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A Wiesbaden based Crossover act with Demo release originating from summer or autumn 1988. The tape included 10 songs of Funcore. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Not so easy to find info of this AOR band, so atm I can't tell where they hailed from. I either think the band was more or less an international group, with just 2 german musicians in their rows. But officially Earforce is rated a german band, so here we go. Besides their "Hot line" LP from 1982 and an associated 7", their discography stayed rather lean, though musicially their sort of AOR/Hard Rock wasn't that bad sounding at all. For lads who enjoy the Hard Rock rooted AOR like early 80's Tokyo or the Raindancer album definitely worth a try.

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A Heavy Metal band from Bavaria (probably Vilshofen). Guitarist Dieter Saller joined the Power Metal band Verox in 1987. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Ebitalium was a Black Metal band from Schwarzenberg in the wider Annaberg area, that originally formed as Unholy Cruzifiction in late '92 (or early '93, the guys aren't sure about that anymore), being active till late 1993 when they eventually changed name to Ebitalium. The band members being called Lord of the Blacksouls (vocals), Bestial Demonaz of Sickness (bass), Creatura Gebennae (guitar) and Ghost of the Black Winds (drums). During late summer '94 the fourpiece recorded their first Demo "Forgotten gods of darkness" that featured a quite norse sounding Black Metal with a few Death Metal influences (probably relics of their old songs). "Gratia Tibi Dei Nostri Satanas Luciferi" and "The dark gates are open" Demos followed still within the same year. Sometime in 1996 the band name was just changed to Iloh Susej and quickly afterwards to Krig. There are also quite a number of side projects of all members existing as well, who later went to play with Andras, Dunkelgrafen, Eminenz etc. etc. etc.

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I'm not sure why the band Eclipse of the Sun is always rated a croatian band. Fact is, the band was founded 1979 in Zagreb by Zvonomir Pervan, but at some point he emigrated to Bavaria in Germany and on their first vinyl appearance on the sampler "Newcomer Rock Sampler Vol. II", that featured the two trax "Tears" and "Eyes of Satan", the band's contact address was the one of Andreas Beckerle from Oberalteich/Bavaria. Another fact is, that except of Pervan himself, all of the other guys in the band was Germans. Nevertheless, these first songs definitely doesn't even deserve the term Hard Rock at all. Just like the opener of their debut album, both featured Prog Rock, but way softer executed than later on the selfreleased debut "Real Rock'n'Roller" from 1987, which was later re-released by the CBS and another yugoslavian label also. The band's sound rarely had anything in common with Heavy Metal, more likely 80's Deep Purplish Hard Rock was their thing, but the material got carried by a nice atmosphere at least. 1990 the lads published album # 2 on the Explorer label, that featured heavier material in typical US Hair Metal tradition, in places close to early 80's Quiet Riot during their most successful phase, with quite listenable numbers. The record was available in exclusive white vinyl, while on the cover the band got introduced as just Eclipse. One might wonder what was the reason, but if you take a look at the spine of the sleeve and the labels, the band's full name Eclipse of the Sun was printed. After the album "Decadent dance" 1994 (as Eclipse) on the local Munich label Ohrwaschl Records, it got silent around the band. But Zvonomir Pervan is still known to enter the stage every now and then, singing for different bands. Markus Beck joined Goth Rockers Still Patient? after 1990.

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A Hard Rock band from Schwerin/ex-GDR, that originally started as "Da reißt was ein" in 1983 as a school band, stylistically influenced by Punk and Heavy Metal. In February '86 they changed name to simply "Einriß" and rated themselves a Hard Rock band with a repertoire of 60 songs in mid 1989. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Eisenbeisser only released one 7" on Woolfe Records and this single is quite a confusing affair because both songs was written by a producer (Frank Becking) and soundtechnican (Norbert Grimme). I dunno if these guys was part of the band since there is no line up mentioned on the sleeve. The title track is quite a cheeky rip off of Judas Priest and Fastway with a little piece of AC/DC. They indeed managed to use the refrain of "Breaking the law" in slow motion and sell it as their own. The B-side is a solid midtempo Hard Rocker. What's uncommon with this band was that they used to sing in german. There is no year mentioned but it should be from around 1983.

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Eisenherz (Iron Heart) was a Hard Rock/Metal band from Frankfurt/Oder (ex-GDR), that evolved in 1986 from the band Marathon, while vocalist Michael Gieseler came from Rockteam. The band was musically influenced by Van Halen, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy and Saxon, whose material they performed live on stage. They either was predestined to produce own songs at Jürgen Matkowitz's studio for the national broadcast service, but that undertaking failed due to missing material and the split of the band in the year 1988/89, after their main songwriter Uwe Weidling joined the Pop/Rock band Mona Lise during early '88. Michael Gieseler was later replaced by female singer Marlies Kleest and for some months the band used to play with a second guitarist as well, namely Klaus Kleest and later after Kleest's department, Michael Schiller. A Demo tape of Eisenherz though exists, entitled “Vollgepumpt”.

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One of these new generation bands of the extreme Metal scene, originating from Hamburg, where Eisenvater formed back in 1990 around Jim Sudmann and Markus Lipka. Their style was close to early Sludge Metal bands like EyeHateGod and additionally the lads added Doom Metal parts like known of Grief or Crowbar, with either Industrial and Grindcore elements, which makes it a bit difficult to find a proper drawer to threw them in. We Bite Records gave the band a chance and released their debut album "Eisenvater" (also known as "I") 1992. With Peter Bellendir on drums the second album "II" was recorded 2 years later in 1994 and and last but not least "III" in 1995 without Marek Gibney. Afterwards the guys subsequently took a little break from the business from mid 1996 to 2002, when Sudmann and Lipka restarted Eisenvater once again. Drummer Jörg Grzedzicki was already releasing albums with Hamburg's Brosch since 1988.

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A Metal band from probably North Rhine-Westphalia that was active in the late 80's. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A Hard Rock band from Kiel, not to be confused with the Kraut Rock band Elaine from Saarlouis, that previously was known as Grabstein already during the 70’s. Kiel’s Elaine published their sole album “Too black” on a local Kiel based label in 1981. The music of these lads gathered elements of the late 70's from Kraut, Blues and classic Hard Rock, without delivering any outstanding track at all. The album wasn't that essential for the early 80's german scene, though collectors of classic heavy Kraut Rock might get interested.
Elaine also was featured with the trax "Married girl", "It's a shame" and "Session Blues" on a privately pressed Live DLP "Kiel Live", that included recordings of the 16-Stunden-Mammut-Musikfestival from 24.1.1981, happening at the Kultur- und Komminikationszentrum "Die Pumpe" in Kiel, and resurfaced 1983 on the Rockactive I sampler with another exclusive track, that seriously showed a little bit of an improvement, but still provided a strong proggy 70's edge. Afterwards the bands historical footprints vanished into nothingness.

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Electric Sun was the band that Ulrich Roth (aka Uli Jon Roth) formed after he left the Scorpions in 1978 and he immediately started to record his first album "Earthquake" still in November of the same year, with help by Ule Ritgen (ex-Black Angel) and ex-Pat Travers Band/Sorry drummer Clive Edwards. Clive Edwards joined the Wild Horses afterwards and got replaced by indonesian drummer Sidhatta Gautama Schwitzki (ex-Nine Days' Wonder) on the "Fire wind" album from 1981, which turned out a bit less "excessive" and easier to listen through, than the playful, spacey guitar insanity dominated debut and featured quite good Hard Rock. The 3rd album that got released as Uli Roth and Electric Sun, featured Clive Bunker (ex-Manfred Mann's Earth Band) at the drummer position, but musically Roth's creations became again rather proggy, in places scary monumental, almost Art Rock suspicious. Rumours say he slept with his guitar during that time and in a way he must have been "insane", but nevertheless, some of his creations sounded nothing but impressive ("Eleison"). But he didn't continue Electric Sun any further and published solo albums during the 90's and 2000's instead. Ule Ritgen subsequently joined the band of Roth's brother Zeno and recorded that band's fabulous debut, before he founded Fair Warning in the 90's.

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A Space/Prog/Art Rock band from Hannover, founded by Frank Bornemann in 1969. The band is just featured for reasons of completion as most of the years, starting from 1969 to 1988 when their album "Ra" was published, the band hardly could be labeled even Hardrock. There have been a few Hard Rock trax on certain early 80's albums, but just with "Ra" these guys constantly worked with Hardrock beats, though the album suffers from a poppy drum sound either. If you are into experimental Prog Rock, we suggest you to check out Eloy's Homepage
You're gonna find all needed info incl. the band's history there.

