All Hail the Exalted Piledriver!! The career of the influential Canadian outfit Piledriver was short but sweet. Two fantastic albums of Quality over Quantity. This year marks the 40th (!) birthday of record #2, “Stay Ugly”. So it’s appropriate to tap this record for our “40th Anniversary Album Spotlight Series”. We discuss all things Pilely then do a track by tack deep dive into this amazing platter. Rest In Power,…

We all gotta start somewhere. For underground Metal bands in the 80s, the Metal Forces magazine “Demolition” section was a great place to start. It exposed artists demo tapes to their readers and got them going in the tape trading dept. And a number of then unknown artists appearing would go onto become known. Namely legends like Slayer and Megadeth. But that’s just the tip of the Metalberg. This week…

Around the RAM offices, vinyl is King. The CD is our silver medalist. And finally, the cassette is still a thing in metallic lives. So this week we’re discussing all things cassette. Do we still collect and how many do we still have? Our first and faves. And our mix tape making abilities. Don’t hit the FF button in this episode. In our “News, Views and Tunes”, we take in…

We’re not exactly spring chickens around here anymore. Retirement from our “money jobs” will be here sooner than later. So what are going to do with all our free time? Maybe start a fanzine. How about volunteering with our local indie promoter? For you tech types, how about gear restoration? There’s so much a dedicated Metalhead can do for the betterment of Metaldom. We hope this episode gives you some…

The vocalist is the face and voice of a musical group. The Wonderful World of Heavy Metal have a gazilion frontpersons that are both super talented and are quite the characters. This week we figured we would once again call upon the fantastic “High Infidelity” flick and present our “Top 5” of Metal vocalists. We share some legendary names. And have a few dark horses too. In our “News, Views…

NWOBHM legends Iron Maiden recently got tapped to go into the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame. So with Bruce and the Boyz on the minds of Metalheads the world over, we figure it’s a great time to discuss one of their classic albums. “Somewhere In Time” recently turned 40. So we decided now was the time to feature the effort in our ongoing “40th Anniversary Album Spotlight”. We go…

Believe it or not, the classic Judas Priest album “Turbo” recently celebrated its 40th Bday! This is an interesting album in the whole JP discography. Fans were split as the band experimented with more modern sounds and images in an effort to look more “80s”. So its a great time to feature “Turbo” in our “40th Anniversay Album Spotlight Series”. We do a track by track deep dive. And share…

There’s this old adage of “Opinions are like aholes. Everyone has one and they all stink”. So in that spirit, we thought we’d share some of ours this week. As teens, the British tome, Metal Forces, was a fave. Every year the magazine presented their “Reader’s Poll” results. And we recently stumbled on the results from ’83 in Issue 3. So we figured we’d give them the once over and…

Inspired by our Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame discussion last week, we decided to test our Metal. Being trivia buffs, we came up with the idea of Aaron testing Snowy on his knowledge of said HOF. Essentially, Aaron threw out an artist and Snowy had to take an educated guess as to the year they went into the Hall. You’ll be able to hear the wheels turning through your…

The nominees for this years Rock n Roll Hall of Fame hopefuls was recently released. Of course, we’re squarely behind the mighty Iron Maiden getting their log overdue accolades. But there’s also a number of other artists that both nod and shake our heads. So this week we go through the list and play our most comprehensive game of “Should and Will” yet. Namely who we think should go in….

Heavy Metallers have traditionally been complete package type people. The tunes rule, of course. But we also enjoy the physical product as a whole. And the album graphics could serve two purposes: for both art and/or promotion. And this week we go deep into the discussion. How ’bout for you. Do the album covers make or break a record for you? In our “News, Views and Tunes”, we go over…

1986 was an interesting year in the Black Sabbath camp. Fan interest was waning. Bands that Sabbath influenced were leaving them in the dust. And the band’s 12th album “Seventh Star” wasn’t doing them any favors. At this point, Sabbath was basically the Tony Iommi Project and the Sabbath sound was abandoned for something a little more 80s friendly. So this week we decided to tackle this forgotten record in…