The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal

I was stationed in Germany from April 1986 until November 1988. One of my friends from high school was stationed only 30 miles from me in Mainz. We took the train from Mainz to Mannheim in the middle of the night. We arrived at the festival site in the early morning hours before it was light out. The weather kept switching from a mist to light rain. I remember laying down on the gravel at the entrance to get some sleep before the show. It was grey and gloomy all day but mostly dry. Dry until Def Leppard came on. Then it just poured. So much rain that even with most of the stage covered in plastic everything kept shorting out. The large patio umbrella you see Joe using was given to him by Iron Maiden who were backstage. it was a long exhausting day but so worth it. I have finally found all 6 bands on bootleg, so I have the whole festival to relive whenever I want.

Germany: Mannheim, Maimarktgelände – 31 August 1986
Scorpions
Ozzy Osbourne
M.S.G. (McAuley Schenker Group)
Def Leppard
Bon Jovi
Warlock

I did not have a camera at this event so none of these pictures are mine.

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Note the shorter set list for MSG in Mannheim. Too much rain causing technical problems.

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Thanks for the post @Hofy . Great stuff! Love reading things like this.
 
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I've been listening to this lately and really liking it. I remember seeing it on store shelves back in the mid '80's and rejecting it due to the silly album cover. That was clearly a mistake as this is some of the best proto-thrash NWOBHM ever made.

Avenger is one part of the complicated and confusing Brian Ross legacy.
He co-founded the band along with bassist Mick Moore after the break-up of their band Blitzkrieg in 1981. He recorded a few demo's with Avenger and then joined Satan, taking the vocalist position formerly held by Ian Swift. Swift promptly joined Avenger, taking Ross's former spot and they released their debut album Blood Sports on the Neat Records label.

The Brian Ross story gets even more complicated after that when he quit Satan after one album and went on to join Lone Wolf while Satan morphed into the band Blind Fury along with singer Lou Taylor. Taylor had co-founded Blind Fury earlier along with ex-Angel Witch front man and guitarist Kevin Heybourne and their drummer Dave Hogg along with bassist Pete Gordelier. The three of them subsequently quit Blind Fury and reformed Angel Witch leaving Lou Taylor to absorb the full Satan lineup minus Brian Ross into Blind Fury.

The band Blind Fury released one album and then the entire lineup minus singer Lou Taylor went back to calling themselves Satan and took on a new singer named Michael J. Jackson for the release of an EP and a full length album before splitting up and doing separate projects for a few decades only to eventually reform the Brian Ross version of Satan with the entire band intact.
(Did I get that right, Rob???) :rflmao:

I'll address those other bands and albums eventually. Right now my brain needs a break after trying to put all of that into reasonably cohesive sentences.

Anyway, I need to buy this album. It's not anything earth shattering, but it is is great, gritty, riffy, speedy, street level NWOBHM.
I'm even starting to like the goofy album cover.

Avenger - Blood Sports
1984 Neat Records NEAT 1018
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I saw a Banzai pressing about 4 or 5 years back and had it in my hands. Another one I didn't drop the money on. Also remember it in the record stores when released back in the day.
 
Been many years since I gave this one a play. Eant to back when I listened to the demo lp. Bitches Sin "Predator" from 1982, HMRecords lp #4 opens with a slow deceptive blues number, leaving me to go WTF? Then it rips into track 2 and is pretty much unrelenting energetic classic NWoBHM from there. Underrated for sure. Simply killer with sweet Rodney Matthews cover art to boot.

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Bruce Dickinson singing Dianno era songs in his audition tape. Never heard until today, friend sent me mp3's awhile back.
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Lyadrive are an excellent quality melodic UK metal act that only had a rare 7" in 1984. When this cd "Another Time, Another Place" came out In 1998 it was the first time anyone really was able to get a taste of what they were like. If you didn't read the liner notes you would not be able to tell that these are 90's recordings of material,written in the early 80's. Playing this right now is like a breath of fresh air honestly, I find the songs to be of such high quality.