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A shortlived AOR project from Munich (we think), featuring Harry Wieser and Harry Stümpfl, who both released a Kraut Rock album 1975 with Rockin' Mona. Apart of the quite outstanding AOR/Hard Rocker "Eagle in the sky" (with hit ambitions), the album contains very common for that time standard Classic Rock/AOR tunes, that won't really impress most of you, though for Classic Rock fans the LP might be worth a try. Harry Stümpfl 1982 at the peak of the NDW released a single with the NDW/Pop band Nervös and later 1984 an album with M.P. (not the Metal Priests!!), featuring once again ordinary Pop music. His brother Dieter hooked up with famous german Rock/Schlager superstar Wolfgang Petry, while Jürgen Weigt (he worked at the Glashaus Studio) produced Nervös' first album.

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A Speed Metal band from Fürth, that was previously active as Bourbon since the mid 80's, but changed name to Embargo in 1992 shortly before they recorded their debut album for D&S Records. The lads used to play a sort of melodic Power/Speed Metal with Helloween/Scanner touch, but the CD mix comes close to Metallica's "and justice for all" album mix, which either in places might "Dyer's eve" throw in as comparison. But in the first the Scanner/Helloween stamp will lead you on the right path. Embargo also published the albums "Children of a lesser god" (1994) and "The red tide" (1997) before they eventually disbanded 1998.

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It’s a bit sad that these Hard Rock lads rather focussed on cover versions, instead of writing own material. No clue where they came from, but there’s a demotape available with 3 songs of Tokyo (Ger), Smokie and Uriah Heep, that might already give you the impression their minds are still connected with the 70's Hard Rock and that’s so indeed. Especially the self titled Tokyo track truly knows to attract and so does “Easy livin”, but well hard to judge a band when there’s only cover versions to judge by.

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The Kümmersbruck/Amberg (east of Nuremberg) based Death Metaller Embryectomy only recorded one Demo in February '93 and despite a few timing problems with the drum department, the guys pretty much offered a quite international sound, comparable to spanish acts like the early Avulsed, old Morbid Angel, Fermento or Necrophiliac. Their grinding Death Metal interacted very good with the slower doomy atmospheric parts. But seems Embryectomy was just shortlived. Further info is needed.

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A Heavy Metal band from Munich, that was active during the mid 80's and actively played live during that time. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Emergency wasn't a german band at all, but musicians of the band was originating from Germany. The band was originating from Basel/Switzerland and either the music of these guys at least would fully fit into the usual Munich Rock scene, coz both trax of their "Turn around" 12" musically feature an highly melodic sort of AOR-ish influenced Heavy Rock in the vein of other local Munich bands Bad Hoven, Firefox or the similar acting Skyliner, that got drowned by massive keyboards, which makes the EP moving into the Europe corner. The band was active since 1987 and released a Demo tape during November 1988, that still featured keyboarder Thomas Lustenberger, before they recorded the "Turn around" 12" with Manuel Montanana on keyboards. Afterwards Emergency released their debut album "Boys will be boys" on a local Munich label in 1993 with the line up José Antonio Manzano (vocals), Pierre Silbermann (guitar), Marcel Grunder (guitar), the returned Thomas Lustenberger (keyboard), Andreas Würz (bass), Ronnie Oriet (drums), but afterwards split up right within the same year. Manuel Montanana and Csaba Zvekan of the second line up joined Sardonyx after the first 12". If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A local Nuremberg Hard Rock outfit which was active during the late 80's and recorded a 5 track Demo tape during early '89 with a lenght of 27 min. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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The Emils was a Crossover band originating from Hamburg, though the band is known a Hardcore/Punk band in the first, their early albums featured an US american style influenced Crossover sound like f. e. Agonstic Front used to play or the mid 80's Inferno stuff. The band was founded in March '85 by Ille (vocals), Oliver Makris (guitar), Sven Carstens (bass) and Carsten Zisowski (drums) and these guys would remain the classic Emils line up for a long time and would record the band's first Demo in March '87, that is available with 2 different booklets. After participating with the numbers "Noiseless scream" and "Legale Mörder" on the local sampler "Hamburg '88", the We Bite label signed the band and produced the Emils debut album "Fight together for..." in October '87. Especially this album is highly recommended for the classic Crossover/Thrashcore fans of Agnostic Front or Attitude Adjustment, as just like the title and artwork of the album claims, the Emils saw themselves between the Punk and Metal scenes and indeed, their super fast Thrashcore that dominates the album proved them right. For the second album "Es geht uns gut", they booked the Masterplan Studio in March '89, that was owned by Stefan Grujic of Mottek. Unlike the more thrashy debut, "Es geht uns gut" featured a more controlled type of Crossover with lots of doublebass driven Speed Metal influences, like the heavier Dimple Minds speed numbers and that style would become the Emil's classic sound on the further albums as well.September 1990 the album "Wer frisst wen?" was recorded once again at the Masterplan studio and after a tour together with Suckspeed and Capitol Punishment in March '91, We Bite published a triple Split Live album, featuring live cuts of that tour. 1993 a last We Bite production was released with "Licht am Horizont". before the guys was plagued by permanent line up changes. 1997 the very last Emils albums "Der schwarze Fleck" and "Partytime" was published on Widerstand Produktionen, before the band got disbanded during the following year.

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Annaberg’s Eminenz belongs to the primitive rocks of the Erzgebirge Black/Death Metal scene (south of ex-GDR), with roots going back to summer 1989, when life was officially breathed into the band by Jan „Pritze" Przybylowicz (drums), Carsten „Zwerg" Breitung (guitar), Heiko “Leschi” Leschner (guitar) and Heiko „Mülling" Müller (bass), while they already found together in the beginning of the same year. After rehearsing and trying to figure out what sounds they’d squeeze out of their instruments, in December ’89 their vocalist Jan Hubert decided to leave Eminenz and rather would join Wodan instead, which caused a slightly panic amongst the guys, since Hubert’s vacant position couldn’t get filled that easy at first. Henry Kuhnert at first tried but failed, as well as his female substitute Sabine Böttcher. But Kuhnert instead got the drummer’s position and Pritze should handle the vocals by now. Leschi was asked to leave the band, as his guitar skills couldn’t satisfy the rest of the lads any longer. Their first gig in Aue with Cronos Titan the Eminenz guys played as a fourpiece with Pritze on vox, Zwerg on guitar, Mülling on bass and Henry “Hen” Kuhnert” behind the drumkit. Right during September ’90 Leschi returned, but this time got the bass. Mülling switched over on second guitar instead. When the norwegian band Black Metal Mayhem came to East Germany to play a few shows late in 1990, Eminenz supported them at the Klubhaus „Karl Marx" in their hometowm Annaberg-Buchholz, right in autumn ’90. A few months later the guys would record their first Demo „Slayer of my daughter” in early 1991, which featured Death inspired Thrash material, but lacked in the implementation. On Demo # 2 „Necronomicon Exmortis", also recorded during 1991, but in August, Eminenz offered a skillwise much developed sound with lotsa thrashy Black Metal influences. Either a 7” was taken into consideration by an independent label in late ’91, but in the end lead to nothing. After opening for Carcass on their gig in Aue, shortly before the famous Tanztreffpunkt club was closed, the guys went into the Digan studio to record the 3rd Demo „Ghost" from March ’92, with a mainly doomy Death Metal influenced base, but turning into classic Black/Death Metal on further songs. Songs of the same session would also appear on the lesser known „Demons from the black abyss" Demo. After the „Blasphemy - Live" Demo from summer ’92, „Preacher of darkness" was finished in December ’92, recorded with Thomas Ebert (Mortal Discipline) on keyboards, one of the owners of the Digan Studio respectively. This Demo gained Eminenz a deal with austrian label Lethal Records in summer ’93, who’d release their debut CD „Exorial”. In the meanwhile Benedikt Kern had permanently joined on keyboards, but would leave together with Zwerg right after the album release in early ’94. Kern went on to Eternal Peace, whereas Zwerg (he played shortly in Sarkophag as well) would focuss on his side projects Opacity and Belmez and later sung in Mortal Discipline. Falk Lorenz (ex-Carcinoma/Opacity) would fill the gap on keyboards. When Leschi left Eminenz during 1995 as well, they hired Enrico „Black Abysss” Landrock (Ric) on bass, formerly of Unholy Cruzifiction/Ebitalium/Andras to record the second album “The heretic” in 1996. Having not turned away even a bit from their atmospheric keyboard driven Black/Death Metal sound, the band prepared their 3rd album „Anti-Genesis (On the 8th day I destroy godcreation)” this time for Last Episode in 1998. 1999 their long time drummer Hen left the band to focus on his firm and from this time on Eminenz’ line up changed permanently. Drummers and keyboard players came and went away again. After the „The Blackest Dimension" album (2000) recorded with Heretic shortly on drums for about a year, Eminenz kinda disappeared and mainly played a few live shows every now and then. After a longer break, eventually 2007 Mülling, Pritze and Ric returned with ex-Rimmersgard/Testimony drummer Asmon and Seelenwinter's Susan on keyboards on the selftitled album “Eminenz”, but would need again 4 years for the next selfproduced release „Nemesis Noctura" in 2011. The so far last album “Diabolical warfare” was released completely unsuspected not less than 10 years later on Northern Silence Productions, again with different musicians and only Mülling, Pritze and Ric remaining of the band’s old hard core.

