Author: David Jón Fuller

• December 17, 2012

  Metal Monday, Music

  Metal Monday: Def Leppard’s Hysteria

  With an album as popular as Def Leppard’s Hysteria, the memory of when you first heard it may be overshadowed by the point at which you became sick of it. As with Def Leppard, so went the fates of pop metal — they reached their height of fame with Hysteria, released in 1987, and it’s…
• December 14, 2012

  Puttin’ the Blog in Balrog

  Small folk, big decisions: Tolkien’s hobbits change the world

  J.R.R. Tolkien may have created a vast fantasy world in which the footsteps of gods and monsters made its history tremble, but when it came down to the works he is best known for, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the choices that carried the most weight were ultimately made by some of…
• December 13, 2012

  Music, Puttin’ the Blog in Balrog

  Middle-earth music: The Return of the King

  Composer Howard Shore draws from the themes he created for previous films in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of The Lord of the Rings for The Return of the King, and this score caps the trilogy off superbly.
• December 12, 2012

  Music, Werewolf Wednesday

  Werewolf songs from Sweden

  Given the subtle, moody atmosphere created on the new CD by Swedish publisher Malört förlag, Werewolf Songs, weaving in dark emotions and barely-suppressed savagery, it’s fair to say the Swedish werewolf’s bite is nastier than its bark. The collection was released as a companion piece to by Malört förlag’s new reissue of ethnologist Ella Odstedt’s Varulven i svensk folktradition (The…
• December 10, 2012

  Metal Monday, Music

  Metal Monday: AC/DC’s Who Made Who

  A compilation album may not often make it onto a “best of” list, but I’ll always be  biased when it comes to AC/DC’s Who Made Who. It was a Christmas present in 1986 and my gateway album into the world of heavy metal. Once I’d heard it, I never looked back.
• December 3, 2012

  Metal Monday, Music

  Metal Monday: We Wish You a Metal Christmas

  Does the world need a hair-metal holiday album? Yes. More to the point, does it need a good one? Even more YES. Because the motley collection We Wish You A Metal Christmas and a Headbanging New Year isn’t it. Which is a shame because there’s some heavy-metal star power on display here, including Lemmy Kilmister…