Even though I haven’t featured many of them here yet, apart from the huge article on Scanner that is, I am a big fan of a lot of fast and melodic stuff from Germany , with bands like Rage, Running Wild, Helloween, Heaven’s Gate, Flanez, first Chroming Rose and Blind Guardian to name a few. However there are years since I heard some new and interesting bands in this genre.
Seemingly out of nowhere Iron Kingdom from Canada was booked to be one of the opening bands at next year’s edition of Keep It True. I have to admit that I didn’t know the band before I heard of the booking, but as soon as I had checked a few tunes available online, I contacted their singer and guitarist Chris Osterman who was kind enough to send me both the brand new album “Gates Of Eternity” as well as 2011s debut “Curse Of The Voodoo Queen”. Continue reading
Some things simply have to be done. You need to get them out of your system, out of your thoughts, or else you simply can not move on. In my life, a lot of these things are related to heavy metal. For instance, I would have loved to spend a couple of hours with Rolf Kasparek of Running Wild, talking only about the time from when the band was formed until the release of their last great album, “Black Hand Inn”. Another German band, SCANNER from Gelsenkirchen also played a huge part in my life when I was a teenager. Continue reading
Metal Squadron 