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The Emm Cramer Band was based somewhere in the Sauerland area (between Bielefeld and Wuppertal) and there's a selfproduced 7" available of this female fronted Rock band from probably the very late 80's. Unfortunately I just could find 4 names of ex-musicians, but not of the quite good singing girl behind the microphone, as the lads was active till in the late 2000's as a cover band by playing songs of Metallica, AC/DC, Van Halen, Ozzy etc. The sleeve of the single doesn't provides any info at all and musically they pretty much hadn't much in common with the aforementioned bands on both featured trax. Musically somewhere between AOR and Hard Rock acting, the songs "Rainbow in the night" and "Ride on" got a strong bluesy edge. On "Ride on" I feel slightly reminded of Blues Rockers The Black Crowes. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A Heavy Metal band from the Gütersloh area, active around 1986. If you have more info please get in touch.

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A very young speedy Heavy/Power Metal band from deepest Bavaria formed in January '87. For January '88 a Demo tape recording session was planned. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A classic Hard Rock band from Wuppertal, that was active from the late 70's till around 1982 and debuted with the "Sadistic Sadie" 7" 1980 (not much recommended). 1981 before the bands only album was recorded, Oliver Petry (vocals), Dirk Fleck (bass) and Fred Otto (drums) replaced König and Naumann. The selftitled album features just typical AC/DC style powerful Hard Rock sound with slightly Blues edge. After the album the band split up already around 1982, while Dirk Fleck and Fred Otto played together for a short while in Fleck's band "Fleck". Otto would subsequently found the legendary Random in 1983. Dirk Fleck after this musical sidestep would join the right path again in the late 80's with the band Mama. During 1988 all of the guys, Bernd Kaspers, Roland Lange, Dirk Fleck, Oliver Petry and Fred Otto returned united under the monicker Exit and released a single on Rooceter Music, featuring the Led Zeppelin cover "Whole lotta love".

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A local Heavy Metal band from Stadthagen, featuring the former Exhaust vocalist Frank König. The band was active from at least 1984 till 1986, when Frank König left to record an own 4 track Demo tape. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Though Discogs lists this band as Hardcore and Punk band, the truth is these lads from probably the greater Bonn area celebrated knotless US american style Power Metal like it was common in the very late 80's and early 90's when Thrash kinda turned into Power/Thrash. Not surprisingly both En-Force songs "Grass turned grey" (especially on this track) and "Incantation of hatred" adopted several late 80's Metallica influences and partly also remind me stylistically slightly of the US band Wanted. In places Guido's vocals turns slightly annoying when he's trying to give his vocal style a psychedelic touch. Nevertheless, their 7" is a quite unknown piece, even for specialized german Metal collectors.

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A quite modern sounding Groove Metal band from Gifhorn in the Wolfsburg area, active in the early 90's. Just one 5 track Demo is known, recorded in June '93 at the Kaschpa Studio.

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A classic Metal band from Coburg/Bavaria, that was named after their female vocalist Tanja Ender and started in 1987. Their Demo "H" with sexy cover was recorded in 1989 and features 5 neat Power Metal bangers, that due to Tanja often remind of the heavier Warlock days. Thomas Korndörfer and Jochen Weiser after the Demo left the band around early 1990, that still existed till 1991 with Jens Koehn (ex-Pilgrim) behind the drums, who quit in autumn '91. The guys also had a video tape "Crazy moon" for sale. Korndörfer joined locals Chalice and Crown in 1994. Further info is welcome.

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A thrashing Death Metal act from Trusetal/Thüringen (ex-GDR) founded in 1990 that imo published both their releases too early. The demo contains low level Death Metal with Thrash influences and at least on the title track you can hear hints of the classic Death sound from the 80's. But then the level goes down drastically and the interaction of the musicians appears far below the usual standards. On the "False truth" 7" (with white labels) you got almost the same picture while here the sound is just terrible low and now you clearly can hear all the mistakes that on the Demo the bassy sound prevented. The songwriting either is catastrophic. I bet they didn't sell much of these singles back in the day. On the 7" the troop shrunk to a trio. The old drummer Denis was replaced by Kranich and Heiko Gerull took over the vocals as well and exactly this Heiko Gerull later founded the Pagan Metal band Menhir.

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Energy from Düsseldorf was the pool for musicians from the Düsseldorf area that was previously active in Stormwind, U.D.O. and Warlock. Frank Rittel and Peter Szigeti was playing together since 1980 in Snakebite and later in Warlock. Energy was founded in summer '88, after Stormwind dissolved and Rittel and Szigeti left U.D.O. Harry Amthor came from Forced Entry, who just changed name to STS 8 Mission. The guys recorded 3 Demo tapes till 1991 that didn't led to any record deal at all. Harry Amthor joined Tarot and Szigeti tried with Velvet Viper. By all the prominent bands the guys did play with, you can imagine that Energy's kind of Metal was close to the aforementioned acts, settled in the beginning in the midtempo, but right with the second tape got much more varied, yet kept their melodic edge nevertheless.

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The band Enforce was formed in 1984, in Dietzenbach, south of Frankfurt and the lads themselves used to call their style melodic Heavy Rock. In 1985 the "In search of wisdom" demo was released, and while guitarist Dirk Noschinsky sang on this demo, this role was shortly after passed on to ex-Wallop vocalist Mick Wega. According to the Metal Hammer band info, the sound of the tape was merging influences of Scorpions/Maiden with Triumph's grade of commerce. If you have more info, please get in contact.

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A local Thrash Metal troop hailing from Waltrop in the Herne/Dortmund region. The band was active during the fall of the 80’s and can be either seen and heard live in the new DVD of the “Total Thrash" documentary, where they do sound a bit like in the Violent Force vein, but it's not confirmed that the guys ever recorded any Demos. They at least survived till 1990, when we saw a last mention of the band. Further info is needed.

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A melodic Power Metal band from Osnabrück that already formed during 1985/86. Guido Steinchen, one of their early guitarists was 1987 founding member of Suckspeed. The band mentioned influences of Iron Maiden, Flotsam & Jetsam, Riot, Black Sabbath and Queensryche. Enola Gay was often seen playing live during the mid/late 80's, though it's yet not really confirmed if they already released a Demo prior to "The apocalytic dream" from 1989. Michael Hildebrandt on the follow up tape "The apocalyptic dream Part II" from late 1990, was the only guitarist in the band, since Carsten Duhme had left Enola Gay a while ago, while the trax "The sign" and "Kingdom of the light" of that recording appeared on the local compilation "Wizzards From OS" (1991). Ex-S.D.I. guitarist Rainer Rage afterwards joined in 1991 and appeared on their 3rd Demo "Spectrum of colours" (March 1993) together with Carsten "Cagge", who had replaced long time guitarist Michael Hildebrandt. The almost Accept-ish appearing Power Metal sound with a few Judas Priest/Queensryche vocal influences of that Demo finally gained them a deal with Shark Records, so eventually the "F.O.T.H." entitled debut could be available in 1995. The albums "Pressure" (1996) and "Strange encounter" (1999) still was recorded before Enoly Gay disappeared around 2001. If you have more info please get in touch.

