Its Halloween next week so we thought we'd celebrate with some Helloween and Keep of the Seven Keys Part 1 and Part 2, as the first installment in what is becoming a series of first installments. This one we are calling Jewels of the Crown. Excellent heavy metal albums, that are probably appropriately rated, but we'll talk about them anyway because we love them.

Also discussed:

Austere - Beneath the Threshold and their upcoming Aus tour with Harakiri For the Sky courtesy of Your Mate Bookings https://www.yourmatebookings.com/uncategorized/3318/

Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N4rLtjPzH0

Grand Magus - Sunraven

Halford - Resurrection

Ray's experience at Essence Festival

Phil talks Glenn Hughes and Black Jesus (separate gigs)

The playlist of things we've been listening to continues to grow and become more and more eclectic, so enjoy that here

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Steel Assassins is almost upon us again. The yearly heavy metal festival held in Sydney by Dave Balfour at Metal Evilution. Get your tickets and be there in Nov 8 and 9 at The Bridge in Sydney

tickets

Episode playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2HK4ImHg24QMEXbE1bbnTI?si=N3dYpGBcR7uROs-9ZBCs7g&pi=a-KvScuGkCT6On

Also discussed

• The quite heartwarming story of Phil's introduction to Deep Purple's Burn and the upcoming Glenn Hughes tour
• Anthrax's Fistful of Metal being a pretty good amount of metal
• The 'big 4' having not great album covers for their first albums
• Blacksound Records has a physical location coming site
• Silent Knight and Valhalore (apologies for Ray mispronouncing that one, if you had to read his handwriting you'd know why) have been added as the supports for Hammerfall's upcoming Australian tour
• Grand Magus - pure heavy metal with a new album Sun Raven coming out Oct 18

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Phil and Ray are back and talking about albums they like that they think other people maybe don't like quite enough... or at least don't seem to talk about. Are we wrong? Are people always talking about them and we just live in a bubble that. Or are they terrible albums that people don't talk about for a damn good reason?

Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer

Mercyful Fate - Dead Again

Dissection - Reinkaos

Type O Negative - Dead Again

Also discussed

• Phil's Megadeth revisit begins with Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!
• Mood Lifters - the Rush tribute show was in Melbourne
• 40 Watt Sun - Little Weight is going to be occupying Ray's stereo for a while, giving Warning's Watching From a Distance some respite
• Wintersun - Time II
• Iron Maiden
• Bulletbelt
• Melbourne DethFest https://www.facebook.com/melbournedethfest/ line up has been announced. March 9th at the Corner Hotel with Left To Die, Pestilential Shadows, Gutless, Werewolves, Pizza Death, Midnight Odyssey and more
• Emu playing in Melbourne Sep 26 at Shotkickers but also playing all across the east coast at the moment
• Tarot album launch tour kicking off in December. Playing the Gaso Dec 6 in Melbourne

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Phil and Ray go and see Iron Maiden in Melbourne on The Future Past Tour. Some nostalgic chat about Iron Maiden before we headed out and then some initial responses directly after the show - audio quality while we are outside the stadium is a bit rough, as I'm sure you'd expect

Also, as a point of correction Nicko McBrain is actually 72 years old.

The Wickerman radio edit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dfDkxHtT9I

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Ray has a chat with Dan Nahum about the upcoming Essence Festival taking place in Canberra September 27 and 28. Recorded at the Espy just before Dan went on stage with Altars so there is a bit noise from trams, traffic, punters nearby, an acoustic artist playing, Pete from Whitehorse joining us briefly... you know how it goes.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/essence_festival?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Tickets: https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/cd26dd51-5ece-45d3-83de-56023e28e2d0

Festival Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7shu6UxUMoYz3fnh5oviRP?si=f9efd7a9840c41cf

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Phil and Ray talk about the bands that they feel like they should probably like more or just don't quite get. It turns out that they don't like each others favourite bands. Will this spell the end of the podcast and Phil and Ray's friendship? Doesn't seem like it.

Have a listen to some of the things we've been listening to over the last few months https://open.spotify.com/playlist/51HX07ZcHeIsBpNy9vUJiw?si=db576ccee10c40de

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Foot Stompers, Bangers, Epics and Ballads. The four types of songs. In this episode Phil and Ray talk about the curious beast that is the heavy metal ballad. Why does such a thing exist when it seems like it is perhaps the antithesis of heavy metal? The answer, because sometimes they are quite good.

Also talked about:

New single from Tribulation, Queen as one of the top 10 non metal bands that heavy metal owes a great deal, and reporting in on a few gigs attended in Melbourne over the previous couple of weeks.

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Phil and Ray discuss when the best time to be a heavy metal fan has been throughout history. More is more, or more not more? It is hard to know.

Also talked about

Bands:

Satan, Rotting Christ, Alcest, Death, Iron Maiden (always), Tarot

Gigs:

• Ulcerate, Pestilential Shadows, Altars https://www.ulcerate-official.com/#tour
• Disentomb, Abramelin + more https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/52409958-ac5e-4ccb-bc53-14686581414e
• Storm Rider Festival https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/f5d1dff9-5e2f-48e1-bc91-54f163d7cbe3
• Essence Festival https://tickets.oztix.com.au/outlet/event/cd26dd51-5ece-45d3-83de-56023e28e2d0
• Steel Assassins Festival https://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/event/steel-assassins-2024-two-day-pass/168187

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Phil and Ray talk about why we like albums so much and playlists less, but there is a time and place for everything

Albums we mention that we've been listening to lately

Phil:

• Tarot - Glimpse of the Dawn https://hcrtarot.bandcamp.com/album/glimpse-of-the-dawn
• Freeways - Dark Sky Sanctuary https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/dark-sky-sanctuary
• Kontact - Full Contact https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/full-contact

Ray:

• Borknagar - Fall https://open.spotify.com/album/5nK2siMASeGKxTsX9GqY3v
• Bruce Dickinson - The Mandrake Project https://open.spotify.com/album/0tN7q7Xmt0qaoGElJ3Gvqy
• Woods of Ypres - Grey Skies and Electric Lights https://open.spotify.com/album/0Rap0bS5EZeaKFoma3tjGs

A whole bunch of other albums get talked about throughout the episode, given it is album focused. They should all be easy to find if you don't know them already. This is the clip of Rob Halford being the coolest guy on Earth that is mentioned though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMVV_HsHcX0

And some really long playlists for your next long drive if you like exactly the same music as Ray does:

• rock songs for when people are over https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tvJfTdxU3rNyb6hT6aDid?si=0f92ae15985a4258
• metal playlist for when I don't want to choose things https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Ona2ZJHnAoUQGuUR1pMsb?si=1223a54322ad4907

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