As the winners of the H.O.A. Battle Of The Bands at the Headbanger’s Ballroom in Hamburg, Kiel’s MITHRIL were selected to be the openers of this edition’s first festival day. All four members looked rather young, and it surprised me to find out later that the band has been around since 1996 already. Two demos have been released so far : Among The Living (2002) and Dare The Heavens (2005). Today’s 43’ set included a couple of tunes off both releases, plus quite a few more. The band claims to be versatile, and they were to a certain extent, but they didn’t manage to impress me throughout their entire set. They sure had some kind of following present, and clearly enjoyed themselves on stage, but they aren’t completely mature yet. At least in my opinion. On the other hand : time is on their side …

The most exotic band of this edition was up next : Japan’s MAVERICK. Hardly heard of before, and never heard any of their material before, that’s for sure. Not surprisingly, as their selftitled debut CD was just out. This had been preceeded by at least three demos (1994, 1997, 2001). These four longhaired Japanese metallers sure enjoyed being on the small stage, and were received well too, but I don’t know what all the fuzz is about, really. Their speed/heavy metal is nothing all too extraordinary, and the vocalist suffers heavily from his accent, resulting in hardly understandable vocals. I’m aware that this is the case with most bands from Japan, but I’ve heard plenty of their compatriots doing a far better job in the past. And I prefer good music over people that are able to make strange grimaces all of the time. One listen to their CD afterwards only confirmed my live experience. Exotic band, but nothing to waste any sleep over, as there are countless of way better bands way closer to home.

Hailing from Australia, BLACK MAJESTY could be considered as being exotic as well. And way more established than the likes of MAVERICK, even though the latter have been around longer. Anyway, I really enjoyed the band’s Sands Of Time debut from 2003, but I wasn’t familiar with follow-up Silent Company yet. As a matter of fact, this show marked the official live presentation of said new release. As I would later found out Silent Company is slightly more commercial and accessible compared to its predecessor. Today’s setlist was a mixture of both releases, including Sands of Time, Legacy, Guardian and the killer closer Fall Of The Reich from their debut, plus the likes of Firestorm, New Horizons (with their previous drummer behind the kit one last time – how appropriate), Darkened Room, Dragon Reborn and Silent Company. And although BLACK MAJESTY are more established, or at least I would think so, they seemed to have less crowd interest than both previous bands. Strange! But their performance was clearly the best so far, and that’s the only thing that matters in my book. Not to say that their brand of traditionally inspired melodic power metal is my alltime most favourite genre, but still. The more recent stuff seemed to sound a bit more in the happy metal style at times, a trend that I hope won’t continue on the band’s next releases. The keyboards didn’t bother me at all, but it did become clearly evident that this stage is simply too small for a six-piece. Not too much running around, but a convincing performance nevertheless.

Another band on the LMP roster, but hailing from Greece this time, were up next : INNERWISH. At last a band that I was completely familiar with in advance! Musically, they are pretty much in the same vein as their labelmates BLACK MAJESTY. Melodic heavy metal, including speed and power elements as well. Four tunes off their 1998 Waiting For The Dawn debut (recently re-released on Eat Metal Records) were mixed with five from last year’s Silent Faces. New vocalist Babis surpasses his predecessor in every aspect, and as a result those four ‘old’ songs sounded way more compact, with Ready For Attack being the most convincing. Including a short speech in German is always a plus too. Well, maybe not for us, but for the homecrowd anyhow. The band’s current bassist was still recovering from a truck running him over earlier in the year, so the band simply brought along their previous fourstringer. And boy, did he have a good time on stage. He seemed to have no trouble with the five new tunes either, of which Dancer Of The Storm and Midnight Call convinced me the most. Once again the audience was rather apathic, but that’s not to say that INNER WISH’s performance wasn’t up to par.

Every year there seems to be the need to incorporate one really extreme metal band on the line-up as well. I don’t know why, but as far as I’m concerned it’s a total waste. This year’s pick was Italy’s NECRODEATH. As soon as they started their barrage of noise it was time for us to head for the food stand. After all, it was past 7 pm already, and one has to eat sooner or later anyhow … I couldn’t even be bothered to take a couple of snapshots! Next!!!

The most obscure band to be enlisted for this edition without a doubt was WEAPON, one of those countless bands that were already around during the N.W.O.B.H.M. movement some 25 years ago. They broke up ages ago already, and didn’t reform properly until recently. And with the entire original line-up, I may add! When I asked guitarist Jeff Summers afterwards why WEAPON never reunited any earlier, he replied that nobody had ever asked them to. As simple as that … Anyway, I made sure to be really up front for WEAPON’s kick-off. The band was greeted with great enthusiasm, and that only got better as soon as they burst into Set The Stage Alight. I always consider it to be quite a risk to start a show with your most known and alltime best tune, but it worked out great in this case. Although WEAPON are a band that plenty of people have heard of before, I’m sure that most are only familiar with this one song. And if they’re lucky, they know the flipside from the band’s only 7”/12” as well. The die-hards, including us, were of course familiar with the Set The Stage Alight CD release on Zoom Club Records (2003) as well, which is a collection of demos from days of yore. I’ll be the first to admit that the titletrack is a classic that can’t be equalled in any way, but the likes of Liar, One Night Stand, Midnight Satisfaction, Remote Control or Killer Instinct manage to convince me on any given day as well. And Mad Mad World of course, including a lot of crowd participation. I can’t quite explain, but I really enjoy these melodic tunes. Make that a perfect mix of melody and heavyness. As it would turn out, the band would play no less than 10 out of the 12 CD songs. Which became 11 in the end, as the audience made the band return for an encore, with the bluesy Bad Love. And as far as I’m concerned they could as well have played Set The Stage Alight once more as well, making it a perfect circle. Vocalist Danny Hynes, guitarist Jeff Summers, bassist Barry Downes and drummer Bruce Bisland were outstanding, the audience loved it and the band was super enthusiastic. My first highlight today, and one of my finest hours during the entire festival!

RAVENSTHORN's unexpected set the night before was quite convincing, so I was looking forward to their performance today as well. Led by corpsepainted vocalist Bill Jannusch, this Illinois quartet once again delivered a (55') set of songs culled from both of their releases. The ones that I already mentioned in yesterday's review were played once more, plus the likes of Lord Of Chaos, Farewell Misery, The Ring, Possessed By Evil and Lost In Darkness. A good selection of true U.S. metal indeed, versatile enough to please plenty of people, and with Bill's characteristic high-pitched vocals at times. And musically influenced by the likes of BLACK SABBBATH as well as KING DIAMOND. Kinda hard to describe the band's style accurately, but I like it. Although I think that their performance could've been even better ... something was missing. The CD sound wasn't quite achieved in this live situation, as far as I'm concerned. Not as far as the band were concerned though, as bassist Jeff Taylor made sure to let us know that this was the best audience they ever played for. That says quite a lot about their home crowds, I'm afraid. Currently RAVENSTHORN is writing material for their third CD, and if that turns out to be a logic evolution of what they were capable of so far, I'm sure that they will gain even more souls in Europe. And beyond?

Last band but one today was another one from Illinois : RIVAL, consisting of four bodybuilding-type-of-guys. I had seen these guys once before, several years ago at the first Classic Metal festival. That was in 2001, I believe. In 2002 they were here for the first time, but since we were abroad ourselves at the time, we missed them on that occasion. Anyway, RIVAL stands for power metal, or powerful heavy metal, if you like. These guys have always been compared to OMEN, and I'm not the one to argue with that, since it's quite obvious at times. Not that being inspired by, and sounding akin to, any such classic U.S. heavy metal outfit is bad. I quite enjoy RIVAL, although I must say that a bit more diversity wouldn't hurt in the long run. Now there's a tendency that quite a few of their songs are in the same vein ... Not surprisingly the set consisted of songs from all three of their releases so far (Rival, Modern World & State Of Mind), including such highlights as The Last Rebellion, Half Alive, Strangler, State Of Mind, Hell Train, Death Stalker and Beast Of The Night. A total of 12 tunes in just under one hour. Not surprisingly the audience wanted more, so the band returned one final time, with Evil Within. Which was a perfect closer for a convincing performance.

Never having seen Bay Area based thrashers HEATHEN before myself, I was eagerly awaiting their performance tonight. I do consider myself to be a fan, and I've always loved both of their late 1980's / early 1990's releases, Breaking The Silence & Victims Of Deception. Or the Recovered release from 2004, for that matter. Fact is that HEATHEN hardly has any bad songs, so there was no doubt on my mind that the setlist would be excellent. And so it turned out : an almost perfect mixture of songs from their debut (Goblin's Blade, Breaking The Silence, Pray For Death, Open The Grave & Death By Hanging), its follow-up (Hypnotized, Opiate Of The Masses, Timeless Cell Of Prophecy, Heathen's Song, Prisoners Of Fate & Mercy Is No Virtue), THIN LIZZY's The Holy War and even two new songs : Arrows Of Agony & Dying Season. Both of those blended in perfectly with the band's classic material, and created high expectations for the band's upcoming new CD. I won't even start to tell you which songs I liked most, as HEATHEN's performance simply ripped. Even though guitarist Lee Altus had to change guitars twice, due to broken strings. Probably from hitting them too hard ... It was obvious that the band had a great time on stage, and the audience was franticly enthusiastic as well. Of course I'm probably biased, but this performance clearly showed us that HEATHEN's material stood the test of time well, and that this is a worthwhile reunion. Rest assured : HEATHEN was a worthy headliner, and thus the perfect band to close things down on this first day! All we can do now is wait for the new CD release, and hopefully that DVD they've announced as well.

Local 'heroes' CARPEDIEM had the honour to open up proceedings around 12 noon already, resulting in a not too big crowd. I was only familiar with this sextet's latest (third) demo release, nicely titled Fuckmachine. And no, I can't say I'm too fond of it. Rather the opposite ... Anyhow, this band has been described as progressive power metal, which I don't agree with. Progressive? Okay, and mainly due to the inclusion of keyboards. Power metal? I don't think so. I couldn't describe CARPEDIEM's style if I wanted too, for it's a bit of everything ... resulting in nothing interesting in the end. Anyway, their approach is way too modern for my ears. And their vocalist screams most of the time, rather than singing. Oh well, they did have a female bassplayer, and there was plenty of smoke ... Those were about the highlights of their set as well! Next!!!

Another female was about to grace the small H.O.A. stage, as France's MYSTERY BLUE were scheduled to perform next. Fronted by the gorgeous and extremely sympathetic Nathalie Geyer, this was a band that I was more or less familiar with in advance. At least as far as their most recent stuff and their very early stuff is concerned ... After all, these French metallers have been around since 1982 already, in one incarnation or another. And I was surprised to find out that they were a quintet now, as 2003's Metal Slaves was recorded as a quartet, with only one guitarist. Today's set would soon turn out to be a mixture of old, recent and brandnew stuff. Slave To Blood was the perfect opener, and was followed by new one Electric Power. Up next was Angel, also from Metal Slaves. The third (and final) song from that release would follow later on by means of Metal Dream. I was hoping for more of that particular release, such as Roller Coaster Ride or Cry Out. It was not to be ... A couple more new (?) tunes (The Edge Of Nightmare, Shades Of Death, Psycho City) followed, before the band tackled MANOWAR's Metal Daze. Which was okay, but nowhere near as good as the original, of course. Earlier on in the set, guitarist Frenzy Philippon had encountered plenty of guitar problems, yet Nathalie easily managed to entertain the audience. Hailing from near the French-German border, she speaks German fluently, which is always a plus in this kind of circumstances. Besides she's quite good when it comes to English as well, which is always interesting for those attending from outside of Germany. Ride To Live, Live To Ride (from the band's 1984 debut) marked the end of their 40' set. An entertaining set, I may add, although I would've enjoyed it even better had they played more songs off Metal Slaves, which is an excellent release altogether. The band has been busy recording album # 5, Claws Of Steel, recently and I only hope it'll be along the same lines as its predecessor.