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A Death Metal band from Cottbus (ex-GDR), that was formed by Markus Lehnigk (guitar), Dirk Olesch (bass) and Gerd Zaunig (vocals, drums), whose first steps as a real band (yet no name was given at that time) are dating back to May 1990. 6 months later the guys picked up the monicker Necrophenistic Nightmare and additionally added Birk Hübner on vocals to the line up. During January ‘91 the fourpiece eventually recorded their first Demo “Tales of insanity”, but being absolutely unhappy with the final result, they buried the recordings. After several live gigs where they amongst other local acts also could support Sinister and Disharmonic Orchestra, they decided to change the band’s name to Enslaved in July '91, and recorded 7 songs right in August, that 5 of them became their Demo “Dark tales of insanity". 3 more would appear on a Split 7” with Necromance in the future, released on Morbid Records. It took 2 more years till the lads with the "Twisted nature" 7" could at last deliver something worth to mention. Dirk Olesch had left Enslaved in the meanwhile to join first Dayzolate in 1993 and one year later Postmortem. Marcus Wurdel replaced him on bass and Lars Weber was the band's new drummer, while the guys classic Death Metal style on "Twisted nature" slightly reminded of the early works of Treblinka/Tiamat or Cemetary. Their debut album "Where is the meaning" was eventually published 1994, but stylistically the lads had turned away from the old Death Metal sound and instead tried with a bit more modern sounding thrashy, experimental sort of Avantgarde Death Metal. After the "Kleine Seele" album 1997 the band changed name to Killing Spree.

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Power/Thrashers of the early 90's from Crailsheim between Stuttgart and Nuremberg. These guys combined the late 80's midtempo US Thrash with some progressive elements, still the straight forward Thrash attacks are badly missing on their "Beyond the doors" debut Demo from October '91. A Promo tape from 1992 should exist as well, while their track "Forced to confess" made it on a part of the Peace-Eater underground CD series. Afterwards it went silent around Enslaved. Thorsten Bauer joined Atrocity in 1994.

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Founded in Zweibrücken 1990, Death Metallers Entera's first lifesign was a selfproduced single, recorded in June '93, that featured 3 songs with bad Demo production (not as worse as the Endless Pain single tough), stylistically in the vein of Benediction rehearsal trax for "Subsconscious terror" or something like that. Especially the vocal trax are lacking a hell of power, caused by the bad production and the nonexistent vocal effects, that usually belong to any proper Death Metal recording session. For a Demo it would have been ok, lower middle league stuff, but for a vinyl release it's a pretty low level affair. The lads later in the 2000's started releasing a number of albums and are still alive nowadays.

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A local Hamburg based raw Thrash Metal band with amateurish charm, that Tom Quast of Asmodis used to play with during the mid 80's under the synonym of "Unser Hippie". The guys recorded at least one Demo tape within 1986, as two of these songs ("Domain of Antichrist" and "Poserdeath") was featured on the local Hamburg compilation Total Massacre Vol. 1. If you got more info, please contact us.

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The Thrashers Entophyte from Bochum was originally founded as Exurist in 1988 and changed name to Entophyte in 1989. The guys recorded one album in late 1991 that was released on CD only in 1992. Entophyte was playing a not so straight sort of US style proggy Thrash, that features tons of breaks and wild stakkato like outbursts. The guys was acting on a higher technical level, though they wasn't always able to implement that into songstructures that was easy to follow. 80's Techno Thrash, in places in the vein of Depressive Age and canadian Obliveon sounding, with melodic vocals and those raw Thrash parts is a quite hard to swallow brew.

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Entry from Hamburg originally formed during 1981 as Separate Reality and released a nice 7" on the Pirol label in 1988 that features the cool Heavy Rocker "Metal skies" and the more or less rather AORish "Enough", who's refrain could be compared to a heavier form of Bachmann Turner Overdrive's "You ain't seen nothing yet" in a way. Later the guys also recorded a 6 track Demo tape in 1991, who's drum parts was all done by still Jürgen Schlottau, but the booklet already mentions Michael Link (ex-MP) as new drummer. Additionally David Roth (keyboard) and Goetz Sucke (vocals) had joined the band while Struck and Gliese left Separate Reality after the single. That tape featured their wellknown blend of Prog Metal and Hard Rock sounds, offering either occasional Fates Warning hints. 1992, when Stefan Vermehren became their new singer, the lads decided to change the band's name to Entry and released the "Out of court" Demo the following year. Entry in the meanwhile kept the former upperclass melodic Hard Rock/Metal sound that Separate Reality used to perform as well and presented quite typical late 80's material during the mid 90's. Another Demo was recorded before the band went into a studio to record the album "Face the world" back in 1996, which though wasn't released before 1999, due to different internal hassle.

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The german Rock legend's Epitaph story began in winter 1969 in Dortmund, when Cliff Jackson, Bernd Kolbe and James McGillivray formed the band Fagin's Epitaph. After diverse live gigs with Black Sabbath, Yes or Rory Gallagher, the producer Günter Boras helped the band signing a record deal with the Polydor label and the guys relocated to Hannover. With the later Jane guitarist Klaus Walz completing the classic fourpiece, they shortened name to just Epitaph and recorded their selftitled debut album 1971 in London. After 2 more albums in the early 70's which aren't of interest for us at all, because the band's sound at his early stage was just plain Kraut Rock with proggy touch, the interesting phase started with the band's 4th album "Return to reality" from 1979, that was recorded with the line up: Fritz Randow (drums, ex-Eloy), Cliff Jackson (guitar), Heinz Glass (guitar), Michael Karch (keyboard) and Harvey Janssen (bass, ex-Eloy). The band's early Kraut Rock sound merged with classic Hard Rock and AOR tunes now and throughout the following years they would keep that sound till Michael Karch left them and Cliff Jackson reformed Epitaph by adding the former members Klaus Walz (guitar) and Bernd Kolbe (bass) plus Norbert Lehmann (drums) to record the "Danger man" album in 1982. Musically the band's last album marks their heaviest, though we are still speaking of classic Hard Rock. During the following years no more albums was produced, but Epitaph used the time to work on new material and either another musical concept, which caused the need to change the bandname into Kingdom in 1985/86, that shortly after the release of their fantastic debut album, once again had to get renamed to Domain in 1987.

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Frankfurt thrashers formerly known as Depraved, who released a colorful 5-song demo of straight-forward, not particularly melodic Thrash Metal with some hints of HC in 1991. If you have more info, please get in contact.

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According to their own words, a chaotic Thrash Metal band troop from Regensburg/Bavaria, who released a 14 song Demo tape in June '88 with a total lenght of 22 min. So better expect a form of Crossover. Behjan Mirhadi was also member of Apoplexy at the same time. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A band with a strange name, named after band leader Bernhard Erdmann-Härchen, who formed the band in the ex-GDR already in the late 70’s it seems under the name of "Erdmann & Co". With a sort of silly Rock tunes they could leave a good impression at the “FDJ-Werkstattwoche” happening in Suhl during October '80. The track "Fernsehen" recorded there even appeared on the sampler "Auf dem Wege ... 2”. Yet it took a while and it seems Erdmann went on hiatus for a few years, before Bernhard Erdmann-Härchen reformed the band early '85 in Fürstenwalde, east of Berlin with Andreas Winzenhöhler (vocals), Bernhard Erdmann-Härchen (guitar), Mike Krüger (guitar), Dietmar Kuntscher (bass), Matthias Rudolph (drums), now acting as just “Erdmann”. The quintet had completely changed it's style, influenced now by Accept, Saxon, Maiden and Priest. Despite being rated skillwise above average, due to their lyrics, they wasn't allowed to produce material for the national broadcast service any longer. Except of a few features in national music magazines during 1986, there's not much known of this band's further future at all. Matthias Rudolph (drums) was later replaced by Holger Otto.Their vocalist Andreas Winzenhöhler joined Berlin's Metall in 1986, so we guess they disappeared shortly later. Two of their own titles was called "7 x allein" and "Prof. Dr Borrmann".

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One of the special tips of the 80's Hamburg scene was the band Madhouse who used to call their style "Pure Metal". But originally the band started under the monicker of Erection in 1986. After playing a gig at a sort of madhouse, the guys decided to change name to Madhouse in March '87. Musically they saw themselves influenced by Metallica and Slayer. Sadly no recordings of Erection are known to exist. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A studio project from Hamburg/Berlin, initiated by Hamburg's guitar legend Roy Last and Long Tall 99 guitarist Stefan to jam around with friends. That's why Berlin's Hardrocker Bernward Büker (Bernward Büker Bande) joined them and Pink Cream 69's Kosta Zafiriou was playing drums on their track "Highway 99" on the obscure local Hamburg compilation " The Desert's still alive Vol. II - Hard and Heavy" from 1990, the featured a solid kind of classic Hard Rock, similar to Long Tall 99's R'n'R inspired style.

