Hollow Ground

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Hollow Ground
General information
origin Newcastle upon Tyne , England
Genre (s) New Wave of British Heavy Metal
founding 1979, 2007
resolution 1981
Current occupation
Brian Rickman
Jon Lockney
Martin Metcalf
Glen Coates

Hollow Ground is an English New Wave of British Heavy Metal band from Newcastle upon Tyne that was founded in 1979, split up in 1981 and has been active again since 2007.

history

The band was formed in 1979. In November 1980, Hollow Ground and the groups Sarancen, not to be confused with the band of the same name from Matlock , and Samurai, not to be confused with the Welsh band of the same name , went to the Guardian Studios in Durham to make recordings for future releases. In the same year the split release Roksnax appeared , on which the three bands are represented with four songs each. The songs from Hollow Ground were called Fight with the Devil , Rock On , The Holy One and Flying High . While the other two bands broke up shortly afterwards, Hollow Ground was able to continue their career, so that more records could be released. One of the songs, Fight with the Devil , can later be heard on Lars Ulrich's sampler NWOBHM '79 Revisited . Terry Gavaghan became aware of the band through the split release and offered her to release an EP . For this, the songs Rock On and Flying High , which had already appeared on the split release, were reused and the two songs Warlord and Don't Chase the Dragon were added. The sound carrier is known both under the name Flying High and Warlord . The year of publication is also not known exactly and is given as 1980 or 1981. The EP had a circulation of around 500 and is one of the most valuable recordings of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Original copies are now very popular among collectors, so prices of around £ 200 are common. The band consisted of the EP from the singer Glenn Coates, the guitarist Martin Metcalf, the bassist Brian Rickman and the drummer Jon Lockney. After a demo with the songs Rock to Love , Promised Land , Easy Action and Loser was released, Glen Coates left the band to join Fist , whose singer Keith Setchfield had recently left the cast. Hollow Ground then decided to dissolve in late 1981. In 2000, Metcalf, to reunite Fist, also joined the cast, which Rockman soon followed. In 2007 Hollow Ground played at Headbangers Open Air with the original line-up. Since then, the band has been offered several festival appearances , all of which, with the exception of the appearance at Brofest in 2014, had to be canceled because Metcalf had two eye operations. In 2014 the compilation Warlord , which consists of demo recordings, was also released. Since 2007 the band has also been working on the album Now and Then . So far some songs have been recorded, but without vocals. A total of 20 songs are to be re-recorded. As a bonus, a live demo is planned, which was recorded for Neat Records before the group reached a contract with Guardian Records .

style

Malc Macmillan was particularly impressed by the singing in his book The NWOBHM Encyclopedia . In their powerful and melodic Metal , the group combine the best elements from Blitzkrieg , Def Leppard , Diamond Head and Tygers of Pan Tang . According to Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia , the four songs included on the EP are classics of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. You can hear raw and powerful Heavy Metal , comparable to that of Blitzkrieg and Weapon UK . The singing sounds strained. Matthias Mader from Rock Hard noted that Hollow Ground “didn't go about it as uncompromisingly as Jaguar , Raven or Satan ”. Martin Metcalf stated in an interview with Mader that the band had processed all kinds of musical influences at the time. So the funk from Aerosmith as well as the hard rock from Montrose and the progressiveness of Rush were processed in the music. He also stated that the band was close friends with Fist, Saracen , Hellanbach and Mythra at the time. Tony Jasper wrote in The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal that the EP sounds like a cross between Def Leppard and Led Zeppelin .

Discography

  • 1980 or 1981: Warlord / Flying High (EP, Guardian Records )
  • 1980: Roksnax (split with Samurai and Saracen, Guardian Records)
  • 1981: Demo '81 (demo, self-published)
  • 2007: Raw Tapes '79 (compilation, self-published)
  • 2014: Warlord (compilation, High Roller Records )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Malc Macmillan: The NWOBHM Encyclopedia . IP Verlag Jeske / Mader GbR, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-931624-16-3 , p. 292 ff .
  2. ^ A b Garry Sharpe-Young , Horst Odermatt & Friends: The Ultimate Hard Rock Guide Vol I - Europe . Bang Your Head Enterprises Ltd, 1997, p. 272 .
  3. ↑ a b Tony Jasper, Derek Oliver: The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal . Facts on File Inc., New York 1983, ISBN 0-8160-1100-1 , pp. 153 .
  4. ↑ a b c Matthias Mader: Hollow Ground . In the heart of the movement. In: Rock Hard . No. 332 , January 2015, p. 80 .
  5. ↑ a b c d Biography. (No longer available online.) Rockdetector.com, archived from the original on January 19, 2015 ; Retrieved January 18, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rockdetector.com
  6. ^ A b Eduardo Rivadavia: Hollow Ground. Allmusic , accessed January 18, 2015 .
  7. ^ A b Matthias Mader, Otger Jeske, Manfred Kerschke: NWoBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal The glory Days . Iron Pages, Berlin 1995, p. 114 .