CLOVEN HOOF s/t LP (1984)

1. Cloven Hoof
2. Nightstalker
3. March of the Damned
4. Gates of Gehenna
5. Crack the Whip
6. Laying Down the Law
7. Return of the Passover

I first heard these UK bastards in around 1985 or 1986. What attracted me to them at this point was their satanic/fantasy imagery, and the name. The songs were brilliant in that basic second generation NWOBHM sound. You could tell these guys were influenced and had huge man crushes on the likes of Budgie and Diamond Head. The gallops that these guys pull off on "cloven hoof", and "gates of gehenna" are triumphant in every way(like those early Maiden gallops). "Crack the Whip" sounds now very AC/DCish to me, its sort of a weird track on the album. Pretty sure the vocalist only appeared on this and the first 12", and then quit the band. Finding copies of these records can be difficult as hell. I got mine second hand from a friend/band mate in Latham NY named Mark Szwarcberg who had later moved away from metal, and joined the Marines. I haven't seen him in well over 20 years. Mark was a bass player, and his brother Dave was a godly guitarist. We would spend our days after school jammin on metal songs that we wrote in a basement across the street from his parents house. The stuff started off as more traditional/simple metal(like the stuff Cloven Hoof were playing), then gravitated towards faster speed metal/thrash styles. These two brothers went on to start Horrid Blessing(a name I came up with).

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