A band that I was totally unfamiliar with so far was Germany's own GUN BARREL. I was familiar with the name, but had never heard any of their songs. And, as a result, I wasn't really expecting a lot from this quartet. Which explains why I didn't witness their entire set; sometimes record/CD hunting can be equally interesting, even though the H.O.A. metal market is way too small! Anyway, by the looks of it the members of GUN BARREL weren't exactly a bunch of young newcomers, rather a posse of experienced guys. And it showed in their musical performance. One glance at their setlist, and it became painfully obvious that they would never be able to cram all 15 (!) songs into a 45' set. It turned out that they dropped at least three or four in the end ... GUN BARREL's music is in the powerful heavy rock 'n roll vein; heavy most of the time, but with plenty of melody as well. I'm sure that these guys can really entertain an audience late at night in a smoky club or pub, but things didn't really come to full fruition here. Probably because the band's musical style wasn't what most people were interested in. Although you could easily discover influences by the likes of MOTÖRHEAD, ROSE TATTOO as well as DIO/RAINBOW. Not the most original band on earth, but I'll go through the trouble of investigating their catalogue (3 full CD's so far) anyhow. Nice surprise!

I had seen Germany's doom ensemble MIRROR OF DECEPTION a couple of times before already, and they had never let me down. It was not to be any different today. Even though their regular drummer couldn't make it today, and was temporarily replaced by his SACRED STEEL colleague. And obviously the band hadn't been able to rehearse everything to the maximum, as the guy kinda fucked up the intro to one of the new songs, resulting in them having to start over again twice until he got it right. But hey, hail to the guy, for he did an admirable job otherwise. Just as the band was about to begin it started to rain, and the accompaning thunder provided the perfect intro for Bleak, from the recently released Foregone LP/CD. The emphasis today was on that release, as The Ship Of Fools and Deception Island were on offer as well. But luckily the likes of Asylum, Entgleiten and Vanished weren't forgotten either. I'm sure that a fair amount of people will have trouble with the band's strange kind of doom, but I have no problem with that. I only hope to see them again in better circumstances. Meaning indoors or under better weather conditions, and with the 'normal' line-up. No doubt I'll be able to, sooner or later.

GASKIN are another of the countless bands that belong to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal movement. And one of the more known ones too, I might add. After all they managed to release two albums in the early 1980's, and a third one in the late 1990's. Especially their debut includes a couple of alltime classics, such as Sweet Dream Maker, Despiser, Burning Alive and I'm No Fool. Mainman / vocalist / guitarist Paul Gaskin is the only surviving member from the early line-up these days. Rounding out the line-up these days are guitarist Andy Soloman, bassist Tony Ilkiw and drummer Dave Pick. Which is pretty much the same line-up as during their stint at the Wacken Open Air festival in 2000, if memory serves me well. The band had prepared a balanced set of songs from all three releases (4 from comeback release Stand Or Fall, plus 3 each from both early releases), plus one new song : Lost And Lonely. The Man Is Back marked the beginning of 50' of entertaining bluesy heavy rock, only to be followed by two more tunes off Stand Or Fall : Tomorrow Today & Still Got The Hunger. Broken Up, Come Back To Me and the titletrack were representative for No Way Out. End Of The World and the all-destroying Sweet Dream Maker were culled from their 1981 debut. During the set Paul decided to twist the playing order around a bit, only to find out that there was no more time left to play the band's most known anthem : I'm No Fool. Well, judging by this 'accident' you could easily believe otherwise ... I just wish they had dropped one of the No Way Out songs in stead. But in all fairness : GASKIN's performance left nothing to be desired, and was more convincing than what I remember from their 2000 performance. Let's hope Paul will manage to keep on track from now on, so we can look forward to another GASKIN release, and a couple more live encounters.

UNDERCROFT are an extreme (Satanic ?) thrash combo from Chili, and that's about all I can tell you. Not my cup of tea, to put it mildly. Too extreme and not fitting in on this bill at all. I took some pictures, and then we headed for a safer haven.

