Wow. This is clearly a year for milestones in Metal as not only did Metal Blade Records recently celebrate their 30th anniversary, but now it is Nuclear Blast Records turn as we raise a goblet of ale in honor of their hitting their 25th anniversary. Before I continue, I am going to admit that I didn’t know the actual month of their anniversary as it was a little harder to discern from the Metal Blade one, so I waited a few months before posting this and figured we were closer or had just passed it. Either way we are sincere in the wish because this label has been one of my personal favorites since long before I had even launched the PiercingMetal site. With no slight being directed at any of the other fine providers of Metal, there was just something about the Nuclear Blast Records roster that spoke to my exact interests at the time when it came to Metal. There was super heavy stuff without question and a whole lot of Power Metal which I was leaning toward quite a bit in the late nineties and early into the new decade. It was my audio candy of choice and when I launched the website after being affiliated with our Metal Circus friends in Spain, they were one of the first labels to give us a chance with review materials. I mentioned this in my Year 7 Posting in case you were curious. It was encouraging to say the least.
Some back history for you now. The label was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger over in Germany and if you can believe what you read in their Wikipedia entry, had started out primarily as a provider of Hardcore Punk releases. Since I’ve only ever been a casual fan to that kind of stuff I was very glad that they moved more into the Death and Black and Power Metal stuff that they did as the years went on. When I think about it, one of the first releases that I heard that was a Nuclear Blast release was Children Of Bodom’s “Follow The Reaper”. From then on I discovered the likes of Therion, Dimmu Borgir, Hypocrisy and many, many more. Having enjoyed so much of their output it was only natural that when I first dove into the music journalism realm that I would go with what I knew a little more about than some others. It’s been a great ride so far in my humble opinion. These days some true titans of Metal are a part of the Nuclear Blast Records artist roster and I am speaking of Testament, Kreator, Destruction, Symphony X, Amorphis, Kataklysm, Meshuggah, Epica, Immortal, Eluveitie and well, far too many more for me to keep typing in this posting.
To check out all of the review articles that we have done of the Nuclear Blast Records talent pool just click HERE and a list will come to your computer or tablet screen. I’ve made sure to always have the means to purchase an album with our reviews and other articles, so if you like what you read you can order a copy right from the narrative page.
Since launching the website I’ve also photographed a healthy amount of Nuclear Blast Records artists when they have blasted through our region. Sometimes they were headliners, but on many occasions they were among the wonderful openers that you get to enjoy if you arrive early enough to a show. At last count there were over 125 galleries in our database that were dedicated to their roster but you should know that this number changes every time we hit a gig. The tag link should allow you to see those as well. I hope that you enjoy them as much as the review articles.
Kudos on your 25th and here is to the future….
Official Website: http://www.nuclearblast.com