Haven't heard Jex Toth or Totem, sounds interesting.
Thanks for the tips.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Budgie's latest, 2007's "You're All Living In Cookoo Land". They lost their way for me towards the end of the 70's and i was never really into their 80's stuff, but i was pleasantly surprised by this one. Somehow by modernizing their sound & productio...

Sounds promising.
I see the band are also regarded highly enough to be cover stars here:

"Last Turn On A Red Light", "Diary Of A Workin' Man" & "Highway Song" all by BLACKFOOT, them Southern boys knew how to write songs in the early days, and they rocked pretty hard back then too.
Oh, and "Mountains" by MANOWAR too, stirring stuff.

Noisenik wrote: shish ... was that Araya in a suite? Why doesn't he wear it onstage?

They all wore suits in the "Bloodline" video, i was disappointed KK hadn't customised his with nails & spikes, but it still looked pretty cool when the blood started pouring down on them.

I just got the MEZMERIST EP recently, good call! It's really unique sounding and it has that "vibe" maaan. Am already a big Cirith Ungol fan & have the Dwaar album you recommended, although i haven't really got to grips with "Animals" yet, i think it's gonna take a few plays ...

Was just wondering if any of you could recommend some proper psychedelic Heavy Metal bands whom i may not have encountered. Some of those early 70's "proto" Metal bands like Captain Beyond and Sir Lord Baltimore managed to pull off the blend really well, but most of these "Doom" ...

CAPTAIN BEYOND - Captain Beyond
PAGAN ALTAR - Lords Of Hypocrisy

It's more of a completist record for Canadian Hard Rock buffs, Greg Godovitz of GODDO was a member of FLUDD prior to forming Goddo. There's some good tracks on it, but it's lightweight stuff for the most part, not Metal at all, barely Hard Rock if i'm honest, but if your tastes run beyond those genr...

Okay, it's not Metal but his one creeps me out in a way that no Grindcore cover has ever managed to do.

What's the deal with this one? i've heard of it but don't know anything about it. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110232254188&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=001 It strikes me as one of those "too good to be true" records. From the description to the sl...

I just can't get into Led Zeppelin. Sure, they have a few great songs, but the rest are average. There are plenty of other 70s bands that are much better, IMO. Thank you. I get shit all the time for "not understanding the genius of Zep". I "understand" fine, some terrific songs ...