Jotcamp is a pair of art students with some vague principles on media gluttony. We don’t want to just sit back and consume all the tasteful art we come across, so we’ve made this blog to compile and comment on that delicious media to keep our TV, music, and movies habit from becoming a one way conversation.
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64 posts tagged hard rock
Quest For Fire - Set Out Alone
I got into Quest For Fire’s 2010 album while I was gone. It felt like a natural progression from their first album, which I liked a lot, and I love the cover art. A lot of modern bands seem to rock this type of bottom-heavy distortion, and I really need to dig around the internet and figure out what their set-up is. Hopefully because they’re a Canadian band, their equipment will be easy to track down.
6 Plays
Rotor - Karacho Heizer
I took a few newish albums with me to Italy and they were pretty hit and miss. My favourite has to be 4 by Rotor, a German post-rock band that’s been putting out records since 2001. Their fourth album is filled with tons of great riffs and enviable guitar tones. I need to go and track down some more stuff by them for sure.
0 Plays
Cirith Ungol - Edge of a Knife
Cirith Ungol was an American metal group most active during the 80s that started off sounding like a 70s hard rock act akin to early Judas Priest. They weren’t really revivalists, though; they’d formed in the early 70s but just didn’t manage to score a record deal until 1980. I think the album’s cover is the perfect level of corny for a record like this. It matches the band’s constantly over-the-top vocal and guitar theatrics that make their songs so fun to listen to.
42 Plays
Lucifer's Friend - In The Time of Job When Mammon Was A Yippie
Happy Record Store Day! I celebrated by picking up an original copy of Lucifer’s Friend’s self-titled debut. These Germans are probably my favourite of the country’s hard rock acts. Their later releases became more oriented toward jazz-rock, like a lot of German and Eastern European bands’ material became in the late 70s, but this first album was all about heavy, distorted riffing. This is the album to listen to if you’re interested in the pioneers of heavy metal.
40 Plays | Download
Stray - Suicide
Stray’s 1971 effort, Suicide, didn’t stray too far from material covered in their debut, but who would really want them to? This album is British hard rock at its finest: lead guitar domination, hoarse vocals, heavy rhythm section, and blown-speaker distortion. This is the album’s title track, an 8 minute long riff-fest. Sabbath and Judas Priest fans should enjoy this a lot.
45 Plays | Download
Iron Maiden - All In Your Mind
It almost seems irresponsible to not post Iron Maiden’s cover of Stray’s All In Your Mind. As with everything Iron Maiden, it’s nothing but pure class. Originally this was the B side on their 1990 single, Holy Smoke, but I don’t have that.
12 Plays | Download
Stray - All In Your Mind
Stray was hugely influential 70s psychedelic rock band that hailed from Britain. They get lumped in with guitar-focussed progressive rock bands like Captain Beyond and Wishbone Ash because some of their songs are similarly sprawling, but they just often wade through heavy blues riffs using as much distortion as possible like Toad or Leaf Hound. Iron Maiden fans might recognize this song, All In Your Mind, as the metal band did a cover of it on their Holy Smoke single, later included as a bonus track on No Prayer For The Dying’s reissue. This is the full on, 9 minute long meltdown version that kicked off Stray’s 1970 debut (Maiden covered the much shorter single version).
11 Plays | Download
Flower Travellin' Band - Satori Part 1
Flower Travellin’ Band really surprised me. With a name like that, I was not expecting to be listening to a Japanese proto-metal record. The band’s guitar work is all about droning distortion, and the singer shouts more than sings, a lot like Ozzy Osbourne. Their first full-length album was all covers, apparently featuring the first ever Black Sabbath cover song. They also did a take on King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man, and this 1971 record, Satori, sounds like a healthy mix of those two bands’ early work.
In 1973 they were going to be the opening act for the Rolling Stones’ Japanese tour, but Mick Jagger’s visa was rejected so all of the concerts were cancelled. So sad.
21 Plays
Kahvas Jute - She's So Hard To Shake
Kahvas Jute are a relatively successful Australian psychedelic band. They put out this heavy rock album in 1971 to a receptive market, but the band flamed out by ‘74, turning original copies of their debut into cherished collector’s items. They remind me quite a bit of Tamam Shud, another Australian psychedelic band that too featured a talented young guitarist. Kahvas Jute reformed in 2005 and put out a new album, but I haven’t been able to track it down yet.
31 Plays
Polyphony - Crimson Dagger
Polyphony’s Without Introduction is an album of pure progressive rock excess. This American group released just this one record in 1972, and it’s basically two 15-minute-long epics punctuated by pair of shorter ballads, everything being as densely written as is feasibly playable. Their songs are paced like Eloy’s and Van Der Graaf Generator’s mid-70s stuff, but the heavy guitar work sounds more like that in Birth Control. Also, this has to be one of the best prog rock record covers ever done.
0 Plays | Download
