I can’t think of many metal instrumentals I would pick out as album highlights but here’s one: Final Gates, from Running Wild’s 1988 pirate metal classic Port Royal. Written by, and showcasing, Running Wild’s new bassist Jens Becker, Final Gates is a cut above: avoiding the usual pitfalls of skippable atmospheric scene-setting or virtuoso showboating. Instead, it’s a track that stands on its own: creative and restrained with wonderful guitar solos and Becker going all Geddy Lee on some infuriatingly catchy bass lines. It’s a wonderful, funky odd-man-out amidst a bounty of power metal swashbuckling.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 
Absolutely fantastic album, an avid favourite of mine that I always come back to.
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Totally agree, it’s brilliant!
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Very bass-y. I rather like how restrained it is. Are they a good band? I don’t know them at all.
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Good catchy trad metal… big beer drinking kinda choruses.
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What LP would you recommend?
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‘Port Royal’ or ‘Under Jolly Roger’
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I haven’t heard of them before but I have decided to put the album on my list for 1988.
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That’s cool, I thought you’d know about these guys already.
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You would have thought so but in 1988 I was in the process of starting a family and things like that began to go out of the window.
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No fair enough. I didn’t discover them until much later. I thought you might have came across them on your festival travels.
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Unfortunately not. 😦
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