Skip to content
A companion of sorts to ‘Eve of Darkness’, this hefty LP gathers lesser-known vintage steel from ten groups profiled inside the book. From the storming speedmetal of SYE and the furious NWOBHM attack of MINOTAUR through HARLOTT’s brash swagger and HAVOC’s traditional metal mastery, this a glimpse into the thriving heavy metal underground scene in Canada’s biggest city in the decade that forever defined our music. You read the book, now hear the music! Limited to 500 copies.
Our take: A while back I wrote about Eve of Darkness, a treasure trove of a book documenting the history of metal in southern Ontario, Canada, in the 1980s. I loved the book and can’t say enough good things about it. (If you haven’t checked it out yet, as of right now we still have copies in stock.) Now Urbain Grandier Records brings us the companion album, a compilation featuring 10 of the bands covered in the book. While Urbain Grandier’s single-band releases (Malhavoc, Slaughter, Necromancy, and S.F.H.) all come from the grittier, more underground end of the metal scene, those bands taking influence from more extreme bands like Bathory, Venom, and Celtic Frost, Metallic Assault focuses on the more traditional heavy metal bands who leaned more toward the Judas Priest / Iron Maiden end of the spectrum. This isn’t mainstream metal, though; like your favorite compilations of under the radar N.W.O.B.H.M., the tracks on Metallic Assault all have a slapdash, DIY charm. With these tracks culled from rare singles, demos, and unreleased sessions, each band puts their best foot forward with one energetic, anthemic track, and while I imagine there are some duds spread across the sessions which yielded these tracks, they don’t appear here. Brief liner notes fill in the story for each track, but if you want an immersive, full picture of the scene that yielded these would-be hits, you gotta pick up Eve of Darkness.
Our take: A while back I wrote about Eve of Darkness, a treasure trove of a book documenting the history of metal in southern Ontario, Canada, in the 1980s. I loved the book and can’t say enough good things about it. (If you haven’t checked it out yet, as of right now we still have copies in stock.) Now Urbain Grandier Records brings us the companion album, a compilation featuring 10 of the bands covered in the book. While Urbain Grandier’s single-band releases (Malhavoc, Slaughter, Necromancy, and S.F.H.) all come from the grittier, more underground end of the metal scene, those bands taking influence from more extreme bands like Bathory, Venom, and Celtic Frost, Metallic Assault focuses on the more traditional heavy metal bands who leaned more toward the Judas Priest / Iron Maiden end of the spectrum. This isn’t mainstream metal, though; like your favorite compilations of under the radar N.W.O.B.H.M., the tracks on Metallic Assault all have a slapdash, DIY charm. With these tracks culled from rare singles, demos, and unreleased sessions, each band puts their best foot forward with one energetic, anthemic track, and while I imagine there are some duds spread across the sessions which yielded these tracks, they don’t appear here. Brief liner notes fill in the story for each track, but if you want an immersive, full picture of the scene that yielded these would-be hits, you gotta pick up Eve of Darkness.