Album Review: Portal - Anno Mundi (Doom, 2026)

The brand new Portal album still speaks to all the lovers of the traditional doom metal genre. That's surely not a surprise to anyone who has ever heard songs of them. Anyway the newest output comes with some small changes every and there that made me listen closer. At the end of the day I was filled with enthusiasm for the new material.

The new Portal album shows a wide variety of guitar sounds.

This feeling came up through the riffs that are present on "Anno Mundi". Just take the heavyness of Wholly Roller. It's crushing riff rolls right over you. On the other hand it comes with soft vocals and lot's of melody inside all of the brutality. Others then that you've got very high sounding melodies like in "The Bronze Age" along with extended solo sections.

It's also a direct album that comes more to the point. You don't need to think too much around the corner once "Paschal Lamb" is running on your device. It's a compact number but changes towards the end where it goes in a rougher and harder direction. 

If you like to dive deep into guitar sounds then I recommend the title track "Anno Mundi" to your attention. Those layers are going up and down many times and they are much more present in the front of the sound that other tunes of the album. It should make all guitar players listen closer to find out how to play this. 

"A Charmed Life" shows the more faster and grooving side. It calls out to headbang to it and is a pure dose of fun to listen to. It's so fine to hear that the guitars shake the riffs all the time that it's hard to stop listening. 

Finally "Thunderclap" comes a lighter way with softer riffs and vocals. It's a unusual song for a band like Portal but put's a good balance in contrast to most of the heavier album content.

The vocals should be pointed out, too. They are going with more intensity. You can feel that they're sounding more direct and slightly heavier on this album. This put's a much welcomed change into the sound.

You can hear three songs of the record on thedoomportal.com for free streaming. The album is sold as high quality wave files at the shop tab of the website for six dollar each copy.   

Kris Keyes (ex Garagantua Soul) returns with classic metal band E.S.P.

Some people in the metal scene don't show up often. That's why it came in more as a surprise that Kris Keyes has made his return after a longer hiatus.

This time Keyes has secured frontman position and takes over all vocal duties for Tim “Ripper” Owens joining the classic style metal band E.S.P. (Engineered Society Project). A lot of people will remember the vocalist Kris Keyes for his performances with Gargantua Soul who also played at the Woodstock ‘99 festival.

Looks like watching TV can be dangerous at times...

In addition, E.S.P. signed a worldwide deal with the quickly moving indie label Mindsnap Music/Combat Records. Mindsnap Music is owned and operated by Christian F. Lawrence (better known as “Opus”) and is distributed exclusively by Von Artists, Ltd. / The Orchard. 

Mindsnap Music has put out the likes of Joey Concepcion (solo), Dead By Wednesday, Bomber Alley (members of Dee Snider’s solo band), Howland Hyatt (Metal Church drummer Stet Howland), Joetown, S.O.S. & more!

E.S.P.‘s new EP MyTV is available everywhere on all major platforms. Grab the new EP MyTV at https://orcd.co/esp_my-tv

Hailing from Houston, Texas. E.S.P. is set to perform at this years Reinstated Milwaukee Metal Fest 2023 with bands Lamb of God, Machine Head, Biohazard, Dead By Wednesday, Anthrax, Raven & many more!

Watch E.S.P.’s amazing animated video for their new single & title track “MyTV” right here.

I love to hear that the song comes in a constant mood that feels modern but cool and classic at the same time. It builds and pushes constantly without the feeling of "we must be modern now" or "brutality is inevitable in todays music". Finally a band that keeps it organic, authentic and let's me relax while listening to the notes.

Make sure to keep a eye on E.S.P. through all the socials like Facebook or Instagram. 

Let's speak with...Raddar (First Melodic Hard Rock Band from Texas, 2020)

When I first heard of Melodic Hard Rock band Raddar I couldn't believe my eyes. The band released their debut album after having recorded the basics for the songs fourty years ago. "Transmission" was originally recorded in 1978 in a time when Hard Rock was doing the very first steps.