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Though the Erosion lads are often refered a rather Hardcore band and either all of their records was published on the Hardcore label We Bite Records, at least in the beginning the guys used to play a rather raw and typical Thrash Metal. Erosion was founded in Hamburg as Black Laws in the mid 80's and featured besides Stefan Römhild (ex-OHL) either the ex-Minotaur Ulf Kaiser and Chris Zenk, before they changed their name to Erosion in early 1987 when they recorded "The way of force" Demo in February. The Demo contains songs that would later apppear on the band's debut "Mortal agony" as well, and like stated above, their sound was a pretty raw type of Thrash with a few Hardcore/Crossover hints like f.e. Agnostic Front and built the perfect opposite to the common style Thrash acts like Deathrow, Kreator or Destruction. The exclusive track "Prince of hell" was used for a local Hamburg Punk/Hardcore sampler and the second album "Thoughts" already was published a while later in 1989. The former raw Hardcore/Thrash had to sidestep a way more technically executed Thrash style on "Thoughts", which didn't suit the guys so well at all, as all the brutality that "Mortal agony" spread got drowned in breaks. Rainer Wischnewski had replaced Jan Brünning on bass and also Ulf Kaiser quit to get replaced by ex-Buxom Coxcomb guitarist Michael Hankel. Surprisingly the Erosion lads with the release of "III" in 1992 kinda returned to the brutal Crossover/Thrash sound of the early days and sounded closer to "Mortal agony" than to the previous album "Thoughts". But after the album "Down..." (1995), they eventually called it a day the next year.

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Young Langen thrashers who had their debut gig in early 1990 at a local culture centre. If you have more info, please get in touch.

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Escape from Siegen was founded around late 1986 or early '87, featuring the Expect No Mercy member Mike Külpmann, as well as ex-Thunderbolt Arno Kuttig. The guys didn't hesitate too long to start producing several Demo tapes throughout 1987 and '88, while the last one "Children of the city" in album lenght, contained quite numerous trax that would later appear on their selftitled debut album again. Ingo Nowotny, probably being tired of producing fake albums, has been smarter than other labels and signed the guys. The 1989 released album features pretty good melodic Heavy Metal with several Helloween-ish hints in the way of performing on their instruments, though they didn't sound like Helloween at all. In contrary to the rather midpaced, way softer sounding Demo material, I guess the studio production fit them better, as even though they might be counted rather to the Melodic Metal faction, their sound appeared quite heavy, comparable to bands like Violent Touch, heavier Sinner, Steeler or Outcast. Completely unexpected several years after the debut in 1995, the lads returned with their second and last album "II", that once again was produced by Metal Enterprises and came with a for that label typical cover "artwork". The line up featured besides the old-stagers Boris Voß and Arno Kuttig, the new members Henrik Heide (bass), ex-Inner Sanctum Michael Achenbach (vocals) and his brother Robin on drums.

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Kaiserslautern's Escape started during 1989 as a cover band and was active till 1990, when the band changed name to GO 90. The 2 ex-Carissa members Holger Schroth and also Martin Kröher joined GO 90 in early 1991. Already in autumn the guys changed name to Seremon Heights, but soon the band split up already and Kröher went to play with Rough Velvet the following year. Further info is welcome.

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This Remscheid-trio got such ferocious slaggings of both their demos in the German metal mag Escape, that the reviewer forgot (or was unable) to describe the music. Since they at least bothered to feature them, we'll have to assume we're at least talking about some form of Metal-related noise, though very poorly performed. If you have more info, please get in contact.

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Founded 1986 in Marl, the band Eternal Dirge started as fourpiece, but soon would try as trio with Timo Knopf (vox, guitar), Karsten Böhnke (bass, ex-Musty Guts), Ralf Schönberg (drums) recording the band's first 2 Demos "Anthem of anxiety" and "Finis Novissima Vox" both in 1988, till Dirk Köster (guitar, ex-Dipsomania) joined the band 1989, to record the next two tapes "Right to the core" (1989) and "Pressurize dehumanize" (1990), without being member of Eternal Dirge anymore himself when the 1990'er tape was available, as he joined Intoxicate. Patrick Kalla (ex-Musty Guts/Dissection) got inherited his guitar, and with the line up Kalla, Knopf, Böhnke and Schönberg the band recorded their debut album "Morbus Ascendit" in July '92, which got published on the label of the Punk band Hass. Formerly the sound of Eternal Dirge was way more classic Death/Thrash influenced by bands like Kreator or Invocator, but on "Morbus Ascendit" the lads had stylistically changed to a slightly more technically thrashing Death Metal with (too) many breaks. After years of silence, Eternal Dirge returned 1996 with the "Khaos Magick" album and "My sweet Satan" 7", but soon disbanded afterwards still within the same year. Patrick Kalla kept on playing in his main band Tsatthoggua during the following years.

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Essen locals, who've been active around 1990. We yet don't have further info, but guess this band would fit the Thrash criteria most probably.

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A Metal band from southern Germany that was playing live at an Open Air Festival in Eschelbronn/Kallenberg during summer '89. If you got further info, please get in touch.

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Lightweight Heavyrockers from Mössingen, south of Tübingen/Stuttgart, active during the early 90's, who started most probably around 1989/90 since on the pic of their 1991 selfproduced album "Find your way" a bunch of schoolboys are to see. As you already could notice in Eternal Light's logo, this band was indeed following the eternal light of god and must be added to the small White "Metal" clientele of Germany's scene back in the day. Musically not even bad acting Eternal Light put 12 songs on the album, that feature standard, keyboard pregnanted, melodic Hard'n'Heavy Rock with a handful of standout tracks (as well as alot average material), musically in the vein of perhaps Love Trick and similar troops, but sadly mediocre vocal performance. Pila Music released another widely ignored second album, entitled "Spread your wings", of these guys in 1993, where Jochen Pflumm had taken Michael Schäfer's place, which also marked Eternal Light's last prayer, though the lads didn't change a bit of their old style and either acted more grown on it. Alone Volker Bohlien returned in 2003 with Sprinx, who released their "Who else but you" EP in that year.

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A Hardcore/Thrash Metal project from Weil am Rhein, who labeled themselves to be influenced by M.O.D. and D.R.I. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Most probably a Thrash or either Death Metal band from Aurich/Emden, featuring Gregor Zielhardt of Silent Terror. There aren't any recordings known, but the band was active since already the fall of the 80's till at least 1990. Further info is needed.

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Originally formed under the monicker Acrid 1984 in Siegen by Savage Bastard (guitar) and Hellish Tormentor (drums), the diabolic duo surprised with a mad speed and made just one mistake, their Demos both was "homerecordings", done by themselves. Despite all those early Black (Death) Metal outfits sounded pretty horrible, it's not really the case with Acrid. With a proper studio recording these guys name would be known to a wider audience most probably, though they've been faves in tapetrader circles, being one of the really few early extreme acts that actually sounded good. Fans of old brazilian pioneers like early Sarcofago should give them a try definitely. On the debut "Devil's Metal" from 1985, Savage Bastard did all vocals, while at a later stage Hellish Tormentor jumped in and sung on the second effort "Acrid beasts" (1986). After another inofficial reh/recording done within the same year, the lads changed name to Eternal Trash in mid '87 and released one more Demo entitled "Procession", before they vanished from the screen.

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The band Eternity is just known for a track on the "Hart und genau" compilation released on CBR Records. Their song "Cryin' in the rain" is an epic Hard Rock ballad with good atmoshere. If you got more info of this band, please get in touch.

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A local melodic Metal band from Bietigheim-Bissingen, who only published an independent 12" EP, that was recorded in December '89. Overall the 4 trax featured mainly midpaced Heavy Metal with permanent melodic touch, while the speedy "I'm on fire" in places either reminds slightly of Helloween. Hints of late 80's Maiden are noticeable also. The whole could be compared to Saint Vania's EP, but not sharing the same level.

