Gama Bomb : Speed Between the Lines on red vinyl

This recently popped up on my Discogs alert email and I managed to buy a brand new unopened copy from a seller in my country. 

I'm very pleased to have it as I already have a clear/splatter copy of the recent Sea Savage and I hope that in time I can score a copy of Untouchable Glory too (which may be my favourite of their full-length albums). 

It's apparently one of 250, it was plastic-wrapped, which I slit to open the gatefold and get at the record. It's such a pleasure to put a virgin record on the turntable and hear nothing but the needle drop. This is a heavy chunk of vinyl too and the sound is amazing. 

A real record like this is a much more special thing to have than a CD and certainly more so than the digital recording (however clean that sounds). It feels so good to be able to buy new and newish records on this format. I hope this isn't a passing fad and that more bands do it. 

If you love their sound (and what's not to love?) then you get 35 minutes of it. They're nothing if not consistent. There are some stand-out songs with quality lyrics; 666teen is my favourite. 

Metal Warriors (1983) and Paradox - Product of Imagination (1987)

A couple of recent additions to the vinyl collection and some observations. 

The first is another of the Ebony compilations which I'm actively collecting. Metal Warriors is EBON 11 (1983), the fourth of their compilations (as stated on the cover). Once again it has around a dozen tracks of varying style but based around the NWOBHM sound that Ebony liked. It has the trademark Ebony studio timbre -  not ridiculously trebley this time but there's something about the sound, particularly the vocals, that you'd recognise anywhere. (I think it may be Daryl Johnston's natural reverb chamber which he was very proud of.)

It has the feel of a bunch of bands getting their first break which is an appealing thing to me. Some of the bands did go on to bigger things, in particular Shy who appear on side one track one.  I have to say that this is probably the Ebony compilation that I have enjoyed the most on first listen, there are some really good tracks. 

I think this album is most notable for its excellent artwork - the best artwork of all of these compilations I think - I mean look at this... look at it!

A shout out to Garry Sharpe (the signature on the artwork appears to say GAZ). I don't know whether he's been responsible for more album covers - I would assume so judging by the quality of this one. I'd love to know more about his career.

According to Discogs, it was re-released on CD in 2002. I don't know whether it was remastered at all. My record plays really well though and I have a really good quality rip from it. 

Bought at the same time (because one UK seller happened to have two albums from my wantlist at the right quality and price) is Product of Imagination by Paradox (1987). They're not a band I was familiar with, although I may at one time have seen this cover while browsing the secondhand traders in Norwich. They're a German thrash metal band that remind me of Megadeth. It's a good listen, I feel that it will grow on me. 

Again the cover artwork is notable. I didn't notice it straight away but the signature is very familiar: 

- that's Joe Petagno, famous for the Motörhead covers among others, and some science fiction book covers. I really don't know what this cover shows. You can see some kind of demon face in there surrounded by horns / claws. There's a figure down in the corner looking very unconcerned, a landscape, maybe a city in the distance, and some celestial objects above. 

Two great records and two awesome covers. The kind that were intended to be viewed on a 12" x 12" record cover and look best that way.

This week's unsigned discovery - Sons of Lioth

I love listening to new stuff on bandcamp, it's probably the hunter/gatherer instinct. It's so rewarding when you find a gem. And you don't often have to hunt very far to find an unsigned band playing music that competes with the week's best commercial releases.

Today's discovery is Belgian band Sons of Lioth. The music covers diverse topics from lighthearted sci-fi to more serious swords and dragons. The style is pretty consistent though. They cite Priest, AC/DC and Maiden as influences and that gives you the feel.

The next and more sad discovery is that the band have decided to call it a day.

All four of their releases are available online for reasonably small amounts of cash. I chose the cover of Large Hadron Spider for this post because I love the artwork and the pun.

https://sonsoflioth.bandcamp.com

Exploding spheres

Have you noticed that an exploding sphere on the cover of an album is a good indicator of good content within?

I started to notice it with the first couple in this list, and I'm going to keep adding as I spot more.


Vicious Rumors - Concussion Protocol :

Paradox - Pangea :

A dying sun from Nightmare - Dead Sun :  

Another quality record and similar cover from The Unity:

This is a two-for-one. Vulcain have made new recordings of all of the songs from their 1984 album, Rock 'n' Roll Secours. The new album contains all of the original recordings as well as the new ones. The album cover has been reworked too, here are both.

Titanium play melodic metal. Atomic number 22 was released in Sep 2016

Groundbreaker also play melodic rock of the most bland AOR kind, slightly at odds with the earth-shattering design of the 2018 self-titled album's cover.