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)

Follow Drive on FaceBook

Characters in Time MP3s from Amazon

Final Assault / Vengeance - Final Vengeance: Within the Realm (Demo Re-Issue)

Today I'm highlighting another re-issue. This one by Texas Metal Underground Records. Final Assault was a speed metal/power metal band formed in 1985. They released a demo called First Warning that same year and the band playing live shows. In 1987, Final Assault attempted to move out to California hoping for more exposure but this led to the band almost breaking up. A few band member changes later, Final Assault recorded and released their second demo, Second Coming. This would be the last recording under the Final Assault name.

Final Assault is high energy metal with Alexander Robles vocals soaring into the stratosphere. Fans of Fates Warning or Sanctuary will be pleased to discover this band. The guitar playing is strong with a technical competence. As a whole, this band should have had a wider following than they had at the time.

In 1988, the band would reform with a new drummer and a new name, Vengeance. This version of the band was more polished in sound and songwriting than the previous band but it amounted to little with the band playing local shows and little recognition. Luckily, Texas Metal Underground Records heard the promise both bands held and re-issued the Final Assault demo (1988) and the Vengeance demo (1989) on one CD.

;\

Band Members

Alex Beltron - Bass (Final Assault/Vengeance)

David Vela - Drums (Final Assault)

Ace Tyler - Drums (Vengeance)

Ruben Vela - Guitars (Final Assault/Vengeance)

Izzy Munoz - Guitars (Final Assault/Vengeance)

Alexander Robels III - Vocals (Final Assault/Vengeance)

Buy Final Vengeance: Within the Realm at TMU Records

MÄAX/MindThreat/10 Kingdoms - I Drank What? (1988/1991/2001)

This one is a head scratcher. This demo has gone through three differing bands and variations. The one constant... it's pure heavy metal! I reached out to 10 Kingdoms and Jospeh Ellis to get the history of this demo so I will let him tell the story.

From Jospeh Ellis: The "I Drank What?" EP was originally released in 1988, under the band name MÄAX. A year later, one of the guest guitar players decided he didn't like his 'performance' and tried to sue me to get it removed. So I did, had another guy come in (I've always wanted the bands I'm in to be a 5-piece, so there would be 2 lead players) and do his thing, only to have him freak out when I asked him to tone it down a little (he was attempting to be Malmsteen). 

Anyway, by 1990, I met another guitar player and we formed a band, MindThreat, and we did pretty well for ourselves from '91-'95/'96. He replaced the solos on that demo and they've stayed that way.

The demo was re-released in 1991 under the MindThreat name, so that we would have something to give the club owners to get gigs. MindThreat folded in '96, mainly because everyone wanted to wear flannel and play Hard Rock but call it grunge. Ugh.

Fly up to 2001, and it was cleaned up and released a 3rd time, only this time under the 10 KINGDOMS name. And that's the way it has stayed.

Players:

Joey Gutierrez - Vocals

Joseph Ellis - Lead/Rhythm Guitars

Brian Todd - Bass Guitars

Mike Gage - Drums & Percussion

Engineered by Mike Gage at Studio Southwest, Sunnyvale TX

Mixed and Produced by Joseph Ellis and Mike Gage

Anything else you need to know man, just hit me with a message! THANKS AGAIN!

P.S. The name of the demo comes from a line in the movie, "Real Genius", you can check it out here if you want to know. 

http://youtu.be/deOsP5ipfr4

Track Listing

1. Chains of Despair

2. Renegade

3. Incompetent Fool

Link Removed by Request

Thanks to Proteus 666 of Metalarea.org for the rip.

Visit 10 Kingdoms on Facebook for more history about the band and future shows!

Sweet Nightmares - KPFT Radio Show (Feb. 10, 1988)

I've been digging deep in my garage to pull out my personally taped cassettes of Sweet Nightmares. This isn't really Texas based music but it does shine a light on what local radio  the bands had access to and how some of them became inspired to create their own metal.

Beginning in the mid-80's, Sweet Nightmares started playing the heaviest, hardest metal of the day for the Houston metro area. Transmitting from 90.1 KPFT (kpft.org), Sweet Nightmares was the only place a true metalhead could hear the good stuff. Wes Weaver (to be joined later by co-host Bill (The Master) Bates) and crew introduced me to some of the classic metal that MTV was afraid to play. While regular radio played Ratt, Motley Crue, and other hair bands, Sweet Nightmares spun real metal from bands like Slayer, Testament, Celtic Frost, etc. This particular set includes songs by Paradox, Sanctuary, Candlemass, Forbidden Evil (pre-Forbidden), Metal Onslaught, Necrophagia, Nasty Savage and more.

Best of all is the fact that Sweet Nightmares is still on the air (Thursdays from 11pm-2am). Check out the KPFT archives for access to the latest shows and follow Sweet Nightmares on Twitter for the latest Houston metal news. (https://twitter.com/nightmareskpft)

A little more history about the show from We Weaver himself...

Sweet nightmares was started in 1987 by a guy named Steve Harrington, he some affiliation to the station and basically he did a metal show one night in march 87 at like 2 in the morning,i missed it but a friend heard it and told ma about it.So I went down the next week with records, Steve played them and asked me back the following week, and i didn't stop going...lol He gave me the show about 6 months later....i had a few people help me and then got Bill Bates sometime in 88 probably mid 88.

Track List

1. Nasty Savage - Abstract Reality

2. Viking - Valhalla

3. Forbidden Evil - Chalice of Blood (Demo Version)

4. Deadly Blessing - Salem's Lot

5. Candlemass - Dark Are The Veils Of Death

6. Vio-Lence - Bodies on Bodies (Demo Version)

7. Sanctuary - Termination Force

8. Paradox - Beyond Space (Tape Flip)

9. Metal Onslaught - Cease to Exist

10. Necrophagia - Bleeding Torment

11. Morbid Angel - Kingdom Come (Demo Version)

12. Gargoyle - Final Victory

13. Nasty Savage - Hypnotic Trance

14. Plasmatics - 12 Noon

15. Exodus - Deranged

16. Nuclear Assault - Justice

17. Judas Priest - Steeler

Download the Sweet Nightmares radio show.

Morbid Scream - Demo (1988)

Great thrash from Plano, Texas.

Morbid Scream was another band active in the Houston area. A quick couple of demos and it was all over except for a collection of their demos songs and some live stuff released on CD (The Signal to Attack: 1986 - 1990) on Tarot Productions. The CD is seemingly out of print.

A nice interview with Jim Bowman, drummer: Interview

Track Listing

1. Morbid Scream

2. Timeless Sleep

3. Fist in Your Face

4. Cries of Sanity

Band Members

Todd Premus - Bass

Jimi Bowman - Drums

Jason Dorf - Guitars

Trent White - Vocals, Guitars

Download

Thanks to www.metalourgio.com for the rip.

Academy Black - Demo aka Join the Academy (1988)

Now to include some crossover/thrash from Houston, Texas.

Academy Black was very active in the local music scene but only released two demos. This first demo from 1988 and a second demo, Dead Fun, was released a year later. This demo is known as Join the Academy on Metal-archives  because it was released with three different covers; one of which included the words "Join the Academy" on the cover. As of 2015, the band is still active performing reunion shows but hasn't mentioned any plans on releasing new material.

Track Listing

1. I Murdered Mike 

2. Father of the Future

3. Crush the Monster

4. Evil Hell Part 666

Band Members

Damon Gill - Bass (1987-present)

Greg Main - Drums (1987-present)

Jeff Mikel - Guitars (1987-present)

Dave Yammer -Vocals (1987-present)

Download