Title: Metal Massacre 31
Genre: Heavy Metal
Year: 25th November 2016
Time: 36 min
Rating: 70/100
You can read my review (in Italian) about "Bury the Hatchet" through the following link:
http://www.heavymetalwebzine.it/2015/03/13/october-31-bury-the-hatchet-2014/
After two articles about punk/HC bands, the only way to bring back this 'zine to an heavy metal direction was the review of a celebration, edited by Hells Headbangers Records, of the pure heavy metal of the '80s! In fact, the 5th album of October 31 is a bit strange: it's a covers album with no new songs. But what are these cover tracks? Yesss, this is a very fundamental question because we aren't talking about "normal" cover tracks! Specifically, October 31, guided since the early days by the singer King Fowley (also leader of the old-school Death metallers Deceased), this time have wanted to homage the fundamental series of Metal Massacre compilations edited by Metal Blade so to coverize tracks taken from the first 7 Metal Massacre volumes released between 1982 and 1986. That's why the album is titled "Metal Massacre 31"! As you know, the aforementioned 7 volumes were a very important showcase for the then emerging North American heavy metal scene destined to remove the decadent NWOBHM from his metal throne launching, towards the pantheon of the metal gods, young bands like Metallica and Slayer or foreigners ones like the Swiss Hellhammer but producing also many cult bands often never able to realize an album throughout their short and unlucky life. Just these last ones are the bands privileged by October 31 for this anthology comprised of little classics of the heavy metal music, and the most important of them are, surely, Omen, Hallow's Eve and Aloha (with a very young future-Megadeth member Marty Friedman before Aloha changed their moniker into the very absurd Hawaii in 1983).