Raddar performing live. Band Photo by Brian Hubbard

The chance to discover them was like having a time machine. It brought me back to the roots of heavy music. Why did it took that long to release it? How did it all come together? And what are the guys behind the diverse longplayer with 17 blistering tracks doing these days?

More than enough exciting reasons to talk to Razar King (Bass, Guitar, Vocals) and Randee Lee (Vocals, Guitar, Organ) of the band about their Compact Disc in 2020. They kindly gave an in-depth behind the scenes look on transfering the old material, completing it and finally finding a proper way to release it physically as well as digitally.

Before continue reading make sure to open the official Raddar website in a new tab. You can listen to one full track there. It fits well in the background while reading what the guys had to say about the exciting travel back in time.

Heavy Metal Underdogs: Was there something that made you start playing music - maybe a special life event etc. ?
Randee:I actually started recording at around 6, archiving TV shows on my mother's mini Sony reel to reel tape recorder. So the recording side was there from an early age...I had a 3rd grade teacher who realized I had a gift of writing what would later become lyrics and fast forward to the teen age years when I realized all the records I was buying were for the guitar parts. That led to my desire to play guitar and of course after hearing Mountain's Mississippi Queen it was a lock! When I met RAZAR, a fellow musician endowed with the same guitar fervor as myself, a match made in Heaven was established. The rest is history!

Razar:Hearing Foxy Lady and Crosstown Traffic by Hendrix on local radio is what initially started the fire in me. Several of my friends were taking guitar instruction classes in school, so I thought I would have the same teacher show me how to play bass guitar. Everyone was learning guitar and there were no bass players. He was teaching Beatles, Monkees, Beach Boys and that sort of music, so I opted to learn about the bass from him and then go home and put on records to learn how to play the kind of music I loved. I must have played through Humble Pie's Rockin' The Fillmore and Grand Funk's On Time and Red Album a hundred times! I remember the specific event that got me on guitar-my father was listening to me play the bass and made the comment "It's hard to tell what song you are playing" and I thought to myself that it would be easier to play tunes people knew if I was on guitar instead of bass. Next thing I knew I had a '59 Gibson Les Paul and a Marshall Super Lead half stack and was hammering out the chords! I used Yesterday And Today (Y&T) and early UFO to teach myself the basics of rock guitar. Michael Schenker and Tony Iommi became my heroes and much of my lead playing still sounds like them to this day!

HMU: Do you had to fight with technical problems while recording the songs? I think studios and producers weren't familar with that style back in the 70s in the United States.
Randee: Being the archivist I was from an early age we were fortunate that I kept all of the original recordings from all those years ago. I think the problem we really faced looking back was that there was no one really steering the bus in the recording sessions. We went in and recorded all those tunes in one take live,  just as we played them but never really really finishing any of them. Strangely, the technical problems were not uncovered until after digitizing the catalog and finally taking a good hard listen to what we had. I think originally we were recording on 8 tracks which seems maybe archaic to today's standards but we might as well have been working at NASA in our minds...lol. We ultimately had to deal with all the drums being on 2 tracks and bass tracks not being recorded well at all. Fast forward to today we had the opportunity in my recording studio to flesh out, fix and complete the songs as they should have been.

Razar:Studio engineers back in the late 70's referred to our sound as "rugged" and "heavy duty" since they had never heard anything like us. I don't think people quite knew what to do with us since we weren't the watered down RNR sound that was popular in Texas during those days. Randee and I were able to get the tones heard on Transmission by playing our Marshall and Sound City amps wide open on 10 and running them through attenuators to bring the volume down. That way we had "our sound" no matter where we were recording. We weren't so fortunate with the original bass tracks. When we digitized the analog tapes a few years ago and gave the songs a listen for the first time in decades the bass guitar tracks were thin sounding and distorted. We knew we couldn't use them, so I had to record new bass guitar tracks on all 17 songs. I tried to be true to the original spirit of the songs wherever I could.