Italy's ALL SOULS' DAY were the second doom band on stage today. The festival and doom metal seem to go hand in hand, but maybe it would've been better to have one band each day, rather than two in just a couple of hours. Anyway, ALL SOULS' DAY were a quite new outfit for me, although I did buy their Into The Mourning CD in advance. Which is full of epic doom metal in the vein of CANDLEMASS, SOLITUDE AETURNUS, etc. A combination that sounds great on CD, but that wasn't achieved live. Although the band had quite some success, it would last until the very last song until the audience became ecstatic. Not surprisingly that was when the band covered one of their favourite bands : CANDLEMASS. The song in question being Under The Oak. Which, I have to admit, sounded great. Apart from opener I Burn, the rest of the setlist consisted of songs from Into The Mourning, including the likes of Forever, A Mortal Day, The Mourning and At The Bell Toll. And although all of them were performed okay, something was lacking. Maybe the songs were just too long and melancholic for their own sake. Let's say that ALL SOULS' DAY were overall okay, but they didn't come close to the performance of fellow doomsters THUNDERSTORM and FORSAKEN during previous editions.

Germany's speed/thrash outfit WARRANT released an EP (First Strike) and LP (The Enforcer) in the mid 1980's, before they vanished into obscurity. I'm only familiar with The Enforcer and, on the evidence of that release, I never understood what all the fuzz was about. Okay, it's speed metal, which was typical for that era in Europe, but it's all rather mediocre and one-dimensional. Definitely not the best German outfit in that genre in those days. I'd say that the likes of DESTRUCTION, KREATOR and SODOM were even better, although I never really dug those either. Only to say that I wasn't fond of WARRANT back in the 1980's, and, as they played old songs only on this occasion, not of the 2005 incarnation either. The likes of Satan, Ready To Command, Bang That Head (all from First Strike) or The Rack, Ordeal Of Death, Nuns Have No Fun, The Enforcer, Betrayer or Send Ya' To Hell sure did appeal to some people, it's just that they didn't on my scale. Reason enough not to see their entire set, and venture elsewhere instead. Maybe they can try and convince me once more during the third Swordbrothers festival?

Germany's WIZARD were no strangers to the H.O.A. festival, as they performed here already in 2001. For us it was our third encounter with the band, and on both previous occasions the band managed to convince. Which isn't easy, knowing my personal tastes when it comes to German bands in general, and, more specifically, their singers. But rest assured, Sven D'Anna is way above your average German shouter, and he's an alround nice guy as well. Their style still is in the Teutonic meets true metal vein, maybe not completely original (hence some MANOWAR influences) but overall convincing. The band has been releasing CD's every two years since 1995, making Magic Circle their sixth full-length. Of course almost half of the set (5/11) was dedicated to that recent release, by means of Fire And Blood, Call Of The Wild, Circle Of Steel, Uruk Hai and Metal. But I was surprised to find out that the band included songs from all of their previous releases today as well. Those being Enemy Die (from 1995's debut Son Of Darkness), Dragon Lords (Battle Of Metal - 1997), the killer Hammer, Bow, Axe And Sword (Bound By Metal - 1999), Iron War & Defenders Of Metal (Head Of The Deceiver - 2001) and Hall Of Odin (Odin - 2003). A versatile selection of songs that hardly could've been bettered. Add a fanatic band and an audience that was eating out of Sven's hands right from the start, and the end result is a highly entertaining set of true Teutonic heavy metal!

After having witnessed New Jersey's ATTACKER's blistering sets at both the Keep It True and Heavy Metal Maniacs festivals last year, I was definitely looking forward to their performance here. The line-up had remained unchanged, compared to last year, and a new (fourth) CD is said to be on the way, so I was looking forward to hear a couple of brandnew songs. Which turned out to be not the case in the end. Apart from intro Nail It Down and I Am Sin (which they already played last year at the HMM festival), the rest of their one hour set was made up of tracks from all three of their releases so far. The more recent (Soul Taker) stuff, such as the titletrack and Return To Mordor, sure wasn't out of place on a setlist that also included such classics as Emanon, Captives Of Babylon, Slayer's Blade, Desecration, Revelations Of Evil, Disciple and of course (Call On) The Attacker. As usual ATTACKER delivered the goods big time, and charismatic vocalist Bob Mitchell won the audience over in no time. It was just another proof that the band's most fanatic fanbase is to be found in Europe. Due to time restrictions the band wasn't able to play The Hermit in the end, despite shouts from the fans. ATTACKER came, saw & conquered once more, and the end is not in sight yet, as they are scheduled to do a small European tour this coming autumn, including an appearance at the 4th Swordbrothers festival. That will be with a slightly altered line-up though, as original bassist Lou Ciarlo has returned to the band in the meantime. And The Unknown, the band's new CD, will be released in April already. Way to go! And what about that Death By Decibels DVD, Bob?