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A Hard Rock band in the vein of Blue Oyster Cult, that released a 2 track Demo in early 1985. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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February 1985 the band Evenstorm was founded in Elsendorf by Franz Ziegler, Klaus Malik, Michael Bernert, Stefan Kreitczick plus an unknown guy on bass. Evenstorm recorded their first 3 track Demo tape in May of the same year, and in December '86 their bassist left the band, so their vocalist Franz Ziegler handled the bass as well for the next 30 years. In April '87 the lads professionally recorded their "...Attacks the town" Demo tape, which sold about 800 copies and reserved them a spot on the local sampler "Rock Around Regensburg", released in August '87. Still within the same year in December, Evenstorm got invited to contribute a song for the swiss sampler "Rock on the Tops '88", so they grabbed their equipment to drive to Ebikon to record the track "Time riders". The feedback of the compilation track went out overwhelming, including airplay on several swiss radiostations, which resulted in the offer to record a full album inside the same studio and once again in April '88 the lads tramped to Switzerland to record their debut album till May '88, when the recordings got finished. Unfortunately, though a few companies showed interest, but the conditions wasn't of Evenstorm's liking, so it took the guys till December 1990 to decide to release the album independently on the Rockwerk label. (Just for explanation, Rockwerk was the label of the German Organization of Rock and Pop musicians. The records was manufactured by them, but the bands had to pay all expenses at their own costs and this included the distrubition of the records.) In July '91 the "...Attacks the town!" LP's finally was available in a limited edition of 1000 copies. Eventhough the mainly speedy classic Heavy Metal material might have sounded archetypical for the year 1988, in late 1991 the wind had blown from a different direction. The band couldn't sell all pieces of the records at all and still nowadays offer them at their shop. After another Demo in 1993, the guys recorded the "Wrestle & Rock" EP 1995 and then turned into a hobby band, that still is playing live nowadays and recording albums from time to time. One last compilation appearance happened with the track "Breakout" on the local spread "Heimatklänge" CD in 1996.
Check out Evenstorm's Homepage

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A Neo Prog Rock/Metal band from Moers/Krefeld, west of Duisburg, formed by Ralf Janssen, Christian Moos and Schymy in 1989. The ex-Jester's Palace Oliver Philipps joined the guys who had trouble finding a proper vocalist for their Marillion/Rush inspired vision previously. Spring 1990 the Metal Hammer announced Everon's first album to be produced by Scanner's Shelko (Željko Topalović) atm, that well seemed was never used or whatever, as officially the first Everon album "Paradoxes" is refered to be produced by Eroc in his Woodhouse Studios during 1992, and got finished later in that year, while the indie label SI Music released the album the following year in May. "Paradoxes" features a compact, yet stunning and songwritingwise impressive mature mix of Metal and Prog Rock with complex structures and became a top seller of the label with big success in Japan. Till 2008 6 more albums followed. You can take a survey yourself at the band's Homepage

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Obscure local Heavy Metal troop from Wuppertal, active in the mid 80's, who performed on stage in spring '85 at a Rockfabrik Metal festival. There's at least one Demo available of these guys. If you have more info please get in touch.

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Evoked Doom from Burladingen, south of Stuttgart, originally was formed as Pain in 1984 by both obviously Hellhammer/Celtic Frost influenced Manfred "Zombie" Kantz and Oliver "Sherron" Barth with the aim to create similar early Death Metal sounds. Later the guys changed name to Evoked Doom and firstly recorded a Hellhammer-ish, but amateurish sounding Reh/Demo in 1985. 1986 one more selftitled Demo recorded with 2 session musicians "O.K." and "Agent" on guitars plus a drum machine (that got named "Lomp") offered better sound and a sort of once again amateurish Death/Thrash style. The whole spook was eventually over in 1987, when Oliver Barth afterwards formed Furious Rankness.

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A traditional Heavy Metal/Rock band from Inzigkofe, Baden-Württemberg who released 2 demos in the early 90's. From what we've read about the first 1991 tape we're talking about a rather average stuff. Inbetween this and the 2nd demo, a certain Uli Mahlenbrey, possibly from Tuttlingen Prog-Power Metal obscurists Sanctuary had a short stint with the band. 2 new members, Inge and Klaus were also added to the line-up around this time. If you have more info, please get in touch.

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A band from Bavaria or at least southern Germany, that according to the bands they shared stage with during 1990, we assume Exabosch being a Thrash Metal outfit. More info is welcome.

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Founded as Excenter back in 1987 in the city of Güstrow in the north of the ex-GDR, the band originally started as a classic Heavy Metal quintet, but moved more and more into the Speed Metal corner during the following years. The band later shrunk to just a trio and changed name to Damien Breed during 1989. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Rumpel Thrashers from Ludwigshafen, featuring a number of later Crematory musicians like Harald Heine, Markus Jüllich and ex-Sudden Darkness Lothar Först. The latter just stayed in the band for a year after Excess was baptized back in 1988 and didn't play on any of the band's future Demos. Stylistically they adopted a sort of basic Death/Thrash in the vein of british Desecrator. During 1989 the trio recorded 2 Demos and afterwards Jüllich got replaced by Thomas Lösel (joined Malignity), still late in '89. He either was replaced 1990 by ex-Reptile/Sudden Darkness drummer Andreas Neuderth who recorded 2 more Death Metal tapes with Excess in 1992, before they eventually split up. Heine and their new vocalist Claus Oehler went to play with Malignity, while Aschenbrenner and Neuderth recorded a Demo with Ripping Entrails. Since 2014 Excess is active again.

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A Hard Rock/Metal band from Hamburg's local scene of the early 90's. In the beginning the band was still on the road with female vocalist Uli Brandt, who also sung on the band's debut Demo "Hard Rock", that was recorded at Kai Hansen's studio in August '93. Usually those late Demos doesn't really catch the spirit of the 80's anymore, but Exciss luckily didn't fall under this category. The tape could surprise with a well produced powerful sound and either all of the 5 trax tended somewhere between the pounding Heavy Metal with a few spare Hard Rock hints and speedy Metal like on "Get up". Especially Uli Brandt's vocals knew to convince, just imagine Doro with a better, more varied voice or f.e. Mandrake's Ramona Dreyer. 1994 Brandt left the band and Wenzel Wisch took her role on the band's only album "Hear and now", released on Gigastore Music in 1995. What happened later is hard to tell, the band seems to have played still throughout the whole 1990's and then disappeared.

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Speed Metal act from Harxheim active in the mid 80's. If you have more info please get in touch.

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A local Thrash band from East Berlin (ex-GDR), who formerly was already active as Charisma, but when vocalist Marco Ende joined late in 1989, the guys changed name straight to Exciting Vision. The band started gigging, but Piet then after the fall of the wall, right in early 1990 moved to the western part. The band on the other hand was lucky to find Matthias Wölfert as replacement in summer, who was originally living in Kiel, in the western part of Germany. Exciting Vision performed a slightly early Slayer and Vendetta style influenced Metal on their first 2 Demos released in April and November ‘91. The band widht was quite widespread, Thrash, progressive and midtempo parts rotated without hesitations, while the track “Under his command” taken off the second Demo was either aired at the "Tendenz Hard bis Heavy". Seems like these guys after the Demos then completely withdrew, as till 1996 no more recordings surfaced so far. They though returned with the "Kick ass" Demo right in the middle of the 90's (1996), but the group nevertheless went on hiatus some years later in 1999 without further releases. 2009 the original members then decided to reunite and Exciting Vision’s seen live on stage from that day on once again. 2016 the lads independently produced their MCD “Satan’s watchdog”, that features still a sort of Death/Thrash, but with slightly modern note. So far the Exciting Vision guys are still around.

(Thanx to Det for info)

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Excrement Terror was a short lived Grindcore project from Schneeberg/Saxony (ex-GDR) consisting of the two Bloodbrain guys Tino Mothes and Andreas Schwach who got a little help from ex and future band mates Heiko Kahn (drums) and Tino Röder (guitar) to produce some ear-battering noise in 1990. The demo got not released before 1993, but nobody would spill a single tear if they would have locked it in their basement.

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Exec Justice from Erntebrück, near Siegen, formed already in 1983 as the same trio, consisting of Rothenpieler, Bernshausen and Doering, who would remain the hard core of the band, despite them testing several singers in the early phase of the band history though. Due to problems with finding the proper vocalist, Exe Justice’s debut Demo recorded during 1985 remained a completely instrumental affair. Jochen Rothenpieler later decided to take over vocals on these guys second output from 1989 ”True life is no pleasure” nevertheless, to at least provide something. This Demo features with 40 min album lenght, while the guys performed a progressive form of Power Metal with Thrash influences that here and there slightly sometimes even reminds of Vendetta. Around 1995 the trio then formed (or simply changed name to) Favourite Son.

