Legion of the Damned-Ravenous Plague

Napalm Records
2014

Legend of the Damned (LOTD for short), who hail from the Netherlands, was formed back in 2004 out of the remains of blacked thrash act Occult. The group's first release, 2006's "Malevolent Rapture", was produced by Andy Classen and featured the line-up of  vocalist Maurice Swinkels, guitarist Richard Ebisch, bassist Twan Fleuren (R.I.P. 2011) and drummer Erik Fleuren. Now, after eight long years together (and five previously released full-length albums), the band has enlisted producer Andy Classen once more for the upcoming 2014 release, "Ravenous Plague". These days the band features founding members Maurice Swinkels and Erik Fleuren as well as bassist Harold Gielen (2007 to present day) and guitarist Twan van Geel (2011 to present day). As the group's last full-length release "Descent Into Chaos" (which featured Richard Ebisch on guitar) came out in early 2011 this is the first full-length recording to feature Twan van Geel in all of his glory and his skills never come into question on LOTD's album number six! Due for release in early January of 2014, with a limited edition bonus disc reportedly available as well (in what format I am not quite sure as I only received a digital link for the original 11-track release), the game-plan on "Ravenous Plague" is rather straight-forward (even if the actual execution of said game-plan is more complex). Without name-dropping any other bands as that would be kind of useless (as well as a disservice to the four gentlemen that make up LOTD) let's just say that this is heavy thrash/death metal with a bit of a German vibe surrounding the whole affair (which is interesting seeing as the band did a split with Germany's Kreator back in late June of this year!). Musically this is metal with plenty of muscle as well as one of those releases where everything is gloriously raw and ugly! Words like brutal, gritty and pulverizing all come to mind when you listen to an album like this and even if I haven't heard all of their other albums it's seems fairly obvious that fans of LOTD should appreciate the unrelenting nature of  this upcoming release!

Forgotten Gems: The Spades-Learnin' The Hard Way

Go Cart Records
2004

Forget everything you think you know about hard-living, punk-fueled, biker sleaze-rock. The Spades are about to school you in the fine art of all things greasy and grizzly/hard and heavy. This is spit in your face/loudmouth heavy rock born from those who grew up down and out. Straight from the word go the members of The Spades were finding themselves in trouble so it's no wonder that the music here bleeds angst and frustration. Despite the inner-city, anywhere U.S.A. look in their eyes these guys come from across the pound. The Netherlands that is. Yes, The Netherlands. That just goes to show you that growing up down and out doesn't have to be limited to those living here in the States. Not at all. Of course where they come from means little compared to what they can teach you about real punk and roll. For this band it's all about playing pissed-off, mean metal. Let's roll off the obligatory names. Motörhead, Ramones,MC5, Dead Boys, AC/DC, Black Flag and The Hellecopters all resonate throughout this release. Don't let that fool you though. This is the real deal. All of those bands just get smashed together with those results being one bad mother of a rock platter. The Spades are guys straight out of the streets who, having seen their fair share of misery and bigotry, found that they were tired of having to just "fall in line" so they picked up their guitars and played. And play they did. "Learnin' the Hard Way" is 17 tracks of gut-punching mean music. It's not pretty. It's raw and real. It's also hard hitting in a "Open your eyes and see the lies right in front of you" kind of way. I can't and won't pretend like I know what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes of these six guys (Denvis Wankalot - Vocals, Barry Black - Guitar, Tony Slug - Guitar, Enus - Guitar, Dick Spade - Bass and Son Of A Cop - Drums), but I will say that it makes for some killer punk metal/rock and roll!