After a four-year break, Dutch death/thrashers Legion of the Damned return with The Poison Chalice (Napalm Records), the band’s eighth full-length studio release their inception in 2005. Originally called Occult, only drummer Erik Fleuren and frontman Maurice Swinkel remain from that early incarnation spawned in 1992, the band never deviating far from their original sound, consistently honing their attack into an even more effective riff machine with each successive record.
Established in 2014, and formerly known as German Panzer until a lineup change last year, swelling their ranks from three to four, are Panzer. Hailing, as you might have guessed, from Germany they are a super-group made up of vocalist and bassist Schmier (Destruction), Stefan Schwarzmann on drums (ex-Accept), V.O Pulver on guitar (Poltergeist, GURD) and Pontus Norgren on lead guitar (Hammerfall). New record The Fatal Command is the more political follow-up to their 2014 début album Send Them All To Hell, both on Nuclear Blast, which sees them continue their heavy mixture of Thrash metal, Accept and NWOBHM. Continue reading