Judas Priest came out of the era that melded Black Sabbath with Led Zeppelin and came up with some of the most creative guitar riffology in history, raising the standards by which any new album will be judged, and Invincible Shield tries to balance their past with multiple career peaks.
56 CommentsTags: Heavy Metal, judas priest, NWOBHM, power metal
Listening to that 1980s power metal compilation that has floated around for awhile, it becomes clear to me why many of us dodged out on power metal and drifted toward the grindcore and death metal style of things back in the day: power metal is the capture of metal by the pop industry.
79 CommentsTags: glam metal, NWOBHM, power metal, Speed Metal
On January 10, Burke Shelley — bassist, songwriter, and pathfinder of NWOBHM-prog hybrid outlier Budgie — passed away in his hometown of Cardiff, Wales. A hybrid that sounded like Black Sabbath, Grand Funk Railroad, and Yes in an infernal three-way, Budgie possessed its own style and vision of the world, leading to an enormous influence on much of metal and rock to follow.
6 CommentsTags: budgie, burke shelley, NWOBHM
Classic NWOBHM band Iron Maiden, part of the DNA of all metal to follow like Motorhead and Judas Priest, recently posted a documentary about the band originally released as DVD extras. Watch below for the gritty details.
4 CommentsTags: iron maiden, NWOBHM
Iron Maiden just released a new single, “The Writing on the Wall.” This longstanding band, known like metal itself for spanning Left and Right with its anarcho-realism, now introduces a new theme: all that we thought was good, was bad, and “good” evil won, so it’s time to… burn it all down.
10 CommentsTags: iron maiden, NWOBHM
Life assembles itself from opposites; what is a strength in one area is a weakness in another. Confess: An Autobiography serves as a great history of Rob Halford, but misses what his audience would like, which is a history of Judas Priest in which Halford discusses his own progress as well as that of the band.
5 CommentsTags: Heavy Metal, judas priest, NWOBHM, rob halford
NWOBHM took the proto-metal of Black Sabbath and mixed it with the hard rock of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, infused it with the spirit of punk and some of the progressive rock of the era, and came up with the last bridge between metal and rock before speed metal punted it out of the park. Early Rituals uncovers this era with zest.
5 CommentsTags: NWOBHM, Satan, Speed Metal
Blitzkrieg’s three song demo, released during the height of the NWOBHM era and showing a harder side to the genre slowly edging towards full on Speed metal. Though known mainly due to Metallica’s cover and its influence on the American Speed metal bands. Blitzkrieg offer a combination of the triumphant riffing found on Stained Class and the theatrics of Focus’ Moving Waves.
1 CommentTags: blitzkrieg, demo, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, Speed Metal
Mighty influential NWOBHM’ers Angel Witch is about to unleash their greatly anticipated follow-up to 2012’s As Above, So Below. The album, entitled Angel of Light, will hit the market on November 1 and will be available in a plethora of formats. Together with countrymen Satan, Angel Witch count as one of few returning old school metal acts who’ve managed to modernize their sound without having it reflect negatively on their past efforts. However, since As Above, So Below consisted primarily of re-recorded material from the golden days, this new effort could be seen as the true testing ground for the band.
No CommentsTags: angel of light, Angel Witch, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM
One of the few great bands from the NWOBHM movement in a genre known for a few gems in a sea of stadium and bar rock bands. While never receiving the deserved praise and success of their peers, Satan nonetheless were one of the best bands coming from the scene and used Speed metal elements in creating their magnum opus Court in the Act. On “Trial by Fire”, Satan show the large number of tools at their disposition after the opening blast of notes.
11 CommentsTags: bief analysis, Court in the Act, Heavy Metal, NWOBHM, Satan, trial by fire
