This is the reasons I started to write/collect/post about stuff I love. And I do love this band, but most people I have meet have never even heard of them. So instead of punching them hard in the face, I force them to sit down in front of the stereo to discover. So if you think about it, I’m a bringer of joy … maybe a bit forceful sometimes!
”Enigmatize” Offical Video
Armoured Angel were an Australian thrash and death metal band from Canberra. They were active between 1982-1984 as Metal Asylum and then as Armoured Angel between 1984-2001. They started out playing Thrash Metal but in the 90’s transistioned into Death Metal. The band were Australia's very first extreme metal band - and for many years, one of its only ones. The band's founding mainstay, Glen "Lucy" Luck provided bass guitar. They pushed the musical boundaries of the local thrash metal scene and were pioneers of Australian death metal. The group also helped establish Australia's metal festival, Metal for the Brain in 1991. They issued a studio album, Angel of the Sixth Order, in July 1999 before disbanding soon after.
Live from Brisbane, Australia 1991
Armoured Angel were formed by Glen "Lucy" Luck on bass guitar and Rowan Powell on guitars. The band was renamed Armoured Angel in 1984, with drummer Dave Davis and vocalist Rick Wayy completing the line-up. After recording a demo, Baptism in Blood, in 1985, Powell and Wayy were replaced by Tony Sheaffe on guitar and Russell Ruszinski on vocals.
Armoured Angel underwent another line-up change in 1986, reforming as a trio with Lucy joined by the brothers Joel Green (drums, vocals) and Matt Green (guitar). With this line-up, the band recorded a second demo, Wings of Death, in Easter 1989, which gained a strong fan base. A third demo, Communion, was released in 1990. An Australian east coast tour followed, plus a re-release of Wings of Death on English record label CCG in 1991.[1][5] In 1991, Joel Green organized the Metal for the Brain festival as a benefit concert for his friend, Alec Hurley, who had been assaulted in 1990 and rendered brain-damaged and permanently disabled. The group continued to organize the annual festival until 1996.
Live from the Marquee, London, UK in 1995
Armoured Angel released their first EP, Stigmartyr in December 1992 through Id Records, a development arm of Polygram. The band supported Morbid Angel on their Australian tour that same year.[4] Australian heavy metal magazine Hot Metal awarded a five out of five review for the EP. In January 1993, the band appeared at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney and supported Carcass and Bolt Thrower on their respective Australian tours. The band's second EP Mysterium was released in April 1994. A short tour of the United Kingdom and a headlining show in Germany followed in 1995.
After returning to Australia, Jaz Coleman (of Killing Joke) began producing Armoured Angel's album in Sydney's Powerhouse Studios in 1996. That same year, Armoured Angel featured at the Melbourne leg of the Big Day Out festival tour. The band split shortly after and the album was never released. Lucy reformed Armoured Angel in 1998 with guitarist and vocalist Yuri Ward (of Psychrist) and drummer Steven Luff. In July 1999 their debut album, Angel of the Sixth Order, was released, on Sydney's Warhead Records. This incarnation of Armoured Angel was short-lived, with the band splitting again late in 1999 after the closure of Warhead Records and the departure of Luff.
STARTING POINT FOR CHEATERS
If you just gonna listen to one track before you choose whether to look into the band or not, I recommend this one, ”Madame Guillotine” from the ”Wings of Death” Demo. The bands Thrash era.
Armoured Angel ”Madame Guillotine"
If Death Metal is more your thing,
then take a listen to ”Hymn of Hate”.
Armoured Angel ”Hymn of Hate”
”BAPTISM IN BLOOD” (1985) DEMOTAPE
Nope, this is not it. You can easily skip this one. It’s OK Speed Metal but doesn’t really have the memorable songs. For ”historical” reasons or just curious how a band developed you can listen to it ones!
”WINGS OF DEATH” (1989) DEMOTAPE
Holy f**k this is amazing stuff, and the first I heard from the band. Violent Thrash Metal at its best. What if this had been released together with the ”Communion” demo tape as a full-length album? It could have been up there with Sadus, Morbid Saint and Kreators debut albums. It’s simply brilliant and need a bigger part in the Thrash Metal history books.
”COMMUNION” (1990) DEMOTAPE
”STIGMARTYR” (1992) EP
The transition is made, now we’re going full blown Death Metal. I love this one so much. Usually when I put it on, I’ll play it over and over and over again! Why change, there’s not much that can beat it.
”MYSTERIUM” (1994) EP
”DEMO 1995” (1995) DEMOTAPE
Some awesome Death Metal right here!
”ANGEL OF THE SIXTH ORDER” (1999)
The bands only full-length album and I really like it, but compare it to ”Wings of Death” 10 years earlier and it’s two different bands. This is Death Metal as many bands sounded in the end of the 90’s with that "gothic” touch. You know like Paradise Lost or Katatonia when they started to shift styles. This is a sound I’m usually not the biggest fan of, but here I like it. ”Crucifixion” is for me the stand out track.
LINKS: