The Scrounger's ReportOct. 31, 2001An Amazingly Obscure Scrounger's ReportGot 2 shipments in last week, one a trade from overseas, and one a return order from Sentinel Steel. As with most of my acquisitions as of late, the vast majority are metal, as opposed to AOR. Most of it is fairly obscure stuff (or somewhat tough to find at least)... Various Artists - The Best of Metal Massacre. 1989. Metal Blade. Ok, so this one isn't obscure or tough. Freebie from Sentinel Steel. A representative sampling of cuts from all the Metal Massacre albums. Whitesnake - Starkers in Tokyo. 1997. EMI (UK). About as unplugged as unplugged can get... one voice, one guitar. Hard Rain - S/T. 1997. Semaphore (Germany). Hey look... it's Magnum! Well, sort of. Decent stuff. House of Shakira - III. 2000. MTM (Germany). YUM!!! Excellent AOR!! I love all of their efforts. Is it just me, or does this have a more Survivoresque sound than the first two? Warhead - S/T. 1995. Communique Records (UK). Rather nondescript thrash. Nothing special. Virus - Lunacy. 1989. AVM/Metalworks (Switzerland). More thrash. Fairly primitive, gotta love those lengthy (35 minutes) albums of the '80s... Grave Digger - Heart of Darkness. 1995. Gun Records. Grave Digger - Symphony of Death. 1994. Gun Records. Grave Digger - War Games. 1985. Noise Records. Coming ever closer to completing my discography of these German metallers. Virgin Steele - Magick Fire Musik. 2000. Noise/TT Records. I don't care what anyone says, David DeFeis and Eric Adams (Manowar) were separated at birth... but Virgin Steele is better. :) Decent EP of schtuff. The next 6 discs were heaven-sent as far as I'm concerned. There are a couple of labels that I want to eventually own every release on "just cuz". One is Grand Slamm, one is FM Revolver (yeah, good LUCK), and one is the metal division of LaserLight Records (Germany). Yeah, the same label that put out all the classical discs; they had a "MetalMania" series in the late '80s to early '90s. Almost entirely German bands, the discs pop up on Ebay, but tend to go for relatively big bux. Sentinel Steel somehow had a bunch for reasonably decent money ($14 per). Most of these bands and compilations are what you'd consider "second rate" or "mid tier" metal bands. Many are closer to hard rock than metal, even though the artwork indicates otherwise. Some interesting unknowns in the group though: Tox - Prince of Darkness. 1991. For some reason it reminds me a lot of mid-80s Gary Moore. Veto - Carthago. 1990. Iron Maiden with early Biff Byford at the helm? High Tension - S/T. 1993 (1987). Motley Crue does light power metal. V/A - Killer. 1990. 1. Crystal Pride - Rock 'n Roll Gun 2. Crystal Pride - Let You Go 3. Crystal Pride - Evil Force 4. Lazy - Chewing Gum 5. Lazy - Mother Time 6. Lazy - You Got the Power 7. Shere Khan - Point of a Needle 8. Shere Khan - Rockin' You, Rockin' Me 9. Shere Khan - Turn the Table 10. Lynx - Final Race 11. Lynx - Nothing in Return 12. Stranger - She Was 13. Stranger - Wet Dream 14. Kat - Metal and Hell 15. Kat - Killer 16. Elise - Seven Witches V/A - On the Edge of Death. 1990. 1. Crosshead - Danger 2. Death Squad - F... Like and Animal 3. Killer - Shockwaves-Scarecrow 4. Killer - In the Name of the Law 5. Crystal Pride - Thousand Nights 6. Crystal Pride - Flight of Heart 7. Lazy - Out of Sight 8. Lazy - Rock On 9. Lazy - Strange Woman 10. Shere Khan - Stroke of Love 11. Shere Khan - Quite Enough for Love 12. Shere Khan - The Crowd Is Getting Hungry 13. Lynx - Nightwalker 14. Lynx - Don't Fool Me 15. Torrent - Lost in the Army V/A - Metal Battle. 1991. 1. Tyrant - Wanna Make Love 2. Gravestone - Dirty Tales 3. Veto - Ultimatum 4. High Tension - Lady 5. Tokyo Blade - Watch Your Step 6. Stormwitch - Russians on Fire 7. Tox - Leisure Time 8. Tyrant - Killing the Peace We Fall 9. Veto - Desert Kings 10. High Tension - Stay the Night 11. Veto - Riders on the Loose 12. Stranger - The Bell 13. Tyrant - Free for All Now we move to a pair of oldies on the Roadracer "Price Killers" series from the late '80s: Paradox - Product of Imagination. 1987. Roadracer (Germany). Decent thrash, but not mind-blowing; I've only given it a partial listen though. Hallow's Eve - Tales of Terror. 1985. Roadracer (Germany). Disappointing. Boring speed metal. Royal Hunt - Far Away (EP). 1995. Rondel (Japan). I ultimately want to have originals of all the Royal Hunt discs, EPs and singles included, but finding some of the Japanese stuff is tough. D.C. Cooper era Royal Hunt (still my favorite era). Graaf - Different World. 1997. Self-released. Kinda like a poor man's version of Metallica. Passable, but nothing stellar. And the last 2 discs are quite cool: V/A - Made In Tribute. Toy's Factory (Japan). One of the members of our local metal listening group had brought this a while back, and while I wanted to pick this up, I'd never found it at a decent price (that I recall at any rate). New, with OBI, for $14 from Sentinel Steel. 1. Arch Enemy - Aces High 2. Decameron - 2 Minutes to Midnight 3. Therion - Children of the Damned 4. Armageddon - Die With Your Boots On 5. Nocturnal Rites - Wasted Years 6. Sadist - Wrathchild 7. Lord Belial - The Trooper 8. Naglfer [sic] - The Evil that Men Do 9. Dark Tranquillity - 22, Acacia Avenue 10. In Flames - Murders in the Rue Morgue Sahara - Going Crazy. 1992. Dream Circle Records (Germany). Excellent! Some of the best female-fronted hard rock I've heard in quite a while. Think Pat Benatar meets Lita Ford. Discography? That's all for now... -Dan |
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