My overall tracks chart has continued to be dominated by what I listened to the first year after I created this profile as this profile comes up for its third anniversary. You can get a vague idea how my tastes have changed by comparing the overall chart to my rolling six month or annual charts, but thanks to http://troublewithdreams.com/scrobbler/ I can see all three 'years' (give or take a few days) as separate charts! The trends really fascinate me as I can recall partly my reasoning for the orientations I had at the time. It turns out I was more…

(Previous NWoBHM Band of the Week)

Anyone who's been keeping an eye on what I've been listening to recently probably saw this selection coming. Trespass' entire recorded works during the NWOBHM movement are (almost all*) currently available as part of the castle/sanctuary collection one of these days: the trespass anthology, and there's a surprising amount of material that at the time didn't get released, as well as a write-up of the band's history more informative than mine will ever be. However, the band didn't release a lot of stuff during the 1979-83 period, so I shall be able…

(Previous NWOBHM Band of the Week)

This week I will be writing about hellanbach, one of the plethora of nwobhm bands to originate in or near Newcastle. Also, one of seemingly very few nwobhm bands who are have at no point continued to be active after the mid 80s, meaning this could be a bit shorter than some previous entries in this series. The low number of youtube links is partly because there aren't many for this band and partly…well you'll see why you don't need them, hopefully.

If you've heard more than one or two songs by Hellanbach,…

(Previous NWOBHM Band of the Week)

After more than a month of waiting here's my next NWOBHM Band of the Week entry: blitzkrieg. I'm not going to provide youtube links this time it takes way too long for me to continue bothering to do that. Sorry if that's all you read this for, but you can search yourselves if you'd like and if you're lucky someone might add links to the individual songs' last.fm pages.

Blitzkrieg are perhaps most notable for two things: (1) bringing the world vocalist Brian Ross who also went on to form (temporarily) a vital…

Wed 5 Aug – Praying Mantis, Fury UK, Core of Nation

Last night was a worthwhile gig at the relatively small Purple Turtle in Camden, London.

Openers core of nation from Sweden impressed me very much very quickly. Stationed near the equalising desk the sound was almost as perfect as one could possibly demand from a studio mixing. Though it's highly cliche to say so the band played like a well-oiled machine and I found it hard to believe they weren't headlining their own show of at least this size. I suppose I would describe the genre loosely as stoner…

Below I have chosen a favourite album and favourite song from 40 separate years ('67-'06). This is just my opinion and based on the music I've actually heard. The favourite track does not have to come from the year's corresponding favourite album. In cases where the track does happen to come from the year's favourite album it is usually either an indicator of a weak year (1993) or an incredibly strong album (1982). However, I do tend to change my mind quite a bit, so I may return to this journal to update my preferences, particularly when I discover new…

(Previous NWoBHM Band of the Week)

Let's start with a music video and see if you reach the same first impression as I did, this is saracen - love on sight:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIDcUKuMzSE

If one of your first thoughts was "Poor man's queen", you reached a similar first impression to mine. The above was one of three very similar music videos arranged by Neat records circa 1985, admittedly it's probably the softest of the three, and neither my favourite nor least favourite of those three, but let us now turn to the chronological beginning:

Apparently there are two bands…

Jump to part:
1 2 3 4 5

Ok, the final part of my week of Tank will attempt to cram in the abbreviated 1984-2009 part of the band's history. Given that it took me 4 parts to cover '78-'83, this isn't even going to approach the level of detail of the other parts. Sorry, Tank fans. I'll make up for it with big pictures.

Honour & Blood
http://www.metal-archives.com/images/2/7/4/9/2749.jpg

Honour & Blood (1984) welcomed Cliff Evans(Guitar) and Graham Crallan (Drums, ex-white spirit) into Tank's line-up, replacing the founding members Peter and Mark Brabbs. Average track times are creeping…

Jump to part:
1 2 3 4 5

My week of journals dedicated to Tank began on Friday, so far I've chronicled Algy Ward's pre-Tank career, the first batch of Tank singles and the classic debut album. Having had a day off of journaling on Monday, I'm now going to attempt to cram in the second and third albums and accompanying singles' summaries today!

Power of the Hunter & This Means War

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PNW78K2FL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

crazy horses (youtube), yes, an Osmonds cover, it doesn't just share the name, was the only single lifted from Tank's sophomore effort power of the hunter.…

Jump to part:
1 2 3 4 5

In Part 1 of this journal entry, I took a brief look at Algy Ward's pre-Tank career with The Saints and The Damned. In Part 2, I mentioned Tank's vigourous early touring schedule and perused the band's first three singles. Today I will discuss filth hounds of hades.

Filth Hounds of Hades

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61Z7QFE6A3L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Having found favour with the successful Motörhead, Tank found themselves recording Filth Hounds of Hades from Dec '81 to Jan '82 with "Fast" Eddie Clarke producing. Given the strong Motörhead connection then, it won't come as too much…