All posts by Heavy Metal Overload

The HMOverlord
Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, HMO Blog, NWOBHM, Progressive Rock

HMO Diary: 1st December 2024

16 Comments

It seems like I buy more box sets these days than anything else. Especially as we get nearer to Christmas there seems to be a tempting set or two released every week. Just yesterday I got the new box set reissue of Porcupine Tree’s 2007 career-peak Fear Of A Blank Planet. Loads to take in here: the album, documentary, bonus tracks, radio sessions, live stuff etc… So far, I can say that the album sounds superb, the documentary is very interesting and the packaging is very deluxe.

But all this box set activity has got me casting my mind back to a time when a box set purchase was just an annual treat, if that, and what my earliest box set purchases were.


Might as well start at the beginning so I looked out the oldest one I’ve got: Iron Maiden’s The First Ten Years. Released in 1990, my copy is not much to look at any more as it’s missing the lid but it’s still a worthwhile 10CD set of the band’s classic singles. And as a bonus it has the entertaining Listen With Nicko spoken word series from the band’s drummer Nicko McBrain. Possibly the first metal podcast ever? Anyway, I stuck on the first disc which features the Running Free and Sanctuary singles, the highlight of which was a barnstorming live version of Drifter.

The Maiden set is sadly bereft of any reading material which is a shame as one of my favourite features of a box set is a good book. That got me rummaging around for my copy of Free’s Songs Of Yesterday box from 2000. This was a very good box set for the time, comprised almost entirely of unreleased recordings and alternate versions. But it sprang to mind because it also had a particularly good book and I’ve had a great time today reading that and listening to the first two discs of the set. Phil Sutcliffe had written an excellent history of the band for Mojo magazine in the late 90s and expanded it here for the box set. It’s a fascinating read about a talented, tortured band.

It’s been a fun weekend of listening and reading with a wee bit of nostalgia too. I think I’ll be giving Cheap Trick’s Sex, America, Cheap Trick from 1996 a whirl next. Got any recent box set purchases or any memories of your first ones? Pandora’s Box? Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B? The Misfits? All belters.

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal

Blackfoot – Tomcattin’ (Album Review)

11 Comments
Blackfoot – Tomcattin’ (Atco – 1980: Rock Candy Reissue)

Of Blackfoot’s three classic “animal cover” albums, 1980’s Tomcattin’ is my favourite. A rushed follow-up to the band’s 1979 breakthrough Strikes, it’s the band’s hardest and heaviest album. In southern rock terms, remarkably so. The band’s mix of suvvern hallmarks (Rickey Medlocke’s hollerin’ vocals and the rootsy dual geetars) and British blues rock (shades of Free and Humble Pie) is still evident throughout but there’s a downright crazy as hell attitude all the way through this album. The band sound like grizzled, aggressive road warriors: loving and leaving; fucking and fighting. So even a relatively Skynyrd-esque boogie like Gimme, Gimme, Gimme charges at pace and often erupts into aggressive metal riffs. And on superb tunes like Warped, On The Run and Every Man Should Know (Queenie) the band fire up like Nuge-style wildmen. I know this is the “cat” album but Tomcattin’ is the dog’s bollocks.

Black Metal, Genre, HMO Blog

HMO Diary: 23rd November 2024

3 Comments

Recently the onset of winter’s grim permafrost has put me in a right old black metal mood. So I’ve been mainly listening to Mayhem’s Live At Leipzig and De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, which are two of the most indispensable and definitive albums of the whole genre.


In the Mayhem mode, I also watched the 2020 Norwegian TV documentary Helvete: The History Of Norwegian Black Metal. It was pretty enjoyable and fairly comprehensive in terms of the Mayhem story which meant it spent a bit more time than necessary on Mayhem’s Deathcrush era but had lengthy, compassionate coverage of Per “Dead” Ohlin’s story and a welcome focus on Snorre Ruch’s vital and often overlooked contribution. And it had a good overview of all the sensational stuff too. Be warned that the subtitles are a bit of a mess – hopefully someone will sort that out at some point.

