looking for.

New or old bands? I don't know how many classic bands you know but Tyrant - Too Late to Pray

New stuff:
Burning Shadows - Truth in Legend
ZUUL - Out of Time, To the Frontlines
Emblem (CAD) - Emblem
Argus - Beyond the Martyrs
Ravensire (Portugal) - We March Forward, The Cycle Never Ends

Walpyrgus - Walpyrgus Nights
Wulfhook - The Impaler
Widow - Life's Blood

Ironflame - Lightning Strikes The Crown

Is it just me or does the new Accept sound really uninspired? Only listened once. Shame, because they've been on a roll.

Gonna listen to the new Rage now, not accepting (edit: gonna keep this typo) much at all.

This is what you're looking for, friend.

Not sure how familiar you are with the USPM scene in general - sounds like you know mostly (relatively) newer stuff. Please correct me if that's wrong though. I'll try and provide some examples of bands with vocalists similar to Quimby.

Quimby always brought Tim Baker of Cirith Ungol to mind - I'm not sure whether you know them or not, but if not you need King of the Dead NOW. https://youtu.be/edPckSU41g4

If you've not heard them, another newer band with some very rough and barbaric vocals is Crusader's Onward Into Battle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZmw1W9DJvM

Steel Assassin comes to mind, since you mentioned Jag Panzer, and the vocalist for Steel Assassin is basically Harry Conklin, Jr. Very ambitious sound, especially on their 2007 album War of the Eight Saints. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM6P4H42gIc

Omen's Battle Cry and Liege Lord's Master Control are necessary USPM classics if you're not familiar with them. While you're at it, Griffin's debut is a classic as well, and not too far from the sound you're describing.

Salem's Lot is a more obscure demo-only USPM band, but with gruff and muscular as hell vocals and strong riffs to match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rthv-sJJkik

Last but not least, it doesn't get much manlier than motherfuckin' VAULT. That guy just oozes masculinity without sounding too OTT or forced, great slab of traditional heavy metal right there.

Let me know what you think / what you're already familiar with and I can probably give you some more recs.

Wow, gentlemen, thanks to you all for so many advices and recommendations. Let's go briefly through it.

Argus, Cirith Ungol, Omen, Steel Assassin, Griffin - I do know them all quite good, Omen's debut is one of my all-time favorite albums, I think. Kimball (R.I.P.) is a hell of a voice (all bruces dick-in-sons may go jerk yourself... That's how the Man should sound).

I listened to Widow, Walpyrgus and Ravensire but I can't say I was impressed much. They lack something I can't describe. Sincerity? Balls? Spirit? Blood? I don't know.

I can say that USPM is probably my favorite sub-genre of metal, but not in its "poser" side (Manowar and the likes). But USPM is large and narrow term at the same time. I tend to like "blue-collar" bands more (Attacker, Cage, Chastain, Helstar, Vicious Rumors, Omen, Jag Panzer, Metal Church, Agent Steel, Hellhound, Pharaoh, Seven Witches, Steel Aggressor), though Savatage and Virgin Steele are among my all-time favorites too.

Quimby's voice is not a paragon for what I seek for, the voice itself doesn't matter too much, it can be low or high-pitched, gritty and coarse or soft and smooth, but balls and heart should shine through it (take John West or D.C. Cooper both from Royal Hunt as example). Voices like "Alarm siren" Dickinson or Mark Boals are examples of "ballless and heartless" voices for me. They can take notes right and have 5 octaves range but they don't touch my soul at all.

And there's no thing in this world I like more than a pumping, rocking, thumping, evident bass. And such a bass sounds better in a mid-tempo pace.

So the overall sound and impression I seek is a complex result, harmonious combination of voice, guitars, bass and rack, melodies, lyrics and performance, and all of it can be described as Epic, not as epic as fart-inflated Manowar or weed-inflated Manilla Road, but inflated with Spirit which can't be mistaken for something else.

EDIT: Surprisingly I find Italian and Greek epic-heavy approach being similar to USPM-ish approach to EPIC thing to some extent (Battleroar, Dark Nightmare, Doomsword, Holy Martyr, Icy Steel, War Dance, Wrathblade).

Have you tried FINAL SIGN

Thanks for a hint.

Just tried it. In brief - inconsistent music with too modern tint for my taste, with decent hard-rock vocals that mismatch this music quite a few. Music seems trying to sound and feature "heavy" while not being really heavy, as if the band guys think "heavyness" is in sound and composition only.

Just an occasional quick opinion, don't take it to the heart

Ce Tecpatl: Check out Track of Doom by Angus. It sounds like Battle Cry-era Omen ramped up with some of the complexity that Fate were bringing. No one talks about this album but it's flawless. Ridiculously muscular, superb song-crafting.

I'd recommend you check out Battle Ram, they're probably my favorite band from the Greek/Italian epic heavy metal scene. Also I bet you'd dig Solitary Sabred, it combines the epic scope of that scene with the complexity and weirdness of something like Helstar. Kinda funny that you dig Battleroar but not Manilla Road though, considering that's their primary influence, and Shelton wrote a song and performed on the album Age of Chaos. That whole scene is pretty MR-influenced, I don't know of any one band that had more of an impact on it.

Oh, since you mentioned blue collar USPM, definitely check out Attak's 1985 demo (which also appears on their compilation). Headbanging, just straight heavy fucking metal of a good time. The first song especially I can't help but sing along with every time I listen to it. "They said to rock would be a sin. WE CRANKED IT UP, AND DID IT AGAAAAIIIN!"



Oh yeah, Angus completely slipped my mind, great stuff. Track of Doom is right on the money for that sound.

You have probably heard these already but here:

Crush - Kingdom of the Kings
Eternal Champion - Armor of Ire
Assedium - Rise of the Warlords ~ Fighting for the Flame
Domine - Champion Eternal
Sacred Blood - The Battle of Thermoplyae
Airged L'amh - The Silver Arm
Destiny (SWE) - Atomic Winter ~ The Undiscovered Country

You could try some of the following:

Thunder Rider - Tales of Darkness and Light (definite highlight is Executioner)
Scavenger - Battlefields
Saint - Time's End
Axe Battler - The Wrath of my Steel
Battlecry - Cry of the Warrior
Clenched Fist - The Gift of Death (Speed Metal Attack is great)
Enforcer - Classic Chicago Metal
Graven Rite - The Summoner's pit
Antioch - Antioch II: First Stryke
The Regime - U.G.L.Y.
Advocate - World Without End
Wretch - Reborn
Ballistic - s/t (not the "epic" theme you asked for but nevertheless worth it if you haven't heard of 'em).

Ce Tecpatl: Greek stuff that might appeal:

Convixion (try Wings of Vengeance), Sacral Rage, Accelerator, Doomocracy (obviously epic power/doom but there's lots of US Metal influence to be found in the album), the Airged Lamh demo (I like it more than the albums)

And if you haven't heard them already, I wholeheartedly recommend Holy Terror's albums, Terror and Submission being the one that fits best what you're looking for, Mind Wars is just a speed/thrash epic that might be too much on the frenzy side. But Terror and Submission has some pretty incredible songs that many of my epic/heavy loving friends in Greece absolutely worship. Distant Calling (one of my favorite heavy metal songs ever), Terror and Submission and Guardians of the Netherworld being prime examples. Keith Deen (RIP) is a god imo.

This sounds very promising its like if Danny White off "Born of the Cauldron" recorded an early Iron Maiden album.

Holy shit, you weren't kidding. Guy has a set of pipes. The riffs are like Killers on crack. Definitely gonna have to check the whole album out, it's not every day you hear someone who's in the same league as Danny White - able to pull that demented, bloodthirsty wizard vibe off while using ridiculous amounts of falsetto and just sustaining notes for so long that it would almost be like showing off if it weren't so goddamn mesmerizing. Sweet find!

Thanks to you all, gentlemen. From all you've mentioned, I do know most of the bands (and some of them I really like), but some of them (Holy Terror, Airged Lamh) are novelty for me.

I dunno, I'm not getting so much of a specifically early Maiden vibe out of Lethal Night as just a general USPM vibe. Not so sure about some of those vocal lines though - for example the repeated "ohhhh-ohhhh" part 2/3s of the way through. I'm not sure if he's off-key or if it was intentionally written like that but it sounds kind of...ungood. Other parts are the same. Overall sounds really promising though, some fantastic riffage and lead guitar work going on there.

I tried to comment on it yesterday but got caught up at work. I was going to say almost exactly the same thing about the vocals. It KINDA sounds like he can't sing at all sometimes, but I like that a lot. The intro was really well done for a newer band. I'm curious!