Old school gems from your country

[Griffin-]

My point of this topic is to find out what people find the real gems made in their country. Preferably 80s (but then again, who would expect a topic about modern metal from my side..) just kidding you can name post 1990 albums too if you like. I hope people from lesser known countries will share their opinions in this topic. I'll kick off.

My favorite Dutch is album:
Emerald - Down Town (1985)
(although I must admit it's a tough choice). Unfortunately they made only one album. High vocals, speed/heavy metal.. killer record!! I'm lucky as hell that they're scheduled for the next Keep It True where they'll reunite for the very last time. . Close second is

Sad Iron - Total Damnation & The Antichrist (1983) Last album si very rare on vinyl but also even on mp3. Sad Iron are the real heavy metal cult, you know it, raw vocals, poor production but heavy as hell. We All PRaise the Devil! Recommended.

Picture - s/t or Heavy Metal Ears (1980-81) Once again I can't choose between the two. How can it not be in my list! Plain simple heavy metal!

Last one or I'll go on till tons of albums..

Savage - Demo 2 (1982) This is just great, nothing more nothing less! Heeeeell on wheeels..!


Oh, by the way here are some Emerald tracks

 

[SickBoy]

My point of this topic is to find out what people find the real gems made in their country. Preferably 80s (but then again, who would expect a topic about modern metal from my side..)

Here goes...

OSMI PUTNIK - meaning "the 8th passenger", named themselves by the Croatian translation for the movie "Alien". Their former singer is now one of the most successful pop-rock artists here and the rest of the band recently reunited fronted now by my good friend Dean Clea Brkic. Check their songs at http://www.osmiputnik.com/hr/8Putnik_audio.htm . The first two LPs from '86 and '88 are IMO the best by far. Their site is in Croatian only, unfortunately...
DR.STEEL, WITCHCRAFT, LORD OF DARKNESS, EVIL BLOOD, ATLANTIDA ('Atlantis') and CRNA UDOVICA ('Black Widow') are some of the other Croatian gems. I hear that Dr.Steel LP reaches insane prices at the market...

Anyway, check out this site: http://www.crometal.cjb.net/
It's a tribute site to the Croatian metal scene and has plenty of songs in mp3 for you to check out...

 

[Wyvern]

We DON'T have bands in our country that recorded in the 80's..or the 90's

 

[The saYer]

well, I was born in san francisco (bay area) so we have all sorts of bay area thrash.
my parent's country El salvador doesn't have any bands, but I expect some to surface now that exodus is touring there and also shaaman, I mean shaaman don't even tour the U.S., but they go to El salvador, I hope to visit my grandparents there when there is a non U.S. tour.

 

[Hawk]

Highway were good. I still have their single. And there was a band called Exciter in 1982. They had a 14 years old lead guitarist and they plated speed metal and thrash.

I still wonder what became of them.

I hated Picture. Especially the singer. His voice was very plain but he acted as he was the best in the world. He was a dick off and on stage. He was like the Dutch forerunner of Lars Ulrich!

O, and their music was boring, even back then. Their compositions were very predictable. After hearing those song one or two times you could sing along with them while being drunk!

Now that I have come to think of it... especially when you were drunk.

The thing is thought I have seen them 6 or 7 times live. They were kinda hard to avoid during that period

 

[Wyvern]

well, I was born in san francisco (bay area) so we have all sorts of bay area thrash.
my parent's country El salvador doesn't have any bands, but I expect some to surface now that exodus is touring there and also shaaman, I mean shaaman don't even tour the U.S., but they go to El salvador, I hope to visit my grandparents there when there is a non U.S. tour.

Actually El Salvador have some metal bands, but as far as I know they haven't recorded. One of them (can't recall the name) played here some years ago.

 

[Griffin-]

Here goes...

OSMI PUTNIK - meaning "the 8th passenger", named themselves by the Croatian translation for the movie "Alien". Their former singer is now one of the most successful pop-rock artists here and the rest of the band recently reunited fronted now by my good friend Dean Clea Brkic. Check their songs at http://www.osmiputnik.com/hr/8Putnik_audio.htm . The first two LPs from '86 and '88 are IMO the best by far. Their site is in Croatian only, unfortunately...
DR.STEEL, WITCHCRAFT, LORD OF DARKNESS, EVIL BLOOD, ATLANTIDA ('Atlantis') and CRNA UDOVICA ('Black Widow') are some of the other Croatian gems. I hear that Dr.Steel LP reaches insane prices at the market...

Anyway, check out this site: http://www.crometal.cjb.net/
It's a tribute site to the Croatian metal scene and has plenty of songs in mp3 for you to check out...

Wow, thanks a million! I don't have any metal whatsoever from Croatia. I'll definately check out Osmi Putnik and the other bands.

