MARTYR - Planet Metalhead
Pt78 Records
Taste this Dutch Steel! Yeah well I've been saying that since 2020 when new music by them was popping up on Youtube. So finally we have a full length after all that time and yeah it's about time. You can only play their "Raise Your Horns, Unite" song so much before you sigh and go come on people put out the fuckin album. Who cares if you can't find a label.
Now for all of you kiddies out there, who are not Dutch Metal fans, going "WHO"? Yeah well MARTYR started out in the early 80's. Hell they're on Metal Massacre 6 dammit. They were power metal back when people still called it speed metal. In the 80's their debut was a mini LP with four cuts and three instrumentals. But their follow-up full length, Darkness at Time's Edge from 1986, was killer.
Darkness at Time's Edge was the album which was supposed to launch them to Euro Metal fame. Unfortunately it didn't and a few years later the band broke up. Fast forward to the late 2000's the band reunites and puts out the album Circle of 8 on Metal Blade Records in 2011. In my not so humble opinion that album was not good.
The band did put out another album, You Are Next, in 2016 but I never checked it out. For me, someone who is biased about Dutch Metal, I was done with em. But then two years ago I heard their new songs on Youtube and thought yeah this is good. So now finally we have a full length and power metal fans (who have the MARTYR patches on their battle jackets) can rejoice.
Call em 2020 or 2022 but hell MARTYR sound pretty damm good on this release. The opener "Raise Your Horns, Unite!" with the kids singing is a surprise. Then the band kicks in and this is 80's fuckin metal in your fuckin face! Yes original vocalist Robert van Haren still has the chops. Plus also an original member, guitarist Rick Bouwman, has nailed it as far as song writing and riffs that rock.
Aside from the memorable opening track I say that Planet Metalhead is a classic sounding power metal album. New drummer, Rick Valcon (who came on board in 2018) shows off early on the second cut "Demon Hammer" to why he's the perfect pick for that kit. Fuck I could go apeshit on this album's attributes. Galloping rhythms and great leads on DIO-esque sounding "Children of the Night" as well as "Metal Overdrive".
Seriously I think this is the best album MARTYR has ever done. Nuff Said.
https://waylandmerch.shop/collections/martyr
No comments:
Post a Comment