Metal Blade Records reissued the first four records from overlooked technical speed metal act Anacrusis during the last quarter of 2019. Hailing from St. Louis, Anacrusis incorporated crossover elements infused with familiar speed metal tropes, and later added more accessible progressive heavy metal elements while remaining musically astute.
No CommentsTags: anacrusis, progressive metal, Speed Metal
Peer into the intense fury of three decades ago when Malevolent Creation unleashed their powerful fusion of speed metal and percussive death metal, The Ten Commandments (1991). Full of nice meaty riffs cleated to pounding double-bass drumming, this album explored the side of death metal that stayed closer to conventional metal.
35 CommentsTags: death metal, hammerheart records, Malevolent Creation, 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
The band revealed on Facebook that guitarist of legendary speed metal band Artillery, Morten Stützer, died at the young age of 57.
2 CommentsTags: artillery, By Inheritance, Morten Stützer, Speed Metal
Chilean speed metal revivalists Ripper tear into their fusion of Destruction and older Sepultura that makes for an energy-infused listen full of the high-contrast riff changes that defined the speed metal genre. While this continues the past influences, it shows the band developing more of their own voice while remembering to cue in enough genre conventions to address the nostalgia crowd.
No CommentsTags: ripper, Speed Metal
The opening song of Seven Churches starts off with The Exorcist theme taken from Tubular Bells but performed by producer Randy Burns. This emblematic introduction played on a cheap organ synth with its muddy timbre is the perfect introduction for this innovative band that managed to reconcile underground metal with the blossoming Speed metal movement into a vicious piece that carries on towards a much darker path.
No CommentsTags: brief analysis, death metal, exorcist, possessed, seven churches, Speed Metal
The Accüsed came to life in 1981 as a punk/metal-act from Seattle who indulge in a self-coined musical style interchangeably referred to as “splatter core” or “splatter rock.” Releasing their debut full-length album in 1985, The Accüsed developed tangentially to thrash luminaries such as D.R.I., C.O.C. and Cryptic Slaughter, with whom they share musical characteristics. Like the latter, the Accüsed applies metallic riffing to rudimentary song structures fueled by the raging intensity of hardcore punk.
No CommentsTags: Crossover, Speed Metal, the accused, Thrash
It is rather commonplace among certain circles to engage in lamentations over the current state of Metal and a perceived disconnect between the classic glory days of high adventure with contemporary mediocrity.
31 CommentsTags: Black Metal, death metal, Heavy Metal, nowadays, originality, some brief thoughts, spear of longinus, Speed Metal, thrash metal
[Continued from Part 1]
10 CommentsTags: 2018, aeschylus, ballads, barbaric romanticism, blues, by the gods, classical music, cock rock, composition, Concept Album, cover songs, david defeis, dionysus, edward pursino, epic, exorcist, frank gilchriest, hard rock, hatred, Heavy Metal, insanity, jack starr, josh block, lilith, long island, love, madness, Mythology, new york, Occultism, Opera, original sin, over the top, Paganism, passion, piano, piledriver, power metal, rock opera, Romanticism, sexuality, Speed Metal, the hammer of zeus, the wrecking ball of thor, tragedy, Transcendence, USA, USPM, Vengeance, victory, virgin steele, wine
By the Gods my friends!
Forged in the desolate halls of 1981, hailing from the majestic kingdom of Long Island, New York… Virgin Steele have been one of the most enduring acts of Powerful Epic Heavy Metal for aeons! The aural magnificence of ultra-charismatic vocalist / composer / keyboardist / all around renaissance mad-man David “Dionysus” DeFeis and trusty six-stringed axe warrior of indomitable fury and vengeance Edward Pursino’s combined creative efforts have been overlooked by scholars of Metal for too long!
21 CommentsTags: aeschylus, ballads, barbaric romanticism, blues, by the gods, classical music, cock rock, composition, Concept Album, cover songs, david defeis, dionysus, edward pursino, epic, exorcist, frank gilchriest, hard rock, hatred, Heavy Metal, insanity, jack starr, josh block, lilith, long island, love, madness, Mythology, new york, Occultism, Opera, original sin, over the top, Paganism, passion, piano, piledriver, power metal, rock opera, Romanticism, sexuality, Speed Metal, the hammer of zeus, the wrecking ball of thor, tragedy, Transcendence, USA, USPM, Vengeance, victory, virgin steele, wine
