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Vehement - All That's Behind

Vehement -

Italy brims with power metal, and even black metal thrives well there. At least, that's what I gather from the stream of Italian-based promos I receive. That being said, Vehement is probably the first thrash metal outfit from the boot of Europe that I encounter.

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The Nerves - One Way Ticket

An energetic and feisty dosage of straight-to-the-strings electric jangle of protopunkesque garage rock. Fans of the tunes emitting from garages, basements and warehouses everywhere back in the 60s (and then in the 70s when those who continued the punk rock groundwork were cranking 'em out) will likely be fans of this. If you have any rock comp in your CD collection with the words "Garage Rock" on it, then this disc is apt to end up right next to those, along with all your Troggs, Paul Revere, Stooges, Chocolate Watchband and Standells CDs. Straight punked up (pre-old school old school!) tunes to throw you back into the era before punk was punk when it was just egalitarian rock - rock for anybody, by anybody, before proto-punk became punk and punk became a "style" and it strangled on its own self-consciousness.

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Mad Max - Mad Max

Yay, Metal Mind and Roadrunner. Three re-releases (which you can nab by way of Music Video Distributors) continue recent jaunts into the realm of vintage German power metal/hard rock. Here we have the works of Mad Max represented on a re-issue of the band's first three albums: "Mad Max", "Rollin' Thunder" and "Stormchild." Sound-wise, you know what to expect. I can't say Mad Max broke the mold, but if you like 80s-style hard rock/metal (that doesn't go to the pop cheese excess of the likes of, say, American pop choppers Poison) but drives right down the middle of this still cult-beloved genre, and, further, if you want to delve into unexplored corners - then this is another chance. MVD has been making available a number of fringe acts from back in the era and this is one of those batches. Germany, though it might not have gotten as much press once you strayed away from The Scorpions, et. al., was certainly a purveyor of metal. Still is. Europe has stayed more faithful to its classic metal styles (while still evolving) than has the States. But, hey, we ain't talking about today's stuff. We're groovin' on the old school, and Mad Max is that. These guys know and love the genre and knock a line drive cranking out their own dose of it. Mondo melodies, sweet guitar licks, rockin' rhythm sections and soaring tenors all align for a dose of the kind of stuff I used to dig on when I first got into metal in the late 80s (yeah, for my age, I was kind of late getting on this bandwagon, but get on it, I did). Are there better bands from the era/genre doing this kind of stuff? Yea, but you've heard them. Time for something new (sort of, ha ha). Check these guys out. Further your classic metal education.

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Bomp 2 - Born in the Garage by Greg Shaw

Bomp 2 -

OK, so this book was put out AFTER Greg Shaw's death. So he didn't COMPILE it. So what. He still wrote most of the wonderful stuff in here. Shaw was king of the rock-n-roll fanzine. At least A king. I don't mean to suggest that he was the one and only royalty of the scene; he wasn't. But, damn, read this stuff and you'll agree his fanzine work deserves to land in the rock writing pantheon.
Shaw wrote a number of fanzines (not all strictly about rock) and they all demonstrated his eclectic knowledge, his thorough understanding of the rock scene (even if his opinions were sometimes a tad rigid and fundamentalist aesthetically), his intelligence - and the scope, man, the scope!

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Brimstone Howl - Big Deal. What's he Done Lately?

Contemporary throwbacker album "Big Deal. What's He Done Lately?" by Brimstone Howl shows off the chops of a band that knew damn well what to name itself. I love bands whose name reviews their music, but I'll add a few words of my own.

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Mondo Drag - New Rituals

Mondo Drag means mondo high - and you don't have to toke on or drop a tab of a damn thing! The prog-psyche inclinations (heavy on the psyche) with a dash of heady headtrip folk is instantaneous gratification and you needn't wait on your dealer to arrive. A swirl of sound fleshed 'round vintage rock flavors gives your ears a lovely head change, indeed.

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The Breakaways - Walking Out On Love (The Lost Sessions)

Post-Nerves 70s proto-rawkers The Breakaways continued on in the same vein with fun, vibrant, exciting rock that resurrected (or kept going, depending on your vantage point) the kind of rock-for-the-people indie-underground stylings that helped revolutionize the rock scene after the very presence of rock itself was a revolution from the blues-R&B, white boys borrowing and revamping the goods from the black folks (no wonder the stodgy white peeps from the day ranted and railed about rock - how wrong they were).

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Sokrovenno - De Rerum Natura

Sokrovenno -

Sokrovenno, an Italian black metal outfit, is attached to Bleak Art Records, a fairly young label (about ten releases so far). New customers are always interesting, for they always bring about diversity: new bands, obviously, and with a bit of luck some variety in genres, influences, geographical origin and whatever might appeal to the underground fanatic.

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Supervan - DVD review

Supervan is super kitschy if not a super movie. But who expects 70s drive-in cinema to be truly great? Sure, there are a few, but they are indeed a few.
Supervan is a quintessentially 70s film about a quintessentially 70s phenomena - van culture!
Yep, as the copy on the back of Cheezy Flicks' release of this hokum on wheels film hints, cultural marginalia got their 15 minutes of fame by way of the drive-in flick. Who'd have ever thought that van culture would warrant its own crazy movie?

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En Declin - Domino-Consequence

En Declin -

I'm currently chewing through a My Kingdom Music batch that features quite a few acts of the rock/dark/gothic/prog variant - as opposed to extreme, balls-gripping metal, that is. En Declin is the third or fourth soft band I've heard recently; though still no expert in - or fanatic of - the genre, I can easily relax to soothing beats, nu-metal-distorted guitars and clean vocals.

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