Highway were good. I still have their single.

hang on hang on hang on. The Dutch Highway.. without "Chile" on the end? If so: oh my god. A friend of mine, who is also our bassist of the band we just formed, his father "Heavy metal Jan" was the vocalist of Highway He recently ripped their demo from 1980 which has killer songs like Daydreaming, Speedin' Home, Parents, Times... haha it would be well.. a huge coincidence (or maybe not!) if we're talking about the same band. He even had pictures:

And there was a band called Exciter in 1982. They had a 14 years old lead guitarist and they plated speed metal and thrash.
I still wonder what became of them.

I heard so much about them, and nobody can supply me with a tape, mp3s or whatever you don't happen to have anything by them?

I hated Picture. Their compositions were very predictable. After hearing those song one or two times you could sing along with them while being drunk!

well, that's what I like in a band
I admit, not always, but from time to time: simple and predictable is good. Hm yes, Picture were rather famous during the 80s huh? Shame their albums went shite later on..

 

[KMADD]

Well if this is old school. I remember a kind of glam band around indy that had a major
label deal for a minute called Sweet F.A. there music reminded me of Warrant then they fell off the face of the earth. And in the 90's there was this really unique band
I hung out with called Blatherskite they were a bit of everything part punk, part death
metal, part thrash that had a little bit of rap rhyming to add to the mix. They had
a self titled cd out along with the 40 Daze 40 Nights demo tape but unfortunately in
late 1994 they broke up! Man they had so much potential! Any band that would
write a song about drinking Colt 45 and make it sound brutal gets my respect any day!

 

[Hawk]

hang on hang on hang on. The Dutch Highway.. without "Chile" on the end? If so: oh my god. A friend of mine, who is also our bassist of the band we just formed, his father "Heavy metal Jan" was the vocalist of Highway He recently ripped their demo from 1980 which has killer songs like Daydreaming, Speedin' Home, Parents, Times... haha it would be well.. a huge coincidence (or maybe not!) if we're talking about the same band.

I think we are. That would be the band of guitarist Jacques Noble. It gets even stranger. My girlfriend of that period was a very good singer. And I believed myself to be quite a screamer. Highway used to have a female singer and she quit for reasons unknown. Anyway both my girlfriend and me auditioned for the job! In the process we befriended the bass player.

He was a really cool guy. 4 or 5 months after we both auditioned we heard that an accident had happened on the freeway when the band was on tour in the Netherlands. The bass player tried to cross the highway and was mortally wounded by a car. He died.

The thing was, that we heard about this we he was already buried i.e. after the funeral! Later the vocalist position was given to Smoulik Avigal, he has also been the vocalist for the Canadian Exciter. But I once did a gig with Highway to as a try out for being their singer.

I heard so much about them, and nobody can supply me with a tape, mp3s or whatever you don't happen to have anything by them?

Nope sorry. i do have an article about them in a old edition of Aardschok. Thats all.

well, that's what I like in a band
I admit, not always, but from time to time: simple and predictable is good. Hm yes, Picture were rather famous during the 80s huh? Shame their albums went shite later on..

Indeed. The first one was very badly produced. But I guess it has a collectors value.

 

[carnut]

There were lots of Metal bands in the 80's in Belgium, but only few could grab my attention, as most sounded pretty poor compared to US or NWOBHM bands.Some good ones from the 80's are Acid, Ritual, Scavenger, Crossfire and some Ostrogoth. There were really dozens of bands that made pretty cool music in the 80's, but good vocalists seemed to be the major problem...
The 70's were alot better for Belgian hardrock bands imo; Irish Coffee, Jenghis Kahn & Downtrip are were pretty good hardrock bands from early to mid 70's.
90's were pretty lame here (huhu, mostly everywhere I guess). Only bands worth mentioning from the 90's are Exoto and Channel Zero, both very good Thrash bands.
People that are on SS regulary should check my vinyl rips section now and than. I try to digitise much old Belgian stuff that isn't on CD yet.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Well there is probably tons of old school thrash stuff out of Australia like Mortal Sin, Mortification, Hobbs Angel Of Death, etc but I really have no interest in those bands... Some of my favourite old school hard rock & metal albums out of Australia would be:

Roxus - Nightstreet (1992)
Bon Jovi style melodic hard rock, had a big hit with "Where Are You Now?"

Roxus - Live (1990)
Came out before their album, I like the sound on the live record better and it has my favourite Roxus song "Body Heat", an '89 single that wasn't on their album.

Candy Harlots - Five Wicked Ways (1992)
LA style sleaze/glam that sounds alot like Tuff. I prefer the sound & vibe on the 1991 demo "The Tease Tapes", a little sleazier and trashier, but this is a great album still and "Sister's Crazy" is a great great song.

De Mont - Body Language (1989)
Late '80s Australian AOR with a sleazy edge on some songs. "Closer To The Edge" and "Too Far" are great AOR songs and "I Want Your Body" is a killer sleazy hard rock song!

