Drive - Characters in Time (1988)

Coming out of Houston before moving to LA, the very talented Drive brought the POWER to power metal. Talented guitarists - check. Pounding headbanging rhythms - check. Razor sharp vocals and screams - double check. It's all there. Packaged up and ready to take over your playlist. Sonically Drive are very much in the same vein as FatesWarning, Queensryche, or Helstar. There first album, Characters in Time, received five K's from Kerang! magazine so they should have been looking at a rosy future in the metal kingdom. 

A second album, Diablero followed but in a much more rock radio friendly format. The riffs slow down to metal ballad speed and David Taylor's screams are replaced with vocal melodies. Sadly a label snafu and grunge killed off most of the metal bands of the time and Drive became parked on Forgotten Road. Luckily, both of Drive's albums are available via Amazon as MP3's; with both albums also being easy to score secondhand for a fair price.

Drive - (New Reign) The Phoenix - From the album Characters in Time (1988)

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Characters in Time MP3s from Amazon

Sweet Nightmares - KPFT Radio Show (4-18-1990)

Another 90+ minutes of Bill and Wes spinning some of the best metal available. Being a big supporter of local music, Wes plays a few local songs by Grimace, dead horse, and Krullur. The Krullur song gets cut off right at the end of the song so I left it in rather than editing it out. Learn more about the radio show in this previous post here.

Track Listing:

1. Kreator - As The World Burns

2. Ratos De Porao - Amazonia Nunca Mais

3. Revenant - Distant Eyes

4. Morbid Angel - Evil Spells

5. Grimace (TX) - Jazz Fuse

6. dead horse (TX) - Mindless Zombies

7. Immolation - Despondent Souls

8. Hexx - Fields of Death (Tape Flip)

9. Pestilence - Out of the Body

10. Shades of Gray - Rage of Insanity (Demo)

11. Atrophy - Puppies & Friends

12. Sadus - Good Riddance (Demo)

13. Rest in Pieces - Five Golden Rings

14. Slayer - Reborn

15. Carcass - Excoriating Abdominal Emanation

16. Death - Altering the Future

17. Krullur - This is Gore (Cut-Off)

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Torture - Enter the Chamber Demo (1986)

Coming out of El Paso, Torture put out some extremely good heavy thrash. These recording are extra rough so if you want a better listen to what the band has to offer; search out their full-length Storm Alert released in 1989 and later re-issued in 2006 with extra tracks. Regardless of quality, these four tracks give a sample of Torture's particular brand of thrash; fast without tripping into speed metal and growling vocals reminiscent of Venom.

Track Listing:

1. Enter the Chamber

2. Into the Dark

3. Power Metal

4. The Vision

Band Members:

Justin "Drummer from Hell" Dudra - Drums

"Tortured" Tom Hicks - Vocals, Guitars (lead)

Deric Gunter - Bass

J.D. Robins - Guitars

Download

Thanks to RocketScienceRecords blogspot for the rip.