Artist: Hades
Title: “Bootlegged In Boston 1988”
Label: Cruz Del Sur Music
Release Date: 11/2008
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 2.5/5
Capturing New Jersey’s own Metal sons Hades in action way back in time when the group opened a set for Manowar and Nuclear Assault comes “Bootlegged In Boston 1988”. The title makes no bones about this being a bootleg as the film is definitely taken from the audience somewhere and often confuses the viewer with fast pans to the left, right, up, down and well, you get the picture. Of course while this kind of bootleg film does not always appeal to me I was happy to see that these guys dug up some vintage footage for their fans who are probably finding themselves pining for the “could have been” nature of the band. For their time of existence as Hades they were a top notch outfit of traditional sounding Thrash Metal with a nice dose of your Old School vibe tossed in for good measure. Of course in 1988 these aspects of Metal were neither traditional nor old school and very simply were how this stuff was being done by many bands that were performing on the stages of the day. The members of the band were Alan Tecchio (vocals), Dan Lorenzo (guitar), Ed Fuhrman (guitar), Tom Coombs (drums), and Jimmy Schulman (bass) and while they had been building a steady fan base they would disband in 1989. Their brief return years later would find a few albums released and again a parting of the ways. Lorenzo then formed Non-Fiction and most recently The Cursed with Overkill’s Bobby Blitz and this film, while not for everyone based on the overall content and quality, is a nice way to remember the group in their early years. Visually this drove me a little batty at times because of the club spotlights and the all too quick shifts in the camera angle. Of course we are probably dealing with a friend of the band whose task it was to document the gig for them. The audio aspect was surprisingly good and that I did not expect especially after seeing hundreds of bootleg video recordings over the years with absolutely dismal sound. The band pounds through seven tracks which appears to be the full set that they did for the show they were the opener on.
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