“Anyone already familiar with the most popular, debatably metal bands of the 80s (Def Leppard, Whitesnake) will understand what’s going on with Lionheart. Big power chords in the verses, big vocals in the choruses, crunchy but accessible riffs, and an overly of keyboards that sometimes take the form of a piano and sometimes something synthier. Dragonfly largely makes for an upbeat, easy-going sort of listen.” Lions and bugs and Brits, oh my!
“According to Colony Drop’s Bandcamp page, the band’s motto is “High Speed, Twin Lead.” This isn’t just a promise that gets my heart all aflutter; it’s also an honest declaration. Time and time again, you’ll hear this maxim take mighty musical form on Brace for Impact, often to crushing effect.” Space must be colonized!
What happens when we embed an AMG staffer at the Graspop metal festival in Belgium? Heavy drinking and strong takes happen.
“Tongue of Silver represents two landscapes. It beats down upon the dead soil of the barren American West, empty and lonely winds plastering sun-bleached hills. But it pulses with the beating heart of its folklore, as legendary as it is flesh and blood. It’s a tall tale of the mundane, paying homage to not only Americana, but to the crushing weight of drone metal. The story it tells is not of speedy gunslingers or soul-searching troubadours but found in the negative spaces “somewhere between sand and rust:” a living, breathing, and uniquely American commentary on expansion and decay.” American threads.
“Alarm bells tend to ring when, after randomly picked an album for review, that album is one of several for a band you’ve never heard previously. It usually signifies a group toiling in mediocrity, never having sufficiently impressed a critical mass to start developing a reputation. In the case of Sweden’s Osukaru, I suspect it may be a consequence of their style. The target demographic of their sixth release, Starbound, stopped listening to new music in 1992 with the last good Def Leppard record, the stratification of a variety of extreme metal sub-genres and the advent of grunge as the most popular form of rock.” Star daddy.
“I am not a fan of bands rerecording old classic material. But I make an exception in the case of Lightning to the Nations 2020, the latest offering from NWoBHM elders Diamond Head. Why? Because I can kill two birds with one stone: I write my weekly review as well as a Yer Metal Is Olde article at the same time. Now that’s how you maintain high efficiency! The crux if this review won’t be “how good is this album?” We already know Lightning to the Nations is a super album. It will be “do we need this version?” That’s what enquiring minds want to know.”” Lightning strikes twice?
“Let’s roll the clock back six years. It was September 2014, and the name El Cuervo was but a Spanish noun and nascent writer in the Angry Metal Guy world. The Editors™ mandated Skyscraper’s Elevation on said writer, a charming and catchy, if somewhat toothless, AOR record. Their impressive crooner, named Lee Small, struck said writer to a sufficient extent as to bother Googling his other projects. It was later discovered that he was fronting a long-defunct-but-then-revived hair rock band called Lionheart, whose 1984 release called Hot Tonight is well worth the time of any fans of men in leotards.” Tight bloomers, rock boomers.
“Aeromantic hardly breaks new ground for these excitable Swedes. By this, I mean that it is seemingly purpose-built to mainline dopamine directly to my brain, being, as it is, more 80s than the 80s. Each NFO release reaches deeper into this era, and Aeromantic nails the schmaltzy, overblown tone which has come to characterize the retrospective view of it.” Aeroma therapy.
“From my perspective, this is a big year for Yer Metal Is Olde pieces, and it starts off with this piece of work. Iron Maiden wasn’t my first purchase by these legends: that would be The Number of the Beast, when it came out back in 1982. But after being blown away by that album as a twelve-year-old, I quickly gobbled up whatever else I could find – which wasn’t much. A few months later I grabbed my cassette copy of Killers, then the Maiden Japan EP, and finally their debut. So by the time I’d worked my way to this album, well, it confused me a bit. Why?” Eddie is olde.
“Sandness. The essence of sand. It’s coarse and it’s rough and it’s irritating and it gets everywhere. Such characteristics are not really desirable for a young Italian rock band releasing their third album and aiming to bring 80s hair metal to the modern day. Untamed follows a 3-year break, a time in which the band aimed to create something “more straightforward, shorter and more lighthearted,” descriptors which are quite different to those listed above. But the real queries are around quality. Do they achieve their goals? Should you invest your time here? Do I like Sand(ness)?” The Sandness of love.
