Helloween, long known as one of Germany’s best melodic metal bands to have ever existed, was proud to assemble a huge masterpiece of their songs alongside the 70-piece Prague Symphonic Orchestra, the choirs of the Gregorian singers, pianist Matthew Ulmer, vocalist Harriet Ohlsson (Hellsong), and saxophonist Albie Donnelly (Supercharge). Armed with fantastic arrangements that are simply mind-boggling, “Unarmed: Best of 25th Anniversary” is the perfect gift back to their longtime fans. A group that has toured alongside metal’s most elite such as Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Dio, Anthrax, Exodus, Helloween has also sold over five million records with 14 Gold and 6 Platinum awards globally. The band could have done this and phoned it in but that’s not their style; indeed the album boasts all new arrangements that are just as complex and compelling as the originals. Fantastic!

Oh Glenn Danzig, how the women adore you, the dudes want to be you, and music fans everywhere point to your very existence as a huge influence. “Deth Red Sabaoth” finds Glenn writing and producing some very special tracks that prove how amazing his journey was and still is today. Of course everyone knows about his past successes, but most probably don’t know that he spent some time composing and recording classical music via “Black Aria” which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Classical charts and the follow-up that reigned in the Top Ten. He’s joined by guitarist Tommy Victor (Ministry, Prong), drummer Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Seventh Void), and bassist Steve Zing. This is a nice welcome back to the blues-inflected vocals, metallic guitar growls, and thick sound that you’ve grown accustomed to.

As if co-founding Manowar wasn’t enough to put pen to paper on a budding musician’s resume, Ross the Boss has now perfected the art of the solo album – though don’t go telling him that. Despite the self-titled band moniker, Ross assures all that this is indeed a full-fledged band outfit. “New Metal Leader” conjures forth the same naughty fist-pumping anthems of metal that Manowar was made famous with such crucial albums as “Battle Hymns” and “Kings of Metal”. Ross the Boss punctuates his glorious choruses with punchy guitar licks that are bound to enable even the most lackadaisical metal maven into a maniacal frenzy. The Metal McCain would shout to the heavens, “Horns held high on this one, friends!”

Thrash metal that is unafraid of daring to do things a little outside of the Swedish metal mold. Slightly growling vocals that kill throats and remind one of near Slayer awesome. Fast and pounding drums anthem their way into your brain causing ecstasy and headbanging. These are some mean looking fucks too on their cover art. I highly doubt any one in Guillotine would be afraid to be the executioner and purveyor of the bloody guillotine. Let the heads roll I could hear them say. But also “Blood Money” isn’t a bunch of mindless blatthering about how tough the band is, how much gore they can shove into their lyrics, or how anti-society they are. Thankfully they attack the politics of the U.S. and the ridiculous amount of money that corporations and politicians push around to one another. Guillotine refuses to sit around amid this circle jerk of influence and peddling without raising their voice. And that voice is a welcome one.

Reunions are often poo-pooped because of their high school conotations. Well Cynic‘s reunion damn well is welcome, needed, and an absolute must-have. These impressive progressive metal juggernauts unleash a storm of flashy prog-metal that dominates with large guitars and even bigger drumming. All the while their vocalist stomps the vocoder pedal hard and never unleashes except for a few dozen growl belches. Niiice.

Stirring orchestrated mayhem starts off this heavy metal album that is filled to the brim with pure adrenaline, melodic overtures, and tons of double bass kick drum insanity. Having worked on this saga for over a decade, Iced Earth’s Jon Schaffer has been laying the foundations for one of metal’s most epic concept albums. I always find it thrilling to hear an honest soap opera come to life via a rock opera/metal opera. “I Walk Alone” seems to be an opposing force to the band’s well known single “I Walk Among You” which pushed the group up to the top shining spotlight of metal music. Good stuff.

A constant surprise in the word of hard rock ‘n’ roll and heavy metal, Motorhead grabs the umlauts by their horns and shits down their throats with their dense guitar assault and throaty vocals only Lemmy could provide with a toothy grin. Eleven new tracks on “Motorizer” proves that these boys still have what it takes as one of the most influential heavy rock ‘n’ roll bands on any continent. Can you believe they actually won a Grammy for the first time in 2005? Besides the fact that the Grammy’s are a total scam anyway, the fact that they were recognized so late just shows how absolutely fucking clueless those fucktards are. “Runaround Man” sounds like it emanated from one of the classic Motorhead albums while the rest can fuel up your motorcycle for the full ride. Nice!

Coffins is Japanese doom metal! Raw and uncanny metal that is very versed in attention deficit disorder anthems, and avoiding them at all fucking costs. Sure “Buried Death” isn’t your Grandma Metal’s cup of tea, but fuck tea when you can have caffeinated alcoholic beverages. The guitar slices and dices with psychedelic ease though Garcia would roll over in his grave a few hundred times if he heard one or two minutes of this album of sludge. Over the course of time, Coffins has really progressed into one of the more influential sounds out there. Toxic swamp metal that was written in urban squalor. Amazing.

Listen to “Under the Stench” [MP3]

Thrash metal is to heavy metal as viagra is to spam. Kreator is at the center of it all, and noting their age, they may even need some viagra to get it on with middle aged groupies. But all that said, Kreator is and was one of the most important fissures in the thrash metal genre. This March they re-released on DVD their “Live in East Berlin” and “Hallucinative Comas”, both of which were previously only available on the analog VHS format. It’s nice to see that bands care enough about their fans to give them a hold-over while they patiently wait for the band to release its next album sometime early in 2009. The DVD features some never-before-seen interviews and the concert is re-mixed into glorious 5.1 sound quality. Now that’s shredtastic!