Well I have blogged about Japanese rock trio Trident recently on Trinkelbonker and maybe I should mention that there are a few bands out there called Trident outside of Japan as well. One is the Swedish Black Metal band, and they released their last album “North” in 2020. I checked it out on YouTube yesterday and the intro track “Enter” is really well made (epic movie soundtrack type sounds), then they spend the rest of the album creating one hell of a racket.
(Cover is from official platforms, brilliant cover by Juanjo Castellano Rosado)
Busy updating this blog with more tags and 2020-2024 is done (which means 2012-2019 is still work in process). New tags are “220 Volt”, “Black Sabbath”, “DVDs & Blu-rays”, “J-Pop”, “Japanese rock & metal”, “Tarja & Nightwish”, “Vikings”, “Tommy Bolin” and “Xena Warrior Princess”. A tag basically means that you have blogs within the blog. Way easier to find stuff. To follow special interests only, if that suits you. It will probably take a week or two before it is all done.
I quite like the new TYR album “Battle Ballads”. Three of the 10 tracks here are sung in their native tongue (Faroe Islands), got to love that. Viking Metal is in good hands.
(My shot of said CD, epic cover art by Gyula Havancsak)
1981 EP from Heavy Load with four bonus tracks, basically making it a full length album. Set for release on April 26. These guys were pioneers of Swedish hard rock, and they were certainly the first to go hard with the Viking covers. I do have a soft spot for the covers, they were always excellent. Maybe better than the actual music, in my humble opinion. Still, credit were credit is due, they did have an impact back in the day.
(Cover is from official platforms, cover art by Johan Holm)
Another issue of Swedish publication Hemmets Journal, 1 1946. They had brilliant covers and I do like to add classic issues to the old collection. Again, this time around they had the rights to publish the second book by author Frans G. Bengtsson, titled “The Long Ships II”, and it started here.
(My shot of said publication, cover art by Uno Stallarholm)
Today is a good day for my friend Jonas Öhlund. Not only is it his birthday, but it is also the release date of a project that has been lovingly restored and finally released. The name that has been chosen is the rather humorous Severe Overbite, but the material goes back to his youth in the 1980s when he was part of local bands (in Östersund, Jämtland County) like Rebellion, Bird Of Prey and Grime Crime along with singer Håkan Mårtensson. Demos were cut but nothing was ever released back in the day (for Jonas, that would come later with bands like Pride and Linehouse). In the early days though, the inspiration came from NWOBHM and acts like Black Sabbath and Heavy Load. They loved their Metal. It is the same old story, the urge to relive some of those happy days, and to get it on tape finally drew Jonas in. He started to rerecord some of the Rebellion material and eventually Håkan came onboard and the project started to take off. In the end, they used ideas from all three bands that they had been in and listening to it now it is rather obvious why they took on this project. These songs needed to be released and now they are out there (in digital form). It would be nice to see this as physical product some day as well, who knows what destiny has in mind this time around.
(Cover is from official platforms, cover art is by Frank Öhlund)
Swedish publication Hemmets Journal 27 1942. In this issue they had secured the rights to start publish Frans G. Bengtssons “The Long Ships” (soon to be considered a classic all over the world). This publication still exists, but they would never come up with this idea these days. Kind of sad.
(My shot of said publication – cover illustration by Uno Stallarholm)
Faroese Folk Metal band Tyr will release a new album called “Battle Ballads” on April 12. I always liked their logo, which was inspired by the Black Sabbath classic “Tyr”.
(My shot of said Sabbath album, new Tyr album inserted)
Swedish publication IDUN (1 1904). Basically a magazine for the women of the day. Got to love the Valkyrie cover. Quite poetic. An album cover based on this art would obviously fit any Metal band, especially from Sweden (note the flag etc, very patriotic). The Valkyrie angle is popular these days, just look at the Savage Oath album (“Divine Battle”) that I highlighted on the blog yesterday.
trinkelbonker 