3 Inches of Blood

3 Inches of Blood is a very fun metal band from Canada. At first they had two lead singers - a growler and a screamer - but then the growler left after blowing his vocal chords out. The band broke-up after five albums.  The first two are good enough to start with. The middle one Fire Up The Blades (2007) was when they really hit their stride; it's very solid, soaring metal fantasy. The one after that Here Awaits Thy Doom continued well enough in the same vein, but their final album was not as great.

The theme is usually fantasy - orcs and demons and such. Good! They are also big on praising the concept of metal itself, as the last album title illustrates. Also good! Musically, they are definitely coming from the old-school metal school of rock, especially British stuff. The Judas Priest comparison must be made. Manowar too I suppose. Just check out all the patches on lead singer Cam Pipe's awesome denim jacket.

 They have some excellent songs from that middle period. My favorite is "Trial of Champions," mostly because of the great use of an organ. "Beware the Preacher's Daughter" is almost LOL funny. "Deadly Sinners" is tight and memorable. I also enjoyed hearing "Execution Tank" as the lead single on the follow-up-to-the-best-one-yet album. Here they are playing it live:

Here's an interesting bit from their Wikipedia page:
Following a fight with Saxon drummer Nigel Glockler on November 10, 2007 at the Hard Rock Hell festival in the UK, 3 Inches of Blood fired drummer Alexei Rodriguez and issued an apology for his behavior.^[17] The fight left Glockler with broken glasses and a black eye. Four security guards intervened and beat Rodriguez severely, hospitalizing the drummer with a broken elbow. He was replaced by Ash Pearson (of Sound Of the Swarm & Just Cause) who later joined the band permanently.

I saw this band live once at the Ottobar in Baltimore. It was super fun. It was very un-crowded and we were right up front by the stage. Pipes joked about how it was a Battle of the Bands or something. The opening band, Children, blew our minds too: it was so great seeing a band that we had never heard anything from before be so good and interesting and heavy and freaky.

Long Live Heavy Metal!