 Razar King and Randee Lee always pushed forward to make "Transmission" become a reality. Photo Credit: Jeannie King

HMU: How did Gary Priest (the drummer on the "Transmission" sessions) join the band?
Randee: I will yield to my most honorable colleague RAZAR for this one as I personally don't recall our initial meeting but I do remember rehearsing and discovering that we had commonalities in musical tastes in certain bands of the day. Very prolific drummer for those times. His chops were amazing and I'm sure they still are. There wasn't anything that we threw at him that he couldn't handle.

Razar: OK, I'm reaching way back in my memories for this one. Best I can recall, my wife was friends with a guy named Monty, and he had a brother named Phil. Phil was friends with Gary Priest, the original drummer, and word made it's way to Gary that Randee and I were in need of a drummer. Gary was the best drummer I had ever seen. He was a student of a world famous school for jazz drummers when we found him. Through much technical wizardry in mixing and mastering Randee was able to keep Gary's original drums.

HMU: Did you have to re-record parts of the old material or was everything in good condition at the time you transfered the tracks to the digital format?
Randee: I briefly touched on that in a previous question but I will elaborate a bit further. The short answer is no, not all was well when we finally dove into the material. Miraculously, the tapes themselves had survived really well. We did have to go through the whole tape baking process and we did have a great engineer (Jeff Mount) that was an awesome archivist at a studio that still had machines that could play these very old tapes. He took great care in saving the recordings and digitizing them so we could bring them back to my studio. From there we embarked on a rather long and arduous journey of taking stock of where we were at with them and where they needed to go recording and song wise to get to where we are today. In the long run some lyrics were rewritten or scrapped all together in favor of new story lines. Some guitars were updated as some songs did change along the way. As I had mentioned before, new bass tracks were added due to the original tracks being recorded very poorly and not salvageable plus, some songs changed due to rewrites. I ended up replacing the original vocals due in part to us not being able to get the original vocalist  on board, and with the new updates we wanted to have a consistent vocal presentation on the record. A tremendous amount of work went into the restoration of the original recordings to get the final product where it is now.

Razar: It was fun doubling guitar parts that I hadn't played in 40 years! As stated before, all the bass tracks were re-recorded. But, the guitar tracks transferred to digital quite nicely. Since there were some new arrangements due mainly to re-writing lyrics it was necessary to hammer out power chords here and there, and Randee and I added new solos where necessary. But, we were able to keep the songs very true to their original state and most solos are coming out of the original Marshall and Sound City stacks.

HMU: Why didn't you already release the album back in the 70's/80's?
Randee: I think RAZAR and I asked ourselves this same question numerous times during the making of this record. Unfortunately we don't have an answer except that we just never seemed to finish any of the recordings as we would now or maybe we thought they were finished as they were recorded how we played. Once again no real producer at the helm at the time and  we had a very limited budget that we were working with. No backers...lol. We just did not have access to the record business that we would have needed at the time until 40 years later when a label did come knocking after finding a long lost demo.on another band's tape. We opted to self release.

Razar: I've wondered ever since these songs were written if we could have been a part of the rise of hard rock/metal (Rods, Riot, KISS, Motley Crue) in the USA. Looking back I think if we had management with vision that could have placed us in the flow of NWOBHM coming from Europe we could have been the band opening for Priest in the states (like Kick Axe and Great White) or playing at Donnington (like Pantera in their early days). IF we had released an album in '79 or especially in '80-'82 I know it certainly would have increased our chances! Unlike self releases of today, one still had to go through "the machine" and catch a record company's attention back then. We were heavy rock and might have been ahead of our time musically for the year 1979.

Raddar finally released their material after 40 year, Photo Credit: Jeannie King

HMU: Did you also listen to psychodelic music at the time of the recordings?
Randee: I don't think that would have been my playlist during these days...maybe a bit earlier as I listened to a lot of music, very broad based in terms of genres...rock, folk, psych, prog, hard rock, metal, lots of guitar music and even early Christian rock music such as Petra. I was very into songs and bands that featured crunching guitars and organ with great vocals.

Razar: I listened to Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane with Papa John Creach, Iron Butterfly, Nektar.

