Search - More :: Blood & Thunder

Hard-hitting NWOBHM album

Justin Gaines | Northern Virginia | 01/11/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"More was another in a long line of overlooked New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands. They started off strong enough with the well-received Warhead album, but were plagued by multiple lineup changes while attempting to issue a follow-up album.



Released in 1982, Blood & Thunder was the band's second album, and the first to feature Mick Stratton on vocals. Stratton's rough voice is reminiscent of Chris Cornell's, and when combined with More's Judas Priest-style twin guitar attack made for quite the interesting album. I imagine this is what Soundgarden might have sounded like initially if they had been more influenced by Judas Priest than Black Sabbath. I suppose that by today's standards, an album like Blood & Thunder would be considered hard rock instead of metal, but at the time it was very typical of the popular NWOBHM style.



Blood & Thunder would be the final More release. The band members went on to various other projects, and an attempted More reunion was cut short when guitarist Kenny Cox suffered multiple strokes.



Kudos to Wounded Bird for getting this long out of print album released on CD for the first time. It's a bare-bones reissue though. You won't get any digital remastering, bonus tracks, or even expanded liner notes. Still, NWOBHM enthusiasts will no doubt take what we can get at this point!

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