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Despite the rather Metal spreading bandname, Executor was just a commercially influenced Hard Rock act from Lambsheim/Mannheim. The band was playing live at an Open Air Festival in Eschelbronn/Kallenberg during summer '89 and also recorded a 3 track Demo within the same year, that could be seen somewhere in the Axxis/Kingdom vein, featuring midpaced Heavy Rock with female background vocals of their keyboarder Corinna Kokot, who left the band though after the Demo late in 1989. The Demo received pretty good reviews back in the day, but that didn't help Executor any further. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Exhaust indirectly was formed of the remains of the Rock band Mom's Gang from Minden, where Michael Gerber (guitar), Axel Müller (drums) and Thomas von Kölln (vocals) was playing since 1981. Late 1981 the guys formed Exhaust together with Torsten Redeker (bass) and "Mom" on guitar and started rehearsing songs from the Deutsch Rock and Hard Rock genres. When Thomas von Kölln and Mom quit to form their NDW band Wendepunkt, in late 1982 Exhaust finally could establish a steady line with new vocalist Frank König (ex-Button) and Jürgen Buhrmester on bass, who came from the band Zimmerbrand, and musically fully turned into a Heavy Metal band. During the following months they guys spent their time by playing live to get known within the area around Minden, till they recorded 2 trax for a 7", that was released in early 1984 in a limited edition of 500 copies and sold just locally and at gigs of the band. Both of the songs do feature archetypical german style Heavy Metal like the very early Mad Max material. Afterwards in June '84 Buhrmester quit the music business for the rest of the 80's till he eventually founded the Hard Rock cover band Vintage in 1990. Either Frank König left the band in June to join Empress. The rest of Exhaust hired the ex-vocalist Thomas von Kölln on keyboards, while Michael Gerber switched over to the bass and Torsten Redeker besides guitar also took over the micro. The fourpiece still recorded several studio songs till 1988, but none of them would appear on any further release anymore, though some of those trax got local airplay. Either musically the band's early Heavy Metal sound after 1984 turned into melodic Hard Rock. In April '88 Torsten Redeker called it a day and Michael Gerber took the guitarist's position again. The bass part got the newly joined Olaf Kaiser. After a fire inside their rehearsal room in late 1988, the band disbanded as all their equipment got destroyed. 1996 most of they guys reformed Exhaust as a hobby band once again.

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A local Metal band from most probably Hessen, that was active during the early 90's. Further info is needed.

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A progressive Power Metal band from Nuremberg, that was founded in 1988 and featured ex-Axiom bassist Thomas Hahn. The lads released their debut Demo 1989 and afterwards started recording the "Reign in violence" album, which was dropped in the end and remained unreleased till 2001, when Hidden Metal Gems Records finally published the album in a limited edition of 500 vinyls. According to certain info, the band members should not have been involved into the whole procedure at all and as far as I'm concearned they'be been quite surprised when they got knowledge of the album, as the guys reunited and recorded 2 more albums starting from 2004. Nevertheless "Reign in violence" featured a progressive, yet melodic sort of archetypical playful Power Metal that's more than once flirting with epic influences.

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A Hard Rock band that's only known to be featured on a local compilation on the C.B.R. label released in 1984. Exit was the most interesting band on that record, offering a slightly spacy Hard Rock with wild guitar solo and heavier main riff. Hard to compare to other bands. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Not sure if this was just an accident or indeed a last attempt to revive the old Hard Rock band Empire from Wuppertal, that all the involved musicians previously had played in during the early 80's. As we know Dirk Fleck had his own band Mama on the start and Nietenpapst Fred Otto was working on Random's big breakthrough, so whatever this band was trying to achieve, we can't tell ya. The Rooceter label released a 2 track single in 1988, that featured a quite poppy/commercial sounding Hard Rock band, while "Whole lotta love" was a cover of Led Zeppelin. Nevertheless this single is indeed quite obscure nowadays and seldomly seen.

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Classic HR/HM band from Hamburg, formed on new year's eve 1983/84. Shortly after, original vocalist Stefan Jocheim was replaced by Detlev Wolff due to musical differences. Their first demo was recorded in October '84, featuring 4 mainly speedy mid 80’s German Metal tunes with NWOBHM edge in the vein of Metal Sword, and the 2nd one in March '86, the latter being a 5-song affair produced by Dirk Steffens. One source claims they were going to be featured on the never-released "Europes Best Metal" compilation on New Renaissance Records, but that certainly wouldn't happen at all. Most likely no relation to the Exit featured on the C.B.R. compilation "Rock Inside". Detlev and Andreas went on to form Alley Cat, shortly after the release of the Demo, originally using the name Target inbetween. Olaf Klinkusch joined Snakebite and ex-Yetih Jens Potent (bass) replaced him, till Potent replaced Klinkusch in Snakebite too early '88 and Exit split up still during spring the same year. If you have more info, please get in contact.

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A Thrash band from Borau/Weißenfels, between Naumburg and Leipzig, that started still back in ex-GDR times 1989, but recorded their Demo "Apocalyptic visions" just in 1993. The tape found it's way to Massacre Records who signed the band for an album with the title "Confusion", that was released 1995. Exocet's style was a sort of post-Death/Thrash with melodic and midpaced Power/Thrash parts, typically for the mid 90's, but the lads could also unbury the axe to raise speed at certain opportunities. Vocals might be compared to Chuck Schuldiner's in the first, and basically the late, technical Death was probably a band that influenced Exocet musically. Further info is welcome.

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A Hard Rock/Metal band from Augsburg that evolved in Winter 82/83 from the ashes of the local band Lyrock. The band used every possibility to perform live on stage, but didn't record anything so far. 1984 Exodus eventually split up, but Dietmar Heiler and Wolfgang Schludi subsequently continued as Manalishi with other local musicians, while drummer Richard Klocker became Manalishi's manager. Robert Pschorr later appeared in Cyclone and Mandrake. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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This AOR/melodic Hard Rock band was originating from Kaiserslautern and was kinda pre-Vanden Plas, featuring their Andreas Lill on drums. Most probably other early Vanden Plas members was part of the band too. The guys was around during the early mid 80's and either recorded several Demo songs, but when they found out about the US Thrashers, was forced to change their name to Vanden Plas during 1986. Lill's brother Stephan then joined the band on guitar and Andy Kuntz (ex-Rock Zock) became their vocalist, and as Vanden Plas they released their debut single "Double A side" on BEE Records the same year.

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Great, proud & slick US Metal with high vocals for lovers of early Queensryche and all their later US copycats ...but from Saarbrücken, Saarland, Germany. Formed in 1989 they released their first 4-song demo in 1990 and despite some minor vocal doo-doo's the style is a great example of this overseas genre. Vocals improved on the 2nd tape from 1992 though and I'm sure if they had been a few years earlier with this sound they'd be more familiar to us today. They've been described as 'Progressive Metal' by several sources, but to be honest I really don't hear too much of that on these early demos - tight, slick but fairly Heavy & ballsy HM is my description. 2 CD EPs were however recorded in the end of the 90's with a new line-up (we only have Carsten confirmed as a founding member) and here their prog-metal style was in full bloom. If you have more info, please get in contact.