HMU: What happened after you finished recording the "Transmission" album?
Randee: Took a break...lol! No really we just kind of took a step back and did a victory dance as we realized that we finally had the finished product in our hands. A completed project with finished songs, new art work by Nello DelOmo from italy and the physical tangible product. A great feeling.

Razar:I've heard artists say they can't listen to their finished product after being in the studio hashing out the nuts and bolts of getting the songs recorded. Not the case with me! I love these songs, not because we wrote and recorded them, but because they are really good songs that are easy to listen to AND THEY ROCK. I've listened to Transmission almost daily since we finished it, and my interest is renewed each time someone local or abroad tells me how much they enjoy it. These aren't 17 cookie cutter songs-they are different. We followed no known patterns when we wrote or recorded these songs. They truly came from our love of what we wanted to hear. After the disc was finished I immediately began contacting people and radio stations worldwide who promote this kind of music. The next release will be a bit heavier and I'll do it all over again unless we get picked up by a distribution company.

HMU: Do you still create music these days?
Randee: Very much so. I am writing all the time. I have several solo projects that are scheduled for release plus RAZAR and I already have most of a new RADDAR record in the can and ready to go with a couple more on the drawing board.  Since I have a studio I have produced a few records for other artists and logged several tunes on Texas radio with one in use by the Dallas Cowboys football team. It has been in my blood for a long time. Between RAZAR and myself we have veritable cornucopia of plectrum fueled musical escapades in storage waiting to be unleashed.

Razar: Well said! I have 360 songs sitting on my desktop waiting for their turn, and that doesn't include the songs Randee and I are working on together for Raddar. I have several recording side projects. A doom metal band, a traditional power/heavy metal band, and even a country/hard rock project. No grass growing under these feet. I've always been a metal head and never tire of cranking the amps, and I have 20 of them I can crank!

Maybe more material of the band will show up in the future. Photo Credit: Jeannie King

HMU: Where can the people purchase your music?
Randee: At this time it is only available on our website at www.raddartheband.com. We are actively seeking outside distribution for the States and overseas. We would love to hear from everyone!!

Razar: Having distribution outside the states would reduce the cost of our cd's, posters, and t-shirts to other countries, so we hope to arrive at that end shortly.

Randee and Razar: Thanks for your interest in our music and for giving us the opportunity to chat with you!!!

Make sure to follow Raddar on Facebook to keep track of the next steps of the band.

Movie Review: Date From Hell (Horror Short, 2019)

Some dates are horrible. That's the way it looks like with the pair that can be seen in the beginning of the horror short movie "Date From Hell". The two have a little controversity going on (like so many have) and finally the man stands up. He had enough and leaves. She follows him and he disappears in a sideway.

The excellent cover for the horror short "Date From Hell"

Afterwards the movie starts a life of it's own. I won't spoiler anything here just saying that it will keep you shocked, laughing and wondering behind once you finish the full movie. I never thought it would be possible to do such a strong film in such a limited duration.

But this is in fact way better than many movies I've seen that last for the standard 90 minute format. This is even more surprising for me as I'm not the strongest horror movie fan at all - please take this as a sign for a strong recommendation to check "Date From Hell" out. For a first teaser I can give you a small look inside with the official trailer. You'll get a idea of what it is all about.

"Date From Hell" Horror Short Teaser Trailer from Amadon-Shannon Media Group on Vimeo.

I could even imagine this to be a new trend since time is always limited but sometimes you have a few spare minutes on your hands. That's the moment people may seek something like this. Anyway, make sure to visit a screening near you or stream it of the official sources.

The first screening will be September 13th 2019 at GAS MONKEY Bar & Grill in Dallas, TX, as part of their CORPSEPAINT SHOW PARTY benefiting FOUNDATION 45 Powered by FANGORIA, where the film can be viewed alongside "Satanic Panic" and "Road Trash".

The second screening, coinciding with the film's official release on ALTER, will be September 16th 2019 at Independence Brewing Company in Austin, TX. This will be coupled with the official INDIGNANT DOG FILMS formation party, celebrating the creation of IDF whose founders (Ven Scott, Brandon Torres, and Tracee Beebe) were thrown together for the production of Date From Hell.

