Description

Black vinyl with gatefold cover

One of the great metal guitarists, Ross The Boss first made his name with The Dictators, before briefly teaming up with French band Shakin Street. But in more recent times, he became renowned for his work with Manowar. A founding member, Ross recorded six albums with the band, before leaving after 1988’s “Kings Of Metal”. Since then he’s worked with Manitobas Wild Kingdom to name a few. Now he’s back doing what he does best playing loud, true heavy metal while backed by a band featuring vocalist Patrick Fuchs, bassist Carsten Kettering and drummer Matthias Mayer. Ross The Boss second album “Hailstorm” offers another thundering dose of power metal of more or less the same type his former bandmates used to make, minus the pompous epics that have clogged their latter-day (i.e. after he quit the band) work. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the band he’s using were a Manowar cover band in their native Germany before being recruited to back him at a festival. So they’ve got the anthemic, screaming-guitars sound down to a T, and Ross brutarian, rock-informed leads (which gave Manowar’s first six albums a bite that their later albums, which stole more from classical music, lacked) cut through everything like a pavement saw. This is fist-pumping metal, with catchy choruses, high-pitched screams, and thunderous drumming, and the lightning-speed riffing of the title track is proto-thrash not unlike Accept’s “Fast as a Shark” or early-’80s Judas Priest at their most hell-for-leather. Old-school metal fans will find much to love here, and younger listeners could learn a lot about the genre’s roots, and its true heart, from Ross the Boss and band.

Track listing:
1. I.A.G.
2. Kingdom Arise
3. Dead Mans Curve
4. Hailstorm
5. Burn Alive
6. Crom
7. Behold The Kingdom
8. Great Gods Glorious
9. Shining Path
10. Among The Ruins
11. Empires Anthem