Defender of the Crown

Editors’ Notes

Released no less than 16 years after their second album, Defender of the Crown (2004) finds the fantasy metal godfathers picking up where they left off in 1988. Specifically, hammer-on guitars on top of hammer-on guitars, open-throated, mead-hall vocals and songs Iron Maiden would have no issue calling their own. As is characteristic for the band, a wry sense of humor tempers the earnestness and Bobbie Wright's guitar playing is never less than riveting. Interestingly, such (now) contemporaries as Dragonforce and Greece's Firewind have made Brocas Helm's particular take on metal more relevant today than it was when Wright and drummer Jack Hays first launched the band in '82. The album collects together two of Brocas Helm's impossible-to-find 7-inch releases, a 1989 demo called Helm's Deep, and features "Children of the Nova Dawn" which, although the band's first ever song, had never been recorded before Defender of the Crown. "Cry of the Banshee" and "Drink the Blood of the Priest" were both featured in the metal-themed video game Brutal Legend, starring Jack Black.