Description

Yellow vinyl with gatefold cover, insert and vinyl single. Limited 200 hand numbered copies

Along with the legendary Mercyful Fate and some considerably more obscure acts such as Alien Force and Crystal Knight, Copenhagen’s own Witch Cross must rate as one of the best Danish heavy metal bands ever. Their 1984 album “Fit For Fight” is surely one of the Top 5 albums in the history of Danish metal. One of the two guitarists on this masterpiece is a certain ‘Cole Hamilton’. Well, his real name is Ole Hamilton Poulsen. He had joined Witch Cross after the recordings of their “Are you there” debut 7” single. However, not a lot of people know that Ole had his own little band going for quite a while before being asked to join Witch Cross. Mandrake were formed in Copenhagen in 1979 (under the name of Zyndactyle) and lasted roughly until 1982. Songs such as “We Will Be Strong” (aka “Rockin’ The Night away”) and “Alien Savage” were truly superb compositions with massive New Wave Of British Heavy Metal leanings. Both tracks were later re-arranged and appeared on Witch Cross’ “Fit For Fight” record. Ole Hamilton Poulsen explains: “As you can see, the ‘Alien Savage’ track came from our second demo with Mandrake, and was actually chosen by original Witch Cross singer Alex Savage who heard the demo and liked the number. It was him who suggested to play it live when I had joined Witch Cross. The same goes for the track ‘Rockin’ The Night Away’. Of course, the original Mandrake title of the song was “We Will Be Strong”. Alex liked it but he re-wrote the lyrics and changed the name of the song for the “»Fit For Fight” album. Both numbers were received very well, and although I thought Kim was a splendid vocalist in Mandrake, I think I like the Witch Cross recordings better than the Mandrake versions.” Whereas Ole was only one of two guitarists in Witch Cross, Mandrake had been one hundred percent his baby: He recorded three demos with his band: “The first one in around 1979. The band was still called Zyndactyle, the tape included four tracks, just prior to our name change to Mandrake. Then we recorded another demo tape in 1980 in Copenhagen’s ‘Rock Tape’ studios and last but not least we recorded another demo in 1982 with Noel De Castro Tofino on vocals, who in spite of his name, was all Danish, and a new drummer, Claus H Johansson.” Ole auditioning for the up and coming Witch Cross in 1982 marked the end for his own band Mandrake: “I felt at a point that the other guys in Mandrake maybe didn’t take the band serious enough. After a lot of patience and thinking it over, I decided to audition for Witch Cross, who had called me a number of times to get me to join them, which I eventually did. It was a very hard and tough decision for me, as it was kind of my ‘baby’. But I felt that the will to succeed was not big enough for the other guys in the band. Noel for example was having personal problems. In addition to that, our drummer played in about four different bands at the same time. All that led to my final decision to call it quits. It was a really tough decision, especially because Noel had become a very close personal friend. I felt I was letting him down. I believe he could have become an awesome vocalist, but I felt like getting nowhere and had to do it. Unfortunately, later I found out that he was killed in a hit and run ‘accident’ by a jealous ex-boyfriend of his new girlfriend. Truly very sad. He is dearly missed. And yes, you could say that Mandrake was perhaps ahead of its time. At least we believed that we were quite different in sound. We had quite a healthy following. A lot of our fans thought that Mandrake was a breath of fresh air in a stagnating metal scene.” But the time was not right for an album back in 1982: “No, we all had our dreams about getting something out on vinyl. But then as now, times were very hard for new bands in the business. And all of a sudden, at the beginning of the 1980s, there were a lot of new HM bands appearing on the scene in Denmark, a lot of them very good. Although we felt we had something different to offer musically, nobody was ever really interested enough to put out an album.”

Track list:
1. Dogside Bulley (1980)
2. We Will Be Strong (1980)
3. Girls In Black Leather (1980)
4. Alien Savage (1980)
5. Prince Of Darkness (1982)
6. We Wanna Rock (1982)
7. Freedom Fight (1982)
8. Queensblade (1982)
9. Ostracized (1982)

Vinyl Single Zyndactyle (pre-Mandrake)
1. Prince Of Darkness (1979)
2. Heaven Of Mercy (1979)
3. Nightshade Bride (1979)
4. She (1979)