Ninth Sphere looking for vocalist and share album for free

Dallas, Texas based Symphonic band Ninth Sphere have put out their album "Zenith". Ninth Sphere is the brainchild of guitarist Brian Cravey, one of the original founding members of The Browning, and is heavily influenced by artists such as In Flames, Born of Osiris, Betraying the Martyrs and Architects.

I just had a quick listen into the release and it's fantastic. It gives a redemptive feeling. In addition it shares a lot of positive and dreaming vibes. The tracks have a compact duration so they never feel lengthy or make you feel stressed and overloaded with all the noise. Instead the atmosphere constantly keeps intact also the tracks evolve and change inside each other so much. But they can be followed easily because they always keep the focus on one element at a time. I think that's something not to be found out there too often.

The cover of the "Zenith" album of Ninth Sphere, cover art produced by Nick Baxter

I was so surprised to read that you can pick it up for free but I would love to see people leaving at least a donation for this fine recording. You can listen and download it up from Bandcamp, Soundcloud and the band's own homepage.

In addition to this it's surely a great challenge to all vocalists out there looking for something new and fresh to work on. Currently the band is on the outlook for a person to take over the vocal duties.

Therefore the band is holding open, public auditions for a vocalist. To be considered the band is asking for potential candidates to choose a song from the album and make an audition track and/or video. Submissions can be posted to any of the bands social media accounts like Facebook or emailed to ninthsphereofficial@gmail.com

Have a listen to the music right here.

Ninth Sphere is planning a physical re-release of the 'Zenith'  album once a vocalist is found. They have even more plans for the future. Brian Cravey states, "“After leaving The Browning in 2011 and accomplishing some life long goals outside of music, I decided it was time to get back to a music project.

I’ve been writing this material for a couple of years and finally found a few like minded musicians to join the band. Travis is a true visionary artist and he will create the imagery for the band, as well as holding down bass duties. Dylan is a professional live sound engineer and an amazing drummer. We have big plans for this band and tons of music written. Once we find the perfect voice to finish our sound we will take things to the next level. Expect some live shows and videos very soon!"

Blacktop Mojo calls to keep the heart free in new video

Music can set emotions free. They come out for me the most and in it's purest form when a band plays a acoustic track. I don't know why but it's always a deeply moving moment for me. I can't say anything just sit there feeling touched so deep inside.

This moment came along as I recently sat at my laptop and watched a live recording of Blacktop Mojo's acoustic performance for the song "Underneath". Enjoy every second of this fragile and breathtaking performance.


Besides the fine music the lyrics hold a important piece of advice for living life. Nathan Gillis, Drummer of the band explains what the band want's to express with this track.

"I've seen firsthand how bitterness and anger can destroy a person from the inside out. This song is about that, but also saying "I understand what happened, and I'm sorry you went through the painful things  that brought you to this point" Keep your heart free , forgive people even if they don't deserve it."

The studio version of this song comes of the band's great record entitled "Burn The Ships". Don't miss out this gem and make sure to pick up a copy out of the band's hands. 

CD Review: Trap Lord - Drowning In The Wave (Classic Metal, 2017)

Wow, it's not to be heard often that young bands completly give their passion to the classic days of Metal. This record shows that roughness can be found out there if you're tired of all the polished music.

The front cover of Traplords "Drowning In The Wave" record, (c) by Traplord, used with kind permission

Summary

Having heard the songs of Trap Lord several times it gave me a deep reminder of how I started out with music. I used to listen from tapes. They give a direct and raw rendition of the music and that's what these track do for me, too.

Drawing inspiration of bands such as Motörhead and Saxon the music that can be heard sounds as if taken of a live show or rehearsal recording. The band doesn't give too much on polishing their music but instead cares more of the pure heavness. The guitars scream it all out on this one while drums and bass give a very basic note to it as if taken directly of the instruments without any other preparation done instead of attaching a microphone to it.

