The History of Power Metal

It's an exciting time in the history of power metal - we've made it to 1986, and today I'll be reviewing Domine's 1986 self-titled demo tape, the first power metal release to come from Italy! First things first, let's check out the cover: Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! I love the black and white design, and though it might have been that way due to color printing being more expensive, it looks great on this tape. I don't have much background info on this band, but from what I know, "domine" is a Latin word meaning "lord" or "master", and the band formed in 1983 in the town Piombino, in the city of Livorno. This would have given them three years to prepare the material for this first demo, and I can tell a lot of work went into it because this band is TIGHT! The first song, the epically titled "Lords of War", gets right into the action with some powerful guitar chords from Enrico Paoli and Agostino Carpo, which is perfectly a...

IT'S A WHOLE ALBUM OF HELLOWEEN!!! HELL YEAH!!! Walls of Jericho  is the debut album from German power metal legends Helloween, and it's a masterpiece! First of all, let's look at the cover: The title  Walls of Jericho  is a reference to the Battle of Jericho, which is written about in the Biblical Book of Joshua.  Wikipedia summarizes what happened  by describing it as "the first battle fought by the Israelites in the course of the conquest of Canaan. According to Joshua 6:1–27, the walls of Jericho fell after the Israelites marched around the city walls once a day for six days, seven times on the seventh day, and then blew their trumpets." Well, that was the traditional version of the story - in the Helloween version, Fangface, decked out in a kickass hood, singlehandedly destroys the walls with his bare fists, and the trumpet is played by some pumpkin-faced dude in a white T-shirt! I love the art and the concept is so outside the box yet so metal! The fr...

IT'S OMEN TIME!!! Who is Omen, you may be asking? Well, they're an amazing band who were formed in 1983 in Los Angeles, California. Their founder, Kenny Powell, was already known for being a fantastic talent within the underground metal scene. He was in Rapid Fire, a traditional heavy metal band who released one single in 1980, "School Days / Show Me Love", featuring future Omen drummer Steve Wittig as well as bassist Roger Sisson, who would join Omen in 2017 and is still with them today. Powell was also in Savage Grace, with whom he contributed guitar parts to their wonderful debut EP The Dominatress , which was released in 1983 on the legendary label Metal Blade. For more info on that label, I highly recommend the book For the Sake of Heaviness: The History of Metal Blade Records, written by Brian Slagel (the creator of the label) with Mark Eglinton. Without Metal Blade and their classic compilation series Metal Massacre , on which Metallica made their vinyl debut, ...

Welcome back, power metal warriors! Today, we'll be looking at Helloween's classic self-titled 1985 debut EP. Let's check out the artwork: Damn, that's cool! This cover features the debut of Helloween's mascot, Fangface (no relation to the Saturday morning cartoon!) and he makes a hell of a first impression with his menacing face bursting out from a pumpkin in some kind of post-apocalyptic environment with dark clouds and lightning and fire and all that cool shit! I'm not sure how the pumpkin's in the air... maybe it has some kind of supernatural powers that keep it all floaty and  immune to being set on fire? How does someone's face get stuck inside a pumpkin? Why does the pumpkin in the Helloween logo having glowing red eyes? Did it cause all of this madness? But it doesn't matter because it looks badass, and in metal, that's all that matters! Now, let's flip this record and check out the back: This back cover is really nice - the way the s...

 WOAH!!! It's time for review #1! So, according to the mighty Encyclopedia Metallum (what an epic name!), these Helloween dudes are a band formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1978. From 1978 until 1981, they were called Gentry, then from 1981-1982 they were Second Hell. In 1982-1983 they changed their name to Iron Fist (possibly inspired by the British metal band Motorhead's song/album of the same name), and then, in 1983, lightning struck and the band found their permanent name: HELLOWEEN! It's like Halloween, but extra spooky because it's in hell! Kickass! On June 17th, 1984, they released the  Death Metal Demo - which according to Metallum was untitled, but it's called the Death Metal demo because both of the songs on this tape appeared on a 1984 compilation released by the German label Noise Records entitled Death Metal . On that release, one of the bands Helloween was paired with was Running Wild (you'll be hearing more about Running Wild later - at the time they...