PARTLY SEALED Medieval Kills Heavy Metal LP Vintage Vinyl 1987 RADIO PROMO RARE

$

20

MEDIEVAL
MEDIEVAL KILLS!
MINT ALBUM, STILL PARTIALLY SEALED & UNPLAYED
Radio Promotional Copy
1987 Original Vintage Vinyl
New Renaissance Records

Description: I received this promotional copy of Medieval -  Medieval Kills! when I worked in radio. Never played it and as with many of my extra albums it has been stored away for over 30 years in a closet standing upright with hundreds of other unplayed LPs, The record itself is mint, and partially sealed in the original shrink wrap. PLEASE SEE CONDITION NOTES BELOW BEFORE BIDDING.
Personnel:
Timmy Amsbuist - vocals & guitar
Willjious Amsbuist - drums & vocals
Elwood Chew - bass
Track listing
Side 1
Somnambulism
Rules of Fools All Knobs to the Right Life After Death
Seventh Seal
BFH
Reign of Terror

Side 2
Peter Gunn Theme
Hell is Full (Thrasher)
Blood and Anger
WWIV
Black Assassin
Death is Beauty
Epitaph
Condition: Vinyl - Mint and unplayed - Album is still partially sealed in original shrink wrap and has never been removed.

Cover - The condition is good with the following exceptions - There is a small promotional cut on the top right corner of the cover as seen in the photos. Most of the shrink wrap (about 3/4 of it or 9 inches) has frayed away from where the album comes out of. The bottom two - three inches of shrink wrap are there and the LP is still unremoved from the cover.  There is some age discoloration and wear and fraying along the edge with tiny paper loss towards the top (below the exclamation point in the KILLS! title) where the album comes out. See photos number four and five.
There are no scratches on the back cover as it appears in the photo - that is just the shrink wrap causing those lines.
Low opening bid and Please do not bid if you are expecting a mint LP cover or one that is completely sealed. I've described it honestly so you will know what you are getting and expectations are tempered.

About The Album The album is rare because of very poor distribution and legal troubles. According to the band's website:

A Medieval history lesson…something that hasn’t been taught in schools…  

History has a way of repeating itself; but usually with more intensity than its first go around.  Music is no exception, with waves of popular music constantly pushing the current envelope, discovering new plateaus that are then exceeded at an alarming rate. 

One such band that exemplifies this marching past the status quo is Medieval.

In the early 80’s, metal began its segregation into many different genre’s, from heavy metal to thrash metal, to death metal, to black metal.  The list of different “classes” of heavy metal grew to include descriptions of almost every song written during the time period. 

Included with these “styles” of music came the increasingly popular need to support the music with an image portraying the substance of the artist or the music.  This seemed to stem from earlier artists such as Kiss and Alice Cooper, where theatrics and showmanship helped define the bands as something unique and as a complete entertainment “package” including both sight and sound.  Unfortunately, many of the 80’s metal bands were unable to regain their focus on music, with so much attention spent on their newly invented image.

One of the few bands to take their image to a completely different level was the band Medieval.  Setting all pretensions aside regarding the image portrayed outside the writing of their music, Medieval was dubbed the “imageless” band (in effect an image of its own!).  With no need to worry about stage props, make-up, or being seen at the next “unholy rollers” banquet, Medieval were able to focus on a diverse catalog of interesting lyrical topics, as well as experiment with many different types of musical influences; helping give Medieval a sound unlike any other metal band of the time. 

The concept for the band Medieval was born in the late 70’s when two long time friends came together to satisfy their need for heavy, pounding, music.  Although the name of the band at the time was Omnibus, the ground work was being built to form a band that was going to be unique to the metal scene.  The two friends had become almost family, something akin to the bond of blood brothers; the bond of music lead Timmy and Willjious to combine their names (to Amsbuist) and combine their musical attitudes, forming the new “family” of Medieval. 

A bass player named Magloo was soon added, and the 3 piece began to perform throughout the west Michigan area.  The bands first concert with major exposure, the Athens Music Festival, saw the trio opening for the recording artist Theater.  Due to the large number of people and the exposure gained from this show, it became obvious that changes were needed to be made if the band wanted to continue to gain momentum and reach more people.  This led to the parting of ways with Magloo, and the beginning of the search for someone with the same attitude and love for heavy music.  Elwood Chew auditioned and immediately was recognized as the missing link to complete the bands line-up.  With his thunderous bass playing and “bang or die” attitude meshing completely with Timmy and Willjious, it was clear the band was poised for great things. 