The fine thing is that slight modern elements have been sneaked into the sound with cleverness. They mix up the straight on forward sound every here and there but never ruin the listening enjoyment. The tempo varies and many groove parts add to the fun of the music. Most tunes come with shorter duration but less can be more - it's better in my ears to have straight good material instead lengthy stuff that doesn't hit the point.

Don't let the raw sound of this package give a negative impression. I enjoyed every minute of it. It feels natural this way and having started out with analogue equipment it inspired me to resurrect my tapes once again.

Album Stream and Purchase-Link

If you'd like to have a quick tip I  point you to the track "Idle Minds" (Song five). It gave me a great intoduction to this band and I hope it will make sure you jump on the train quickly.

The full release is available digitally on the band's Bandcamp page or check out the Heavy Baby Records Bandcamp page to get one of the limited physical copies of the release.

Contact Data

The band shows up on Facebook so make sure to follow the guys over there.

Vinyl Review: Heavy Baby Sea Slugs - The Minotaur / Trout Fishin' Man (2016)

A really raw piece of music, this experimental seven inch disc will make every listener happy who likes to endeavour something new and prefers to see music as a journey on his mind. It's like reading a book - everyone has a own imagination to the input that comes along.

Preface

It's not coming along often that a vinyl record fly's into my postbox but these days it happened and gave a good feeling to the writer of these lines. I mean how often do you touch one of these small round pieces of music in this times? The process alone of putting the vinyl on the table of the player, selecting the correct Round's per minute option and finally putting the tonearm carefully on the record is something special and sort of ritual.

The packaging

The double-sided cover itself is something unique - I've not seen something similar before. It reminds me of Iron Maidens old albums like Somewhere In Time or Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son where the full picture only comes to life when you add both the front and back cover. This one follows a similar concept and I like the way it's done. Good old handcrafted art. You rarely get to see this in 2016.

The cover of the Heavy Baby Sea Slugs 7' The Minotaur, (c) by Claire Taylor

The music

'The Minotaur' is centered around a doomy core and 'Trout Fishin Man' leans towards down-tuned noise rock. A really raw piece of music, but I love keeping it heavy and direct.

The Minotaur has a dark and heavy riff in it's center core. I like the way the groove spreads around this one. The haunting voices and effects give it a mighty atmosphere as if somehing bigger is sharing a message throughout the sound. A wall of sound that needs some closer listen to get fully through it.

Trout Fishin' Man: This song has a heavily distorted riff running through it. I needed some repeats to get to the point but you can hear that this has many layers put together all over. Surely a experimental track to be remembered. But no evolution has ever come from going the same ways over and over again. It always just happens where you try new paths. And that's what this track surely does.

Purchase-Link / Player

Do yourselfs a treat and purchase one of the limited edition seven inch vinyl records from the band's Bandcamp page directly. It comes along with one white and one black labeled side. Inside the cover you'll find the record as well as a little sheed with details about the release and the text of The Minotaur on the backside. The whole package is protected with a proper plastic foil bag. It all comes along handcrafted but with much love and dedication. Please support such efforts with your puchase. As for a first listen you can listen to the Heavy Baby Sea Slugs single right here.

Make sure to keep in touch with band during the Bandcamp page or see the Facebook presence of the record company of the band.

LifeLike shows the good inside the bad

Sometimes a band logo picks up my attention. Some days ago a picture was spread on Facebook saying:

"This is the good inside the bad. (white dot in black spot as graphic)
This is the bad inside the good. (black dot in white spot at graphic)
This is life. (both sides mixed alltogether in one graphic)"

Looking at the sign of the band LifeLike this quote came back to my mind again. It seems to be thought out looking at the fact that the E of life can be found in the white coloured area while the L of the word like is kept in the dark but in a white style. The flash in the middle is also kept half half - just a bit as the famous Ying Yang sign symbolizing life

The logo of the band LifeLike, (c) by LifeLike, used with kind permission

But how does this band sound? I would say they are going all on it. Not holding back just giving completly in. That's what I felt when I had a look upon the fresh video of this Texas based band.

