"The New Heavy Metal Movement"...

[daniel]

I don't think the Helvetets Port album is particulalry good at all, but, seeing them live last year in a pretty small venue was the highlight for me, yes on par with Manilla Road playing there the same night, in terms of SPIRIT. I've heard people complain about them live, I dunno, just seen that one gig and it impressed me, right time right frame of mind etc., and nice guys.

[Louise]

and you can't fault 'that' video - props to the Heavy Load cameo

[The_Elite]

With the new singer Portrait has in my opinion taken a step forwards. Especially on stage.

Fact.

Helvetets Port are totally fantastic (even if my only chance to see them live was at Muskelrock when 3 days of partying had taken it's toll on the band! )

[Evan Lawton]

DARK FOREST are absolutely superb live, the debut was great but Chris is the 1st to admit his vocals were pretty pants...Will the new guy is excellent, and the snippets of the newly recorded album I have heard are very exciting...Jim is absolutely ripping shit up with the new leads on this one, trust me!

[The_Elite]

I preferred Christions vocals to the new fellows- it gave them a little more of a unique sound. But still a great band especially live- I just think they need a few more gigs under their belt just to get a little more confidence on stage.

Some of the new songs they played live recently (especially 'Green Knight') sound a little close to Italian pasta munching emerald sword wielding dragon bashers Rhapsody but I'm a sucker for those first two Rhapsody albums anyway!

[roihlem]

Ok, I just listened to the first time to the bands mentioned here through myspace. I have to say that I really enjoyed all of them. I think that Enforcer slay, Skull Fist is also very good and Cauldron`s "Chained Up In Chains" is also a great track to my ears. They can all write catchy songs and seem to be good musicians. Personally, I do not understand how one could not like their music, but that`s just my opinion
Talking about the lyrics, yes, I do not like the titles like those from Skull Fist, but I was always one of those, who did not care for lyrics that much at all....
I also think that the photos of those bands do not look bad at all. I prefer them much more over those, when bands simply wear their favourite shirt. When I look to some photos of some 80s demo bands of my collection like for instance Deathslayer or Kradle, man, the least 80s demo band was much more charismatic than any of todays bands.
And about the fact that Cauldron signed to a major label like Earache, I don`t care at all. The 80s were also just so strong because of the big success of bands such as Maiden, Wasp, Manowar and many more....

[80sKid]

Now here's an American band that really hasn't gotten their due attention for whatever reason.... Ravensthorn. They have three albums released on Hellion, which is possibly why nobody has heard them.

I got to see them live a few years back at Dingbatz in New Jersey with Attacker when Bob Mitchell was still in the band and they were still having their awesome "True Metal America" shows (Also got to see Halloween, Elixir and Hallows Eve amongst others thanks to TMA). Awesome band, awesome stage show. These guys play catchy American heavy metal with no shitty modern influences.

Do these guys simply have awful self-promotion skills or am I the only one who likes them?

http://www.myspace.com/ravensthorncrypt

[great_knuthulhu]

Do these guys simply have awful self-promotion skills or am I the only one who likes them?

http://www.myspace.com/ravensthorncrypt

I quite like them, but they don't sound anything special to me. Maybe I need to listen to them again? Not that much of a fan of the first Halloween album either - maybe that explains something?

[80sKid]

I quite like them, but they don't sound anything special to me. Maybe I need to listen to them again? Not that much of a fan of the first Halloween album either - maybe that explains something?

I think I felt the same way when I first heard them. Maybe it was having the opportunity to see them live that really impressed me. Their front man Bill has a great stage presence and kind of looks like a younger, shorter, chubbier Ozzy. Took me a few more spins of their album after seeing them to really dig the material.

I do enjoy the first Halloween album but I will definitely agree that their greatest appeal is probably the rarity of the vinyl rather than the quality of the music.

[daniel]

Here's something that surprised me. So I have a friend who's demo-level band got featured on the TERRORIZER cover CD, and it turns out for this privilege the band is meant to pay £300, and to make it more ridiculous my friend was about to contact the magazine to ask for a further month for them to scrape together the money but the debt had already been handed over to a debt collection agency... That's some amazing support of the underground there shining white TERRORIZER. What sort of cuntish behaviour is this? Seriously.

[ION BRITTON]

Did he know that he was going to pay that money or he discovered it afterwards?

[daniel]

No they were not clear on the fact they'd have to pay for it at all.

[ION BRITTON]

That sucks twice as much. That's heavy metal today. Forget the money. Everything for the music.

[Bane]

Well then your friend's band are idiots. Of course they were going to have to pay for the "privilege". Tell them not to worry about the debt collection agency. 9 times out of 10 this is just a ploy to get people to pay up money asap. Their threatening letters can drag on for months & months with no actual action being taken.

[Zuul]

we played with Ravensthorn. The vocalist is really good and the music is ok. Man he was drunk after though, it was great!