Medieval at this point was managed by Bobby K., who had aspirations that the band could be a more commercial act; so Medieval  was taken into the studio to cut what was to be a preliminary top-40 demo tape to gain access into the club circuit.  What came out of the studio was Medieval’s first demo of original compositions, that took the underground metal scene by storm.  Seeing any future as a top-40 cover band evaporate, Medieval soon found themselves without management.  Enter Lord Byron, family friend, and “schoolmaster” to all those in the band regarding heavy metal music.  Lord Byron was responsible for introducing the members of Medieval to the music of the heaviest bands of the time:  Motorhead, Holocaust, and Blitzkrieg among others.  Armed with this new arsenal of metal upbringing, Medieval began to gain focus into the style of music which was to be their forte’, a style of metal dubbed “sludge metal.”

Lord Byron took the band back in the studio to record the next demo, the All Knobs To The Right demo.  With release of the tape, Medieval was hailed by Bob Muldowney from Kick*Ass Monthly as “the best metal outfit without a label.”  Medieval was selling tapes and gaining recognition throughout the metal underground in magazines like Kick*Ass Monthly, Sledgehammer Press and Guillotine, as well as causing somewhat of a controversy with their live appearances.

Medieval had a difficult time with those in the music business where the bands image was concerned.  Never one to jump on the bandwagon, Medieval refused to follow the same fads and extremes that were becoming popular in metal at the time.  With their shorter hair, lack of make-up, and diverse lyrical subject matter, the band found themselves in drastic contrast to the thrashing death metal bands that were coming out one after another.  Refusing to succumb to the pressure of conformity, Medieval continued to search for a recording deal where the record company would be willing to take a chance on selling and promoting the band based on their music alone, without the pretensions of selling another “cookie cutter” band that had followed the path of other bands that had sold well before.

New Renaissance Records offered the deal the band was looking for: complete control of the product, the willingness to let the music do the talking, and not requesting changes in attitude or wardrobe! 

The Medieval EP, entitled Reign Of Terror, was released in 1986.  It contained 5 songs, and was received by the critics and the public as an outstanding first release.  It was available in a collectable clear vinyl pressing, and contained 3 previously unreleased songs by the band: “Death Is Beauty,” “Face Of Death,” and “Reign Of Terror.”  The disc also contained “Lords Of Darkness,” a song on the original demo tape the Medieval Cassette Album from 1983, as well as a newly arranged version of the song “Hell Is Full” from the 1984 All Knobs To The Right demo tape appropriately entitled “Hell Is Full (Cruncher),” due to taking a speed metal classic from the band and slowing the tempo of the song down to make it a pounding crusher! 

The remainder of 1986 and early 1987 found the band recording the follow-up full length album for New Renaissance Records, entitled Medieval-Kills!  The album version contained 13 songs running the gamut of the bands career, while the cassette version contained a bonus track of the classic, “Plague,” from the 1983 Medieval Cassette Album demo tape.  The album was one of the most anticipated releases of the time, with advance orders breaking all the records for a New Renaissance Records artist.  Medieval was poised to do great things. 

Before going to print, New Renaissance Records had received record breaking preliminary orders for the Medieval full length album, and the excitement in both the record company and the bands' camp seemed almost too good to be true.  As history will attest, it was too good to be true, as what happened next provided the fans, the label, and the band with empty dreams.