Now we’re at the weekend and I’ve had to cancel a trip to the west coast of Scotland due to the arrival of Storm Bert. Sorry, Mum. So there’s nothing for it but to coorie in for a good blasting black metal session.

First up is Ulver’s Bergtatt: one of my absolute black metal favourites, it’s got all the hallmarks of the genre but is uniquely gentle and pastoral with wonderful monk-like vocals. After that I went back to the genre’s roots for Bathory’s hugely influential The Return….. which is a staggeringly primitive, caustic and evil classic. Emperor’s self-titled EP continues that mood but with a more musical and orchestral element lurking beneath the cacophony. I have a break for a shower and a toastie before bringing things up-to-date with Winterfylleth’s excellent new album The Imperious Horizon which finds the British band sounding vital and intense as well as including a show-stealing guest vocal from Primordial’s Alan Nemtheanga.

And that’s it for just now. I’ve been buying lots of box sets lately so I might report back on those once I’ve spent more time with them. But I’ve now realised I have lovely mince pies in the cupboard but no cream to put on them! An unacceptable state of affairs which means I must venture out and endure Bert’s windy passage.

Album Reviews, Black Metal, Death Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal

Blasphemy – Fallen Angel Of Doom…. (Album Review)

11 Comments
Blasphemy – Fallen Angel Of Doom…. (Wild Rags – 1990)

Fallen Angel Of Doom…. is the seminal 1990 debut album from a notorious band whose beer you most definitely do not want to spill: Canada’s Blasphemy. In addition to their much-imitated image and imagery, these graveyard-bothering powerlifters mixed the guttural brutality of death metal and grindcore with the satanic primitivism of old Sodom and Bathory and shrouded it in a sepulchral, occult atmosphere to create a distinctive brand of black metal so bestial and ritualistic it spawned a micro-genre of its own. And even after decades of all sorts of black metal innovation and antics Fallen Angel Of Doom…. still sounds like the evil, intimidating real deal.

Black Metal, Classic Rock, Death Metal, Genre, Heavy Metal, HMO Blog, NWOBHM, Progressive Rock

HMO Diary: 27th October 2024

9 Comments

I finally got my hands on the new Blood Incantation album Absolute Elsewhere yesterday. I had ordered the deluxe box set and the supplier I used kept putting the shipping date back so had to cancel and get one on eBay before they all vanished.

First few listens and it’s a pretty stupendous mix of Morbid Angel style death and spacey, melodic prog. And the production is wonderfully warm and natural. It’s also got the Luminescent Bridge EP, a documentary, the soundtrack to the documentary and a cool book too. Could be an album of the year contender although it would be up against another recent purchase: Doedsmaghird’s Omniverse Consciousness. An offshoot of avant black metallers Dødheimsgard, this is like a grimmer companion piece to that band’s excellent 2023 album Black Medium Current. But also quite similar too, so if you loved that album then you need this.

Ermaghird!

While I’m on the topic of album of the year contenders I have to mention Deep Purple’s =1 which continues the band’s remarkably creative and fresh late stage. It’s a bit overlong but emotionally it’s been the standout of the year and kicked off a huge Deep Purple binge and a reappraisal of some of their later albums that I’d not given enough time to. Now What?! in particular has become a new favourite, up there with the band’s very best work.

-1 for the artwork though

And I can’t sign off without saluting ex-Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno who has passed away aged 66. I never followed his career post-Maiden to be honest, but his work on those indispensable first two albums is more than enough to put him in the HMO Hall Of Fame.

Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock, Song Reviews

Deep Purple – Mandrake Root (Song Review)

Leave a comment

“It’s some thunder in my brain”

Deep Purple’s 1968 debut Shades Of Deep Purple has only a hint of the explosive contribution that Purple would make to metal’s birth a couple of years later but it can be heard clearly and excitingly on the album’s Side-B opener Mandrake Root. It’s a great, funky rocker that makes sterling use of the E7#9 “Hendrix” chord and some raunchy crooning from the band’s normally mild-mannered original singer Rod Evans. But it’s when the band launch into a short bass-propelled instrumental freak out that sparks start to fly. In their live sets the band would use this track to launch into huge jamming extravaganzas. Here, it’s kept fairly brief but it still allows the band to tap into the sonic danger that they would become known for. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, a tentative presence on the rest of the album, blasts out some violent, noisy tremolo abuse that is the record’s strongest shade of the Deep Purple we all know and love.

Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Song Reviews

Alice Cooper – School’s Out (Song Review)

4 Comments

“We can’t even think of a word that rhymes”

I adore Alice Cooper’s School’s Out album and listen to it a lot. But the majority of the time I skip its opening title track. It’s such an overplayed song that you can end up taking it for granted and I like to keep it fresh so that, when I do listen to it, I hear it for the timeless rock ‘n’ roll classic it is. It’s such a great idea, perfectly executed. The genius main riff is like a clarion call to party, Dennis Dunaway excels with his bouncy basslines, and Alice’s threatening voice is the perfect vehicle for the witty and anarchic lyrics. The band set out to capture the joy and energy of that last day of school and with School’s Out they get a snotty, rebellious and jubilant A+.

Genre, Heavy Metal, Song Reviews, Thrash Metal

GWAR – Maggots (Song Review)

6 Comments

“How to describe such vileness on the page?”

I’m all for humour and wit in music but actual comedy bands or records have limited appeal for me. They might make me chuckle but I’m not going to need many repeat listens. Infamous intergalactic metallers GWAR are a rare instance where a band ventures well into the “comedy” zone while still coming up with enough good music and songs to make me want more. Here’s Maggots from their breakthrough 1990 album Scumdogs Of The Universe. Of course, GWAR can’t resist a joke about boogers but that’s the only bit of Maggots that bugs me. It’s a snotty, shlock-horror thrasher with great riffs, Oderus Urungus’ charismatic gurgle and an extremely catchy chorus where a buzzing fly provides a surprisingly inventive and infectious hook.

Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Song Reviews

Ted Nugent – Great White Buffalo: Double Live Gonzo! Version (Song Review)

8 Comments

“It happened a long time ago, baby”

Ted had been yanking and cranking his Gibson Byrdland guitar so hard that by the fifth song on his 1978 live album Double Live Gonzo!, it had gone out of tune. But a mangled D chord isn’t enough to spoil the fun. If anything, it adds to the raw, honest vibe of this great performance. Great White Buffalo is a red-blooded garage rocker with vocals that make you feel like you’re round a camp fire as The Nuge relates the tale of the wasteful killing of the buffalo and the rousing climax where the Great White Buffalo returns to save the battered herd. The tone from that out-of-tune and out-of-control Byrdland is something else: guaranteed by Ted to “blow the balls off a charging rhino”. Presumably they would be put to good use?

Album Reviews, Classic Rock, Genre, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love (Album Review)

4 Comments
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold As Love (Polydor/Track – 1967)

I went through a period of being obsessed with Axis: Bold As Love when I was a teenager, listening to it nearly every night. I don’t listen to it anywhere near that much now but it’s still my favourite studio album from The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mainly due to the wonderful sonic tapestries Hendrix creates on colourful psychedelic tracks like Bold As Love, One Rainy Wish, Castles Made Of Sand and the timeless Little Wing. They’re all masterpieces and, as a budding guitar player, I found Hendrix’s playing and guitar tones fascinating and inspiring. If all that wasn’t enough there’s also the essential proto-metal of Spanish Castle Magic and If Six Was Nine: two of Hendrix’s, and therefore 1967’s, heaviest tracks.