Brocas Helm
Defender of the Crown

Night falls and clouds gather on the horizon. Menacing thunder spreads across a sky ravaged by lightning and flashes. Darkness over everything. Three knights of Metal emerge: the "Defenders of the Crown" travel through the shadows with the sound of guitar, bass, and drums. With epic and furious rhythms, they are about to shake up the music scene.
The three knights are the Brocas Helm: Bobbie Wright (singer and guitarist), the mustachioed James Schumacher on bass, and the power of Jack Hays on drums.
Three knights who met in the early '80s and decided to ride the wave of epic Heavy Metal, combining in an inseparable duo the power and fury of Thrash with the dreamlike and evocative sounds and settings of a fantastic world—made of darkness, warriors, and mysterious characters.

In 2004, Brocas Helm self-produced and released their third album: "Defender Of The Crown". You might wonder why a twenty-year-old band has released only three albums (all excellent, by the way). The main reason is that Brocas Helm has never been able to rely on a stable relationship with a record label (I personally find it incredible that a band like this can't find a producer), and thus, through various difficulties, they have had to self-produce all their records.
This did not demoralize them, on the contrary, they kept going undeterred and after the live "Black Death in Athens" (also in 2004), finally, the third studio album, "Defender Of The Crown", was released.

A solid, powerful, and homogeneous album. All tracks are linked to each other by a single stylistic thread, characterized by the speed of execution, bass intros, guitar riffs, and chords that evoke other worlds and other eras.
Bobbie Wright's voice is evocative and gritty, at times demonic, which makes everything even more evocative. The start of the album is adrenaline-filled, pure headbanging. Schumacher introduces us to the single extracted from the album: "Cry Of Banshee", an irresistible ride well supported both rhythmically and creatively by Wright. The first songs all proceed quickly, enough to warm up the listener: this is how "Defender of the Crown", "Skullfucker", "Drink and Drive", "Blood Machine" flow by. Brief and immediate tracks, so much so that after listening to them, you will no longer think you are in your room, but have been catapulted into another dimension. The very brief "Preludious" of accordion takes us to the second part of the album, the slower and more pachydermic one, which overwhelms everything with its massive force. In this context, we find both "Ghost Story", where Wright alternates his vocal tone, almost creating a call and response between a human and a demon, and "Helm's Deep".

The song that impressed me, however, is "Time Of The Dark": opened by an impressive progression between bass and drums, before the legendary guitar riff that gives birth to this whirlwind of notes and the darkness that takes over.

"Never Kissed Goodbye" and "War Toons" are two tracks that don't leave an indelible mark, but are always enjoyable. We move on to yet another speed-track, the instrumental "Persian Gulf", and then comes the grand finale: "Children Of The Nova Dawn", the children of the new dawn in a post-apocalyptic scenario, and finally, another jewel of the album, namely "Drink The Blood Priest".
It opens with the funeral sound of a church organ, a prelude that gives way to an infernal march, with chilling dark settings. The listener finds themselves surrounded by cemeteries, spirits, and solemn invocations, so much so that when the album ends, finally, the light returns, and you are out of that world. You feel safe and relieved, but why not go back, then?