New Renaissance Records was distributed by Important Records when Medieval's full length album was released, and the entire stock of the albums including some preliminary orders were warehoused upon pressing for distribution at Important Records.  Unfortunately Important Records went out of business, and legal disputes kept product from many bands of the time locked in the warehouse for over two years.  Only a few thousand copies of the full length album made it to the fans, and the momentum of the previous year’s efforts came to a screeching halt, providing the beginning of the end for this chapter of Medieval’s history.
Review from Encylopaedia Metallum:
Yes friends, this is the best rock/metal/punk hybrid since Motorhead. Formed back in 1979, the year of Overkill and the formation of Venom, these guys never really managed to get things off the ground in time, despite being championed by Kick*Ass Monthly’s Bob Muldowney. Being located in Michigan probably had something to do with that. A few independent demos in the mid 80s were followed by an appearance on Metal Massacre IV. Dubbed “the imageless band” due to their refusal to wear makeup or costumes or follow trends, labels gave them a hard time; finally New Renaissance threw Medieval a lifeline, and out came their 1986 EP. The label was best known perhaps for its roster of third-rate thrash acts like Anvil Bitch and Indestroy, as well as a few oddball groups like lightweight power metallers Gargoyle and Dream Death, a similarly unusual and underrated band. That brings us to Medieval Kills, Medieval’s 1987 opus. Unfortunately, the album was released at least 5 years too late and on a label at least 5 times too small to bring them real success. Perhaps unsurprisingly, New Renaissance hit a rough patch shortly thereafter, and with that label already having been something of a last resort, they called it a day. With Kick*Ass folding in late 1986, even Muldowney, Hater of Falsettos was powerless to save them.

So what do they sound like? Well, beyond the label blurb-ish description at the beginning of the review, it’s a bit difficult to get a handle on Medieval’s style, mostly because they’re a pretty changeable lot. Sometimes they remind me more of very straight-ahead, fast NWOBHM like Raven or Blitzkrieg or Warfare, sometimes punk rock, sometimes Motorhead with overdriven vocals, sometimes proto-extreme metal, sometimes proto-sloppy thrash like early Voivod. The songs however are uniformly short, concise blasts of visceral violence, with a rare calm bit thrown in now and then (beginning of “Blood and Anger”). Medieval inhabit that primordial soup where all of those styles originated; they tap into the primal force that powers them all, without decisively evolving along any one of the established paths. Hell, the guitar solos often sound like classic rock – how’s that for unevolved? It’s like trying to describe Hellhammer or Venom or any of those ur-bands. Medieval have that same raw energy with their throat-shredding shrieks and growls, sloppy, breakneck riffs, and raucous cymbal abuse. If they had been located in the Bay Area or Tampa or London, maybe we’d be talking about them in the same breath as the other progenitors.

Medieval have more going for them than simple raw energy, however; they have a certain sly cunning in their songwriting that keeps the listener off guard and unsure of what’s coming next. For example, listen to “Epitaph”. Anyone who’s listened to as much metal as I have is not ready for the resolution of the “response” part of the opening riff; it keeps going up instead of resolving down, as metal songwriting conventions dictate it ought to. The first time I heard that, I burst out laughing because it was so delightfully unexpected. It’s only through a deep understanding of metal songwriting rules that they can be bent and played with so deftly. Back when I first heard it, this combination of songwriting panache and feral energy just broke right through my jaded, pretentious exterior and reminded me of how noisy and evil and fun metal can be. Who knows? Maybe it will do the same for you.

All knobs to the right
Ten thousand watts of hell
All knobs to the right
Bid your balls farewell

Review from RATEYOURALBUMS
Hailing from Michigan, this sludgy, doomy, raw and honest crew were a pretty constant figure on the underground scene with their demo tapes and compilation appearances (Speed Metal Hell, Metal Massacre IV, etc.).

While they enjoyed a cult following, their sound was forever out of step with fashion, something which resulted in their only full length album being issued about 2 years too late to find an audience in the slightly more forgiving metal battlefields of ’84-’85. Fads aside, it’s hard to argue with metal this direct and un-selfconscious. Punky in it’s energy and the brevity of many of the songs, Black Sabbath like in it’s writing, but wholly original in it’s execution, Medieval truly had a sound all their own.

A power trio in format, there exists a raw, unprocessed feel to these live sounding recordings of old school barn burners like “All Knobs To The Right,” “Life After Death,” “World War IV,” “Hell Is Full,” and “Blood And Anger” (a classic riff on this one, man…true eighties metal perfection). I also remember reading reviews of this band’s live shows (probably in the NY area zine Kick Ass) which noted how the band really delivered the goods onstage, but were heckled and ignored by the crowds who were aghast at the short hair and lack of fashion sense the band displayed. For shame. If you don’t know good metal when you hear it, especially when it’s pushed into your face in the live arena, go home.
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