Category: Heavy Metal
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Listen Here: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow – Dad Rock in the Eighties.
Every Record Tells A Story Presents: A Blog You Can Listen To: Click the Mixcloud player link above to hear the music, and read the liner notes below…. If the link above isn’t showing you can click here to access all the music via Mixcloud With racial tensions, recession and mass unemployment affecting entire communities…
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How Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson Channelled the Spirit Of Dio In The Classic “Number of the Beast”
Paul Dickinson was expelled from Oundle boarding school for the amusing yet nauseating reason that he relieved himself into a meal he had prepared for his teachers. The Evil That Men Do may or may not live on and on, but at the very least it will get them kicked out of private school. It…
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Book What The Cat Dragged In: A New Look At Glam Metal
Glam metal. Perhaps one of the most thoroughly ignored genres of music of the last forty years. The trouble is, when your music is a silo of strange, make-up-infested faux-cowboys with ludicrous hair, flaming codpieces and guitars featuring primary colours that even The Wiggles would find garish, it’s very difficult to get anyone to take…
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Do Helloween Get The Credit They Deserve?
When we think of thrash metal, we think of certain things. The “Big Four” of Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth. We may also think of album covers that feature skulls… …or demons… …lead singers who dress like monks… …albeit there were worse ways to dress in the eighties… Back in 1985 however, it wasn’t just…
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Why Megadeth’s Rust In Peace Is Better Than Indie Rock’s Finest
I was listening to Cloud Nothings’ Here And Everywhere Else the other day – a very fine record incidentally – when I reached a Eureka! moment. I don’t mean to say that I jumped out of the bath and hopped along the street. That sort of thing may have passed for normal behaviour in Ancient…
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Why German Heavy Metal Still Matters: Accept – Live at The Forum
As a veteran of several eighties Monsters of Rock Donington festivals, the odd Reading Festival, and a myriad of lesser gigs at Hammersmith Odeon, The Astoria, Dominion, Brixton, The Town and Country Club (now renamed as tonight’s venue, The Forum), et al, I have reached the point (or perhaps “age” is a better word) where…
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$903 For Your Vintage Rock Concert T-Shirt? Yes Please…
One of the problems of not having a time-machine (and there are many) is the difficulty in predicting exactly which bits of accumulated old tat you should throw disdainfully in the nearest skip, and which you should wrap in linen and ceremonially preserve in a casket in the loft with full military honours. The Egyptians had…
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Black Sabbath at Hyde Park: Review
London may have its faults: There are too many people, too many drugs, loud parties, late night revellers… It also has its faults. It’s expensive: The Connaught bar sells beer at £65. Per glass. Yes, that isn’t a typo. It is busy, the average life expectancy of a cyclist is roughly equivalent to that of…
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Metallica + Glastonbury = Glastallica: Exclusive Photos and Review
It says something of Metallica, and the heavy / thrash / metal / rock (delete according to taste) genre they represent, that much of the pre-Glastonbury Festival talk was about whether they were an “appropriate” act to take the Pyramid (or indeed any other) Stage. Were they really The Thing That Should Not Be…
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Record Store Day Gets Metal
The Record Store Day 2014 Announcement has revealed some exciting releases this year for rock and metal fans. Mastodon lead the pack with a vinyl and DVD release of “Live at Brixton”. Green Day has announced an album of demos and out takes available on LP and cassette. On the re-release side, there’s Motörhead’s self…
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Heavy Rockers: Misunderstood Originators Or Blatant Lazy Rip-off Cliché Merchants? Part 2
Whatever Happened To My Rock n Roll Part 5 I’m putting heavy rock on trial! Have Your Say! Twenty five years on from the peak of heavy rock’s commercial popularity in 1988, this series asks why heavy rockers no longer dominate the charts and seeks to highlight the crimes that Heavy Rock is accused of,…
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Ten Reasons Why Motörhead Should Be Inducted Into The Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame
Great news: Motörhead has a new single out, “Crying Shame”, which comes from “Aftershock” – Motorhead’s 21st studio LP. It’s yet another belter. But. It has been brought to my attention that there exists a terrible state of affairs that must be put right. No, I’m not talking about Keane’s last album. I’m talking about…
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The Day UK Rock Fans Took Thrash Metal To Their Hearts
I was there the day Thrash Metal broke into the UK’s metal mainstream…. It seems strange looking back at the divisions that thrash metal caused in the mid eighties. For some, the surprise will be that there’s any discernible difference between, say Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple, Megadeth and Scorpions. But for the heavy metal…
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Ten Reasons To Be Glad About Anthrax
First things first, if you are a farmer and are looking for disease control tips, look elsewhere. Wrong site. Not your fault of course. Naming a band after something that is more harmful to dumb animals than the X-Factor audition process is always going to lead to confusion. Exciting news for Anthrax fans in the…
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Black Sabbath: 13 Review and The Post-It Note-gate Controversy
With Black Sabbath’s album out tomorrow, it is time to dust off your black cloak, wizard’s hat and faded copy of Alistair Crowley‘s Big Book of Magic (Vol. 1: Card Tricks), throw them in the bin, and make some space for some new Sabbath vinyl in your collection. Sabbath have always courted controversy, from the…
Every record tells a story 