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Lots of good youthful, diy raw energy on those two songs Rob. You're right, it sounds like it came straight out of 1981.
 
Downloaded this last week. I don't have much hope of collecting all the Blitzkrieg albums on original vinyl as I'm about a dozen albums behind, and CD's just don't do it for me much more than digital files do.
Of course not all their albums were released on vinyl originally. I know Sins And Greed certainly wasn't as it falls in that "in between" time for the popularity of vinyl.

Blitzkrieg - Sins And Greed
2005 Metal Nation Records

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This is Brian Ross and the revolving door of musicians that he calls Blitzkrieg's fifth or sixth studio album (not sure what the album "Ten" is I think it's a comp)
Despite having a different lineup with virtually every album, Brian keeps the Blitzkrieg sound consistent and recognizable.

This is just an outstanding effort, which is par for the course with Brian Ross. The music to me is written more for large venues or European festivals with it's sing along anthems and power chords. It doesn't have that street level, barroom brawl NWOBHM sound at all, then again most of what Brian does fails to fall into that category. He himself will tell you that Blitzkrieg and his other band Satan are not NWOBHM bands and never were. Rather he considers his bands to be classic British metal.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sa...d-either-of-the-two-bands-to-be-nwobhm-bands/
The songs on this album speak to that thought. Titles like "Desolation Angel" call up thoughts of Bad Company. They cover Judas Priest's "Hell Bent For Leather". On "Escape From The Village" the lyrics lean heavily on Iron Maiden's homage to 60's British TV show "The Prisoner".
There is even perhaps a nod to NWOBHM band "Traitors Gate" with a song of that title. Coincidentally, the most recent Judas Priest album has a song called "Traitors Gate" as well.
I have no doubt that there are other British metal references present on the album. Either way it's a great addition to the Brian Ross legacy.
 
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Downloaded this last week. I don't have much hope of collecting all the Blitzkrieg albums on original vinyl as I'm about a dozen albums behind, and CD's just don't do it for me much more than digital files do.
Of course not all their albums were released on vinyl originally. I know Sins And Greed certainly wasn't as it falls in that "in between" time for the popularity of vinyl.

Blitzkrieg - Sins And Greed
2005 Metal Nation Records

R-12668138-1539689692-6649.jpeg.jpg


This is Brian Ross and the revolving door of musicians that he calls Blitzkrieg's fifth or sixth studio album (not sure what the album "Ten" is I think it's a comp)
Despite having a different lineup with virtually every album, Brian keeps the Blitzkrieg sound consistent and recognizable.

This is just an outstanding effort, which is par for the course with Brian Ross. The music to me is written more for large venues or European festivals with it's sing along anthems and power chords. It doesn't have that street level, barroom brawl NWOBHM sound at all, then again most of what Brian does fails to fall into that category. He himself will tell you that Blitzkrieg and his other band Satan are not NWOBHM bands and never were. Rather he considers his bands to be classic British metal.
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/sa...d-either-of-the-two-bands-to-be-nwobhm-bands/
The songs on this album speak to that thought. Titles like "Desolation Angel" call up thoughts of Bad Company. They cover Judas Priest's "Hell Bent For Leather". On "Escape From The Village" the lyrics lean heavily on Iron Maiden's homage to 60's British TV show "The Prisoner".
There is even perhaps a nod to NWOBHM band "Traitors Gate" with a song of that title. Coincidentally, the most recent Judas Priest album has a song called "Traitors Gate" as well.
I have no doubt that there are other British metal references present on the album. Either way it's a great addition to the Brian Ross legacy.

I've had some difficulty finding DLable Blitzkrieg, but was fortunate 'nuff several weeks ago to grab a lossless (vinly rip) of A Time Of Changes (Neat, UK, 1985). Sins & Greed -- sounds like a good listen to me.
 
All through the 90's and even the 2000's underground metal and punk/indie records were one of the facets of production keeping the pressing plants going(That was when I ran my vinyl only label). Nothing like on the scale of today, but anyway here is the original 2005 2lp cut at 45rpm on the TPL Records label out of Sweden:

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