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Expect No Mercy was founded by Eberhard Stettner and the still very young Frank Thoms 1981 in Siegen, but they needed several months and dozens of musicians to find Mike Külpmann 1982 on drums, who'd keep up longer with the guys. In mid '84 bassist Jörg Vitt joined and shortly later Rene Schütz on guitar, who would appear on the band's 3 track debut Demo. That Demo caught the interest of Ingo Nowotny, who took the guys under contract and produced their "Steelbreed" album, which was later published on Mausoleum Records, but without Rene Schütz, who joined Thunderbolt in 1985 and later the more prominent Accu§er. The sound of the fourpiece at that time was very powerful Metal in the vein of Warrant/Wallop with in places slightly Motörhead touch. After the album the story of Expect No Mercy is getting kinda opaque. We know that Ingo Nowotny was involved and that's something where your warning bells should start wringing. Frank Thoms quit Expect No Mercy 1985 to join Breaker, who would soon become Accu§er, while Mike Külpmann founded Escape late 1986. Jörg Vitt on the other hand joined the band Area 1986. I dunno how that looks for you, but my mind tells me that Expect No Mercy in 1986 had been pretty much finished. But out of nothing 1988 another Expect No Mercy album was written and produced by Ingo Nowotny & team (Simon Sobkowiak, Matthias Raue, Patrice Jones, Michael Cloud, Pete De Oliveira and Ralf Förg), with either the ENM contact address being Ingo Nowotny's. My thesis, ENM's contract was running for several albums and Nowotny most probably fulfilled ENM's part for another album that they still owned him, by composing and producing it himself. Nevertheless "Watch your ears..." in contrary to other of his selfwritten fake albums, hitted quite hard. Faultless speed driven Power Metal (fake or not) left no other questions unanswered. But the whole farce hadn't found it's end yet, two years later another Expect No Mercy album surfaced with the title "The dreams of Marquis de Sade", once again featuring quite cool powerful Heavy Metal and this time not a single name of involved musicians was printed anywhere. Did he screw the band once again? After this 3rd album, the outputs of the band ended abrupt. I guess the contract was fulfilled now? It would be nice if there's someone out there who could bring light into this dark chapter of german history. Please note, although Metal Archives lists further Demos "Tamed a fist" (1984) and "Ride the sky" (1987), I tend to leave em out of their discography. My info that was confirmed till ENM's debut album, did only mention one Demo the lads had recorded and as for "Ride the sky", since the band most probably split up around 1986 and returned 1988 as Nowotny fake, I rate "Ride the sky" as highly doubtable. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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Exploder from Bremen was founded in 1985 and in the beginning used to play a sort of Hard Rock influenced Metal on their debut Demo "King of the sky" from 1987, before the lads decided to produce an album independently in 1989 in a limited edition of 750 copies. Alexander Hoffmann who was still doing the basslines on the Demo tape, wasn't on board anymore and guitarist Jörg Hassel handled the bass guitar now. Wrapped in a tasty fantasy artwork, the "Pictures of reality..." album could fully convince musically. During the past years Exploder's sound got much heavier and Power Metal reigned their songs supremely, but in a way that made the album to stand out of the mass of LP productions released that year, because the lads used to play an almost neutral style of pretty heavy Euro Metal, that wasn't screaming the word "german" all along. Though the band sold almost all of the LP's, they couldn't keep Exploder going throughout the 90's anymore. Genuit and Hassel formed Perfect Crime in the late 90's.

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A Power Metal band from Giessen, that used to call their style "progressive Heavy Metal" and was formed by ex-Iron Breed guys Jörg Gehlhaar, Thomas Göttlich and Martin Winter in July 1987. In May '88 it was time to record their first Demo, simply entitled "First tapes", followed by "Hungarian tapes" in 1989 with Volker Kostorz (guitar) replacing Jochen Bach, and another tape with the title "Time for Exray" that should date from around early 1990. The ex-Hammerschmitt axeman Andreas Plüschel had joined Exray on the second guitar and either their former Iron Breed vocalist Olaf Dietzel replaced Dirk Mühlig, while the band received an offer by Ingo Nowotny to produce an album, but for some strange reason Nowotny wanted the guys to change their name to Asgard (He did similar crap with Heaven Ward, if you may remember.). The quintet agreed and recorded the "Dark horizons" album still in 1990. Though I'm pretty sure the band never saw a single Cent for the album, we should be thankful for this whole illegal transaction, as "Dark horizons" easily enters the top ranks amoungst the Heavy Metal albums released during 1990/91. The guys was playing a somewhat fresh and uncomplicated sounding speedy Power Metal in the Atlain/Running Wild/Powerlord vein, that it was indeed a shame they band split up shortly after the album release in 1991.Tomi Göttlich could subsequent join Grave Digger and got at least a part of the fame, that the other bands Exray/Asgard was denied.

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A shortlived Hard Rock project from Saarbrücken, initiated by former Raganan/Fun/Natchez guitarist Micha Schneider, who teamed up with the ex-Boomerang drummer Roland Görgen during 1986. The guys recorded a Demo tape late in 1986 or early ’87 respectively, where Zwally and Willy Biegel shared vocal parts. But none of both would stay in the band afterwards and every attempt to find a proper vocalist stagnated, so Roland Görgen in summer ’87 accepted the offer to become the drummer of the newly founded Princess and therefore quit Extasy, who never really had been able to recover and faded away during 1989 as well.

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A Thrash band from Rottweil (yes, there where the dog comes from) that's active since '88 and released 2 Demos before they got the possibility to release a MCD on Rockwerk Records in 1992. Spitznagel and Merz got replaced by Gunter Birk (bass) and Dieter Bühler (guitar), but the early Thrash sound changed to a rather more melodic Power/Thrash mix, though still with lotsa wild thrashing parts but the modern groovy plague had slightly infected them too. All in all an ok mini album whenalso the sterrile production kills alot of energy there. The band quit in '96.

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The pre-Morgoth band started back in 1985 in Meschede and changed name still the same year to Minas Morgul, to end up finally as Morgoth in 1987. There are no official recordings known to exist. If you got more info, please get in touch.

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A band from the Hamburg area, which was active during the late 80's and according to their own info, had a musical range from Hard Rock to Thrash Metal with melody and power. If you got more info, please get in touch

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A Grindcore band from Frankfurt/Main, founded by A.O.K.'s mastermind Jochen Graf in the late 80's, who due to his good connections to Ingo Nowotny could even produce 2 albums. To stay fair I have to admit, that these lads' noise for being a Grind act wasn't that crappy sounding, like one might expect whenever the name A.O.K. pops up somewhere. Inspired by bands like Napalm Death they indeed delivered genre typical products, that doesn't stand behind other noise bands releases of that time. On the second album "Why?" from 1991, a guy called Boris was playing the bass, while Graf only handled vocals together with Zeljko Antonic. Matthias "Mc Zimbo" Al Talib (ex-Sinus) just like on Extreme Napalm Terror's debut, recorded the guitar as session member, together with Lord Brutus, who might be any known musicians of the Frankfurt Metal scene. The album itself sounded quite listenable, adopting Death/Thrash Metal influences, while in the whole Grindcore would still remain the upper term at all.

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Originally founded in Frankfurth/Main (a different source mentions Wiesbaden though) as Tartaros by Syke Bornetto and Mehmet Zendut (Mem Von Stein, ex-Mayhem) in 1984, the guys changed name to Exumer and recorded the "A mortal in black" in late '85 with Ray Mensh (Raimund Mensch) and Bernie Siedler on both guitars, that received overwhelming reviews by the german press, who promised the band to soon score a record deal, which indeed happened still within the same year. The band's early sound was influenced by Metallica and either in places Celtic Frost, though they've been on the rather thrashy side of Metal. On "Possessed by fire" their US style Thrash sound dominated the whole picture even more, the german equivalent to Slayer might come to mind. Exumer definitely didn't sound like Germans at all. Then Mem Vom Stein quit and formed Phobic Instinct and afterwards Of Rytes, while the former guitarist Paul Arakari returned to cover the vacant bass and micro spots. A second album ("Rising from the sea") was recorded within 1987, that once again underlined the bands recent status of being influenced by the american Thrash bands such as Atrophy, Defiance, Slayer with maybe slightly hints of the early Destruction. In the end sounding kinda unique for a german band didn't help the guys any further. They lost their deal and was forced to start from zero with a new Demo entitled "Whips & chains", featuring the ex-Demolition/Damian shouter John Cadden, Bernd Cramer on drums and Frank Pries on bass. Unfortunately the song material, though being still Thrash Metal, sounded quite modern with Thrash untypical elements and John Cadden's voice completely being at the wrong place. Naturally the guys called it a day soon after that tape, while Bernie Siedler, Ray Mensh and Mem Von Stein founded Humungous Fungus in the early 90's. Syke Bornetto re-appeared in Q-Squad. After a short intermezzo 2001, Exumer renunited in 2008 and are still active nowadays.

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EZ Livin' was founded by ex-Cacumen Hans Ziller, after he left his band Bonfire in 1989 due to personal reasons. He subsequently formed his own band in the Ingolstadt area, featuring the ex-Lustfinger member Hermann Bräuer, plus ex-Darxon/Kymera drummer Dominik Hülshorst, who either played some of the drums on EZ Livin's debut album "After the fire", before Jürgen Wiehler took his part. Naturally since Ziller has been the creative head of Bonfire, the material on "After the fire" was 100 % Bonfire compatible, with just a different type of vocals ala Stephen Pearcy of Ratt. "After the fire" should stay the band's only album, till Ziller reactivated EZ Livin' in 2014 and produced the "Firestom" CD. During the early 90's, after Claus Lessmann quit Bonfire also, both teamed up, bought he rights of the name and reactivated Bonfire in 1996.