There is also a band called Devils In Heaven from Tasmania of all places who only ever put out a 3 track CD single in 1993 but it was killer melodic hard rock produced and co-written by Desmond Child! A friend of mine has this rare CD and showed me it a few weeks ago, it blew me away!

 

[StormSpell]

My fav Bulgarian gems would be:

ER MALAK - I 1992
COMATOSE - Eead 1992
B.T.R. - Bending the Rules 1993
ICEBERG - Heretic 1994 (restrospective album, mostly stuff from the 80es)
AHAT - The March 1989

 

[SickBoy]

Well, I'll be damned...
I forgot about probably the biggest hard'n'heavy act from the ex-Yugoslavian territory!
They're called DIVLJE JAGODE and even tried to enter the European market under monicker WILD STRAWBERRIES, which is the direct translation of their name. They are in fact Bosnians, but now live and work in Zagreb, Croatia.
The cornerstone of the band and the only original member is Sead "Zele" Lipovaca, a very good guitar player.

Their first, self-titled album came out in 1978. and was under heavy Deep Purple influence, complete with Hammond organ and all that.
Their second LP "Stakleni Hotel" (A Glass Hotel) came out 3 years later cause members did their army services in that period. The third album, "Motori" (Motorcycles) is often regarded as one of their best and introduces a heavier sound and a new singer (bassist until then) Alen Islamovic. There's heavy Judas Priest (Sampioni) and AC/DC (Divlji Zapad) influence heard there. The next album "Carobnjaci" (The Wizards) continues in the same vein. The later 80s works, "Vatra" (Fire) and "Konji" (Horses) introduce some further lineup changes and a somewhat lighter sound, but have some strong tunes nonetheless. 90s works are not as strong in the terms of songwriting.
Their site is at http://www.divljejagode.com/.

If anyone has the Wild Strawberries LP, I'd be very happy if it could be digitised and encoded to mp3. I can't find it anywhere...

 

[Griffin-]

I think we are. That would be the band of guitarist Jacques Noble. It gets even stranger. My girlfriend of that period was a very good singer. And I believed myself to be quite a screamer. Highway used to have a female singer and she quit for reasons unknown. Anyway both my girlfriend and me auditioned for the job! In the process we befriended the bass player.

He was a really cool guy. 4 or 5 months after we both auditioned we heard that an accident had happened on the freeway when the band was on tour in the Netherlands. The bass player tried to cross the highway and was mortally wounded by a car. He died.

The thing was, that we heard about this we he was already buried i.e. after the funeral! Later the vocalist position was given to Smoulik Avigal, he has also been the vocalist for the Canadian Exciter. But I once did a gig with Highway to as a try out for being their singer.

Hmm, weird. He says the guitarist was indeed Jack Nobelen (who later on played in Savage too). But he recently spoke to the bassist, so isn't exactly, eh, dead
He also says Highway never had a different vocalist, let alone a female vocalist..

If anyone has the Wild Strawberries LP, I'd be very happy if it could be digitised and encoded to mp3. I can't find it anywhere...

Damn, too bad! It really made me curious..

 

[Hawk]

Hmm, weird. He says the guitarist was indeed Jack Nobelen (who later on played in Savage too). But he recently spoke to the bassist, so isn't exactly, eh, dead

Of course the *present* bassist of Highway is not dead. :Spin:

He also says Highway never had a different vocalist, let alone a female vocalist..

I think I mixed up bands here. I remember now that the band was called Savage! That was the band I was talking about. It was the bass player from Savage that died in 1981.

 

[Bryant]

Well there is probably tons of old school thrash stuff out of Australia like Mortal Sin, Mortification, Hobbs Angel Of Death, etc but I really have no interest in those bands... Some of my favourite old school hard rock & metal albums out of Australia would be:

Trix you somehow left out AC/DC. Certainly they were Australia's largest contributer to rock/metal.


Bryant

 

[Witchhunter]

LORD OF DARKNESS

Actually it's not a croatian band.LOD was formed by Evil Blood singer when he moved from Croatia to UK.

 

[Griffin-]

Of course the *present* bassist of Highway is not dead. :Spin:



I think I mixed up bands here. I remember now that the band was called Savage! That was the band I was talking about. It was the bass player from Savage that died in 1981.

hehe ok now I get it
So we were talking about the same Highway
pretty cool!
you can download the demo he uploaded here if you like:
http://ijlen.zwieke.com/Highway - 1980 - demo.rar
(copy paste the whole thing)

 

[Pabla]

Hmmm... I am from Chile originally, but we didn't really have an underground scene since the 90's? I am not sure though... because I moved to the States... I do remember listening to a lot of rock entiwed w/punk as a youngster... bands with spanish names that I can't remember

 

[Hawk]

hehe ok now I get it
So we were talking about the same Highway
pretty cool!
you can download the demo he uploaded here if you like:
http://ijlen.zwieke.com/Highway - 1980 - demo.rar
(copy paste the whole thing)

Thanks for the offer. problem is, the link does not work
And yes, I did copy and paiste it.