Chicago's TYRANT'S REIGN kicked off around 11.10 pm, with a 50' delay, and with Kill Or Be Killed. They soon capitalised on the good spirit that was set by ATTACKER already, and continued with their anthem, S.O.S. and Star Chamber. Last November, at K.I.T. III, the band was forced to drop Jack The Ripper from the setlist, but they made sure not to overlook it this time, by placing it midway through their set. The next two songs were kind of each other's mirror image : the ultra fast Thrashing Metal Maniacs versus Unconditional Surrender. Fear was the only song that I wasn't familiar with, and it was followed by semi-ballad Fadeaway. The final blow came in form of Passage To Eternity and, above all, Reign Of Terror. (Un)fortunately they dropped their cover version of METALLICA's Sanitarium (Welcome Home), but on the other hand they managed to ultimately add Untamed as well, which wasn't on the initial setlist. Making today's set pretty much similar to the one from last November. One thing that was different this time though was the line-up, as there was no sign of guitarists Karl Miller and Jeff Bagherpour this time. Both of them were replaced by one single guy : Jeff West. Needless to say that this had some kind effect on the band's performance. Most of the band's material is clearly written for two guitarists, and it became quite obvious on some occasions. I don't know what happened with Karl and Jeff B., but Jeff West did the best he could to make things sound as close as things were originally meant to be. As a result TYRANT'S REIGN's performance was convincing, but not on the same level as last year. They sure managed to please most of the audience, but I know for sure that things would've sounded even better had their line-up included two guitarists. So, I hope they'll find another one soon, and finally record that new CD!

Out of the six American bands that came over for this edition DAMIEN THORNE was the fourth and final one hailing from Illinois. Not that I'm complaining ... I saw these guys four years ago already, at the first Classic Metal Festival in Kalamazoo, but that was when original vocalist Justin Fate was still in the band. In the mean time he had been replaced by a bold guy with a non-metal background. That's what I was told in advance anyway. Quite naturally I was a bit sceptical about the upcoming headline performance ... After all, DAMIEN THORNE has become a cult band over here in Europe based solely on the evidence of their The Sign Of The Jackal debut release. And as only one of the original members (guitarist Ken Mandat) was still in the band, I didn't know what to expect. I made sure to be really upfront, and let me tell you : they sure played loud!! Way too loud, in my opinion, as it ruined my listening pleasure to an extent. The band had prepared a 14-song setlist and started out with The Sign Of The Jackal and Fear Of The Dark, two songs that most people were familiar with. No less than four songs from the just released Haunted Mind CD followed : Dark Ancestor, Haunted, Dante's Mire & Clairvoyant. The thing is : hardly anybody (including myself) was familiar with these new tunes. And to make matters worse four more tunes off said new released were performed later on : Fire In The Sky, Exit Jeckyll, The Suffering & Raise Your Horns. Fortunately we were also treated to some other, more familiar stuff as well, such as the excellent Hell's Reign, Wrath Of Darkness, Siren's Call and, last but not least, Damien's Procession. I'm not the one to say that DAMIEN THORNE made a bad impression, but the problem is that a) most people didn't know enough of the band's material b) the band played only three songs from their debut, which wasn't enough and c) they played too much material from the new release, which hardly anyone was familiar with. And as a result DAMIEN THORNE weren't really the kind of headliners that I had in mind. If I had had it my way, I would've reversed them with ATTACKER, who proved to be way more cohesive and to the point! One final note : the new singer sure wasn't bad, but he wasn't able to fill Justin Fate's shoes adequately either. Probably the reason why he has been replaced by former PREMONITION frontman Tattoo Frank recently.