(TheBRHM.com) Hellhammer is the pre-Celtic Frost act that is cited as one of the influences on black metal. Established in 1982, the band delivered a mix of black metal, thrash, and doom metal with each of their tracks featuring at least two of these elements. What’s interesting about Hellhammer and ...

(TheBRHM.com) Like hip-hop, heavy metal has its own obscure bands in every subgenre. Unlike hip-hop, even if a band isn’t as popular as the more known names, they still get love because they may have been pioneers or were producing quality music during the peak of the genre’s popularity. Good ...

(TheBRHM.com) When I first started to frequent online heavy metal communities, one of the things that was constantly praised or focused on was the band demo. Now, I tend to focus on full-length releases and sometimes live albums, but demos were something I was never particularly big on. I won’t ...

(TheBRHM.com) While discussing demos and how Sodom’s Victims of Death got me to appreciate demo releases, Skelator and their Give Me Metal or Give Me Death came up as the other release that really helped. We’ll get around to Victims of Death as it’s a great demo but Give Me Metal ...

(TheBRHM.com) Listing a top five of anything is always hard but thrash legends Slayer is definitely a mid-lister on my top ten. This was the band that really made me a fan of thrash music. It—as well as Bathory and Hellhammer—were the next stage of speed metal in a similar ...

(TheBRHM.com) We’ve only done one “Head 2 Head” at this point and there are so many bands to compare! This time we’re looking at Motorhead and Venom, two bands with similar sounds and speeds of play. I’m excited about this one since speed metal and thrash are my favorite genres ...

(TheBRHM.com) New York-based act Riot V is a band that I discovered after delving into the act’s days as Riot and discovering Thundersteel. Released in 1988, Thundersteel would’ve made for a tremendous topic for our “Greatest Debut Albums” segment because of how strong of an album it is from start ...

(TheBRHM.com) Canada has a strong reputation as country that generates primo rock and heavy metal. We got the likes of Rush, Anvil, and Razor from the Great White North. Another long-time act from Canada is Thor, a band that takes its name from frontman Jon Mikl Thor and has been ...

(TheBRHM.com) We touched on neoclassical and one artist mentioned was 80s guitar virtuoso and neoclassical metal pioneer Yngwie J. Malmsteen. The Swedish metal legend got his start in 1978 and released three demos with his power trio band before being scooped up by Shrapnel Records and hooked up with the ...

(TheBRHM.com) In the late 2000s, there was a spotlight on metal and it seemed to come out of nowhere. See, the genre never died, the mainstream attention just moved on to other genres of music. During that time, you had bands that either stayed the course, faded out, or tried ...