Liege Lord

Among the many quite competent yet largely unheralded American rock bands from the 1980s, Camden, CT’s Liege Lord were formed in 1982 and released 3 commercially unsuccessful but critically well-regarded albums, before quietly splitting up by the end from the 10 years. Sadly, this is actually an extremely common situation for some American “traditional” metallic bands from the 1980s (e.g., Metallic Chapel, Omen, Virgin Steele, etc., etc.), whose music was influenced by the brand new Wave of English ROCK (in addition to antecedents Judas Priest — ergo Liege Lord’s initial name, Deceiver), rather than flashier homegrown hard rock and roll organizations like Aerosmith or Vehicle Halen. Because of this, Liege Lord users Andy Michaud (vocals), Tony Truglio (acoustic guitar), Pete McCarthy (acoustic guitar), Matt Vinci (bass), and Frank Cortese (drums) quickly recognized that their demonstration tapes were getting more grip among metallic fans in European countries than within their very own country, and they also didn’t think about agreeing to an give from French label Dark Dragon release a of their initial record, Freedom’s Rise, in 1985. Normally, this situation practically ensured the fact that band’s career continued to be stillborn within the U.S.A., whilst their crunchy and adept illusion steel collected accolades over the fish-pond. But Liege Lord’s fortunes appeared to take a switch for the better when California’s increasing Steel Blade Records agreed upon on to discharge their sophomore record, Burn off to My Contact, in 1987. Made by Blue ?-yster Cult bassist Joe Bouchard with McCarthy changed by brand-new guitarist Paul Nelson (students of Steve Vai, believe it or not), the record showed huge improvement over its forerunner — not merely with regards to audio fidelity, but where in fact the group’s songwriting and efficiency chops were worried. Liege Lord’s music also were moving at a standard faster, speed steel clip, yet they still appeared like hopeless anachronisms compared to the concurrent rise of a straight faster and much more aggressive make of steel known as thrash. By enough time they tentatively circled the mosh pit with 1988’s somewhat thrashier Grasp Control recording, and assistance from new vocalist John Comeau (later on of Annihilator and Overkill), the match was efficiently dropped, and Liege Lord’s group have been disqualified from ’80s metallic contention. However, because the years passed and a fresh style referred to as power metallic grew in recognition around the world, and especially in Europe, therefore too do many albums released by America’s overlooked traditional and speed metallic era, including those released by Liege Lord. Therefore despite the fact that the band have been inactive and mainly forgotten for a long time in its homeland, the summertime of 2000 noticed a partly reunited Liege Lord (led by Nelson and Comeau) carrying out before thousands of metallic fans in the Wacken Open Air flow Event in Germany.