“Voodoo Circle make Steel and I yearn for the olde days, when we would sit on the veranda in our trailer park, drinking hobo wine out of pickle jars, listening to mixtapes of Blue Murder, Whitesnake, Great White, and the Scorpions. It was a simpler time: hairspray-soaked blues metal dominated the scene, and there were four main lyrical topics: love, bad love, dirty love, and sex. You can’t get away with that in today’s climate, but that won’t stop Voodoo Circle from trying.” Sex is love.
“There’s no doubt that this is one fucked up world. And to add insult to injury, Autograph has a new album. I mean, I wouldn’t want to say glam metal is irrelevant these days, but it is. And one of its pioneers is unwilling to die—trying to hold on to what it has (“Turn Up the Radio”) and hasn’t (everything else) contributed to this world.” This IS your father’s metal.
“Back in the ’80s, before a little thing called the World Wide Web came along, we got our metal news from magazines like Circus and Hit Parader. In a pathetic attempt to be hip and now amongst my fellow teenage metalhead pals, I was always on the lookout for any obscure band that got a decent review in those rags. One such band in 1985 was a British act called Shy. I’ll be honest: Brave the Storm was probably the worst album I bought based on these old reviews. The songs were bad, it was dated and sounded old a week after I bought it, and the vocals — by one Tony Mills — were screechingly awful.” 32 years will change a man.
“Having read plenty of trash masquerading as philosophy and heard plenty of nonsensical music both within and without metal, I figured I was desensitized to weird stuff. Hell, the world seems almost desensitized to weirdness; Jacques Lacan, one of the biggest dolts to ever pretend to think about stuff and write it down, posited that an erection was equal to the square root of -1 and more than zero people took him seriously.” Weird is full of surprises.
“I love the 80s. And who wouldn’t? If you are an olde guy like me, the 80s were the peak of metal. The big bands were huge (Maiden, Priest) and new shit was cropping up everywhere (Metallica, Slayer). Luckily, as a teen back then I managed to hold down a job, so I was able to spend all my $6 hour wages on music at every opportunity.” Crouching Tyger, hidden Pan-Tang.
“Geoff Tate cannot be stopped. Getting fired from Queensryche barely slowed him down, and a lengthy court battle over the band name just made him mad. Hell, we even begged him to show us mercy, but he denied us. Instead, Tate has delivered The Key, the debut outing by his creatively-named new project Operation: Mindcrime.” Someone, somewhere deserves this.
“I want to begin this review of Skyscraper’s début, Elevation, with a game of complete the lyrics, from sixth track “Walk Through Fire.” “I walk through fire…” (a) “while in ferocious combat with the dragon sent by the Elven armies,” (b) “in order to emulate the fiery depths of Hell for my unification with Lucifer,” or (c) “for you.” Done? If you chose (a) or (b) then I regret to inform you that neither option is correct, but if you liked either, I would suggest that this record may not align with your usual musical preferences (and that you should book an appointment with your local shrink and/or exorcist).” Well, I flunked that pop quiz bigtime. I hate pop quizzes.
‘For Angry Metal regulars, Norway’s Jorn Lande needs NO introduction! This leaves me in a quandary… I need an opening paragraph so you get a repeat of what you already know. As Lord Steel Druhm has already mentioned in his review of Bring Heavy Rock To The Land, Lande has a massive career spanning across solo, group and collaborative projects Ark, Masterplan, Beyond Twilight, Avantasia and Allen/Lande that easily makes him one of the most recognized voices in the industry. Well surprise, surprise, hot on the heels of Symphonic, Lande adds another notch to his well-worn belt with the much anticipated all original release of Traveller.” Well, it looks like the days of Madam X’s unabashed Jorn worship have finally reached a middle. Does that mean you must bring your own heavy rock to the land (BYOHRTL)? Read and find out!
“What do Alex Beyrodt (Primal Fear, Sinner, Silent Force), David Readman (Pink Cream 69), Mat Sinner (Primal Fear, Sinner), Jimmy Kresic (Liquid One, Steve Lukather) and Markus Kullmann (Dezperadoz) all have in common? A rather nice little, old timey, Deep Purple, Whitesnake and Rainbow colored hard rock supergroup by the name of Voodoo Circle, that’s what! I had no damn idea what I was getting myself into when I raided this off the promo list. Tagged as power metal, I suspected my selection would lack the maggot infested blackened corpses that usually scream out to me. But what I didn’t see coming was the album I expected from Jorn when I reviewed Symphonic. Feeling that expectation rise just a little huh?” Madam X is all about danrkness and evil, until a little Jorn shows up. Then she’s all rainbows, ponies and fairy dust. Voodoo Circle plays right into her fangirlism and here’s the result…
Confession Time! Steel Druhm has been wracked with guilt since underrating the first Fullforce album. Now he finally gets a chance to atone as he reviews the new opus by this melodic metal supergroup from Sweden.