It feels great to see a band mixing up elements of today's metal scene along with classic riffing in the style of the past days. That's also been the intention as Chris guitarist of the band points out in his statement about the track:

"The song represents us bridging a gap and creating something we all grew up listening to at different periods of our lives. The audience will hear signs of old school metal riffs with a mix of nostalgic Pop-punk choruses."

"Turn The Pages" is taken of the band's self titled EP which is available from iTunes.

Check out their web or social pages to keep track of the further band activities or to pick up more info about them.

Official Website

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube

Unearth hidden underground demo gems with free download sampler

Big names were once small one's... Do you sometimes find yourselves looking through your collection and finding old records of bands that sadly never made it out to a bigger audience? This happens often to me.

I recently took a look at some demo tapes I bought quite some time ago and thought about those bands again. Mostly it was the case that I went to their shows and was excited to see and hear something new. So often I found myselves purchasing those stuff after the show was over directly out of the hands of the artists. What a great feeling to buy directly from those who create what we all love and like.

It's cool to see the same thing seems to happen in other parts of the world, too. It's a great to see that others also do care about this stuff and try to save it from the dust of time. One that I just ran across is the Texas Metal Underground Records label. Read below what's their mission and pick up the nice goodie they offer you.

Texas Metal Underground (TMU) Records have released their first ever free digital music sampler featuring one full mp3 song from their entire re-issued curated catalog releases.

(c) by TMU Records, used with kind permission

TMU Records has provided the following mission statement:
"Since 2008, TMU Records has been unearthing lost and unheard musical gems from the fertile underground Texas metal scene of the mid 1980’s through the early 1990’s. To preserve and share this heavy musical legacy, the label focuses primarily on bands who burned bright, briefly, but disappeared without a trace before anyone could take much notice.

Bands who managed to get a demo recorded but for reasons unknown never shared it beyond a close circle of friends and fans. Whether on vinyl, CD, or cassette, all TMU Records releases are given lavish treatment with custom packaging, unseen photos, show flyers, interviews, informative booklets, rare bonus tracks and extras for the denim and leather die-hards.

For 2016, look for upcoming deluxe vinyl releases from Karion, Las Cruces, Bad Heaven, SSR, and more!

TMU Records digital music sampler tracklist:

1. Broken Teeth - Flame Thrower
2. Baron Steele - Night of the Wolves
3. Sentinel - Panzer Attack
4. Wicked Angel - People of the Black Circle
5. Meddallion - Stormbringer
6. Final Vengeance - Darkside
7. Wicked Step - Rock N Roller Masses

Download the free songs, compilation artwork and track listing from this location.

For further information on the label make sure to see the TMU Records website and if you'd like to purchase one or more of their releases just click on to the Bandcamp page. Most of the stuff is available in various formats so you can pick exactly what you need.

Here are some of my impressions that I had while I checked out the free compilation: The backside of the compilation shows how much love the people behind the releases spend on this. Every band is featured with a little image of the cover. Above you'll find the original band logo and a short discription underneath the image gives a quick idea of the band's style as well as information on the re-release special features. Don't miss out these gems.

While I'm typing these lines I'm enjoying the track included of the Baron Steele camp. How much I love the rough style of demo recordings. And it's cool to hear what this band contributed to the sound of their time. Hope many more will appreciate this. And while you're enjoying this why not go out and support demo band's of today's as well? Go and give them the support you're able to give'em. They are the source of tomorrow, our future. Never forget that. Big names were once small one's.

Southern Front ask the sense of revenge in their new video

Southern Front are a purely thrash-determined band from Austin, Texas. For all of you guys out there loving Testament, Slayer and Pantera this band will be a fest. They've recently released a brand new video for the track "Face down" taken from the new album "Death Throes".

(c) by Southern Front, used with kind permission

The great thing is that the track reminds me a lot of Testament in their phase while they released "Low". It's pure power going straight forward with clear, yet very hard vocals in the style of Pantera. This mixture goes very heavy but the double axe guitar players add a lot with the traditional yet also technical and skilled playing technique reminding me of the old Slayer songs.

A cool feature is that both play left-handed something you don't see very often but it looks great. Another cool thing is that the video tells a story and and leaves one with a surprise behind.
It's in my eyes the question if revenge really makes sense at all in life... But best of all you can check it out for yourselfs:


The band is going to start a new mini-tour cycle in their hometown area in Texas already starting TODAY. Here are the dates:

March 7th. @ Dirty Dog Austin TX.

March 21st. @ Sweetwater Austin TX.

April 17th. @ Fitzgerald's San Antonio TX.

May 22nd. Arcadia Bar & Grill Houston TX.

Follow the further band activities on Facebook or check out their official homepage.

CD Review: Mahogany Head Grenade - Return to the part of departure

Note: If you have a own band or project that you think might fit in well here for a review or as a presentation / introduction please do drop me a line or two here in the comments section or please see my profile for my E-Mail adress. I do appreciate new suggestions very much!

Short introduction

It's time for the next review. This time I checked out the first release from Mahogany Head Grenade called Return to the part of departure. The band is located in Texas and is set up as a a Progressive Instrumental trio that did release their first album in May 2013. The album was tracked live, recorded & engineered by Sterling Winfield (Pantera, Damageplan, Hellyeah) at Valve Studios in Dallas. Mastered by Maor Appelbaum (Cynic, Halford, Sepultura) at Maor's studio in California, USA. The live tracking especially surprises me - it's something I've seldomely come across.  

Short Summary / Player / Download and CD Purchase Links

The album is great, no question. If you're into instrumental Progmetal you should give it a listening round. I would describe them as typical shred metal, along with a little influence from modern metal. The special one comes in when you think about the Texas roots, so there's a lot of these guitar work in there that you can hear.

The only thing one might dislike are the many guitar solos, but in the end it's a instrumental album so this shouldn't be a problem. It has a fully professionell sound and production, full blown and decent sound for such a music style and features cool fotographic inlay to each track. Just check out the title track or "Trouble for trouble" and you'll fastly know if it's your flavor of music or not.



The album can be purchased as a download for only 3 dollar at the BANDCAMP SITE. There you can quickly get the album in high quality FLAC (File losless Audio Converter) format as well as in high MP3 format. The album is also available as four panel digipak CD featuring original artwork by the band: You can get it from the linked bandcampe page. It's also available on itunes, amazon, cd baby Just click on the links to go to the proper site.

Update 2014/11/03: The prices have been reduced! You can pick up the download for a price of your own choice (no minimum is set). The Compact Disc version is available for 5 Dollar but you have to add shipping and handling for the physical copy of course.

If you want to stay in touch with band, you can do so on facebook or check out the band's youtube account to see some nice live videos of the band performing some of their tracks.

Track by track Review:

Return to the Point of Departure
Very dark, gloomy Intro style. Feels like something unknown and evil might come down. Very catchy riff in here, much Texas metal reference. Good variations and guitars much in the front row, making this a good raw start to the album. Cool solo. Makes me wanna here more.

Trouble for Trouble
Strange voice Intro. Going over into some rhythmic section, laid back feeling. Guitars then rushing in, giving the song a more agressive, cutting riff while bass and drums follow, making it a very compact sound. After some solos suprisingly a change to a soft section, slightly moving the song for a moment in the jazz direction before one more solo throws it back to the old heavyness and riffing.

Vinedresser
Another strange voice intro leading into a short rhythmic section, followed up by brutal heavyness typical for this band. Some seconds to take a breath after that with one more jazz-like jam-section. We are introduced to a very heavy jamming guitars part, putting a lot of shred metal in here. Some more melodic play-along in the end of the track following it to a soft end.

Etude War Machine 
Very compact riff-monster rushing in bringing the album into a more moving direction. Much of the rawness of the band in here I think, lot's of very different guitar solo variations to listen to. The end sounds like the last of possible things is shred out here. Very short ending.

Venetian Bricks
The last track starts with a short riff introduction. Again much guitar variations in here with the drums and bass following straight to it. Very heavy and bold sound at the end making it a very, very tight track. The shortest one on this record but a very good ending to this release.